#and I can explain why helping Ukraine is important for dealing with China by showing imperialism has consequences

[medicinemane]

You know... fuck right off

For someone who's such a freethinker you sure fucking like following whatever narrative your figureheads set for you

Just cause it's antiestablishment doesn't mean you aren't still just blindly following

[mariacallous]

There has been plenty of discussion in Western media about why Russians are not protesting President Vladimir Putin’s regime and the war against Ukraine, whether it’s due to the economy, genuine enthusiasm for the war, or fear. One thing that most experts agree on is that Russia has a severe political apathy problem. That’s true—but it’s also far more pervasive than even Russianists often realize.

This problem is not new; it’s a continuation of Soviet-era cultural norms that have been carefully amplified and curated by Putin’s state propaganda. Russian experts themselves were once able to point out the problem—including Andrey I. Kolesnikov (a member of the “Kremlin pool” of journalists as the deputy CEO of the influential Kommersant newspaper and the editor in chief of Russky Pioner magazine) in an RIA news article from 2006, or academic Marina Podhomutinkova in a 2011 paper.

As statistics on the increasingly low number of people who get involved in politics show, the situation has only gotten worse over time. Apathy, tinged with fear, is the Russian norm. That explains some of the strangeness of public opinion data. Recent polls by the Moscow-based Levada Center show that support for war among the general population remains high, fluctuating around the 75 percent mark. At the same time, 71 percent of respondents would also approve of immediate peace talks. Although part of this can be attributed to the “preference falsification” that researchers find is common in authoritarian states, the apathy that Putin has cultivated goes far deeper than that.

On a personal level, if you ask the average Russian what they actually want from the war or expect to achieve if they win, then the answer is a resounding “nothing.” I’ve asked this question to many Russians—including relatives, friends, and business acquaintances. I’ve also spent a considerable amount of time on various anonymous Russian imageboards and Telegram channels, asking about people’s opinions in situations where anonymity is guaranteed. The result stays the same—the average Russian person just doesn’t care.

As one interviewee told me, “This is a stupid question. I’ve never thought about politics in my life—that’s the smart thing to do. Let politicians do their politics; that’s not for me. Sooner or later, this will be over. Putin will probably figure something out with China and [U.S. President Joe] Biden. I just hope that they don’t start throwing nukes around, but that’s all.”

Unsurprisingly, my interlocutors almost universally asked for anonymity.

Lev Gudkov, the director of the Levada Center, stated a similar conclusion in an interview with Radio Liberty in January this year: “This is indifference and being overwhelmed by life, poverty, and lack of rights, and pacifist beliefs, or simply well-being combined with the position ‘politics does not interest me.’”

As Gudkov noted, in some ways, this helps Putin: Active, ideological pro-war supporters, known as turbopatriots, have certain demands that Moscow has largely failed to fulfill. Look at the imprisoned ultranationalist Igor Girkin, who turned on Putin after the war against Ukraine went sour.

Maxim Katz, a Russian opposition politician-turned journalist-responded when I asked him this question during a livestream : “What an American, very Western question. It’s hard for the people in the West to understand that the average Russian wants nothing from this war, he does not see the victory in any way, he completely doesn’t care. For him, this is a question that his superiors are dealing with. The most important thing for him is to ensure that this war doesn’t affect him personally in any way.”

In part, this cynicism is bred by the gap between propaganda and reality. Russian state media takes nationalism to extremes, but ordinary Russians know that this is nonsense, often using the phrase “war between the TV and the refrigerator” to talk about the discrepancies between broadcast propaganda and the reality of empty shelves or failing appliances. The elites also know that the people know. As the old Soviet saying goes, “You pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.” That mentality is in full swing here.

This charade was a mainstay of the Soviet system. Elections were faked, with 99 percent of the population always voting for the only available party list. Trade unions nominally existed, but they were directly under the control of the Communist Party, never fulfilling any real functions, and any real expression of people’s political will was nearly nonexistent. But patriotism was compulsory, especially over national holidays. This led to an increase in apathy, nihilism, and disillusionment about the Soviet government.

When Mikhail Gorbachev took power, some nonpolitical interest clubs concerning social issues were finally permitted, such as the green movement. Russia had a brief spurt of real politics, freedom of speech, and open discussion—one that also coincided with economic chaos and a deep sense of disillusionment as Russia’s place in the world plummeted in the 1990s. The combination of all of these factors led to many people losing faith in democracy and liberal ideas, an increase of nostalgia toward the Soviet era, and a neglect of politics in general.

There’s a common Soviet era saying that remains popular among Russian speakers: “The folks up there see better.” What it means is that if you’re not one of the members of the political elite, then you should not be questioning their decisions, because they probably know better than you do—so don’t be curious, just do what you’re told. It’s related to another famous phrase—“I’m not an expert in this matter, but…”—that’s reached a meme status on the Russian speaking internet. Sometimes it’s joking, but often it’s used seriously. The idea that only an authorized few should get to have an opinion is embedded deep into the public mentality.

Another familiar trope that serves political apathy is the idea of “tough Russians.” Putin loves to play on that, portraying himself as a strongman who embodies the traditional Russian virtues of virility and masculinity. He makes macho but hollow boasts, such as his response from 2018 to a question about the potential of foreign nuclear threats against Russia: “We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they will just drop dead.”

But for ordinary people, there’s the commonly used term terpila (“the one who endures” or “endurer” in English). It refers to someone who just suffers through everything that life throws at them, without ever doing anything about it. It’s a negative term—but it describes many Russians.

These are the ideals that are being actively reinforced in Russia today as Putin doubles down on Soviet nostalgia. People are shown that they have a strong, powerful leader, who will bring greatness to the country. That is a promise of stability and prosperity, but because of Russia’s Soviet past, it is also a reminder that you shouldn’t bother with politics or civic engagement, and that only a narrow group of specialists are ever allowed to have an opinion in any given matter. If there are any problems, you should endure them as a so-called real Russian and not have any ideas of change.

What does this mean for the war? Well, it’s been decided by the higher-ups, so it’s not any of your business.

Roughly 20 million Ukrainians have relatives in Russia. One-third of Ukraine’s population stated in a 2011 survey that they have friends there as well. So, when Russians answer polling questions about their support for the war, they say “yes”—because that’s a political issue, and they have enough problems to deal with. At the same time, when they get asked about whether they would support immediate peace talks, they respond “yes” again, because the killing of Ukrainians just seems odd to the vast majority of people—even if they’ve bought into Putin’s propaganda about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government supposedly being full of Satanists and neo-Nazis.

As one of my own distant relatives told me on the phone, “What do you mean, want from the war? How can you even want something from a war? I want the war to end, and I think that every reasonable person has the same opinion!” Her husband added, “We’re just not that political, as a people, you know. Nobody thought this was possible, but now … now we just want this to end, to return to how things were.”

The bloodiness of this war seems to play little role in the average Russian person’s political activity. Casualties in this conflict are very high—current estimates of those killed or wounded in the conflict put the figure at more than 500,000 people, much higher than the casualties suffered during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, where approximately 15,000 USSR soldiers were lost, with approximately 35,000 more wounded. The difference lies in who is getting mobilized.

During the Afghanistan war, the Soviet Union sent regular conscripts to fight, as per the mandatory service and zinc coffins were seen in cities all over the USSR. In the Ukrainian war, Putin is careful to preserve the illusion of normalcy for the citizens of Moscow and St. Petersburg—it’s the ethnic minorities and convicts that do most of the fighting, as to not provoke the Russian people into caring too much. Especially since he has another political issue with this war that he needs to be careful about.

Putin has described Ukrainians as belonging to the Russian civilization—misled by the West, yes, but brothers nonetheless. My impression from talking to Russians is that at this point, they’ll support whatever Putin declares needs supporting, whatever scheme he has going on, as long as this confusing nightmare ends faster. Then everyone, ideally, could go back to business as usual, pretending that this war never even happened.

There is a silver lining to this though. Putin is 71 and has been in power for nearly 25 years. Anyone who could have given him an honest opinion, much less some constructive criticism, has long been forced into retirement, pushed into exile, imprisoned, or outright killed. He’s visibly lost touch with reality—according to a recently defected Kremlin insider, Putin does not use a smartphone, nor does he know how to use a computer beyond the very basics of functions. He does not use the internet. A video where he, supposedly, is shown logging in to vote via Russia’s online voting platform in the farcical so-called presidential election in March was laughable, as it’s obvious that Putin has no idea what he’s doing.

But the cynicism and apathy of the older generation may not extend to the younger one. The Kremlin has no clue about what to do with the younger generation, who mainly watch YouTube and listen to podcasts. Among this category of Russians aged 25 to 39, the Levada Center’s April polls showed only 23 percent support for the war. Russia’s best attempt at propaganda on YouTube was its failed RuTube project, where various popular Russian content creators were paid large amounts of money—more than they were making via their channels on YouTube—to move all of their content to RuTube and occasionally include pro-Kremlin content among whatever they were posting normally.

As a result, most of the pro-Putin YouTube channels have lost their audience, and the Russian government is wasting money paying for content that nobody watches. It’s also about to launch a state-approved version of Wikipedia, which will steal articles from the original Russian-language wiki and then automatically censor them. The project is equally likely to crash and burn.

