Just another open thread

by liberal japonicus

The other one has moved over to dot-matrix printing, so I thought I'd open up another one. Have at it.

Comments

[wj]

Vance trying hard to replicate Chamberlain in Munich. The Europeans, and especially Zelenskyy, are having none of it.

Or, as Adam Silverman put it on Baloon Juice: President Zelenskyy Politely Tells Trump & the Congressional Delegation To Pound Sand

[bobbyp]

Chamberlain was an experienced politician of his times who made a difficult, but terrible, decision under a great deal of pressure.

Vance is, well, ...........a fucking idiot.

[Tony P.]

Did mini-Elon actually tell He, Trump "you're not the president" and "shut your mouth" in that bizzaro press conference in the oval office? Do MAGAts care?

I'd love to know for sure whether the kid did say that stuff, since I prefer to believe true things. What seems certain, even in this age of deep fakes and "alternative facts" is that he was there -- in the Oval Office, riding on the shoulders of his shabbily dressed billionaire daddy who was demonstrating to MAGAts as well as sane people that he owns Orange Jesus.

--TP

[JanieM]

TP: Snopes says: "In conclusion, at this time there is simply no way to determine the entirety of what X said or to whom he said it."

[novakant]

This is a rather devastating take on what's currently happening to the US political system:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/16/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-congress-audio-essay.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xU4.yRvy.xsb4gd1QpVMO&smid=url-share

The most interesting part for was the historical background about bipartisanhip and ideological non-conformity in congress. Also Nixon founding the EPA and Biden opposing Roe v. Wade. I even vaguely remember Thatcher sometimes saying reasonable things at the time.

Those were the days...

[GftNC]

Tim Radford, who was the Science Editor of the Guardian for years, has died. This piece from 2011 A manifesto for the simple scribe – my 25 commandments for journalists, is terrific (and in places very funny), and not just for journalists. I am going to try to keep these in mind as much as possible when I comment:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2011/jan/19/manifesto-simple-scribe-commandments-journalists?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[Tony P.]

GftNC,

This, from Tim Radford,

George Orwell reports on the case of an MP who claimed that the jackbooted fascist octopus had sung its swansong.

reminds of the probably apocryphal proclamation by some nameless politician that

This virgin forest, pregnant with natural resources, is the sole place in our state where the hand of man has not set foot.

Radford's admonition to ask yourself how exactly you'd hoe a road was priceless, too.

--TP

[Tony P.]

Janie,

I will take the Snopes assessment at face value, and I cannot fault them for ignoring the bigger picture, which was the kid's mere presence.

In just-the-facts vein, I bet the kid's daddy was the only (male) person in the room without a tie. Snopes could confirm or deny that, but I would not expect them to opine on whether a reporter dressed like Musk was would be allowed into the White House, never mind the Oval Office.

But that's still a distraction. The big picture is: He, Trump sat still in the face of disrespect from his boss -- disrespect for "the office", disrespect for Him personally. His worshipful MAGAts need to be reminded of that sorry spectacle every day and twice on Sunday.

--TP

[GftNC]

Tony P: actually, the whole of point 15 was perfect for me, for obvious reasons which I have gone on about here ad nauseam. But the sentence in bold was my favourite, because the misuse of those two words has been my bugbear lo these many years (even pre-dating my horrified discovery re "refute").

15. Words have meanings. Respect those meanings. Get radical and look them up in the dictionary, find out where they have been. Then use them properly. Don't flaunt authority by flouting your ignorance. Don't whatever you do go down a hard road to hoe, without asking yourself how you would hoe a road. Or for that matter, a roe.

[russell]

Open thread!

I have what I guess is a general observation. It's prompted by the recent claim by Ashley St Clair that she had Elon Musk's baby, conceived by IVF with genetic tweaking via CRISPR, including the contribution of "other organisms" to improve it's intelligence.

So, first of all - "other organisms"? WTF?!?

So far I guess Musk has not responded to this claim, but what's kind of unsettling to me is that it is credible. Or at least not incredible.

And the thing I notice about all of this is the general weirdness of the tech entrepreneur set.

There is Musk, of course, determined to go to Mars and giving his kids weird names. Like, deliberately weird names - not "Horatio" or "Lulubelle", but "X AE" and "Tau Mechanicus".

