#trump-china scandal

[tomorrowusa]

When Republicans make accusations against Democrats, it's a given that Republicans themselves are deeply guilty of those charges.

Republicans may be terrible at governing, but they are world class when it comes to projection.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY-01) is frantically searching for nonexistent "evidence" to impeach Joe Biden while ignoring Trump businesses getting over $7 million from China, Saudi Arabia, and other countries while in office. What on earth was the Chinese government doing at a Trump property in Las Vegas?

^^^ Did the Democratic Republic of Congo spend $25,171 at the Trump International Hotel in DC so he would stop calling them a "shit-hole country"? 🇨🇩

As for GOP Rep. James Comer, he's a hypocritical multimillionaire twit who is the perfect corrupt MAGA zombie.

The Republican leading the probe of Hunter Biden has his own shell company and complicated friends

[never-was-has-been]

Don't Look Away

"I am 85 years old.

I have experienced the American Dream because I was born a white, American male; I was privileged.

Women did not have that privilege, African-Americans did not have that privilege, people of color did not have that privilege,

Native Americans did not have that privilege, non heterosexuals did not have that privilege--it was reserved for white, American males who presented as heterosexual.

In the 1960's and 1970's a sense of optimism filled the air in America, a genuine feeling that the American Dream could be made available to all people regardless of sex, color, creed, race, national origin or sexual orientation.

It was a tumultuous time, the civil rights movement, assassinations, the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam War protest movement; nevertheless, there truly was the feeling of a promise of a better tomorrow.

Because we were so optimistic, we let down our guard; we took our freedoms for granted, a big mistake; freedom is a fragile gift that must be closely guarded.

I can't pinpoint the exact time when the change began, I think it was when Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980.

A popular actor, a gentle-speaking likeable man, a convert to "conservative" values, a perfect puppet for the elitists, white supremacists and authoritarians who have been ever-present in our society since its very beginnings.

"Trickle-down" economics seeped in, anti-trust regulations were relaxed, “Free Markets” was the slogan of the day, human beings were reduced to chits on a profit board, consumerism took hold as the gap between the richest and the poorest widened into an insurmountable divide during the ensuing decades.

Money became the weapon of the rich and powerful white supremacists and Fascists who now seek to overthrow our tattered republic. Donald Trump is their latest puppet.

We are in a very dark place--BUT WE ARE STILL A LIVING, BREATHING REPUBLIC.

On November 5th, American citizens will be voting to decide whether our nation will remain a living, breathing Republic or will go the way of Russia, China, India, Hungary and all the other regimes that oppress their people under the heel of totalitarianism.

THE CHOICE IS OURS; EVERY VOTE IS CRITICAL; THE SUM TOTAL OF OUR VOTES WILL ECHO THE VOICE OF FREEDOM.

Donald Trump has a fixed base of mindless supporters that will not grow significantly.

If freedom-loving voters go to the polls, we can have a decisive victory and we can then begin the long and challenging task of restoring the promise of a better tomorrow, not just for American citizens, but FOR ALL HUMAN BEINGS.

I am an old man; I will not live to see my AMERICAN-DREAM-FOR-ALL come true.

I have devoted my life to. this cause.

Please allow me to celebrate the beginning of a better tomorrow for America and the world.

IT CAN HAPPEN ON NOVEMBER 5TH!

Be well... ~Alan "DontLookAway" Dornan~ "

[sansculottides]

𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗦 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗜𝘁𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗙𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀

On June 14, 2024, international news agency Reuters exposed a secret disinformation campaign by the US Department of State meant to discredit Chinese-manufactured COVID-19 vaccines amongst Filipinos. The US anti-vax fake news campaign ran from 2020 to 2021, and involved the use of dummy social media accounts posting false and unscientific information about the efficacy of Chinese vaccines, as well as weaponizing pervasive racist conspiracy theories that the COVID-19 pandemic was created and spread by the Chinese government.

We demand an immediate investigation by the Philippine government on the matter, and for decisive action to be taken by the government to hold the US accountable for its deception campaign against the Filipino people. The Reuters exposé has uncovered a clear national security threat to the Filipino people. The US carried out its fake news campaign at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was ravaging the Filipino people, and worsened already widespread anti-vaccination beliefs amongst the public.

We are appalled by the glaring lack of Philippine media coverage on the Reuters exposé. An international scandal has just been uncovered. How can truth be spoken to power, and how can political action be taken by citizens, if the media does not play its part? Silence is silence, whether due to the threat of repression or the suffocating consensus by media capitalists that unsavory things be left unsaid. We call on all media workers, whether working at mainstream media organizations, independent media, social media, or campus media, to take the lead themselves and focus public attention on this issue.

The year-long campaign clearly demonstrates the untrustworthiness of the US as a strategic diplomatic and military partner of the Philippines and of all Global South countries. The campaign was initiated by the Trump administration and was first focused on the Philippines. Later on, the project was expanded further into Central Asia and the Middle East. It took the Biden administration three full months to end the globalized and state-sponsored mass disinformation project.

This issue is not just a problem of specific administrations. The year-long campaign should remind the workers and the masses of the Philippines and the world that the US remains the world’s foremost imperialist power. Its overriding foreign policy concern is the maintenance of its dominant global military and economic position, and its means are deception and force.

