#china mccain

[liberalsarecool]

I owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology. I’ve been critical of the Trump presidency and am still exhausted from the experience.

But to be fair, President Trump wasn’t that bad, other than:

• when he incited an insurrection against the government,

• mismanaged a pandemic that killed over a million Americans

• separated children from their families

• lost those children in the bureaucracy

• tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church

• tried to block all Muslims from entering the country

• got impeached

• got impeached again

• had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history

• pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden

• fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia

• bragged about firing the FBI director on TV

• took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community

• diverted military funding to build his wall

• caused the longest government shutdown in US history

• called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate”

• lied nearly 40,000 times

• banned transgender people from serving in the military

• ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions

• vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers

• refused to release his tax returns

• increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion

• had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history

• called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers

• coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist

• refused to concede the 2020 election

• hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House

• walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl

• called neo-Nazis “very fine people”

• suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID

• abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey

• pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans

• incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic

• withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords

• withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal

• withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances

• insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter

• pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op

• failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies

• called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries

• called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation”

• claimed that he single-handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere

• forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader

• believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

• berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe

• suggested the US should buy Greenland

• colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges

• repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people”

• claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases

• violated the emoluments clause

• thought that Nambia was a country

• told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public

• called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution

• nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet

• nominated a corrupt head of the EPA

• nominated a corrupt head of HHS

• nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department

• nominated a corrupt head of the USDA

• praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies

• refused to allow the presidential transition to begin

• insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death

• spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president

• falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote

• called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser”

• falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year

• considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions

• mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID

• locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones

• used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus”

• hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser

• pardoned several of his shady associates

• gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories

• got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!)

• had a Secretary of State who called him a moron

• forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history

• botched the COVID vaccine rollout

• tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him

• charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties

• constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate

• claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear

• called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas”

• used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise

• opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling

• got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers

• claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US

• ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings

• blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining

• redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle

• got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters”

• threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution

• botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

• threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them

• pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes

• thought that the Virgin islands had a President

• drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane

• allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing

• rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos

• pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID

• rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers

• held blatant campaign rallies at the White House

• tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man

• refused to attend his successors’ inauguration

• nominated the worst Education Secretary in history

• threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted

• attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci

• promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t)

• allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues

• struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble

• called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ”

• threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders

• went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic

• claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”

• seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution

• demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director

• praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles

• completely gutted the Voice of America

• placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service

• claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower

• suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country

• suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public

• overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported

• reduced the number of refugees the US accepts

• insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames

• gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address

• named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties

• eliminated the White House office of pandemic response

• used soldiers as campaign props

• fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him

• demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade

• hired a shit ton of white nationalists

• politicized the civil service

• did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government

• falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts

• claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won

• insulted reporters of color

• insulted women reporters

• insulted women reporters of color

• suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs

• attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him

• summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election

• spent countless hours every day watching Fox News

• refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas

• hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer

• tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him

• acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney

• attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault

• held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present

• didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media

• stopped holding press briefings for months at a time

• “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power

• led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform

• claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers

• tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course

• suggested that the government nuke hurricanes

• suggested that wind turbines cause cancer

• said that he had a special aptitude for science

• fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure

• blurted out classified information to Russian officials

• tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida

• fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban

• hired Stephen Miller

• openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them

• interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel

• abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war

• tried to get Russia back into the G7

• held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden

• seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive

• lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated

• falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t

• shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies

• still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan

• still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks"

• forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID

• told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”

• fucked up the Census

• withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic

• did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act

• seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican

• stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win

• constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump

• claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened

• said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake

• claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him

• claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President

• created a commission to whitewash American history

• retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain

• claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there

• hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims

• had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others

• bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties

• apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House

• stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians

• falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police

• said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about

• tried to rescind protection from DREAMers

• gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic

• tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax

• said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states

• deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented

• claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln

• touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all

• retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile

• forced through security clearances for his family

• suggested that police officers should rough up suspects

• suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs

• tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender

• suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher

• nominated a climate change skeptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy

• retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event

• hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags

• accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address

• claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia

• mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault

• obsessed over low-flow toilets

• ordered the re-release of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release

• called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek)

• hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech

• took advice from the MyPillow guy

• claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists

• said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure

• never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign

• falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent

• announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest

• insulted the leader of Canada

• insulted the leader of France

• insulted the leader of Britain

• insulted the leader of Germany

• insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!)

• falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues

• blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually

• continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,

• said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked

• left a NATO summit early in a huff

• stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of five knows not to do that

• called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary

• refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise

And a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember .

[nyarlathesleeper]

Follow-up tiem baybeeeeeee

Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom is an independent film made by Jason Steele AKA Filmcow. It acts as a follow-up to a series of two shorts he filmed about the titular character and his attempts to save America from absurd criminals. I'll revisit these shorts eventually, but I'll mostly be focusing on the film itself. I love this film to no end. It's a ridiculous, fairly stupid story, but it's genuinely very funny and full of meaning. Assuming my internal ramblings are accurate. Spoilers for the whole franchise, of course.

At first, the movie is fairly similar to the shorts, Heart of America is given a job to save America from someone buying its debt from China using Bitcoin. A normal Filmcow plot if I've ever heard one. He chases various leads, encountering characters from the shorts, until he comes face-to-face with the mastermind behind the whole plot: The time-traveling, reality-warping robot Ouya. Ouya erases America from existence, replacing it with the infinitely worse country of Fug. We all hate Fug. Heart of America tries to bring America back to existence, going through what America used to be, what it stood for, even how it came into existence. He learned from the Native Fugmericans, about their knots, their bugs, and their carrots. Then the aliens invade, and after the resistance group he joins is attacked, he and Ouya make their way to the alien's base of operations: The local JW Marriott. After locating the source of the aliens' power, the two discuss what must be done with it, Heart of America electing to make the entire world America, forever. This includes making Africa the US, but larger. The Eiffel Tower was replaced by The Statue of Liberty (funny, given the statue was created by the French government). And even the Moon, our dear sweet Io, was made into the US. Thus America was saved forever.

Okay the plot is batshit insane, so why do I love it so much? There's obviously the overwhelming amount of Jason Steele charm. Awkward conversations between characters, funny voices, random bullshit that occasionally stuns the characters as much as the audience, and a healthy amount of frankly juvenile jokes about Nazi boner germs and the like. There is also, for me and many, the notable political angle.

Jason Steele has always (kinda) been one for political commentary. Some of his oldest videos are about mocking Barack Obama for loving Mr. Mime, or John McCain for being kinda crazy and talking to vegetables and such. His video about the 2012 presidential debate is awfully apt, given recent events. Recently, his finale to Charlie the Unicorn has been pretty thoroughly taken to be a criticism of capitalism and its lack of desire to actually do anything about changing the world in any way that would prevent us from dying horribly. And I think its fair to say that a movie about trying to save America from being erased has some notable things to say as well.

