The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Steve Thomas]

https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1626621827945582593

"Trump cultist/MAGA pastor Shane Vaughn says that Satan used Sen. John Fetterman to help the Democrats keep control of the Senate "and now that Satan's done with him, now we send him to the mental nuthouse. He just checked himself in for being crazy."

dumb old Satan

Steve Thomas

[Matt Allison]

[Kirk Gallaway]

Wow!,  Now it looks like maybe we were all in tacit agreement to bomb Nordstream! And what a great agreement it was! As  it says here in this article, that throughout this war  and since we bombed the pipeline, "Europe Turned an Energy Crisis into a Green Energy Sprint".

 

Biden whose IRA, ( Inflation reduction act) will be a boon for green energy in the United States, has some Svengali like powers! He has  now succeeded in  turning all Europe more Green as well! And now oil and natural gas prices are lower than they were before Putin's invasion as well!

Bravo UK and Europe! I must admit, we had our doubts, we thought it would take you at least a few years to recover. But some of your stock markets are at all time highs!

Stick with us! The sky's the limit!

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/opinion/europe-energy-crisis-natural-gas-russia.html?campaign_id=39&emc=edit_ty_20230216&instance_id=85517&nl=opinion-today&regi_id=61798350&segment_id=125474&te=1&user_id=48552702f942aacb0810b9de5ca41c55

 

And then on top of that.  A solid majority of Brits  53 to 34%! now think it was wrong to leave the European Union! Just a stunning victory for globalism! If their leaders can just listen to the cries of their people, and reunite with Europe. Then things should be a lot more manageable across the pond!

Then nothing can stop us!

Which is a heady prospect!

Full speed ahead!

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-poll/

 

 

 

 

 

 

heh heh

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by Kirk Gallaway

[Joe Bauer]

Not sure which government agency regulates national "News" media regards violations of legal and/or ethics broadcast rules and mandates.

However, can such corporate "News" titled entities have their licenses pulled if their violations were as egregious and long term as Fox News were?

What is so outrageous with Fox News is they not only reported false news major stories to their national audiences ( and for years!) but documented internal memos and other communiques show that the people reporting these "knew" they were false!

Yet, they continued to promote these false stories and claims for the purpose of keeping their ratings from falling?

The charade is now fully exposed.

Finally the Wizard Of Oz curtain has been pulled back and we see Fox "News" for what they really are. A Republican party controlled propaganda machine.

A "Wag The Dog" fake and/or manipulated story board.

Funny how hidden "truths" usually find a way to escape into the open.

 

 

 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

High-income earners struggling to make ends meet tell their stories (nbcnews.com)

 

From the article: 

With high inflation and rising interest rates on consumer debt, an increasing percentage of workers considered to be high-income earners now say they live paycheck to paycheck.

According to a recent survey by the banking firm LendingClub and the payments news website PYMNTS, 64% of a representative sample of nearly 4,000 U.S. consumers now say they are just getting by. That's an increase from 61% the previous year.

 

Among the new cohort of people who say they are newly living paycheck to paycheck, 86% pull in more than $100,000 annually, the survey found. Given that the median household income in the U.S. is $70,784, the survey shows the soaring cost of living in America is catching up to even more well-off U.S. residents.

“The effects of inflation are eating into every American’s wallet, and as the Fed’s efforts to curb inflation drive up the cost of debt, we are seeing near-record numbers of Americans living paycheck to paycheck,” said Anuj Nayar, the financial health officer at LendingClub.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Douglas Caddy

[Kirk Gallaway]

That's right Doug, It's a white collar recession while in the blue collar economy  there are almost  2.0 jobs available for every one person looking for a job! 

Ben's "Let the market decide what wages to pay" idea of starving the economy of workers  to raise wages is self defeating and could never raise wages enough anyway.  That's what we're seeing right now naturally, and wage growth is now slowing.

What we really need is the first strengthening of Unions since the Reagan stranglehold that was initiated by the Republicans in the 80's.

[Douglas Caddy]

Everything is temporary. (Thought provoking)

[Douglas Caddy]

This was published 7 months ago.

U.S. military’s newest weapon against China and Russia: Hot air - POLITICO

[Jeff Carter]

17 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

The reference is Putin's geopolitical playbook-- Aleksander Dugin's 1997 The Foundations of Geopolitics.