The US’ covert effort to corrupt public discourse in the Philippines should prompt the Marcos administration to question the intentions of its close diplomatic and military ally. The disinformation campaign was motivated primarily by the US’ geopolitical rivalry with China, which has, since the former’s Pivot to Asia in 2012, increasingly taken on a more militarized and antagonistic form. US military and intelligence agencies are manufacturing consent in the Philippines to win the hearts and minds of the Filipino masses in its effort to overpower China through military means. This is its real goal, and not to aid the Filipino people to address Chinese maritime aggression.

The US has no legitimacy to pose as a champion of international laws and norms and as a partner to secure the Philippines’ national sovereignty. It conducted its campaign to serve its own geopolitical interests with no regard for the immense need of the Philippines to vaccinate its citizens against the pandemic. Once again, Washington D.C. has Filipino blood on its hands.

US interference in Philippine public life cannot be left without consequences. Philippine foreign policy should pivot away from its longstanding reliance on the US and towards ASEAN, and away from addressing Chinese aggression through militarized means and towards regional multilateral diplomacy. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙗𝙚 𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨. 𝙄𝙢𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨!

📷 AP

Reposted from SPARK - Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (Union of Progressive Youth), a socialist youth organization in the Philippines.

[mariacallous]

Last week, federal prosecutors launched a bombshell indictment against sitting New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Among a range of charges, Adams is accused of covertly funneling foreign funding, primarily out of Turkey, into his election campaigns. He then allegedly pushed pro-Turkish policies while in office—making him, for all intents and purposes, an effective foreign agent on behalf of the Turkish government.

The indictment is shocking for a range of reasons, and joins a burst of other indictments recently filed in the foreign lobbying space. But while most of the recent revelations have centered on illicit lobbying networks in Washington, the Adams indictment points in the opposite direction: to the fact that foreign regimes are no longer targeting just officials in Washington, but local officials around the U.S. as well.

Indeed, the Adams charges follow directly on the heels of another recent indictment that highlights this new—and potentially even more concerning—paradigm in the world of foreign lobbying efforts. As prosecutors alleged last month, an American named Linda Sun secretly acted as an agent for the Chinese government, helping Beijing spread its influence efforts to new U.S. audiences.

The many duties that Sun allegedly performed included blocking Taiwanese representatives from meeting with American officials, forging signatures to issue official proclamations celebrating Chinese representatives, and even blocking at least one U.S. official from mentioning China’s crimes against Uyghurs, which the United States has labeled as genocidal. In return, she and her husband allegedly received millions of dollars, tickets to elite events, and even “Nanjing-style salted ducks” prepared by the personal chef of a Chinese officials.

But Sun’s pro-Beijing work didn’t take place in Washington. Rather, it took place in Albany, New York—and occurred while Sun worked as the top aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. That is, Sun’s Chinese handlers didn’t want her targeting federal officials, but instead targeting the kinds of state-level officials and legislators who’ve long escaped foreign lobbying scrutiny.

Now, with Sun’s indictment—and for the first time in U.S. history—we’ve gained insight into how and why foreign regimes target state-level governments, and how they attempt to influence state-level officials in the United States. It is a watershed moment—and one that, given the paucity of attention paid to the topic previously, is almost certainly an indicator of a far bigger, far broader problem.

For decades, the topic of foreign influence campaigns had long escaped notice in Washington, with the number of convictions for related crimes limited to single digits in the decades leading up to 2016. That all changed with the rise of former President Donald Trump and the swirl of foreign lobbyists that he ushered into the White House. In the years since, U.S. officials have finally begun enforcing the country’s foreign lobbying regulations, which require lobbyists to register their work and their payments with the Justice Department. There has now been, in many ways, an unprecedented effort at enforcing these regulations.

But that attention has focused almost exclusively on what has taken place at the federal level, in and around Washington. Despite the nation’s federal governing structure, little attention has ever been paid to lobbying efforts aimed at state-level governments, from governors’ offices to state legislatures. Even on the academic side, it would appear that there has never been a comprehensive study of how foreign regimes lobby officials outside the federal government.

A quick survey of recent news stories, however, indicates that the issue deserves far more attention—and far more concern.

The Sun case, for instance, highlights how Beijing has broadened the aperture of its lobbying efforts far beyond Washington—and done so for a relative pittance. Yet the New York charges aren’t the first time that China has been accused of meddling in U.S. state-level governments. In 2022, scholar Flora Yan published a series of investigations into China’s “subnational lobbying campaign[s]” in the United States, tracing the initial efforts to the late 2000s, beginning in California. As Yan wrote, in 2009, Chinese officials launched a lobbying effort aimed at thwarting a proposed California resolution aimed at creating a “Tibet Day” and condemning Beijing’s violent crackdowns against Tibetan protesters.

At the time, Chinese diplomats utilized traditional lobbying tactics, primarily by meeting face-to-face with local legislators. “They were very polished, very determined to express their opinion. At the end of the conversation, they asked me to reconsider moving forward with the bill,” one legislator later said to journalist Tim Johnson. “They talked about desiring good relations, which is perhaps code for, ‘You criticize us at your own risk.’”