But also Ray Kurzweil, determined to upload his consciousness to the cloud. And Bryan Johnson, harvesting plasma from his own kid in an attempt to extend his own life. And, famously, vampire-curious Peter Thiel, wondering why humans can't be like the elves in LOTR.

Bezos and Altman are also apparently big investors in life extension stuff.

Is it just me, or are these guys (all or almost all guys) a bunch of freaking weirdos? Like, sci-fi franchise villain level?

Nobody really looks forward to the physical decline of aging. I'm sure we'd all be happy to be robust geezers as we enter our 70's and 80's and maybe beyond.

And who knows, maybe some useful stuff will fall out of all of this. Money has been known to make things happen.

But they all seem to be afraid of dying. Or even aging like a normal human does. Afraid to a weird and neurotic degree.

I'm not sure their money is serving them well.

[GftNC]

Ha, it's not just you!

Yep, afraid of dying. It's almost like now they've spent all this time, money and (maybe or maybe not remotely important to most of them) moral capital on getting richer and richer, how can it be over so soon? Surely not? Surely there's some way out...

[GftNC]

spent all this time, EFFORT and (maybe or maybe not remotely important to most of them) moral capital

FFS

[russell]

OK, well I guess it's not just me.

At least the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller built some libraries.

[JanieM]

Related, courtesy of a BJ commenter:

https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2024/05/16/eugenics-legacy-100-years-247908

Lots of fancy words for their pathology. Lipstick on a pig doesn't make it anything other than a pig.

(Haven't read it carefully, or russell's 6:40 link...am having better entertainment from/with the little people.)

[wj]

OK, well I guess it's not just me.

That tech-nerd utopian city they envision, and bought land for, has just one tiny little problem. They can't get zoning permission for building on the land they bought. Oops!

And that's not overreach by the Federal bureaucracy. It's the local county Planning Commission and voters. (Sometimes, NIMBYism is a blessing.)

[JanieM]

wj -- I'm surprised they haven't just bought the county. I mean, Musk bought the US.......surely a county doesn't cost as much as the third most populous nation on earth.

[russell]

They can't get zoning permission for building on the land they bought.

Yeah, well that's in the REAL world, loser! They're gonna make their OWN world!!

Just you wait and see!

[wj]

I'm surprised they haven't just bought the county.

IIRC, the county has got this college (UC Davis), with lots of students, professors, etc. who are registered voters. Plus folks outside the academic world who resent a bunch of "outsiders" buying up vast tracks of farm land to build their dream city. Resent it enough to ignore billionaires tossing around big bucks.

If the techbros can't get planning permission for houses, they can't move people there to give them a voting majority.

[Hartmut]

Well, that's what 'emergency managers' are for.

[Michael Cain]

I'm surprised they haven't just bought the county...

I occasionally point out that the federal government should plan on relocating the seat of government when climate change renders the District of Columbia unusable. They could buy a hundred square miles in western Kansas or Nebraska for relatively little now, build an airport with real approaches, new Capitol, new White House, all for relatively little money.

[JanieM]

If the techbros can't get planning permission for houses, they can't move people there to give them a voting majority.

Or they may decide to do what Musk is doing to the federal government: just do it. If they can get some builders to start building, and ignore court orders, picket lines, etc., who or what is going to stop them? The county sheriff? (A metaphor.)

[Hartmut]

Make it a travelling roadshow with POTUS as the new Charlemagne, residing in each state for a quarter of the year. Or better a month, so each state gets to have the feds in once every presidential cycle.

[Hartmut]

Some hope most voters of His Orangness simply do not know about his current serial violations of the laws and the constitution
Polls like this seem to imply instead that a majority of them actually approves of them as necessary.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/poll-majority-gop-voters-reject-checks-balances-give-trump-power-rcna192602

[wj]

the federal government should plan on relocating the seat of government when climate change renders the District of Columbia unusable. They could buy a hundred square miles in western Kansas or Nebraska for relatively little now, build an airport with real approaches, new Capitol, new White House, all for relatively little money.

If you want this to happen, suggest that the new capital, instead of being named after George Washington, be named after Trump. Appropriate legislation would be filed before sunset. Only issue would be prairie states fighting over which one gets to bankrupt itself by hosting the new capital.