Russians won’t be overthrowing their regime anytime soon. But if the war becomes a more personal problem, attitudes could shift fast. This is important, because people reevaluate their risks on a daily basis—when the regime is strong, they would rather lay low and stay on the safer side. But as soon as cracks start to appear, the very same people can suddenly turn fiercely.

Western policymakers should take this into account. Russian people are absolutely fine with the war ending—as long as there’s a plan for them, and not a repeat of the humiliations of the 1990s.

[foreverlogical]

President Donald Trump fumed in his remarks to the press last week: “What they’ve done is a disgrace, and I hope a big price is going to be paid. A big price should be paid. There’s never been anything like this in the history of our country...”Trump’s fury wasn’t directed at Russia’s interference in the U.S. elections, but instead at the Obama administration’s efforts to investigate the Kremlin’s malign operations. And his account of a phone call earlier in the day with Russian President Vladimir Putin suggests—as the Kremlin quickly inferred—that as Trump confidently wraps up the “Russia hoax,” Putin can be confident Trump’s in his corner, if not in his pocket.There’s Nothing Generous About Putin’s Coronavirus Aid to US

During that phone call, as Trump told reporters, he told Putin the investigation of Russia’s interference in the U.S. elections by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller was a “Russia hoax.” And since Russia is under heavy economic U.S. sanctions for its election-meddling, such a dismissive description would seem a clear signal Trump wants that restrictive regime to come to an end. If there was no meddling and it was all part of a conspiracy by Barack Obama, why would you punish the falsely accused Putin?Trump’s remarks, coming amid a flurry of questions about COVID-19 at a press opportunity with the governor of Texas, had started with a musing about sharing ventilators with Moscow, then Trump pivoted to elaborate on a theme mentioned nowhere in the official readouts of the call by the White House or the Kremlin.“And that was a very nice call,” said Trump. “And remember this: The Russia hoax made it very hard for Russia and the United States to deal with each other. They’re a very important nation. We’re the most powerful nation; they’re a very powerful nation. Why would we not be dealing with each other?”“But the Russia hoax is—absolute, dishonest hoax,” Trump continued. “Made it very difficult for our nation and their nation to deal. And we discussed that. I said, ‘You know, it’s a very appropriate time.’  Because things are falling out now and coming in line, showing what a hoax this whole investigation was. It was a total disgrace. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a lot of things happen over the next number of weeks. This is just one piece of a very dishonest puzzle.”One of those “things” that are “falling out” is the attempted dismissal of criminal charges against Mike Flynn—Putin’s dinner companion at a gala for the Kremlin propaganda organ RT television in December 2015. Trump’s overtures sounded very good to Kremlin ears. The upending of an investigation into the Russian election interference implies the end of sanctions against the perpetrators, if Trump can work his will on Congress.While the tidbits revealed by the American president were notably absent from the White House and Kremlin readouts, which also omitted any mention at all of the said commentary about Russia’s election interference, the Kremlin did note the “satisfaction” of both presidents at the conclusion of the phone call. Exchanges between the two leaders have become, in fact, unusually frequent in 2020, and Russian analysts have taken notice. Indeed, they have offered up some extremely ambitious predictions, anticipating that the standoff between the United States and Russia eventually will play out bigly in the Kremlin’s favor.

Vitaly Mankevich, international-relations expert and the president of the Russian-Asian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, told Komsomolskaya Pravda—one of the most popular newspapers in Russia—that “the United States will abandon excessive pressure on Russia, since it does not pose an existential and ideological threat to Trump’s America (unlike the USSR during the Cold War). The White House will probably even try to pull Russia over to the U.S. side, offering investments and lifting sanctions.” Mankevich further predicted “a decrease in American activity in the Baltic states, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East.”Perhaps the tastiest bargain of all would be the anticipated handover of Ukraine to the Kremlin, in exchange for Russia’s support of the United States in its brewing conflict with China. Komsomolskaya Pravda concluded: “The United States may give Ukraine to Russia in an exchange for an alliance against China.” While Ukraine obviously is not Trump’s to give, the country is heavily dependent on the U.S. assistance for its very survival. Information revealed during the impeachment proceedings laid bare President Trump’s callous disregard toward Kyiv, combined with his overt longing to cozy up to the Kremlin.  On a larger scale, Vitaly Mankevich predicted the disintegration of NATO and the opportunity for Russia to re-establish a  hold over Eastern Europe unseen since the times of the Soviet Union. Of course, Mankevich emphasized, “this scenario is relevant only if Donald Trump is re-elected for a second term in November of 2020.”The ongoing motivation for Russia’s continued election interference explains why the English-speaking Kremlin-controlled networks have latched on to reports that aim to discredit former Vice President Joe Biden, while also presenting the U.S. democracy as “a sham,” with no one worth voting for. Destroying faith in the U.S. electoral process is one of the most important goals of the Kremlin’s anti-American propaganda. Another aim is to exacerbate the divisions in American society, but Trump is aptly accomplishing that—with or without Russia’s help. Trump’s re-election would provide a bouquet of benefits for the Kremlin and Biden’s considerably higher poll numbers are discussed with concern in the Russian state media.While the English-speaking bullhorns of the Kremlin have zeroed in on Tara Reade’s allegations against the highest-polling presidential candidate, the Russian state media back home quietly acknowledged that the timing of Reade’s disclosures clearly indicates an effort to undermine the candidacy of Biden. During his eponymous evening news show, host Vladimir Soloviev dismissively described Reade’s disclosures as a typical pre-election ploy, designed to erode Biden’s support (crude even by Kremlin standards). But that has not deterred the English-language state media from pushing the Reade accusations in hopes they’ll successfully torpedo Biden’s chances.The main incentive for the Kremlin’s ongoing support of the Trump presidency was eloquently summed up by Karen Shakhnazarov, CEO of Mosfilm Studio and a favored pundit on Russian state television: “Trump is a weak leader—and that is great for Russia. It’s also good for China.” Describing Trump as a synthesis of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin—Russian leaders of the past associated with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the weakening of Russia— Shakhnazarov expressed his hope that Trump would bring about the destruction of the United States of America, akin to what happened to the USSR.But let’s return to the matter of ventilators that segued into Trump’s musings about his phone call with Putin.“I suggested if they need—because we have a lot of ventilators—if they need ventilators, we’d love to send them some, and we will do that at the appropriate time. We’ll send them some ventilators.”Question: “Did he take you up on it? Did he say—”Trump:  “Yeah. We’ll be doing that.”On this matter, the Kremlin’s commentators were far from enthusiastic. The absurdity of buying ventilators from Russia in April, only to offer U.S. ventilators to Russia in May, laid bare the propagandistic nature of such exchanges. And there’s this: Faulty Russian ventilators of the same make and model have caused fires and killed coronavirus patients in at least two Russian hospitals to date. It is unclear whether the potentially faulty Russian ventilators are currently being utilized in American hospitals, or sitting in storage as dormant metaphors of the Kremlin’s Trojan gifts.     

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[pezski]

Book Review: Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Tim Marshall presents an interesting book showing how, in so many ways, geography is destiny, how climate, along with access to arable land, navigable rivers, and suitable coastal seaports determines the level of success a nation can achieve and indeed - along with the seas, rivers, deserts and mountains that border it - the reasons a given area will even become a nation.

This in itself should not be especially revelatory - in his wonderful Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies Jared Diamond give an extraordinarily well argued case of how these factors have shaped the history of humankind, and Marshall references this - but here the writer gives ten specific examples, focusing on recent history, current geopolitics, and the future. He is making the point that these factors seem to be something we have forgotten, that we have been blinded by the power of technology and how much it has shrunk the globe but, in fact, power - either economic or military - still relies on moving large amounts of material by land and/or sea.

He covers such things as Russia's lack of a warm-water port and single point of easy land access to Europe via the Northern European Plain and how this explains that Putin's focus on Ukraine is at least as much tactical as ideological. Why India and China have never had a major conflict, separated as they are by the greatest mountain range on Earth. Why any talk of a Latin American great economic power is premature to say the least, due to the all but insuperable terrain and, well, that it's just so damned far from the rest of world. How, once it gained control of the landmass via clever dealing/luck/genocide the United States was almost guaranteed dominance due to the terrain, climate, and positioning. (As an aside, he points out that annexing of Texas in 1836 was a close thing; how much would an opposite outcome have changed things?)

Marshall writes with clarity but, surprisingly given his pedigree as a journalist, rather drily. Perhaps this is a stylistic choice to let his assertions speak for themselves and grip the reader, which they generally do. While he mentions trade rather a lot, and food production and water availability, his focus is largely on how geography affects military movements (Russian tanks across the aforementioned Northern European Plain, Chinese warships through the Straits of Malacca, etc) and the transport of oil and gas. That this last currently tops all else for importance is difficult to argue with - the modern, and modernising, world runs on energy and fossil fuels are currently cheap and plentiful and (barring the increasingly obvious side effects of their use) incredibly efficient. Marshall seems to be implying increases in fossil fuel use - references to expansion of fields in South America, Africa, and the Arctic in particular - and not only is this depressing but his predictions barely touch on the effect of this use, and don't seem to account for the changes in climate in sea levels that they will bring.

