By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Brown Thrasher, Hammonasset Beach SP, New Haven, Connecticut, United States.
In Case You Might Miss…
- Trump to change “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America.”
- “FBI Is Still Hiding Details of Russiagate”: Aaron Maté.
- HPMV in China.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Trump Transition
“Coming soon: Gulf of America” [Politico]. “‘We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory,’ Trump said. ‘The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate.’ It marked Trump’s latest pledge to expand the United States’ reach throughout the world, following statements about annexing Canada and Greenland.” • Monroe would be proud. I am not sure how toponyms are standardized in the United States, or internationally, but no doubt there is an entity to which Trump could address his concerns.
“Trump’s Going Places With Energy, but Biden’s the Backseat Driver” [RealClearInvestigations], “Trump has made it clear he wants to realign U.S. energy policy toward cheap, abundant energy and away from expensive, emerging renewable sources, many of which rely on government subsidies. But experts say his options may be limited in cases where Congress approved spending bills, contracts were signed, or even where he encounters pushback from reluctant ‘green’ enterprises that have relied on government largesse in the push for a ‘NetZero’ future. ‘Congress would have to repeal some of that,’ said Travis Fisher, the director of energy and environmental policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, referring to hundreds of billions in climate-relate funding, including in the Inflation Reduction Act and other legislation passed during the last four years. ‘The question in some cases will be, ‘Do you try to improve what’s been done or repeal it?’ And then, if there are grants that have already gone out the door, those would be hard to claw back. But there are still a lot of targets for quick changes on day one.’ Some Trump supporters think the avenues that are open to a new administration, as well as Trump’s track record, give cause for optimism for those who want to reduce government spending or let the markets determine energy prices and accessibility. ‘When Trump promises something he usually delivers, and I would expect to see significant changes in energy policy with him,’ said Geoffrey Pohanka, the 2023 chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association.” • Automobile dealers. Classic American gentry.
I’m so old I remember when “our democracy” was at stake!
Is there a single person in DC or media acting as if Literal Adolf Hitler is about to assume power in 2 weeks in order to end American democracy, install fascism, and create a white supremacist dictatorship?
Is it possible those who said this for years never believed it?
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 6, 2025
Lawfare
“FBI Is Still Hiding Details of Russiagate, Newly Released Document Shows” [Aaron Maté, RealClearInvestigations]. “In response to a Freedom of Information request filed by RealClearInvestigations in August 2022, the FBI on Dec. 31, more than two years later, released a heavily redacted copy of the document that opened an explosive and unprecedented counterintelligence probe of the sitting president as an agent of the Russian government…. The Electronic Communication, dated May 16, 2017, claimed to have an ‘articulable factual basis’ to suspect that Trump ‘wittingly or unwittingly’ was illegally acting on behalf of Russia, and accordingly posing ‘threats to the national security of the United States.'” So Trump could have been “unwittingly” a Russian spy? Isn’t that a little over-broad? “The investigation of Trump was undertaken at the behest of then-acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, one week after Trump had fired his former boss and mentor, James B. Comey…. According to the declassified document, McCabe’s decision was approved by FBI Assistant Director Bill Priestap, who had also signed off on the opening of Crossfire Hurricane; and Jim Baker, the FBI general counsel. Baker was a longtime friend of Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and a key figure in the dissemination of Clinton-funded disinformation to the FBI that falsely tied Trump to Russia… After leaving the FBI, Baker served as deputy general counsel at Twitter, where he backed the company’s censorship of reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, based on yet another conspiracy theory that the laptop files were Russian disinformation.” • And that’s just the beginning of the story.
2026
“Outgoing US transport chief says Boeing has more to do after 737 MAX” [Reuters]. “Buttigieg, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, has said he has not made any plans for future jobs, but is viewed by some Democrats as a potential candidate for Michigan governor in 2026.” • Michigan? Buttigieg is going to carpetbag Michigan?
Our Famously Free Press
“Elon Musk Cusses Out Student Who Called Him a Fake News Machine” [Daily Beast]. “‘Elon Musk is rapidly becoming the largest spreader of disinformation in human history, hijacking political debates in the process,’ wrote Joni Askola, a Finnish graduate student and activist for defense of Ukraine. ‘The EU must take action!’ ‘F u retard,’ came Musk’s response, containing a slur used against people who have mental disabilities. He then replied saying ‘yes’ to another person who said: ‘We could have avoided a lot of disasters by simply telling leftist retards to stfu.'” I get a lot of hope from the idea that conservatives don’t “know their enemies” at all; there’s no way a pro-Ukrainian activist calling for moar EU is on the left. More: “Musk appears to have made a conscious choice to reintroduce the word [“f*ck] into right-wing parlance of late, often using it on his X platform. An analysis of his X posts and replies shows that he has used the term or a variant of it 15 times since Dec. 20, having never used it before that.” Back in the day, we in the blogosphere (“foul-mouthed bloggers of the left” –Davd Broder) thought of “f*ck” as transgressive, a sign of the birth of a new media, etc. It was just boring, as boring as Musk’s antics are becoming. More: “This is despite [Musk’s] Dec. 29 plea for more ‘positivity’ on the platform. ‘Please post a bit more positive, beautiful or informative content on this platform,’ he said. That post came just days after he used his new favorite slur against Americans during a wild meltdown over H-1B visas.” • The Twitter firehose gets fed right into xAI’s training sets. Should be amusing to see the outcomes, given that many (a majority?) of Twitter users are proud of surviving the hellscape, don’t want it to change, and are gaming Mush’s requests (and xAI’s training sets) with heavily ironiic positivity.
