Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

The Ds could jettison The Chairman IF they comfortable w/ Harris. She's the only "non-primary" easy replacement. Instead, she's so incompetent they'd rather go with the eyelash-from-senility carcass that is The Chairman. And, it's at least even odds that Harris WON'T be the worse VP in this shitfest of a race.

[CGVT]

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/sp-500-closes-5000-first-time-ever-notches-fifth-straight-winning-week-rcna138179

Carry on with your doom and gloom bullshit.

[Mike]

You always seem so angry.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Well, fuck it. This Economist article on Tucker's interview of Vladimir Putin is pay-walled. The author has a good read on Carlson's soft ball questions directed at Putin and Putin's utterly stupid responses,. Carlson, not unexpectedly missed opportunities to expose Putin and, in the final analysis, his interview reveals, Putin is a fucking obsessed liar not to be trusted. This is not because Carlson engineered the conclusion, but because less than casual readers will find, Putin used Carlson to spread his bull shit and Carlson complied. Treasonous if you ask me.

It cannot have taken long for Tucker Carlson to grasp that his interview with Vladimir Putin might not go to plan. His first question was about the threat posed to Russia by nato and America; President Putin’s response was a lengthy disquisition on Rurik, a Varangian chieftain of the ninth century, the medieval reign of Yaroslav the Wise and the depredations of the Mongol horde. To some on America’s right, he is an enviably ruthless pragmatist, a warrior-prince of white Christian nationalism. He came across as one of those cranks who fixate on an arcane bit of history, except that his obsession—Russia’s historical claim to Ukraine—is backed by a nuclear arsenal.

The interview, taped in the Kremlin on February 6th and released online two days later, was the first Mr Putin has given to a Westerner since the invasion of 2022. It comes at a pivotal moment in more than one way and country. A shortage of kit and munitions is hobbling Ukraine’s resistance. In America congressional Republicans have held up further support for Kyiv, mindful of the presidential election this November and Donald Trump’s candidacy in it.

A Trumpist provocateur and host on Fox News until he was sacked last year, Mr Carlson gave Mr Putin lots of chances to stir up American politics. For a supposed sorcerer of electoral interference, the president did a poor job. Might a different administration in Washington help mend relations with Russia? “It is not about the leader,” Mr Putin said disobligingly. Invited, more than once, to blame nato for the war—a bogus explanation favoured by American isolationists—he repeatedly blathered about history. Mr Carlson looked, now and then, like a man who has drifted into a reverie over whether he left the oven on.

The president told flagrant lies. He suggested Poland (rather than the Soviet Union) collaborated with Hitler in 1939. He said he launched the invasion of 2022 to stop a war that Ukraine had started in 2014 after a cia-backed coup. Russian forces withdrew from Kyiv as a gesture of goodwill, he fibbed. He alleged, as usual, that the Ukrainian government and its Jewish president promote Nazi ideology.

Mr Carlson, who mixed up Ukraine’s revolution of 2014 with the one a decade earlier, was unwilling or unable to challenge these falsehoods. Nor did he ask about Russian war crimes, including those of which Mr Putin personally stands accused, or the repression of domestic critics such as Alexei Navalny. (He did press for the release of Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist imprisoned in Russia on risible espionage charges.) Still, Mr Carlson came away with more than the file of letters by a 17th-century Cossack leader which, bizarrely, Mr Putin gave him.

For Mr Putin made several remarks which, out of their rambling context, will give succour to those who say backing Ukraine is not in America’s interests. In the past he hinted, darkly, that Russia might use nukes; yet he told Mr Carlson this idea was a scaremongering way for Western politicians to extort money from taxpayers. He denied any interest in invading Poland or Latvia (though he previously said the same about Ukraine). And he was asked about the hypothetical deployment of American troops to the Ukrainian front; shorn of the question, his answer is bound to be clipped and replayed. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” he scoffed, mentioning America’s border and national debt.

More people will hear that gibe than will see the whole exchange—and, in truth, it is hard to blame anyone for skipping it. Watch closely, though, and it offers valuable insights, if probably not the kind either participant intended.