[Hartmut]

Well, one could put it at the point where four of them meet, so they could share. It's all about shareholder value, isn't it?

Built a large wall around it but do not tell them that it will be facing inward.
Don't worry, I grew up in such a city and know what I am talking about.

[Donald]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pays-mean-40-behavioral-study-121135527.html

Bullies make more money. I didn’t like how some in the article seem to think this means bullying is good. Adaptive, maybe, but not good,

[hairshirthedonist]

I'd rather make less money.

[GftNC]

Meanwhile, Alex Massie in a post with several good points about recent developments, vents some excellent and appropriate contempt for BoJo, excerpted below:

Last summer Boris Johnson was very clear. Donald Trump and his “indomitable spirit” was just what “the world needs right now”. Not only that but Johnson was “more convinced than ever that [Trump] has the strength and bravery” needed to “save Ukraine” and “bring peace” to Europe. Johnson had many reasons for supporting Trump’s bid to return to the White House but none were so preposterous, or so shameful, as his pretence Trump’s second act would somehow be good for Ukraine.

Of course Johnson was not alone. Liz Truss has also repeatedly said that Trump’s victory was an essential precursor to “saving” western civilisation. Robert Jenrick, whom 43 percent of Tory party members chose to be their new leader, also made it clear he was hoping for a Trump restoration.

Johnson and Truss at least had the grubby excuse that sucking up to MAGA Americans might be in their own financial interest - for the US market for disgraced former British PMs can be a lucrative one, there being no shortage of wealthy fools there happy to be taken for a ride. Jenrick did not even have that excuse. Nor, of course, does Kemi Badenoch, the party’s actual current leader.

Yet in a ridiculous speech this week Badenoch insisted that Trump 2.0 was an example of learning from past mistakes and returning to office older, wiser, and better placed to achieve your objectives. In an interview with Bari Weiss’s Free Press, she then intimated that the problem with Elon Musk’s DOGE nonsense was that, in a British context, it wouldn’t be “radical” enough.

So that’s the current leader of the Conservative party, the man she pipped to that increasingly bare and tawdry bauble, and two of the three most recent Conservative prime ministers. All in the Trump Tank to one degree or another; none capable of summoning the gumption, the decency, or the courage to note that what’s good for Donald J Trump might not be good for the world, for Britain, or even, heaven help us, for the Conservative and Unionist party. As exercises in moral hygiene go, this one stinks. (Tory exceptions to this baleful trend include Tom Tugendhat and Ben Wallace but they are not enough.)

Sir Keir Starmer and government ministers have the excuse they need to be cautious in their public pronouncements, no matter how much this may stick in ever craw. The Tories are unencumbered by the demands of office and have no such alibi. If they indulge Trump - and they increasingly and obviously do - it is because they choose to.

This goes beyond Ukraine but Ukraine is the plainest example of all that is rotten in this dire new world. According to Trump, President Zelensky is “a dictator” - he should hold elections, apparently, though it is not immediately obvious how those citizens in occupied Ukraine might exercise their franchise - and he “better move fast” because otherwise “he is not going to have a country left”.

So, look, can we drop the pretence Trump is not functionally and, indeed, enthusiastically on the Russian’s side? Ukraine, he erroneously suggests, started the war.

And how does Boris Johnson, once the champion of the maidan, respond to this? By saying that “Trump’s statements are not intended to be historically accurate but to shock Europeans into action”. Badenoch for her part gently noted that Zelensky is not a dictator but avoided mentioning Trump by name and then, in her statement, moved on to the more urgent business of attacking Starmer.

Even by Johnson’s standards, though, this was a new low. The words of a moral pygmy lacking the courage to acknowledge his own - admittedly obvious and serious - errors of judgement. I will say this for him, though: he surprised me, for I did not think he could sink lower in my estimations.

https://open.substack.com/pub/alexmassie/p/the-rotting-of-the-conservative-mind?r=w2vx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

[GftNC]

And Bernie Sanders in today's Grauniad on how Trumpism can and must be defeated:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/19/trumpism-bernie-sanders

[Michael Cain]

I notice Bernie wrote about purely domestic issues.

Given the scale of the Defense cuts Hegseth is talking about, and assorted other statements, it looks like Trump is going to revive some version of the Monroe Doctrine. So far he's just talked about taking Greenland from Denmark; I wonder when he'll notice French Guiana?