“Elon Musk ‘locks reporter from X’ after article sheds light on Tesla owner’s alleged alter ego Adrian Dittman” [Daily Mail]. “A bizarre conspiracy claiming Elon Musk uses an alias to praise himself on his own social media network took an unexpected turn when a journalist who debunked the theory was banned from the platform. Jacqueline Sweet appeared to be restricted on X after she published an investigation that proved Adrian Dittmann was an actual person living in Fiji – and not Musk operating under the pseudonym in order to praise himself. Shortly after Sweet’s article – outing Dittmann as a German entrepreneur – was published in The Spectator World, Musk responded a predictably cryptic post on X.” • I’m glad Musk occupying his beautiful mind with nonsense like this.
Democrats en déshabillé
“DNC chair hopeful Martin O’Malley says Dems will continue to lose if party doesn’t connect with working class” [FOX]. • This won’t help:
Learned nothing, forgotten nothing:
The NYT proudly says Biden's award of presidential medals of freedom to people like Hillary, George Soros, The Carlyle Group's David Rubenstein "signals his support for the establishment Trump wants to tear down."
In other news, the NYT asks why Dems "lost the working class." pic.twitter.com/VeIQ2hKk0h
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 5, 2025
Gawd knows I’m all for civilty and against violence…
This is why Dems keep losing. pic.twitter.com/Y80AZnxg9Q
— The Emo Dragon (@midwestem0guy) January 3, 2025
But I wish Sanders had punched her out. Kamala, after her butchery of the 2024 campaign, has no standing to make fun of anybody.
“Bernie Sanders Plans to Force Vote on H-1B Reforms” [Lee Fang]. “Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., plans to shake things up with a new political fight over the controversial H-1B visa program. What began as a dispute on social media over the last week will soon hit the halls of Congress. A source close to his office told me that the senator is drafting several amendments to improve the program radically – including raising income levels for foreign workers taking jobs through the H-1B visa and hiking the application fees for corporations utilizing the program. The push is a reprisal of similar 2007 amendments Sanders offered during the debate over the Bush immigration bill. During that period, he worked closely with his Republican colleagues. The new amendments will be attached to major legislation offered over the coming weeks — essentially forcing lawmakers to go on the record. Sanders is currently in talks with potential cosponsors and expects to bring a unique pro-American labor coalition of Democrats and Republicans together to crack down on H-1B abuse. The Vermont senator, now a ranking member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, may benefit from a reshuffle in committee assignments. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., two Republican opponents of visa programs used by corporations to import foreign workers, have joined the committee this year.” • A Sanders-Tuberville H-1B reform alliance wasn’t on my Bingo card….
“New Dem additions to a plum panel are spurring private angst” [Politico]. “An under-the-radar decision to add Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and about half a dozen other members to the House Energy and Commerce is causing some angst among House Democrats, according to three people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to detail private discussions. In an unusual move, the Steering and Policy panel filled six out of the seven open slots on the Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday morning and left the last position open for a 10-way race. The spots were highly competitive, and some lawmakers are questioning why certain members like Ocasio-Cortez were selected while others were left to compete for the last open spot…. Since [2020], Ocasio-Cortez has claimed an inside track in the caucus, paying dues to the caucus’ campaign arm and making up with other lawmakers. She also backed away from support for primary challenges when she mounted an unsuccessful bid to be the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee last month. The committee has broad jurisdiction over health care, energy, technology and other policy areas that will be in the spotlight in the new Congress, as the GOP takes full control of Washington. The panel chaired by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) has a long tradition of bipartisanship.”
NY: “The Democratic Panic in New York” [Washington Magazine]. “Torres, an outspoken critic of ‘woke politics,’ has become the most interesting politician in New York. He has positioned himself as a centrist alternative for governor in 2026, lambasting Hochul as ‘the new Joe Biden’ for being soft on crime and endangering public safety. In a post-election interview with Hanna Rosin of The Atlantic, Torres identified himself as pro-immigration but blamed the Biden administration for letting the border crisis get out of control. ‘So we can blame the voters. We can claim that the voters are misogynist and white supremacist. We could blame Fox News and the New York Post. But those institutions have always been with us in recent political history,’ he said. When pressed on his vision for Democrats, Torres replied, ‘Economically populist, right? We have to convey the sense that we’re fighting for working people and that we’re holding powerful interests accountable, right?… People do care about border security. People do care about public safety. We have to ensure that we’re on the center of those issues while doubling down on economic populism.'” • Any New Yorkers want to comment on Torres?
Realignment and Legitimacy
“State governments by party control, 2025” [Axios]. “‘Republicans notched the two biggest legislative victories'” of Election Day 2024, per Cook’s Matthew Klein: Flipping Michigan’s House of Representatives and splitting the Minnesota House.” • Handy map:
“Luigi Mangione Court Case Hit With Delay” [Newsweek]. “On Monday, prosecutors and defense attorneys jointly requested additional time to prepare the case for trial, further delaying proceedings. Attorneys for both sides agreed in a letter to the court to extend the deadline for indicting the accused, Luigi Mangione, from January 18 to February 17. Mangione, 26, is currently charged through a criminal complaint, a preliminary document filed against individuals before a formal indictment is issued. Prosecutors stated that they consulted with the defense team and agreed on the need to extend the indictment deadline, citing the importance of allowing “both parties adequate preparation for pretrial proceedings and the trial itself.’ • The Federal case, which presumably the incoming administration needs to get a handle on.
“Luigi Mangione visited gun range on Thailand vacation months before UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killing: report” [New York Post]. “Accused killer Luigi Mangione hit up an expensive gun range during a trip to Thailand — just months before he allegedly gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the Big Apple, his travel friends have claimed. The 26-year-old accused assassin visited the gun range after leaving the US on a solo Asia trip early last year, two German tourists who met him during his travels told TMZ’s new ‘Luigi Mangione: The Mind of a Killer‘ documentary. Mangione opted to skip a beach day and head to the range instead, according to the friends — who were only identified as Paul and Max… The pair, who said they traveled extensively with Mangione through Asia, also claimed he was obsessed with Indian author Jash Dholani’s book “Hit Reverse: New Ideas From Old Books,” which examines philosophical viewpoints from a range of authors. He even apparently purchased 400 copies of the book and flew to Mumbai to try to give the author his personal feedback, the German travelers said.” • Hmm.