This edition was revised in 2016, and I was constantly reminded of how some things have changed since publication. That Crimea is now part of Russia a startling but minor change. What kept leaping out were the points when discussing US influence around the world. For instance, in the sections on China and Korea & Japan, much was made of China's aggression nautical expansion and the pressure it is putting on its neighbours - throwing money at Pakistan and other places to develop friendly ports, or the threats toward South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the rest. The author regularly states that there is no percentage in countries switching allegiance despite China's best efforts while the US has their backs, and I could not help but think of Donald Trump's systematic dismantling of American diplomacy and soft power. OK, he may be out of the way in two years (or less!) but trust is easily lost and difficult to regain. When faced with both carrots and sticks from the new Asian proto-superpower and uncertainty on the reliability of the existing American one, it may not be a difficult decision. After all, to refocus and repurpose a quote from the book, "Beijing is close, and Washington is far away."

3.5 stars

[massielandnetwork]

Thriving in an Economic Bubble during Anarchy

3. The Christian Succession – Watching God at Work

When I learned of the new national holiday my initial reaction was a combination of laughter and crying. The good news is that there is one more day each year that we peasants cannot be abused by our government bureaucrat overseers because they will not be working, or water coolering, or whatever they do during normal work hours.

When one considers the fact that they enjoy almost perfect job security, excellent pay, phenomenal retirement pensions, and health care insurance superior to anyone in private industry, it becomes obvious that they really needed another national holiday. The Bad news for us peasants, we get another day we cannot go to a bank or get an answer from a bureaucrat.

Have you seen the foreign media’s reports on Biden’s trip to the G7, NATO, and meeting with Putin? No wonder Congressman Ron Jackson, former White House Physician, has asked for Biden to take a cognitive test. The foreign media has already passed judgment without a test. They also picked up on Putin apparently intimidating Biden into reneging on military support of the Ukraine. Was it quid pro quo regarding cybersecurity attacks? No more Russian bombers in US air space? Does Biden even know what he agreed to do? More important, what level of confidence do you have that Mrs. Biden knows what she is doing?

Meanwhile, God was working:

1. The high-level defector from China has been identified as Vice Minister of State Security Dong Jingwei who was in charge of counterintelligence efforts. Reportedly, Mr. Dong brought with him terabytes of files including –

a. Data about the Wuhan Virus and the Chinese projections of the impact on the USA and world. Oops, there goes the pretense of an accident.

b. How the Chinese gained access to CIA files which led to the death of the Chinese working for the CIA in China.

c. Financial records showing US businessmen and public officials who have received money from the Chinese Communist party;

d. Additional details about Hunter Biden’s pornography problems and business dealings with the CCP (and Joe’s) including the sale of American stealth technology to the Chinese via the Henniges Automotive deal and how that deal was approved (first disclosed in the report last fall by Senator Ron Johnson’s Homeland Security report and discounted by the “media”).

e. One-third of the 60,000 Chinese “students” in the USA are actually spies from the Chinese military.

f. AND MUCH MORE

g. Which is why the “intelligence community” and some others here in the USA are reportedly “scared sh**less”.

h. Reportedly the Chinese demanded that Secretary Blinken return Mr. Dong to the Chinese and Blinken replied that we did not have him because the DIA had not shared with the State Department, CIA, and FBI that the DIA had Mr. Dong.

i. It is a shame we do not have a real news media.

2. Governor Abbot declared Texas would finish building the wall on the border of Mexico and requested other governors send police to Texas to help. Governor DeSantis of Florida announced Florida would help Texas. The Governor of Arizona has activated the Arizona National Guard. It is interesting watching Republican Governors address this national crisis while the Demented Marxists (DM) do nothing. Virginia has no adult leadership which is amazingly sad.

3. Buckhead announced it is divorcing itself from Atlanta because crime has surged in response to Atlanta defunding the police. In cities that have defunded their police the serious crime rates have surged. A trend?

4. Moms are organizing and becoming more vocal and organized in their opposition to the Critical Race Theory and the LGYBQ agenda. Too many events to list. An entire generation of children are at risk because school systems are more concerned with chasing the phantom of “social justice” than with actually teaching math, science, and western history.

5. In an amazing demonstration of self-delusion, the Democrats appear to be attacking the Catholic Church on Christian values.

6. As many as 20 states have expressed interest in having an audit done of the election and have sent delegations to Arizona.

7. A great awakening is happening before our eyes. Satan is being exposed and confronted. Hallelujah.

On the economic front, last week confirmation was received that the peak of this real estate cycle was back in January or February, 2021, because The Fed’s Chairman Powell announced that they may begin to increase interest rates in 2023. What received less coverage is that The Fed is expected to announce in September 2021 that they will begin to taper their buying of Treasuries in 2022. By the end of this year that announcement will drive 10-year Treasuries up to at least 2% (from 0.7% at the election) probably higher and mortgage rates will likewise increase up to 3.5% to 4%. The actual tapering of purchases in 2022 will increase interest rates further.

In 2023, The Fed expects to begin to increase the Federal Funds rates thus increasing the interest rates that correlate with the Federal Funds rate such as “Prime”. But the impact on housing from higher mortgage rates is already being felt and the slow down will become more severe this year and next. Some have questioned why the 10 Year Treasury has declined while inflation rises, etc. The answer is that The Fed now owns so many Treasuries they bought to distort the mortgage market moving those interest rates down that The Fed controls the Treasury Market. We will experience the reverse as The Fed exits the market. That will be brutal economically.

Supply chain disruptions are everywhere which is creating havoc as the world is trying to reopen. A variant of the Wuhan Virus is currently running rampant in China and has shut down one of China’s major ports further exacerbating the supply chain distortion. The lack of parts is causing manufacturers to raise prices reflecting demand being greater than supply. Similar events are happening in service industries as needed employees can earn more money by NOT working. Even when supply gets closer to demand, prices will be “sticky” going down.

Watch gasoline prices. The most recent forecast is that oil will hit $100 per barrel by the end of this year. That means $4 per gallon gas. This is a direct result of Biden destroying our energy independence and returning the USA to being energy dependent on OPEC and Russia. I am still looking for the Demented Marxist (DM) that can actually explain why I want my electricity supply to be much more expensive and much less reliable.

I am reading an excellent book on the so called “Climate Crisis”. The title is “Unsettled” and the author is Steven E. Koonin, Former Undersecretary for Science, U. S. Department of Energy in the Obama Administration. Basically, the media and seem politicians have created a pseudo crisis. The problem is the bad decisions that are being made on erroneous information.

In my career I have been through recessions caused by each of the following – (1) increased energy prices, (2) interest rates being raised to combat inflation, and (3) increased taxes. The recession next year will be the result of a combination of all three of those forces. Get prepared.

163 days into the DM’s coup, each day more details emerge regarding the fraudulent election last November. Eventually we will know all of the facts. The patriot attorney in Antrim County, Michigan has called for the Secretary of State to resign or be impeached and the election to be De-Certified. The Arizona Audit is on pace to be finished with their report issued in July. In Georgia, the Secretary of State decided to investigate the chain of custody of some of the mail in ballots, probably CYA. Election audits and Mr. Dong - can you smell the fear of the DMs?

A great piece of land remains The Best investment long term. Capitalism builds wealth, Marxism/Socialism consumes it in self destruction. Pray for a return to honest elections in the USA. God is in control. Men make plans, but God ALWAYS wins.

“But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.”

(2 Timothy 1:7) New Revised Standard Version, Oxford University Press)

Stay healthy,

Ned

June 24, 2021

Copyright Massie Land Network. All rights Reserved.

[cosmetmir]

You should do all of the country asks :D

America: What is your favourite place to eat?At this Korean barbecue place~ Asian food in general is really good

Australia: Do you have any quirks when speaking?As I’ve been told multiple times, I’ll suddenly say words as though I have a British accent.

Austria: What kind of person do you wish to be?A blunt person whose not afraid to speak her mind about anything to anyone.

Belarus: Is there anyone you love? Family, friends, romantic interest?All of my family and all of my friends~ No romantic one though

Belgium: What do you think of your siblings?Sometimes one brother is an ass to me and the other two are chill. I love them all though.

Botswana: Do you like to sing? Why or why not?Ehhhhhh. Mess around singing yes. I used to do choir but it’s not my thing lmao

Bulgaria: Who do you consider close to you?@laceyotakulover @x-i-a-t @nervous-bxy @skeletonymous

Cameroon: Describe your culture.ROMANIANI am Romanian and in my culture we have things we do for fun and allBut I’m too lazy to explain so good thing you have Google 👌👌👌 Canada: Favourite wintertime activity?Tying the sled to the four wheeler

China: What was the best moment of your life?I guess when I was born

Cuba: What sort of grudges do you hold if any?Not being honest nor speaking my mind.

Cyprus: What hands-on activities do you like (drawing, carving, building, etc.)?Drawing~

Denmark: Do you wish for something of your past?Food?

