A skeptical leftist's, or post-capitalist's, or eco-socialist's blog, including skepticism about leftism (and related things under other labels), but even more about other issues of politics. Free of duopoly and minor party ties. Also, a skeptical look at Gnu Atheism, religion, social sciences, more.
Note: Labels can help describe people but should never be used to pin them to an anthill.
As seen at Washington Babylon and other fine establishments
In The Pink Texas finds the true meaning of Christmas
badly misspins the story behind the Lukan nativity myth to present an
interesting, and politically supportable story about the Trump
administration and religions right wingnuts, and an interesting sidebar,
with no follow-up, about American Catholic political issues.
I am referring in specific to the second half of the piece.
First, of course, it never happened.
Second,
within the story, Jesus and Mary weren't refugees; they were following a
lawful political order. (This didn't happen this way in actual Roman
censuses, so even if the broader outlines of the story were true, this
is not.)
I should add that this is far from the first time I've seen this claim, so let's look at the appropriate verses from Luke 2 (vv 1-3):
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered.
See? Not refugees.
Third, it (natch) goes on to blend Matthew's story (which also, of course, didn't happen) with Luke's.
And, they're not refugees in Matthew, either, because Mary and Joseph are living in Bethlehem the whole time up to this point. Now, AFTER Jesus' birth, they have to flee Herod in Matthew's story, and so are refugees — fleeing from a Roman client kingdom into direct Roman control. The best modern analogy would be fleeing Puerto Rico for the United States itself. (Of course, the Matthean birth narrative didn't happen either.)
As for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops condemnation of ICE earlier this year?
Yes, that happened. But, it didn't invoke the Lukan nativity.
It also ruled on a bunch of other things that librulz and leftists don't like, and that also illustrated issues of religious-political matters in US Catholicism. More on that here.
The
big issue for this secularist is that he doesn't like misappropriation
of religious traditions for political reasons at all.
Dollar stores are often price ripoffs,
but for both major chains, it's generally cheaper to pay the fines than
fix the presumably deliberate mispricing. And, the corporations lie
about how store staffers have all the time in the world to reset prices
on shelves.
This says nothing, of course, about how apparently cheaper prices are actually more expensive when priced by weight or volume, compared to larger sizes of products elsewhere.
Related? Instacart uses
"algorithmic pricing" dependent on your shopping habits, pricing
designed, like airline tickets, to push the max that customers will pay.
Instacart says the differences of up to 23 percent aren't based on
personal demographics. That may be true for now, but for tomorrow? After all, Kroger has already admitted using demographic data for its shopper card discounts. (I occasionally click on discount offerings I'll never use to try to shake up its algorithm.)
It
had hand-waving comments; the major groceries chains using this,
including Kroger under its panoply of names, Albertson's under its
panoply, and Sprouts, all refused to comment.
There is no federal legislation for this (Consumer Reports gets comment from Dementia Joe's actually sort of progressive FTC Commissioner Lina Khan), and little by most states, including none here in Tex-ass.
That said, there's a flip side with a chicken and egg background — consumer cheating. Beyond chicken and egg, there's a Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby here and both sides will escalate. Dollar General, Family Dollar and Dollar Tree may not rise to Jeff Bezos' Whole Foods
Also on that flip side? Many of the cheaters are better off than I am, so I find their self-justification to ring hollow on the financial side. Per a piece linked off the above that focuses on Bezos-land:
Beyond the fact that theft and fraud are, you know, against the law, anti-Amazon avengers may not recognize the collateral damage they could be inadvertently causing. If you steal from Whole Foods, Bezos won't know, but the store manager who's fired over it will. (I did survey some Whole Foods workers about this, and several of them confirmed that (a) they see a lot of middle-class and even seemingly wealthy shoplifters, and (b) they may be a little bothered by some of it but are not in a tizzy.) Before you lie to Amazon that your package never arrived or return the wrong item, you might want to check who the actual seller is.
There you are.
Also per that piece? Limiting, if not eliminating, actual shopping there. I haven't been able to eliminate Amazon itself, but I have plenty of — and generally better — options to Whole Foods.
Also, there's knock-on effects to the most-growing portion of cheating — refund fraud, also via the same author. The biggest issues is that people don't understand that this hurts the actual manufacturer or distribution company as much as Amazon, and that, with non-Amazon smaller retailers selling online, they don't have Amazon's elasticity.
On the flip side to that, many of these smaller retailers are fighting back. If the package was via US Postal Service that officially makes it federal postal fraud.
And, some of the bigger guys are using algorithms to fight back.
Calling someone a "fricking idjit" gets your comment deleted,with threat of banhammer and trying to post an update about it of
So calling someone a "frickng idjit" in a comment gets a possibly real-human response from Goodreads? (And a banhammer threat?) Conclusion: When you bitch about Goodreads deleting DMs, call them idjits too. (They're still not as Nazi as the people who run the Goodreads-focused subreddit.)
isn't allowed? (Eventually the update posted.)
Or is it the subreddit, which unlike Goodreads itself, will not allow The StoryGraph to be mentioned. Nor will it allow comments about the subreddit's problems to be mentioned, I guess.
This:
I'll bet other sides like T hE st ---- or-y graf von baron don't do that.
I next await to see how fascistic moderators may be, since I've already had a post hauled down for mentioning the actual name
EVEN THOUGH GOODREADS ITSELF ALLOWS ME TO DO THAT
Got this warning:
Hi, this subreddit is for discussion relating to the Goodreads website. Posts must be directly related to Goodreads.
I'm crushed.
I responded:
And, we can't respond to mods, either? Nor can we comment about this subreddit here? The derpity is deep.
I'm getting closer to being banned I'm sure. (And, no, you can't respond to a mod there. I had to respond to a response to my initial comment.)
Via the Dissident, who — we'll just see where this goes on any personal comments by him — Julian Assange has launched a criminal complaint against the Nobel Foundation over its awarding the Nobel Peace Prize, or Nobel Piss Prize as I sometimes call it, to Venezuela's María Cortina Machado.
A week ago, the Dissident had a good roundup on her history. For the unknowing, this willing pawn of US Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ was already plotting against her own government when Hugo Chavez was still alive.
So, she's not deserving.
And?
As I said at the Dissident's piece, Hank the Knife/Le Duc Tho weren't deserving. Nor was Dear Leader, honored just because he wasn't Shrub Bush.
But, deserving or not? Assange claims it's criminal:
Nobel’s will of 27 November 1895 is binding under Swedish law. It clearly states that each year the peace prize monies shall go to the person who during the proceeding year “...conferred the greatest benefit to humankind...” by doing “...the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Any disbursement contradicting this mandate constitutes misappropriation from the endowment. The pending transfer of 11 million SEK ($1.18 million USD) and existing 10 December 2025 handover of the prize medal to María Corina Machado, in violation of this disbursement restriction, appear to be acts of serious criminality.
OK, there's our bid for a Warholian 15 minutes of fame.
As for the past history, beyond the above? A list of all winners from 1979 on (choosing that year on purpose) includes, beyond the above:
Mother Teresa, exploiter of the poor she claimed to represent, per Hitchens' demolition
Elie Wiesel, Zionist flak
Aung Sang Suu Kyi, an eventual sellout to the Burmese military junta
Muhammad Yunus/Grameen Bank, a big stretch to call this about peace, and microlending has been shown to be somewhat overrated.
The European Union, with its becoming more and more the political arm of NATO.
A few detailed thoughts in a few cases?
Kissinger? Used his prize to lever US adventuresomeness in the rest of Nixon's, and Ford's, presidencies and beyond.
Dear Leader? Used his to drone-kill at least one American citizen and otherwise expand warmongering, in concert with NATO in Libya (see EU above)
Wiesel? See Oct. 7, 2023 and events both before and after.
So, yeah, this is posturing.
