#the worst natural disaster in American history?

[senatortedcruz]

Coming of age under Bush II builds character (ensures I will never vote Republican in my life)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gabe Fleisher at Wake Up To Politics:

A few weeks ago, after CNN published its bombshell report about North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, I was texting with a friend. Rumors had been flying around the political world all day about what the report would bring. Now that it had arrived, my friend told me he was unimpressed; it wasn’t as earth-shattering as he’d been expecting. “One day, when your grandchildren ask you what American politics was like in 2024,” I responded, “you can tell them that we learned a gubernatorial candidate called himself a Nazi on a porn website, and your initial response was to shrug.” [...]

The U.S. is currently grappling with two major hurricanes at once — trying to prepare for one while still recovering from the damage of the other. The latter, Hurricane Helene, was the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. More than 200 people have been killed, mostly in North Carolina, but also in Georgia and South Carolina as well. Entire towns in western North Carolina were leveled; some residents have now gone more than a week without running water.

The former, Hurricane Milton, is expected to make landfall in Florida tonight. Forecasters suggest that it could hit Tampa Bay, which was also impacted by the devastation of Helene but has not been in the direct path of a hurricane since 1921. The city is considered uniquely vulnerable to natural disaster; analysts are already predicting damage upwards of $50 billion. Local, state, and federal officials have been pleading with anyone in Milton’s path to evacuate immediately. “I can say this without any dramatization whatsoever: If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said on CNN earlier this week.

“Several years ago I asked [the National Hurricane Center] to show me what the worst case storm hitting Florida would look like,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) posted on X. “What they showed me back then is almost identical to the #Milton forecast now.” With both storms hitting the U.S. only weeks before a heated presidential election, it is not shocking that they has quickly been sucked into the political discourse. America has a long history of election-year disasters becoming talking points on the campaign trail, from Hurricane Andrew hurting George H.W. Bush in 1992 to Hurricane Sandy boosting Barack Obama in 2012. But the responses to Helene and Milton have been marked by something new: an unprecedented flood of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Don’t take it from me. Take it from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who told reporters on a Tuesday conference call that the misinformation surrounding these two hurricanes has been “absolutely the worst I have ever seen.”

Many of the false claims have come directly from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has claimed that: the Biden administration is “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” (GOP governors have said otherwise); that “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants” (FEMA’s congressionally-appropriated program to help local governments house migrants is completely separate from FEMA’s disaster relief funds); and that “we give foreign countries hundreds of billions of dollars and we’re handing North Carolina $750” (that is merely the amount of aid made available to hurricane victims immediately; over the long run, victims can receive up to tens of thousands of dollars in support). A slew of Trump allies, including X owner Elon Musk, have amplified several other conspiracy theories online. But the prize for Biggest Whopper goes to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who posted — on her official congressional account — this week: “Yes they can control the weather.” The supposed “they” was not immediately identified, although Greene previously suggested in 2018 that California wildfires that year were caused by space lasers linked to the Rothschilds, a prominent Jewish family that has long been the subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories. (Greene posted again about “lasers controlling the weather” this week.) In recent weeks, Hurricanes Helene and Milton have sparked a flurry of antisemitic attacks against Jewish officials involved in the response, including claims that they created the disasters.

In her initial post, Greene attached a video of former CIA Director John Brennan discussing geoengineering, an umbrella term for scientific research into manipulating climate systems in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. Geoengineering remains largely theoretical; it is not possible to geoengineer a hurricane, and the technology has no connection to anything that happened with either Helene or Milton. “Climate change is the new Covid,” Greene asserted in another message. “Ask your government if the weather is manipulated or controlled. Did you ever give permission to them to do it? Are you paying for it? Of course you are.”

Other right-wing influencers advanced the argument. “The weather can and is being manipulated,” Georgia Republican Party official Kandiss Taylor posted to her nearly 60,000 X followers, adding: “[Georgia] voting has been compromised and don’t know if we will be able to get all our early voting days in. Now, a hurricane is coming straight for Florida. These two states are necessary for a Trump victory! No coincidence.” Taylor’s message has received more than 3 million views on X. The theories became popular enough in right-wing circles that Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), who represents Asheville and most of western North Carolina (the area hit hardest by Helene), issued a press release on Tuesday to reassure his constituents of the falsity of various claims. Near the top of the list? “Nobody can control the weather,” he wrote. The statement, in its entirety, is a fascinating historical document — showing the types of claims that a Republican congressman felt he needed to fact-check in 2024, partially due to misinformation spread by his own colleagues and his party’s presidential candidate.

This piece in Wake Up To Politics by Gabe Fleisher is a must-read on the misinformation/disinformation crisis regarding Hurricanes Helene and Milton, thanks to Donald Trump and MAGA-aligned figures (especially in the right-wing media apparatus).

See Also:

MMFA: On The Victory Channel's FlashPoint, pro-Trump prophets suggest Hurricanes Helene and Milton are “spiritual” and that “God did say in the prophecies that these storms would be sent to interrupt the flow of our election process”

[firstprincehornyramblings]

WEEEEEEEEEEE Hello, I hope everyone is having a lovely Sunday. I feel like I haven't done a Sentences Sunday in years! Thrilled to be back, with Sugar Baby Alex, AND a new WIP. Things are under the cut so this isn't the longest post in history.

-

Let's get into it with Sugar Baby Alex first, shall we?:

“Alex, I am not ‘putting you off’, I am thirty-eight years old, I do not have that glorious refractory period you have, anymore,” the blond huffed, “As much as I would love to go again right now, and believe me, I would, it’s impossible. So, surely you can wait until this evening when we can both get hard, hm?” “Damn,” Alex whispered, “That fucking sucks actually, I didn’t know fucking an old dude would have drawbacks. So, like positive is that you can make me cum like never before but negative is that your dick has a tim-MMPHM!” That sentence was cut short by Henry picking up a pillow and pressing it into the brunette’s face, holding it in place for a moment as Alex flailed, “Such a mouth on you, I’m almost certain I liked it better full,” he teased before lifting that pillow, “Don’t make me confirm your sister and friend’s worst fear.” “Oh baby,” Alex laughed, smiling so wide now that he was free of the pillow, “Killing me with a pillow is so intimate though, that’s incredibly sexy of you.” “Shut up, Alex!” “Make me!”

AND new WIP time, Doctor Alex :)

What Henry was not expecting was for the door to open and the most beautiful man he’d ever seen in his life to walk in. He was fairytale prince level tall dark and handsome. Even in the scrubs, his physic was broad and built, and the long-sleeved shirt under his scrub top fit tight around wide biceps. He had coal colored, luxurious curls, high cheeks, and obscene lashes over gorgeous brown eyes. His jawline was sharp, covered in a few days’ worth of stubble. Miles of tanned skin, the same dark hair on his forearms, large hands that he was currently slipping into gloves. The few inches of exposed wrist from slightly pulled up sleeves made Henry feel like he was seeing something pornographic. But anything to keep himself from locking eyes on those incredibly soft looking lips. “Hi, I’m Alex, it’s nice to meet you.” Ah, Henry remembered reading something about Alexander the Great being the son of Zeus. Yes, a demigod, right here in Oxford, that made sense. No, wait, that accent- “You’re American?” Henry blurted out before he could stop himself. If asked, he would blame it on this man’s, well- everything. “Yeah, sorry,” Alex laughed, “Always forget that catches ya'll off guard, I’m from Texas. I’m going into clinical medicine, but I’d like to travel, work with the Red Cross and do outreach things; help with natural disasters and pandemics. It’ll be easier for me to break into that if I do the rest of medical school and residency in Europe.” “Oh.” “But that’s not why you’re here, hm, Mr. Fox? May I touch you?” the brunette asked stepping closer to the exam table Henry was sitting on. “Please. Erm, I mean, uhm, yes please, go ahead.”

