Yeah, and Ditto on the ‘Like, a hundred yr ago‘ – !?!
******************
I’ve had an incredibly fun-fill, exciting, and adventurous life – gourging my pre-humble self on ‘the sweet and sour fruits of the tree of life’ mentioned in the Mundaka Upanishad. Hence, I have never paid much attention to what has happened ‘n gone on in the Middle East…heck, don’t even ask me about the Bosnian War. I remember something about the hero Hillary Clinton’s super special adventure there or in the area, lots of bombing, and some great movies. This shocked me this morning:
… my derision of “free trade” is a result of 21st century Principled Free Traders hijacking the historically understood definition of free trade, that being reciprocal free trade (which I generally supported), and replacing it with advocacy for non-reciprocal “free trade,” which is actually a unilateral surrender to foreign mercantilism, even when the economic surrender is to foreign nations that are hostile to the United States.
Far too many Americans, especially Libertarians, fall into the trap of purely looking at the bottom line on free trade. There is more to a nation and a culture than its economy. What about the well being of its citizens? The number and type of material possessions one has is not correlative with one’s mental and physical health. This is painfully evident in the United States today, especially to those of us who grew up in decades where Americans had less material wealth.
Humans need a sense of purpose and a sense they are contributing to a community, the more local the better.
Karmi, the history cited in your linked Breitbart article is correct. Trans-Jordan, which became just Jordan, is the homeland of Palestinian Arabs. It constitutes about 75% of the original British Mandate area established after WWI and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Trans-Jordan, which became just Jordan, is the homeland of Palestinian Arabs.
==
About 1/3 of the population is descended from the pre-1947 population. About half is descended from refugee flow in 1947-49 and 1967. The remainder consists of migrants who have arrived since, often starting out as seasonal labor. The problem with the West Bank and Gaza is that the people who lived there who had skills and constructive objects migrated elsewhere.
advocacy for non-reciprocal “free trade,” which is actually a unilateral surrender to foreign mercantilism
Always a garbage take. Mercantilist countries are taking poison, and we should take poison too, that’ll show them…
Foreign mercantilism subsidizes our consumption by ripping off their own people. There are any number of other goods and services that America can produce, or can produce better, or produce cheaper and as long as there are human needs going unsatisfied this will be true. Ripping off our own people to make it “fair” only benefits a few of us at the expense of the others.
There may sometimes be a moral case against free trade–for example, not buying the products of slave labor–and there may sometimes be a security case–not buying all of our tanks from our enemies–and there may sometimes be a public health case, like not importing beef from countries rife with mad cow–but there is never an economic case.
You can only fake an economic case by focusing only on the interests of specific producers while ignoring consumers and the other producers who need these goods and services as inputs.
I’m totally fine with Trump using tariffs to negotiate with other countries, that’s not a fake economic case against free trade. I’m totally fine with across-the-board tariffs for revenue, which is again not a fake economic case against free trade. I’m totally fine with restricting foreign labor from entering our borders because people are not widgets and it’s not a fake economic case against free trade.
I just insist we do these things with our eyes open and not pretend we’re somehow making a shrewd economic calculation whereby the whole country profits. It’s okay to value other things higher than money, and the truth ought to be one of those things.
Choice is one of the key issues in the culture war right now millions of children are being lost to leftist indoctrination by the teachers union. One of the best initiatives of the administration is expanding school choice. See this article
White House Roundtable To Highlight School Choice With Top GOP Govs
“President Donald Trump wants parents throughout the nation to be empowered to direct their children’s education.”
The White House will host a Friday roundtable on school choice with top Republican governors amid sweeping victories on the issue across the country, The Daily Wire has learned.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who spearheaded a major victory for school choice in her state after taking office, will moderate the National School Choice Week Roundtable at noon on Friday, according to a White House official. Also at the table will be Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, where the legislature just passed a universal school choice bill, and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Texas, where school choice legislation is also expected to pass.“
The Texas story is interesting. Their school choice legislation was killed by rino Republicans and Democrats in the state assembly. Texas governor Greg Abbott primaried the opponents and most of them lost. The former assembly speaker Dade Phelan escaped by the skin of his teeth and lost the speakership in the current session. Texas politics are unpredictable so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes this year.