Egypt: Do you stand up for what you believe in? How?I do. If it gets too much and all, I’ll tell the person to stop and politely. I’m not one who yells or is violent..

England: Are you controlling?At times,,

Estonia: Do you think people often misunderstand you?O h y e sA l l t h e t i m e p a l : )

Finland: What do you prefer, kindness, sternness, or apathy?All together

France: How do you show love for those you care for?Sending messages saying good things about them (but I don’t do this much anymore so don’t be offended if I don’t do this to you cause I love you all) Just let them know I’m here and I’ll never leave them And being my true self as well~

Germania: What is the hardest thing you have ever had to do?Eat a fucking cocktail shrimpThat shit is disgusting Never ever having that type of sample from Costco >_> (Excuse thy profanity. But I have had harder things but I’d rather not say them so leave it at this.)

Germany: Do you have a hard time forgiving yourself?It depends on the situation. Been getting better though.

Ghana: What is your favorite sport?Swimming and horse riding

Greece: Do you let other help you when in need?RarelyI tend to keep to myself and want to be like independent So only very VERY few do I seek help in

Hungary: Who is the person you trust most?@laceyotakulover

Hutt River: What is the most memorable dream or nightmare you have had?When one of my brothers died and my other brother had a family but had no memory of meMild dream I know compared to others but it really hit hard on me

Hong Kong: Do you fear death?Surprisingly no.

Iceland: Do you hide your real personality? Why?In school yes. I only really act like myself around people I care and am comfortable with. And because I’ve been feeling like to some also (that I may be comfortable with as well) I don’t matter or something. But really now I don’t care if they don’t like me or not. And if they don’t we’ll then pfft that’s their loss

India: How important is family to you?Very.

Japan: Tell us a secret about yourself.I am secretly a girly girl

Kenya: What is your favourite wild animal?Foxes or wolves for landOctopus for water

Korea: What is one thing you accomplished by yourself?Making food

Kugelmugel: Is there anyone you have a love-hate relationship with?Yeee

Latvia: Do you believe you are brave?I try to.

Ladonia: What is the internet site you visit most often?Wattpad or a manga site :0

Liechtenstein: How do people underestimate you most often?They think I know n o t h i n g about sex and all and that I’m so innocent and such a good ol girl in that department Well buddy There’s this thing called the INTERNET sooooo

Lithuania: Do you desire power?On my worst days yes.

Macau: What is your favourite festival or celebration?Cherry blossomOr masqueradeOr like the ones they have in Spain they’re cool

Molossia: Do you consider yourself strong?Physically somewhat Mentally I’ve been improving a lot which is nice Monaco: Do you think you are a lucky person?Maybe idk

New Zealand: Would you rather be an elf, dwarf, Hobbit, or wizard?Elf !!!

North Italy: What is your least favourite part of your personality?Jealous and possessive

Norway: What was the most disappointing time in your life?When I didn’t get this GIGANTIC teddy bear Oh well I got a smaller teddy bear which was just as cute~

Netherlands: Most generous thing someone has done for you?Give me a gift like :’>>

Poland: Hardest thing you have gone through?Insecurity

Prussia: Would you prefer to live forever or die alone?Die alone.

Roman Empire: How would you like to be remembered?As Michelle M. the Romanian lowkey gyspy who is just the exact quote of Lafayette from the musical Hamilton “And whose ze best? C"est moi~”

Romania: What is something you are very ashamed of?Well of course my country has to have this question mother trucker But I guess when I catch myself judging people based on appearances because then I feel bad like I shouldn’t that’s rude

Russia: Have you ever suffered from low self esteem? Do you still?Oh yes. Very. I’ve gotten better though :D

Sealand: Who is your best friend?I have multiple best friends

Seborga: What is your favourite beverage?Bubble tea

Seychelles: How do you handle people being rude to you?I will politely ask them to stop. And if not then I’ll start getting annoyed and making a not so nice comment about them but I have to hold my tongue because yee

South Italy: What is your favourite part of your personality?Finding good in everyone

Spain: What would you tell to the person or people you hurt most if you had a second chance?I’m sorry. I know it hasn’t been directly said that I did that I know it was stupid and I shouldn’t have been caught up on him. I should’ve paid attention to you and not let myself get carried away. I’m sorry.

Sweden: Are you a leader, follower, or independent?Independent

Switzerland: Would you consider yourself evil, good, or neutral?Good

Thailand: How good is your poker face?Very

Tibet: What do you value most?Respect and politeness for all

Taiwan: What do you think of the people or person who raised you?I love them so much

Turkey: Would you ever want children?One day.

Uganda: How would you like others to see you?I guess as a respectful and nice person? Idk

Ukraine: What is one thing that has made you stronger in life?School

Vietnam: What is something you are proud of about yourself?How I can see good in bad situations dealing with myself

Wy: What kind of art do you like?Every art is beautiful~

Zimbabwe: Who is your favourite character from any folklore?Eros Honestly I want to be his best friend and have platonic cuddles with him p l e a s e

[johnmauldin]

These 4 Maps Show The Geopolitical Hotspots of 2017

GUEST POST BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN AND JACOB L. SHAPIRO

In geopolitics, a deep understanding of geography and power allows you to do two things. First, it helps you comprehend the forces that will shape international politics and how they will do so. Second, it helps you distinguish what is important from what isn’t.

This makes maps a vital part of our work, here at This Week in Geopolitics (subscribe here). So we have decided to showcase some of the best maps our graphics team (TJ Lensing and Jay Dowd) made in 2016.

These four maps help explain the foundations of what will be the most important geopolitical developments of 2017.

Map 1: Russia’s economic weakness

This map shows three key aspects to understanding Russia in 2017. (For my full 2017 geopolitical forecast for Russia, click here.)

First is the oft-overlooked fact that Russia is a federation. Russia has a strong national culture, but it is also an incredibly diverse political entity that requires a strong central government. Unlike most maps of Russia, this one divides the country by its 85 constitutive regions. (87 if you count Crimea and Sevastopol.) Not all have the same status—some are regions, while others are autonomous regions, cities, and republics.

The map also highlights the great extent of economic diversity in this vast Russian Federation. The map shows this by identifying regional budget surpluses and deficits throughout the country. Two regions have such large surpluses that they break the scale: the City of Moscow and Sakhalin. Fifty-two regions (or 60% of Russia’s regional budgets) are in the red. The Central District, which includes Moscow, makes up more than 20% of Russia’s GDP, while Sakhalin and a few other regions that are blessed with surpluses produce Russia’s oil.

The third point follows from the first two. Russia is vast, and much of the country is in a difficult economic situation. Even if oil stays around $55 a barrel for all of 2017, that won’t be high enough to solve the problems of the many struggling parts of the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin rules as an authoritarian. This is, in part, because he governs an unwieldy country. He needs all the power he can get to redistribute wealth so that the countryside isn’t driven to revolt.

Russia is making headlines right now because of Ukraine, Syria, and alleged hacking. But the geopolitical position of Russia is better described by studying the map above.

Map 2: China’s cage limits access to the Pacific

Maps that shift perspective can be disorienting, but they are meant to be. Our minds get so used to seeing the world in one way that a different view can feel alien. But that is even more reason to push through the discomfort. The map above shows us the Pacific from Beijing’s perspective.

China's moves in the South China Sea have received a great deal of attention. In a Jan. 12 confirmation hearing with Congress, nominee for US Secretary of Defense James Mattish pointed to Chinese aggressiveness as one of the major reasons he thinks the world order is under its biggest assault since World War II.

But we believe the Chinese threat is overstated. This map helps explain why.

China’s access to the Pacific is limited by two obstacles. (I wrote about this extensively in This Week in Geopolitics… subscribe here for free). The first is the small island chains in the South and East China Seas. When we look at this map, China’s motive in asserting control over these large rocks becomes clear. If China cannot control these islands and shoals, they can be used against China in a military conflict.

The second obstacle is that China is surrounded by American allies. Some such as Japan (and to a lesser extent South Korea and Taiwan) have significant military forces to defend themselves from Chinese encroachment. Taiwan sticks out as a major spur aimed squarely at China’s southeast coast. Those that don’t have sufficient military defenses, like the Philippines, have firm US security guarantees. China is currently at a serious geographic disadvantage in the waters off its coast.

This map does not reveal one important fact. That is the US Navy outclasses the Chinese navy in almost every regard… despite impressive and continuing Chinese efforts to increase capabilities.

But looking at this map, you can see why China wants to make noise in its coastal waters and how China is limited by an arc of American allies. You can also see why one of China’s major goals will be to attempt to entice any American allies to switch sides.

China’s moves regarding the Philippines will require close observation in 2017.

Map 3: Geographical power in the Middle East

It has become cliché to point out that the Middle East’s current political borders were drawn after World War I by colonial powers (like the UK and France), and that the region’s recent wars and insurrections are making these artificial boundaries obsolete. What isn’t cliché is doubling down on that analysis.

We’ve drawn a new map… one that reveals what the Middle East really looks like right now. Some will object to some of the boundaries for political purposes, but this map is not trying to make a political statement. Rather, it is an attempt to show who holds power over what geography in the Middle East.

