ironic the cathedral's cultural marxist wet dream will be implemented via algorithmic slashdotting...,

blacklistednews |  No regime, however ruthless its leaders, vast its ambitions, or extensive its resources, can tyrannize its subjects without their active cooperation. Every police state ultimately requires the public to regiment themselves--and each other. In the age of social media, successful totalitarians will have to crowd-source state coercion -- and China's new "social credit" system, which will encompass that country's entire population in 2020, is pioneering an approach that, if successful, will inevitably spawn imitators in the West.

"The Chinese government is building an omnipotent `social credit' system that is meant to rate each citizen's trustworthiness," reports the BBC. Note well that this system doesn't merely offer an assessment of creditworthiness -- which is a measure of the relative risks to financial institutions that would lend money to that individual. Instead, an opaque clique of supervisors employs an abstruse algorithm to rate the individual's social "worthiness," as defined by his support for the government, its policies, and its objectives.

"A social credit system is an important component ... of the Socialist market economy system and the social governance system," explained a June 14, 2014 "Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System" issued by China's State Council. "Accelerating the construction of a social credit system is an important basis for comprehensively implementing the scientific development view and building a harmonious Socialist society [and] an important method to perfect the Socialist market economy system."

The chief objective of this system is to "strengthen sincerity in government affairs, commercial sincerity, social sincerity and judicial credibility construction," continues the Planning Outline. "Sincerity" in this context means much the same thing as "worthiness" -- that is, deference to the country's ruling elite, and at least a public display of enthusiasm for its schemes. Building "sincerity" is an important consideration during what the Chinese government calls "the assault phase of deepening economic structural reform and perfecting the Socialist market economy system."

How can a comparatively minuscule ruling elite like the Chinese Communist Party exert control over hundreds of billions of consumers in a decentralized cyber-economy? In an essay for CNN, Rogier Creemers of Oxford University explains that China's ruling elite "seeks to leverage the explosion in personal data generated through smartphones, apps and online transactions in order to improve citizens' behavior" by expanding the concept of a "credit score" into an index of social "worthiness."

"Individuals and businesses will be scored on various aspects of their conduct -- where you go, what you buy and who you know -- and these scores will be integrated within a comprehensive database that not only links into government information, but also to data collective by private businesses," Creemers elaborates.

Global Universal Temporary Solution For Unlimited Living

alasbabylon |  The televisions, radios, and computer screens around the world went briefly blank, then a news commentator appeared on television and somehow through the magic tricks of government agencies, the same commentator appeared on each and every computer screen everywhere.  The commentator greeted with voice only for radio, but in all screens around the world, booming and confident, announced what follows:

"As news coordinator, I am delighted to bring you the end of the year speech by the President of the United States of America.  The President called for this meeting - with all the media from around the globe, just one hour ago, saying that it would be the most important speech of his tenure in office.  Thanks to various government agencies, we are bringing this to you direct and live."  The television and computer screens then briefly blared with somber but presidential music, then the obviously distressed image of the President of the United States of America appeared. 

Around the world, people stopped what they were doing, listened and watched.


The address by the President -

"Good evening.  As each and every one of you know, the worlds population exceeds the world's resources.  I have devoted countless days and weeks and months, working day and night, with leadership groups from around the world to solve these problems.  We and scientists, decision makers, leaders, military officials, and others have considered each and every possibility, with a goal of answers for the year 2050.  However, we have an increasingly urgent situation, and we have determined that there is only one way to handle this situation.  Further, there is only now when action must be taken, as you and I know the problems are multiplying and combining.  Next month and next year will be too late.  Consequently, I and the other leaders of the world have agreed upon a compact that is global, universal and temporary, until a balance has been reached between resources and population.  This agreement will offer a long term and satisfactory solution for unlimited living in the future, a goal that all of us support and encourage.

By proclamation, I am bringing forward the planned program, Global Universal Temporary Solution For Unlimited Longterm Living (GUTSFULL), from 2050 to the immediate present.  As it is now 2029 and tomorrow will usher in the new year, the program GUTSFULL, will begin precisely at 1 minute after the New Year of 2030 begins, as a way to assure a healthy life for our planet and all its beings.  Every country, every corporation, every religious leader, every major association, every important scientist, around the globe, has agreed upon this new plan, this temporary solution to build a better and stronger and more stable planet for the future. 

I assure you that those who can contribute to the quality of life on earth will be safe and should have no worries.  Those who cannot meet the criteria will be reviewed quickly, thoroughly and with the best interests of all of the people of the planet in mind.  Some who are deemed unable to contribute will be selected for termination.  Euthanasia will be painless, quick, and all costs will be covered by the state and federal governments and national and international corporations.  If you happen to be selected, you won't have to pay for anything.

You will be pleased to learn that decisions made will be by community based teams, composed of a local councillor or political leader, a local and certified member of the ministry, a local registered medical professional or health practitioner, a local legally entitled financial manager, and a sworn deputy or officer of the law.  That process will assure virtually complete local control and effective management, so that no federal or state official will impinge in any way on anyone, not you and your family and neighbours.  Your rights will be preserved.  Your dignity will be respected.

These teams will be charged with making decisions based on each individual's past and potential future contributions to the community, their religious beliefs, their health considerations, their ability to contribute financially to the community, and any and all legal records.  Thus no one will be subject to arbitrary or capricious decisions and subsequent termination.  Scientists will rate and continually monitor the past contributions and potential contributions of each individual, so that the best solutions for all will be assured.  Local administration will assure the best and fairest outcome too.