[GftNC]

I notice Bernie wrote about purely domestic issues.

Further to which, I see from Josh Marshall that

WIRED is now reporting that two DOGE operatives, including the 19-year-old Edward Coristine (aka “Big Balls”), have gained access to the computer systems of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the agency charged with the defense of the federal government’s civilian computer networks as well as helping to organize the defense of the country’s critical infrastructure.

Whew, it's lucky that Russia Russia Russia was just a hoax and a witch hunt isn't it?

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/doge-dives-into-core-national-defense-and-data-systems-across-government/sharetoken/2bfab8e4-f6b5-424a-8f54-a24c09edf17f

[GftNC]

Another good piece by Carol Cadwalladr, headlined Here's What's Not on the Front Page of the New York Times Right Now

https://open.substack.com/pub/broligarchy/p/us-coup-gains-speed?r=w2vx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

[wj]

From Cadwalladr's article: "what’s cracked is the democracy of the world’s leading superpower."

Not to worry. On current trends we'll be reduced to being a third rate banana republic soon enough.

[Hartmut]

The second "Upper Volta with nukes".
Btw, the aging stocks are of dubious reliability to begin with*, and now His Orangeness' puppeteer has fired the guys who should take care of that and can't get them back because their contact information got deleted too.

*Under Bush the Lesser there were estimates that about a third would probably not go off due to material deterioration.

[Donald]

Russiagate was stupid. Trump’s first administration was full of neocons and anti Russia hawks like Bolton and Pompeo, who he now hates. Trump’s own ideology, as virtually everyone knows, is that being a bully is good. He picks on the weak or those he perceives as weak ( including former friends) and generally tiptoes around people who can fight back. He may bluster at them but then retreats and sometimes ends up liking them.He admires people who are successful bullies and wants the world to be run by himself and a few likeminded people. But he doesn’t want to get into a war where the other side can fight back, though with his bluster he has come close.

Iran in his first term is an example. Some Trump supporters really are antiwar in their fashion and I used to read them at American Conservative. ( No, not Larison. Larison started out in his younger days in that crowd but his views on most issues are probably close to,say, Pope Francis.) But others are militarists and in his first term he had the traditional bloodthirsty hawks that we are supposed to like because they now hate Trump. But they wanted a war with Iran and Trump nearly gave it to them before pulling back.

Now it might happen again, but this time, right or wrong, many people think Iran is a paper tiger and the Hezbollah threat to Israel is lessened, so whether Trump goes along with a war there depends on whether he thinks it might go badly for him. He might prefer to pick on our former friends.

But I think the Democratic obsession with Trump as Putin’s puppet in the first term had no relationship to anything that was happening in his actual policies. Now you have the conservatives in power who actually admire Putin, so it is different. The lefties I read think their plan is to separate Putin from China, but they don’t think Putin will do that.

[Donald]

There is also talk of a deal with Iran. I just read that recently and haven’t looked into it. But if so, Trump will have two competing factions trying to pull him one way or the other. His never Trump critics on the far right will love it if he supports an Israeli attack on Iran.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Iran seems to be buddy-buddy with Putin, so *of course* Trump is re-evaluating whether Iran is really an enemy, or is instead a "new real-estate deal opportunity".

[wj]

fired the guys who should take care of that and can't get them back because their contact information got deleted too.

I had missed the detail about deleting their contact information. Wonder if this was just yet another demonstration of massive incompetence. Or if they are doing this with all the firin6, in order to (try to) make it hard to reverse the firings.

There is, of course, the detail that you have to have contact information in order to send out W-2s at the end of the year. And, since the ex-employees aren't billionaires, definitely want to tax that income.

[wj]

Iran seems to be buddy-buddy with Putin, so *of course* Trump is re-evaluating whether Iran is really an enemy, or is instead a "new real-estate deal opportunity"

Might as well get the entire coast of the Caspian Sea Sea of Trump for luxury resort hotels.

[Michael Cain]

Btw, the aging stocks are of dubious reliability to begin with...

That's why they've started spending what will be something over a trillion dollars over the next 30 years to upgrade/replace the warheads, missiles, submarines, and bombers.