-

🏷️(no pressure tags darlings)

@taste-thewaste @onthewaytosomewhere @henrysfox

@mikibwrites @eusuntgratie

@softboynick @catdadacd @sheepywritesfics

@henryspearl

@basil-bird @caressthosecheekbones

@henfox @anti-homophobia-cheese @redlipstickandglitter

@thesleepyskipper @tailsbeth-writes @thighzp @lfg1986-2

+ literally anyone else I'm tired and forgot. (Im queueing this at 2am) or anyone who sees this and wants to tag me, I love reading yall's stuff. <3

[rjzimmerman]

Climate Migration Will Be the Global Challenge of a Generation. (Sierra Club)

Extreme weather events in South America are driving more families to abandon their homes and undertake a risky, sometimes dangerous journey toward the US border. Changing precipitation patterns mean that once arable land is increasingly barren due to drought, while other areas, like southern Brazil are increasingly prone to cataclysmic flooding.

“Climate change acts as a multiplier for other factors,” said Michael Nash, a filmmaker and researcher who spent two years traveling the world talking to climate migrants as part of a film on the subject. “As regions around the world increasingly suffer from its effects, economies and infrastructure are also damaged as well. People fleeing these situations are often referred to as economic migrants, but the truth is much more complicated.”

“There is no process currently to deal with someone who is coming to the US due to crop failure or natural disaster,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council. “This is an ongoing challenge [for all nations] in the modern era, something we critically need to develop.”

The number of refugees who have been forcibly displaced globally has dramatically increased in the last decade, nearly doubling in size, and migration overall is increasing as well. The principal drivers are economic or related to conflict, but climate change increasingly plays a role, according to data from the United Nations International Office on Migration (IOM). 

Most of those who have been displaced migrate internally—to another region within their birth country—but the number of those choosing to cross borders in search of a better life is increasing as well. The IOM has cited estimates of as many as 1 billion climate migrants in the next 30 years. Other projections point to 1.2 billion by 2050, and 1.4 billion by 2060. Those migrants will largely flee equatorial zones, which will be the hardest hit by global warming, though they will not be the only regions affected.

Some regions, particularly in the Global South, are projected to experience significant changes in temperature, precipitation patterns, sea level rise, and other climate-related factors. Less than 1 percent of the world is currently considered borderline inhabitable. By 2070, that number is expected to rise to 19 percent.

Precipitation patterns are shifting, temperatures are rising, and some areas are experiencing changes in the frequency and severity of weather extremes. The impacts range from melting Andean glaciers to devastating floods, to collapsing forest ecosystems to region-wide droughts. Honduras and Guatemala are already seeing crop failures on previously fertile land. Mexico City and Bogotá both currently suffer severe water shortages that have led to rationing. Brazil in May suffered the worst floods in the country’s history; studies on precipitation patterns suggest floods in the future are twice as likely due to the burning of fossil fuels. Venezuela this year saw the last remaining glacier in the country downgraded in status to an ice patch. Guajira, an Indigenous region that stretches across the borders of Colombia and Venezuela, has experienced desertification due to long-term droughts that have left residents without potable water, and made growing crops impossible.

Climate change also affects basic infrastructure that produces and transports clean water, food, and electricity. Due to droughts in Colombia, which relies overwhelmingly on hydroelectric power, the country this year temporarily reduced the sale of electricity to Ecuador, exacerbating drought-induced power shortages there.

[chronically-ghosted]

History of the American Dust Bowl

The series of intense dust storms, starting in 1930 and affecting the southern plains of the United States, has been called the greatest ecological disaster ever to happen on American soil. Over the next decade, tens-of-thousands of people were forced to leave their homes under apocalyptic conditions: rolling storms that blocked out the sun, wind laced with particles sharp enough to blind, dust filling up and choking the lungs of the young and old. 

Starting with the trade embargo on Russia during World War I, the value of wheat in America and around the world sky-rocketed. The US Government made offers, real estate agents made promises, and an unusual wet season strengthened conviction: come to the prairie, grow wheat for our soldiers – there’s money to be made. 

As large-scale farming expanded on the Prairies, inexperienced farmers or “sodbusters” replaced indigenous grasses with wheat crops. In less than ten years, over one hundred million acres of prairie land – overused by mechanized equipment and exacerbated by a severe drought – lost its topsoil and became an instant target for wind erosion. The country’s financial bedrock had been bled dry and now the land had been wrung out too. 

In April 1935, on a day that became known as Black Sunday, around 4PM, a rapidly moving “black blizzard” hit Kansas. High winds at 100 miles an hour reportedly displaced 300,000 tons of topsoil. The rolling cloud was over 1,000 miles long, and covered 800 miles by the time it dissipated. Drivers were forced to take refuge in their cars, while other residents hunkered down in basements, barns, fire stations and tornado shelters, as well as under beds. 

Folksinger Woody Guthrie, then 22, who sat out the storm at his Pampa, Texas home, recalled that “you couldn’t see your hand before your face.” Inspired by proclamations from some of his companions that the end of the world was at hand, he composed a song titled “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh.” Guthrie would also write other tunes about Black Sunday, including “Dust Storm Disaster.”

This was by far the worst storm suffered by those in the southern plains (an area reaching from the north of Texas, up the Dakotas and out to Kansas and Oklahoma), and as a result 17 people died, and three suffocated from the dirty wind. As a direct result of American greed and disregard for the natural world, the very skin of the Earth had been ripped up, leaving behind loose, dry soil – abandoned with no concern for conservation and regrowth. All of this, on top of a financial downturn that left over three millions of Americans without jobs, a home, or income. 

For many, the Dust Bowl was the closest they ever got to the end of the world, nature’s apocalypse. Much of the Red Cross relief and FDR’s conservation efforts were focused on regrowing that topsoil and putting thousands of out-of-work farmers back on the land. By working in harmony with the land, the southern prairie was rebuilt, the dust storms died down, and the economy righted itself in the face of a new world war. 

Apocalypse averted.

In 2023, global weather conditions are changing again due to man-made intervention and ecological carelessness. Year after year, heat records are broken and droughts last longer and longer. The earth is adapting to fit rising temperatures and expanding greenhouse gasses. It is evolving, much like a fungus, to meet its needs in a new climate. 

Hopefully, this fic feels as foreign as an AU can, but as familiar as the show’s concern for global warming. There are no blind, clicking zombies in this fic, but there are monsters. 

There are always monsters at the end of the world.

[aloeverawrites]

Biden and Trump are the same you say.

Trump wants to destroy the left. Biden is considered center-left wing.