     It's worth a look, bearing in mind that the book was published years ago, around the time that former KGB Lt. Col. Vladimir Putin ascended to the Presidency of Russia's floundering democracy.

  “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia” by Aleksander Dugin was written in 1997. Since then, it has risen to the rank of textbook for the Russian military’s “Academy of the General Staff”. It lays out a Nationalist, Eurasianist political ideology and strategy for Russia to rebuild its influence and rise to world dominance. The strategic objectives laid out in the book are clear and systematic.

The textbook believes in a sophisticated program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by the Russian special services. The operations should be assisted by a tough, hard-headed utilization of Russia's gas, oil, and natural resources to bully and pressure other countries.

First off, the textbook says that the United States need to be weakened internally.

Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".

The book also recommends:

• Isolating the United Kingdom from the rest of Europe

• Annexing Ukraine

• Dismembering Georgia

• Creating a vital alliance with Iran

• Destabilizing Turkey

  

A peer-reviewed essay by a Stanford academic published in the journal Post-Soviet Affairs (2019, Vol. 35, Not 5-6) is titled “Neo-Eurasianism and the Russian Elite: the irrelevance of Aleksandr Dugin’s geopolitics”.

ABSTRACT

The consistency and effectiveness of Russia’s assertive foreign policy has earned Putin, both domestically and internationally, the image of a powerful and ambitious leader with a strategic plan to re-establish the Russian empire and defend Russia’s core national interests. Speculation among scholars and practitioners regarding the existence of such a “strategic plan” makes Aleksandr Dugin’s conspiratorial neo-Eurasianism project an especially appealing subject of research. This paper explores key ideas of Dugin’s neo-Eurasianism, as described in his Foundations of Geopolitics, and tests them empirically with data from the Survey of Russian Elites: 1993–2016 using a Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling approach. Its main finding is that the theory has limited utility for understanding elites’ foreign policy perceptions and therefore its influence should not be over- stated. Moreover, there is no evidence that Dugin’s theory is more salient in the post-Crimean period than in the pre-Crimean period.

A cursory search engine check confirms that the presumed influence of Dugin’s “conspiratorial neo-Eurasianism project” is in fact an over-stated obsession couched in a familiar “paranoid style” and limited to the chattering networks of western foreign policy wonks whose consistently mediocre analysis diverges only in whether to describe Dugin’s work as a “playbook” or a “blueprint”.

[Steve Thomas]

'People in the asylum have taken control': Michigan GOP operative sounds alarm about party's new leader

by Brad Reed February 19, 2023

https://www.rawstory.com/kristina-karamo-2659439146/

“Michigan Republicans have elected failed Secretary of State candidate Kristina Karamo to be their new chairwoman, despite the fact that has a long history of spouting QAnon-style conspiracy theories and she refuses to concede an election she lost by 14 points.”

“Kamaro has also accused Democrats of selling off the body parts of babies and engaging in ritual child sacrifice, and has also said that demonic possession is not only real but can be transferred from one person to another via sexual intercourse.”

 

Oh boy.

Have the people in our country lost their friggin mind?

What the he**'s wrong with us?

Steve Thomas

[W. Niederhut]

Jeff Carter's un-linked use of a Stanford paper to downplay the significance of Dugin's work on Putin's foreign policy is misleading on several counts-- although it's difficult to critique Jeff's paper without having the full text and the methodology.

1)  Who were the "Russian elites" surveyed in Jeff's paper?  Do they determine RF foreign policy?  Were they being honest in the survey?

2) Who actually determines Russian Federation foreign policy, other than Putin and, perhaps, General Gerasimov?

3) What does a survey of Russian military elites indicate about Dugin's influence, where his Foundations of Geopolitics is part of the standard curriculum in the Putin era?

As an Ivy League guy, I'm less awed by Stanford papers than Jeff, but here's a far less sanguine Stanford academic paper about Aleksander Dugin that Jeff should read. (Bold italics mine.)

Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics

https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics

January 31, 2004

Conclusion

In a moment of exultant imperial elan, Dugin revealingly trumpets at one point in his book, "The battle for the world rule of [ethnic] Russians has not ended" (213). It is necessary to speak the unvarnished truth. An official adviser on geopolitics to the speaker of the Russian Duma is a dangerous Russian fascist. As has been noted, Dugin also reportedly enjoys close ties to elements in the presidential administration, the secret services, the military, and the parliament. Although Dugin's influence should not be exaggerated, it also should not be understated. One is required to ask whether Russian fascism--a tendency which exhibits contempt both for international borders and for international law--has a realistic chance of emerging as the "new political thinking" in international affairs in Vladimir Putin's Russia. In late 1998, Russian academic Andrei Tsygankov appropriately warned that the discourse of Dugin and of like-minded "Eurasians" is in reality "the discourse of war." 50

Interviewed by a journalist from the army newspaper Krasnya zvezda in May 2001, Dugin patiently explained: "Eurasian space is the territory of Russia, the countries of the CIS and a part of the adjacent territories to the West and to the South, where there is no clear-cut geopolitical orientation. All of this comprises Eurasian strategic space broadly understood." 51 The army reporter offered no objections to this quite mad schema.

Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics, to summarize, represents a harsh and cynical repudiation of the architecture of international relations that was laboriously erected following the carnage of the Second World War and the emergence of nuclear weapons. Dugin and his "system," it seems, resemble the combustible interwar period and the rise of fascism in Europe, with the lurid imperial fantasies of the Duce, the Fuhrer, and other fascist demagogues. Could a reversion to a destructive past be the "dividend" which Russia and the West are to receive for having finally and with enormous effort put an end to the Cold War?

Edited February 19, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Jeff Carter's un-linked use of a Stanford paper to downplay the significance of Dugin's work on Putin's foreign policy is misleading on several counts-- although it's difficult to critique Jeff's paper without having the full text and the methodology.

1)  Who were the "Russian elites" surveyed in Jeff's paper?  Do they determine RF foreign policy?  Were they being honest in the survey?

2) Who actually determines Russian Federation foreign policy, other than Putin and, perhaps, General Gerasimov?

3) What does a survey of Russian military elites indicate about Dugin's influence, where his Foundations of Geopolitics is part of the standard curriculum in the Putin era?

As an Ivy League guy, I'm less awed by Stanford papers than Jeff, but here's a far less sanguine Stanford academic paper about Aleksander Dugin that Jeff should read. (Bold italics mine.)

Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics

https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics

January 31, 2004

Conclusion

In a moment of exultant imperial elan, Dugin revealingly trumpets at one point in his book, "The battle for the world rule of [ethnic] Russians has not ended" (213). It is necessary to speak the unvarnished truth. An official adviser on geopolitics to the speaker of the Russian Duma is a dangerous Russian fascist. As has been noted, Dugin also reportedly enjoys close ties to elements in the presidential administration, the secret services, the military, and the parliament. Although Dugin's influence should not be exaggerated, it also should not be understated. One is required to ask whether Russian fascism--a tendency which exhibits contempt both for international borders and for international law--has a realistic chance of emerging as the "new political thinking" in international affairs in Vladimir Putin's Russia. In late 1998, Russian academic Andrei Tsygankov appropriately warned that the discourse of Dugin and of like-minded "Eurasians" is in reality "the discourse of war." 50

Interviewed by a journalist from the army newspaper Krasnya zvezda in May 2001, Dugin patiently explained: "Eurasian space is the territory of Russia, the countries of the CIS and a part of the adjacent territories to the West and to the South, where there is no clear-cut geopolitical orientation. All of this comprises Eurasian strategic space broadly understood." 51 The army reporter offered no objections to this quite mad schema.

Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics, to summarize, represents a harsh and cynical repudiation of the architecture of international relations that was laboriously erected following the carnage of the Second World War and the emergence of nuclear weapons. Dugin and his "system," it seems, resemble the combustible interwar period and the rise of fascism in Europe, with the lurid imperial fantasies of the Duce, the Fuhrer, and other fascist demagogues. Could a reversion to a destructive past be the "dividend" which Russia and the West are to receive for having finally and with enormous effort put an end to the Cold War?

The Stanford paper is easily found via its title. The Abstract describes the methodology used.

https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10199694

You have described Dugin’s work as central to “Putin’s geopolitical playbook” and crucial to understanding “Putin’s strategic plans.” This opinion appears to parrot widespread opinion-making centred in western security-oriented think tanks and periodicals. The frequent reference to a “playbook” or “blueprint” suggests a particular trope is being repeated via an echo chamber of like-minded analysts, most of whom have little to no actual experience within Russia itself. What is the evidence of Dugin’s alleged influence?