Beyond that, while not knowing the details of Norway's version of German, non-Napoleonic, European law, this has zero chance as a criminal complaint. So, why didn't he sue instead? Maybe he knows the criminal complaint is such a sure-fired loser he can spin conspiratorial claims, whereas a civil complaint would also be a sure-fired loser but not a slam dunk. Norway's civil law appears to be very much precedent-based, with little in the way of statutory rules.
As for the reality of Assange?
I've got the whole deal here, in one of my top 10 posts ever, about the reality of who Guccifer 2.0 / Forensicator was (definitely NOT Seth Rich), the shady dealings in trying to hide his identity, Patrick Lawrence's pseudo-journalism on the last piece he ever wrote (or has been allowed to write) at The Nation, how both RNC and DNC were hacked, Duncan Campbell's yeoman work and more.
I also remind you that Assange is not a journalist. That's despite what Chris Hedges and Ken Klippenstein, among others, say. More here.
As for the Dissident's piece? He doesn't have as much a following as Seymour Hersh, but oy, did Sy bring the nutters out.
On the deep, dark issue of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory? Even if Yevgeny Prigozhin's Internet Research Agency started it, Assange goosed it. And, his toady, Craig Murray, also lied. That said, when presented with evidence he couldn't deny, Assange said, in essence "THOSE emails were hacked but that's not my source."
So, to all the people talking about Assange's integrity? Fuck off.
Assange's object and focus has always been himself first. Daniel Domscheit-Berg attested this nearly 15 years ago. Wikileaks is probably running low on money and he needs some. Yet Assange give a formal apology to Seth Rich's family and I will sing a different tune.
Assange did good in the past. Chelsea Manning can attest. That said, his formal suborning of Manning's actions is part of why he's not a journalist.
But, he never supported Wikileaks-type projects against less than fully democratic countries, ie, Russia and China. In fact, in the former case, he deliberately turned down options to help.
And, this is why I’m a skeptical leftist, for the umpeenth time, and stand outside of political — and other — twosiderism.
On this issue, I can call out Western imperialism and its Russian and Chinese forms as well.
The bathroom bill has already brought bathroom police, workarounds and more. (The bill itself has only civil not criminal penalties, and these target the entity owning the bathrooms in violation, not violators. It also targets only local governments, but I "await" the day the Lege tries to bar unisex bathrooms in private businesses.)
The Observer mourns the Lina Hidalgo Harris County once had, without fully wrestling with the issue of how much of her decline was self-inflicted. (I personally think she was more the technocrat even early on.)
Anna Genna-Hiroi wants you to watch out for conflict minerals as you do your holiday shopping.
Law Dork documents the forthcoming Humphries Executor atrocity.
Steve Vladeck delves into Justice Kagan's dissent in the Texas redistricting case.
In The Pink Texas finds the true meaning of Christmas badly misspins the story behind the Lukan nativity myth to present an interesting, and politically supportable story about the Trump administration and religions right wingnuts, and an interesting sidebar, with no follow-up, about American Catholic political issues. No wonder Kuff the presumed Methodist loves this. And, of course, I had to write about it.
First, good luck on finding those "Trump-Crockett voters" you insist are out there. Also interesting is how she mocked Black and Hispanic potential "Trump-Crockett voters" a year ago; that's Tapper at CNN bringing up this week her original Vanity Fair interview,
complete with "slave mentality."
Also of note in that piece? Her claim that Kamala is
a Zionist Cop ran a "flawless" campaign, in a story that doesn't
mention Israel or Gaza.
As far as the idea of recruiting rural White voters? Beto-Bob tried that and failed. It was a "noble" effort, but would have been better spent on exurban metro counties, or even main counties like Tarrant, where Beto coattails might have gotten a Dem county judge.
She's going to get roasted, IMO, against either Cornyn, Paxton or Wesley Hunt — assuming she beats Talarico, which is by no means guaranteed.
And, after her Tapper appearance, the Trib is asking is she good or bad for Democrats elsewhere on the statewide slate?
That said, a poll claims Training Wheels leads White Bread Talarico. OTOH, it's based in part on big name recognition difference.
At the Monthly, Chris Hooks has a bromance for a Crockett-vs-Paxton general election. Hooks' piece is also a musing on the impotence of much of the US House in general, though it dodges the issues of why this is the case, which actually has several reasons. He adds that Crockett is in all likelihood the weaker Dem.
Also at the Monthly, Michael Hardy counters with an interview with Candidate Training Wheels. She basically doubles down on the idea of "Trump-Crockett voters," insisting she'll run her campaign differently without specifying "how."
And, in case you need to be reminded of controversy, Barbed Wire rounds up the best of "Crockett's Clapbacks."
On the Democrap side, I've already mentioned White's dogwhistling. On Shitter, I said already, who knew Chris Bell was still a Democrat. Should I vote in the Dem primary, it's probably Hinojosa, though Bobby Cole also presents a good case.
The Rethuglican candidates? Brooks is on SBOE; not sure of her angle. The rest are white wingnuts who think Abbott is a RINO on taxes, the border or both.
Not running for gov or any statewide office? Joaquin Castro, cuz the dog ate his paperwork.
Meanwhile, Greens say they have 11 total candidates in state races (which would be big) but don't list their names. That's still better than Texas Libertarians, which still have ZERO on candidates.
Now of course we don't know for certain if they actually did this, at least not yet.
Wrong.
Even with the "we don't know HOW," you're still claiming THAT. Yes,
it's true that Israel did poison Palestinian wells, and I've read that
before you said it.
That said?
The real issue is the
deluded belief that Kirk, making some mild to moderate moves to question
Israel's genocide around the edges, was going to flip, followed by the
other real issue, the batshit-crazy belief that Tyler Robinson even
MIGHT have been a Mossad cutout.
This one might get its own post. In the thread that that posted Shitter link is part of, Squirrel then links to Max Blumenthal,
who claims Kirk got an offer from Netanyahu for a massive infusion of
money into TPUSA, turned it down and was deathly afraid afterward.
Tosh
and tommyrot. First, natch, the friend is anonymous. Not mentioned is
the "natch" next step that the friend is also afraid of Bibi. This is all refudiated by the fact that Max is running it, and remains alive three months later.
Next,
without bothering to trace either every dollar or every statement, Kirk
got zounds of non-Zionist money from the day he started Turning Point
USA and spoke about many things other than supporting Zionism. That
said, even Max calls what Squirrel hints at an "unsubstantiated
theory."
And, of course, anybody relying on The UNReal Candace Owens to have one shred of factual information on this is a fucking idiot. Here's her nuttery level on this.
Beyond that, this is the person who used to be a garden-variety librul, but, after a self-own that she blamed on libruls, plus possibly seeing an opportunity to grift, became a wingnut.
This is also the person who claims Brigitte Macron is a man.
Per the old cliché, if Owens said it was day outside, I wouldn't just pull open the curtains, I'd actually go outside in case she'd painted the sun on my windows.
I'm just unfollowing you, not blocking you. Unless you invite a block. Or unless I see further information that leads me to up the unfollow to a block.
I suppose some nutters think Kirk's seed money big donor, Foster Friess, was Jewish when he wasn't. Bruce Rauner? Also not Jewish. Ed and the other Uihleins? Not Jewish. Plenty other of his early and mid-"career" donors, per this story? Not Jewish. Also, his Prove Me Wrong "speaking" fees etc.?
Beyond the issue of whether conspiracy theories, even if they're anti-Zionist not antisemitic, contribute to antisemitism or not, there's simply the issue that they're conspiracy theories.
I don't do conspiracy theories, period.
Related to the subject matter at hand and unfollowing people, I don't do the conspiracy theory — that led me to drop Electronic Intifada from my follows — that Israel whacked Jack.
In what will surely please Kuff, most likely Brains and possibly David Bruce Collins as well (no shock, since the Texas Green Party to which the latter two profess allegiance showed itself on this year's constitutional amendment elections to be anti-environmentalist itself) design contracts have been awarded for the gates and dunes that are at the heart of the proposed dike.