Representative Thomas Massie from Kentucky has reintroduced H.R. 899, legislation aiming to terminate the U.S. Department of Education by December 31, 2026. This one-sentence bill proposes a major shift in educational governance, advocating for the return of power to teachers and parents.
Thanks to the 21st century ubiquitous internet technology, yesterday, I got to see via cheap o security camera, a rare piebald deer walking around the driveway at my Mirrormont place. $34 camera detected motion and sent alert to my watch. One of the reasons Spacex is so fast at failure analysis is their rockets are practically festooned with cameras.
The German federal election will be on February 23, 2025. Merkel is breaking tradition by campaigning to try to save her open borders legacy.
German Conservatives Fail After Merkel Joins Virtue-Signaling Outcry Over AfD-Backed Immigration Crackdown Bill
>German mainstream politicians and media have presented that the real ‘threat’ the country is facing is *not* brutal terror rampages and attacks like those recently seen in Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg (both perpetrated by asylum-seeking migrants), but the fact that Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has been polling [better than ever before] and having serious national influence as Friedrich Merz – Merkel’s successor as leader of the country’s conservatives – seeks to push through tighter immigration controls.
I’ve been following the saga of the vegan transexual death cult over at theothermccain.com. There are no words. The whole thing reads like a cluster B hurricane.
TV’s, autos, phones, smart homes, computers, routers, credit & bank cards, browsers, OSes, software, satellites, etcetera etcetera etcetera collect data. Heck, have heard that plugging you computer into an electric outlet opens up that computer to hacking and security issues.
What data could DeepSeek be getting that other AIs don’t get? They got my give-away email addy that most everyone wants – and a password for it. DeepSeek was under 24 hour attacks for awhile, so it took time before I finally got to register. Yes, it is more than just competitive with other AIs, and many worry about that.
Our own Govt collects more DATA on Americans than China could ever get…if you’re not paying cash for your groceries, then DATA on you is probably being collected there also. Geez – it’s 2025…
It constitutes about 75% of the original British Mandate area established after WWI and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
==
It does not. The Transjordan was turned over to the Hashemite family in 1920. The same year, British assembled three Ottoman subprefectures (Acre, Nablus, Jerusalem) and made some adjustment to their exterior boundaries and called the assemblage the ‘Mandate of Palestine’. The populations were significantly different and recognized as such as the time.
A woman introduced me to that poem … with great glee. I swear.
https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-12_afd-grundsatzprogramm-englisch_web.pdf
==
This is the AfD platform. It’s quite verbose at 96 pages. I doubt you could find a sentence in it which suggests that the party is antagonistic to constitutional government. So, members of the German establishment have decided to play let’s pretend and are seeking to petition one of the country’s appellate courts to dissolve AfD by judicial decree. The last occasion this was done was in 1956 to the Communist Party, which actually was hostile to constitutional government and was a cat’s paw of the Soviet Union to boot. The idea has yet to assemble a critical mass of support in the federal legislature, but does have a three-digit population of sponsors.
==
The mendacity of the whole exercise is disgusting (but a signature of this age).
==
Their counterparts in France have filed sketchy charges of embezzlement against Marine Le Pen in an effort to keep her off the ballot in 2017.
@Unwillin’ Barkis: I love your user name and I award you +10 Internets.
its shorthand as with the three vilayets that composed Mesopotamia, certainly Abu ammar, aka Arafat, thought that notion when he staged the revolt that came to become Black September,
the Hashemites got the consolation prize, after losing out of Syria, of course we know the convoluted circumstances, that led to the Assad dynasty, also some ill-considered coup that Copeland of the CIA, was involved with,
What would please me would be for federal grants to local governments to be limited to payment of property taxes on federal real estate, an indemnity program for local governments who face capital expenditures due to new federal regulations, and disaster relief. You could have a similar set of grants for the territorial governments (bar Puerto Rico). Grants to state governments would be limited to one to finance Medicaid, one to finance unemployment compensation, one to finance a residue of the federal highway program, and an unrestricted formulaic revenue sharing grant. The territorial governments might be eligible for the 1st, 2d, 3d and 5th of these and the Indian reservations the 5th of these. Otherwise nada. The revenue sharing grant might amount to ~2.3% of gross domestic product.