These are quotes from the Mandate of Leadership, the promise that conservatives are going to try and fulfill if they get power again.

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.

Right now Biden is in power. So the time we're under him must be the same as being under a government that believes this:

"children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens"

"Overseas, a totalitarian Communist dictatorship in Beijing is engaged in a strategic, cultural, and economic Cold War against America’s interests, values, and people—all while globalist elites in Washington awaken only slowly to that growing threat."

Contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s “radical chic” to build the totalitarian cult known today as “The Great Awokening.”

"Most alarming of all, the very moral foundations of our society are in peril. Yet students of history will note that, notwithstanding all those challenges, the late 1970s proved to be the moment when the political Right unified itself and the country and led the United States to historic political, economic, and global victories.

The Heritage Foundation is proud to have played a small but pivotal role in that story. It was in early 1979—amid stagflation, gas lines, and the Red Army’s invasion of Afghanistan, the nadir of Jimmy Carter’s days of malaise—that Heritage launched the Mandate for Leadership project.

"Conservatives should be confident that we can rescue our kids, reclaim our culture, revive our economy, and defeat the anti-American Left—at home and abroad. We did it before and will do it again.

"This is an agenda prepared by and for conservatives who will be ready on Day One of the next Administration to save our country from the brink of disaster.

The Heritage Foundation is once again facilitating this work. But as our dozens of partners and hundreds of authors will attest, this book is the work of the entire conservative movement. As such, the authors express consensus recommendations already forged, especially along four broad fronts that will decide America’s future:"

"The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists"

"In our schools, the question of parental authority over their children’s education is a simple one:

Schools serve parents, not the other way around. That is, of course, the best argument for universal school choice—a goal all conservatives and conservative Presidents must pursue. But even before we achieve that long-term goal, parents’ rights as their children’s primary educators should be non-negotiable in American schools. States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, principals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds. The noxious tenets of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country"

"they are taught to deny the very creatureliness that inheres in being human and consists in accepting the givenness of our nature as men or women. Allowing parents or physicians to “reassign” the sex of a minor is child abuse and must end."

"But the pro-family promises expressed in this book, and central to the next conservative President’s agenda, must go much further than the traditional, narrow definition of “family issues.” Every threat to family stability must be confronted".

"Finally, conservatives should gratefully celebrate the greatest pro-family win in a generation: overturning Roe v. Wade, a decision that for five decades made a mockery of our Constitution and facilitated the deaths of tens of millions of unborn children. But the Dobbs decision is just the beginning. Conservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative Administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America. In particular, the next conservative President should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent life and vigorously complying with statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion."

"-A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes; "Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity;

-Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms

-Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists;

-Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training” seminars about “white privilege”; and

-Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion."

So, the year is 2025. Every mention of "sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights" has been erased from our laws.

Abortion is crminalised across the country.

Schools can't teach about being trans, gay or about race.

Parental control over their children's and teenagers education is absolute.

A cold war is "won" following in the footsteps of Ronald Regan.

The environmental protection agency has been targeted and domestic energy production, fossil fuels, are safe.

There has been a further crack down on migrants entering the country "illegally".

Federal programs that teach about intersectionality, abortion or white privileged have bene shut down.

And "transgender extremists" are no longer allowed to "control" women's sports.

A world where they have fulfilled their promise to reverse every human rights progress Biden has made and ensure that nothing as "liberal" happens again.

Oh and "[Trump's]  Republican rivals for the 2024 presidential nomination competed with one another to show who could be more vicious in encouraging uninhibited Israeli military action in Gaza,"

" Trump has also used the Israel-Hamas War to reinforce his positions on other issues remote from the conflict itself, particularly his hostility to Muslim refugees, making it clear that Gazans (and, likely, Muslims generally) would be stopped from entering the U.S. if he is reelected." https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/12/trump-israel-hamas-stance.html

Is that the world you want to live in in 2025?

[mightyflamethrower]

In 2021, Joe Biden was elected after a bitterly fought campaign that deposed the incumbent Donald Trump. Democrats eventually captured, for a time, both the House and Senate, ensuring the most left-wing government in modern American history.

Americans were then set to witness a great experiment. For the first time in their lives, a truly radical socialist program would supposedly fundamentally transform the way America dealt with the border, immigration, the economy, race relations, foreign policy, energy, law enforcement, crime, education, and social questions such as religion, gender, abortion, and schooling.

In a sense, we were all to be lab rats of sorts, to be experimented on by the radical left and their various critical theories. Now in the last year of the Biden term, we can see the results of that experiment—and the unfortunate disasters that followed.

But first, how was such a radical move to the left even possible in a center-right America?

The Democratic nominee, Biden, had earlier united the left, but only through a Faustian deal. The handlers of a nearly non compos mentis Biden had ushered all his 2020 primary rivals out of the primary races in unison.

But in exchange for their exits that ensured Biden the nomination, the left took over his general campaign—in which Biden was virtually relegated to his basement—and then set his agenda.

Who was running things?

The mysterious architects of White House ideology included, inter alia, the omnipresent, now-Washington-DC-dwelling Obamas, the old socialist gadfly Bernie Sanders, the fossilized tribunes of the black and Latino congressional caucuses, the DEI firebrand Squad, and the neo-socialist scold Elizabeth Warren.

As a result, for one of the few times in American history, the hard left now had undreamt of power. And it was enhanced by a chorus in our compliant media, academia, corporations, the administrative state, foundations, entertainment, and popular culture.

So we were all to embark on a great adventure led by the foot soldiers of DEI, the Chicken-Little green extremists, the critical race and critical legal theory crowd, the modern monetary theorists, the woke commissars, the transgendered zealots, Antifa, BLM, the hate-Israel lobby, and the Trump Derangement Syndrome media sorts.

Ostensibly, America was to be reset financially, economically, socially, culturally, militarily, and politically. The nation would be arbitrarily divided into oppressors and oppressed—with one caveat: hyper-rich, left-wing white architects had to be exempt from the damage inflicted on those they targeted. Thus, like Orwellian pigs who walked on their two hind legs, they were free to fly their private jets, get their kids into racially quota-bound Ivy League schools, burn lots of fossil fuels to heat and cool their massive homes, and be protected by their walls, security details, and zip codes from the crime wave they would soon unleash on others.

Now, as we enter the fourth year of the great experiment, America is $35 trillion in debt, borrowing $1 trillion every 100 days. Home mortgages are at 7 percent. Key prices for food, insurance, rent, and fuels are 30-40 percent higher than when Biden entered office.

The nation has been humiliated and emasculated abroad. Racial relations are the worst in a half-century. The military is in virtual receivership. Biden is polling about 40 percent approval and is behind in key swing states in most of the 2024 polls.

As a result, the Biden administration is furiously trying to find a way to release more of its hated oil and natural gas on the world market. It stopped refilling the strategic petroleum reserve that it had earlier drained to lower gas prices before the 2022 midterms.

So it will quietly pump more oil and gas, appease Iran in fear of a war in the oil-producing Middle East, plead with the once “pariah” Saudis, and order the Ukrainians not to hit Russian oil installations—all to get more oil produced to lower November 2024 gas prices.