Here's part of the environmental reality:
Still, environmental advocacy groups for years have expressed significant concerns about how a giant barrier built across an important ecosystem could harm birds, turtles, fish and other species by restricting the flow of water in and out of the bay and damaging or destroying habitat.
There you go.
Per my first graf at top, DBC was in fact a squish back in 2022. That's part of a piece that noted, at that time, the Texas GP's suck-ass website, related to this. Per this piece, around the same time, Brains supported it then. (At the Congressional level, Democraps showed themselves to also be fake environmentalists at this time.)
In addition, it will NOT offer the degree of protection proponents claim. I said THAT way back in 2017, and noted that even the Chronic, in a house editorial, admitted that.
What it IS, is a boondoggle by the Corps of Engineers and A&M's engineering school. I said that going back to 2018, while also calling out various lies.
That said, it's currently still just a small step because very little federal money has been appropriated.
John Marshall Roberts is letting Texas Rethuglicans use the new congressional maps while litigation plays out. Actually, Smiling Sam Alito made the ruling. The Trib story doesn't cite Purcell, but basically, that's the basis of his ruling, along with rejecting the claim that racial gerrymandering is involved.
Kenny Boy is such a grifting liar that he, who knows something about securities fraud himself, is suing the East Plano Islamic Center for securities fraud.
Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said Mayor Whitmire & many on Houston City Council say nothing when Houstonians are told what words they can use to oppose ICE in Houston, or how they can question Council.
The Current reports on ICE using memes from "Halo" to recruit new agents, and the pushback to same.
Naomi Rees criticizes UTEP for inviting border czar Tom Homan to be the featured speaker at a campus event.
That's the really bitchful part of the story about Trump pardoning the Valley Congresscritter in the middle of a federal case, after he'd been indicted for bribery and faced trial this coming spring:
Cuellar also on Wednesday filed for reelection as a Democrat, quieting speculation that he planned to switch parties. On the House floor Wednesday afternoon, numerous Democratic colleagues greeted Cuellar warmly, hugging him and shaking his hand.
Yeah, Democrats were so worried that this one congressional seat, if it flipped, would block taking over the House that they kissed the ass of an unconvicted man who's still a felony indictee.
Add this from the House's head Democrap (and head Democrap genocide enabler):
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN he agreed with the president’s pardon, even if he didn’t understand his motivation.
“The reality is this indictment was very thin to begin with,” Jeffries said. “I don’t know why the president decided to do this. I think the outcome was exactly the right outcome.”
Jeffries will be a special guest at an upcoming virtual fundraiser Cuellar is hosting, according to a source familiar with the event.
Really? If the case is so thin, then why did two Cuellar political advisors already cop pleas?
That said, why did Trump pardon him? Isn't he doing so well among Hispanics that he thinks the GOP could win Cuellar's seat?
That's per this:
This cycle, he is facing a serious Republican opponent — Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, a former Democrat, who announced his candidacy Tuesday and noted that Cuellar was facing “serious federal corruption accusations that have shaken the trust of the people he is supposed to serve,” in a statement announcing his candidacy.
Once again, it's all transactional. Cuellar will probably name one of his in-district office locations after Trump.
A group of 18 multifaith and nonreligious Texas families filed a class
action lawsuit today to stop all Texas public school districts that are
not already involved in active litigation or subject to an injunction
from displaying the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Even though two
federal judges in Texas have ruled that Senate Bill 10 is
unconstitutional, school districts across the state continue to display
the Ten Commandments. With more than 1,000 school districts in Texas, a
class action lawsuit is the most effective way to protect the religious
freedom of all Texas public school children and their families
That's the biggie.
The hoped-for action?
The new Ashby v. Schertz-Cibolo-Universal ISD case is necessary because — even with two federal court injunctions preventing more than two dozen Texas school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments — public school districts continue to violate the constitutional rights of students and their families. The class action lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would stop any public school district not already involved in litigation from displaying the Ten Commandments.
B. If so, go hot-wheeling (I see what I did) past either Big John or Kenny Boy Paxton (and any Green or Libertarian) in the general?
We'll see. I think she has zero chance unless Kenny Boy beats Big John before his divorce details explode, but that they then DO explode, in part from Texas media getting the filing records unsealed. Otherwise, good luck on finding those "Trump-Crockett voters" you insist are out there. Also interesting is how she mocked Black and Hispanic potential "Trump-Crockett voters" a year ago; that's Tapper at CNN bringing up this week her original Vanity Fair interview, complete with "slave mentality."
As for Allred? His claim he wanted the party to avoid a runoff because that would lessen its general election chances is about as high-grade of bullshit as Joaquin Castro's latest excuse, last month, why he couldn't run for statewide office.
Veasey? His current district had been redistricted by the Rethuglican Lege, but everybody expected him to run for Crockett's vacating seat. And, he's not the only Democrat filed to seek the nomination against GOP incumbent Tim O'Hare.
Note that three states will be most hit, because relatively few US national parks are unique.
Europeans can see Yellowstone's geysers in Iceland and bison in the wisent of Poland, for example. They can stay at home for the Alps instead of the Rockies. Chinese and other Asians can do Banff instead of the Rockies, and there are plenty of waterfalls, in a couple of exceptions I'm about to note, in Europe and Asia.
==
There's only one Grand Canyon, and only one saguaro cactus, and both are in Arizona. I'm not sure how much foreign visitation Saguaro NP gets, and Tucson has other attractions, but Tusayan et al losing foreign visitors to the Grand Canyon would be big.
Many canyon visitors also do one or more of Utah's Mighty Five, and like with the Grand Canyon, the small towns in this area might be affected.
In the Pacific Northwest, Olympic's temperate rain forest and Crater Lake's starkness are semi-unique, but not biggies.
Further south? California's Redwoods, in the combined state and national parks, the giant sequoias in that national park, the all-around beauty of Yosemite Valley, and especially for Germans, it seems, the starkness of Death Valley all are special.
The parks that will have a steep hike in per-park fees for foreign visitors without a fee-hiked foreign Parks Pass? Acadia National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Everglades National Park, Glacier National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Parks, and Zion National Park.
So, we have Grand Canyon, two of the California parks, and two of Utah's Mighty Five. Why Arches isn't on the list I have no idea.
==
That said, just days after The Donald announced this, The Louvre said it was more than doubling the admission cost for non-EU visitors. So, it's not like this is unique, or in terms of Trump-world, that bad. That said, he's just trying to soak visitors. He doesn't actually care about national parks and monuments; we already know that.
Democrats care about the system somewhat more than Republicans, but not THAT much more. After all, they gave us
Actually, by the end of the piece, I colored myself cynical, not just skeptical, and I'll explain why.
To start with, I know who the Independent Center targets — people who want a third party because they think that Democrats are too librul as well as Republicans being too wingnut. An academic quoted in the piece notes just that:
"There's a huge chunk of people who for different reasons can't stomach either of the two parties," said David Barker, a professor of government at American University. "It's the first time in a long time where a plurality of Americans are now identifying as independents, and so that does seem to signal a pretty important shift."
In other words, this hope, of the likes of Adam Brandon at the Independent Center, is NOT about helping Greens, Socialists, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, etc.
Worse? Brandon "goes there":
"It's like Uber and taxis. You had a system with an obvious flaw, that had entrenched operators and took a radical change to go completely around it," he told NPR. "And that's what we're feeling now. People are so stuck into 'Republican' and 'Democrat' and we're like, well, there's something else."
Yeah, if you're talking techdudebro "disruption," you just lost me. (It's actually the story's author, in the lead-in to that quote, who uses the d-word of "disrupt.")
Then, there's this:
"We're political fighters," said Brandon, who served as president of FreedomWorks, the conservative grassroots group that helped turn Tea Party activists into a political force before closing its doors last year. "We have built a team of people that know how to do this. We're not going to be pushovers."
Well, if you did want to help third parties, it's not those of the left!