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
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Stay safe out there!
Transmission: HPMV
“China’s latest virus surge is the human metapneumovirus (HMPV), which has also seen spikes in the U.S. Here are the symptoms and whether it could be the next pandemic” [Fortune]. “But HMPV is not new, and the U.S. has also seen spikes, which receded, most recently in spring of 2023. HMPV is ‘probably much more common than we know,’ Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, previously told Fortune. ‘We are finding it more often because we are testing people for respiratory diseases post-COVID and RSV,’ he says. Human metapneumovirus is a leading cause of acute respiratory infection, according to the American Lung Association. As with RSV, most humans have been infected with HMPV by age 5. While the vast majority will fare fine at home, as many as 10% of pediatric hospitalizations are due to lower respiratory infections caused by the virus, according to the National Library of Medicine. A 2010 study found that it was the one of the most common viruses among 256 children hospitalized with respiratory ailments, second only to RSV. When it comes to elderly adults, about 22 in every 10,000 are hospitalized with the virus each year—particularly seniors with cardiovascular disease, according to a 2013 article in the journal Viruses. Symptoms are pretty much identical to other respiratory viruses, and testing is necessary to tell them apart. As with its relative, RSV, HMPV has the potential to hit harder for the young and the elderly, as well as for those with weakened immune systems.”
“CNA Explains: What is HMPV, why are cases rising in China and should you be worried?” [Channel News Asia]. “Professor Paul Tambyah, a Senior Consultant at the National University Hospital’s (NUH) Division of Infectious Diseases, noted that Chinese health officials have greatly stepped up surveillance of acute respiratory infections with better diagnostics and deployment of technology. ‘It is not surprising that more HMPV infections are being picked up. This does happen in China every winter on a regular basis, especially in northern China,’ Prof Tambyah said. ‘The bottom line is that we should not be overly concerned as there are no reports of a major public health impact from the increased detection in Northern China (but) of course, all this could change with more data,’ he added. Public health experts have noted significant differences between both [HMPV and SARS-CoV-2], with HMPV generally less severe with a lower mortality rate.”
Lambert: New York City hospitalization is one of oldest and most consistent datasets, and it’s going up; approaching “jump” territory after the holidays. I don’t like that at all, and I like the New York state data even less:
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC December 30 | Last week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC December 21 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC December 28 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data January 6: | National [6] CDC Janurary 2, 2005: |
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| Positivity | |
| ★ National[7] Walgreens January 6: | ★ Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic January 4: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC December 16: | Variants[10] CDC December 16 |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 20: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 20: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Seeing more red and more orange, but nothing new at major hubs.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) A little uptick.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Slow and small but steady increase.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.
[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.
[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.
Stats Watch
Supply Chain: “United States LMI Logistics Managers Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Logistics Manager’s Index dropped to 57.3 in December 2024 from 58.4 in November, the lowest in four months. This slowdown was largely driven by a seasonal decrease in Inventory Levels, which fell by 6.1 points to 50.0, signaling no overall change. However, this masks the underlying trends: upstream firms like manufacturers and wholesalers saw inventory levels rise to 57.9 due to increased imports, while downstream retailers experienced a significant decline in inventory levels, dropping to 33.9, as expected during the holiday season.”
Employment Situation: “United States Job Openings” [Trading Economics]. “The number of job openings increased by 259,000 to 8,098 million in November 2024, from an upwardly revised 7.839 million in October and above market expectations of 7.70 million. The number of job openings increased in professional and business services (+273,000), finance and insurance (+105,000), and private educational services (+38,000) but decreased in information (-89,000).”
Manfacturing: “Boeing needs to start designing a new plane soon to help turn things around, former CEO says” [Business Insider]. “Phil Condit, who led the planemaker from 1996 to 2003, told The Wall Street Journal, ‘You’ve got to get people excited about what they’re doing. You don’t come to work just for a paycheck. You come to work because you care about what you’re doing.'” • Not sure I would give a whole lot of weight to a former Boeing CEO’s views on labor…..
Manufacturing: “Boeing progresses on manufacturing improvement plan” [Manufacturing Dive]. “‘As the strike ended, I spoke directly with the CEO [Kelly Ortberg] about the importance of adhering to safety-management principles as Boeing resumed production,’ outgoing FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in the agency’s Jan. 3 blog post reflecting on the year since the Alaska Airlines incident. ‘It’s clear that message hit home, as Boeing spent a full month post-strike making sure the necessary safety steps were taken before restarting production.'” • “A whole month”…..
Tech: “Uber And Lyft Will Roll Out Robotaxis This Year. But There’s A Problem” [InsideEVs]. “The robotaxis, however, have a mountain to climb in terms of safety, public trust and logistics. Waymo riders are facing a new form of harassment as people have been hostile towards self-driving cars—vandalising, threatening passengers and obstructing the vehicles. General Motors’ Cruise robotaxi division suspended operations last year after one of its Chevrolet Bolt EVs dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco.” • Oh,
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 26 Fear (previous close: 27 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 33 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 2 at 1:24:36 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes down one on drought. “Rain chips away at general drought conditions” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 181. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index isn’t at an all-time high. Doesn’t the collapse of Syria bring the Third Temple closer? Do these people know something we don’t?
Gallery
Awwwww!