==
As for the Department of Education, you could send the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the statistical collection function to the Department of Labor, send the consumer protection function to the Federal Trade Commission, send the student grant and loan functions (along with the extant loan portfolio) to a temporary authority to wind down and liquidate, and end all other functions. It’s a small, but malignant department and should disappear.
==
Higher education gets masses of grant money, as do miscellaneous philanthropies and commercial companies. Let’s aim for $0 to these people and dissolution of agencies which do little else. (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, &c).
First, kudos to Maher for being open-minded enough to go with the flow when Gaetz turns out to be more intelligent and more open minded then Maher (and I) anticipated.
Second, it’s interesting to see how different Gaetz is than his depictions in the press, even favorable, right leaning press. Gaetz’ friendships with Ilhan Omar and AOC would never be guessed based on the portrayals of all three in the media.
Third, it is yet another example of just how dishonest our media are; scripting inaccurate, even false, narratives to boost their ratings, no matter the impact to the American public.
This might have been her best effort. Neo has yet to offer her remarks.
== https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS4iLnhi5oI
==
Not to be confused with the Burt Bacharach / Dusty Springfield song of the same name, which is sublime.
==
Art Deco @3:35pm,
I’m neither intelligent enough nor informed enough to have opinions on the first paragraph of your comment, but I fully support the final two; Hear! Hear!
Here he is, in a interview our today, confirming that UFOs, particularly egg shaped UFOs–some of which he has “heard about,” “is aware of” or, perhaps, has personally seen–often have symbols–some form of writing on them, pictures of which he has apparently seen, studied, and tried to puzzle out. *
Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration has triggered a wave of mass self-deportation. Through my connections to Brazil, I’ve observed this firsthand among Brazilian illegal immigrants. While the official focus is on criminals, many non-violent immigrants with prior deportation orders have also been caught up in enforcement efforts, creating widespread fear.
One notable incident reportedly took place at a Massachusetts supermarket, where ICE conducted a surprise raid, detaining and “disappearing” around 20 people. This has sparked panic, with some Brazilian illegal immigrants posting videos on Instagram, afraid to leave their homes for fear of being detained. Others are hurriedly leaving with the money and posessions they’ve accumulated during their time in the u.s.
Many are reacting with outrage, realizing that the supposed “right” to live in a country illegally without formally integrating was always a myth.
Interestingly, both the Brazilian right and left are disparaging those being deported, each assuming the migrants belong to the other political camp. The left, which sees itself as Brazil’s educated elite, views these mostly blue-collar immigrants as right-wingers—hypocrites who champion national pride and sovereignty while disregarding U.S. sovereignty by hopping the border. Meanwhile, the right believes many are “esquerdistas” or “petistas”—leftists who voted for the very policies that laid the foundation for Brazil’s current economic woes, only to flee to the U.S. when conditions predictably worsened. (“Petistas” is a nickname for supporters of Lula’s Partido dos Trabalhadores, or Workers’ Party.)
Contrary to what you might think, Miami does not have the highest concentration of Brazilian immigrants in the U.S.—that distinction belongs to Framingham Massachussets.
CNN Brasil and other media outlets are omitting to their viewers that the large majority of people who are being expelled had recieved and ignored prior deportation orders.
I note the report, just out, that President Trump has ordered that each one of the 50 “former intelligence officials” who signed on to the declaration that Hunter Biden’s laptop did not contain evidence of Biden’s criminal conduct but was, instead, part of a “Russian disinformation campaign,” are to be barred from entering any “secure Federal building”.
This, coming on top of Trump’s earlier stripping these officials of their security clearances.
According to what I understand, these former intelligence officials usually trade on their security clearance and their contacts to land all sorts of very high paying positions after they leave Federal service.
Take away their clearances and, I’d imagine, that they become much less attractive candidates for these jobs.
.
Niketas Choniates on January 31, 2025 at 12:41 pm:
“It’s okay to value other things higher than money, and the truth ought to be one of those things.” YES! + + + See Ode to a Grecian Urn.
advocacy for non-reciprocal “free trade,” which is actually a unilateral surrender to foreign mercantilism “Always a garbage take. Mercantilist countries are taking poison, and we should take poison too, that’ll show them…” – Niketas C.
That was never part of the argument Buck Throkmorton was making in the Ace’s piece Barry linked to.