Another observer said he’d never seen “foreign consular officials lobbying at our state level in such a blatant and aggressive way. To suggest that such activity is irregular is to state the obvious.” Still, as unprecedented as the effort may have been, the push eventually worked, and the motion to support Tibet was eventually killed. In the process, a new model was created—one that saw foreign governments directly lobbying not legislators in Washington, but in state capitols in Sacramento and far beyond.

Soon, other regimes began following suit. In 2021, a USA Today investigation revealed that Saudi Arabia had broadened its lobbying efforts to target state-level officials around the United States, from Pennsylvania to Alaska, all “part of a new Saudi government lobbying strategy.” Taking place in the aftermath of revelations that Saudi Arabia had assassinated and dismembered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the lobbying push was part of a far broader portfolio out of Riyadh intended to improve its image. And the push apparently had its intended effect; as one of the interlocutors whom Saudi officials met with said, “There was a huge message of change and progress.”

Elsewhere, foreign governments have increasingly used cutouts to circumvent U.S. lobbying laws and contact state-level officials directly. For instance, the head of the Hungarian state-funded Danube Institute—one of the primary organizations seeking to improve the image of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban—traveled to Tennessee last year to directly address local legislators. As a result of the visit, the Tennessee legislature passed a formal resolution praising the work of the Danube Institute, describing it as an “extraordinary” organization whose members have “distinguished themselves in the realm of international affairs.” The resolution was the first of its kind, and it passed easily—despite at least one state legislator calling the Danube Institute “an organization tied to an authoritarian.”

Occasionally, multiple nations lobby the same state-level officials in the United States, though often for competing reasons. This pattern was seen most clearly in the cases of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which each spent years lobbying state-level officials regarding the status of the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian lobbyists focused on convincing legislators to formally recognize the independence of the breakaway region, with states such as Hawaii and Michigan recognizing the territory as an independent republic. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, launched lobbying campaigns at officials to recognize the region as a part of Azerbaijan proper, finding success in states such as Arizona and New Mexico.

Given Azerbaijan’s recent incursions into Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnically cleansing the region of remaining Armenians, such debate is now largely moot—though that hasn’t stopped Azerbaijan from feting state-level officials, with legislators from Maine recently traveling to the region and praising their Azerbaijani hosts for taking them to the “liberated territories.”

These are just the handful of examples that we know about; given the lack of attention—and prior to this month, lack of indictments—the issue is almost certainly much larger and much more insidious. But federal officials have at least begun waking up to the problem, and they have started to alert their state-level counterparts.

A 2022 statement from the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC)—part of the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence—focused directly on these state-level threats, and in particular those led out of Beijing. China “understands U.S. state and local leaders enjoy a degree of independence from Washington and may seek to use them as proxies to advocate for national U.S. policies Beijing desires,” the statement read, pointing directly to policies concerning Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan. As the statement continued, “[l]eaders at the U.S. state, local, tribal, and territorial levels risk being manipulated to support hidden [Chinese] agendas.”

The statement coincided with a joint advisory from the NCSC, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security to U.S. state-level officials regarding Chinese influence operations, with NCSC chief Michael Orlando noting to the Wall Street Journal that Beijing had “become more aggressive and pervasive” in recent years.

But these operations are not simply about effecting immediate policy changes. As FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2022, “The Chinese government understands that politicians in smaller roles today may rise to become more influential over time. So they look to cultivate talent early—often state and local officials—to ensure that politicians at all levels of government will be ready to take a call and advocate on behalf of Beijing’s agenda.”

Such an understanding, and such efforts, are hardly limited to Beijing. Governments around the world, especially authoritarians in places such as Azerbaijan or Hungary, have realized just how open state-level officials are, and just how susceptible they are to foreign lobbying efforts. In a certain sense, this mirrors the positions taken regarding federal officials until very recently; it’s only in the past few years that investigators and regulations have bothered enforcing foreign lobbying laws at the federal level.

The time is long overdue for similar efforts at the state level, even among smaller U.S. states—all of which will, for the first time, finally reveal just how broad, and just how deep, these foreign lobbying efforts now run.

[turmpygogosqweze]

Objections to Donald Trump and it's idiocy

Response to @fawndleme 1. I have literally now clue what you were talking about, so I did some research... Apparently Hillary Clinton started rumors that Obama wasn't born in the USA and Trump repeated it, before backing off publicly. You were very vague though, so that may not be it. 2. In 2016, his platform was built off of realizing the common sense that if the border is insecure, criminals can come over from Mexico or other countries to escape prosecution. Due to the inefficiencies and malpractice in the court systems, many times these criminals stay in our streets. Misrepresenting what he was saying by saying Trump called mexicans "rapists and murderers". 3. This is an example of Trump being hyperbolic - He did not, in fact, ban muslims, but only from several countries that had links to terrorist activities. Funnily enough, comments were turned off on that video so I had to do my own research.

4. There's quite literally no negative connotation in calling someone Pocahantas - and yeah the trails of tears joke is kinda funny, but that's Trump, calling names. He's not being racist towards a race, though, he's making a joke at the expense of an individual - if he was racist, would he not be racist towards all native americans (or at least the majority)? why has he been kind and cordial to many before?