There's of course the Native Fugmerican culture segment, which serves to mock people who appropriate native cultures without understanding them. The beginning and ending of that segment touches on how America, as well as all the other countries that Ouya has created and destroyed, began with the genocide of native peoples.

Most of the political commentary, however, comes into play near the end of the film. In the last 10 minutes or so, we're given a bit more detail as to what Ouya is and what its goals are. To keep it brief, Ouya is a device from the far future who can manipulate reality at will. It has repeatedly created and destroyed country after country in order to draw out the future overlords of Earth, the "aliens" from earlier, who have a similar device of their own. The aliens' device is different, though. It makes permanent changes, and Ouya aims to use it so that devices like it and Ouya can never work in the first place. Otherwise, the universe will be ruled by a tyrannical government whose reach and scale of oppression is so overwhelmingly monstrous, that the people who created Ouya deemed it an infinitely worse alternative to what they recognize as repeated genocides. What this means is that Heart of America, in making the entire world America and preventing Ouya from completing its mission, has doomed the world to being eternally dominated by tyranny.

This raises a few points of commentary that I think are worth examining. First and foremost, Heart of America is the bad guy. Jason Steele is no stranger to writing protagonists who are world ending monsters (see Llamas With Hats for another example), but Heart of America is interesting because he truly believes that what he is doing is right. Something I've neglected to state in this post is that Heart of America is portrayed by a statue of a Bald Eagle, one of the most potent American symbols, and a fitting choice for someone literally named "Heart of America." HoA (not a home owners association) is meant to represent the classic American patriot who really doesn't know anything about America, but believes in the liberty and freedom crap wholeheartedly. When trying to list all of the states, he's only able to put down Florida, Texas, California, Wyoming, New York City, and Vermont. He's generally uninterested in the other countries that Ouya destroyed, as well as the natives that died because of American colonists. All he truly cares about is the idea of America and American freedom. This is highlighted most directly by Ouya in the climax when it states, "No. But if you care about freedom, true freedom, this is the only way." This is responding to HoA asking whether preventing these devices from working will bring America back. And in response, HoA makes the entire world America. This is very clearly the worst possible outcome, and Ouya reacts as such. America is doomed to become the very oppressors that Ouya was trying so desperately to stop. This is supported by the credits, of all things, which shows the American flag changing, as it presumably adds more and more worlds to its intergalactic empire. It bares a striking resemblance to the masks the aliens have.

Not a one-to-one, but close. Enough to evoke the idea that what America inevitably becomes is exactly what Ouya feared most.

The idea that America isn't exactly the most freedom loving nation shouldn't be a controversial take to those within the proper circles. Enforcing our will on others for the sake of material and political gains is a common trend in American history. From our numerous wars with Mexico, to Vietnam, to leveraging our business relations for pressuring other countries into economic servitude, America has its fingers in almost every pie on the global stage, and it's usually to the detriment of the pie. Heart of America, then, is the blind fool, who believes America to be a nation without fault. Well, mostly, he does acknowledge that subprime lending is a problem. The point is that Heart of America is the kind of person (bird?) who goes to bat for America at nearly every turn, maybe acknowledging the odd thing here or there as bad, but never in a way that challenges the systems America is built upon. He's the perfect American exceptionalist, believing that being more like America will be the solution to every problem facing the world. Very literally, he makes everything America and just considers his work done. He blatantly ignores the idea that Ouya's warning might have any actual weight, charging ahead anyway, creating the world that Ouya came from to begin with. It's with this in mind that the HoA line, "I know you come from a place without America, which is the saddest thing I can think of, but that won't be a problem for anyone ever again!" becomes so much more ironic. Ouya did come from America. America was the only thing it ever knew. And Heart of America is the progenitor of all that pain and suffering. Another detail sticks out to me, that being the aliens' reality writing device. Ouya notes that it was designed by slaves, and that its appearance was, "... a small, final act of defiance" that was not understood by their oppressors.

This is the device. It is shaped like a heart. Assuming that Ouya is from America, that would make this the heart of America. The device responsible for endless tyranny, endless oppression, endless suffering, is Heart of America. Poetry.

Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom is a movie about a lot of things. Sunny D, Shark Councils and Shark Powers, Merman Jesus, a German space elevator, and a 5th Dimensional Demigod. But it's also about the brutality that good intentions can create. How if you live life without questioning the system, even if you like that system, you could cause unimaginable pain. How the most devoted to an idea may be the ones to betray it most brutally. And how we, as Americans, owe it to ourselves and the world to ensure that we don't contribute to a regime that can and will destroy everything so that the ones in control can live unopposed. Freedom is non-negotiable.

I have other thoughts about this movie that I might share later. Some act as counters to my main mindset surrounding this movie, but are other potential takeaways that I haven't fully thought through. I should probably sleep for now tho, lol.

[generallemarc]

Let's not kid ourselves

Trump winning is not a good thing for American conservatism. Oh sure, there'll be some good stuff to point to. Taxes probably won't go up, and Biden's four years of liberal appointments will now be balanced out by four years of conservative ones. But remember who this man is. Remember that this is the man who sat by and watched as all 50 states ran the Constitution through a woodchipper during the pandemic. Remember that this is the man who only bothered slapping together a taskforce to deal with the massive spike in suicides from the lockdown four months after it had already happened(lockdown started in mid-March, task force was created in July). And remember how he keeps his promises-Obamacare was supposed to be repealed completely, then we were keeping a couple of the good parts, then he failed once and decided "ok, all the bad parts including the individual mandate stay law and I won't touch it for the rest of my term." The centerpiece of his first campaign, the wall, was something that was literally impossible because he'd never get the support, but he kept right on talking like we'd have a Great Wall of America across the whole of the border, and because he kept insisting on the wall the DHS never got most of the funds it needed for an overhaul because said funds were always tied up with the impossible wall. Also, don't forget that as a person this man is a jackass approaching LBJ proportions. Remember when he called John McCain a coward? The man who suffered torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese for years on end? Remember how he bragged about cheating on his wife? Yeah, the left tried to turn it into him confessing to rape on the Howard Stern Show, but when you pull back the left's lies you've still got a man bragging about how easy it is to cheat on your wife when you're a celebrity because all the women want you. I know we've had alot of those types as president in the past century, from JFK to LBJ to Warren Harding Bill Clinton to even FDR(albeit before his presidency), but "it's not so bad, we had tons of others who were terrible husbands" is hardly a defense or a thing to take comfort in.

If you think this blog is suddenly going to start celebrating the actions of the federal government come January, think again. As both a conservative and an autist I'll not change that easily-I intend to go right on with criticizing the bad and praising the good, and I fully expect more of the former than the latter on everything except China, which is something that was never really going to change no matter who won. Biden built on Trump's policies, which built on the last year or two of Obama's second term when he finally started realizing the truth of the threat they posed.

