The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[David G. Healy]

1 hour ago, Michael Crane said:

Douglas this looks like a John Deere tractor out in the water.

looks like a freelancer out of Iowa doing a real short time towing gig... things are a little slow in Dubuque this time of year...

[Michael Crane]

Yeah,I know it's obvious,but the water is too deep for a tractor,and that is not a tugboat.

[Pete Mellor]

A Russian state TV host has said the reason president Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” in Ukraine is taking so long is because the country has entered World War Three against Nato.  

The remarks from one of Russia’s most prominent television presenters follow a stinging symbolic defeat for Moscow with the sinking of the flagship of its Black Sea fleet, Moskva.

Presenter Olga Skabeyeva implored Rossiya 1 viewers to “recognise” that the country was now “fighting against Nato infrastructure, if not Nato itself.”

She said: “Many are saying ‘could it not be done more quickly?’ Everyone wants it to happen more quickly. Everyone would like a conclusive victory. Everyone would like all the objectives set to be implemented.

“Otherwise, on the whole, it’s impossible to accept the special operation which we started - Russia’s special operation in Ukraine.

The presenter continued: “One can safely call what it has escalated into World War Three. That’s absolutely for sure.

“Right now, we’re definitely fighting against Nato infrastructure, if not Nato itself. We need to recognise that.”

It comes as the 610 ft flagship Moskva sank on Thursday while being towed back to port, the Russian defence ministry said.

Russian defence officials said ammunition on board the ship had exploded in an unexplained fire, but Ukraine claimed it struck the ship with its Neptune missiles.

Moscow denied there was an attack on the warship and said that its guided missile launchers were intact.

The Moskva’s loss dealt a fresh blow to the Russian offensive as it prepares for a new assault in the eastern Donbas region that is likely to define the conflict’s outcome.

In his nightly address on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky told Ukrainians they should be proud of having survived 50 days under the Russian seige when the invaders “gave us a maximum of five.”

Listing the ways Ukraine has defended against the onslaught, Zelensky mentioned “those who showed that Russian warships can sail away, even if it’s to the bottom” of the sea. It was his only reference to the Moskva.

Russian state TV presenter Olga Skabeyeva says her country is fighting World War Three against Nato.
 

[Matt Allison]

Russians can't tell the truth about anything. All lies and all projection.

What a coincidence that the MAGA GOP has adopted the exact same strategy, eh?

Here's video of true "monsters and scumbags". In their own words. The camera doesn't lie.

 

 

[Guest]

Here we go .... 🚀 

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-finland-highly-likely-to-join-nato-countrys-europe-minister-says-12590665

[Matt Allison]

As long as there's a genocidal madman dictator in Russia, every single country in Europe should be in NATO.

Easy call.

[Douglas Caddy]

 

New texts show two GOP lawmakers offered advice to Trump’s team on challenging election | The Hill

 

[Douglas Caddy]

Update: being towed by Ukrainian farmers:

 

[Benjamin Cole]

9 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben,

     That would be a real nightmare for Trumplican misogynists, eh?  But don't worry.   It will never happen.  For one thing, there is no Presidential election in 2022.  🤥

     Cheney and Clinton are in quite disparate political camps on most major policy issues, as I explained to you above.

      My hunch is that you are keeping an "open mind," and the facts I posted for you about major policy differences between Hillary and Liz Cheney went in one of your ears and out the other, as always.  You still seem to imagine that there are no substantial differences between the Koch-bought GOP and the Democratic Party.*

      As for Hillary's "hawkishness," you're not telling me anything I haven't known for the past decade.  Sadly, she went along with the Neocon game plan in the Middle East from 2009-13, to a point.  It was her only flawed policy stance in 2016, in comparison with the blathering Orange Booby.  Of course "policy" for Trump was always, ultimately, based on bribes and kick backs from wealthy donors and tycoons, foreign and domestic.

      Have you figured out yet where Hillary stood on the issue of war with Iran, compared to the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Neocon brain trust?

* Opinion | The G.O.P. Is Still the Party of Plutocrats - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

W

I certainly agree the 'Phants are the party of plutocrats, although the populist wing of the GOP has moments. 

Sadly, the Donks have become the party of plutocrats also, while becoming censorious to boot.  

Something is seriously wrong with the Donks. On every issue, the Donks hysterically turn to ID politics, and never talk about wages and labor anymore. 

Biden could have appointed a labor person (male or female, or trans) to the Supreme Court, and framed the narrative that way. But even a talented black male was not ID politics-good enough for the Supreme Court in Donk eyes. 

The Donks seem oblivious to the results, for labor, of an open border to the Third World. In fact, one might suspect with awe-inspiring cynicism, the Donks frame immigration as an ID-politics issue, as most illegal immigrants are Hispanic. I guess this means if the US had a border with Poland, then the Donks would be for border controls. 