Never mentioned in the non-reciprocal free traders holy grail of cheap stuff was the hollowing of American manufacturing jobs during those pivotal years in the 90’s- 2000’s. Never a mention as the free traders extolled the virtues of unbridled free trade– most of which occurred with those mercantilist countries. He wasn’t arguing we should reciprocate with our own mercantilist policies. It’s not even a distortion of his argument.
He quotes an article by David Haransyi that rails against the kind of reciprocal free trade Trump envisions:
Now, I realize that some of the dead-eyed partisan zombies in the GOP will just repeat whatever Trump says, but this is idiocy. For one thing, tariffs are literally a tax, as they are paid by U.S. corporations and consumers. Secondly, the difference between the price of goods today and the price added by a tariff is called “tax incidence” or “the let’s screw consumers surcharge.” Sooner or later, consumers pay every tax.
However, Trump is right about one thing: Trade isn’t fair. Americans should pray it never gets fair. I’m sure the billions of people in developing nations who work tedious menial labor jobs probably don’t find it “fair” that Americans use the savings found in trade to help build unprecedented wealth.
Trade allows average working-class Americans to buy all kinds of things they could not otherwise afford because of trade. Forcing working-class Americans to make things foreigners or machines can make cheaper only undermines the creation of better jobs for them and their children.
The “unprecedented wealth” Haranasyi is referring to isn’t the blue collar working class but the investor class and they have no intention of sharing. And “forcing working class Americans to make things…undermines creation of better jobs…” is just the type of bunk the non-reciprocal free traders make. This better jobs never seem to materialize in sufficient quantity to save the American dream.
Trump’s bottom line is bringing back manufacturing jobs whether by the carrot of even lower corporate tax rates or the stick of tariffs. Either way the American worker benefits.
“President Trump signs a batch of Executive Orders and takes questions from the assembled press pool in the Oval Office.”
RE: A UFO whistle blower with “first hand experience”
Skeptics always say, well, you only have anecdotes, second hand information, not anyone with first hand experience.
According to what he says–backed up by the testimony of a number of other military personnel who served with him– Jake Barber has such “first hand experience,” and a video as well.*
Moreover, due to his exposure to what is apparently some sort of radiation emitted by the presumably NHI technology he was flying from place to place, he now has a whole slew of physical ailments, which may end up shortening his life.**
President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration has already had “very serious” discussions with Russia about its war in Ukraine and that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin could soon take “significant” action toward ending the grinding conflict.
No concern for Ukraine’s position or input in such backroom discussions?!
Trump since returning to office has criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he should have made a deal with Putin to avoid the conflict.
‘The rape victim should’ve made a deal with the Rapist’ according to Trump’s thinking. Like rape victim should’ve told the Rapist not to hurt her, and if he agreed that she would take him back to her apartment and he could rape her there in comfort.
What was once the world’s largest solar power plant of its type appears headed for closure just 11 years after opening, under pressure from cheaper green energy sources. Meanwhile, environmentalists continue to blame the Mojave Desert plant for killing thousands of birds and tortoises.
Brian E,
Well stated. It was I, who posed that link to Buck’s piece. Even if people refuse to recognize non-economic impacts of unfettered “free” trade, the most naive examiner still must recognize that no other country ignores its own, best interests and the interests of its citizens. No other country would allow its advantages in inventions like pharmaceuticals or microchips to move completely offshore. Japan’s Keiritsu, China’s communist party, the EU and its trade manipulation, Russia…
By the age of 7 we all figure this out playing the board game, Monopoly. The other people at the table are trying to dominate the board.
Our trade policies, since around the late ’60s, have turned Americans into the world’s Eloi. We can do better and encouraging our self preservation and human thriving among ourselves and neighbors is a great place to start.
Rufus T. Firefly, sorry I was too lazy to scroll up and see who had originally posted the link.
By the way, Duck Soup was always my favorite movie. So much insane absurdity.
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Like, a hundred yr ago
Yeah, and Ditto on the ‘Like, a hundred yr ago‘ – !?!