It will head nod to eliminating fossil fuels, mandating EVs, banning natural gas stoves, and subsidizing more inefficient wind and solar farms. But it now realizes that its green agenda on its watch will wreck the United States economy and throw the left out of power. So it pivots to an old-fashioned “Drill, World, Drill” mantra—at least until the election is over.

Biden fulfilled his agenda of getting 10 million illegal aliens into the United States by destroying the southern border. The point was to swarm America with poor, unaudited migrants, all in need of massive federal and state assistance, all supposedly now loyal to their entitlement benefactors. Who could stop them from voting as repayment to their enablers in the new age of 70 percent mail-in ballots, same-day registration, inadequate authentication and audit of ballots, third-party vote harvesting, ballot curing, and Zuckbucks pouring into key precincts to absorb the work of the registrars?

Most of the illegals went to Texas and Florida, key swing states that the left still thinks it can flip to blue status. Long term, the 10 million will recalibrate congressional districts to favor neo-socialist agendas. Short-term, millions of new arrivals unlawfully may still try to vote in 2024.

Any who object to or publicize this agenda will be dammed with boilerplate smears of “election deniers,” “voter suppressions,” “racists,” and “xenophobes,” Yet all that said, the administration is now desperately trying to distance itself from its greatest “new Democratic Majority” border success, given that public opinion abhors what Biden had done at the border to the country at large.

So it floated a phony “bipartisan border security” bill in hopes of luring naïve Republicans to support a stealth de facto amnesty agenda that would have still allowed 5,000 illegals in a day rather than the now customary 10-15,000. The hope was that when it failed (and the left knew it would), to blame Republicans for what the left had wrought.

Biden knows destroying the border will ruin America for generations to come, costing billions of dollars in subsidies and legal and policing costs to integrate the massive influx. So until the election, it is thrashing about, claiming that it never did such a thing at all. Its duplicity is again proof that the open borders agenda was hated by the public, a human catastrophe, and not sustainable before an impending election.

Biden’s foreign policy is also in ruins. Biden destroyed deterrence in an effort to beg, appease, and buy off America’s enemies to behave and not cause an election-losing war. But the more it fled from Afghanistan in humiliation, the more it appeased Russia as it massed on Ukraine’s border, the more it snored as a Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States, the more it put early holds on aid to Ukraine, the more it assured Putin a “minor” offensive into Ukraine would not elicit a US response, so all the more it convinced Putin that he could take Ukraine without an American pushback, the Chinese to threaten Taiwan, and Hamas to prepare for massacring Jews.

So here we are in Ukraine with nearly 800,000 dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainians and Russians. The administration has no clue how to stop the Verdun that its appeasement birthed. The entire therapeutic approach to foreign policy lies in ruins.

Ditto the Middle East. National security advisor Jack Sullivan’s “quiet” portfolio that he inherited from the Trump administration simply blew up. Biden is now scrambling to stop the Israeli response to the encircled Hamas remnants, trapped in their last redoubt in Rafah.

Biden is now replaying the 1950s CIA-stereotype of the “Ugly American,” as he does his best to overthrow the Netanyahu government, and to allow the trapped Hamas remnants to escape and claim they defeated the Zionist entity, despite butchering more Jews in a single day than any time since the Holocaust. No matter: the Biden administration is stealthily communicating with the Israeli opposition concerning the best joint strategies to force Netanyahu out. Mass protests in the streets of Tel Aviv attest to the success of destabilizing the current Israeli government.

Team Biden whispers to the media about slow-walking or stopping key arms shipments, abdicating America’s once protective role in the UN, or encouraging the “international community” to go after Netanyahu for “war crimes” for accidentally hitting a civilian team in Gaza. (By such logic, are Biden and Gen. Mark (“righteous strike”) Milley equally culpable for being in charge when a US strike in Kabul blew up 10 innocent civilians by similarly mistaken targeting?). Meanwhile, Biden keeps courting Muslim-American Michigan voters, who repay his appeasement with cries of “Death to Israel! Death to America!”.

The release of violent criminals and an uptick in property crimes, murders and assault follow a similar script. The Biden administration outsourced criminal justice to defund the police/critical legal theorists at the federal, state, and local levels. No bail arrests led to violent offenders released the next day. Thousands were let go from jails and prisons.

The word spread in the criminal community that in the new Biden years, there were no real consequences, no serious punishments for violent assault or major felonies.

So in 2021-2023, crime exploded. When it reached the point of making life unlivable in the major cities and began to max out, the administration declared “crime is declining”—in the same way that hyper-inflation supposedly did so on the economic front.

After spiking the prices of key food staples, insurance, fuel, and interest rates, such hikes could not go too much higher without destroying outright the American way of life. So as the rate of inflation slowed, Biden bragged about “lowering inflation”—but not the 30-40 percent higher food prices since his own inauguration.

The common denominator for these disasters is the embrace of left-wing “theory.”

Critical legal theory mandates that jurisprudence is a construct. Laws have no morality since they favor the powerful. The latter use “white privilege” arbitrarily to invent crimes and punishments to protect their own power hierarchies. All that nonsense has now led to a pre-civilizational free-for-all in our dirty, dangerous, and dysfunctional cities.

Modern monetary theory—printing lots of money to spread around to those who have none while diminishing the value of money of those who have it—only led to hyperinflation and high interest rates.

When DEI theories were unleashed on the military, potential recruits hesitated, and thousands quit. After Pentagon grandees virtue signaled their fear of “white rage” and “white privilege,” after DEI made promotions and assessments often contingent on race, gender, and sexual orientation, and after the new military was humiliated in Afghanistan, it found it could no longer deter the enemy, recruit sufficient soldiers, or win back the confidence of the American people.

In all these cases, the woke genie left the bottle—and won’t go back in. So it will be hard for the administration to assure a long-suffering public that things are just wonderful, much less to reverse these policies, if indeed they are reversible, before November.

Expect instead nonstop distraction as the left beats the January 6 horse to death, calls for abortion on demand, and waits for its underling judges, prosecutors, and juries to jail or bankrupt Trump and therefore do what balloting cannot.

In other words, the long-awaited Great Fundamental Transformation finally got its moment, crashed, and now has torched the nation—middle-class Americans most of all.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 6.16 (after 1910)