One is about the risks of rulers staying in power for decades. As his comments revealed, even now Mr Putin resents the West’s role in the wars in Yugoslavia of the 1990s and other long-ago crises. In democracies, transitions of power are an amnesiac balm for such grievances, allowing relations with other countries to heal and move on. In office for almost a quarter of a century, Mr Putin is still avenging old grudges.

Another lesson lay in his sneering hauteur. He faced a hand-picked interviewer who lobbed softball questions. Even so, Mr Putin’s answers showed no regard for the patience or interests of viewers. Then again, why would they? He is not accustomed to explaining himself. He does not rule through persuasion or charm but by violence and fear.

Power in Russia is opaque. It often seems that only one man is in the know, and even he seems frequently to be flailing. Mr Carlson was granted rare access to him, and fluffed it. All the same, a vital message sounded clearly: Mr Putin is not a leader to be trusted, still less to emulate or admire. ■

[Dr. Strangelove]

Remember I was saying several members of The Squad were in danger of getting primaried? This is from a GOP pollster but….

[iam416]

Bush is awful. She may legitimately be the worst of the bunch -- depending on whether you include Bowman or not (the fire alarm shit is, well, I mean...it's pretty pathetic).

I'm all for removing wildly either direction people from the government. Within the system. Or by serving them Wizard's wings.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Completely unexpected result in India's parliamentary voting. The party of Imran Khan, former Prime minister from 2021-2023, won way more seats than the party of his competitor, Ajmar Sharif. Sharif was the favorite of India's military and they jailed Khan last August. The two parties will have to get together and form a ruling coalition. That is unlikely to happen. Chaos is the more likely results.

I only bring this up because jailed former leaders can get elected to lead countries. The Socialist, Eugene Debbs, ran for US president in 1920 polling the most votes for a Socialist candidate in history. At the time, he was running while in jail. It's unclear whether Trump will get convicted and serve time but if he does, he will, in all likelihood, still be the R's presidential candidate. A conviction may be the end of his run for president as the voters will decide that. But, Trump is almost certainly going to win the R nomination whether he's in jail or not.

[Mike]

One candidate might be in jail and the other in hospice. 2024!!

[Jeff Buchanan]

Netanyahu seems set in his goal for the IDF to crush Hamas. 95% of what I've read in the last 48h is that multiple countries who are normally supportive of Israel are saying very publicly - don't do it. Egypt said today it would suspend the 1979 peace treaty with Israel if the IDF advanced into Rafah. Those opposed to an IDF advance into Rafah state that any benefits Israel thinks it gains from deploying IDF forces in Rafah to search out and destroy Hamas leaders, fighters and infrastructures isn't worth the loss of civilian lives.

The fact of the matter is that once Israel decided to attack Hamas with the stated goal of eliminating them militarily and politically as functional entities, achieving that outcome became a certainty. There would be no compromise with Hamas, no middle ground. It was foregone conclusion for Netanyahu that Hamas had to be neutered. For him, there was no chance of a Palestinian state existing on Israel's boarder, run by terrorists and funded by Iran, who both shared a stated goal of eliminating the state of Israel.

I'm not sure that those advocating for a cease fire grasp these facts. I'm sympathetic to the loss of life. I am not sympathetic to Hamas terrorists that have spent the last 20 years consolidating power in Lebanon, Gaza and the west bank. What Israeli sources reveal about the complexity and extent of Hamas' war fighting infrastructure below the surface should shock opponents of Israel's military operations there. Netanyahu said yesterday, "our goal is to move civilians out of the way. Hamas' goal is to keep them in the way." How do you fight an opponent who uses civilians as shields and not cause casualties among civilians, unknowingly duped into their own deaths.

I don't understand how Israel's detractors can ignore that Hamas stations weapons, supplies and fighters under hospitals, schools and mosques. They've infiltrated UN aid agencies using that organization and it's buildings in Gaza and the West Bank to hide head quarters and command centers. These are not behaviors indicating Iran, it's proxy militias, Hezbollah or Hamas seek peace and alternate solutions to the stateless Palestinian diaspora that does not involve the formation of a Palestinian state next to Israel - not happening and if it did, it would soon be run by terrorists that seek the elimination of Israel.