From this point of view, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya no longer exist. In their places are smaller warring statelets based on ethnic, national, and sectarian identities. Other borders (like those of Lebanon and Israel) are also redrawn to reflect actual power dynamics.

Here, a politically incorrect but accurate map is more useful than an inaccurate but politically correct one.

It is also important to note which countries' borders do not require redrawing. These include three of the region’s four major powers: Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. The borders of the other major power, Israel, are only slightly modified. (Egypt is an economic basket case. It doesn’t qualify as a major power, even though it has one of the most cohesive national cultures in the Arab world.)

The Middle East is defined by two key dynamics: the wars raging in the heart of the Arab world and the balance of power between the countries that surround this conflict.

Map 4: Nationalism and the future of the EU

Analyzing this map must begin with a disclaimer: This is a tool and a means of thinking about Europe’s future… not a prediction of what Europe’s borders will look like in the future.

The map identifies areas in Europe with strong nationalist tendencies. The names of regions with active separatist movements are not italicized. Those that are italicized are demanding increased autonomy but not independence. The point here is not their size, but rather in all these regions, there is some degree of national consciousness that is not consistent with the current boundaries of Europe’s nation-states.

The European Union is a flawed institution because its members could never decide what they wanted it to be. European nation-states gave up some of their sovereignty to Brussels… but not all of it. So when serious issues arose (such as the 2008 financial crisis or the influx of Syrian and other refugees), EU member states went back to solving problems the way they did before the EU.

In 2016, Brexit shook the foundations of the EU. And in 2017, elections in France and Germany as well as domestic instability in Italy will shake those foundations once again.

But Brexit also brings up a deeper question: How will national self-determination be defined in the 21st century? Not all of Europe’s nation-states are on stable ground. The most important consequence of Brexit may be be its impact on the political future of the UK itself. And in Spain, Catalonia already claims it will hold an independence referendum this year.

Brussels, meanwhile, keeps trying to speak with one voice. This map shows exactly how hard that is… not just for the EU, but also for some of Europe’s nation-states. I wrote extensively about these challenges (and more) in my recent 2017 geopolitical forecast for Europe, click here.

Conclusion

The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. Maps are worth many more. Our perspective on the world is rooted in an objective approach to examining geography and power. These four maps are essential tools for thinking about the geopolitical forces that will shape the world in 2017.

Prepare Yourself for Tomorrow with George Friedman’s This Week in Geopolitics

This riveting weekly newsletter by global-intelligence guru George Friedman gives you an in-depth view of the hidden forces that drive world events and markets. You’ll learn that economic trends, social upheaval, stock market cycles, and more… are all connected to powerful geopolitical currents that most of us aren’t even aware of. Get This Week in Geopolitics free in your inbox every Monday.

[bountyofbeads]

The Two Psychological Tricks Trump Is Using to Get Away With Everything

His brazen attempts to redefine the norms of acceptable conduct work for a reason.

Peter Beinart, Professor of journalism at the City University of New York | Published October 7, 2019 | The Atlantic | Posted October 8, 2019 |

Last Thursday, Donald Trump said something that, on its face, seemed inexplicably self-defeating. Already under attack for having asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, he publicly asked China to do the same. This time there was no whistle-blower forcing Trump’s hand. Having already transgressed the once-sacrosanct principle that foreign powers shouldn’t meddle in American elections, Trump—for no apparent reason—brazenly violated it again.

And yet, Trump’s China remarks don’t appear to have hurt him much. The majority of Republican voters and politicians still oppose his impeachment. His China comments may even prove politically shrewd. Research into the psychology of secrecy and confidence helps explain why.

In January 2016, Trump infamously declared, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” The statement was widely interpreted as a commentary on the loyalty of Trump’s voters. But it can also be understood as a commentary on the value of brazenness—of acting publicly rather than furtively and confidently rather than bashfully. It’s a value academics have confirmed time and again.

In 2013, three researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder—Mark Travers, Leaf Van Boven, and Charles Judd—published a paper in the journal Political Psychology entitled “The Secrecy Heuristic.” They gave students two documents, one from the National Security Council and one from the State Department. Half the students were told that the NSC document was classified and that the State Department document was public. Half were told the reverse. And although the classified and nonclassified documents were exactly the same, the students gave more weight to the one they thought was secret. The researchers’ conclusion: There is a secrecy “heuristic”—a mental shortcut that helps people make judgments. “People weigh secret information more heavily than public information when making decisions,” they wrote. A 2004 dissertation on jury behavior found a similar tendency. When judges told jurors to disregard certain information—once it was deemed secret—the jurors gave it more weight.

While it’s unlikely Trump has heard of the secrecy heuristic, his comments about murder on Fifth Avenue suggest he grasps it instinctively. He recognizes that people accord less weight to information that nobody bothers to conceal. If shooting someone were that big a deal, the reasoning goes, Trump wouldn’t do it in full public view. The logic works even better when it comes to Trump’s comments about Ukraine and China. Most Americans know murder is against the law. Whether inviting foreign meddling in an American election constitutes a “high crime or misdemeanor,” by contrast, is less well established. By openly inviting such meddling, therefore, Trump sends the message that it’s not that important. If it were, he’d have kept his request a secret.

But brazenness entails more than just a lack of secrecy. It also entails confidence. And here too, there’s ample evidence that Trump’s confidence works to his political benefit.

If people use secrecy as a heuristic to gauge importance, they use confidence as a heuristic to gauge competence. As Cameron Anderson, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, explained to me, “There is a lot of research showing that when people exhibit confidence, they come across as more competent, intelligent, skilled, and so forth.” The word con man, the Harvard professor and former Obama-administration official Cass Sunstein has noted, is short for confidence man. That’s because “when con men succeed,” Sunstein observes, “it’s usually because they enlist the confidence heuristic. They don’t show any doubts. They act as if they know what they are doing.” Thus, they win people’s trust.

By openly asking Ukraine and China to investigate a political rival, Trump expressed confidence that he’s doing nothing wrong. And while one might think the majority of Americans would view Trump’s confidence as an outrageous sham, academic evidence suggests that con men can be surprisingly difficult to unmask. In a 2019 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers at the University of Utah and UC Berkeley noted, “Prior research is split on whether this exposure of overconfidence diminishes a person’s social standing. In some studies, individuals who expressed confidence, and were later revealed to be wrong, lost credibility in the eyes of others … However, in other studies, individuals who were exposed as overconfident were not held liable.” Sometimes confidence men pay a price when they are revealed to be bullshitters. Sometimes they don’t.

The key, the Utah and Berkeley researchers suggest, is whether the con man retains “plausible deniability” in the face of evidence that he has been proved wrong. They note, for instance, that people who express confidence through nonverbal cues—speaking loudly, interrupting others—tend to retain their reputation for competence and good judgment better than those who express confidence through overt claims that can be clearly falsified. But even people who do make specific, falsifiable claims can maintain their plausible deniability in other ways, the researchers note—for instance, by “undermining the expertise or credibility of those reporting the error.”

Trump, according to people who study body language, expresses an enormous amount of nonverbal self-confidence. In addition, his promises are often vague and thus hard to concretely disprove. But these tendencies would be less valuable if he did not also relentlessly “undermine the expertise or credibility” of those people and institutions—journalists, judges, bureaucrats, members of Congress, whistle-blowers, inspectors general, the special counsel—who expose his facts or judgments as having been in error.

In this effort, Trump has enjoyed crucial support from Fox News. Under the best of circumstances, the Berkeley business-school professor Don Moore explained to me, political partisans are notoriously difficult to sway with new information. Yet despite this, when I asked researchers at Ipsos to break down some of the data from their October 3 USA Today poll on impeachment, they reported something remarkable. When Ipsos asked Republicans who say Fox is not their main source of news whether “President Trump asking Ukraine to investigate Biden is an abuse of power,” 38 percent said yes. Given that most of those respondents likely voted for Trump in 2016, that’s a high number. It suggests some genuine willingness to recalibrate views of him based on this new information. If 38 percent of Republicans in the Senate supported Trump’s impeachment, he would be forced from office.

But among Republicans who said Fox was their main source of news, only 11 percent considered Trump’s behavior an abuse of power. For them, overwhelmingly, Trump retains plausible deniability in the face of critics who seek to expose him as a con man. And it is because of them that Trump’s continued brazenness works. As the Utah and Berkeley researchers show, people who maintain plausible deniability benefit from expressing self-confidence. If people keep giving you the benefit of the doubt, you’re better off thumping your chest and declaring yourself vindicated than expressing remorse or self-doubt.

By doubling down with his comments about China, that’s exactly what Trump did. Among voters inclined to distrust competing sources of information, his willingness to brazenly redefine the norms of acceptable conduct works. Shamelessness, one might say, is the point.

The Mad King’s Enablers

As Trump’s demands grow ever more erratic, democracy rests on the willingness of bureaucrats to ignore the democratically elected chief executive.

Oct 3, 2019

Adam Serwer | Published October 3, 2019 | The Atlantic |Posted October 8, 2019 9:00 AM ET |

This morning, President Donald Trump committed an impeachable offense on camera.