[jayahult]

Foreknowledge

"Oh, yeah, I was out there, man. The 90s and early 2000s were a sorta wild time in the scene. You had all of the stuff about Project Open Book coming out. I was with the FBAA at the time, and I remember flicking on the news when the stuff in Mindanao was going down. I actually went out there myself. Easier when you can just fly there yourself, of course, to see what's really going on. It was a disaster, head to toe.

Now I'm not trying to equivocate here, the PAF and Yanluo were fascists. End of story, they had to go. What happened in Seattle is proof enough of that. But we did some damn criminal things over there. We armed local militias that we shouldn't've, we deployed powers that we shouldn't've, and we did it using bad information from a black box project that was torturing US and foreign nationals. And everyone talks about the deployment of Screamer, rightfully, but he wasn't the only Akers we put out there. I once watched a US-affiliated guy - I'm not sure which one - get a single order and telekinetically implode a whole apartment block. It looked like it nearly killed him. But I'm sadder by far for any poor sap that was inside. That was about when I had enough and went back, and quit the FBAA.

I remember when Open Book leaked. A lot of people don't even know what we were doing, exactly, besides a lot of precognition and torture. The whole thing kicked off as a competitor to the precognitive cells they have over in China. Ever since the USSR fell out of the picture, they've been on basically every three-letter agency's shitlist, and the four-letter agency was roped in too. I read the whole thing, all of the leaks. I felt like I had to. Not a lot of people recall that pathokinetics and sense-alterers were also in the mix. You had prisoners pre-confessing to crimes they would commit, prisoners screaming because they were being forced to hallucinate dead family members, prisoners who were forced to fall into love with their torturers. That real scary Kansas City shit. And we still don't know where most of them ended up. One of them was seventeen...

Abner - I'm not calling him former president Abner, he doesn't deserve that respect - went up and denied it. It was bullshit, and everyone knew it. This was one of his administration's projects, projecting our power over foreign rivals. We knew a little bit about precognitive interference back then, just not that it worked both ways, regardless of side. And when the dust settled even his own party wanted him impeached - it was the only way for the Republicans to save face on their foreign policy planks, and, I mean, it fucking worked man. I hate to say it, but that's how McCain got elected, by being the first to break ranks over it. And of course he resigned before anything could come of it.

And of course nobody thinks about where all those guys went after Open Book. The guys in units like Cherry Tree or Almighty Providence. You know their unit mottos? "You cannot tell a lie," "It shall come to pass." Disgusting. yeah, they made a show of putting a few of them away. But anyone that was actually valuable? They needed to keep them, they're just deployed in subtler ways. Places people wouldn't think to look. Think about it this way: have you ever noticed that since 2007, there hasn't been a single product recall from the FDA? It's odd, isn't it. Almost like they're catching the bad stuff before it ever comes to market. Like they've got foreknowledge."

[jaywinaustin]

From the opening bell, tRump has been a disaster. From sketchy inaugural donations and lying about crowd size, to mishandling COVID and endangering democracy by throwing shade on elections The Orange One's (my preferred reference) has damaged this country.

So to help jog people's memory, here's a short list of things he's done that the MAJORITY of Americans will find distasteful/illegal/evil/unAmerican.

THE LIST

• Claimed millions voted illegally

• Put children in cages

• Refused to release tax returns

• Denigrated Gold Star family

• Calls free press “enemy of the people”

• Has lied over 15,000+ times

• Gave security clearance to Ivanka and Jared over intelligence objections

• Denigrated John McCain for being a POW

• Thinks of veterans as suckers and losers

• Skipped Normandy ceremony as he didn't want to ruin his hair in the rain

• Politicized masks and other possible ways to mitigate spread of COVID

• Banned Muslims from entering country unless they are from a country he does business with

• Called Nazis very fine people

• Insults allies

• Praises dictators

• Ignored intelligence reports about Russian bounties on US troops

• Called African nations “shithole countries”

• Belittles US generals and believes he knows more then them

• Stole money from his charity and is banned

from having any new ones

• Foreign governments stay in his hotels to curry favors

• Forces government employees to stay in his properties while traveling

• Played golf more than any prez after stating he wouldn't have time to play

• Government must foot bill for his golf excursions which means we have paid his company over 200 times his salary

• Promoted snake oil cures for COVID

• Donates his salary as a tax dodge because he makes so much off golf trips.

• paid off porn star to remain quiet about sexual affair

• Had sexual affair while wife was pregnant with son

• Promised to build wall along border has only completed three miles of new fence and Mexico will not pay for it

• During campaign his operatives had numerous meeting with Russian agents in order to gain an advantage

• Obstructed investigation into his Russian connections

• Attempted to bribe Ukrainian president for help with his election

• Asked China to help him win re-election

• Impeached for Ukrainian scheme and his obstruction of subsequent investigation

• Has nearly daily Twitter

tantrums

• Attacks private citizens on Twitter

• Hurls childish nicknames at those he perceives as foes

• Pudges leaders of other countries aside so he can walk at front

• Threw paper towels at hurricane victims

• Removed clean water and air regulations

• Promised to get drug prices lowered, instead the went up

• Drain the swamp? He added more swamp creatures

• Knocked out the teeth of the EPA

• Kicked Dept. of Interior in the

balls

• Dumbed down the Department of Education

• Suspected of being Russian asset

• Supports white supremacy groups

• Validates racism

• Inherited a good economy, destroyed it

• Highest trade deficit in years

• Started tariff war with China, lost

• Due to tariff war had highest number of small

farm bankruptcies since depression

• Utilized secret police against citizens

• Largest civil unrest in nation since Vietnam years

• Attacked federal judges he didn't like

• Ignored danger of COVID-19

• Ignored scientists on COVID

• Over 220,000 deaths from COVID and climbing

• Downplayed seriousness of COVID

• No national plan to control COVID

• Dismantled pandemic response team prior to outbreak

• Didn’t replenish national supplies of PPE and other medical equipment

• Federal government seized PPE from states who imported it for their state’s use

• Owes millions of dollars, possibly to foreign interests that could compromise US security

• Tax cuts for rich, peanuts for others

• No definitive foreign policy

• To help his business interests, caved to Turkey and betrayed our Kurdish allies

• He has become a laughing stock of other world leaders

• Favorability of US in the world has gone down except in dictatorship countries

• Promoted budget that would diminish Social Security and Medicare

This is not an all-inclusive list, there are tons of regulations meant to protect us he has overridden, countless people he has insulted, untold number of norms he has violated and more. At least this is a starting point though of why you should not vote to give him four more years. If he is reelected it will be an incomprehensible disaster for this country.

So read over this short list one more time and go vote for Kamala Harris.

Vote for decency and competence.

Vote The Orange One out.

[usafphantom2]

I’m not sure if the guides at the museum know what their Blackbird #972 did, but here are a few facts. Also, please tell the guides at the Air and Space Museum that the engines are still intact. They did not know this when I was there in November 2023.

# 972 First mission;

On October 4, 1969, Bob Spencer and I flew SR-71 number 972 on its first combat flight (the aircraft is now at the Air & Space Museum located at Dulles Airport in Virginia) for 6.0 hours. This was a triple loopier over North Vietnam and along the Chinese border.