1911 – IBM founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York. 1922 – General election in the Irish Free State: The pro-Treaty Sinn Féin party wins a large majority. 1925 – Artek, the most famous Young Pioneer camp of the Soviet Union, is established. 1930 – Sovnarkom establishes decree time in the USSR. 1933 – The National Industrial Recovery Act is passed in the United States, allowing businesses to avoid antitrust prosecution if they establish voluntary wage, price, and working condition regulations on an industry-wide basis. 1940 – World War II: Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Chief of State of Vichy France (Chef de l'État Français). 1940 – A Communist government is installed in Lithuania. 1948 – Members of the Malayan Communist Party kill three British plantation managers in Sungai Siput; in response, British Malaya declares a state of emergency. 1955 – In a futile effort to topple Argentine President Juan Perón, rogue aircraft pilots of the Argentine Navy drop several bombs upon an unarmed crowd demonstrating in favor of Perón in Buenos Aires, killing 364 and injuring at least 800. At the same time on the ground, some soldiers attempt to stage a coup but are suppressed by loyal forces. 1958 – Imre Nagy, Pál Maléter and other leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising are executed. 1961 – While on tour with the Kirov Ballet in Paris, Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union. 1963 – Soviet Space Program: Vostok 6 mission: Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space. 1963 – In an attempt to resolve the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam, a Joint Communique was signed between President Ngo Dinh Diem and Buddhist leaders. 1972 – The largest single-site hydroelectric power project in Canada is inaugurated at Churchill Falls Generating Station. 1976 – Soweto uprising: A non-violent march by 15,000 students in Soweto, South Africa, turns into days of rioting when police open fire on the crowd. 1977 – Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California, as Software Development Laboratories (SDL), by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates. 1981 – US President Ronald Reagan awards the Congressional Gold Medal to Ken Taylor, Canada's former ambassador to Iran, for helping six Americans escape from Iran during the hostage crisis of 1979–81; he is the first foreign citizen bestowed the honor. 1989 – Revolutions of 1989: Imre Nagy, the former Hungarian prime minister, is reburied in Budapest following the collapse of Communism in Hungary. 1997 – Fifty people are killed in the Daïat Labguer (M'sila) massacre in Algeria. 2000 – The Secretary-General of the UN reports that Israel has complied with United Nations Security Council Resolution 425, 22 years after its issuance, and completely withdrew from Lebanon. The Resolution does not encompass the Shebaa farms, which is claimed by Israel, Syria and Lebanon. 2002 – Padre Pio is canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. 2010 – Bhutan becomes the first country to institute a total ban on tobacco. 2012 – China successfully launches its Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, carrying three astronauts, including the first female Chinese astronaut Liu Yang, to the Tiangong-1 orbital module. 2012 – The United States Air Force's robotic Boeing X-37B spaceplane returns to Earth after a classified 469-day orbital mission. 2013 – A multi-day cloudburst, centered on the North Indian state of Uttarakhand, causes devastating floods and landslides, becoming the country's worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami. 2015 – American businessman Donald Trump announces his campaign to run for President of the United States in the upcoming election. 2016 – Shanghai Disneyland Park, the first Disney Park in Mainland China, opens to the public. 2019 – Upwards of 2,000,000 people participate in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, the largest in Hong Kong's history.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Unnatural Law

We Must Protect Rich White Guys

Stephen Jay Morris

7/13/2023

©Scientific Morality

In Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” he presented factual evidence of an upcoming catastrophe: the climate crisis. Not only did he discuss the urgency of the impending situation, but he offered solutions to prevent it. Solutions such as lowering your carbon footprint and avoiding fossil fuel.

So, what did the oil companies do? They threatened their Republican representatives with ceasing donations to the G.O.P. unless they committed to run a campaign against Al Gore and his “Ecological Army.” Fox News attacked Gore by discrediting him with claims that he used tons of gallons of jet fuel to fly to his speaking engagements. You know? Labeled him a hypocrite. Also in CHUD fashion, they wealth-shamed him and aired aerial photos of his mansion.

You see, to take a left wing view of anything, you must be poor. After all, all leftists must take a vow of poverty, as do Catholic priests and nuns. Donkey shit! If you are going to slander somebody, try not using paralogical arguments.

At any rate, that is a major tactic they use—personal defamation. That way, the focus is taken off the issue and spotlighted, instead, on the individual’s shortcomings. Libel replaces the facts about Big Oil’s destruction of the earth and its atmosphere. Al Gore’s movie was right on the money.

Meanwhile, as the CHUDS are calling Al Gore an alarmist, they are telling the world that transgender people are grooming kids to be homosexuals. These halophiles only want to drink liberal tears. What the fuck are they good for? Sucking off WASP billionaires? Then Trump goes to court and the Newsmax reporters show their ugly, dolorous mugs. They sound almost robotically monotone: “We must protect rich white guys.” “We must protect rich white guys.” “We must protect rich white guys.” Ad-nauseum.

Today, I heard on the radio that Texas hit 110 degrees and two days ago, the state of Vermont experienced unprecedented flooding after nine inches of rain fell in less than five hours. The weekend leading into July 4th saw the highest ever recorded global temperatures. The southern portion of America is experiencing an unrelenting “heat dome,” while the northern portion of the country is seeing tornadoes, hurricanes, violent storms, and other extremes. Any meteorologist will tell you this is not normal for this time of year. If the world unites, we can begin to stop this onslaught of natural disasters. But the conservatives think their money and profit is more important than the welfare of humanity! While farmers’ crops are drying up and blowing away in the wind, the rich are snorting coke off a prostitute’s ass! But leave it to the conservative propaganda machine to spew that these are dignified, American gentlemen who want a clean cut, Christian country.  

 The only way to fight against this crisis is to counter the CHUD propaganda with educational facts to the contrary. When a liar calls you a liar, you are winning the climate struggle. There is a global youth movement and they pissed to the max. They are willing to damage property to give notice of the planet’s destruction, as well as hold nonviolent resistance protests. We should all support their efforts.

Meanwhile, the political Right is in shambles. The Religious Right is living their “End Times” fantasy, the fossil fuel companies are panicking that their great grandchildren will have to get jobs, and the White Power creeps are worried that all food will become kosher. The Republicans will build a giant tomb in Washington D.C. for Trump after he dies from a massive heart attack.

After Florida submerges into the Gulf of Mexico, oil drilling rigs will be above sea level because human remains become dirty energy. It’ll be better than dead dinosaurs!

America has the worst conservative movement in the history of the world!

[mattmurdockslickableabs]

as a local on maui, stop visiting. people are still dying & w our death count this has already been confirmed to be the worst natural disaster in American history. Not Hawaiian history. America. as in out of ever natural disaster that has ever hit America, this fire has killed the most people. we don't have enough resources for tourists rn bc it's already incredibly hard to get shit out here in the middle of the ocean, & we are already stretched far too thin. if you have the means & heart to, please donate to these foundations so we can rebuild our community.

If you've ever wondered why people in Hawai'i hate tourists, try to wrap your mind around the fact that there are CURRENTLY, RIGHT NOW, tourists sipping martinis and looking at fish within swimming range of the fresh corpses of local people who couldn't escape the overnight destruction of their entire town.

Try to comprehend that there are fully functional, high capacity boats passing through the waters in front of an area full of survivors who are stranded and in need of supplies, refusing to help. They are hosting snorkeling tours.

Really think about, try your best to actually picture over two thousand people unhoused and in need of shelter, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and nothing to return to. Understand that the island, stolen land, is littered with hotels full of air conditioned of rooms with beds and showers and toilets, each fully equipped to host hundreds of families for weeks, turning these people away because they're booked up with tourists who refuse to leave.

And understand that these tourists were offered free transport to return home or be hosted on other islands. Free. Courtesy of local tax dollars. 4,000 wealthy tourists were offered free flights shelter on Oahu and begged to leave the island, BEFORE the survivors were given shelter.

And enough still insisted on remaining and carrying out their vacations that people are left without shelter and resources while they enjoy "their stay in paradise".

[Edit]: This current situation, and this type of tourist behavior is horrifying beyond words. In other circumstances, the tourism situation is much more complicated, and I need to ask that people do not add on to this post unless they are local.