******************
I’ve had an incredibly fun-fill, exciting, and adventurous life – gourging my pre-humble self on ‘the sweet and sour fruits of the tree of life’ mentioned in the Mundaka Upanishad. Hence, I have never paid much attention to what has happened ‘n gone on in the Middle East…heck, don’t even ask me about the Bosnian War. I remember something about the hero Hillary Clinton’s super special adventure there or in the area, lots of bombing, and some great movies. This shocked me this morning:
“Jordan IS Palestine” – !?!
Am not even going to quote any of it since I just dunno…
The time seemed to be slow prior to 1/20 and then post 1/20 just went into hyper-drive.
A new video just popped up on the web that shows different angles of the collision.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/exclusive-cnn-obtains-videos-showing-new-angles-of-dc-plane-crash/vi-AA1yb3zZ?ocid=socialshare&cvid=018e4ecc3f0946b3b732179166ba54d0&ei=6
Buck Throckmorton at ace of spades wrote a very good post on free trade today: https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=413480
Far too many Americans, especially Libertarians, fall into the trap of purely looking at the bottom line on free trade. There is more to a nation and a culture than its economy. What about the well being of its citizens? The number and type of material possessions one has is not correlative with one’s mental and physical health. This is painfully evident in the United States today, especially to those of us who grew up in decades where Americans had less material wealth.
Humans need a sense of purpose and a sense they are contributing to a community, the more local the better.
Karmi, the history cited in your linked Breitbart article is correct. Trans-Jordan, which became just Jordan, is the homeland of Palestinian Arabs. It constitutes about 75% of the original British Mandate area established after WWI and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Trans-Jordan, which became just Jordan, is the homeland of Palestinian Arabs.
==
About 1/3 of the population is descended from the pre-1947 population. About half is descended from refugee flow in 1947-49 and 1967. The remainder consists of migrants who have arrived since, often starting out as seasonal labor. The problem with the West Bank and Gaza is that the people who lived there who had skills and constructive objects migrated elsewhere.
advocacy for non-reciprocal “free trade,” which is actually a unilateral surrender to foreign mercantilism
Always a garbage take. Mercantilist countries are taking poison, and we should take poison too, that’ll show them…
Foreign mercantilism subsidizes our consumption by ripping off their own people. There are any number of other goods and services that America can produce, or can produce better, or produce cheaper and as long as there are human needs going unsatisfied this will be true. Ripping off our own people to make it “fair” only benefits a few of us at the expense of the others.
There may sometimes be a moral case against free trade–for example, not buying the products of slave labor–and there may sometimes be a security case–not buying all of our tanks from our enemies–and there may sometimes be a public health case, like not importing beef from countries rife with mad cow–but there is never an economic case.
You can only fake an economic case by focusing only on the interests of specific producers while ignoring consumers and the other producers who need these goods and services as inputs.
I’m totally fine with Trump using tariffs to negotiate with other countries, that’s not a fake economic case against free trade. I’m totally fine with across-the-board tariffs for revenue, which is again not a fake economic case against free trade. I’m totally fine with restricting foreign labor from entering our borders because people are not widgets and it’s not a fake economic case against free trade.
I just insist we do these things with our eyes open and not pretend we’re somehow making a shrewd economic calculation whereby the whole country profits. It’s okay to value other things higher than money, and the truth ought to be one of those things.
Choice is one of the key issues in the culture war right now millions of children are being lost to leftist indoctrination by the teachers union. One of the best initiatives of the administration is expanding school choice. See this article
White House Roundtable To Highlight School Choice With Top GOP Govs
“President Donald Trump wants parents throughout the nation to be empowered to direct their children’s education.”
The White House will host a Friday roundtable on school choice with top Republican governors amid sweeping victories on the issue across the country, The Daily Wire has learned.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who spearheaded a major victory for school choice in her state after taking office, will moderate the National School Choice Week Roundtable at noon on Friday, according to a White House official. Also at the table will be Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, where the legislature just passed a universal school choice bill, and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Texas, where school choice legislation is also expected to pass.“
The Texas story is interesting. Their school choice legislation was killed by rino Republicans and Democrats in the state assembly. Texas governor Greg Abbott primaried the opponents and most of them lost. The former assembly speaker Dade Phelan escaped by the skin of his teeth and lost the speakership in the current session. Texas politics are unpredictable so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes this year.