Encouragement will be available, for if a person otherwise not selected for the program, decides to opt for euthanasia on a voluntary basis, they will be entitled to assure that another person of their choosing will be guaranteed life for another year.  Further, if any person can contribute significantly to the community, they will be guaranteed life for another year.   If they can contribute to the costs of government and program operation financially, and if their legal record is clear, they should have no worries.  Even better for many of you, if you have contributed by turning in those who were or are dissidents, free thinkers, radicals, or feeble minded, you will receive extra points towards prolonging your own life.  These points, if you so choose, can transfer to another person of your choosing, if you volunteer for euthanasia.  Those with religious beliefs, and there are many, will be offered an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of their beliefs and commitment to life in the hereafter, by volunteering regardless of their being otherwise selected.  Again, they will be entitled to designate another person for a guaranteed additional year of life.

I assure you that only those who cannot contribute to the community will be terminated, thus freeing up opportunities for those not selected for the program.  And a large number of jobs will be created to operate this program, thus employing many people who otherwise would not have a responsible role in the community.  This will give many people opportunity and security, as they contribute to the long term, sustainable, and overall well being of their communities.

I pledge to you that this is the only way to bring our global population into line with the available and projected resources.  And all of us, including me, will be subject to this plan, beginning 1 January 2030, just a few minutes from now.  Each country, and each corporation, will ensure the process is painless and in the best interests of all.  Thank you for your attention and cooperation.  God bless us all."

The President, looking serious and with tears running, then blinked and smiled, as if a weighty decision had been made.  Perhaps the prepared script was no longer being played.  He began again, looking directly at his audiences: 

"On one last and final personal note, I, as Commander in Chief, as your President, have worked day and night on this project to the point of utter exhaustion.  Accordingly, I have designated the Vice President to take over the role of President of the United States, at 1 minute after midnight, that is, in just hours at the end of tonight.   At the suggestion of the Cabinet and the team who created this project, I am proud to be the first person to volunteer for GUTSFULL and I will fulfil my duty and obligations with pride.  With a joyous and happy frame of mind, I bid you all a very good evening and a Happy New Year."

The President, by now looking ashen and grave, somber and serious, stopped speaking and promptly began walking off the podium.  Armed soldiers dressed in battle uniform, could be briefly seen in the background and joined him as he departed.  The light faded.

There were no cheers or applause, rather stunned silence, by people around the globe. 

Immediately however, some panic stricken citizens began organising.  Some within a few minutes, committed suicide on the spot without waiting for the awarding of merit points to others, unfortunately, thereby losing opportunities for their families and friends.  Other reactions were many and swift, particularly noted was the mobilisation of police, military, and emergency services, and then subsequently, seemingly in minutes, the positive commentaries came forth from all sides.  It seems that the response had been prepared for some time.  The media strongly approved, claiming that finally, something positive was being done to deal with the many urgent problems - pollution, corruption, climate change, global warming, overpopulation, and resource deficiencies. 

A few critiques  or angry fights emerged, but those who offered such critiques or who fought with each other, were quickly identified, taken into custody, and awarded demerit points, assuring that those who pointed them out were given merits.  A few minority groups, some organisations of senior and elderly citizens, and a number of disability rights group objected strongly, earning themselves the name or label - "the first to go", according to the news sources.  However, the President at the end of the speech, took that noble place of honour. 

The next morning the mortuaries and funeral parlour operators were overjoyed at the remarkable rise in their value on the stock markets of the world.  And the rest of the world joined in with vigour and energy to spare.

cathedralized WEIRD-ness will shape the algorithmic baselines for normalcy

telegraph |  Yes, we now live in a world where your phone might observe you to help assess your mental health. If you don’t find that prospect disturbing, you’re either fantastically trusting of companies and governments or you haven’t thought about it enough.

But that feeling of unease should not determine our response to technology in mental health. In fact, we should embrace and encourage the tech giants as they seek to chart the mind and its frailties, albeit on the condition that we can overcome the enormous challenge of devising rules and regulations protecting privacy and consent.

Because, simply, existing healthcare systems are failing and will continue to fail on mental health. Even if the current model of funding the NHS was sustainable, the stigma that prevents us discussing mental health problems would ensure their prevention and treatment got a disproportionately small slice of the pie.

We pour ever more billions into dealing with the worst problems of physical health, and with considerable success. Death rates from cancer and heart disease have fallen markedly over the last 40 years. Over the same period, suicide rates have gone up. 

Even as the NHS budget grows, NHS trusts’ spending on mental health is falling. If someone with cancer went untreated, we’d say it was a scandal. Some estimates suggest one in five people who need “talking therapies” don’t get them. In a rare bit of enlightened thinking, some NHS trusts are supporting Big White Wall, an online service where people can anonymously report stress, anxiety and depression, take simple clinical tests and talk to therapists.

Technology will never be a panacea for mental illnesses, or our social failure to face up to them. But anything that makes them cheaper and easier and more mundane to deal with should be encouraged.

If you think the idea of Google assessing your state of mind and your phone monitoring you for depression is worrying, you’re right. But what’s more worrying is that allowing these things is the least bad option on mental health. Fist tap Arnach.

weird governance is no governance at all...,

msnbc |  Rachel Maddow reports on the poisoning of Flint, Michigan residents when their water supply was switched, and shows explicitly how responsibility for the tragedy falls to Governor Rick Snyder and his radical, anti-democratic policies.