[swldx]

BBC 0513 30 Dec 2024

9410Khz 0458 30 DEC 2024 - BBC (UNITED KINGDOM) in ENGLISH from ASCENSION ISLAND. SINPO = 45233. English, s/on @0458z with Bowbells int. fb ID, pips and Newsday preview. @0501z World News anchored by male announcer. § Joe Biden and Donald Trump have led tributes to former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter, who has died aged 100. Carter, who lived longer than any president in history, died on Sunday afternoon at his home in Plains, Georgia. Biden described him as "a man of principle, faith and humility," while Trump said all Americans owe Carter a "debt of gratitude". § South Korea's acting leader has ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country's entire airline operations, a day after 179 people were killed in the deadliest plane crash on its soil. The Jeju Air plane burst into flames as it crash-landed in South Korea's Muan International Airport, killing everyone onboard save for two victims. § Incumbent president Zoran Milanovic won the most votes in the first round of Croatia's presidential election on Sunday but fell just short of a majority and will have to go to a second round, results from the State Electoral Commission showed. § France’s president and prime minister managed to form a new government just in time for the holidays, with handover ceremonies taking place on Tuesday. Manuel Valls has taken over from François-Noël Buffet at the Ministry for Overseas Affairs. Valls, a former Prime Minister under François Hollande, mentioned the cyclone-ravaged French territory of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean, as a “priority”. Another challenge awaits the new overseas affairs minister and the incoming Cabinet in the restive French South Pacific territory of New Caledonia, where the government collapsed Tuesday in a wave of resignations by pro-independence figures. § Families and teachers protested in Valencia on Saturday to demand action over schools damaged by the deadly floods that killed over 220 people in eastern Spain and affected thousands of children's education. Holding posters demanding the resignation of Valencian leader Carlos Mazon, protesters marched through the Spanish city almost a month after the country's worst natural disaster in decades on Oct. 29. § Kaamya Karthikeyan, Class XII student at Navy Children School, Mumbai, has become the youngest female in the world to scale the seven highest peaks across the seven continents. The young student, who scaled Everest this May, has now reached the summit of Mt Vincent/Vinson in Antarctica, along with her father, S Karthikeyan, who is a Commander in the Indian Navy. § Chess great Magnus Carlsen will return to the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in New York after initially quitting following governing body Fide’s decision to bar him from a round for wearing jeans. @0506z “Newsday” begins. 100' (30m) of Kev-Flex wire feeding "Magic Wand" antenna hanging in backyard tree w/MFJ-1020C active antenna (used as a preamplifier/preselector), JRC NRD-535D, 125kW, beamAz 27°, bearing 103°. Received at Plymouth, MN, United States, 9763KM from transmitter at Ascension Island. Local time: 2258.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist:

Last night was sickening. A replay of 2016. It’s hardly ancient history. We stepped on a rake years ago and we decided to do it again. This was a reminder that 2020, not 2016, was the year where the presidential election went sideways. The year of the pandemic was also the high watermark for the decade. The results are bad for church/state separation. Bad for civil rights. Bad for bodily autonomy. Bad for Ukraine and our foreign allies. Bad for Palestinians. Bad for science and the climate and common sense. Bad for just about every issue that matters to the type of people who read this newsletter. The worst people you know got pretty much everything they wanted. The people who have empathy and expertise—the people who care too much and want the best for others—lost again. A Trump without guardrails is a Trump who’s even worse than he was years ago, and he was really fucking awful years ago.

If the famous saying is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” we’re about to be ruled by people who’ll do everything in their power to make sure we never learn about the past. The people who ban books, whitewash American history, and reject science have been given another chance to turn their ignorance into policy. We’re screwed in the event of another pandemic. Blue states will not be able to rely on federal funding in the event of a natural disaster because that will require Trump’s signature. When the economy collapses, Republicans will blame everyone but themselves and most people won’t know they’re being lied to. (The mainstream media can’t be expected to push back. They failed to meet the moment this time around, and they’re bound to get worse.) With the Senate now in Republican control and the presidency within Donald Trump’s grasp (the blue wall of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have not yet been called), we’re on the verge of seeing at least two years of utter chaos with ramifications that will last even longer. At best, if Democrats manage to flip the House, they will still control a mere 1/6 of the federal government.

[...]

I don’t know how to beat back the firehose of misinformation that contributed to the rightward shift of the country. I don’t know what could have changed the minds of the half of the country that seems immune to reality. I don’t know what else the Harris campaign could have done to change the outcome. (There’s an argument to be made that she should have pushed back against Joe Biden’s policies, especially regarding Israel, but given the results, even if that helped her with Muslims in Michigan, it arguably wouldn’t have moved the needle everywhere else as much as she needed.) I also don’t believe Biden or a different candidate would have fared any better. It’s easy to feel like the past few months were just pointless. The debate that Harris won didn’t matter. The half-filled Trump rallies didn’t indicate a loss of support. The meandering ramblings of a man whose brain is clearly broken didn’t turn off enough people. The major endorsements for Harris—and the lack of big ones for Trump— didn’t change much. The overwhelming financial support for Harris didn’t overcome the billionaires backing Trump. The “vibes” didn’t match the other side’s arrogance. The Democratic National Convention, so full of joy, now feels like a last gasp rather than a new beginning. The Democrats’ superb ground game and the utter lack of one for Republicans still didn’t meet the “margin of effort.” Trump’s criminal indictments and impeachments and legal battles and mugshot and looming potential jail sentence (!) weren’t dealbreakers.

January 6 eventually led Trump to another term in office when it should have blackballed him from public life. Too many Americans are nostalgic for a utopia that never existed, and when they realized they’ve been conned, there are going to be a hell of a lot of conservatives eager to blame minorities of all stripes for all the problems they made worse. At the same time, as older generations of Americans understand all too well, the path to progress is never smooth and it requires constant vigilance. We knew that in 2016 and there were reverberations—in 2018 and 2020. We’ll now walk down that path again. It will likely be even more fierce this time around.

Last night’s election results were a gut punch for Americans opposed to the Orange Felon.

For the next four years, there will be horror show after horror show.

[templardom]

The Celestial Vendettas

Calamity will surely destroy the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be punished. Psalm 34:21 (NLT) 

I will not look on you with pity, nor will I spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for the abominations among you. Then you will know that it is I, the LORD, who strikes the blow. Ezekiel 7:9 (BSB) 

People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes. Matthew 24:39 (NLT)

The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter. Apocalypse 8:11 (ESV)

For behold, the LORD will come with fire—His chariots are like a whirlwind—to execute His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire. Isaiah 66:15 (BSB) 

Why has the wicked man renounced God? He says to himself, “You will never call me to account.” Psalm 10:13 (BSB) 

Calamity will surely destroy the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be punished. Psalm 34:21 (NLT) 

[bgyffzd]

As the hurricane rages, the US disaster relief effort is shifting the blame game. Can voters only pray to God?

Hurricane Helena has caused more than 200 deaths and hundreds of missing persons in the United States, making it the second most damaging hurricane disaster in U.S. history after Katrina. Hurricane Milton has just swept across Florida, causing less damage but has also caused dozens of deaths and missing persons, while millions of people are still without power.The efficiency of the U.S. government's disaster relief is not only incredible by Chinese standards, but also criticized in the U.S. With less than a month to go before the election, the worst-hit states are swing states like North Carolina, and natural disasters are inevitably linked to man-made disasters.