Massie Moves to End Federal Education Department
Thanks to the 21st century ubiquitous internet technology, yesterday, I got to see via cheap o security camera, a rare piebald deer walking around the driveway at my Mirrormont place. $34 camera detected motion and sent alert to my watch. One of the reasons Spacex is so fast at failure analysis is their rockets are practically festooned with cameras.
The German federal election will be on February 23, 2025. Merkel is breaking tradition by campaigning to try to save her open borders legacy.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/merkel-joins-virtue-signaling-outcry-over-german-afd-backed-immigration-crackdown-bill
German Conservatives Fail After Merkel Joins Virtue-Signaling Outcry Over AfD-Backed Immigration Crackdown Bill
>German mainstream politicians and media have presented that the real ‘threat’ the country is facing is *not* brutal terror rampages and attacks like those recently seen in Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg (both perpetrated by asylum-seeking migrants), but the fact that Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has been polling [better than ever before] and having serious national influence as Friedrich Merz – Merkel’s successor as leader of the country’s conservatives – seeks to push through tighter immigration controls.
I’ve been following the saga of the vegan transexual death cult over at theothermccain.com. There are no words. The whole thing reads like a cluster B hurricane.
China’s DeepSeek AI Platform Raises Concerns over Data Privacy and National Security
TV’s, autos, phones, smart homes, computers, routers, credit & bank cards, browsers, OSes, software, satellites, etcetera etcetera etcetera collect data. Heck, have heard that plugging you computer into an electric outlet opens up that computer to hacking and security issues.
What data could DeepSeek be getting that other AIs don’t get? They got my give-away email addy that most everyone wants – and a password for it. DeepSeek was under 24 hour attacks for awhile, so it took time before I finally got to register. Yes, it is more than just competitive with other AIs, and many worry about that.
Our own Govt collects more DATA on Americans than China could ever get…if you’re not paying cash for your groceries, then DATA on you is probably being collected there also. Geez – it’s 2025…
It constitutes about 75% of the original British Mandate area established after WWI and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
==
It does not. The Transjordan was turned over to the Hashemite family in 1920. The same year, British assembled three Ottoman subprefectures (Acre, Nablus, Jerusalem) and made some adjustment to their exterior boundaries and called the assemblage the ‘Mandate of Palestine’. The populations were significantly different and recognized as such as the time.
Remember when 2025 was brand new?
–neo
And consequently a little stiff?
–e.e. cummings, “she being Brand… (XIX)”
https://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/she-being-brand-xix/
A woman introduced me to that poem … with great glee. I swear.
https://www.afd.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-04-12_afd-grundsatzprogramm-englisch_web.pdf
==
This is the AfD platform. It’s quite verbose at 96 pages. I doubt you could find a sentence in it which suggests that the party is antagonistic to constitutional government. So, members of the German establishment have decided to play let’s pretend and are seeking to petition one of the country’s appellate courts to dissolve AfD by judicial decree. The last occasion this was done was in 1956 to the Communist Party, which actually was hostile to constitutional government and was a cat’s paw of the Soviet Union to boot. The idea has yet to assemble a critical mass of support in the federal legislature, but does have a three-digit population of sponsors.
==
The mendacity of the whole exercise is disgusting (but a signature of this age).
==
Their counterparts in France have filed sketchy charges of embezzlement against Marine Le Pen in an effort to keep her off the ballot in 2017.
@Unwillin’ Barkis: I love your user name and I award you +10 Internets.
its shorthand as with the three vilayets that composed Mesopotamia, certainly Abu ammar, aka Arafat, thought that notion when he staged the revolt that came to become Black September,
the Hashemites got the consolation prize, after losing out of Syria, of course we know the convoluted circumstances, that led to the Assad dynasty, also some ill-considered coup that Copeland of the CIA, was involved with,
What would please me would be for federal grants to local governments to be limited to payment of property taxes on federal real estate, an indemnity program for local governments who face capital expenditures due to new federal regulations, and disaster relief. You could have a similar set of grants for the territorial governments (bar Puerto Rico). Grants to state governments would be limited to one to finance Medicaid, one to finance unemployment compensation, one to finance a residue of the federal highway program, and an unrestricted formulaic revenue sharing grant. The territorial governments might be eligible for the 1st, 2d, 3d and 5th of these and the Indian reservations the 5th of these. Otherwise nada. The revenue sharing grant might amount to ~2.3% of gross domestic product.