In Detroit, city-backed water shut-offs ‘contrary to human rights,’ say UN experts

Implementation of Placing the Flint Water Plant into Operation (pdf)

Genesee County offers Flint $3.9 million for short section of old water pipeline

“Beer water” Flint, Mi

Year before water change, state knew of risks in Flint

High Lead Levels in Flint, Michigan - Interim Report (pdf)

High Lead Levels In Michigan Kids After City Switches Water Source

Listen to “Not Safe to Drink,” a special documentary about the Flint water crisis

Elevated lead found in more Flint kids after water switch, study finds

COMMENTARY: MDEQ Mistakes and Deception Created the Flint Water Crisis

Gov. Snyder says action coming on Flint’s water woes

Snyder finally says lead in Flint water may be problem

Governor Snyder on Flint Water Crisis | MiWeek Clip

Board rejects petition seeking to recall Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder

Petition language to recall Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder flops again at Board of State Canvassers

weird science is no science at all...,

Cambridge | Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obvious grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

Full Text

valodya and scot free have a lot in common..,

CNN |  Vladimir Putin has his man in the U.S. presidential race: Donald Trump. On Thursday, the Russian president reportedly declared Trump to be the "absolute leader" of the race.

Putin -- a natural if brawny showman who has posed fishing shirtless, shooting shirtless and horseback riding shirtless -- also said of Trump: "He's a very lively man, talented without doubt."

Thus did the man who embodies the parody of homoeroticism from the 1970s endorse one who embodies the parody of a blow-hard executive from the 1980s. But while Moscow has long been interested in American politics, what inspired the man who has essentially run Russia since 2000 to take the unusual step of commenting on the election process of an adversary?

Two things: empathy and desire.

Whether he knows it or not, Putin practices a key tenet of statecraft identified by Mel Brooks. His darkly comical musical "The Producers" features the number "Heil Myself!" (also known as "Springtime for Hitler"), in which a campy rendition of the German dictator sings, "It ain't no mystery, if it's politics or history, the thing you gotta know is, everything is showbiz."

The line could be the leitmotif of the reality show that is Trump's campaign.

The Donald's approach to politics likely reminds Putin of himself and he empathizes. Not only do the two men share a love for spectacle and an appreciation of its ability to move low-information voters, but Putin also sees Trump's self-reference as something Moscow can exploit.

if you want to go to war, valodya will take you to war...,

ICH |  “Tense” does not even begin to describe the current Russia-Turkey geopolitical tension, which shows no sign of abating. The Empire of Chaos lavishly profits from it as a privileged spectator; as long as the tension lasts, prospects of Eurasia integration are hampered.

Russian intel has certainly played all possible scenarios involving a  NATO Turkish army on the Turkish-Syrian border as well as the possibility of Ankara closing the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles for the Russian “Syria Express”. Erdogan may not be foolish enough to offer Russia yet another casus belli. But Moscow is taking no chances.

Russia has placed ships and submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles in case Turkey under the cover of NATO decides to strike out against the Russian position. President Putin has been clear; Russia will use nuclear weapons if necessary if conventional forces are threatened.
If Ankara opts for a suicide mission of knocking out yet another Su-24, or Su-34, Russia will simply clear the airspace all across the border via the S-400s. If Ankara under the cover of NATO responds by launching the Turkish Army on Russian positions, Russia will use nuclear missiles, drawing NATO into war not only in Syria but potentially also in Europe. And this would include using nuclear missiles to keep Russian strategic use of the Bosphorus open.

That’s how we can draw a parallel of Syria today as the equivalent of Sarajevo 1914.

Since mid-2014 the Pentagon has run all manner of war games – as  many as 16 times, under different scenarios – pitting NATO against Russia. All scenarios were favorable to NATO. All simulations yielded the same victor: Russia.

And that’s why Erdogan’s erratic behavior actually terrifies quite a few real players from Washington to Brussels. 

Let Me Take You on a Missile Cruise

The Pentagon is very much aware of the tremendous heavy metal Russia may unleash if provoked to the limit by someone like Erdogan. Let's roll out an abridged list.

Russia can use the mighty SS-18 – which NATO codenames “Satan”; each “Satan” carries 10 warheads, with a yield of 750 to 1000 kilotons each, enough to destroy an area the size of New York state.

The Topol M ICBM is the world's fastest missile at 21 Mach (16,000 miles an hour); against it, there’s no defense. Launched from Moscow, it hits New York City in 18 minutes, and L.A. in 22.8 minutes.

Russian submarines – as well as Chinese submarines – are able to launch offshore the US, striking coastal targets within a minute. Chinese submarines have surfaced next to US aircraft carriers undetected, and Russian submarines can do the same.

The S-500 anti-missile system is capable of sealing Russia off from ICBMs and cruise missiles. (Moscow will only admit on the record that the S-500s will be rolled out in 2016; but the fact the S-400s will soon be delivered to China implies the S-500s may be already   operational.)
The S-500 makes the Patriot missile look like a V-2 from WWII.

Here, a former adviser to the US Chief of Naval Operations essentially goes on the record saying the whole US missile defense apparatus is worthless.

russia perfected its kung fu while uhmurkah uselessly shot its wad in the desert...,

fp |  It comes at different times, and in different forms. But as they have charted the war in southeast Ukraine over the past year, drones flown by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe have run into the same problem: Russian troops on the ground are jamming them into virtual blindness.