Let's take a look at the timeline. Hurricane Helena made landfall around September 27 and caused huge damage, then dissipated on September 29. However, it was not until October 2, when hundreds of people had died or were missing, that the Biden administration began to deploy troops to participate in disaster relief. At this time, there were still a large number of areas that could only save themselves and could not be reached by disaster relief forces.

This speed of disaster relief is very American, and it is both a procedural and cultural issue. Procedurally, according to the Stafford Act, Americans have to do disaster relief step by step, starting with local self-help, then going to the state level, and then going to the state-level Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and finally seeking help from the federal government.

This process certainly has its rationality, but in practice it often unexpectedly provides opportunities for departments at all levels to delay and pass the buck. Moreover, for a major disaster like Hurricane Helena, everyone can figure out with their toes whether local and state resources are sufficient. Although many disaster-stricken areas have long begun to request support from higher levels, support is always in the process. After all, it was not until October 29, when the hurricane had dissipated, that the Biden administration began to approve the "state of disaster" in various states and release federal funds to respond to disaster relief.

Of course, it is normal for the federal government to provide assistance too slowly, as the United States has a tradition of so-called private self-help. However, the problem is that these spontaneous private rescues also seem to have to follow procedures.

For example, Musk has publicly stated many times that "FEMA is not only unable to effectively help the trapped people, but is also actively blocking citizens who want to provide assistance."

Of course, the Democrats' raising of this matter is a bit like taking advantage of someone's misfortune, because these Republican lawmakers did not vote against giving money to FEMA, but against a package of federal government funding bills, of which FEMA was only one of them.

If this is considered opposing giving money to FEMA, then you Democrats also voted against an appropriations bill simply because the appropriations bill was bundled with a Republican bill that would require voters to prove their U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote.

What can you expect in a country where anything, big or small, can be used for party strife?

So today I wrote so much about disaster relief after a disaster, but I didn't even mention the most important part, which is disaster prevention. How to strengthen infrastructure, how to increase the disaster resistance of houses, how to prepare for disasters in advance, how to evacuate people in advance... This is a bit beyond the scope of the American system. These things are not completely unaccepted in the United States, but there is no motivation, and there are political risks.

Before a disaster occurs, preventive measures are always unpopular and people will always accuse you of excessive precautions and wasting resources. For example, when the Obama administration was preparing for Hurricane Sandy, Republicans accused the federal government of wasting resources and excessively interfering in state affairs.

Of course, the blame comes not only from politicians, but also from voters. Studies have long found that voters will only reward politicians who spend money on disaster relief, but will not support those who spend money on disaster prevention. It is meaningless to think one step ahead. Politicians who really think three steps ahead will spend money on making disaster victims grateful to them, rather than reducing the number of disaster victims from the beginning.

Why is there never enough money for disaster relief, and why is there never enough capacity for disaster relief? Because the most efficient and cost-effective option, which is to strengthen disaster prevention, has the lowest priority in this system driven by political interests.

[littlemissidontcare]

Sebastian is arrogant and materialistic. I’m really sorry but the validity of your perspective on anything flies out the window when the 10 things you “can’t live without” add up to more than double the pitiful $750 that our government is making hurricane victims beg for. You don’t get to lecture us about “who we should trust” with the future when we sure as fuck can’t trust who we have now with the present.

I thought my cousin was dead until 2 days ago. She lost fucking everything. But sure, make her jump through a bunch of hoops only to be told that FEMA can offer her less than $1,000 for the home that was swept away by a fucking natural disaster. You don’t get to shame everyday people who have two of the worst options in American history. At this point, I respect any opinion of someone of the same class as myself because we’re all just trying to survive. Whether they’re voting for a lying, narcissistic, fake, cackling photo-op queen or a lying, misogynistic, narcissistic, orange asswipe. We have two losers to choose from, and I don’t want to hear shit from a guy who gets to wear a Cartier watch and act like it’s nothing while people struggle to feed their families (and while others try to figure out if their families are alive).

Those meditations aren’t doing shit for you, Seb. You and your fake girlfriend you allow to send death threats to people. Don’t lecture the public about “self-truth” and identity when you’ve lived a lie for over 2 years. You want us to look in a mirror? You do it first, bub. You and your Prada and your Cartier. Thanks for letting us know you don’t care, Sebastian. You’ve always had money, anyway. You’ve never had to worry, and you never will.

I never thought I’d be this angry with Sebastian but this election has exhausted me. Voting for either candidate makes me sick and the propaganda from both sides makes me sicker. Denying that this movie is a form of election interference is just ignorance. The rich and famous really do think we’re stupid and it hurts to know that someone I really thought cared for others is part of that crowd. It’s on me for having any faith in a stranger, I guess.

[newstfionline]

Friday, September 13, 2024

Harris and Trump Bet on Their Own Sharply Contrasting Views of America (NYT) Donald J. Trump’s America is a grim place, a nation awash in marauding immigrants stealing American jobs and eating American cats and dogs, a country devastated economically, humiliated internationally and perched on the cliff’s edge of an apocalyptic World War III. Kamala Harris’s America is a weary but hopeful place, a nation fed up with the chaos of the Trump years and sick of all the drama and divisiveness, a country embarrassed by a crooked stuck-in-the-past former president facing prison time and eager for a new generation of leadership. These two visions of America on display during the first and possibly only presidential debate between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump on Tuesday night encapsulated the gambles that each candidate is taking in this hotly contested campaign. Mr. Trump is betting on anger and Ms. Harris on exhaustion. Mr. Trump is trying to repackage and resell his “American carnage” theme eight years later, while Ms. Harris is appealing to those ready to leave that in the past. The question is who has a better read on the American psyche eight weeks before the final ballots are cast.

Cuba’s Broken Economy (El Espectador/Colombia) Cuba is on a downward spiral and appears to be headed for economic collapse. Cubans lack essential items such as food and medicine, especially milk and bread, while the prices of other products, such as gasoline and electricity, have increased by dizzying percentages of up to 500%. The island nation imports 80% of the food it consumes. In 1958, a year before the communist takeover, it was not only self-sufficient in beef, milk, tropical fruits, coffee, tobacco, fish and seafood, pork, chicken, vegetables and eggs, but it also exported surplus produce. Yet today, according to press reports, the magnitude of the crisis is such that Havana has contacted the UN World Food Program (WFP) for the first time in its history to request help. Since 1959 Cuba has systematically suffocated the private sector, renouncing innovation, competitiveness and excellence in the process. There have been consequences.

More than half of Brazil is racked by drought (Washington Post) In the north of Brazil, dried rivers have left communities accessible only by boat landlocked. In the central west, fires are razing what were once wetlands. And in the densely populated southeast, smoke from tens of thousands of blazes is choking cities. Brazil is in the grip of its worst drought on record, Brazil’s Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring and Alerts said this month, a drought that has parched at least 59 percent of Latin America’s largest country and dried out more than 1,400 cities. Along the Rio Madeira in Amazonas state, locals are trekking miles on the hot sands of the dried riverbed in search of water. In the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, fires have scorched an estimated 20,000 square kilometers (7,720 square miles). The vast Cerrado region is in the grip of the worst drought in at least 700 years, according to researchers at the University of São Paulo. And the air in São Paulo state has grown so heavy with forest fire smoke that authorities have urged people to avoid physical activity outside.