White guys who work with their hands are the new "eeewww" group for Donks. Deplorables. 

Of course, the Donk financiers want cheap labor in America.

The Donk kow-towing to Beijing is repulsive (see the Obama administration, and the Bidens), and curiously enough it was Trump who imposed tariffs on China. Believe you me, the Apples, Disneys, the NBAs, the Goldman Sachs, the BlackRocks, GMs, and Tesla love the CCP.

The Donks have become intentionally divisive, yet carry water for the donor class. What does that tell you? 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

My what a speedy set of meetings with the Mexican governors to end this quagmire.  I don't think Abbott won himself many votes with Texans in the trucking, produce, grocery, restaurant or other involved industries with this stunt.

Texas Gov. Abbott reverses course on truck inspections at Mexico border (msn.com)

Edited April 16, 2022 by Ron Bulman

[Ron Bulman]

Texas gov. candidate Beto O’Rourke slams Gov. Abbott for truck border inspections costing millions | Watch (msn.com)

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

W

I certainly agree the 'Phants are the party of plutocrats, although the populist wing of the GOP has moments. 

Sadly, the Donks have become the party of plutocrats also, while becoming censorious to boot.  

Something is seriously wrong with the Donks. On every issue, the Donks hysterically turn to ID politics, and never talk about wages and labor anymore. 

Biden could have appointed a labor person (male or female, or trans) to the Supreme Court, and framed the narrative that way. But even a talented black male was not ID politics-good enough for the Supreme Court in Donk eyes. 

The Donks seem oblivious to the results, for labor, of an open border to the Third World. In fact, one might suspect with awe-inspiring cynicism, the Donks frame immigration as an ID-politics issue, as most illegal immigrants are Hispanic. I guess this means if the US had a border with Poland, then the Donks would be for border controls. 

White guys who work with their hands are the new "eeewww" group for Donks. Deplorables. 

Of course, the Donk financiers want cheap labor in America.

The Donk kow-towing to Beijing is repulsive (see the Obama administration, and the Bidens), and curiously enough it was Trump who imposed tariffs on China. Believe you me, the Apples, Disneys, the NBAs, the Goldman Sachs, the BlackRocks, GMs, and Tesla love the CCP.

The Donks have become intentionally divisive, yet carry water for the donor class. What does that tell you?

 

Ben,

     So, how is the weather in your weird MAGA-verse lately? 🤥

     Here on Planet Earth a Nobel Laureate in Economics from Princeton has just penned an op-ed about the Party of Plutocrats in the U.S.-- i.e., the party that repeatedly cut taxes for billionaires in the U.S. during the past 40 years, creating our gargantuan national debt.

     (Hint:  It's also the anti-labor party of Nixon's "Southern strategy"-- i.e., white identity politics.)

      I posted this reference for you earlier today but, since you didn't read it, I'm re-printing it, in case you're a non-subscriber.

The G.O.P. Is Still the Party of Plutocrats

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/opinion/republicans-populism-rich.html

April 14, 2022

 

 

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

 

I recently wrote about how international trade has made some Western nations — Germany in particular — unwilling to confront autocracy. Germany hasn’t just been weak-kneed in its response to Vladimir Putin; it and other European nations have stood by and even continued to provide economic aid to Hungary while Viktor Orban dismantles democracy.

In response, I received mail from Europeans to the effect that American democracy is also under threat and that some of our right-wing politicians are every bit as bad as Orban. Agreed! But that wasn’t the point of my argument. And while I’m quite willing to believe, for example, that Ron DeSantis would be Florida’s Orban if he could, state governors don’t have as much repressive power as rulers of sovereign nations.

Still, the comparison of European and U.S. ethno-nationalists raises some interesting questions. In particular, as the G.O.P. has become a full-on antidemocratic party, why has it also remained the party of plutocrats and the enemy of any policy that might help its many working-class supporters?

To understand the puzzle, consider the policy positions of Marine Le Pen, who has a serious chance of becoming France’s next president. Her party, National Rally — previously called the National Front — is often described as right-wing. And on social issues it is; in particular, the party is largely defined by its hostility to immigrants and the alleged threat they pose to France’s national identity. On economic policy, however, Le Pen is if anything to the left of President Emmanuel Macron.

Now, it’s important to understand the context. France provides social benefits on a scale beyond the wildest dreams of U.S. progressives: universal health care, huge family benefits and more. Macron isn’t challenging the fundamentals of that system. He is, however, trying to trim some benefits, notably by raising the retirement age. Le Pen, by contrast, actually wants to reduce the retirement age for some workers.

I am not making a case for Le Pen. If she wins, the consequences for France, Europe and the world will be terrifying. But there is some genuine populism — advocacy of policies that might actually help workers — in her platform.