Finally, since this dude and fellows of his are political consultants, I have zero doubt they're overselling what they and their proprietary AI tool can do because that's how political consultants get paid!
An effective government is one that is smaller, focused, and fit-for-purpose. We must move away from an overburdened and overreaching bureaucracy that stifles progress. Addressing our mounting debt and deficit requires bold, strategic reforms to reimagine the role of government programs.
Two words for you, Brandon, and they are: "Fuck.Off."
Texas Monthly wrote late last month about parents demanding accountability from Camp Mystic and the other camps in the Hill Country, flooded out last summer with massive loss of life — much of that preventable if many camps hadn't built new cabins in floodplains, had better emergency systems, and were in counties with better emergency systems.
Here's the nutgraf, about one-third in.
[E] ven as they reached out to one another, parents of the girls who died at Camp Mystic say they were cut off from its owners, the Eastlands. Their questions went unanswered. As they learned more about the timeline and events of that night, comparing accounts and reviewing the camp’s safety protocols, they concluded that members of the multigenerational Eastland family had acted irresponsibly. On November 10, the Hollises and the families of seventeen other Mystic campers and two counselors filed the first round of negligence and wrongful death lawsuits, claiming that the camp ignored flood warnings and failed to enact adequate safety measures. Attorney Mikal Watts, who is representing the Eastlands, reiterated to me what he has said in multiple media interviews: The camp’s shelter-in-place orders were based on what was learned in past floods and were in line with FEMA and other government agencies’ flood protocols.
I've written about the Eastlands before, along with some of the other sites — including getting the Obama-era FEMA to pencil-whip floodplain maps. So, Tweety Eastland and descendants posturing as "we were hurt too" can go fuck themselves.
And, that's where the story takes off. Yes, Dick Eastland died trying to save a camp kid. Yes, Tweety has been to at least one camper funeral. But, the families above note? Trying to get information, you know, like about possibly building in a floodplain, just hasn't been happening.
On the legal controls side, the Trib then reports on the new camp regulation statutes the Department of State Health Services has just proposed. The biggie is a massive increase in camp licensing and relicensing fees. It's "progressive" based on camp size, so it won't drive smaller camps out of business. That hasn't stopped smaller camps from bitching, cuz Tex-ass, cheapness and capitalism.
Here's the Trib's pull-outs:
Last month, the Department of State Health Services teased the dramatic change during a meeting to discuss the rollout of a pair of camp safety bills that the Legislature passed in response to the July 4 Hill Country floods that killed at least 137 people, including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic.
At that meeting and in a survey the state conducted in the fall, several camp operators said such licensing fees and other new requirements could put many in the industry out of business because most camps are small nonprofits.
“This causes an undue burden for smaller or more remote camps,” according to a survey response from Livingston-based Boxwoods camp obtained by The Texas Tribune. “All the costs that are a result of this legislation should not be passed on to camps.”
Also proposed Tuesday is an overhaul of the little-known Youth Camp Advisory Committee, which meets semiannually to request rule changes to the state health agency and to lawmakers when they are in session. The Texas Tribune found that the makeup of this committee for many years has been mostly camp leadership and that while members can’t make rules, they can influence how much rules impact the industry. Camp Mystic’s Britt Eastland is a current member.
The proposed change to the nine-person advisory committee would reduce the number of camp operators on the board from seven to four, and would replace them with specialized positions, such as one for a parent who has attended camp in the past two years. It also requires a person specialized in camp activities, and someone who is a child abuse expert, a pediatric psychologist or a psychiatrist to be on the committee.
Actually, yes, the cost of legislation SHOULD be pushed to you; that's the whole point of regulation like this. And, if you're running your camp on such small margins this really would fiscally injure you, you probably should shut down anyway.
There's this on the floodplain:
Other proposed changes include prohibiting a youth camp from placing a cabin within a Federal Emergency Management Agency-identified 100-year floodplain unless it’s located on a still body of water, such as a lake or pond, or is not connected to a watercourse, such as a river or stream, and the resulting water is dammed. Even if the cabin falls into these exceptions, it must be 1,000 feet away from a floodway, and the youth camp operator must install and maintain emergency ladders capable of providing access to the cabin’s roof.
Not onerous.
And, this, more so, on the emergency communications:
A youth camp operator will also be required to provide and maintain broadband internet services using end-to-end fiber-optic facilities and a secondary broadband internet connection.
Multiple camp operators said in the state survey they were concerned about the broadband requirements because of how geographically remote they are.
“We contacted AT&T (our local internet provider) to receive an estimate for fiber optic installation and were quoted the exorbitant cost of $1.7 million. This is cost-prohibitive and virtually impossible for us to access,” according to a response from Huntsville-based Forest Glen Camps.
Since there is until Dec. 19 for input, if there's some way that one can reasonably be modified, I'm OK. If this were adult-only camps, I'd be OK with eliminating it, even.
As for Kerr County's refusal of state emergency update money in the past? The Trib and Pro Publica report they were far from alone, and that some legiscritters acknowledge the bill was flawed, both on relative high local match share requirements and other stringencies.
Petard-hoisting time! The Trump Admin is massively cutting federal money for rural broadband expansion in Texas (and of course presumably elsewhere in what is heavily "red" country nationally). Havana Ted Cruz blusters about the petard-hoist at the link.
Nutter Troy Nehls is the latest GOP wingnut to say they're leaving Congress. It's OK, though; his nutter and less politically successful twin wants to replace him.
Forest Wilder looks at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's big expansion — an expansion that apparently continues to ignore officially acquiring the lakes and surrounding land of many old coal-fired power plants that make up parks in East Texas all on rented land.
Daou continues to be an odd duck in his own way, and perhaps has ditched
electoral politics entirely? No posts on his Substack since the start
of 2024, not even after the end of the election. He's pretty prolific on
Shitter, still, and in terms of politics, if you had a left-wing
version of a European Christian Democrat party, I think that would be
him right now. Seriously, look at his Shitter. (And that will probably change in two years, as he does his own version of Justin Raimondo.)
That said, two years ago, I thought he was 75 percent full of bullshit when he announced he was leaving West's campaign. Of course, West himself was 98 percent full of bullshit when he left the Green Party two years ago, which I think is about average for him. And Daou chose to tag along. Per another piece at about the same time, I think that it was not only West who didn't want to do ass-kissing but Daou. Or maybe even wanted ass-kissing — OF him by Stein and other Greens.
This is a few weeks late, but I'm sure that, per this HCN story, the deadline for states to renegotiate the Colorado River Compact has passed.
So, the feds step in, right?
Well, theoretically:
Scott Cameron, acting leader of the Bureau of Reclamation, has said the federal government expects a finalized plan in May or June 2026. This gives policymakers time to get the necessary approval from state legislators and to implement any changes before the new water year begins next fall. Should the states fail to produce a joint plan, though, he said that the feds will step in. But the details of how they’d intervene are unclear and the administration’s complete dismissal of climate change and recent cuts to funding have only added confusion about how much federal support there will be moving forward.
That said, here's where we're at bad assumptions, starting with HCN never mentioning the name "Donald J. Trump."
Will he have BuRec step in, or are we first due for a round of his "personal negotiations"? If so, will small-water states like Nevada, with Trump personal friends like Miriam Adelson, to whose late husband he owes his 2016 election, per James Bamford, step in and upset the applecart?
Also, per the "acting" with Mr. Cameron, how many directors might BuRec go through in the next few years?
I've long thought that the Drake equation in its original was too fuzzy on some parameters, and both the original and various tweaks were too optimistic. It's kind of like Gnu Atheism, I think. There, many Gnus are also Jesus mythicists, like they have to prove his nonexistence to prove atheism.
With SETI types, it's like they have to prove the existence of life on other planets to disprove creationism.
Well, one potential misassumption, which I didn't think of before, but pointed out recently by Nautilus, is that perhaps the speed of evolution is different in various places, and so many otherwise Earthlike planets may simply have not gotten reasonably intelligent life developed before their sun went to red giant and then steps beyond.