Responding to questioning from reporters about his effort to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to launch an investigation into one of his Democratic rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump reiterated his demand that Ukraine “start a major investigation into the Bidens,” before suggesting that “China should start an investigation into the Bidens” as well.

Ukraine is dependent on the United States for military aid; China is in the midst of a trade war with the U.S. instigated by Trump. Both countries now know that they can influence United States policy by pursuing the president’s personal, political interests. A president using his authority to form an alliance with foreign powers, at the expense of the national interest, is such a straightforwardly impeachable offense that the Framers themselves designed the impeachment clause for the express purpose of removing a chief executive who uses his powers in this way.

Republicans have attempted to shift the conversation away from Trump’s acts, to focus instead on questions about the process used by the whistle-blower who exposed Trump’s attempt to extort Ukraine. But not only did Schiff and the whistle-blower follow the rules; both the redacted complaint released by the White House and the summary of the call itself substantiate the allegations at the center of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. And even if they didn’t, the president himself just repeated the impeachable offense on camera, making an explicit demand that two countries criminalize his political rival.

It was not even the first time this week that Trump demanded a political rival be investigated. For the past few days, Trump has demanded that House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff be “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason” for a mocking paraphrase of Trump’s call with Zelensky using mafia-like language.

The accusation of treason is absurd. The Constitution specifically protects the remarks of legislators on the House floor, secures freedom of speech, and defines treason in extremely narrow terms, limiting it to “levying war” against the U.S. or aiding its enemies. But Trump makes no distinction between loyalty to him as a person and loyalty to the United States, and so takes criticism as treason.

Yet despite the president’s bluster, nothing happened. The Justice Department did not arrest and imprison Schiff, arraigning him on charges of treason. And that reality speaks to both the absurdity and danger of this moment, in which American democracy relies on the willingness of executive-branch subordinates to ignore the ravings of the Mad King. This extends into the realm of policy, where Trump’s own officials have struggled to contain his lust for cruelty, refusing requests to gun down migrants or install a moat with alligators at the border.

Elected Republicans know that Trump is unfit for office. The president’s own subordinates know that Trump is unfit for office. They know this, because when the president issues ridiculous orders, such as the demand that a leader of the opposition party be arrested, they ignore his demands. A nation in which the opposition cannot criticize the head of state without facing criminal sanction is not a democracy, but it is the kind of country over which Donald Trump would like to preside. The result is that American democracy rests on the willingness of bureaucrats to ignore the commands of their democratically elected chief executive.

Unable to defend the substance of the president’s extortion attempt, Republicans have turned to complaining about the process. But Thursday’s performance on the White House lawn renders those baseless complaints moot—the president just did publicly what the Democrats have accused him of doing privately. The only argument against removing Trump from office is that Trump’s raving is just Trump being Trump, and is not to be taken seriously. But the fact that the president’s madness must be ignored from time to time for America to continue to function as a democracy is an argument for, not against, his removal.

Although congressional Democrats and Republicans are divided on impeachment, there is vanishingly little disagreement on whether or not Trump abuses his authority or is fit to be president. The distinction is that, for the moment, Republicans appear not to care.

[woundvest7-blog]

Links Thanksgiving Day 11/22/18

Readers, I hope your Thanksgiving is convivial!

Sperm whale found dead with 13 pounds of plastic in its stomach National Geographic

Goldman sued by Abu Dhabi fund over 1MDB FT

Danske Bank whistleblower says he was offered hush money City AM

Cash Rules Everything Around the Bond Markets Bloomberg

Stock-Market Margin Debt Plunges Most Since Lehman Moment Wolf Street (EM).

Texas Is About to Create OPEC’s Worst Nightmare Bloomberg

Stop Eco-Apartheid: The Left’s Challenge in Bolsonaro’s Brazil DIssent

Why Algorithms Suck and Analog Computers are the Future De Gruyter Conversations (DK). From 2017, still germane. “Tomorrow’s applications demand stronger computing powers at much lower energy consumption levels. But digital computers simply can’t provide this out of the box.”

Brexit

Theresa May seeks to resolve final blocks over Brexit deal RTE. May to return to Brussels.

Vote Leave loses legal challenge over Brexit spending breach Guardian

Who speaks for Northern Ireland on Brexit – Business bosses or the DUP? Belfast Telegraph

Will the Tories Sacrifice Theresa May to Survive? Foreign Policy. You can’t beat something with nothing…

What’s driving this French revolution? Unherd

North Korea

U.S. to scale back major joint military exercise in bid to keep North Korean nuclear diplomacy on track Japan Times

Syraqistan

Trump’s Amoral Saudi Statement Is a Pure Expression of Decades-Old “U.S. Values” and Foreign Policy Orthodoxies Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

Erdogan, MBS, Islamic leadership and the price of silence Pepe Escobar, Asia Times

China?

Apple Supplier Foxconn Signals Deep Cuts as Smartphone Demand Wanes South China Morning Post

Hong Kong democracy leaders go on trial over Umbrella Movement The Star

China’s Government Drove the Electric Vehicle Industry’s Rapid Rise, U.S. Think Tank Says Caixin

Why Japan finds coal hard to quit Nikkei Asian Review

India

How the rise of shadow banking fed India’s ‘clash of egos’ FT

Half of ATMs may shut by March on stricter regulatory norms DNA India (J-LS).

‘India Connected’: A new book looks at how the smartphone is changing the lives of Indians Scroll

New Cold War

Russian Diplomacy Is Winning the New Cold War Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation

Ukraine Crisis Deepens: Fresh Water Supply At Risk Awful Avalanche

Trump Transition

Roberts, Trump spar in extraordinary scrap over judges AP

White House approves use of force, some law enforcement roles for border troops Military Times

Filings Show Trump’s DOJ Chief Still Working for 14 Companies

Nick Ayers Is Rising Fast in Trump’s Washington. How Far Will He Go? NYT

Democrats in Disarray

Democrats need a bold agenda. Here’s what they should do in the first 100 days of Congress. Bernie Sanders, WaPo

Ocasio-Cortez backs Pelosi for speaker as long as she ‘remains the most progressive candidate’ CNN

Nancy Pelosi Revived Obamacare After Democrats Left It for Dead The Intercept

Nancy Pelosi and the Audacity of Identity Driven Hustles Ghion Journal

The Democrats’ White-People Problem Joan C. Williams, The Atlantic. Better than the headline.

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

The Dirtiest Place in an Airport Is Not in the Bathroom Vice

Julian Assange deserves a Medal of Freedom, not a secret indictment USA Today

Imperial Collapse Watch

We’re Headed Toward Perpetual Conflict and Cataclysmic War Truthdig. As shown by military curricula.

Who Says Economic Sanctions Work? Scott Ritter, The American Conservative

Class Warfare

After 20,000 workers walked out, Google said it got the message. The workers disagree. Recode

The IRS hired private debt collectors who are squeezing poor people and hurricane victims Quartz (DK).

Two US senators pushed the IRS to outsource its debt collection to private companies through this program: Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, and Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York who has hailed the initiative for bringing jobs to one of the poorest parts of his state. As if by coincidence, three of the four debt-collecting companies contracted by the IRS are based in Iowa and New York. They declined to comment on the program.

No doubt. Some days, it seems like the planet is owned and operated by the Harkonnens.

AP Exclusive: Gov’t questions unfair student loan practices AP.

“A 2017 study by the Government Accountability Office estimates that a typical borrower of a $30,000 student loan who places their loan into forbearance for three years — the maximum allowed for economic-hardship forbearance — would pay an additional $6,742 in interest on that loan.”

As above.

Countering the geography of discontent: Strategies for left-behind places Brookings Institution

Financial structure and income inequality (PDF) Bank of International Settlements

We’re getting taller and heavier. That’s not good news for food security or the planet Anthropocene

A Disaster of Our Own Making. The Atlantic

How Political Opinions Change Scientific American

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Links on November 22, 2018 by Lambert Strether.