When I arrived at Kadena for the first time in October of 1969, the Operating Location (OL) had been up and running for over a year. Many of the crews were on their second and third tours of duty at the OL (operations location) Richard Sheffield was held back due to a directive from the President to standby to fly a covert mission, if necessary with a former A-12 pilot.

North Korea, November 22, 1969, SR-71 number, 972

First SR to overfly North Korea and first to land in South Korea.

Some years later, General Minter told me that this mission was requested by CINCPAC, Admiral McCain (father of Senator McCain of Arizona). He had visited Kadena and was briefed on the SR and the missions we were flying over North Vietnam. He told General Minter that he was more worried about North Korea than he was about Vietnam.

General Minter had his staff draw up a mission to overfly every surface-to-air missile (SA-2) site in Korea on one mission and submit it to CINCPAC. It was approved, and we flew it. It was a perfect day for flying a reconnaissance mission, not a cloud in the sky. I believe that North Korea had about thirty SA-2 sites scattered all around the country. Several sites were along the China border, and we flew right over them. Because Korea is a narrow country with Japan on one side and China on the other, we had to make 180-degree turns over the water after each pass over Korea. It seemed like we were, in turn, the whole mission. We flew over every missile site in North Korea.

This mission resulted in the first emergency landing of an SR 71 in South Korea.

When you go out to the museum and you look at that beautiful SR 71 I want you to visualize just where it has been. Linda Sheffield.

@Habubrats71 via X

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

A tale of two speeches.

January 8, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

The last forty-eight hours should give hope to everyone seeking to preserve democracy. Why? Because the “commemoration” of January 6 by Trump and MAGA extremists was so vile that decent people everywhere recoiled in disgust and horror. Trump's unhinged “speeches” have become so alarming and brazen that anyone who harbors doubts will soon abandon any notion that supporting Trump is consistent with our constitutional democracy. In a closely divided electorate, Trump's depravity will repel persuadable independents and Republicans.

Of course, Trump did not “commemorate” January 6. He mocked those who defended democracy on January 6 and celebrated those who tried to end it. He called convicted felons serving time for assaulting the Capitol “hostages”—implying that the US government is a “terrorist” organization illegally holding people without due process. He promised to grant pardons to “a large portion” of the January 6 insurrectionists.

He said of the insurrectionists, “Nobody has been treated ever in history so badly as those people . . . in our country.” (Really, Donald? Ask enslaved people and their descendants, Indigenous Americans, women, immigrants from virtually every nation on earth, and LGBTQ people if they agree.)

At the same time, Trump continued his descent into grotesque indecency, madness, and barbarism. He mocked Joe Biden for his stutter and John McCain for physical disabilities caused by injuries inflicted during combat and torture as a prisoner of war. He rambled incoherently about water “dissolving” magnetic bonds. He praised China’s President Xi Jinping as a “brilliant man” for ruling the Chinese people “ruthlessly” with an “iron fist.”

There is more, but you get the point. All the above occurred in forty-eight hours in Iowa. Imagine how much more we will see over the next ten months. He is incapable of restraining himself; his lies will become more fantastic, his delusions grander, his madness more incoherent, his greed more rapacious, and his hate more depraved. All of that will make a difference. It already is. Read on!

The NYTimes Editorial Board issues a warning about Donald Trump.

The New York Times Editorial Board published an editorial on January 7, 2024 warning against a second term of a Trump presidency. See NYTimes Editorial, A Warning About Donald Trump and 2024. (Accessible to all.) I recommend that you read the editorial in its entirety.

The Times Editorial Board writes, in part,

Our purpose at the start of the new year, therefore, is to sound a warning. Mr. Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small. He confronts America with a far more fateful choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution. [¶] Mr. Trump’s four years in the White House did lasting damage to the presidency and to the nation. He deepened existing divisions among Americans, leaving the country dangerously polarized; he so demeaned public discourse that many Americans have become inured to lies, insults and personal attacks at the highest levels of leadership. His contempt for the rule of law raised concerns about the long-term stability of American democracy, and his absence of a moral compass threatened to corrode the ideals of national service. [¶] Mr. Trump’s forays into foreign affairs remain dangerously misguided and incoherent. [¶] He has announced his intention to abandon Ukraine, leaving it and its neighbors vulnerable to further Russian aggression. [¶¶] Re-electing Mr. Trump would present serious dangers to our Republic and to the world. This is a time not to sit out but instead to re-engage. We appeal to Americans to set aside their political differences, grievances and party affiliations and to contemplate — as families, as parishes, as councils and clubs and as individuals — the real magnitude of the choice they will make in November.

The editorial is well-stated and long overdue. But it is worth reflecting for a moment how extraordinary it is that the nation’s “newspaper of record” would issue a stark and urgent warning against the leading candidate for a major political party. I am not a historian and I haven’t conducted research on the topic, but I doubt that the Times has ever issued a similar warning against a major party candidate.

Read this: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder.

Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University published a short book seven years ago (before Trump) that contained twenty “lessons” on how to avoid tyranny. The book is wonderful. If you haven’t read it, you should. Purchase “On Tyranny” from an independent bookseller of your choice, here, Bookshop: Buy books online. Support local bookstores, or visit an actual bookstore!

Professor Snyder also publishes a Substack newsletter called “Thinking About . . .” On the third anniversary of January 6, Professor Snyder published a summary of the twenty lessons from his book in a Substack article called, “On Tyranny.” The essay is brilliant, and I urge you to read it. It will provide you with strategies and tools for resisting tyranny and celebrating freedom.

Professor Snyder explains in his article: For those who want democracy and the rule of law in the United States after 2024, I would only add: now is the time to organize, to prepare to win locally and nationally, and to talk not only about what is to be lost but what can be gained. I wrote On Tyranny in a defensive mode; but freedom is something not only to be defended but to be defined and to be celebrated. As for me, I believe that if we can get through the next year, things could get better. Much better. For now, three years after Trump’s attempt to end democracy and the rule of law in the United States, a reminder of the lessons. I recall them now in the hope that I won’t have to do so again a year from now.

Read Professor Snyder’s article. It will lift you up and give you strength. I guarantee it!

We are the majority. Believe it! Act like it!

One of the most pernicious aspects of the unthinking loyalty of Trump's base is that we tend to overestimate the scale of Trump's support. Their stubborn, mindless, vocal support for Trump bewilders us and causes us to assume that it is broader and deeper than it really is. Those who support democracy and oppose Trump represent the strong majority of Americans. We need to believe that fact—and start acting like we believe it!

Jamelle Bouie (of the NYTimes) has addressed the issue of the relative size of the anti-Trump majority in his newsletter article today, Trump Doesn’t Actually Speak for the Silent Majority. (Accessible to all.)