Compare that with the positions taken by prominent U.S. Republicans. I can’t tell you what the official Republican economic program is, because the party doesn’t have one — in fact, it has made a point of not saying what it will do if it regains power.

We do, however, know what the party did when it was last in power: It gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy, while almost succeeding in repealing the Affordable Care Act, which would have caused tens of millions of Americans to lose health insurance. There’s no reason to believe it won’t once again pursue anti-worker, pro-plutocrat policies if it regains control.

At the state level, the debacle in Kansas has apparently done nothing to shake Republicans’ faith in the magical power of tax cuts for the affluent. Mississippi — America’s poorest state, with the lowest life expectancy and facing a collapse of its rural hospitals — is slashing income taxes.

And recently Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who heads the Republican senatorial campaign, released a “Rescue America” plan that called for tax increases on the half of Americans whose incomes are low enough that they don’t pay income taxes (even though they pay payroll taxes, sales taxes and so on). He also warned, falsely, that Social Security and Medicare are headed for bankruptcy, without offering any suggestions about how to preserve them.

Senior Republicans have said that they don’t support Scott’s agenda, but haven’t explained what their actual agenda is — and have left Scott in his key campaign position, suggesting that his views have wide support within the party.

So everything suggests that the Republican Party is as pro-wealthy, anti-worker as ever. Unlike right-wing European parties, it hasn’t made any gestures toward actual populism. Why?

The answer, presumably, is that the G.O.P. caters to plutocrats, even as it attacks “elites,” because it thinks it can. After all, being nice to plutocrats and crony capitalists can yield tangible rewards, not just in the form of campaign contributions but also in the form of personal enrichment.

And the Republican Party doesn’t believe that it will pay any price for pursuing these rewards. It believes that its supporters will focus on denunciations of critical race theory and buy into conspiracy theories — almost half of Republicans agree that top Democrats are involved in child sex-trafficking — while not even being aware of what the party is doing for the very rich. After The Times revealed Jared Kushner’s highly questionable $2 billion deal with the Saudis, Fox News simply ignored the report, while harping endlessly on Hunter Biden.

I wish I could say with any confidence that this cynicism will backfire. But I can’t. In particular, Democrats who want to campaign on bread-and-butter issues are assuming that voters will understand who’s actually buttering their bread. And that doesn’t look at all like a safe assumption.

Edited April 16, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben,

     So, how is the weather in your weird MAGA-verse lately? 🤥

     Here on Planet Earth a Nobel Laureate in Economics from Princeton has just penned an op-ed about the Party of Plutocrats in the U.S.-- i.e., the party that repeatedly cut taxes for billionaires in the U.S. during the past 40 years, creating our gargantuan national debt.

     (Hint:  It's also the anti-labor party of Nixon's "Southern strategy"-- i.e., white identity politics.)

      I posted this reference for you earlier today but, since you didn't read it, I'm re-printing it, in case you're a non-subscriber.

The G.O.P. Is Still the Party of Plutocrats

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/opinion/republicans-populism-rich.html

April 14, 2022

 

 

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

 

I recently wrote about how international trade has made some Western nations — Germany in particular — unwilling to confront autocracy. Germany hasn’t just been weak-kneed in its response to Vladimir Putin; it and other European nations have stood by and even continued to provide economic aid to Hungary while Viktor Orban dismantles democracy.

In response, I received mail from Europeans to the effect that American democracy is also under threat and that some of our right-wing politicians are every bit as bad as Orban. Agreed! But that wasn’t the point of my argument. And while I’m quite willing to believe, for example, that Ron DeSantis would be Florida’s Orban if he could, state governors don’t have as much repressive power as rulers of sovereign nations.

Still, the comparison of European and U.S. ethno-nationalists raises some interesting questions. In particular, as the G.O.P. has become a full-on antidemocratic party, why has it also remained the party of plutocrats and the enemy of any policy that might help its many working-class supporters?

To understand the puzzle, consider the policy positions of Marine Le Pen, who has a serious chance of becoming France’s next president. Her party, National Rally — previously called the National Front — is often described as right-wing. And on social issues it is; in particular, the party is largely defined by its hostility to immigrants and the alleged threat they pose to France’s national identity. On economic policy, however, Le Pen is if anything to the left of President Emmanuel Macron.

Now, it’s important to understand the context. France provides social benefits on a scale beyond the wildest dreams of U.S. progressives: universal health care, huge family benefits and more. Macron isn’t challenging the fundamentals of that system. He is, however, trying to trim some benefits, notably by raising the retirement age. Le Pen, by contrast, actually wants to reduce the retirement age for some workers.

I am not making a case for Le Pen. If she wins, the consequences for France, Europe and the world will be terrifying. But there is some genuine populism — advocacy of policies that might actually help workers — in her platform.