5. You linked the middle part of a post, which I couldn't really understand without context (never even mentioned the names of the individuals in the post you made). Besides that, you can easily see the point he's making in a joking format - They haven't proved themselves as leaders yet.

6. Calling a virus from China the "Kung-Flu" isn't racist. I will fight you on this. It is blatantly moronic to say that, it's called a pun you moron.

7. You think Haiti isn't a crap country? Or the very many African nations often thrown into revolt by hungry warlords? You think this is false? Also, there is no racism here - he's naming countries, many African countries are Arab and Berber, some closer to white than Semite/Black as well.

8. So on this one, in the end it was settled and there was never an admission of guilt. There was evidence for and against it, and I won't say that the Trumps didn't do it, but I will say that it never went to court and it was never ruled that they did that.

9. The "fake electors" scandal, as far as I'm aware, was an issue that while Trump struggled to contest the election results, they attempted to halt for a while as they were confirming the results. They attempted to get alternative electors, not fake electors. The "fake electors" is a headline-making title, intended to clickbait.

So yeah, these are my thoughts. Honestly 4 and 5 are your best points, had some difficulty in refuting those. However, this was quite fun - i look forward to your reply or reblog..

[comeonamericawakeup]

"Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries?" asked David Graham.

No, not Joe Biden- his predecessor, Donald Trump. Republicans have launched an impeachment inquiry based on their suspicion that Biden shared in the payments his son, Hunter, got from Ukrainian and Chinese companies, even though they can't find any evidence. But the GOP couldn't care less about the proof Democrats released last week that while president, Trump received at least $7.8 million from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and 17 other countries. While in office, Trump created blatant conflicts of interest by taking millions from foreign governments seeking to influence him by spending lavishly at his hotels, golf courses, and condos. The Constitution's emoluments clause prohibits public officials from taking such foreign payments- but Trump simply ignored it. This would be a huge scandal for any other officeholder, but GOP "patsies" like House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer rationalize the corruption away by saying Trump "has legitimate businesses," unlike Hunter Biden. If Trump is re-elected, the GOP has given him carte blanche to fill his pockets with more foreign money.

THE WEEK January 19, 2024

[contemplatingoutlander]

This is an excellent summary of research that was done on two major mainstream news publications--The Washington Post and The New York Times--regarding whether the content of their front pages (from Sept. 1 to Nov. 8, 2022) provided readers with information that would help them to better understand policy differences between Democrats and Republicans in the leadup to the 2022 election. Unfortunately, the study discovered that these "liberal" newspapers of record both tended to post entertaining "horse race and campaign palace intrigue" articles rather than articles discussing political party policy differences.

When these two newspapers did report on policy issues, surprisingly (especially given its liberal reputation) the Times covered more topics related to Republican interests (i.e., "China, immigration, and crime"); whereas, the Post covered more topics of greater interest to Democrats (i.e., "affirmative action, police reform, LGBTQ rights")

Below are the opening and closing paragraphs from the article, which sum up the importance of how the mainstream media shapes public perceptions of election issues--often in ways that could wittingly or unwittingly help dangerous politicians like Trump win powerful positions in our government.

Seven years ago, in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, media analysts rushed to explain Donald Trump’s victory. Misinformation was to blame, the theory went, fueled by Russian agents and carried on social networks. But as researchers, we wondered if fascination and fear over “fake news” had led people to underestimate the influence of traditional journalism outlets. After all, mainstream news organizations remain an important part of the media ecosystem—they’re widely read and watched; they help set the agenda, including on social networks. We decided to look at what had been featured on the printed front page of the��New York Times in the three months leading up to Election Day. Of a hundred and fifty articles that discussed the campaign, only a handful mentioned policy; the vast majority covered horse race politics or personal scandals. Most strikingly, the Times ran ten front-page stories about Hillary Clinton’s email server. “If voters had wanted to educate themselves on issues,” we concluded, “they would not have learned much from reading the Times.” [...] The choices made by major publishers are not wrong, per se, for the same reason that one newsroom cannot objectively know how to cover an issue, or how much to cover it: no one can. Still, editorial choices are undeniably choices—and they will weigh heavily on the upcoming presidential race. Outlets can and should maintain a commitment to truth and accuracy. But absent an earnest and transparent assessment of what they choose to emphasize—and what they choose to ignore—their readers will be left misinformed. [color emphasis added]

[edited]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:

Republicans have wasted so much: It’s not just the carloads of “Let’s Go Brandon!” merch now on its way to landfills, it’s a huge amount of time and money that is owed directly to Americans. As soon as they gained a small majority—and once they were past the first round of follies in naming a speaker—Republicans got right on their No. 1 priority.

That priority wasn’t passing legislation to help people. They've been one of the least effective Congress in history. Instead, they jumped right into the most important task of all modern Republicans: Showing their loyalty to Donald Trump by launching unfounded attacks on his opponents.  In the House, that meant not one, not two, but three simultaneous investigations into everything Biden. A car loan, his son's private parts, anything was fodder for a mill meant to crank out a never-ending stream of Biden "scandal." All of this is completely worthless to the country. Now it’s not even useful to Trump.