It’s just one part of a sophisticated Russian electronic warfare (EW) effort in Ukraine that has proved a sobering experience for the U.S. Army. Faced with how the newly modernized Russian army is operating in Ukraine and Syria — using equipment like the Krasukha-4, which jams radar and aircraft —American military officials are being forced to admit they’re scrambling to catch up.

Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army units in Europe, hasdescribed Russian EW capabilities in Ukraine as “eye-watering.” Ronald Pontius, deputy to Army Cyber Command’s chief, Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, told a conference this month that “you can’t but come to the conclusion that we’re not making progress at the pace the threat demands.”

The electronic war was on display from the start of the Russian incursion into Crimea in the spring of 2014. Not long after Russian EW equipment began rolling into the region, Ukrainian troops began to find that their radios and phones were unusable for hours at a time. Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, an international conflict-monitoring group, has consistently reported that its drones watching the conflict in eastern Ukraine have been “subject to military-grade GPS jamming,” forcing monitors to scrub missions taking stock of the war below.

At the forefront of the push to get the U.S. Army up to speed is Col. Jeffrey Church, the Army’s chief of electronic warfare. But it won’t be easy. Dealing with falling budgets, a lack of EW equipment, and a force that is shrinking by tens of thousands of troops, Church says that he has managed to train only a few hundred soldiers — a fraction of the EW forces that are fielded by potential adversaries like Russia and China.

“They have companies, they have battalions, they have brigades that are dedicated to the electronic warfare mission,” Church said in an interview with Foreign Policy. Those units are deploying “with specific electronic warfare equipment, with specific electronic warfare chains of command,” he said.

Currently, 813 soldiers make up the Army’s EW mission, for which just over 1,000 positions have been authorized. And other Army units are guarding against Church’s attempts to peel away soldiers from their ranks to join his. The staffing squeeze is only expected to get worse as the overall Army contracts: At its peak during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army had about 570,000 soldiers; it is on pace to be down to 450,000 by the end of 2017. That number could slide even further, to 420,000 over the next several years, if Washington deadlocks over a long-term budget deal in the coming months.

At the moment, U.S. Army battalions typically assign two soldiers to the EW mission, and they will “have to do 24-hour operations” in battle against sophisticated enemies, Church said. That includes planning and coordinating with other battalion units as well as ensuring that their own jammers and advanced communications tools are working. “There’s too much to do for those guys in a battalion,” Church said. “So how do you maintain in a high-intensity environment against a peer enemy?”

war is a racket

thedailybeast |  Turkey’s relationship with with ISIS is… complicated. Critics have accused the Turkish government of allowing, if not encouraging, the terror group’s activities along Turkey’s border.

On Nov. 24, a Turkish warplane shot down a Russian attack plane that apparently briefly strayed into Turkey’s airspace. One Russian crew member died. Moscow retaliated with economic sanctions and, in early December, accused Turkey of facilitating ISIS’s illicit oil exports, which reportedly account for half of the terror group’s revenue.

On Dec. 3, the Russian defense ministry released imagery—apparently provided by the Persona or Resurs-P2 satellites—that allegedly depict thousands of ISIS oil tankers headed for a Turkish port. At least, that was the Russian claim. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, denied the allegation in no uncertain terms. “Shame on you—those who claim we buy oil from Daesh are obliged to prove it,” Erdogan said, using a slang term for ISIS. “If not, you are a slanderer.”

Whatever the truth, the imagery is a stark reminder that Russia’s campaign in Syria isn’t just an air, ground, and sea war. Moscow’s Middle East intervention also extends hundreds of miles into space.

mr. miracle vs. the cephalopod molluscan establishment

Whenever there is an economic contraction, the victims of that contraction are prone to seize upon the nearest and weakest visible minority - and blame that minority for their plight. (Killer-ape ethology 101) In the U.S., the nearest, weakest, and most at-risk minorities are illegal mexicans and enemy muslims. It's really as simple as that.

The economic contraction is very far from over. Prospects for the white, poorly educated worker in the US are bleak at best. "Beneath the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we can see further contraction just around that signpost up ahead. Over the next decade, the service sector will provide 95% of all the new jobs. Manufacturing, which shed more than two million jobs between 2004 and 2014, will shrink by an additional 800,000, to only 7% of the workforce. Of the 15 occupations with the most projected job growth, only four ask for a bachelor’s degree; eight require no formal education credentials; nine offer median annual wages under $30,000.

Trump is the only candidate that has spoken consistently about jobs. While he has yet to spell out how he'll accomplish creating some, people are hanging on his words of promise. Because he's not beholden to elite corporate donors, from either the vampire squid parasite camp, or, the kochtopus extractive wealth camp - the poor, white, and pissed sense that he might at least try to keep his word.

What's most fascinating about Trump to me is, how he's attracting malcontents of all economic backgrounds, and, his rhetorical and strategic emphasis on maintaining good relations with working and working class black folks. Trump is in fact "the least racist candidate" we're ever likely to see, nothwithstanding his red meat overtures to the poor, white, and pissed.  The Hon.Bro.Preznit had amoment in 2008 when he pretended to himself and to others that he could hold his nose and engage with the unwashed. Sadly, the interpersonal skills and psychological skills required to engage this portion of the electorate were not present in his tool kit. To add injury to that insult, those in the teatardic GOP pretending to speak for the unwashed - further compounded the challenge/complexity required to so engage. As a practical matter, they made it impossible for him to carry through on this part of his agenda without infuriating his own deeply cathedralized electoral base.