Compare that with the positions taken by prominent U.S. Republicans. I can’t tell you what the official Republican economic program is, because the party doesn’t have one — in fact, it has made a point of not saying what it will do if it regains power.

We do, however, know what the party did when it was last in power: It gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy, while almost succeeding in repealing the Affordable Care Act, which would have caused tens of millions of Americans to lose health insurance. There’s no reason to believe it won’t once again pursue anti-worker, pro-plutocrat policies if it regains control.

At the state level, the debacle in Kansas has apparently done nothing to shake Republicans’ faith in the magical power of tax cuts for the affluent. Mississippi — America’s poorest state, with the lowest life expectancy and facing a collapse of its rural hospitals — is slashing income taxes.

And recently Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who heads the Republican senatorial campaign, released a “Rescue America” plan that called for tax increases on the half of Americans whose incomes are low enough that they don’t pay income taxes (even though they pay payroll taxes, sales taxes and so on). He also warned, falsely, that Social Security and Medicare are headed for bankruptcy, without offering any suggestions about how to preserve them.

Senior Republicans have said that they don’t support Scott’s agenda, but haven’t explained what their actual agenda is — and have left Scott in his key campaign position, suggesting that his views have wide support within the party.

So everything suggests that the Republican Party is as pro-wealthy, anti-worker as ever. Unlike right-wing European parties, it hasn’t made any gestures toward actual populism. Why?

The answer, presumably, is that the G.O.P. caters to plutocrats, even as it attacks “elites,” because it thinks it can. After all, being nice to plutocrats and crony capitalists can yield tangible rewards, not just in the form of campaign contributions but also in the form of personal enrichment.

And the Republican Party doesn’t believe that it will pay any price for pursuing these rewards. It believes that its supporters will focus on denunciations of critical race theory and buy into conspiracy theories — almost half of Republicans agree that top Democrats are involved in child sex-trafficking — while not even being aware of what the party is doing for the very rich. After The Times revealed Jared Kushner’s highly questionable $2 billion deal with the Saudis, Fox News simply ignored the report, while harping endlessly on Hunter Biden.

I wish I could say with any confidence that this cynicism will backfire. But I can’t. In particular, Democrats who want to campaign on bread-and-butter issues are assuming that voters will understand who’s actually buttering their bread. And that doesn’t look at all like a safe assumption.

W-

 

Krugman is smart, and makes some good points.

And, remarkably, Krugman goes entirely mute on US border controls against cheap and illegal immigrant labor. 

This is...well, it must be intentional. Supply and demand, remember? Econ 101. 

Krugman goes mute on the one topic of such key interest to the bottom half of the labor pool---the very people who work, but who are vulnerable to wage erosion caused by cheap labor. 

As I said, this is what is wrong with the Donks, and even Krugman. He waves the racism flag, he calls the voters stupid, and he accuses the 'Phants of being plutocrats. 

And meanwhile, the Donks have an influential billionaire class of donors who want unlimited immigration of cheap-labor immigrants, and rising trade and integration with China.

Again: The Donks have become intentionally divisive, yet carry water for the donor class, and for heavy immigration of cheap labor.  What does that tell you? 

Insulting 'Phants is fun---but does it clean the Donk rear end? (That is, if you can tell one major orifice from another in either of these two parties....)

 

 

[Matt Allison]

Ben- you don't live here, so you don't see it, but we have a labor shortage here in the United States.

White Americans have no interest in working the fields of the U.S. doing the work that migrants do every day in this country.

The claim that people are mad about immigration because they take away jobs is a joke. Those people are mad about immigration because they hate Mexicans. They're just racist pieces of dooky. There's nothing more to it than that.

[Benjamin Cole]

13 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Ben- you don't live here, so you don't see it, but we have a labor shortage here in the United States.

White Americans have no interest in working the fields of the U.S. doing the work that migrants do every day in this country.

The claim that people are mad about immigration because they take away jobs is a joke. Those people are mad about immigration because they hate Mexicans. They're just racist pieces of dooky. There's nothing more to it than that.

Matt-

I lived in America 60 years, and they were saying that for the last 30 years---"Americans won't do this work." 

So, millions of Americans are willing to go to Afghanistan and Iraq, in horrid heat and carrying 90-pound packs, and get their heads blown off, but not willing to do manual labor in the US?  

For the right wage, Americans, and people everywhere on the planet, will do the work.

Supply and demand. Econ 101. Yes, wages may have to rise to fill some positions---good! 

Are you the face of the New Donk Party? Higher blue-collar wages are bad.

Add on: I hope the Donks learn to stop calling everyone, everywhere, 24/7, a "racist."  Do Donks ever feel sheepish, or self-righteous, about defining whole groups of people they never met as "racists." 

If you meet some racists from a particular demographic, party or group, does that mean all people in that group are racists?

"They are all alike. They are all racists" ?