The Republican grovel fest, headed up by Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan, was ridiculous from the outset.  There was the fake FBI document produced by a Russian mole whose repeated claims were originally pushed in 2019 by Rudy Giuliani and were debunked almost as soon as they appeared. That hasn’t stopped Jordan from repeating these easily disproved lies and pretending to seriously investigate Biden’s actions in helping to get rid of a corrupt official.  Meanwhile, Comer was busy trying to prove that Biden was the recipient of money from China, talking up a witness who could prove everything if Republicans could find him. Comer went after Hunter Biden for paying back a small loan when Biden wasn’t even in office. Then there was a small personal loan to his brother, also while Biden wasn’t in office. In the end, they turned on Attorney General Merrick Garland when they could find no reason to impeach Biden.  That was the biggest problem for these Republicans: Biden hadn't done anything wrong. But that didn't stop them from crowing over every false claim as if it were proof that Biden was the godfather of the "Biden crime family." A crime family that is somehow so huge and corrupt and has netted Biden a beach home that isn’t even on the beach rather than towers full of golden targets. 

The House Republicans wasted a bunch of money and time on conducting bogus partisan witch hunts against President Joe Biden to try to find something on him. They came up with bupkis.

[simonalkenmayer]

Tucker Carlson out at fox

Don Lemon out at CNN

FOX already blaming Donald Trump for their dominion scandal and it’s spiraling size drawing in Supreme Court Justices

Trump and DeSantis attempting to out-Hitler one another

Courts going to the right

Politicians passing increasingly dangerous laws.

Ukraine attempting to join NATO, as China, who gets most of its oil from Russia, says “post soviet countries (like Ukraine) lack legitimacy in international courts”

India, Israel, and Saudi governments going increasingly right. Fighting in Sudan.

The world is sorting itself into two camps, just as I’d did before WWII.

Watching it implode is comforting insofar as it pleases me to have gotten predictions correct, and no further.

The next 2 years will be some of the most dangerous in the history of the world. Be vigilant. Be kind. Be brave. Be safe.

I am very glad the pandemic happened when it did, because people will know how to shelter.

I am not optimistic. I don’t want to frighten people but I want everyone to be safe.

We have to march and organize and VOTE. That’s the thing that holds it at bay. It’s the only thing that keeps violence from happening—that all peaceful measures are exhausted.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Tomorrow (November 29), I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

#15yrsago Peak Population: when will population growth stop, why, and how? https://www.alexsteffen.com/peak_population_and_sustainability

#15yrsago James Boyle’s “The Public Domain” — a brilliant copyfighter’s latest book, from a law prof who writes like a comedian https://memex.craphound.com/2008/11/29/james-boyles-the-public-domain-a-brilliant-copyfighters-latest-book-from-a-law-prof-who-writes-like-a-comedian/

#10yrsago NSA and Canadian spooks illegally spied on diplomats at Toronto G20 summit https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/new-snowden-docs-show-u-s-spied-during-g20-in-toronto-1.2442448

#10yrsago New CC licenses: tighter, shorter, more readable, more global https://creativecommons.org/Version4/

#10yrsago Berlusconi kicked out of Italian senate https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/silvio-berlusconi-ousted-italian-parliament-tax-fraud-conviction

#5yrsago Sennheiser’s headphone drivers covertly changed your computer’s root of trust, leaving you vulnerable to undetectable attacks https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/sennheiser-headset-software-could-allow-man-in-the-middle-ssl-attacks/

#5yrsago New York City’s municipal debt collectors have forged an unholy alliance with sleazy subprime lenders https://www.bloomberg.com/confessions-of-judgment

#5yrsago Here’s how the Pentagon swindled Congress with $21 trillion worth of undocumented, untraceable, unaccounted for expenditures https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/

#5yrsago The prosecutor who helped Jeffrey Epstein escape justice is now a Trump Cabinet member https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html

#5yrsago Reddit takes a stand against the EU’s plan to break the internet https://www.redditinc.com/blog/the-eu-copyright-directive-what-redditors-in-europe-need-to-know/

#5yrsago The secret history of science fiction’s women writers: The Future is Female! https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/29/the-secret-history-of-science-fictions-women-writers-the-future-is-female/

#5yrsago Redaction ineptitude reveals names of Proud Boys’ self-styled new leaders https://splinternews.com/proud-boys-failed-to-redact-their-new-dumb-bylaws-and-a-1830700905

#5yrsago Redaction ineptitude reveals Facebook’s 2012 plan to sell Graph API access to user data for $250,000 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/facebook-pondered-for-a-time-selling-access-to-user-data/

#5yrsago Google engineer calls for a walkout over China censorship and raises $200K strike fund in hours https://twitter.com/lizthegrey/status/1068208484053856256

#5yrsago Correlates of Trump voting: searches for erectile dysfunction, hair loss, how to get girls, penis enlargement, penis size, steroids, testosterone and Viagra https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/11/29/how-donald-trump-appeals-to-men-secretly-insecure-about-their-manhood/

#5yrsago Google’s secret project to build a censored Chinese search engine bypassed the company’s own security and privacy teams https://theintercept.com/2018/11/29/google-china-censored-search/