==
As for the Department of Education, you could send the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the statistical collection function to the Department of Labor, send the consumer protection function to the Federal Trade Commission, send the student grant and loan functions (along with the extant loan portfolio) to a temporary authority to wind down and liquidate, and end all other functions. It’s a small, but malignant department and should disappear.
==
Higher education gets masses of grant money, as do miscellaneous philanthropies and commercial companies. Let’s aim for $0 to these people and dissolution of agencies which do little else. (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, &c).
I found this Bill Maher interview of Matt Gaetz interesting: https://youtu.be/McTZCb4WeY4?si=Rztv6a46i6YCJ5hf
First, kudos to Maher for being open-minded enough to go with the flow when Gaetz turns out to be more intelligent and more open minded then Maher (and I) anticipated.
Second, it’s interesting to see how different Gaetz is than his depictions in the press, even favorable, right leaning press. Gaetz’ friendships with Ilhan Omar and AOC would never be guessed based on the portrayals of all three in the media.
Third, it is yet another example of just how dishonest our media are; scripting inaccurate, even false, narratives to boost their ratings, no matter the impact to the American public.
This might have been her best effort. Neo has yet to offer her remarks.
==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS4iLnhi5oI
==
Not to be confused with the Burt Bacharach / Dusty Springfield song of the same name, which is sublime.
==
Art Deco @3:35pm,
I’m neither intelligent enough nor informed enough to have opinions on the first paragraph of your comment, but I fully support the final two; Hear! Hear!
Marianne Faithfull – R.I.P.
https://youtu.be/_phZZgkT1Jk?si=OmZIo12QcX9F4ynp
RE: UFOs
Lou Elizondo just keeps edging closer and closer.
Here he is, in a interview our today, confirming that UFOs, particularly egg shaped UFOs–some of which he has “heard about,” “is aware of” or, perhaps, has personally seen–often have symbols–some form of writing on them, pictures of which he has apparently seen, studied, and tried to puzzle out. *
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGUb1JKxBDo , starting at hour 1.
Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration has triggered a wave of mass self-deportation. Through my connections to Brazil, I’ve observed this firsthand among Brazilian illegal immigrants. While the official focus is on criminals, many non-violent immigrants with prior deportation orders have also been caught up in enforcement efforts, creating widespread fear.
One notable incident reportedly took place at a Massachusetts supermarket, where ICE conducted a surprise raid, detaining and “disappearing” around 20 people. This has sparked panic, with some Brazilian illegal immigrants posting videos on Instagram, afraid to leave their homes for fear of being detained. Others are hurriedly leaving with the money and posessions they’ve accumulated during their time in the u.s.
Many are reacting with outrage, realizing that the supposed “right” to live in a country illegally without formally integrating was always a myth.
Interestingly, both the Brazilian right and left are disparaging those being deported, each assuming the migrants belong to the other political camp. The left, which sees itself as Brazil’s educated elite, views these mostly blue-collar immigrants as right-wingers—hypocrites who champion national pride and sovereignty while disregarding U.S. sovereignty by hopping the border. Meanwhile, the right believes many are “esquerdistas” or “petistas”—leftists who voted for the very policies that laid the foundation for Brazil’s current economic woes, only to flee to the U.S. when conditions predictably worsened. (“Petistas” is a nickname for supporters of Lula’s Partido dos Trabalhadores, or Workers’ Party.)
Contrary to what you might think, Miami does not have the highest concentration of Brazilian immigrants in the U.S.—that distinction belongs to Framingham Massachussets.
CNN Brasil and other media outlets are omitting to their viewers that the large majority of people who are being expelled had recieved and ignored prior deportation orders.
I note the report, just out, that President Trump has ordered that each one of the 50 “former intelligence officials” who signed on to the declaration that Hunter Biden’s laptop did not contain evidence of Biden’s criminal conduct but was, instead, part of a “Russian disinformation campaign,” are to be barred from entering any “secure Federal building”.
This, coming on top of Trump’s earlier stripping these officials of their security clearances.
According to what I understand, these former intelligence officials usually trade on their security clearance and their contacts to land all sorts of very high paying positions after they leave Federal service.