Or, the flip side is true. Due to loss of information about evolution here on Earth, we may assume certain key steps were unique and they actually weren't.
The flip side to both of these flip sides is that SETI searches appear to assume biological development elsewhere will in general be relatively Earthlike.
==
A new gel that can actually rebuild tooth enamel? Huge if it can be brought to market. Especially huge for the "developing world" if that's true and also capitalists don't try to charge an arm and a leg. Here's why:
According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 3.7 billion people worldwide have some form of oral disease, and the erosion of enamel – the tough, mineralized protective outer layer of our teeth – is a massive contributor to one of the largest issues, tooth decay.
Even in the developed world, even in countries more enlightened than the US with some sort of national health care, dental care is usually NOT part of the bag. It is for minor children and/or senior citizens in some countries and that's it.
That's the big story, to me, out of Strangeabbott declaring the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Muslim Brotherhood, as "transnational terror organizations" then directing his butt-flunkies at DPS to open an criminal investigation against both.
That latter is clearly a page out of Donald the Demented's playbook.
The former? First, since Strangeabbott is not a president of a country (contra Tex-ass exceptionalism of the Texas nationalist type of wet dreams) is nugatory, first of all.
It's also baseless, even per Donald the Demented's State Department:
Neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor CAIR is listed on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist groups.
There you are.
It's also bullshit:
Abbott also said the investigation will target people or groups “who unlawfully impose Sharia law,” which he said violates the Texas Constitution.
Because these groups don't do that.
Speaking of? This part:
Murtaza Sutarwalla, president of the Muslim Bar Association of Houston, spoke at the same news conference and rejected Abbott’s “repeated claims that the Sharia law is banned in Texas.”
Is true.
Federal law allows the use of private religious law between consenting private religious individuals and authorities.
Strangeabbott is either legally ignorant himself, playing off others' ignorance, or some combination.
Ditto for him attempting to fuse and conflate CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Here's the bottom-line legal angle:
Abbott’s declaration opens up an array of potential constitutional issues, said Emily Berman, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center. Limiting property purchases based on viewpoints and religious affiliation could prove problematic under the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
“What is the motivation of these designations?” Berman said. “Is it about their religious views? Is it about their viewpoints on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which would be another First Amendment red flag? You can’t discriminate on the basis of someone’s viewpoint.”
The designation also raises due process concerns, Berman said, given that it’s not clear how groups can formally challenge the designation.
The U.S. Secretary of State holds the power to designate a group a foreign terrorist organization, though they must notify Congress and publish the designation in the Federal Register. An organization can appeal that designation within 30 days of that publication.
It’s not clear whether such a process exists at the state level. In the order, Abbott said he consulted with Freeman Martin, Texas Department of Public Safety director, and the state’s Homeland Security Council to determine whether to make the designation as required under state law. Whether groups can appeal the state-level designations is unclear.
It’s possible CAIR, for example, could challenge the law in court by arguing the state is overstepping its bounds by making laws around national security matters, Berman said.
Period. End of story.
The second story?
As I told Kuff in commenting on his Off the Kuff story about Abbott's original proclamation, we all know what this is about: Palestine and Palestinians. The dog that IS barking, repeatedly, in Texas and that Kuff refuses to write about. And, Kuff and other Democraps who refuse to talk about the barking dog only encourage mouthbreathers like Strangeabbott and Legiscritter Cole Hefner.
Happy Thanksgiving, you bigotry and genocide fellow traveler.
See, Abbott is one of many modern American conservative cafeteria Catholics who have approached modern fundagelical Protestants on many issues, including Israel and Zionism, even though Rome, like old mainline Protestant churches, is officially amillennial on the book of Revelation.
Per the bullshit above, though, Abbott would turn a blind eye toward a Kiryeas Joel in Tex-ass.
I have not taken a non-Southwest flight anywhere in more than a decade, probably since Southworst decided to not follow legacy airlines in not charging for checked bags.
Well, their clusterfuck decision to do that earlier this year, combined with other David Singer changes?
As of last Thursday, it was $25 cheaper, or $15 less slightly higher prices for a checked bag, to go American for my Christmas-New Year holiday. (Further Googling says the AA charges the same as Southworst if I pay online; at least on its own site, I can't tell if Southworst offers such an option.)
My one brother, long a mild to moderate road warrior for his biz, said that the AA was long cheaper for him out of St. Louis, where he lives. For me, in the past, Southworst had generally been cheaper, period, PLUS the lack of checked bag fees.
What a clusterfuck.
I promised, in March, that when Southworst announced the end of bags fly free, I'd look at American (and others). Southworst made that easier by listing on Expedia and Travelocity, along with the other legacy airlines. The comparison is made easier there by those sites listing bag fees as you go through the price choice; Southworst doesn't do that on its own site.
Don't forget that Southworst starts assigned seating next January.
I'll probably eat the extra $15 if nothing else changes. Leaving an hour later is of advantage to not feel rushed. Parking at both airports is about the same; hate that Love got rid of that el cheapo remote lot on Harry Hines.
Check that. Yesterday, but a few days after I started writing this? I checked again. American had dropped about $30, and added a flight (or I missed it earlier) that runs an hour later than Southworst. Southworst, meanwhile, went UP on the old flight.
Tweeting again to Southwest with a tag got their attention. Yes, popular fares fill first. Also yes, American added a flight and dropped costs.
That said, when the bag fee was announced, I thought the corner office people would only charge $15 for the first bag, figuring they'd retain most of their family travel biz that way while still making more money. God, Paul Singer is a Dum Fuq.
If I'm still here in the Metromess in a couple more years, we'll see if Love's long-term expansion leads to lower parking rates, and more competition on airlines with the new terminal. We'll also see who flies out of McKinney once that has its passenger terminal open. Were I the FAA, United would get first shot among legacy airlines.
McKinney is in negotiations with two airlines for passenger service. Fuller says this will mean flights to major markets like Las Vegas, Orlando, Los Angeles, New York, and Denver. He noted that TKI would serve as a regional operations base for one of the airlines.
Denver? That could mean United is indeed one of the two airlines, since that's a hub. I'll take it.
Especially with the 2023 bond issue failing (maybe they try another after commercial service opens?) this won't be big at all, but it will be something.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe in part, and in part other things.
Black Country and white racism. That's the gist of a Barbed Wire piece saying that calling Blacks "country" is a general put-down that often has racism behind it.
Well, sometimes white racism, or the claims of White racism, to be more precise, as one of the Barbed Wire's links is WAY more complicated, and probably the Black ranchowners are as much more sinners than sinned against.
The
Mallerys’ [the Black ranchers] time in Colorado has been marked by a
litany of encounters with neighbors and law enforcement — and it goes
beyond the dispute with Clark [the White rancher neighbor].
On
April 7, 2021, Jake Saksteder arrived at Freedom Acres Ranch to serve
Courtney Mallery with civil papers regarding a property case.
The
24-year-old said he had delivered countless legal documents during his
job as a process server. Sometimes people would try and evade him or
yell, he told The Post. But he’d never had an encounter like the one at
the ranch that day.
Saksteder told The Post that he walked around the property, knocking on several doors, but didn’t get an answer.
Nicole
Mallery then burst out of the shed with a shotgun pointed at his head,
Saksteder said. Much of his encounter is captured on video from his
phone, which was released by El Paso County authorities this week.
“What
the (expletive) are you doing?” Nicole shouts at the process server,
according to the video. Saksteder tries to tell her several times that
he’s there to serve Courtney Mallery with legal papers.
“I swear to God, relax, I’m leaving!” Saksteder says in the video.
He
told The Post that he saw Mallery cock the weapon and that’s when he
took off running, chased by a dog. Audio from the video makes out the
sound of a shot fired into the air.
“It was aimed well above me,” Saksteder said. “It wasn’t a shot to kill — it was definitely a warning. Like, keep moving fast.”