The GOP has capitalized on the holes in the Hon.Bro.Preznit's interpersonal bucket. Since Reagan, the GOP establishment has had a thirty five year run of hollowing out both the middle and the working classes by redistributing wealth up. This took a lot of bait and switch and divide and conquer. The problem with bait and switch and divide and conquer is that you can only fool people for just so long.

The poor, white and pissed are well aware they've been handed a bad bill of goods by the GOP establishment and by the recent kochtopus teatardic fork off the same. As a life long democrat and experienced donor who has repeatedly bought and paid for various and sundry political trash including Clintons, Trump early on clearly demonstrated that he doesn't give a damn about the democrat donor class or its lying democrat trash politicians.  Yet more fascinating given his run as a nominal republican, Trump doesn't have a rat's ass stashed in his kit bag for either one of the lying and conniving wings of the GOP or its clown-car cavalcade of buffoons it's down to fielding.

As in business, so in politics for Trump. Trump is not a businessman. Trump is a business, man. Politically Trump is building his own brand. He's already shown his contempt for the democrats and their lame-duck figurehead, and despite running as one, he absolutely, positively, doesn't give a damn about the GOP's lying, conniving, and increasingly tenuous big-lie brand either.

No matter how far Trump goes with this fascinating political gambit, he wins.

Politics is all about self-interest. La Raza and CAIR are no friends of mine, we have no coalitional interests in common, and I fully and fundamentally understand and accept killer-ape ethology as the collective order of your species present day. With regard to all the pearl-clutching, vapor-catching, and hand-wringing about Trump's purported racism - phukkum.Muslims aren't a race, and neither last time I checked are Mexicans.

That said, I'm a non-muslim American and I have interests in common with the poor, working, and pissed in America. I have an economic interest in preventing illegal workers from depressing wages and I have an economic and nationalist interest in thwarting the reconquista. Years ago it may have been true that illegal immigrants were mainly doing jobs that Americans wouldn't (e.g., agriculture), but now the number of illegal workers has mushroomed and made huge inroads into core working-class jobs, especially construction-related. To add insult to injury, the working-class pays for Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other programs immigrants are eligible for, as well as higher property taxes due to the high cost of ESL services provided to the children of illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigration has pushed up the cost of living for many middle-and-lower-middle class Americans, by significantly increasing the demand for affordable housing at a moment when little is being built. In the game of musical chairs on the deck of the Titanic (continuing economic contraction) the NAFTA/TPP globalization that both democrat and republican elites have embraced, the cost of housing is easily any working person's greatest expense. In cities all across America, landlords are happy to rent out apartments designed to house, at most, a 3-to-4 people, and allow 8-10 immigrants to live in them - despite the toil this takes on the tenants living below or next door to them.

Both partisan camps of the now fully and embarrassingly feminized establisment have done nothing but call Trump and his working-class followers names - without a minute of thought as to the economic reality of their lives. Both democrat and GOP establishment (2parties1ideology) have been so busy with their anti-Trump pearl-clutching that they failed to notice that Trump's key policies (e.g., higher taxes for the rich, protect social security, rein-in Wall Street excesses, etc.) are closer to Bernie Sander's than to Granny Goodness.

As I pointed out years ago, the only way to beat the establishment oligarchs is to unite the working classes and the left of center masses against them.  But driven by the classist Cathedralized arrogance of the democrat elites, embodied in the uppity Hon.Bro.Preznit, the democrat party has blown its opportunity to accomplish that aim. 

It's a unique moment in America to see a largely populist movement exploited by a billionaire no less, to counter the oligarchic establishment donor class.

Trump has moved people from pure ideology to practicality with his rhetoric: underneath all the 'get rid of immigrants and refugees" talk is a subtext that says, "more of the pie for you."  That's keeping it 100% with killer-apes. Everything else is empty and mendacious political conversation...,

joe bageant: moving to the center of elite consensus

joebageant |  Over the last many weeks we have all been subjected to endless news stories about Senator Obama's campaign "Move to the Center". Leaving aside the political illiteracy which underlines this phrase, the use of it reveals important clues about the rhetoric of electoral campaigns, whom they target and what they are trying to communicate.

Put simply, what "Moving to the Center," means is: moving towards power and money.

"Moving to the Center" is not a move to where the center of public opinion is, but it is a move to the center of where elite consensus is. Once the boundaries of that elite consensus are understood, then we can comprehend the limits of our public choices and more importantly what will be allowed within the confines of our electoral system.

It is important to understand that elite consensus itself is not static and can shift in moderate degrees, but it has definitive boundaries of which you can not cross and still be a viable player within the electoral system. These boundaries exist to the left and right within that consensus, but the institutional bias of the system is much harsher towards any moves to the left. This is because in its essence elite opinion is anti-populist and primarily concerned with protecting the fundamentals of the established economic order.

Every national campaign is in fact a dual conversation, one targeting voters while the other is directed towards the political, media, and economic elites. The purpose of the message targeting the first group is to win votes. The messages to the latter group is designed to form elite consensus, first for it not to correlate against you and secondly to have it help you win and eventually govern.

Surviving the contradictions of these dual dialogues is the primary element that makes a successful national campaign.

Let's examine the primary public policy issues and areas of discussion, and examine what the boundaries of elite opinion are on how they contradict or mirror public opinion.