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)
Margot, 1881
oil on canvas, 76×88 cm
private collection pic.twitter.com/OK7kUjidI9— Edward Elderman (@edwereddie) January 5, 2025
Musical Interlude
Flubs and all, from a live performance:
Quite the rhythm section, Wyman and Watts. Wyman is generally buried so far down in the mix you don’t hear him…
Public Health
“Fluoride Exposure and Children’s IQ Scores: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” [JAMA]. Meta. “This systematic review and meta-analysis found inverse associations and a dose-response association between fluoride measurements in urine and drinking water and children’s IQ across the large multicountry epidemiological literature. There were limited data and uncertainty in the dose-response association between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ when fluoride exposure was estimated by drinking water alone at concentrations less than 1.5 mg/L. These findings may inform future comprehensive public health risk-benefit assessments of fluoride exposures.” • Perhaps some kind reader who’s really expert in methodology will take a look,
“Mistletoe” [Anderson Valley Advertiser]. “[John Lee, MD, a family practitioner in Mill Valley, back in 1967] was then editing the Marin Medical Society Bulletin and on the look-out for topics for his monthly column. He came across an article in a Harvard alumni publication describing the pagan rituals of the Celts who lived in the British Isles in the millennium before Christ. For their winter solstice celebration, the Celtic priests -Druids- would collect berries from trees bearing mistletoe. Coincidentally, Lee had just read an item in the Journal of the American Medical Association stating that mistletoe contains a compound very similar to progesterone. He had an insight: ‘The berries were life in the middle of that cold European winter, when everything else was bleak and apparently lifeless. The Druids called mistletoe ‘a gift from the gods.’ They would take these berries and mix them with hot mead [an alcohol drink made from fermented honey] and they would all have a weeklong party where gifts were exchanged and they would celebrate that the sun was going to return and winter would not mean the end of the world. ‘When a woman takes progesterone and then quits, a period is induced. I realized the mead laced with mistletoe would decrease everyone’s inhibitions and increase everyone’s libido for their four- or five-day party. It was free sex! And after four or five days of celebration they would quit. All the women would have their periods, and no babies would occur. No wonder they called it ‘a gift from the Gods!’ Lee compares the discovery that mistletoe prevented pregnancy to the discovery that limes prevented scurvy -a major advance in the annals of medicine. ‘The sailors didn’t know it was Vitamin C. The Celts didn’t know it was progesterone. They just knew it worked.'” • And a lot of medicine is still that way, for good or ill…
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What really interests me about the stuff Trump has been saying recently that a lot of it is informally true. He’s been talking about Canada being the 51st state through economic force, and the possibility of using military force for Panama (and Greenland), but it is already more or less true that Canada is an economic extension of the states (I believe Chomsky speaks of this a lot) and that Panama is already pseudo-occupied by the US.
The Panama Canal part reminded me of a book called “The Invisible Bridge” by Rick Perlstein. (subtitle – the fall of Nixon and the rise of Reagan).
Reagan used negotiations at the time to hand off some control of the Panama Canal as a sign of US weakness, and that it should be completely under our control: “We built it. We paid for it. It’s ours.”
The book is a great (and thorough) read, and I kept seeing parallels with our own time. Another example where Trump is borrowing (inadvertantly or not) from old Republican positions: Gerald Ford advocated letting the states decision on abortion rules.
About Canada – I’ll say it again…let them come in as states 51-60! If you satisfy “The Wyoming Rule” (population of at least 500k), you can call yourself a state.
Alberta + Texas would be horrid, but Montreal + Lousiana might be pretty neat.
Worth it just to bring in Newfoundland…
We don’t really have the equivalent of Newfie jokes with the exception of Florida Man.
Canada doesn’t need 50 new disfunctional provinces. 10 is plenty.
> What really interests me about the stuff Trump has been saying recently that a lot of it is informally true.
That is often true with Trump. “That makes me smart,” for example. Not always!
Don’t think this holds for the Panama part, almost at all. There was tremendous resentment of the United States in the lead-up to the turnover of the canal, on which many thousands of people died working. (The canal museum in P. City is an extraordinary place.) Panamanians are very proud of their administration of the canal, and it’s commonly held that they run it far better than we did. The Canal Zone has been rechristened The City of Knowledge, and various schools have campuses, labs, etc. there. Think there will be real bloodshed if we try to retake it. My students there (I taught environmental history tended to have much better-honed historical sense than their American analogues, and–while from the ruling class–the kind of resentment of the northern hegemon that comes with nationalism in almost all of the poor countries.
This is Trump upping the ante on the evil, and waiting to see whether people yawn and go back to sleep. Historically, liberals protested a little at US adventurism/colonialism and then went back to enjoying the fruits, limited–in truth–though they were. On the other hand, there’s a very real chance that this arouses tremendous antagonism outside the United States–I know it will among my friends in Spain, Ireland, Grenada, Jamaica, Panama, Argentina. . . hurries the development of the BRICS.
Do the US not still get what they need from Panama, though? You seem to be much more knowledgeable than I am. As far as I understand they more or less have control of it but it sounds like I am wrong.
I looked into it a bit and it appears to be less so than I thought. For example, in 2017 the president of Panama severed ties with Taiwan and recognized China. Chinese companies have been performing a lot of infrastructure work there as well, building ports and rail, etc. There’s some good info from US strategic journals like CSIS about it
“FBI Is Still Hiding Details of Russiagate, Newly Released Document Shows”
It doesn’t matter. Until a MSM outlet admits they have been liars for years, Russiagate will be alive and well, believed by about 1/3 of the country (or more). Same with the censorship stuff.
These very same people who still believe this are still digesting Trump II is here, and they are not happy from what I see in my travels. They seem to be getting even more unhinged and nasty.
The next 4 years are going to be a doozy in more ways than we know.
I agree about the Democrat rank-and-file. After all, they’ve been fed over 8 years of Trump-derangement propaganda (to go along with Trump’s actual antics). But this time around I sense that the Establishment is holding its fire, at least the major artillery, and is going to try and work with him. I’m sure they’ll sabotage any foreign policy measures they don’t like, and if he wanders very far off the reservation they can always ramp up the hysteria again. But so far the reaction at the top seems different to me.
They’ll never ‘fess up to the Russiagate operation though. That’s memory-hole material. Trump getting along requires he ignore it,
I open Water Cooler each weekday now with a combination of eagerness and anticipatory dread that Lambert will soon be lost to spoiled readers like me. I think he’s saved my health about 50 times over with his covid reporting alone.