In
statements to El Paso County deputies that day, Nicole Mallery
allegedly gave a false date of birth and changed the state of her
identification, according to an arrest affidavit. She told deputies that
she kept asking the process server to produce identification, demanding
he say why he was trespassing on her property.
Result? This:
Mallery
was charged with felony menacing, fraud, bribery of a public servant
and making a false report, court records show. She ultimately pleaded
guilty to making a false report, a misdemeanor, and received two years
probation, the documents show. The district attorney dismissed the
remainder of the counts.
And, there is another case, that was facing trial as of the time this story was written in early 2023.
Here's another:
In
one event, in April 2021, Nicole Mallery allegedly kicked a sheriff’s
deputy repeatedly in his legs and bit him on his forearm, according to a
summary of the encounter. She was charged with second-degree assault of
a peace officer and received a two-year deferred sentence, court
records show.
As for an NAACP person asking why a
SWAT team was sent? Well, if early April 2021 was after April 7, 2021,
shit, that's easy to answer.
And this old chestnut:
In
body-camera video, Nicole Mallery can be heard calling one of the Black
sheriff’s deputies a “field negro” and other personnel “white trash”
and Klu Klux Klan members.
Well, there you are.
Well, let's add in that the sheriff is Hispanic. And that, per other pieces at The Barbed Wire, Taylor Crumpton has a history of going over the top.
And,
the Barbed Wire's editorial staff didn't look through that piece, nor
did they note the 2023 pending trial, nor do a follow-up. (The charges were dropped just months later. That still doesn't mean that El Paso County deputies were racist, nor were neighbors. That said, they claim that one neighbor
— not mentioned by name —was "disapproving" of their being there from
the start. We assume they're talking about Ms. Clark, who reportedly
threatened the NAACP's Prescott and reportedly sexualized one
interaction with CW Mallery, per this. Another story, from Springs TV, also shows the issue seems to be "complex.")
As
for where we stand? The Mallerys threatened a suit when charges were
dropped. No way they would have defeated sovereign immunity, if filed
against El Paso County. No way they would have beaten Teresa Clark,
given Nicole's past history.
Per this long piece from another Springs TV station, El Paso County Sheriff's Office at one time had some sort of response to The Ark, the online news site beating the drum for the Mallerys, but that's been taken down. Well, except for the Wayback Machine. The SO said it was hiding nothing and asked why the Ark didn't contact it for comment. There's not much on Ark Republic's "about" page. And, it doesn't report on the process server issue at all.
Off the top of my head? 50 percent entitled old rancher privilege, 25 percent racism, 25 percent newcomers not making more effort to fit in from the start, and 85 percent of that 25 percent being Nicole.
Colorado Springs Gazette has a lot more, including the murder conviction of a man who killed a Mallery ranch hand. Contra the Mallerys' claim, the case seems to indicate drug issues, with the Mallery hand hugely high on meth. He was killed in 2021, shortly after the process server showed up. Per this piece, the Mallerys bought the land in August 2020. So, it took not much more than six months for everything to explode, per the guesstimated percentages above.
And, it was about an easement mentioned in several stories above, and related items, per this:
The dispute began not long after the Mallerys moved to Yoder in 2020 and set up a video security system along the fence that borders the easement between their 1,000-acre property, Freedom Acres Ranch, and Clark’s land. The easement is a spur of dirt road that, while it technically lies on the Mallery property, was set aside by the county for use by residents, including Clark, who need it to access their properties. A gate along the easement opens to the Mallery land, but it lies more than a half-mile from the main entrance to their ranch and even farther from the couple’s residence and outbuildings.
This fits the last 25 percent to a T. You just don't block easements out west. Hell, you don't do that in Tex-ass and they should know that. Also, putting up video cameras as soon as you move in makes it look like you're prepared to be untrusting from the start.
As for the Mallerys wanting a CAREN Act passed in Colorado? Yes, Amy Cooper was a Karen. And? Jussie Smollett cried wolf.
The sheriff's page was deleted due to charges being dropped after mediation failed. Contra both the Ark and White wingnuts, it seems like both Clark and the Mallerys were committing lawfare by 911. Elsewhere, Sheriff Roybal called out Nicole Mallery.
And, that's another half-hour of my life wasted because modern editors are lazy and modern staff writers like to go down the advocacy hole.
Also, interesting, High Country News, with both its real "wokefulness" its wrongful version of this decade, has nothing about the Mallerys.
A N M faculty board says Melissa McCoul was wrongly fired over a gender lesson. Note that word "non-binding" on its findings. Interim President Tommy Williams (note that word "interim") is free to ignore it, though it is nonetheless ammo for McCoul's lawsuit. That said, add in that the committee said the student who filmed her should have been investigated for possible violation of university rules. We're definitely going to get more of this in the post-Charlie Kirk world.
Kenny Boy, the state's chief privacy invader, is butt-hurt about his divorce privacy possibly being invaded.
"Partisan federalism" is the phrase for how Strangeabbott is kowtowing to Trump, per Pro Publica. "Hypocrisy, thy name is Legion" would be mine.
Claiming SCOTUS shadow docket rulings have limited precedent is one way of shoving them to the curb.
I haven't done this on Shitter, since it's its own universe, and never really had to do it here on Blogger, and you can't really, anyway (though I can and do moderate comments and not just for spam) but, since this and Substack overlap for me in some way, I decided to start developing a curated list of people I've blogged on Substack.
I've missed a number of early ones; I could go through my list over there, but I'd have to unblock them to figure out WHY I blocked them in the first place.
With a list started from scratch, I can do that at the time.
Allen: Both a Uki-tankie and an Israeli genocide denier, who claims every Gazan action of recent years has happened without provocation, and that, on the other issue, Russia has been committing at least cultural genocide against Ukraine for 200 years, along with accepting Ukrainian hasbara (sic) on other things.
Paolo Kirk: Pre-emptive block for someone who is antisemitic, not just anti-zionist, and who also needs about eight rabies shots, all administered at once.
ML: Zionist, antivaxxer pseudoscience, wingnut culture warriors all in their reads. Plus, anybody who has 200 Substacks in their "reads" is virtue signaling.
Michael Lynch: Antivaxxer, climate science denialist, probably alt-whiter combined with Christian nationalism, cutter of blank checks to Putin because of that.
Amuse: Restacked by Lynch, and a general nutter I'd already blocked on Shitter.
Clinton Tankersley: A diehard, lying Zionist, complete with tropes in this piece guested at Ed Buckner's place, that the media is anti-Israel, that mass rapes actually happened
A number of those people get me to noting that once again, contra the lying pseudo-leftist Noah Berlatsky, horseshoe theory is real.
The Haeft? A goy Zionist (and Christian nationalist Reform UK supporting Canadian pan-Anglosphere nutter).
Stacey Saadi? A wingnut in general, and a hasbaraist in particular. There IS NO SUCH THING as "an accidental Zionist."
Penelope Bullis? Per my Substack note: Do I block someone who just followed me, because they’re a 9/11 truther, antivaxxer an alt-med/pseudo-med Mercola type beyond that, New Age quackery beyond that, and other types of nutter? Probably, though maybe not immediately.
Oops, you follow Curtis Yarvin, aka Mencius Moldbug as well. And, at least one anti-semitic, not anti-Zionist account.
Eric Tollefson. Libs of TikTok is also on Substack? Oh shit? You follow them? Bye!
==
Not blocked, but unsubbed again?
First, from Sy Hersh. He was becoming more and more "Captain Obvious" (in cases where he wasn't wrong) and putting up the paywall bar after one paragraph of Captain Obvious comment. Then, some non-leftist thought he'd harsh my mallow when I posted a Substack note to that end. Since I started writing this, he's gotten worse. "Is Trump in Cognitive Decline," Oct. 7, paywalled. Or, Sept. 17, the first of a three-part series about explaining AI, with the fun of Hersh talking about "the cloud" and the Captain Obvious of the person who's interviewed in all three parts talking about AI's electricity use. No shit.