Jamelle Bouie writes, in part,

What’s been lost — or if not lost then obscured — in the constant attention to Trump’s voters, supporters and followers is that the overall American electorate is consistently anti-MAGA. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. The MAGA-fied Republican Party lost the House of Representatives in 2018. Trump lost the White House, and the Republican Party lost the Senate in 2020. In 2022, Trump-like or Trump-lite candidates lost competitive statewide elections in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania. Republicans vastly underperformed expectations in the House, winning back the chamber with a razor-thin margin, and Democrats secured governorships in Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin, among other states. Democrats overperformed again the following year, in Kentucky and Virginia. [¶] Too many commentators have spent too much time fretting over Trump’s voters — and how they might react to the effort to remove the former president from the ballot — and not enough time thinking about the tens of millions of voters who have said, again and again, that they do not want this man or his movement in American politics. Because 2016 was not the only election that mattered. Trump’s voters are not the only ones who count.

It is inevitable that the media and the public will give outsized attention to someone who threatens our safety and security. That is a feature hard-wired into our brains by millions of years of evolution. Our task is to overcome those primal fears and shift our attention away from the threat and focus instead on our strength and the promise of a better world the day we defeat Trump for the third time.

We can do that. We are doing that. We just need to keep it up!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[peemil]

wait but now im curious what some common asian last name standards are. im quite suprised to learn that they arent derived from any of those listed like occupation/area/etc.

looking more closely, nearly all of the most common common japanese names (watanabe, tanaka, nakamura, etc., etc.,) and many korean/chinese/vietnamese last names (oh/wu/ngo, for instance) are georgraphical. this is a bit On Me for not realizing this

with that said, the most common korean last name, kim, means gold/metal, but is unrelated to smithing. similarly, the character used to write both li in chinese and lee in korean refers to a plum tree (though the origin of this last name is... messy. getting to that later).

occupational names are rarer but usually refer to positions in royal courts (the korean names wang and han, meaning king (see also: vuong in vietnamese); the korean name yoon, meaning governor; the disputed origin of li/lee, derived from a minister's position in chinese courts; hu/ho, meaning retainers) or have military connotations (takeuchi when written as 武内, meaning "warrior household;" or zhang/chang/truong, meaning "archer"). other last names: ahn (tranquility), yong (dragon), suzuki (written as "bell tree," but originally meaning "the ears of rice piled up"), linh (soul/spirit), im/lim when written as 任 (duty), bong (short for bonghwang (better known as fenghuang, hōō, or the thing this is based on)).

tl;dr i feel like we proportionally have a lot more noun names that don't make reference to any sort of geography or profession. as for patronymic names like "mccain," nearly all of our names can be traced back to the leaders of certain houses or clans... but the names they passed down to us had meanings besides the name itself (i.e., no "johnson," etc.).

i did not include thai surnames due to the fact that they were not required until 1913, which resulted in naming conventions more similar to those of western cultures (i.e., after professions or nearby places), as opposed to chinese/korean/vietnamese surnames, which have much older histories (most, if not all, having origins in ancient china) and therefore have both more variance and meanings that are harder to pinpoint.

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

Ed Harris as Sheriff Virgil Cole on the set of Appaloosa (2008) with Jeremy Irons and Renee Zellweger in the background. Ed also co-wrote and directed. This is his second director credit, after Pollack, also an entry among my best 1,001 movies.

Appaloosa is Ed's 11th entry among my best 1,001 movies as an actor, after The Right Stuff, Places in the Heart, The Abyss, Glengarry Glen Ross, China Moon, Absolute Power, Pollack, A History of Violence, Game Change (as John McCain) and Frontera. His honorable mention is Sweet Dreams with Jessica Lange as Patsy Cline.

[back-and-totheleft]

"I'm not a historian and don't pretend to be"

Q. Talking about cruelty, we saw the cruelty of the Japanese army in Nagasaki – exhibits of the Nanjing Massacre, military sex slavery, and Unit 731 at the Oka Masaharu Museum.[9] The US too, even after its use of the atomic bomb, used cruel weapons such as Agent Orange, depleted uranium weapons, cluster bombs, and drones. The nature of war is cruel, but in the case of the US, it seems rampant. Is there any historical significance in this cruelty of the United States?

Stone: I do not believe that the United States was as cruel as Germany and Japan were. I mean I was in Vietnam; I saw Agent Orange dropped on us many times. I still do not know. Maybe I am going to be a victim of it. I do not think about it that much, but I know people have claimed they had been. We saw the results with the Vietnamese. Agent Orange was the cruelest we became. Although we developed mustard gas in WWI, we never used it. The atomic bomb and Agent Orange were the worst. When Obama talks about Syria and he says that the red line for Syria is chemical weapons, what a fucking hypocrite! Why doesn’t he look at our own history? He probably would not even admit that we used chemical weapons in Vietnam. And we made a big deal about Saddam Hussein’s having used chemical weapons when we were trying to justify invading Iraq. (Kuznick: But when Saddam used them against the Iranians, we initially ran interference for him at the UN, preempting a resolution explicitly condemning the Iraqi use. He was our ally. And after he used them against Iraq’s own Kurdish people at Halabjah in 1988, the U.S. increased aid to his vile regime.) So who makes money off this? Dow Chemical profited immensely in Vietnam, but the students drove their recruiters off campus. But cruelty, no; cruelty is not human nature. There are always cruel soldiers in every country in the world, people who are racist, people who are stupid. But as a policy, the United States. . . , take waterboarding. We do it, but we always back away from it, whereas you have to admit that the Germans and the Japanese wholeheartedly embraced cruelty for many years. If they had been winners in WWⅡ, we would be experiencing Unit 731 in Manchuria. [...]

Q: Japan faces debate over historical issues such as the Nanjing Massacre and military sex slavery, and when we try to deal with these issues honestly we are called anti-Japanese. Do you get such reaction too as being called anti-American or unpatriotic? How do you deal with such criticism?

Stone: I think the strongest credential I can put forward would be, number one, my service in the military in Vietnam, which is hard for them to get around. John McCain can bluster all he wants, but at the end of the day, he was a bomber; he bombed people from the air and he knows that. I do not understand the man’s mentality, how, after being in the prison camp like he was, he can still have such anger and hatred in his heart for the perceived enemies of the United States, possibly soon including China. McCain is what I would call an unreconstructed, un-evolved soldier; many of them exist. I, on the other hand, feel good about my mission…because I served honorably. To be honest, I mean it was not an honorable war, but I served honorably within the confines of my own understanding of the war. And at the end of the day, I became a warrior for peace, which is what I am now, not a warrior for more wars, so I feel strong about that.

And number two, I think what is very important for me is that I did not speak out until I had made roughly eighteen feature films. I spoke as a dramatist, which is my profession. I am not a historian, and I do not pretend to be. I do not have the grounding in it, but I do care about history and I can dramatize it well. Now as I speak out as a documentarian with a background of having made movies, I get criticized very often for nonsense reasons, rubbish reasons. The way they threw it at me was that I made up history, and it took me a while to understand it. Many dramatists have used history before me and I do not apologize for doing historical drama. I never once claimed that I was doing a documentary, and I was not doing a documentary, never, and they put words in my mouth. Anyway, that is why I feel that I can talk strongly without feeling shame.