England’s Health Service Is in Deep Trouble, Report Finds (NYT) England’s National Health Service, one of the country’s most revered institutions, is in “critical” condition, according to a government-commissioned report that cited long waits for treatment, crumbling hospitals, mental health patients in “vermin-infested cells” and far fewer M.R.I. scanners than in comparable countries. The hard-hitting review, published late on Wednesday, was commissioned by Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer, after he won the general election. The dire state of the N.H.S. was a key reason many people voted for his Labour Party in July, according to polls. But the report underscores the scale of the challenge the government faces to revive a health care system that is in a spiral of decline after years of underinvestment and administrative meddling and is still suffering the aftershocks of the pandemic.

Lawmakers review plan to raise retirement age in fast-greying China (Reuters) China’s top legislative body this week assessed an official plan to delay the country’s retirement age, among the world’s lowest, taking a key step towards changing decades-old labour laws and easing economic pressures stemming from a shrinking workforce. The ruling Communist Party said in July that China would gradually raise the country’s retirement age. The retirement age is now 60 for men, about six years below that in most developed economies, while for women in white-collar work it is 55, and 50 for women who work in factories. Having people work for longer would abate some pressure on pension budgets with many Chinese provinces already reeling from large deficits. It would also delay pension payouts and require older workers to stay at their jobs longer, which may not be welcomed by all of them. Reform is urgent with life expectancy in China rising to 78 years as of 2021 from about 44 years in 1960, and projected to exceed 80 years by 2050. At the same time, the working population needed to support the elderly is shrinking.

Pope marvels at Singapore’s skyscrapers and asks that the lowest migrant workers not be forgotten (AP) Pope Francis on Thursday praised Singapore’s economic strength as a testament to human ingenuity but urged the city-state to look after the weakest, too, especially foreign workers, as he opened the final leg of his tour through some of Asia’s poorest countries in one of the world’s richest. In a common appeal from history’s first Latin American pope, Francis called especially for dignified pay and conditions for migrant workers, who have helped build Singapore into one of the world’s most advanced financial powerhouses. “These workers contribute a great deal to society and should be guaranteed a fair wage,” Francis said. Singapore has long touted as a success story its transformation from a colonial port lacking natural resources into a financial and trade power in just a few decades since independence from Malaysia in 1965. The former British colony enjoys one of the highest living standards in the world, and is known for its safety and low crime rate. But it is also one of the most expensive cities to live in and its competitive work environment makes for a stressful, overworked people.

Israeli Commandos Carried Out Raid on Secret Weapons Site in Syria (NYT) Israel carried out a commando raid in Syria on Sunday that obliterated a Hezbollah missile production facility near the Lebanese border, killing a number of people at the site, according to American and other Western officials. The operation included a daring raid by Israeli special forces, who rappelled down from helicopters and apparently seized materials from the missile facility, the officials said. Ground forces were used in the attack because of its complexity and to recover information from the secret weapons site, the officials said, adding that there were no Israeli casualties. The officials said the raid included airstrikes on the sprawling site, the Scientific Studies and Research Center, which is near Masyaf, in the country’s northwest. Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported on Monday that 18 people were killed and dozens more injured.

New video, witnesses challenge Israel’s account of U.S. activist’s killing (Washington Post) Aysenur Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish American, was fatally shot in the head on Friday in the village of Beita, near Nablus, following brief clashes after Friday prayers. The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday it was “very likely” she had been hit “unintentionally” by one of its soldiers. “The incident took place during a violent riot,” the statement said, and the fire was aimed at “the key instigator.” But a Washington Post investigation has found that Eygi was shot more than a half-hour after the height of confrontations in Beita, and some 20 minutes after protesters had moved down the main road—more than 200 yards away from Israeli forces. Last month, another American citizen, Daniel Santiago, a 32-year-old teacher from New Jersey, was shot in the thigh by Israeli forces in the same olive grove where Eygi was killed. The IDF said Santiago was “accidentally injured” when soldiers “fired live rounds in the air” to disperse protesters.

2,000-Pound Bombs Likely Used in Mawasi Strike (NYT) Large craters and a bomb fragment from an Israeli airstrike on a camp for displaced people early Tuesday provide strong evidence that Israel used 2,000-pound bombs, according to three weapons experts. The United States has previously warned Israel that the powerful munitions can cause excessive civilian casualties in the densely populated Gaza Strip, and suspended exporting U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs to Israel earlier this year. Israel said it had carried out “precise strikes” aimed at Hamas militants, but has so far declined to say what sort of bombs were used. At least 19 people were killed in the blasts and more than 60 others injured, Gazan authorities said, a toll that appeared likely to rise. Video filmed after the attack and verified by The New York Times showed two enormous blast craters measuring close to 50 feet wide.

South Africa’s traveling ‘health train’ (AP) Thethiwe Mahlangu woke early on a chilly morning and walked through her busy South African township, where minibuses hooted to pick up commuters and smoke from sidewalk breakfast stalls hung in the air. Her eyes had been troubling her. But instead of going to her nearby health clinic, Mahlangu was headed to the train station for an unusual form of care. A passenger train known as Phelophepa—or “good, clean, health” in the Sesotho language—had been transformed into a mobile health facility. It circulates throughout South Africa for much of the year, providing medical attention to the sick, young and old who often struggle to receive the care they need at crowded local clinics. For the past 30 years—ever since South Africa’s break with the former racist system of apartheid—the train has carried doctors, nurses and optometrists on an annual journey that touches even the most rural villages, delivering primary healthcare to about 375,000 people a year.

Cholera Deaths Soar Worldwide Despite Being Easily Preventable (NYT) The cholera outbreaks spreading across the globe are becoming more deadly. Deaths from the diarrheal disease soared last year, far outpacing the increase in cases, according to a new analysis by the World Health Organization. Cholera is easy to prevent and costs just pennies to treat, but huge outbreaks have swamped even well-prepared health systems in countries that had not confronted the disease in years. The number of cholera deaths reported globally last year increased by 71 percent from deaths in 2022, while the number of reported cases rose 13 percent. Much of the increase was driven by conflict and climate change, the W.H.O. report said. “For death rates to be rising so much faster even than cases are increasing, this is totally unacceptable,” said Philippe Barboza, who leads the cholera team in the health emergencies program of the W.H.O. “It reflects the world’s lack of interest in a disease that has plagued humans for thousands of years, afflicting the poorest people who cannot find clean water to drink,” he said. “How can we accept that in 2024 that people are dying because they don’t have access to a simple bag of oral rehydration salts that cost 50 cents?”

“A hug? Why not!” (Worldcrunch) A video of King Charles sharing a hug with the New Zealand women's rugby union team at Buckingham palace has gone viral on social media. The British sovereign was hosting the Black Ferns—set to play against England's Red Roses on Saturday—at the palace when winger Ayesha Leti-I'iga asked him to share a hug with the team. “Why not?,” he answered before getting a group hug.