Uppity Dr. Baraka REDUX Originally Posted 4/12/08

The "condescending, elitist, UPPITY" Dr. Baraka had the audacity to touch and diagnose the angry and cancerous boil accumulating on the atrophying carcass of the American economy;

"But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

I wrote about this a couple years ago at Vision Circle. Baraka has spoken to and will now be compelled to fully engage around one of the most challenging bulwarks of reality evasion in America. Joe Bageant understood it and spoke to it very, very well.

I think working class anger is at a more fundamental level and that it is about this: rank and status as citizens in our society. I think it is about the daily insult working class people suffer from employers, government (national, state and local), and from their more educated fellow Americans, the doctors, lawyers, journalists, academicians, and others who quietly disdain working people and their uncultured ways. And I think working class anger is about some other things too:

Good luck and godspeed. If he can successfully engage these folks, alay their anger and mistrust, he has a better than even chance of becoming president and potentially even functioning as a catalyst for constructive change. This is easily the most interesting moment thus far in the democrat primary.

t.west been tryna show you pussies cats where scot free is headed...,

in Apokolips Mr. Miracle=Hitler and RT=ISIS...,

NYTimes |  Welcome to Weimar America: It’s getting restive in the beer halls. People are sick of politics as usual. They want blunt talk. They want answers.

Welcome to an angry nation stung by two lost wars, its politics veering to the extremes, its mood vengeful, beset by decades of stagnant real wages for most people, tempted by a strongman who would keep all Muslims out and vows to restore American greatness.

“We’re going to be so tough and so mean and so nasty,” Donald Trump says in response to the San Bernardino massacre. People roar. He calls for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” People roar. “People want strength,” he says. People roar. His poll numbers go up. Pundits, even the longtime guru of Republican political branding, Karl Rove, shake their heads.

Trump is a clown. No, he is not. He is in earnest. And he’s onto something. It is foolish not to take him seriously.

A near perfect storm for his rabble-rousing is upon the United States. China is rising. American power is ebbing. The tectonic plates of global security are shifting. Afghanistan and Iraq have been the graveyards of glory. There is fear, after the killing in California inspired by the Islamic State, of an enemy within.

Over more than a decade, American blood and treasure have been expended, to little avail. President Obama claims his strategy against Islamist jihadist terrorism, which he often sugarcoats as “violent extremism,” is working. There is little or no evidence of that.

A lot of Americans struggle to get by, their pay no match for prices.

Along comes Trump, the high-energy guy. He promises an American revival, a reinvention, even a renaissance. He insults Muslims, Mexicans, the disabled, women. His words are hateful and scurrilous. They play on fears. They are subjected to horrified analysis. Yet they do not hurt him. He gets people’s blood up. He says what others whisper. He cuts through touchy-feely all-enveloping political correctness. This guy will give Putin a run for his money! His poll numbers rise.

It would be foolish and dangerous not to take him seriously. His bombast is attuned to Weimar America. The United States is not paying reparations, as Weimar Germany was after World War I. Hyperinflation does not loom. But the Europeanization of American politics is unmistakable.  Fist tap Rohan.

all around the dial the same song....,

BBG |  Andrew Lack is the Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Prior to being selected by the BBG, Lack served as the Chairman of the Bloomberg Media Group. He joined Bloomberg in October 2008 as CEO of its Global Media Group and was responsible for expanding television, radio, magazine, conference and digital businesses.

Previous to joining Bloomberg, Lack was Chairman and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, where he led the company’s roster of prominent international artists and vast catalog of recorded music from around the world. Before joining Sony Music Entertainment, he was president and chief operating officer of NBC, where he oversaw entertainment, news (including MSNBC and CNBC), NBC stations, sales and broadcast and network operations. He was responsible for expanding the Today show to three hours and creating the show’s street-side studio in New York’s Rockefeller Center.

From 1993 to 2001, Lack was president of NBC News, which he transformed into America’s most-watched news organization through NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, Today and Dateline NBC.

Variety |  NBCUniversal isn’t finished tinkering with MSNBC.

While the cable-news network’s daytime schedule has largely been reworked since February, there are likely more changes to come, said Andrew Lack, the veteran TV-news executive who rejoined the company in April to supervise both NBC News and MSNBC.

“It’s just the beginning. We are early days. These were important steps, the first few steps, but there is a lot more we are thinking about. It’s a long game, as I have said, and we are just at the beginning of it,” he said in an interview about MSNBC last week. “We have got a lot of parts and pieces we have got to fit into this puzzle.”

His remarks indicate the final form for MSNBC, devoted over the past few years to presenting the news through a progressive lens, has yet to be achieved. MSNBC’s ratings have dropped significantly over the past two years as it veered away from coverage of breaking news. The network’s viewership losses have outpaced those of the collective cable-news juggernaut: While the total median viewership for Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC over a 24-hour period fell 7% in 2014, according to Pew Research Center analysis of Nielsen data, MSNBC’s tumbled 14%.

Change at the network in recent weeks has been swift and definite. Already, regular hosts like Ed Schultz and Reverend Al Sharpton have been moved off the weekday daytime grid.  Fist tap Rohan.

Mr. Miracle kwestins Apokolips committment to peace

presstv |  US Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has implied that Israel is supporting Daesh (ISIL) by “sending massive amounts of money” to the Takfiri terrorists in Syria and Iraq.

Trump made the remarks in a recent interview with the Morning Joe show, shortly before he cancelled his trip to Israel.

“Some of our so-called allies that we work with and that we protect militarily, they are sending massive amounts of money to ISIS and to al-Qaeda and to others,” he said, using an alternative acronym for the terrorist group.