New warheads are supposed to start being assembled in 2027. IIRC warhead assembly will be done in Kansas City. Plutonium pits are going to be fabricated at Savannah River, SC and Los Alamos, NM. Assuming lots of things, starting with finding the people Elon's kiddies fired :^)

[wj]

the aging stocks are of dubious reliability to begin with...

One might reasonably suspect that Russia's are in substantially worse shape. Not something to count on, of course, since even one actually working would be terrible. But still, something to consider next time Putin starts threatening bluffing. Not that he needs to with Trump.

[russell]

Wonder if this was just yet another demonstration of massive incompetence.

Apparently the guy that did the nuclear expert firing was Farritor, the kid who deciphered the ancient scroll. He also did an internship at SpaceX.

Clearly a clever young guy, that's a great resume for a 23 year old. And clearly has no idea in hell what he's doing when it comes to effective management of a government agency.

And how would he?

We have the term "Dunning-Kruger effect" to describe the phenomenon of someone being so stupid they don't know how stupid they are.

We need something similar for the phenomenon of people who assume that, because they are really good at one thing, they will therefore be good at anything else.

Maybe the "Musk-DOGE effect".

It really is painfully hard to get your head around all of this. The damage that is being done is gonna take years and years to turn around.

[nous]

For Elon, and his chainsaw:

‘Out, Out—’

By Robert Frost
The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them ‘Supper.’ At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart—
He saw all spoiled. ‘Don’t let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!’
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

[GftNC]

nous: the very feeling.

Josh Marshall today, reading (he hopes) a few signs in the wind:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/inflection-the-backlash-begins-as-elon-goes-wild/sharetoken/16bd87b8-d1f9-40f7-b9aa-6c9252fed5bd

[wj]

I'm also starting to see stories about farmers who had contracts of various kinds with the Federal government. On which they were counting for little details like mortgage payments. Except that they are finding that those payments aren't being made as part of Musk's spending freeze.

Adding to their unhappiness fury is that their calls and emails to their (Republican) Congressmen either get waved off or ignored altogether. Man, those leopards are eating well this week!

[nous]

Here's one such story about farmers in need and Republicans ghosting them:

https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2025/02/21/republican-lawmakers-no-show-as-western-wisconsin-farmers-complain-of-trump-chaos-disruption/

It's crap like this that swept FDR into power after Humphrey's inaction. I expect the anger to be more swift and more decisive in this case as this is not a case of inaction, but rather sabotage.

[Michael Cain]

Tomorrow I will pick up granddaughters #1 and #2. My daughter has agreed to divert granddaughter #3, the Tiny Terrorist, so that we can escape. We will take more stuff to Goodwill, enjoy fast food at granddaughter #1's new favorite place, do silly outdoor grandpa/granddaughter things because the temperature is supposed to reach the low 50s F, then put a movie on the TV. We will pretend to watch while they play on the iPads and I work on the next drawing for our fairy tale. Then off to supper at their house.

On Sunday I will be ready to look at the news and despair.

A quote from yesterday's Denver Post that reminded me there are people doing the right thing despite the risks:

Denver Health and Children’s Hospital Colorado will resume gender-affirming treatments for transgender youth, which they had paused following President Donald Trump’s executive order threatening to withhold federal funding for institutions that provide such health care.

[wj]

Perhaps the most irritating seems to be when the Republican Congressmen (or Senators) do respond. But say that payments to farmers are exempt from the freeze (so, no problem exists). Yet the payments keep not showing up.

[JanieM]

Michael -- I love your stories about your granddaughters. I have a Tiny Terrorist (granddaughter #2 for me) in my own life ... vastly entertaining, all the more when I don't have direct responsibility for containing her.

[russell]

I love your stories about your granddaughters

likewise!

There's a lot of crap going on right now and it will probably keep going on for some time.

Don't let it steal your joy. Embrace the things that bring light into your life.

It helps make the rest of it bearable.

[Michael Cain]

The terrorist turned three this month. I don't know if I've linked to it before, but here's the drawing I did for that event.

https://mcain6925.com/obsidian/terrorist-birthday-card.pdf

[Hartmut]

Clicking on the link unfortunately yields a safety warning from the browser (not antivirus software) strictly recommending not to go there because there was a danger of spyware etc.

[CharlesWT]

The link works if you delete the "s" from "https".