NO ONE should be supporting Hamas. Israel is embarking on an appropriate goal to destroy Hamas and unlink its political and supporting military wings from the larger group of otherwise peace-seeking Palestinians. Certainly the plight of the diaspora should be addressed but not by the creation of a Palestinian state on Israel's boarder. Pragmatists on both sides of this conflict have to emerge on the political stage and recognize that history, regarding territorial claims, no longer apply and there's a powerful need for a new ME paradigm involving a continued stateless Palestinian diaspora that gets absorbed by agreements between cooperating ME states. Forget the "two state solution." It has, for decades, been an unachievable goal given that one sides seek the destruction of the other.

[Jeff Buchanan]

This article below is pay-walled. If you can figure out a way to get to it, I highly recommend it.

I made the statement above that the history of ME and the conflicts between Jews and Palestinians over land are no longer relevant. Diplomats are seeking solutions that bring stability to the ME and reduce tensions that presage a major conflict there. There is no shortage of historians, on both sides of the Israel/Palestinian divide, that are viscerally attached to the political history of the region. Politicians are trapped not informed by that history

Before WW I, the history related to Palestinian's territorial claims isn't of any use. The intractable problem today that involves the Palestinians and Jews was born after WW I. Solutions don't lie in arguing interminably about who did what to whom from 1920 to 1948 and who was right or who was wrong. Solutions, instead, will be born from dealing with the current reality and moving on from there.

The Palestinian leadership has to recognize that the current reality is not going to support the formation of a completely independent Palestinian state and that is because of the points I made in my post above. That is to say, nothing has changed since 1920. NOTHING. Palestinians weren't going to get an independent state back then and aren't going to get one now. Despite attempts to find solutions that allowed some kind of joint occupation and governance within the involved territory, Palestinians rejected those solutions and won't settle for anything other than a complete return to "occupied lands," which of course, requires the destruction of Israel because Israeli Jews are on it.

The link below is a detailed history of events that have shaped the current conflict. I'm not saying that it should be considered in a path to peace. I'm saying it can't be. The NYT's piece is pretty good in explaining why that is.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/01/magazine/israel-founding-palestinian-conflict.html

[Hannibal]

Harsh, but accurate.

[Dr. Strangelove]

That RFK Jr. Super Bowl commercial last night was some weird shit.

RFK Jr. air $7M Super Bowl ad in the style of uncle JFK's ad (nbcnews.com)

[Hannibal]

A major part of economic numbers is the denominator in anything that references inflation and real dollars. And the inflation numbers right now are utter bullshit. Energy inflation has abated, but two other major expenses, food and housing, have increased dramatically.

The official inflation number for food in the past 12 months is 2.7%. The inflation number for food away from home is 5.2%. If you believe either of those numbers, especially the latter, then you believe in fairy tales. I don't know about you guys, but my grocery bills have increased by way more than 2.7%, and I would estimate inflation on food away from home to be more like 25-50%, based on all of the restaurant bills that I have paid over the past 12 months. 5.7% is utter nonsense.

The CPI number on housing is total horseshit too. Housing costs, especially rent, have been skyrocketing lately, and those costs are not showing up in the CPI, but you can find them in other surveys/indexes. This site shows a good comparison between the CPI housing numbers and an alternative index that shows a massive increase in rents that the CPI has yet to factor in. If you have any friends in their 20s who are renting right now, ask them about rent prices, and I guarantee you their experience more closely matches the Zillow Rent Index than the CPI.

US - Rent CPI vs. Zillow Rent Index | US Prices | Collection | MacroMicro

[Mike]

2.7% for food is ludicrous.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The election to fill George Santos' seat is tomorrow. Weather is expected to be horrible.

Early voting ends in special election between Tom Suozzi, Mazi Pilip for New York 3rd Congressional District - ABC7 New York (abc7ny.com)