Asked about who he was talking about, Trump said “you know who it is. What do I have to bring it up for? You know who it is.”

He said that he will not mention US allies which support Daesh because of his relationship with Israelis, but noted that no one talks about Israel, even though everyone is aware of support Israel and other states provide to ISIL.

“There are, but I’m not gonna say it, because I have a lot of relationships with people. But there are. And you know that. And everybody knows that. And nobody says it. Nobody talks about it,” Trump said.

The multi-billionaire businessman said the US government knows about it, suggesting checking records to insure his claims are true.

“All you have to do is check your records. Our government knows the countries,” he stated.

On Thursday, Trump cancelled his plan to visit Israel, saying he would reschedule “at a later date after I become President of the US.”

Granny Goodness - loyal and devout servant of Apokolips....,

mondoweiss |  Hillary Clinton gave a speech in Washington at the Saban Forum of Brookings that included more pandering to Israel than any speech I’ve heard from any American politician. It was endless. Israel is a brave democracy, a light unto the nations, a miracle, its “prowess in war” is “inspiring,” and we must take the US-Israel relationship to the “next level.”

Introduced by her good friend the Israeli-American megadonor, Haim Saban, Clinton bragged that she and Israel were born a few months apart, gave a shoutout to Israel’s former lawyer in the White House, Dennis Ross, and assured Ari Shavit the rightwing Israeli columnist that the military option was still on the table with Iran. In fact, she repeatedly slammed Iran as a bad actor and did all she could to distance herself from the Iran deal and from secretary of state John Kerry, who gave a more realistic speech the day before. She never mentioned the occupation, vaguely touched on settlements as a problem, and praised the late Clintonite Sandy Berger as a “steadfast friend to Israel.”

Just as the Republican candidates had attacked Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) at the Republican Jewish Coalition last week, Clinton said that BDS was hurting the U.S.’s ability to fight terrorism. This is language straight out of Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

Speaking of Netanyahu, Clinton was asked by Saban what she would do on her first day in office and she said dutifully:

on the first day I would extend an invitation to the Israeli prime minister to come to the United States hopefully within the first month, certainly as soon as it could be arranged to do exactly what I briefly outlined. To work toward very much strengthening and intensifying our relationship on military matters, on terrorism and on everything else that we can do more to cooperate on that will send a strong message to our own peoples as well as the rest of the world. So that is on my list for the first day.

Here are more incredible pander quotes. Now and forever we’re together, Clinton says; she’s even visited Israeli terror victims in hospitals:

what has Granny Goodness done to deserve a promotion?

WaPo | Seven years into the Obama presidency, it is fair to ask Clinton:

Are jihadists a bigger or smaller problem than when you took office as secretary of state?

Is Russia acting in concert with — or in opposition to — our Middle East interests? If the latter, can we say our Russia policy was a failure?

Aside from rhetoric, how is your policy regarding the Islamic State any different from the president’s?

What is the point of a Syrian-negotiated settlement, if Iran, Russia and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are in ascendancy and we are virtually absent? Is Secretary of State John Kerry wasting his time then?

Why do Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia openly complain about our lack of staying power and reliability?

With Israel, was it a mistake to focus so intently on settlements?

Would you have negotiated a deal with Iran that lifted the missile and conventional arms embargoes, did not restrict its missile program, allowed self-inspection, did not specifically tie sanctions relief to full disclosure of possible military dimensions (PMDs) and released $150 billion to Iran while it was still holding Americans against their will and destabilizing its neighbors? If not, why did you support the deal?

Where, other than Cuba and Iran, do we have better relations now than we did seven years ago?

You oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Wouldn’t that be a blow to our Asian allies and a boost to China?

Clinton, like the president, talks a good game. No one can filibuster better in a debate. She can recite meetings and paper agreements. She can boast of her frequent-flier miles. But in the real world, outcomes matter. For the Obama-Clinton-Kerry team, it is increasingly hard to see what positive achievements –tangible gains — they attained. It is easy to reel off a list of failures. Why then does Clinton deserve a promotion?

blackest chick on the planet escaped ultra-bibtards only to be betrayed by kneegrow racetards...,

guardian |  “Other people are operating on an autopilot that race is coded in your DNA, that there are different races of human beings and those races are called black, white, etc. As opposed to race is a fiction that was invented,” she says. “What I believe about race is that race is not real. It’s not a biological reality. It’s a hierarchical system that was created to leverage power and privilege between different groups of people.”

But race was real enough for her to call herself black.

“I think some people feel that if you question the reality of race you’re questioning racism, you’re saying racism isn’t real. Racism is real because people actually believe race is real. We’d have to really let go of the 500-year-old idea of race as a worldview in order to undo racism.”

But she does draw on the transgender experience to say that a person should not be defined only by what and who they were at birth or when they were younger. “Caitlyn Jenner has not been seen as a woman, and treated as a woman by other people, for her entire life. So what does that mean? What if somebody transitions as a teenager and their entire adult life we know them as a woman,” she says. “I hope we can reach some kind of term for the plurality of people and allow everybody to be exactly who they are on the spectrum of all these things. Religion, gender, race.”

There is one person Dolezal identifies with, a South African woman called Sandra Laing, who was born black to a white family in the apartheid era. Laing was legally classified white but shunned by the white community and as a teenager eloped to Swaziland with her Zulu boyfriend.