-Oliver Stone, "“We Used Chemical Weapons in Vietnam”: Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick Explain How Telling the Untold History Can Change the World for the Better," By Satoko Oka Norimatsu & Narusawa Muneo, Truthout, Oct 6 2013

[rakshasns]

Dehydrated Potato Market Strong Growth in Future 2030

The Dehydrated Potato Market Trend was USD 5.51 billion in 2022 and is expected to Reach USD 9.37 billion by 2030 and grow at a CAGR of 6.9 % over the forecast period of 2023-2030. 

The Dehydrated Potato growth is estimated to be majorly driven by growing economies of Asia Pacific region. The growing demand of Dehydrated Potato from the wind energy, marine, and packaging end-use industries in China, India, Japan, and Australia is driving the growth of Dehydrated Potato in Asia Pacific region

Book Your FREE Sample Report @ https://www.snsinsider.com/sample-request/3972

Dehydrated Potato Market Poised for Growth Amid Rising Demand for Convenience Foods

The global Dehydrated Potato Market is experiencing robust growth as consumer demand for convenient and long-lasting food products continues to rise. Dehydrated potatoes, prized for their extended shelf life and ease of use, are widely utilized in processed foods such as instant mashed potatoes, soups, snacks, and ready-to-eat meals. Their ability to retain nutritional value and taste makes them a preferred choice in both household kitchens and the food service industry. Additionally, the increasing popularity of gluten-free diets and the incorporation of dehydrated potato ingredients into various gluten-free products further bolster market expansion.

Geographically, the market is witnessing significant growth in regions such as North America and Europe, driven by the prevalence of busy lifestyles and the demand for convenience foods. Meanwhile, emerging markets in Asia-Pacific and Latin America are gaining traction due to increasing urbanization, rising disposable incomes, and the expanding food processing industry. Technological advancements in dehydration techniques are also enhancing product quality and reducing production costs, further fueling market growth. As health-conscious consumers seek nutritious yet convenient options, the dehydrated potato market is set to thrive in the coming years.

Market Overview

By Form

Flakes

Powder

Dices

Shreds

Others

By Nature

Organic

Conventional

By Distribution Channel

Food Services

Retail Channel

The major factors driving the growth of the studied are growing demand of lightweight material from automotive industry and increasing construction activities in Asia-Pacific.

Availability of substitutes for Dehydrated Potato are likely to hinder the s growth.

Potential growth in wind energy is likely to create opportunities for the in the coming years.

Asia-Pacific region is expected to dominate the and is also likely to witness highest CAGR during the forecast period.

The key players covered in this report:

McCain Foods

Lamb Weston

Augason Farms

Pacific Valley Foods

Birkamidon

R. Short Milling

Idaho Supreme Potatoes

Idahoan Foods

Rohstoffhandels GmbH

Rixona B.V

Buy This Exclusive Report @ https://www.snsinsider.com/checkout/3972

Asia-Pacific Region to Dominate the

Asia-Pacific region is expected to dominate the industry. In the region, China is the largest economy, in terms of GDP. China is one of the fastest emerging economies and has become one of the biggest production houses in the world, today. The country’s manufacturing sector is one of the major contributors to the country’s economy.

China is the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world. The country’s automotive sector has been shaping up for product evolution, with the country focusing on manufacturing products, in order to ensure fuel economy, and to minimize emissions (owing to the growing environmental concerns due to mounting pollution in the country).

Contact Us:

Akash Anand – Head of Business Development & Strategy

info@snsinsider.com

Phone: +1-415-230-0044 (US)

[animebritneyspears]

Well, someone's full of shit..

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong received a seven-member United States Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain, on June 4, 2016 The delegation, led by Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), consists of four other members of the SASC: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Senator Thomas Cotton (R-Arkansas), Senator Daniel Sullivan (R-Alaska), and Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). In summary, this is just another ploy to pander to his voting base. He knows that the CEO isn’t from the mainland, or that Singapore isn’t anywhere close to it. But pointing that out isn’t going to appease to his willfully ignorant target demographic who only want to hear what they want to hear (i.e the Evil Orientals Chinese and Communism).  

I bet my ass that his voters can barely locate China, let alone Singapore, on a map. The issue about tiktok being a security issue has become irrelevant at that point. Gaining approval by painting the CEO in a bad light (CEO is Chinese, therefore evil) is just another effort to gain votes, while adding fuel to a new red scare and yellow peril-related fears.

it's really cold war 2.0 💀

[darkmaga-returns]

Ukraine launched an unprecedented wave of drones over Moscow, prompting Russia to respond with a major airstrike on Sunday. Russia was able to intercept 70 Ukrainian drones, half of which were shot down over the Russian capital. Over the weekend, Moscow retaliated with a wave of 145 drones, marking the largest offensive since the conflict began. Ukraine claims it shot down 62 of the incoming drones.

Video Player

The American Neocons were orchestrating the Maidan Revolution. Can you imagine if Putin came to a protest in the USA and told the people they needed to overturn the government?  This interference in foreign nations has led to countless deaths. McCain urged revolution and promised entry into the EU and peace. They instructed Kiev and their hand-picked government to start the civil war. This nonsense that Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire is just laughable. He had years to do so since 1999 and never made any such effort. The Russian people do not want to return to those dark days either. Everyone I know from Russia throughout Eastern Europe who experienced Communism as well as those in China have zero tolerance for a return to those very dark days of Marxism.

Zelensky is desperate to try to force Russia to attack anything in NATO before Trump takes office. Our computer still shows Ukraine going into a flat line. The Ukrainian people must step up against Zelensjy to save their culture and country. Zelensky’s attack on Moscow targeting civilians is a desperate attempt to create World War III before Trump takes office. This guy is dangerous to the entire world, for he remains a hand-puppet of the Neocons. We have high volatility going into December, thanks to Zelensky.

[usafphantom2]

SR-71 RSO recalls when his Blackbird Photographed all of the SA-2 SAM Sites in North Korea in One Mission before doing an Emergency Landing in South Korea

‘I believe that North Korea had about thirty SA-2 sites scattered all around the country,’ Richard “Butch” Sheffield SR-71 Blackbird RSO.

SR-71 T-Shirts

CLICK HERE to see The Aviation Geek Club contributor Linda Sheffield’s T-shirt designs! Linda has a personal relationship with the SR-71 because her father Butch Sheffield flew the Blackbird from test flight in 1965 until 1973. Butch’s Granddaughter’s Lisa Burroughs and Susan Miller are graphic designers. They designed most of the merchandise that is for sale on Threadless. A percentage of the profits go to Flight Test Museum at Edwards Air Force Base. This nonprofit charity is personal to the Sheffield family because they are raising money to house SR-71, #955. This was the first Blackbird that Butch Sheffield flew on Oct. 4, 1965.

The SR-71, unofficially known as the “Blackbird,” was a long-range, advanced, strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft. The first flight of an SR-71 took place on Dec. 22, 1964, and the first SR-71 to enter service was delivered to the 4200th (later 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., in January 1966.

Its incredible speed enabled it to gather intelligence in a matter of a few seconds while streaking across unfriendly skies, like proved by this story featured in my father’s (Richard “Butch” Sheffield, former Blackbird RSO) unpublished book.