Again, Ambassador Burns’ February 2008 memo regarding Russia’s geopolitical outlook on NATO expansion and Ukraine is remarkable for its predictive qualities. Burns had as close access as any American to the top level of Russia’s government and had a deep understanding of their mindset. No where at all in his descriptions of Russian perspectives on geopolitical challenges does Dugin's name come up, nor does he reference an overriding desire to recreate the Soviet Union.

[W. Niederhut]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Jeff Carter's un-linked use of a Stanford paper to downplay the significance of Dugin's work on Putin's foreign policy is misleading on several counts-- although it's difficult to critique Jeff's paper without having the full text and the methodology.

1)  Who were the "Russian elites" surveyed in Jeff's paper?  Do they determine RF foreign policy?  Were they being honest in the survey?

2) Who actually determines Russian Federation foreign policy, other than Putin and, perhaps, General Gerasimov?

3) What does a survey of Russian military elites indicate about Dugin's influence, where his Foundations of Geopolitics is part of the standard curriculum in the Putin era?

As an Ivy League guy, I'm less awed by Stanford papers than Jeff, but here's a far less sanguine Stanford academic paper about Aleksander Dugin that Jeff should read. (Bold italics mine.)

Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics

https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics

January 31, 2004

Conclusion

In a moment of exultant imperial elan, Dugin revealingly trumpets at one point in his book, "The battle for the world rule of [ethnic] Russians has not ended" (213). It is necessary to speak the unvarnished truth. An official adviser on geopolitics to the speaker of the Russian Duma is a dangerous Russian fascist. As has been noted, Dugin also reportedly enjoys close ties to elements in the presidential administration, the secret services, the military, and the parliament. Although Dugin's influence should not be exaggerated, it also should not be understated. One is required to ask whether Russian fascism--a tendency which exhibits contempt both for international borders and for international law--has a realistic chance of emerging as the "new political thinking" in international affairs in Vladimir Putin's Russia. In late 1998, Russian academic Andrei Tsygankov appropriately warned that the discourse of Dugin and of like-minded "Eurasians" is in reality "the discourse of war." 50

Interviewed by a journalist from the army newspaper Krasnya zvezda in May 2001, Dugin patiently explained: "Eurasian space is the territory of Russia, the countries of the CIS and a part of the adjacent territories to the West and to the South, where there is no clear-cut geopolitical orientation. All of this comprises Eurasian strategic space broadly understood." 51 The army reporter offered no objections to this quite mad schema.

Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics, to summarize, represents a harsh and cynical repudiation of the architecture of international relations that was laboriously erected following the carnage of the Second World War and the emergence of nuclear weapons. Dugin and his "system," it seems, resemble the combustible interwar period and the rise of fascism in Europe, with the lurid imperial fantasies of the Duce, the Fuhrer, and other fascist demagogues. Could a reversion to a destructive past be the "dividend" which Russia and the West are to receive for having finally and with enormous effort put an end to the Cold War?

So, Jeff Carter did not answer any of my key questions (1-3) above about his paper.

Jeff did post a link to this survey paper by author Kiril Kalinin.  Much appreciated.

In reviewing Kalinin's survey, I noticed that he did find a stronger correlation between Dugin's theses and beliefs among Russian military and government "elites" than among business "elites," as I suspected.

Of course, the key question regarding Dugin's opus and Russian foreign policy is what Putin believes about Dugin's work.  Putin is an autocrat.  He calls the shots.

When Russian "elites" disagree with Putin, they get thrown out of windows.

Interestingly, Kiril Kalinin also specifically mentions the prestige and importance of Dugin's work in Russian military and government circles-- including Kalinin's own Volgograd Academy of Public Administration.*

So, Jeff Carter's attempt to downplay the significance of Dugin's work in Putin's Russian Federation looks like more of Jeff's usual misleading pettifoggery.

* "One of the most prominent proponents of this ideology is Aleksandr Dugin, whose textbook, Foundations of Geopolitics, celebrated the 20th anniversary of its publication in 2017. Dugin’s Eurasianist ideas penetrated the halls of power in Moscow with ease, and quickly found fecund soil fertilized by geopolitical ressentiment (resentment). By forging close personal ties with pillars of the presidential administration and parliament, the secret services, and the Russian military (Dunlop 2004), Dugin made his book available as a practical guide for rebuilding the Russian empire. Even in my years as a student at the Volgograd Academy of Public Administration, Dugin’s text was used as an international relations primer. The combination of historical grievances, a confrontational geopolitical climate, and rising political demands for coherent ideologies may have made Russian elites susceptible to his radical ideas."