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/11/links-thanksgiving-day-11-22-18.html

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR The Deep Confusion of the Post-Weinstein Moment ON CAMPUS Competition Is Ruining Childhood. The Kids Should Fight Back. THE STONE Buddhism Is More ‘Western’ Than You Think OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS The Lessons of Cyrus Vance’s Campaign Contributions OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Jeff Flake: In a Democracy, There Can Be No Bystanders OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR ‘Game of Thrones’ Comes to Saudi Arabia CHARLES M. BLOW The New Democratic Party DAVID LEONHARDT The Conspiracy of Inaction on Sexual Abuse and Harassment LETTERS Unwavering Loyalty to Trump, Come What May LETTER Larry David’s Unfunny ‘S.N.L.’ Joke LETTER Paying for College LETTER A Ban on Bus and Subway Alcohol Ads in New York LETTERS Another Massacre, This Time at a Church in Texas OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS The Climate Risks We Face OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR A Deal-Maker Goes to China RED CENTURY What If the Russian Revolution Had Never Happened? EDITORIAL New York Voters Can Make Crooked Politicians Pay EDITORIAL Willie Horton, Updated for the Trump Era OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR With Manafort, It Really Is About Russia, Not Ukraine OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Marco Rubio: Tax Reform Should Help American Families Loading... OPINION Advertisement Opinion Buddhism Is More ‘Western’ Than You Think Robert Wright THE STONE NOV. 6, 2017 Continue reading the main storyShare This Page Share Tweet Email More Save 98 Photo “Golden Buddha, 2005” by Nam June Paik. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Not long ago I was accused of something I hadn’t realized was a bad thing: clarity. Adam Gopnik, reviewing my book “Why Buddhism Is True,” in The New Yorker in August, wrote: “He makes Buddhist ideas and their history clear. Perhaps he makes the ideas too clear.” Underlying this allegation (which I vigorously deny!) is a common view: that Buddhist ideas defy clear articulation — and that in a sense the point of Buddhist ideas is to defy clear articulation. After all, aren’t those Zen koans — “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” and so on — supposed to suggest that language, and the linear thought it embodies, can’t capture the truth about reality? Gopnik seems to think that this drift of Buddhist thought — its apparent emphasis on the inscrutability of things — largely insulates it from scrutiny. Buddhist discourse that acknowledges, even embraces, paradox may “hold profound existential truths,” Gopnik says, but by the same token it has, as a kind of built-in property, an “all-purpose evasion of analysis.” So apparently people like me, who would like to evaluate Buddhist ideas in the light of modern science and philosophy, should save our breath. The question Gopnik is raising isn’t just an academic one. Every day, millions of people practice mindfulness meditation — they sit down, focus on their breath, and calm their minds. But the point of mindfulness meditation isn’t just to calm you down. Rather, the idea — as explained in ancient Buddhist texts — is that a calm, contemplative mind can help you see the world as it really is. It would be nice to critically examine this powerful claim, but if we can’t say clearly what Buddhists mean by “the world as it really is,” then how can we examine it? How can we figure out — or even argue about — whether meditation is indeed drawing people closer to the truth about reality? The cultural critic Edward Said famously used the term “orientalism” to refer to a patronizing way Westerners sometimes think of Eastern cultures and ideas — as charmingly exotic, perhaps, but as deficient in various Western virtues, including rationality and rigor. Said was talking mainly about Middle Eastern cultures, but much the same could be said of Buddhism: Western thinkers may cherish its art and its cryptic aphorisms, and may see meditation as therapeutically useful, but many of them don’t imagine Buddhist thought playing in the same league as Western thought; they don’t imagine a Buddhist philosophy that involves coherent conceptual structures that can be exposed to evidence and logic and then stand or fall on their merits. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story This condescension is unfounded. Not only have Buddhist thinkers for millenniums been making very much the kinds of claims that Western philosophers and psychologists make — many of these claims are looking good in light of modern Western thought. In fact, in some cases Buddhist thought anticipated Western thought, grasping things about the human mind, and its habitual misperception of reality, that modern psychology is only now coming to appreciate. Consider a quote that Gopnik employs in suggesting that appraising Buddhist philosophy may be a fool’s errand. It is from a Zen Buddhist who, in analyzing a famous text called the Heart Sutra, wrote this: “Things exist but they are not real.” I agree with Gopnik that this sentence seems a bit hard to unpack. But if you go look at the book it is taken from, you’ll find that the author himself, Mu Soeng, does a good job of unpacking it. It turns out Soeng is explaining an idea that is central to Buddhist philosophy: “not self” — the idea that your “self,” as you intuitively conceive it, is actually an illusion. Soeng writes that the doctrine of not-self doesn’t deny an “existential personality” — it doesn’t deny that there is a you that exists; what it denies is that somewhere within you is an “abiding core,” a kind of essence-of-you that remains constant amid the flux of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and other elements that constitute your experience. So if by “you” we mean a “self” that features an enduring essence, then you aren’t real. Now, you can argue with this line of thought — with its characterization of the self, its definition of “real” and “exist,” and so on. But the point is that this line of thought is clear enough to argue about — just like the lines of thought Western philosophers produce. In fact, David Hume, an emphatically Western philosopher, made an argument against the reality of the self that is so similar to longstanding Buddhist arguments as to make some scholars (including, as it happens, Alison Gopnik, Adam’s sister) suspect that Hume had encountered Buddhist thought. In recent decades, important aspects of the Buddhist concept of not-self have gotten support from psychology. In particular, psychology has bolstered Buddhism’s doubts about our intuition of what you might call the “C.E.O. self” — our sense that the conscious “self” is the initiator of thought and action. A particularly famous experiment seems to show that, before we are consciously aware of deciding to perform an act — push a button, say — the physical processes that initiate the act are already underway. Other experiments suggest that our minds are good at fabricating reasons that we do certain things and hold certain opinions — and that the fabrication happens unconsciously, so that the conscious mind is itself duped into believing these stories, along with their implication that the conscious mind is running the show. Newsletter Sign UpContinue reading the main story Sign Up for the Opinion Today Newsletter Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE MANAGE EMAIL PREFERENCES PRIVACY POLICY OPT OUT OR CONTACT US ANYTIME If much of this sounds disappointingly free of the charming paradox commonly associated with Buddhism, I have good news: There is a paradox that can surface if you pursue the logic of not-self through meditation. Namely: recognizing that “you” are not in control, that you are not a C.E.O., can help give “you” more control. Or, at least, you can behave more like a C.E.O. is expected to behave: more rationally, more wisely, more reflectively; less emotionally, less rashly, less reactively. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Here’s how it can work. Suppose that, via mindfulness meditation, you observe a feeling like anxiety or anger and, rather than let it draw you into a whole train of anxious or angry thoughts, you let it pass away. Though you experience the feeling — and in a sense experience it more fully than usual — you experience it with “non-attachment” and so evade its grip. And you now see the thoughts that accompanied it in a new light — they no longer seem like trustworthy emanations from some “I” but rather as transient notions accompanying transient feelings. Note how, in addition to being therapeutic, this clarifies your view of the world. After all, the “anxious” or “angry” trains of thought you avoid probably aren’t objectively true. They probably involve either imagining things that haven’t happened or making subjective judgments about things that have. In other words, these thoughts are just stories the brain spews out; they are often manifestly misleading, and abandoning them will tend to leave us closer to clarity than embracing them would. Mindfulness meditation can be enlightening in another way, too. It can make us more aware of how our buttons get pushed — more aware, say, of how people or things we encounter trigger certain feelings and certain stories and thus certain behaviors. Somewhat like “Western” psychological science, mindfulness can illuminate the workings of the mind. There’s a broader and deeper sense in which Buddhist thought is more “Western” than stereotype suggests. What, after all, is more Western than science’s emphasis on causality, on figuring out what causes what, and hoping to thus explain why all things do the things they do? Well, in a sense, the Buddhist idea of “not-self” grows out of the belief undergirding this mission — that the world is pervasively governed by causal laws. The reason there is no “abiding core” within us is that the ever-changing forces that impinge on us — the sights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes — are constantly setting off chain reactions inside of us. Indeed, this constant causal interaction with our environment raises doubts not only about how firm the core of the “self” is but, in a sense, how firm the bounds of the self are. Buddhism’s doubts about the distinctness and solidity of the “self” — and of other things, for that matter — rests on a recognition of the sense in which pervasive causality means pervasive fluidity. The kind of inquiry that produced Buddhist views on the human psyche isn’t scientific; it doesn’t involve experiments that generate publicly observable data. It rests more on a kind of meditative introspection — somewhat in the spirit of what Western philosophers call phenomenology. Yet Buddhism long ago generated insights that modern psychology is only now catching up to, and these go beyond doubts about the C.E.O. self. For example, psychology has lately started to let go of its once-sharp distinction between “cognitive” and “affective” parts of the mind; it has started to see that feelings are so finely intertwined with thoughts as to be part of their very coloration. This wouldn’t qualify as breaking news in Buddhist circles. A sutra attributed to the Buddha says that a “mind object” — a category that includes thoughts — is just like a taste or a smell: whether a person is “tasting a flavor with the tongue” or “smelling an odor with the nose” or “cognizing a mind object with the mind,” the person “lusts after it if it is pleasing” and “dislikes it if it is unpleasing.” Brain-scan studies have produced tentative evidence that this lusting and disliking — embracing thoughts that feel good and rejecting thoughts that feel bad — lies near the heart of certain “cognitive biases.” If such evidence continues to accumulate, the Buddhist assertion that a clear view of the world involves letting go of these lusts and dislikes will have drawn a measure of support from modern science. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Gopnik thinks that attempts to corroborate Buddhist ideas with modern science run into a contradiction. After all, Buddhism is in a sense suspicious of “stories” — such as those stories that mindfulness meditation can help liberate us from. And, Gopnik says, science is just “competitive storytelling” — which means, he says, that Buddhism is “antithetical” to scientific argument. He writes, “Science is putting names on things and telling stories about them, the very habits that Buddhists urge us to transcend.” Well, this irony doesn’t seem to have deterred the Buddhists who, a couple of millenniums ago, compiled the “Abhidhamma Pitaka,” which puts names on lots of mental phenomena and tells stories about how they relate to one another. And it doesn’t seem to bother the Dalai Lama, who has embraced science as a legitimate way to test Buddhist ideas. I agree with Gopnik on one thing: There are parts of Buddhist philosophy that, even when properly understood, seem paradoxical or opaque. But these tend to involve the same issues that drive Western philosophers toward paradox and opaqueness — for example, the relationship of consciousness to the physical body. Language is indeed (as notable Western philosophers have held) incapable of encompassing all of reality, and I’m pretty sure that the human mind is incapable of comprehending all of reality. 98 COMMENTS All we can do is clear away as many impediments to comprehension as possible. Science has a way of doing that — by insisting that entrants in its “competitive storytelling” demonstrate explanatory power in ways that are publicly observable, thus neutralizing, to the extent possible, subjective biases that might otherwise prevail. Buddhism has a different way of doing it: via meditative disciplines that are designed to attack subjective biases at the source, yielding a clearer view of both the mind itself and the world beyond it. The results of these two inquiries converge to a remarkable extent — an extent that can be appreciated only in light of the last few decades of progress in psychology and evolutionary science. At least, that’s my argument. It may be wrong. But it’s an argument that can be engaged by anyone willing to engage it — which is something it has in common with Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist psychology.