The tag team of Lambert & Yves is a gift from the gods!
Let’s get this bread, y’all!
Working for a paycheck at Boeing Corporation…. probably a bit different take going into the workplace there given All of The Bad Headlines over these past few years. “Hey it’s better than the alternative I guess so hooray I love my employer…”( sarc )
Working 9 to 5
What a way to make a living
Boeing lost it’s mind
It’s all their BS that’s been given…
Misteltoe has also been a treatment for cancer for about a century. It originated with Anthroposophical medicine:
https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2407-9-451
Re: “the discovery that limes prevented scurvy”
There’s potentially an interesting twist in that story I learned about recently. It makes me wonder how much of our historical narrative has been “washed” to obfuscate the actions of oppressors/manipulators throughout.
I recently read that none of the officers on Magellan’s circumnavigation got scurvy because they were served quince jam, or “Carne de membrillo,” and wikipedia suggests this was a lucky occurrence:
But I found another article when reading more about this, from the Guam Daily Post – Guam was raided by Magellan’s fleet during the voyage, and apparently they don’t remember him too fondly b/c of that – that suggests the inclusion of quince jam was intentional, as was hiding it from the rank-and-file crew:
The Guam Post article doesn’t list any sources for those claims, so I’d have to research further to know if Spanish ships continued to carry quince jam, or if anyone in Spain ever noticed the ships coming back with only officers healthy, but if true… wow. At least a few centuries went by between Magellan’s voyage and the British introducing lime juice on a fleet-wide scale (19th century), although Cook apparently provided it on his voyages.
Boiling destroys vitamin C and quinces are typically cooked (boiled) for a long time, especially if made into jam or jelly. I just made some quince mini tarts for a Christmas party..
so you think the story is bunk?
Is it just me, or does the Wukchumni antidote look suspiciously like Dusty the Albino Adventure Dog romping in a snowbank in a blizzard?
Dusty looks like he is looking for a tree to pee against but alas, there is not one in sight.
My guess is he was looking for adventure…
It’s good to have a dog that makes a great travel companion. They’re as good as gold. We have a dog here that it we let it out the car on our travels, that you would have no chance of catching until it had exhausted itself first.
Dusty is a Wire Hair Terrier/Australian Shepherd mix, loves to meet people and never strays too far away.
He might be the perfect dog…
Which also means good things about his humans.
Bravo, Dusty!
Norwegian Elkhound? I have priors.
re Fluoride–so General Ripper was right about our precious bodily fluids. Off to set up my pure rain water cistern.
For those who came in late, the reference:
Everybody should see Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. It’s still germane!
The sad thing is that, at least about the fluids, General Ripper turned out to be right, and not just fluoride..
Funny how Commie got mixed up with Corporatist, alas there was the Coke machine thingy …
First, you have to find some pure rainwater. Then manage the collection apparatus. Most ‘rain-barrels’ I see nowadays are made from plastic. The BPA-free containers are pricey. 55 gallon drums are about $100 USD.
See, for prices: https://www.uline.com/BL_8154/Plastic-Drums?pricode=WK877&utm_source=Bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=food%20grade%20water%20barrel&utm_campaign=Drums%2C%20Pails%20and%20Containers&AdKeyword=food%20grade%20water%20barrel&AdMatchtype=p
Regarding the study. If you find a dose response, that pretty much means it aint just P hacking.
Thanks for the Stones recording. Wyman starts out a bit shaky, but really gets grooving with Charlie Watts about halfway through. There’s a lot more improvisation going on than your typical rock bassist. He’s definitely underrated – I always could tell his signature bass playing even though as you say it wasn’t particularly prominent in the mix.
PS – apropos of the Stones, don’t you know the 10-year’s going UP, UP, UP, UP, UP!
It is up 100bps since the Fed cut 100bps. How’d that work JPowell?
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple … don’t mind the MAGA!
yeah that was fun even if it was mostly Wyman, I loves me some Charlie, RIP
Wyman, better and more adventurous than I had realized. Great harmony line in the chorus.
The guitar work in the recording is amazing, Ron and Keef are just carrying on a conversation though the whole peice.
Started going through various versions of Steely Dan’s Babylon Sisters on the YouTube today since there’s a big fire in the Pacific Palisades coming down to engulf it all.
Here come those Santa Ana winds again…
Wyman was using a fret less bass as early as 12×5 and Aftermath albums. I really enjoy and appreciate his work from that era. Some times I replay those albums just to listen to him and Watts.
For my money though, it’s still Jack Casady and Jack Bruce. Both drop dead amazing and Bruce’s vocals can still give me a shiver.
You may have missed it but Mayor Pete left Indiana several years ago for Traverse City Michigan where his husband has family. Convenient wat to establish a beach head.
True, and my Michigan PMC friends just love him to death. They would be thrilled if he ran. I don’t get it. He’s like fingernails and chalkboard to me, and I don’t see him as the genius so many think he is.
> You may have missed it but Mayor Pete left Indiana several years ago for Traverse City Michigan where his husband has family. Convenient wat to establish a beach head.
I did miss it. Wowsers, dude thinks ahead.
Sorry this was a few weeks ago-life got in the way of my posting it but I hadn’t forgotten.
On the trail: 2028 buzz as Buttigieg makes NH radio appearance
Snip: “Pete Buttigieg made an appearance on New Hampshire talk radio on Friday, sparking speculation that the Department of Transportation Secretary in President Joe Biden’s administration may be mulling another White House run in 2028.
Buttigieg, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who is considered a potential contender for the next nomination race, has made numerous radio appearances across the country during his four years steering the Transportation Department, including a bunch here in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state.”
A lot more at the link.
And I have seen a Buttigieg/Cheney bumper sticker around here(Upper Valley NH/VT). Not joking.