Second, the Column Blog by Adam Johnson. I largely agree with what he says, but he doesn't write that that often, and he doesn't have much unique stuff. Plus, for reasons unknown, maybe that I called him a pseudoleftist, a non-skeptical leftist or whatever, he's blocked me on Shitter.
Third, Palestine is Still the Issue, for "platforming" Jim DeBrosse's nutbar conspiracy theory within the already nutbar world of JFK conspiracy theories, that Israel whacked Jack. (I'm still debating on unfollowing Tim Shorrock again, as a JFK conspiracy theorist himself.)
Fourth, Ed Buckner was originally here, but this got so long as to get a separate piece.
Kudos to The American Conservative, whatever one thinks of it otherwise, for doing an extensive transcript of Mearsheimer's Nov. 11 presentation to the European Parliament, specifically as part of an EP commemoration of Armistice Day.
Video is here:
And, with that, let's dig into the transcript.
First and up front, the relevance to the date:
Europe is in deep trouble today, mainly because of the Ukraine war, which has played a key role in undermining what had been a largely peaceful region. Unfortunately, the situation is not likely to improve in the years ahead. In fact, Europe is likely to be less stable moving forward than it is today.
Mearsheimer later down gives a "realist" take on both World War I and II:
Remember that the U.S. entered both World Wars to prevent Germany and Japan from becoming regional hegemons in Europe and East Asia respectively. The same logic applies today.
I'd disagree on I, both on Wilson's motivation and the reality of the world stage at that time. But, hold on to that hegemony idea for a few paragraphs.
Then some of the specifics of what's gone wrong, including some of the lies by the US and/or EU.
First, the EU-NATO relationship is succinctly spelled out:
Some might argue that the EU, not NATO, was the main cause of European stability during the unipolar moment, which is why the EU, not NATO, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. But this is wrong. While the EU has been a remarkably successful institution, its success is dependent on NATO keeping the peace in Europe.
Exactly, EU. You still don't have that rapid reaction force; you still must hide behind the skirts of NATO. Post-invasion political science, with NATO expansion, has seen membership of the two organizations more closely align, too.
Next, it's post-Cold War unipolarity vs the start of multipolarity, which Mersheimer dates to 2017. Gee, what happened in the US then? Anyway, here you go:
Russia is the weakest of the three great powers and contrary to what many Europeans think, it is not a threat to overrun all of Ukraine, much less eastern Europe. After all, it has spent the past three and a half years just trying to conquer the eastern one-fifth of Ukraine. The Russian army is not the Wehrmacht and Russia—unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War and China in East Asia today—is not a potential regional hegemon.
OK, the pre-2014, if you will, stage has been set. Gee, what happened in 2014?
But first, a side note on Israel. Noting the "special friendship" there, Mearsheimer adds this will always distract the US from elsewhere, no matter who's in the White House.
Well, one more bit of final stage-setting, including a warning for the people to whom he's speaking at that moment:
Europe and the U.S. foolishly sought to bring Ukraine into NATO, which provoked a losing war with Russia that markedly increases the odds that the U.S. will depart Europe and NATO will be eviscerated. Let me explain.
Eviscerated, it will be. German carmakers, and to a lesser degree, others in Europe, bet wrong on both hybrids and full electrics, and China is eating their lunch more than Tesla, which has faced more of a backlash than in the US. A fair amount of the electronics world is either US companies building shit in China, or Chinese companies building shit ever faster, followed by Japan. Where's today's Nokia? Where's Europe sit on solar panel construction? Where's Europe sit without Russian natural gas? Oh,in the hands of either US or certain of the Arab petro-klepto states, even worse than it does on oil, where Norway and the UK have a fair amount still.
Then, truth vs lies.
The conventional wisdom in the West is that Vladimir Putin is responsible for causing the Ukraine war. His aim, so the argument goes, is to conquer all of Ukraine and make it part of a greater Russia. Once that goal is achieved, Russia will move to create an empire in eastern Europe, much like the Soviet Union did after the Second World War. In this story, Putin is a mortal threat to the West and must be dealt with forcefully. In short, Putin is an imperialist with a master plan that fits neatly into a rich Russian tradition. There are numerous problems with this story. Let me spell out five of them.
First, there is no evidence from before February 24, 2022 that Putin wanted to conquer all of Ukraine and incorporate it into Russia. Proponents of the conventional wisdom cannot point to anything Putin wrote or said that indicates he thought conquering Ukraine was a desirable goal, that he thought it was a feasible goal, and that he intended to pursue that goal.
When challenged on this point, purveyors of the conventional wisdom point to Putin’s claim that Ukraine was an “artificial” state and especially to his view that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people,” which is a core theme in his well-known July 12, 2021 article. These comments, however, say nothing about his reason for going to war. In fact, that article provides significant evidence that Putin recognized Ukraine as an independent country. For example, he tells the Ukrainian people, “You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome!”
There you are.
Was Russia trying to conquer all of Ukraine, or was it indeed a "special operation"? Mearsheimer says the latter:
Second, Putin did not have anywhere near enough troops to conquer Ukraine. I estimate that Russia invaded Ukraine with at most 190,000 troops. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the present commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, maintains that Russia’s invasion force was only 100,000 strong. There is no way that a force numbering either 100,000 or 190,000 soldiers could conquer, occupy, and absorb all of Ukraine into a greater Russia.
Note the Ukrainian agreement. (Mearsheimer notes Russia also had some idea about NATO upscaling Ukraine's armaments kit.)
Next, the various sabotaging of peace talks:
Immediately after the war began, Russia reached out to Ukraine to start negotiations to end the war and work out a modus vivendi between the two countries. This move is directly at odds with the claim that Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine and make it part of Greater Russia. Negotiations between Kiev and Moscow began in Belarus just four days after Russian troops entered Ukraine. That Belarus track was eventually replaced by an Israeli as well as an Istanbul track. The available evidence indicates that the Russians were negotiating seriously and were not interested in absorbing Ukrainian territory, save for Crimea, which they had annexed in 2014, and possibly the Donbass region. The negotiations ended when the Ukrainians, with prodding from Britain and the United States, walked away from the negotiations, which were making good progress when they ended.
Furthermore, Putin reports that when the negotiations were taking place and making progress, he was asked to remove Russian troops from the area around Kiev as a goodwill gesture, which he did on March 29, 2022. No government in the West or former policymaker has seriously challenged Putin’s account, which is directly at odds with the claim that he was bent on conquering all of Ukraine.
Fourth, in the months before the war started, Putin tried to find a diplomatic solution to the brewing crisis. On December 17, 2021, Putin sent a letter to both President Joe Biden and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg proposing a solution to the crisis based on a written guarantee that: 1) Ukraine would not join NATO, 2) no offensive weapons would be stationed near Russia’s borders, and 3) NATO troops and equipment moved into Eastern Europe since 1997 would be moved back to Western Europe. Whatever one thinks of the feasibility of reaching a bargain based on Putin’s opening demands, it shows that he was trying to avoid war. The United States, on the other hand, refused to negotiate with Putin. It appears it was not interested in avoiding war.
Fifth, putting Ukraine aside, there is not a scintilla of evidence that Putin was contemplating conquering any other countries in eastern Europe. That is hardly surprising, given that the Russian army is not even large enough to overrun all of Ukraine, much less try to conquer the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania. Plus, those countries are all NATO members, which would almost certainly mean war with the United States and its allies.
In sum, while it is widely believed in Europe—and I am sure here in the European Parliament—that Putin is an imperialist who has long been determined to conquer all of Ukraine, and then conquer additional countries west of Ukraine, virtually all the available evidence is at odds with this perspective.
This is all known to people who know, including the people whom Mearsheimer is addressing. It's the "Boris Johnson sabotage" in the first paragraph.
Finally, a bit of "look in the mirror":
What is the basis of the claim that NATO expansion was the principal cause of the Ukraine war?