[bountyofbeads]

Trump Publicly Urges China to Investigate the Bidens https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/us/politics/trump-china-bidens.html

Trump Publicly Urges China to Investigate the Bidens

President Trump made a similar, but private, request of the president of Ukraine, an episode that has sparked an impeachment inquiry.

By Peter Baker and Eileen Sullivan | Published Oct. 3, 2019 Updated 2:49 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted October 3, 2019 4:30 PM ET |

WASHINGTON — President Trump, already facing impeachment for pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, publicly called on China on Thursday to examine former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as well, an extraordinary request to a foreign power for help that could benefit him in next year’s election.

“China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he left the White House to travel to Florida. His request came just moments after he discussed upcoming trade talks with China and said that “if they don’t do what we want, we have tremendous power.”

The president’s call for Chinese intervention means that Mr. Trump and his attorney general have solicited assistance in discrediting the president’s political opponents from Ukraine, Australia, Italy and, according to one report, Britain. In speaking so publicly on Thursday, a defiant Mr. Trump pushed back against critics who have called such requests an abuse of power, essentially arguing that there was nothing wrong with seeking foreign help.

Throughout his presidency, Mr. Trump has made no effort to hide actions or statements that critics called outrageous violations of norms and standards — but because he does them in public, they seem to stir less blowback than if they had been done behind closed doors. Among other things, he repeatedly called on his own Justice Department to investigate his Democratic foes and eventually fired his first attorney general for not protecting him from the Russia investigation.

The comments on China came as the first witness appeared on Capitol Hill to be interviewed by House investigators as part of the impeachment inquiry into the president’s request for investigations into Mr. Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, and other Democrats during a July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the same time Mr. Trump was withholding $391 million in American aid.

Kurt D. Volker, who resigned last week as the Trump administration’s special envoy to Ukraine, was being interviewed behind closed doors by House staff members about his interactions with the Ukrainians and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney who has been vigorously lobbying for Ukrainian investigations into Democrats.

After Mr. Trump’s comments on China on Thursday, Mr. Biden’s campaign fired back, asserting in a statement that the president was “desperately clutching for conspiracy theories that have been debunked and dismissed by independent, credible news organizations.”

“What Donald Trump just said on the South Lawn of the White House was this election’s equivalent of his infamous ‘Russia, if you’re listening’ moment from 2016 — a grotesque choice of lies over truth and self over the country,” Kate Bedingfield, Mr. Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said in the statement.

Ms. Bedingfield was referring to a news conference during the 2016 presidential campaign when Mr. Trump on camera called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s email servers. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said. The investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III later determined that Russian hackers tried to do just that hours after Mr. Trump’s comments, making their first effort to break into servers used by Mrs. Clinton’s personal office.

Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the House Intelligence Committee chairman who is leading the impeachment inquiry, said the president’s latest comments were further evidence of his betrayal of his duties.

“The president of the United States encouraging a foreign nation to interfere and help his campaign by investigating a rival is a fundamental breach of the president’s oath of office,” he told reporters. “It endangers our elections. It endangers our national security. It ought to be condemned by every member of this body, Democrats and Republicans alike.”

Mr. Trump has defended his conversation with Mr. Zelensky as “perfect” even after a reconstructed transcript of the call released by the White House showed him imploring the newly inaugurated Ukrainian leader to “do us a favor” by investigating the Bidens and other Democrats shortly after Mr. Zelensky discussed his need for more American aid to counter Russian aggression.

Undaunted by the criticism, Mr. Trump doubled down on that request on Thursday. “I would say that President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “Because nobody has any doubt that they weren’t crooked.”

Even as he seeks investigations of Democrats by Ukraine and China, the president and Attorney General William P. Barr have also solicited help from Australia, Italy and perhaps Britain to turn up information undermining the origin of Mr. Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.

In calling for China to investigate the Bidens, Mr. Trump referred to a business deal Hunter Biden was in that involved a fund drawing from investment from the Chinese government-owned Bank of China.

The fund was announced in late 2013 — days after Hunter Biden and one of his daughters flew to China from Japan aboard Air Force Two with the vice president, who was in the midst of a diplomatic mission to calm rising tensions in the region, warning Chinese leaders not to use fighter jets to enforce an air defense zone created by Beijing over contested waters. Hunter Biden and his daughter participated in a few public events there with Mr. Biden.

The conservative author Peter Schweizer claimed that Hunter Biden used the trip to secure a deal with the Bank of China. That allegation has been echoed by Mr. Trump’s allies, and by the president himself on Thursday.

But a lawyer for Hunter Biden has said that he did not conduct any business related to the China investment fund on that trip, and that he was never an equity owner in the fund while his father was vice president. Hunter Biden later acquired a 10 percent interest in the entity that oversees the fund, but to date has not received any money from the arrangement, according to the lawyer.

Mr. Trump on Thursday said he had not personally asked President Xi for assistance. “But it’s certainly something we can start thinking about because I’m sure that President Xi does not like being under that kind of scrutiny.”

In his remarks Thursday, the president said Hunter Biden was not qualified for that sort of business dealing, noting that he had been discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine. “He got kicked out of the Navy,” Mr. Trump said. “All of a sudden he’s getting billions of dollars. You know what they call that? They call that a payoff.”

In Ukraine, Hunter Biden served on the board of an energy company making as much as $50,000 a month. As vice president, his father pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor whose office had oversight of investigations into the oligarch who owned that energy company. By the time the elder Mr. Biden acted, there was no public evidence that the prosecutors’ office was actively pursuing any of the investigations.

But the oligarch’s allies say the prosecutor continued to use the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes from the oligarch and his team. The prosecutor was widely believed to be overlooking corruption in Ukraine and his ouster was favored by the United States, European leaders and international institutions. No evidence has emerged that Mr. Biden, who was carrying out Obama administration policy, was motivated by his son’s business interests.

While the prosecutor’s ouster was welcomed by the oligarch’s team, the new prosecutor initially took a hard line against the oligarch and his companies. But within months, he had closed all “legal proceedings and pending criminal allegations” against the oligarch and his companies, according to the company for which Hunter Biden served as a board member.

No authorities in United States, Ukraine or China have accused either Mr. Biden or his son of any legal wrongdoing and Mr. Trump did not explain what laws he believed might have been violated. But he did vaguely suggest without offering any evidence that Mr. Biden had been soft on China in terms of policy because of his son’s business interests.

“That’s probably why China had such a sweetheart deal that for so many years they’ve been ripping off our country,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump’s suggestion that China investigate the Bidens came as a delegation of senior Chinese officials is set to come to Washington next week for another round of trade negotiations. The two countries, which have been locked in a trade war, are hoping to make progress toward a deal after a breakdown in the talks in May, leading to an escalation of tariffs on each other’s goods.

Mr. Trump publicly continues to express ambivalence about the need for a deal while his advisers have been contemplating additional measures, such as banning Chinese companies from American stock exchanges, to inflict economic pain on China. The United States is scheduled to raise tariff rates on more Chinese imports on Oct. 15.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has been raising the issue of Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China along with his allegations that his business in Ukraine represented conflicts of interest for his father, charges amplified by Mr. Trump’s Republican allies.

In August, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asking him whether the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States was improperly influenced by Mr. Biden in 2015 when it approved the acquisition of a United States automotive technology company, Henniges Automotive, by a Chinese company and an investment firm linked to Hunter Biden. The Treasury Department has said that it was reviewing the case.

Mr. Biden is not the only candidate in the race with a child who has done business in China. Mr. Trump’s elder daughter, Ivanka, a senior adviser on his White House staff, has received trademarks from China even after she closed her brand in 2018 because of worsening sales and questions of conflicts of interest.

As a result, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a government watchdog group in Washington that has been sharply critical of Mr. Trump, has said that there will continue to be questions about whether the president is making certain foreign policy decisions to benefit his family.

Nicholas Fandos, Alan Rappeport and Kenneth P. Vogel contributed reporting.