He reminds me of a cheap wind up toy.
So did Kamala, but she was certainly not cheap, in a financial sense.
Very Clintonesque, as in it reminds me of Hillary’s time in the Senate. She was also very forward thinking when it came to her future political career plans. Doing her day job took a back seat to that. Sorry let’s be honest, her day job didn’t even make it that far into her thinking.
I believe I can safely say that being Transportation Secretary didn’t even manage to make it to the first page of Petey’s To-Do List.
His popularity confounds me.
Popularity with who though?
I’ve yet to see a Pete Constituency which isn’t directly or indirectly the spooks.
I have added orts and scraps.
Doesn’t work: When I get off of this mountain, you know where I want to go?
Straight down the Mississippi river, to the Gulf of America
Might as well stop at Mall of America instead
The allusion:
The very one. Literally the first thing that popped in to my head when I read of Trump’s plan was Levon’s voice singing “Gulf of Mexico”. So thanks for this.
Oh Lambert! Brings back so many memories. Some 5-10 of my friends, mostly women but not all, back in the day, had a “study” – a large room, filled with scattered desks, book shelves, electric typewriters, and books, coffee and wine, and we’d work way into the New York City night, writing our grant apps, memoirs, grad papers, scripts, and whatever. And someone had the Last Waltz recordings blasting away. Talk about creative productivity. The sheer joy of the whole mix will stay with me forever.
Could we combine H1B with GOA, its kind of a natural?
Sorry, but India walked their Army into Goa a few years ago. Now it’s all H1B.
Oh, you mean GOA! There should be a Glock H1B model, I agree.
As for Patel. “Glen Garry Glen Ross” (Warning, Strong Language NSFW) [With apologies to the “real” Patels who see this.]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNQ_G5uKd18&ab_channel=HamzaClassicMovies
It’s also an excellent description of the Neoliberal business method.
Gulf of Mexico.
We all know who runs it.
The Department of Energy, a wholly ‘In the Pocket’ subsidiary of the American Petroleum Institute.
Ritchie Torres is not an economic populist, and is no friend to the Left in NY. He’s an opportunist who loves punching Left. When he was a City Councilmember he sold out the police reform movement he’d been cozying up to as a “progressive”, and gutted the Right To Know Act as a favor to the PBA, in a failed attempt to get elected Council Speaker. He left the Council’s Progressive Caucus after that failed bid in 2018, but started calling himself a progressive again after AOC won later that year. He won election to Congress in 2020, beating a homophobic pastor and winning idpol accolades in the process for doing that while being Black and gay. And he quickly capitalized on how much the media would love a Black and gay NY Congressman who came out swinging against BLM and Defund, left the Progressive Caucus in Congress pretty quickly, and who proved to be one of AIPAC’s biggest champions. I was redistricted into his Congressional district, a real downgrade from Bowman. He’s militantly pro-Israel, a big proponent of anti-mask legislation, and on other issues he’s all over the place. Sometimes he supports things I care about, but generally he positions himself in ways that are politically abhorrent to me. Hochul is terrible, but not for any reasons that electing Ritchie Torres would solve.
He represents the congressional district with the highest child poverty rate in the country, but mentions Israel – his district also includes the heavily Jewish Riverdale area – far, far more than he ever mentions poverty… the worst of the IdPol Dems.
Good summary. If Torres—a conservative democrat and at the end of the day an opportunist—can call himself a ”populist” and an “economic populist,” then those terms have totally lost their usefulness, if it we weren’t there already long ago. I’m no pedant, and I don’t get bent out of shape about words occasionally having multiple meanings, even contradictory ones, but we’re at the point now where the idiots just make up their own personal incomprehensible definitions. The people who shape our political discourse are lexicography so all-over-the-map that it’s no wonder everyone is so confused.
The only thing I’ve heard about him is hawking crypto.
–
“Any New Yorkers want to comment on Torres?”
Does anyone know the brand name of a nasal spray that helps prevent Covid that coats the inside of the nose with a gel made from carrageenan occurring in red algae?
Betadine. The mouthspray is iodine, but the nose spray is carrageenan. Here is a long thread on this very topic; I believe I linked to it recently, but might be worth reading again:
Thank you, Lambert! I had no idea. You are helping keep many of us healthier!
Thanks. Forgot to save the URL. And on Twitter if you don’t immediately bookmark it in platform it’s likely lost forever. I’ve never liked Twitter.
Along those lines, last night in Bangkok I had a misadventure roaming horrid mall after mall looking for a pharmacy that sells Covitrap. No luck, not even at multiple Watsons. “Must be popular,” i thought.
But then today in BKK airport, pharmacy clerk said something cryptic like “No, stopped here,” which may suggest something other than demand behind its unavailability (gotta love language barriers).
So I’ll continue the search in Phuket once I land in a few hours.
The pharmacies no longer carry it but you can order it on Lazada: https://www.lazada.co.th
You need a Thai cell # to place an order. They do accept US credit cards.
I just saw this; it captured my feelings so well that I wanted to share it:
“Meditations On Bono Receiving The Presidential Medal Of Freedom From Joe Biden”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/01/08/meditations-on-bono-receiving-the-presidential-medal-of-freedom-from-joe-biden/
“Whenever I’m sad about a musician I like having died before their time, I comfort myself with the thought at least they didn’t live long enough to become another Bono.”
At least JB didn’t give a medal of freedom to himself or Hunter. I’m sure he wanted to. Will a blanket self pardon be his final act?
>Will a blanket self pardon be his final act?
Blanket and nap seems more likely
Bono got where he by being Bono which was being a bullshit vocalist in a bullshit band. When I first heard U2 my thoughts were who is pimping them?
Re: Fluoride.
I’m not an expert. I did look at the link because I was interested. I didn’t look at the details, but it seems to
me that the summary says it all. “There were limited data and uncertainty in the dose-response
association between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ …”
i.e. Didn’t learn much.