Take away their clearances and, I’d imagine, that they become much less attractive candidates for these jobs.
.
* See https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-trump-bans-intel-officials-who-pushed-russian-disinfo-hoax-from-federal-buildings
Niketas Choniates on January 31, 2025 at 12:41 pm:
“It’s okay to value other things higher than money, and the truth ought to be one of those things.” YES! + + + See Ode to a Grecian Urn.
advocacy for non-reciprocal “free trade,” which is actually a unilateral surrender to foreign mercantilism
“Always a garbage take. Mercantilist countries are taking poison, and we should take poison too, that’ll show them…” – Niketas C.
That was never part of the argument Buck Throkmorton was making in the Ace’s piece Barry linked to.
Never mentioned in the non-reciprocal free traders holy grail of cheap stuff was the hollowing of American manufacturing jobs during those pivotal years in the 90’s- 2000’s. Never a mention as the free traders extolled the virtues of unbridled free trade– most of which occurred with those mercantilist countries. He wasn’t arguing we should reciprocate with our own mercantilist policies. It’s not even a distortion of his argument.
He quotes an article by David Haransyi that rails against the kind of reciprocal free trade Trump envisions:
The “unprecedented wealth” Haranasyi is referring to isn’t the blue collar working class but the investor class and they have no intention of sharing. And “forcing working class Americans to make things…undermines creation of better jobs…” is just the type of bunk the non-reciprocal free traders make. This better jobs never seem to materialize in sufficient quantity to save the American dream.
Trump’s bottom line is bringing back manufacturing jobs whether by the carrot of even lower corporate tax rates or the stick of tariffs. Either way the American worker benefits.
“President Trump signs a batch of Executive Orders and takes questions from the assembled press pool in the Oval Office.”
I enjoyed this 30 minute video. The press respectfully asks questions and President Trump thoughtfully, calmly and respectfully answers them. What a concept!
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/01/31/president-trump-signs-executive-orders-and-delivers-remarks-to-media-from-oval-office/#more-268739
RE: A UFO whistle blower with “first hand experience”
Skeptics always say, well, you only have anecdotes, second hand information, not anyone with first hand experience.
According to what he says–backed up by the testimony of a number of other military personnel who served with him– Jake Barber has such “first hand experience,” and a video as well.*
Moreover, due to his exposure to what is apparently some sort of radiation emitted by the presumably NHI technology he was flying from place to place, he now has a whole slew of physical ailments, which may end up shortening his life.**
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t37-SKj4rtY&t=3310s
and see also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnnpyNuPdXs
** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCDVIGxn48M
1) Trump Pentagon Boots NBC, NYT, NPR, Politico to Make Room for NYP, Breitbart News, OANN, HuffPost
2) Trump says he and Putin could do something ‘significant’ toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine – have cut Trump lots of slack over his cowardly fear of Putin ‘n Russia, and his anger at Zelenskyy ‘n Ukraine for not giving him Biden’s head on a platter.
No concern for Ukraine’s position or input in such backroom discussions?!
‘The rape victim should’ve made a deal with the Rapist’ according to Trump’s thinking. Like rape victim should’ve told the Rapist not to hurt her, and if he agreed that she would take him back to her apartment and he could rape her there in comfort.
Putin ‘n Trump sounding like two peas in a pod…
3) 11 years after a celebrated opening, massive solar plant faces a bleak future in the Mojave Desert
Brian E,
Well stated. It was I, who posed that link to Buck’s piece. Even if people refuse to recognize non-economic impacts of unfettered “free” trade, the most naive examiner still must recognize that no other country ignores its own, best interests and the interests of its citizens. No other country would allow its advantages in inventions like pharmaceuticals or microchips to move completely offshore. Japan’s Keiritsu, China’s communist party, the EU and its trade manipulation, Russia…
By the age of 7 we all figure this out playing the board game, Monopoly. The other people at the table are trying to dominate the board.
Our trade policies, since around the late ’60s, have turned Americans into the world’s Eloi. We can do better and encouraging our self preservation and human thriving among ourselves and neighbors is a great place to start.
Rufus T. Firefly, sorry I was too lazy to scroll up and see who had originally posted the link.
By the way, Duck Soup was always my favorite movie. So much insane absurdity.