“It’s a story that resonates personally, because of the themes of isolation, of being misunderstood, of being categorised different ways, by different people, put in different boxes, emancipating myself from boxes, being put in other boxes, and it just seems to be like this struggle of finding your place in the world and owning that place and being free to celebrate it,” she says.

‘Blackface is not pro-black. That was a pretty harsh accusation’

Dolezal has made a point of describing herself as black, not African American, a distinction derided by Vanity Fair, but one that black Africans in the US would recognise. She describes African American as a particular historical experience. To be black is broader, unbound by dates or borders.

GOP was a neo-fascist white-identity party when Trump was still a life-long democrat...,

thedailybeast |  I’ve been reading recently about Bill Clinton’s presidency for a project I’m working on, and I just got to the part about the Oklahoma City bombing. What stood out to me, reading over this material in the Era of Trump, is the way a number of congressional Republicans at the time played footsie with the then-burgeoning far-right militia movements in the run-up to the bombing itself.

If you have no memory of that time, here’s what happened in a nutshell. Right-wing militia movements started growing in the late 1980s. In August 1992, federal agents shot and killed a survivalist in Idaho named Randy Weaver, and his wife and son, after a months-long standoff after Weaver had missed a court date (it was on a weapons charge, but the government really wanted him to flip and become an informant on Aryan Nations, and he said no). It became an iconic moment in those circles.

When the dreaded son of the 60s Clinton was elected, membership in such groups spiked further. Then just three months into Clinton’s term came the FBI storming of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, resulting in 76 deaths. The next year Clinton and Congress passed, over the NRA’s objections (yes, this was possible, although it did help lose the Democrats their House majority in 1994), an assault-weapons ban. Finally, in April 1995, on the second anniversary of the Waco siege, Timothy McVeigh exploded his truck bomb in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

What’s relevant to us today is the way Republicans and the mainstream conservative movement pandered to these militant far-right groups. Many didn’t merely criticize the ATF and the FBI, which was entirely reasonable under the circumstances, but went beyond that to stoke these peoples’ paranoia about government and suggest/not suggest, in that same way we’re familiar with on those non-answer/answers about Obama’s citizenship, that armed resistance was acceptable. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, who was prominent and respected and at one point a plausible presidential candidate, was probably the highest-profile pol to use such rhetoric, arguably aside from Newt Gingrich himself. And of course Republican and conservative movement stoking of fears about immigrants has been constant.

This was also the time when right-wing talk radio was just exploding (there was no Fox News just yet). Aside from all the normal racial and xenophobic ranting, the AM airwaves were also full of defenses of these movements. G. Gordon Liddy, of Watergate infamy, once advised his listeners that if they saw an ATF man approaching, “Go for a head shot; they’re going to be wearing bulletproof vests.”

There’s no serious counterpart to this on the liberal left. You could compare it I guess to Leonard Bernstein’s radical chic back in the day, but unlike Phil Gramm, Bernstein wasn’t a United States senator whose presidential candidacy was being taken seriously by serious people. The difference may simply stem from the fact that radical left-wingers don’t typically vote in our corrupt capitalist system, while radical right-wingers more typically do. But whatever the reason, the difference is there and has been for a good 20 years at least.

chiraq to the potomac: trump didn't vote to kill a million muslims in iraq

davidswanson |  Thanks to Glenn Greenwald for pointing out that the U.S. media is acting as though Donald Trump just invented bigotry this week (one of those ugly details I'm happy to miss by never watching television). But not only is explicit bigotry toward Muslims not new, implicit bigotry toward Muslims has been the foundation of the largest public project in the United States for the past quarter century.

The driving forces behind war planning in Washington are power, domination, profit, politics, and the inertia of war planning as a path toward career success. These sociopaths are happy to bomb Germans or Yugoslavians. The value they place on sailors in Pearl Harbor or contemplated victims of Operation Northwoods, or U.S. troops stop-lossed into insanity is negligible. They don't think twice about overthrowing a democracy in Iran and laying the groundwork for Islamic power. They have no qualms about arming Muslim radicals in Afghanistan or Iraq, and toppling secular governments in Iraq or Libya or Syria. That most ISIS weaponry is U.S. weaponry seized from Iraq can only please the profiteers who will sell the weapons to combat ISIS. Their best friends are the killer Muslims running Saudi Arabia and nearby kingdoms. Their Christian hatred for Islam is as real as Karl Rove's integrity or Donald Trump's hair.

But you can't keep dumping $1 trillion a year into U.S. militarism without an enemy as frightening as -- actually it has to be more frightening than -- the Soviet Union and nuclear holocaust. In the irrational world of fear, a throat slitting is as frightening as a nuclear bomb, in fact more so. Many, many people in the United States, when they stop to think about it, recognize that the wars of recent decades have been counterproductive, creating enemies rather than eliminating them, endangering rather than protecting, costing a mountain of lives and of dollars, savagely destroying the natural environment, eroding civil liberties in the name of wars for "freedom," and brutalizing morality, justifying murder, torture, kidnapping, etc. But with fear and hatred of Muslims thrown into the mix, all of that clear understanding is erased by the need to kill Muslims. Suddenly a rich stew of World War II myths and Hollywood entertainment reminds everyone that only war works and nothing else is acceptable.

Donald Trump didn't vote for the war on Iraq that killed a million Muslims. He didn't vote to fund it and escalate it over and over again. Hillary Clinton did that. Which is not to say that Trump wouldn't have done so too, or worse, if he thought it would get him on TV more. The point is that the hatred is not new. Without it, basic U.S. policy would be understood as irrational.