North Korea, Nov. 22, 1969, SR-71 number, 972

-First SR to overfly North Korea and first to land in South Korea.

Some years later General Minter told me that Commander in Chief Pacific (CINCPAC), Admiral McCain (father of the Senator McCain of Arizona), requested this mission. He had visited Kadena and was briefed on the SR and the missions we were flying over North Vietnam. He told General Minter that he was more worried about North Korea than he was about Vietnam.

Read the story of the SR-71 crew that landed their Blackbird in zero visibility

General Minter had his staff draw up a mission to over fly every surface to air missile (SA-2) site in North Korea on one mission and submitted it to CINCPAC. It was approved and we flew it. It was a perfect day for flying a reconnaissance mission, not a cloud in the sky. I believe that North Korea had about thirty SA-2 sites scattered all around the country. Several of the sites were along the China border and we flew right over the sites. Because Korea is a narrow country with Japan on one side and China on the other, we had to make 180-degree turns over the water after each pass over Korea. It seemed like we were in a turn the whole mission. We flew over every missile site in North Korea.

On the last pass we turned south to head back to Kadena when the generator fail light came on. I looked out the left window and could see Kunsan, South Korea, below us. We were flying at Mach 3+ and it would only take about forty-five minutes to be on the ground at Kadena. We debated for a few seconds to land or go on, and decided to shut the engine down, and started our descent to Kunsan.

We called the tower at Kunsan and told them we were an F-4 with an engine out and needed to land right away. They cleared the traffic pattern for us and when we came into view someone said over UHF radio that they would get us some flying suits to wear. It was a flight surgeon that had been stationed at Beale and he knew we were in full pressure suits and would need something to wear. He was in the ambulance on the flight line responding to our emergency.

SR-71 RSO tells the story of when he and his pilot were able to land their crippled Blackbird after it experienced a catastrophic engine failure while flying at Mach 2.88 at 68,000 feet

Butch Sheffield Pre- flight

Kunsan is located along the West Coast of Korea and fairly close to North Korea. From time to time, the North Koreans would come in boats and attack the base with weapons launched from the boats. Apparently, when we gave the call over HF to Kadena that we were going to land at Kunsan, they had called and told Kunsan to park us in a hangar and give us maximum security. They did not have a hangar that was big enough for us and the only really secure area was the F-4 nuclear alerts area where F-4’s with nuclear weapons loaded stood on alert. This area was surrounded by large land filled bunkers and high chain link fences. They opened the gate and we taxied right in, the F-4’s could not get out so we shut down the nuclear capability of Kunsan.

The idea was to hide us so no one would know a SR was in Korea. Parking the SR in this area where no one could get into would keep people and the press from knowing what had landed. The only problem was you could see our rudders sticking up from behind the bunkers all over the place. In no time, the base people and the press knew the first SR to land in Korea had arrived.

After we deplaned, we got out of our pressure suits and into our non-descriptor no markings flying suits. Bob said we needed to go to the Base Exchange and get some “shiny stuff,” or brass items that the Koreans specialize in making. We got someone to take us to the exchange and we walked in expecting no one to know whom we were. All of the sudden people were pointing at us and talking. They knew who we were because of the white boots we were wearing.

SR-71 print

This print is available in multiple sizes from AircraftProfilePrints.com – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS. SR-71A Blackbird 61-7972 “Skunkworks”

Because of the threat to the SR and the intelligence we had on our sensors, getting us out of Korea quickly and safely became a high priority throughout PACAF. Soon C-130’s began to arrive with equipment, a new engine and to pick up the sensors. A KC-135’s arrived with JP-7 fuel for us. They put us up for the night in the VIP quarters and even the Base Commander had dinner for us at the club. The next morning the aircraft was ready to go and we left. We took off to the North, went out a few miles and came back over the base, lit the afterburners and went straight up.

The North Koreans had tracked our aircraft throughout the flight. I knew because our defense’s systems had told me, yet the Government of North Korea did not object because they did not want their own people to know that we were spying on them and they couldn’t do anything about it.

@Habubrats71 via X

Be sure to check out Linda Sheffield Miller (Col Richard (Butch) Sheffield’s daughter, Col. Sheffield was an SR-71 Reconnaissance Systems Officer) Twitter Page Habubrats SR-71 and Facebook Page Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder for awesome Blackbird’s photos and stories.

[grotto-esque]

The Flailing Superpower — Pankaj Mishra The New York Review of Books

For decades now the prolonged theater of US presidential elections has attracted a global audience keen to be educated in the arcana of the electoral college and the psephology of the “swing” states. These millions of spectators have been markedly partisan, wistfully hoping for victory to the Democratic candidate and a foreign policy that at least acknowledges the decent opinions of mankind before proceeding to disregard them.

In the early 2000s official mendacity about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, boosted by a compliant American media, created a vast global reservoir of cynicism about democratic American institutions and propelled the United States itself into the post-truth age. The election of the first Black man as US president, after the catastrophic years of the “war on terror” and the financial crisis, briefly sparked hopes of a broad correction. Barack Obama, who had opposed the Iraq War, quickly became the “biggest celebrity in the world” (in the deprecating words of his hapless rival John McCain), and his elevation to the White House, accompanied by slogans of hope and change and partly enabled by the politicization of young Americans, seemed an opportunity to bring fresh energy and imagination to US politics and culture.

As it happened, Obama, safeguarding Wall Street and polishing his personal brand, bequeathed to the United States and the world a volatile demagogue. Some relief was inspired by Joe Biden’s narrow win in 2020 and his early economic reconfigurations, but it could not survive his posture abroad, which was in crucial respects—confronting China, securing a “deal” between Israel and Saudi Arabia—a continuation of Trump’s. Events in the last year have now conclusively ended US elections’ emotional and moral sway over the world.

A poll cited recently in Foreign Affairs reveals cratering support for the US and an increased preference for China among prominent Asian countries as partner. But statistics alone won’t register the depth and scale of the suspicion built over more than two decades—that, by intensifying misbegotten foreign entanglements in the midst of economic decline, the United States has damaged its own institutions and social fabric, in addition to undermining international law and squandering its prestige and authority. Further, a change of occupants in the White House is no longer sufficient even to temporize against the dark and uncontrollable forces unleashed by the world’s most powerful society in severe polycrisis.

The most recent embodiment of a hectically flailing superpower for many outside the US is a Democratic president addicted to arming Israel, a reckless American protégé that pursues total war—the deliberate targeting of civilian lives and infrastructure as well as military enemies—on multiple fronts. Any great power, let alone a self-proclaimed upholder of a “rules-based liberal international order,” that cannot hold disorder within limits quickly loses legitimacy, and the implications for both American interests and image even in the present are stark.

But Israel, combining industrialized mass killing with cultural devastation, is bringing forth, with some help from Russia, another wounded nationalism seeking permanent security, a new “age of extremes.” As in the twentieth century’s seminal calamity, World War I, an extensive moral and legal arson is quickening decisive steps toward authoritarianism in several Western societies. Politicians and businessmen across the ideological spectrum openly violate long-established norms and protocols of public life, from a Tory home secretary in Britain egging on far-right mobs and the owner of X promoting the Great Replacement theory to Germany’s foreign minister, of the progressive Green Party, claiming to have seen a video of a Hamas militant raping an Israeli woman (no such video is known to exist).