[GftNC]

Thanks, Charles.

I love that card! And am enchanted by the idea of Tiny Terrorists, probably because I never had any of my own and could just kiss them goodbye and be out the door...I was, however, very involved with twin goddaughters, whose single mother was a very close friend of mine. They are almost 26 now, and we can still keep them laughing when we recount some of the stuff they did, and mad things they said. And actually, now I come to think of it, one was indeed a Tiny Terrorist (still only 5 foot tall, but no longer frightening), and once when about 3 threw such a tantrum in the Guggenheim in New York that her mother and I (having already paid the admission) took an ankle each and dragged her up the winding walkway on her back, shouting all the way. I think all the New Yorkers thought we were monsters. I adore her and her sister past all reason, and I'm happy to say the feeling appears to be mutual. Phew.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Many might appreciate this t-shirt (also on the Bezos site)

https://www.teachersgram.com/products/shakespeare-and-though-she-be-but-little-she-is-fierce-teacher-t-shirt

[Michael Cain]

The link works if you delete the "s" from "https".

Don't know how I missed that. My service provider wants more for a security certificate than I pay for a domain name and virtual server combined, so I'm still an unencrypted dude. Some days I long for the times when the internet was a village with just universities and corporate research labs attached, and you could leave your door unlocked.

[GftNC]

Snarki: perfect!

[novakant]

Since this is an open thread: the newest chapter in the largely irrelevant but symptomatic UK culture wars, subsection IP conflict:

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/british-jews-rally-in-defence-of-bbc-gaza-documentary/

I actually wanted to watch this documentary as one of the few Palestinian testimonies coming out of Gaza and also because the production company made the excellent Ukraine: Enemy In The Woods but I can't:

Gaza: How to survive a warzone

The main argument seems to be that the 13 year old protagonist is the son of the deputy minister for agriculture, a department of course run by Hamas like most other things in Gaza. To give you a taste of where the complainants stand ideologically, here's a list of Danny Cohen's Telegraph columns:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/d/da-de/danny-cohen/

I find this very concerning from a free speech point of view. Of course Labour is running scared trying to avoid another antisemitism charge as under Corbyn and the Tories are just waiting to captilize on this.

Combined with the fact that the AfD is likely going to win one fifth of the vote in Germany today, never mind Trump, I feel a bit pessimistic this morning...

[novakant]

By the way, Twitter/X owner Musk is at it again:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/02/22/elon-musk-boosts-germanys-far-right-afd-party-again-ahead-of-sundays-election/

[Hartmut]

A black (not to say brown) day for Germany. First projections indeed give abozt 20% for the AfD, about twice of the result they had last time. They are going to be the second largest party in the Bundestag, surpassing the Social Democrats. The CDU (usually moderate conservatives) have gained a bit, The liberal/libertarian FDP is out (< 5%), the Green Party lost a bit (not catastrophic though) and the new leftist BSW is at 5%, so it cannot be said yet, whether they will be in or out. For practical reasons it would be best, if they narrowly failed because otherwise a realistic coalition of the non-AfD parties would become even more difficult.
I personally dislike the probable next chancellor Merz, although he is capable enough and clearly pro-EU with no sympathies for Putin.
Well (or not), Germany managed nearly 80 years without a strong far Right, while most or all other European states retained or developed one long ago. Now we become 'normal' again.
Whistling past the graveyard (where the foreign necromancers are hard at work reviving the ghouls* of the past).

*not the Lovecraftian ones who are - apart from their eating habits - actually a quite likable bunch (cf. Dream Quest for Unknown Kadath)

[novakant]

Are they out for sure? It's a bit early, no?

If so, serves them right.

[novakant]

PS I used to love Lovecraft as a teenager, though I knew Poe was the better writer. Later found out his politics were a bit questionable, to put it mildly, but hey ho.

[Hartmut]

Lovecraft was a walking contradiction. Someone who approved of Mein Kampf (which he actually read) but was married to a Jewish woman (of Russian descent with him being a rabid slavophobe) who later wrote that she had to remind him of that only once (and who separated for completely unrelated reasons* and had to invent reasons to get a legal divorce). An ultra-paleoconservative who voted for FDR and the New Deal.
One has to be aware of his unsavory views (OK, they are difficult to miss) but one can still enjoy the stories.