#5yrsago Mozilla pulls a popular paywall circumvention tool from Firefox add-ons store https://web.archive.org/web/20181130141509/https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox/issues/82

#1yrago The Big Four accounting firms are one (more) scandal away from collapse https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/29/great-andersens-ghost/#mene-mene-bezzle

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Nerves frayed in Canada and Mexico over US trade relations (BBC) As Americans prepare to vote for their next president, Canadians and Mexicans are watching on nervously. The two-way trade of goods between the US and Mexico totalled $807bn (£621bn) last year, making Mexico the US’s biggest trading partner when it comes to physical items. Meanwhile, the US’s goods trade with Canada in 2023 was in second place on $782bn. By comparison the figure for the US and China was $576bn. Mexico and Canada’s future trade with the US could be impacted if Donald Trump wins the US election. This is because he is proposing to introduce substantial import tariffs. These would be 60% for goods from China, and 20% on products from all other countries, apparently including Mexico and Canada. By contrast, Kamala Harris is widely expected to maintain the current more open trade policies of President Biden. This is despite the fact she voted against the 2020 United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) free trade deal, saying it didn’t go far enough on tackling climate change. Trump and Harris have “starkly different visions for the future of US economic relations with the world”, said one study in September.

Inside the Last-Ditch Hunt by Harris and Trump for Undecided Voters (NYT) Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump are carrying out a virtual house-to-house hunt for the final few voters who are still up for grabs, guided by months of painstaking research about these elusive Americans. Inside the Delaware headquarters of Ms. Harris’s campaign, analysts have spent 18 months curating a list of which television shows and podcasts voters consume in the battleground states. Her team has assigned every voter in these states a “contactability score” from 0 to 100 to determine just how hard that person will be to reach—and who is best to deliver her closing message. The results are guiding Ms. Harris’s media and travel schedule, as well as campaign stops by brand-name supporters. For instance, the movie star Julia Roberts and the basketball great Magic Johnson earned high marks among certain voters, so they have been deployed to swing states. At Mr. Trump’s headquarters, in South Florida, his team recently refreshed its model of the battleground electorate and found that just 5 percent of voters were still undecided, half as many as in August. The Trump team calls them the “target persuadables”—younger, more racially diverse people with lower incomes who tend to use streaming services and social media. Mr. Trump has made appearance after appearance on those platforms, including on podcasts aimed at young men.

A Nationwide Blackout, Now a Hurricane. How Much Can Cuba Endure? (NYT) The lights came back on Sunday night in Lidia Núñez Gómez’s Havana neighborhood—the first time since Friday morning—so she rushed to use her electric cooker to save the frozen chicken legs and pork her son had sent her from the United States. Meat is scarce, the power was sure to go out again soon, and Ms. Núñez, 81, needed to keep food from rotting. Her daughter, Nilza Valdés Núñez, 61, fury in her voice and tears in her eyes, took stock of months of power outages, plus food and gas shortages. With a hurricane slamming the eastern coast of the country and a four-day blackout that plunged the entire country into darkness, she summed up the past few days like this: “super bad.” “The lack of electricity, of gas, and all the other problems we have here,” Ms. Valdés said, pausing to weep, “make you feel bad.” Cuba, a Communist country long accustomed to shortages of all kinds and spotty electrical service, is in the throes of a crisis so severe that experts say it threatens to explode into social unrest.

Peru’s ex-president Toledo gets more than 20 years in prison in case linked to corruption scandal (AP) Peru’s former President Alejandro Toledo on Monday was sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison in a case involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which became synonymous with corruption across Latin America, where it paid millions of dollars in bribes to government officials and others. Authorities accused Toledo of accepting $35 million in bribes from Odebrecht in exchange for allowing the construction of a highway in the South American country. Odebrecht, which built some of Latin America’s most crucial infrastructure projects, admitted to U.S. authorities in 2016 to having bought government contracts throughout the region with generous bribes. The investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice spun probes in several countries, including Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador.

Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It’s Hard to Go Back (Bloomberg) Germany’s brief experiment with a four-day workweek is over, but for many of the businesses that participated, there’s no going back. “I don’t want to work on Fridays anymore. I just don’t,” says Sören Fricke, co-founder of event planner Solidsense. “Friday has actually become the third day of the weekend. You only work if there is no other option.” Solidsense is one of 45 companies that participated in the six-month trial, during which employees worked fewer hours but still received their full paycheck. In the end, 73% of the participants said they’re prepared to make the change permanent or extend the experiment.

Putin Brings Together Economies He Hopes Will Eclipse the West (NYT) After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the West imposed sweeping economic sanctions, cut its access to the global banking system, and sought to isolate Russia diplomatically from the rest of the world. But President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is determined to show the West that he has important allies on his side. This week Russia is hosting the so-called BRICS group—which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—in a gathering of emerging market countries. The meeting, which begins Tuesday, has expanded this year to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Its wonky name notwithstanding (it was coined by a Wall Street banker in 2001), BRICS now includes countries representing almost half the world’s population and more than 35 percent of global economic output, adjusted by purchasing power. The conference is intended to present a hefty showcase of economic might but also entice new countries into a coalition Russia hopes to build that would form a new world order not dominated by the West.