Contrary to your selective quote, the study concludes that there is definitely an inverse relationship between Fluoride exposure and children’s IQ — as fluoride exposure goes up, IQ goes down. Your truncated quote was only referring to the relationship when exposure falls below 1.5mg/L.
From the report:
I am not a statistician, but the impression I got from med xitter was that the studies included in the meta-analysis mostly had confounding factors and were done with not-so-accurate methodologies.
Here is a commentary from Statnews:
https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/06/fluoride-iq-jama-pediatrics-critiques-meta-analysis/
Taibbi’s latest, no paywall.
On Mark Zuckerberg’s Speech Announcement
The Meta chief’s surprising public address on free speech hints at a coming battle between the U.S. and the rest of the world
https://www.racket.news/p/on-mark-zuckerbergs-speech-announcement
Here’s the full transcript of what he said, and a transcript of a FOX interview with a meta exec.
https://www.techpolicy.press/transcript-mark-zuckerberg-announces-major-changes-to-metas-content-moderation-policies-and-operations/
From Zuckerberg on what regional stereotype he considers cause for concern about “bias”
“…we’re going to move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US-based content review is going to be based in Texas. As we work to promote free expression, I think that will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams.”
From meta exec in response to interview question “…did you feel restricted over the last four years and this is the first time you have, it’s in your business interests to express this quest for freedom?”
“Well, there’s no question that there’s an opportunity here with a new president taking office, as I said, who really believes in free expression. And that’s just going to give us the space to get back to those values that Mark has talked about…there’s been a lot of political and societal pressure here and around the world that have pushed away from those values. We’ve got a real opportunity to reset, get back to them, and really provide a space for how.”
From me in consideration of above referenced “quest for freedom”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-war-press-media-leaks-1235202909/
(a lot of unnamed “sources” but some quotes, lawsuits, and links too)
Of course Biden would never harass the press and Taibbi’s own IRS home invasion all a big misunderstanding.
Some of us would say Trump has a long way to go to equal Biden/Garland when it comes to abuse of govt power. Some of us would even say that all the things Trump has been accused of including defying the result of an election have their own Dem precedent.
That doesn’t mean Trump should be given a pass. However I’d tend to trust Taibbi on this more than his former employer.
More on the “quest for freedom”
“At a press conference hours later, Trump praised the changes. “I think they’ve come a long way, Meta,” Trump said. When asked if he believed Zuckerberg made the changes in response to threats the incoming president has made, Trump responded: “Probably.””
https://apnews.com/article/meta-facts-trump-musk-community-notes-413b8495939a058ff2d25fd23f2e0f43
Adding:
The first link is a full transcript of the press conference. The discussion about Zuckerberg starts around 1:05. The generated captions don’t catch the reporter’s question that seems to have generated Trump’s “Probably.” The second link is a clip without captions of just that part of the press conference, but the sound isn’t too clear to me.
https://www.c-span.org/program/news-conference/president-elect-trump-delivers-remarks-to-the-press/654093
https://www.c-span.org/program/news-conference/president-elect-trump-delivers-remarks-to-the-press/654093
Thanks for the RS article.
I think part of the blindspot to this fairly overt threat, is due to the years of TDS madness that has been pushed on us. People are so used to discounting (and being angered by) the risible “Trump danger” stories, they become blind to the real dangers.
Legacy media is (justifiably) discredited and new media is increasingly dominated by New Right propagandists. That leaves a tiny sliver of blogs and podcasts where one can find decent analysis.
I just received and read this article and I find it’s conclusions frustrating:
The Meta CEO is claiming the U.S. and its closest allies are about to have a showdown on speech. If he’s right, bring it on. It’s overdue.
IMO Taibbi misses (and he and Kirn have long been missing) that the fight against censorship only applies to state censorship. The tech lords want to destroy state oversight of their platforms. However that does not mean no censorship, it means the tech lords controlling the censorship machine. They want their speech to be free not yours and mine.
This is patently obvious with Musk’s recent nuking of MAGA accounts that fought back on immigration. It has long been obvious by the treatment of pro-Palestinians on twitter. Taibbi himself has said he is shadow-banned now.
Given that most of the tech figures pushing for “free speech” are Thiel linked (eg he was Zuckerberg’s mentor for many years), and Thiel’s Palantir-CIA project is explicitly about informational dominance, where do you think this is heading?
A private technocracy/spook alliance where they are free to lie/censor without restraint. A country where pre-crime becomes a real thing (via Clearview etc).
—-
This pattern of loudly “fighting against state overreach” is understandably popular. I really think we need to scrutinize the prospective outcomes. We will not be left with some open fields of fairness and joy. We will be left with a technofascist dominance-worshipping hellscape.
—
I again recommend that people listen to Whitney Webb and Stavroula Pabst break down the tech lords huge dark-info projects (Palantir, Clearview, Worldcoin etc) in this podcast . Link includes a transcript
Apologies for repeating myself but the constant misframing of the “fight against censorship” is driving me nuts.
While all of that podcast is IMO important, the last section focuses on the exact issue I’m raising above.
File under: Anticipatory Nostalgia
Nobody can say “Oh” like Lambert.
Sanders should have said “don’t tell me where to stand in my career when you’ve only ever lain down for yours” but he’s probably too nice.
She is truly a disgusting person. She and Hillary must get along well.
I’m thinking Kamalalf (homage to Landon) gets a $2 million advance on a comic book chronicling her life.
Idea: Kamala records her autobiography. It’s then transcripted and each word is printed on a small magnet. All the magnet-words are thrown together in a bag.
Market this to Team Blue as ‘Kamala Word Salad for your fridge”. One plucks out random words and throws them on the fridge to create nonsensical strings of keywords (“fighting for” etc) and meaningless filler.
I suspect the result would still be more coherent than Ms Harris’s usual pronouncements.
“Place names … are the responsibility of the Domestic Names Committee (DNC) of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN).” https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/domestic-names
They have a review process.