-- Kiril Kalinin

 

Edited February 20, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[Jeff Carter]

35 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

So, Jeff Carter did not answer any of my key questions (1-3) above about his paper.

Jeff did post a link to this survey paper by author Kiril Kalinin.  Much appreciated.

In reviewing Kalinin's survey, I noticed that he did find a stronger correlation between Dugin's theses and beliefs among Russian military and government "elites" than among business "elites," as I suspected.

Of course, the key question regarding Dugin's opus and Russian foreign policy is what Putin believes about Dugin's work.  Putin is an autocrat.  He calls the shots.

When Russian "elites" disagree with Putin, they get thrown out of windows.

Interestingly, Kiril Kalinin also specifically mentions the prestige and importance of Dugin's work in Russian military and government circles-- including Kalinin's own Volgograd Academy of Public Administration.*

So, Jeff Carter's attempt to downplay the significance of Dugin's work in Putin's Russian Federation looks like more of Jeff's usual misleading pettifoggery.

* "One of the most prominent proponents of this ideology is Aleksandr Dugin, whose textbook, Foundations of Geopolitics, celebrated the 20th anniversary of its publication in 2017. Dugin’s Eurasianist ideas penetrated the halls of power in Moscow with ease, and quickly found fecund soil fertilized by geopolitical ressentiment (resentment). By forging close personal ties with pillars of the presidential administration and parliament, the secret services, and the Russian military (Dunlop 2004), Dugin made his book available as a practical guide for rebuilding the Russian empire. Even in my years as a student at the Volgograd Academy of Public Administration, Dugin’s text was used as an international relations primer. The combination of historical grievances, a confrontational geopolitical climate, and rising political demands for coherent ideologies may have made Russian elites susceptible to his radical ideas."

-- Kiril Kalinin

 

Kalinin writes an objective academic report which acknowledges Dugin’s work had influence, particularly in the years after its 1997 publication, but concludes the influence was “limited” and did not result in the sort of “strategic plan” or “blueprint” or “playbook” which you assert.

[Benjamin Cole]

More from Radio Tass (actually CNN, and the Donkside):

Hillary Clinton personally approved plan to share Trump-Russia allegation with the press in 2016, campaign manager says

By Marshall Cohen, CNN

Updated 6:20 PM EDT, Fri May 20, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, center, accompanied by Campaign Manager Robby Mook, left, and traveling press secretary Nick Merrill, right, on Oct. 19, 2016.

Andrew Harnik/AP

CNN — 

Hillary Clinton personally approved her campaign’s plans in fall 2016 to share information with a reporter about an uncorroborated alleged server backchannel between Donald Trump and a top Russian bank, her former campaign manager testified Friday in federal court.

Robby Mook said he attended a meeting with other senior campaign officials where they learned about strange cyberactivity that suggested a relationship between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which is based in Moscow. The group decided to share the information with a reporter, and Mook subsequently ran that decision by Clinton herself.

“We discussed it with Hillary,” Mook said, later adding that “she agreed with the decision.”

 

Takeaways from a critical witness in the John Durham probe's first trial

A campaign staffer later passed the information to a reporter from Slate magazine, which the campaign hoped the reporter would “vet it out, and write what they believe is true,” Mook said.

Slate published a story on October 31, 2016, raising questions about the odd Trump-Alfa cyber links. After that story came out, Clinton tweeted about it, and posted a news release that said, “This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia.”

The testimony came in the criminal trial of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who is being prosecuted by the Trump-era special counsel John Durham. Durham is investigating potential misconduct tied to the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe. The trial has shed light on the dark arts of political opposition research – and how campaigns dig up dirt and plant stories in the press.

--30--

“This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia.”--HRC.

Yes the Alfa Bank pinging, totally innocuous, was a "secret hotline."

The M$M ate it up. 

The Alfa Bank "secret hotline"?

 

"Much of the trial has focused on a Sept. 2016 meeting in which a lawyer working with the Clinton campaign and a technology executive brought allegations to the FBI about contact between Trump and a major Russian bank. The FBI looked into it and dismissed it. But not before Clinton’s campaign told reporters the FBI was investigating."

A "link"! A "tie"! A "connection"! Even "a secret hotline"! 

A gossamer of fantasy, the stuff dreams (and narratives) are made of.