King Charles III ends first Australian visit by a reigning British monarch in 13 years (AP) King Charles III ends the first visit to Australia by a reigning British monarch in 13 years Tuesday as anti-monarchists hope the debate surrounding his journey is a step toward an Australian citizen becoming head of state. Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, watched dancers perform at a Sydney Indigenous community center. The couple used tongs to cook sausages at a community barbecue lunch at the central suburb of Parramatta and later shook the hands of well-wishers for the last time during their visit outside the Sydney Opera House. Their final engagement was an inspection of navy ships on Sydney Harbor in an event known as a fleet review. Charles’s trip to Australia was scaled down because he is undergoing cancer treatment. He arrives in Samoa on Wednesday.

Hug it out, but make it quick. New Zealand airport sets time limit on goodbyes (AP) Emotional farewells are a common sight at airports, but travelers leaving the New Zealand city of Dunedin will have to be quick. A new three-minute time limit on goodbye hugs in the airport’s drop-off area is intended to prevent lingering cuddles from causing traffic jams. “Max hug time three minutes,” warn signs outside the terminal, adding that those seeking “fonder farewells” should head to the airport’s parking lot instead. The cuddle cap was imposed in September to “keep things moving smoothly” in the redesigned passenger drop-off area outside the airport, CEO Dan De Bono told The Associated Press on Tuesday. It was the airport’s way of reminding people that the zone was for “quick farewells” only. But passengers need not worry unduly about enforcement. “We do not have hug police,” De Bono said. Visitors might, however, be asked to move their lingering embraces to the parking lot, where they can cuddle free of charge for up to 15 minutes.

Blinken heads to the Middle East for the 11th time since the Gaza war (AP) Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading again to the Middle East, making his 11th trip to the region since the war in Gaza erupted last year and as Israel steps up attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The State Department said Blinken would depart Monday for a weeklong trip to Israel. His other stops are likely to include Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, officials say. Since the Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the Israeli response, Blinken has traveled to the Middle East 10 other times seeking an end to the crisis. His previous trips have yielded little in the way of ending hostilities, but he has managed to increase aid deliveries to Gaza in the past.

Israel’s wars are expensive (AP) On top of the grievous toll in human life and misery, Israel’s war against the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups has been expensive, and the painfully high financial costs are raising concerns about the long-term effect of the fighting on the country’s economy. The Israeli government is spending much more per month on the military, from $1.8 billion before Hamas started the fighting by attacking Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, to around $4.7 billion by the end of last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. In the three months after Hamas attacked, Israel’s economic output shrank 5.6%, the worst performance of any of the 38 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of mostly rich nations. The war has inflicted an even heavier toll on Gaza’s already broken economy, where 90% of the population has been displaced and the vast majority of the workforce is unemployed. The West Bank economy has also been hit hard, where tens of thousands of Palestinian laborers lost their jobs in Israel after Oct. 7 and Israeli military raids and checkpoints have hindered movement. The World Bank says the West Bank economy contracted by 25% in the first quarter.

The fear, loathing and excitement surrounding AI in the workplace (AP) Artificial intelligence’s recent rise to the forefront of business has left most office workers wondering how often they should use the technology and whether a computer will eventually replace them. Those were among the highlights of a recent study conducted by the workplace communications platform Slack. After conducting in-depth interviews with 5,000 desktop workers, Slack concluded there are five types of AI personalities in the workplace: “The Maximalist” who regularly uses AI on their jobs; “The Underground” who covertly uses AI; “The Rebel,” who abhors AI; “The Superfan” who is excited about AI but still hasn’t used it; and “The Observer” who is taking a wait-and-see approach.

[tomorrowusa]

Republicans would rather flash dick pics from Hunter Biden's laptop than talk about the millions of dollars Trump's businesses got from China and other foreign governments during his tenure in the White House.

The Trump-China scandal gives Fox News yet another chance to display its hypocrisy and bias.

Sean Hannity’s response to Trump’s Chinese bribes shows staggering contempt for his audience

[grumpy-old-patriot]

A message to all of the never Trump morons. You backed Joe Biden because you don’t like president Trump. Because of your actions, and the scandalous cheating. We got Joe, along with unaffordable food, energy, insurance, rent, automobiles, alcohol and tobacco, housing upgrades and anything bought in a store. We got a money hole in Ukraine. We got the Middle East on fire again. We got China expanding across the globe. We got a stripped down military. Just to name a few. You are traitors to the people and deserve nothing but sorrow.

[cmesinic]

Please sign.

[mariacallous]

As all journalists know fear sells better than sex. Readers want be terrified. And here in the UK, there appears to be every reason to frighten them.

A country that was overdependent on financial services has been in decline ever since the banking crash of 2008. Then, from 2010 on, the astonishing Conservative policy failures of austerity, Trussonomics and, above all, Brexit further weakened an enfeebled state.

I was a child in a happy family during the crisis of the 1970s. Like all happy children I just got on with my life. But even I picked up a little of the despair and hopelessness of the time. That feeling that there is no way out is with us again.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher came to power, and with great brutality, set the UK on a new path as she inflicted landslide defeats on Labour.

Obviously, our current Conservative government is heading for a defeat, maybe a landslide defeat.