First, Russian leaders across the board said repeatedly before the war started that they considered NATO expansion into Ukraine to be an existential threat that had to be eliminated. Putin made numerous public statements laying out this line of argument before 24 February 2022. ...
Second, the centrality of Russia’s profound fear of Ukraine joining NATO is illustrated by events since the war started. For example, during the Istanbul negotiations that took place immediately after the invasion began, Russian leaders made it manifestly clear that Ukraine had to accept “permanent neutrality” and could not join NATO. The Ukrainians accepted Russia’s demand without serious resistance, surely because they knew that otherwise it would be impossible to end the war. More recently, on June 14, 2024, Putin laid out Russia’s demands for ending the war. One of his core demands was that Kiev “officially” state that it abandons its “plans to join NATO.” None of this is surprising, as Russia has always seen Ukraine in NATO as an existential threat that must be prevented at all costs.
Third, a substantial number of influential and highly regarded individuals in the West recognized before the war that NATO expansion—especially into Ukraine—would be seen by Russian leaders as a mortal threat and would eventually lead to disaster.
William Burns, who was recently the head of the CIA, but was the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the time of the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, wrote a memo to then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that succinctly describes Russian thinking about bringing Ukraine into the alliance. “Ukrainian entry into NATO,” he wrote, “is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” ... Burns was not the only Western policymaker in 2008 who understood that bringing Ukraine into NATO was fraught with danger. At the Bucharest summit, for example, both Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy opposed moving forward on NATO membership for Ukraine because they understood it would alarm and infuriate Russia. ...
It is also worth noting that the former secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said twice before leaving office that “President Putin started this war because he wanted to close NATO’s door and deny Ukraine the right to choose its own path.” Hardly anyone in the West challenged this remarkable admission, and he did not retract it.
To take this a step further, numerous American policymakers and strategists opposed President Bill Clinton’s decision to expand NATO during the 1990s, when the decision was being debated.
Well, there you are.
Let me add that this is the same Merkel who said Germany and NATO deliberately used the Minsk accords as an "appeasement" stall tactic to help rearm Ukraine.
That's just half of his speech.
Mearsheimer then goes on to the course of the war so far, then prospects for a settlement.
PEACEful settlement? Unlikely, he says.
Consequences? This is selected from a LONG pull quote. Read the full thing.
For starters, Ukraine has effectively been wrecked. It has already lost a substantial portion of its territory and is likely to lose more land before the fighting stops. Its economy is in tatters with no prospect of recovery in the foreseeable future, and according to my calculations, it has suffered roughly 1 million casualties, a staggering number for any country, but certainly for one that is said to be in a “demographic death spiral.” Russia has paid a significant price as well, but it has suffered nowhere near as much as Ukraine.
Europe will almost certainly remain allied with rump Ukraine for the foreseeable future, given sunk costs and the profound Russophobia that pervades the West. But that continuing relationship will not work to Kiev’s advantage for two reasons. First, it will incentivize Moscow to interfere in Ukraine’s domestic affairs to cause it economic and political trouble, so that it is not a threat to Russia and is in no position to join either NATO or the EU. Second, Europe’s commitment to supporting Kiev no matter what motivates the Russians to conquer as much Ukrainian territory as possible while the war is raging, so as to maximize the weakness of the Ukrainian rump state that remains once the conflict is frozen.
What about relations between Europe and Russia moving forward? They are likely to be poisonous for as far as the eye can see. Both the Europeans and surely the Ukrainians will work to undermine Moscow’s efforts to integrate the Ukrainian territories it has annexed into greater Russia as well as look for opportunities to cause the Russians economic and political trouble. Russia, for its part, will look for opportunities to cause economic and political trouble inside of Europe and between Europe and the U.S. ...
Relations between Europe and Russia will not only be poisonous, but they will also be dangerous. The possibility of war will be ever-present. In addition to the risk that war between Ukraine and Russia could restart—after all, Ukraine will want its lost territory back—there are six other flashpoints where a war pitting Russia against one or more European countries could break out. First, consider the Arctic, where the melting ice has opened the door to competition over passageways and resources. ...
The second flashpoint is the Baltic Sea, which is sometimes referred to as a “NATO lake” because it is largely surrounded by countries from that alliance. That waterway, however, is of vital strategic interest to Russia, as is Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave in eastern Europe that is also surrounded by NATO countries. The fourth flashpoint is Belarus, which because of its size and location, is as strategically important to Russia as Ukraine. The Europeans and the Americans will surely try to install a pro-Western government in Minsk after President Aleksandr Lukashenko leaves office and eventually turn it into a pro-Western bulwark on Russia’s border.
The West is already deeply involved in the politics of Moldova, which not only borders Ukraine, but contains a breakaway region known as Transnistria, which is occupied by Russian troops.
The final flashpoint is the Black Sea. ...
All of this is to say that even after Ukraine becomes a frozen conflict, Europe and Russia will continue to have hostile relations in a geopolitical setting filled with trouble-spots. In other words, the threat of a major European war will not go away when the fighting stops in Ukraine.
Let me now turn to the consequences of the Ukraine war inside of Europe and then turn to its likely effects on trans-Atlantic relations. For starters, it cannot be emphasized enough that a Russian victory in Ukraine—even if it is an ugly victory as I anticipate—would be a stunning defeat for Europe. Or to put it in slightly different words, it would be a stunning defeat for NATO. ....
NATO’s defeat will lead to recriminations between member states and inside many of them as well. Who is to blame for this catastrophe will matter greatly to the governing elites in Europe and surely there will be a powerful tendency to blame others and not accept responsibility themselves. The debate over “who lost Ukraine” will take place in a Europe that is already wracked by fractious politics both between countries and inside them. In addition to these political fights, some will question the future of NATO, given that it failed to check Russia, the country that most European leaders describe as a mortal threat. It seems almost certain that NATO will be much weaker after the Ukraine war is shut down than it was before that war started.
Any weakening of NATO will have negative repercussions for the EU, because a stable security environment is essential for the EU to flourish, and NATO is the key to stability in Europe. Threats to the EU aside, the great reduction in the flow of gas and oil to Europe since the war started has seriously hurt the major economies of Europe and slowed down growth in the overall Eurozone. There is good reason to think that economic growth across Europe is a long way from fully recovering from the Ukraine debacle.
A NATO defeat in Ukraine is also likely to lead to a trans-Atlantic blame game....
Then there is the all-important question of whether the U.S. will significantly reduce its military footprint in Europe or maybe even pull all its combat troops out of Europe. As I emphasized at the start of my talk, independent of the Ukraine war, the historic shift from unipolarity to multipolarity has created a powerful incentive for the U.S. to pivot to East Asia....
What has happened in Ukraine since 2022 makes that outcome more likely. To repeat: Trump has a deep-seated hostility to Europe, especially its leaders, and he will blame them for losing Ukraine. He has no great affection for NATO and has described the EU as an enemy created “to screw the United States.” Furthermore, the fact that Ukraine lost the war despite enormous support from NATO is likely to lead him to trash the alliance as ineffective and useless. That line of argument will allow him to push Europe to provide for its own security and not free-ride on the U.S. In short, it seems likely that the results of the Ukraine war, coupled with the spectacular rise of China, will eat away at the fabric of trans-Atlantic relations in the years ahead, much to the detriment of Europe.
He then has a conclusion with a final bit of knuckle-rapping.
The Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ on both sides of the Atlantic, along with the NAFO Nazis, Uki-tankies, etc, will surely refuse to listen to these cold, hard facts. There’s 100 other nutters like Nadin Brzezinski on Medium.
And, with the details we have, "shock me" that Trump grift is in some way involved; it's the same old claim on Ukrainian minerals he floated months ago. And, the Axios piece to which they link says Ukraine must enshrine in its constitution: No NATO. It does allow Ukraine to petition for EU membership. It ALSO calls for NATO to amend its statutes to bar this.