That Biden, an old-machine politician who has received more money from Israel lobby groups than anyone in Congress since 1990, should fail to perceive the insidious dynamic of nihilism is no great surprise. Those who noticed him bear-hugging Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, in his attempt to globally mobilize democracy against autocracy, had already written him off as a walking ideological delusion from the cold war who is unable to spot the world’s new constellation of forces (which make, among other things, “democratic” India underwrite autocratic Russia’s war on Ukraine). Compulsively provisioning Israel’s massacres while chanting “cease-fire” over several months, Biden and his secretary of state confirm the widespread feeling that, as the famous internal memo to Robert S. McNamara in 1967 put it, “‘the Establishment’ is out of its mind.”

What’s more unsettling (and clarifying) to a global audience is that mainstream journalistic cultures in the US offer no intelligent restraint on the collective lurch, under a Democratic president, toward modern history’s best-signposted abyss. News outlets covering Israel’s “self-defense” continue to amplify, even after a calamitous year, the delusions and fabrications of the White House and the State Department, in a grim repeat of the intellectual and moral fiascos of the “war on terror.” Deliberately turning away from US-assisted carnage abroad, many liberal intellectual elites stress the urgency of mobilizing against Trump’s plan to extirpate democracy at home. But recoiling from Trump’s frankly malevolent fantasies, they keep collapsing into fresh illusions.

No other conclusion could be drawn by foreign observers as they witnessed an extraordinary recent spectacle: liberal American commentators vying with one another to hail Biden, visibly insentient and driven into retirement by ruthless party apparatchiks and donors, for his “sacrifice,” and to confect “joy” over Harris, an instantly forgettable presidential candidate in 2020 and subsequently confirmed during her tenure as vice-president as a political vacancy.

The global romance with Western political leaders of non-Western ancestry has already soured. Obama heralded a “post-racial” age, but after the demagogic flourishes of Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch, and Vivek Ramaswamy, politicians of diverse origins incite fear of a sinister regression rather than hope for social justice. Scribbling the words “FINISH THEM!” on an Israeli artillery shell bound for Lebanon, Nikki Haley, the second Indian American to compete for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, helped outline what a “brown Nazi” might look like in the future. Whether crowing about her endorsement by Dick Cheney, a torchbearer for torture; promising to shoot intruders in her home; or vowing to make the US military “the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world,” the first Indian American presidential candidate from the Democratic Party shows few signs of defying the steadily dominant far-right ideals of violent hypermasculinity.

At the same time, Biden’s last-minute replacement seems miserably unequal, as she hides from her own courtiers in the media, to the unprecedented demands arising from the threats of far-right tyranny in the US. And hardly any resources for a renewal seem to exist among an aging liberal American political and media class. Its global prominence, as is clear now, was earned with raw power, during decades of unimpeded American hegemony, rather than superior intelligence and creativity. Not even the challenge of China, long predicted and now formidable, compels policy- and opinion-makers to shake off complacency and articulate a novel political and cultural vision.

Desperate to avoid a second and potentially lethal Trump presidency, they frantically generate, for the second time in four years, some new fantasies of salvation. But the savior they offered in 2020, a candidate even then showing clear signs of decrepitude, has revealed himself before a stunned global audience to be an obsessive enabler of a mass murder spree across the Middle East. Having confirmed that there is no such thing as a lesser evil, the US presidential elections won’t ever command the sentimental hopes of the world. Just as well: skepticism and stoicism would be better shields against the coming disorder. x

[rakshasns]

Dehydrated Potato Market to Reach USD 11.9 Billion by 2032 Due to Increasing Demand for Convenience Foods and Expanding Applications in Food Services

Dehydrated Potato Market to Reach USD 11.9 Billion by 2032 Due to Increasing Demand for Convenience Foods and Expanding Applications in Food Services

The Dehydrated Potato Market was valued at USD 6.5 Billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.04% during the forecast period 2024-2032, reaching USD 11.9 Billion by 2032.

Market analysis

The Dehydrated Potato Market is witnessing growth due to increasing consumer preference for convenience foods and the rising popularity of potato-based products across applications, in various processed food segments. Dehydrated potatoes are commonly used in ready-to-eat meals, instant mixes, and snacks, drawing considerable attention from both consumers and manufacturers. The government’s focus on promoting food sustainability and food security also positively influences the market. The European Union’s regulations introduced in 2022 to encourage the processing of agricultural products to reduce waste are in alignment with the production of dehydrated potatoes. Several state initiatives in India to encourage potato cultivation and processing also strengthen the market’s growth.

Segment Analysis

The conventional dehydrated potatoes segment held the largest market share by nature. The lower production cost and extended shelf life coupled with the widespread availability justify the segment’s dominance. The extensive use of conventional dehydrated potatoes in processed foods and snacks enables the dominance to continue. The organic dehydrated potato segment is expected to witness the fastest growth amid the consumer’s preference for organic products to echo the health and environmental concerns. Natural processed, chemical-free food demand is the prime factor backing this segment’s expansion.

The food services held the largest market share in the distribution channel. Consistent demand for dehydrated potato products from restaurants, fast food chains, and third-party food service providers to produce fries and mashed potatoes justify the segment’s dominance. The retail distribution channel is witnessing rapid growth, given the increasing consumer preference for convenience foods. Supermarkets and e-commerce platforms are showcasing a wide range of dehydrated potato products, providing impetus to the channel’s growth.

Regional Analysis

North America dominated the global dehydrated potato market, owning to the higher consumption of potato-based products and well-established food processing. The U.S. is the world’s largest market. Several giant companies, including Idahoan Foods and Basic American Foods from the U.S., are contributing to the dominant share with considerable production volume. Local presence of large fast-food chains backs the region’s dominance. The Asia Pacific is expected to record the fastest growth in the dehydrated potato market. The expanding food processing in India and China and increasing demand for convenience foods in these nations are the prime factors supporting the region’s growth. The government’s initiatives to support potato cultivation and processing also strengthen the market. Many of the leading players, such as Lamb Weston and McCain Foods, have increased the regional processing capacity to meet the growing demand.

Recent Developments

McCain Foods launched a new range of premium dehydrated potato products as a part of its global snack food business in October 2023.

Lamb Weston announced the expansion of its dehydrated potato production facility in China in July 2024.

Idahoan Foods launched a new organic line of dehydrated mashed potatoes in August 2023 as the demand for organic products is growing.

Key Takeaways

The report provides a detailed analysis on the current market status, future growth opportunities, major driving forces, and challenges.

Recent developments, new products launched and regulatory initiatives are included to help companies to understand market trends, opportunities, and challenges.

The market covers an in-depth segment analysis by nature, distribution channel along with regionally analysis of market shares, fastest growing and dominating segments and growing and dominating regions.

The report is designed to help companies understand key market trends, and leading consumer preferences, and product launches to gain strategic insights and competitive advantage.