“Coming soon: Gulf of America”
That’s a coincidence. I was just reading that Mexico is naming the continent north of the Panama Canal as North Mexico but in compensation, one of the US States will be renamed New America. Trump is not the first to try a bone head stunt like this. For many years now the US refuses to use the name the Persian Gulf and tries to rename it the Arabian Gulf instead.
> ‘Gulf of America’
The gap between rich and poor? Between the coasts and the middle? Between rhetoric and action?
Or perhaps just a huge memory hole.
It wasn’t the US which started that renaming of the Persian Gulf. It was Saudi Arabia and perhaps other Arab kingdoms and emirates. They insisted on calling it the Arabian Gulf and elements of the US government profess to agree in order to make their Arab State clients feel happy.
I was once talking to a Turkish student about that. What did the Turks call it? The Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf? ” What did we call it? We called it Basra Sirte — Gulf of Basra.”
I suggest a combination name to make everybody happy: Persiarabian Gulf of Basra.
Here is a little article about Trump ” not ruling out” military force to take over Panama Canal and/or Greenland.
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1hvwwbo/trump_refuses_to_rule_out_use_of_military_force/
Just a reminder of what people who voted for Trump voted for, and what people who voted or non-voted to permit Trump voted or non-voted to permit.
Maybe it will all work out for the best, and it will end up being worth it to have punished the Democrat Party. Or maybe not.
Time will tell.
He didn’t run on invading Panama. Can people bf accountable for politicians lies of omission?
He was known to be random and chaotic. He was the accelerationist choice.
Happy acceleration.
Did the people who voted for Biden in 2020 also vote for war in Israel, Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, and Taiwan?
Yes.
If we start from the premises that there are two equally evil, imperialist parties, and that empire’s going to empire, then MAGA wins again. Territorial expansion in the western hemisphere is a foreign policy that’s comprehensible, and that can’t be said for the status quo. Trump’s offering something seemingly different that appeals to the guy who can’t find Iran on the map and can’t read “Türkiye,” but who wants America and its military to be great. And genius that he is, he’ll maintain most of the old failing foreign policy that the arms makers want.
Let me tell you: yes, it’s worth it to punish the Democratic party. Do you have to ask?
I would like to point out that a few NC readers are redditors, but we generally don’t spam postings from Reddit because it is of such poor quality. Reddit is not quality media. It’s media in support of empire meant to fan the flames of outrage among those who prefer received opinions over critical thinking.
Re: Monroe. At the risk of pedantry, I think the idea that Monroe would be proud of this behavior by Trump is not supported by the historical evidence. The Monroe Doctrine was not an expansionist doctrine per se in its original iteration, though it was used as such by later expansionists in the latter 19th and the 20th centuries.
Rather, the Monroe Doctrine came in response to a specific geopolitical and ideological situation in the Atlantic world after the Napoleonic Wars. As part of the larger world-upheaval from 1789-1815, the Spanish colonies in South America had thrown off the rule of the Spanish crown and established republics. The US, the “OG” republic in the greater Atlantic, both supported these sister republics, and was perturbed by the desire of the most reactionary of the victorious powers — Austria, Prussia, and Russia — to defend monarchy and attack republicanism generally, and, specifically, to reestablish Spanish rule and the Spanish monarchy in South America (Russian expansion in the northwestern part of the Continent also played a role).
My understanding is that the Monroe Doctrine was largely the work of Sec. of State John Quincy Adams, who had been directly involved in the world of Atlantic diplomacy since he accompanied his father, John Adams, to France during the Revolution.
And while Quincy Adams may have authored the policy, above all, it relied on the fact that Britain agreed with the Monroe Doctrine’s goals — the UK, for both commercial and I think actual ideological reasons, did not want to see the most reactionary of European monarchies reestablish their power in South America. The saying was that the US was basically here a small boat being towed behind a giant British man’o’war.
Aside from the acquisition of East Florida — itself partially the result of Gen. Jackson’s extra-legal military actions — Monroe’s Presidency wasn’t particularly expansionist.
The later uses of the Monroe Doctrine are well beyond its original context and intentions, in my view.
For those not paying attention to the Palisades fire, this is the new normal.
1,200 acres in a few hours, no containment and 100 MPH winds…
In January.
Just watched some video, and that’s a scary fire.
Its reminiscent of the Bel Air Fire of 1961, also fueled by Santa Ana winds, which burned nearly 500 homes.
Saw a photo of Palisades high school fully engulfed.
I used to occasionally hike down to the Getty Villa, full of ancient Greek pottery and more, hope its ok.
Rule_2 & Quota^z:
Latest Tverberg: The model shows a decrease in production per capita of 4.1% in 2024 and of 5.3% in 2025.
I: Easy way to deal with that, just decrease the denominator.
Janet: Not if you’re a denominator.
Massive Santa Ana winds expected tonight – this fire could get much worse. Right now, parts of the Getty Museum grounds are on fire, and the fire has swept all the way down to the Pacific Coast Highway:
Pacific Palisades fire burning out of control as thousands evacuate amid dangerous windstorm
https://www.latimes.com/california/live/pacific-palisades-fire-updates-los-angeles
Old stomping grounds and know P.V. is a bit of big ravines with homes on upper sides. Below that its all scrub/trees and steep. Parking lot of high end cars trying to get out … oops …
Party time at Damascus airport as international flights resume (Guardian)
Security forces in all-black suits or camouflage gear milled around the airport entrance, while others aligned to the new government, led by the Islamist group HTS, staffed immigration points and airport security. A muezzin sang the call to prayer from a balcony, while members of Syria’s civil defence, known as the White Helmets, looked on.
Quite the party!
“has no standing to make fun of anybody.”
Ha!
Elon Musk rape rape rape …. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1876575109814890690
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/rape-statistics-by-state
Ummm …. Alaska is rape central due too immigration – ????