But there is little sense that Labour will transform the country.  The far-left takeover from 2015-2019 traumatised it. As recently as 2021, everyone expected Boris Johnson to rule the UK for most of the 2020s.  

Johnson’s contempt for the rules he insisted everyone else follow and the great Truss disaster are handing Labour victory. But the centre-left appears to be the beneficiary of scandal and right-wing madness, not an ideological sea change that might inspire it and sustain it in power

Desperate to drop its crank image, battered by the conservative media establishment, fashionable opinion holds that a wee, cowering and timorous Labour party will come into power without radical policies that equal the country’s needs.

Just this once, fashionable opinion may even be right

And yet, and I know I will regret this outbreak of commercially suicidal optimism, there are reasons to believe that the UK’s position is not quite as grim as it appears.

1)    The economy may revive

Although no one has been as wrong recently as the economists and central bankers who predicted that inflation would be a transitory phenomenon, it is finally coming down. Falls in energy prices may even bring it to the 2 per cent target this month. Interest rates will eventually follow suit.

Lower interest rates mean lower government borrowing costs. They will reduce the extraordinary debt bill Labour in power will have to meet.

Chris Giles of the Financial Times calculated this week that lower government borrowing costs improve the public finances five years ahead by almost £15bn (about 0.5 per cent of national income) for every percentage point reduction.

Meanwhile the Conservatives have raised taxes so high (by UK standards) a Labour government may not need to risk unpopularity by raising them further.  Under Conservative plans the tax burden has risen from 33.1 per cent of gross domestic product in 2019-20 to 36.5 per cent in 2024-25 with further rises planned, taking it to 37.1 per cent by 2028-29.

If the 1997-2010 Labour government is any guide, Labour will be reluctant in the extreme to play into its enemies’ hands by raising taxes

It may not need to if economic growth leads to the revenue growth that would take the UK out of the rolling crisis that has afflicted it since 2016.

I wouldn’t be doing my job if I did not add that there are some pretty large caveats to make.

Economists missed the post-covid inflation surge because they forgot about politics. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine upended the European economy. An extension of the war in Ukraine or the Middle East, or, more terrifyingly, a US-China confrontation, or the return of Donald Trump could all derail a new government.

In any case the IMF predicts growth of 1.5 percent in 2025, which is nowhere near the 3 percent we need to fund the state.

And yet, with a bit of luck there is a fair chance that our fortunes may revive, albeit modestly.

2) Labour is not as scared as it looks

Near where I live in London is the Union Chapel, a vast neo-Gothic hall.

Will Hutton was there recently to launch his new book This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britian. I have interviewed Will for the podcast, which should be out in a couple of days. For now, I’ll just say his book is a classic combination of liberal and left thought, and makes the case for radical reform. Keir Starmer arrived on stage to the cheers of the crowd and endorsed Hutton’s findings.

The fashionable view is that Labour has abandoned difficult policies so as not to alienate frightened voters, and I can see why people think that way.

The grand plan for green job creation has been hacked back after fears the markets would not wear it. The majority of people in this country, and the overwhelming majority of people who vote for opposition parties, now recognise that Brexit was a disastrous error. Year in year out it drags the country down. And yet Starmer, who once argued for a second referendum, is terrified of mentioning the subject in case he upsets a minority in marginal seats.

There was a depressing little vignette a few days ago when the European Commission laid out proposals for open movement to millions of 18- to 30-year-olds from the EU and UK, allowing them to work, study and live in respective states for up to four years. Labour joined the Tories in rejecting the offer.

 It would rather squash the aspirations of young people than lay itself open to the charge that it was taking us back towards EU membership.

Yet Rachel Reeves, Keir Starmer and David Lammy talk about the need for cooperation. “Success will rest on forming new bilateral and multilateral partnerships, and forging a closer relationship with our neighbours in the European Union,” Reeves said as she explained her economic programme.

Meanwhile the UK has been ruled by Conservatives for so long our battered minds can underestimate how much the country will change when they are thrown out.

The new parliament will be filled with politicians who support renters, more home building and the EU. They will at least be interested in a land value tax and a universal basic income. Radical that ideas have been forbidden for years will soon seem normal.

3) The impetus for change

The last Labour government of 1997 to 2010 did not change economic fundamentals for what seemed at the time to be a very good reason.

 When it came to power neo-liberalism worked. Indeed, is easy to forget now how successful the ideology appeared before the crash of 2008. Politicians like Gordon Brown and Tony Blair accepted much of what Margaret Thatcher had done because they thought they had no choice. Everyone knew, or thought they knew, that this was how you ran an economy.

None of that certainty pertains today. The Brexit nationalism that succeeded neo-liberalism has failed. Starmer and Reeves will not be like Blair and Brown: they will have no good reason to cling to discredited ideas.

That does not mean they won’t cling to them for fear of the Tory press or swing voters or because of their own intellectual failings. There is no guarantee that countries will turn themselves round. The UK could go the way of Argentina or Italy.

But the Labour leadership is made of serious politicians, and I keep asking myself why would serious politicians want to preside over decline? I can’t see why they would.

As I said, maybe I will regret writing this piece. But for the moment I think we can enjoy a rare moment of optimism.