Btw, he was in full agreement that Poe's works were far superior to his own writings (of which he had a rather low opinion).

Second btw: There is now a Dr.Seuss style version of Call of Cthulhu (verse and illustrations).
Here is AronRa reading it to a granddaughter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ascF3B3u9-k

*she was a big city girl while he found life in one intolerable.

[GftNC]

OK, this guy at least seems to be doing a good job meeting the moment:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/us/politics/chris-murphy-democrats-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zE4.YZbM.QQxEhGJwHmPS&smid=url-share

[Michael Cain]

Another in the "some reasonable things are still happening" category...

I did spend time last week nagging the person I know at my local power authority. The substation for the new 150MW solar farm goes live next month, and the farm itself will be delivering power in May. The decision to retire the coal burner from which we currently get up to 150MW -- timing not always at our discretion -- later this year appears to be irreversible.

ERCOT in Texas is turning up very large amounts of additional battery storage, and approving large new amounts, despite the efforts of the state legislature.

[nous]

Thought I'd share my reading for tomorrow's class with everyone here. It's a short piece that Hanif Abdurraqib wrote for MTV right after the Pulse Nightclub shooting called "Surviving on Small Joys." Abdurraqib is a treasure and always hits with my students. Their annotations and responses to his pieces are full of discovery and admiration.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170214203746/http://www.mtv.com/news/2891955/after-orlando-surviving-on-small-joys/">http://www.mtv.com/news/2891955/after-orlando-surviving-on-small-joys/">https://web.archive.org/web/20170214203746/http://www.mtv.com/news/2891955/after-orlando-surviving-on-small-joys/

I think he's rubbed off on my teaching a lot since I discovered him several years back.

[CharlesWT]

Thought I'd share my reading for tomorrow's class with everyone here.

Link.

Surviving On Small Joys: In a world of never-ending violence against the marginalized, how can we keep going?

[russell]

A question for Hartmut (or anyone, really) - what is up with the strong support for the AfD in the former East Germany? They appear to have swept the east, and I'm unclear on what the connection is.

[novakant]

I am sure Hartmut will provide a much more detailed answer, but my short answer to an American would be: East Germany is a bit like the South in the US - underdevelopment, long-standing grudges and a lack faith and trust in democratic institutions.

[nous]

Also, anti-fascism in East Germany was wrapped up in pro-Soviet ideology during the Cold War, so there were a lot of youth resistance groups that snuggled up to fascism as a punkish rejection of the establishment. It's a lot like the WP skinheads in the US. There's an existing network there that can be used for recruiting and organizing, and it has that Fight Club cachet.

[Hartmut]

Nous is correct. Those were and are important factors. Also the GDR regime was - while paying lip service to anticolonialism and international solidarity - quite racist in practice. There were for example lots of guest workers from Far Eastern socialist countries that were used in propaganda but any personal contact between the East German population with those 'worker friends' was highly 'discouraged' and could lead to repercussions. Instead subliminal contempt against them was spread by the state. It was a meme that the secret police had its special department for producing and propagating racist jokes (also against Poles btw). So, xenophobia in combination with denial of it became a dominant mindset. After the end of the GDR the East Germans encountered the same mindset in conservatve politicians of West Germany, so they were seen as just more 'establishment hypocrites'. Openly xenophobic parties saw this as an opportunity to sell themselves as the honest guys that had no need to hide their xenophobia. The old RW extremist parties of the West still had problems to get a permanent foothold since they were also seen as invaders. It took time to homegrow such a party. The AfD has made it part of their shtick to wink wink nudge nudge, signaling their xenophobia to their base while fake pretending to lack it, thus again signaling to their base that their honest opinions get suppressed. I would call that an appeal of 'Give us the power to be able to finally speak our and your mind in public! Free us and thus yourself from the enforced hypocrisy!'.
German reunification was botched in many aspects. Kohl promised 'flowering landscapes' but the Eastern German means of production got systematically demolished, starting with those parts that posed an actual threat to West German companies. The general impression was given that anything Eastern was by that origin alone inferior rubbish. That bred extra resentment.
In the long run that was a recipe for a homegrown strong far right party, it just needed the right guys to lead and unify it.
Still I believe it could have stayed managable and would have fallen apart into rivaling factions (as their West German counterparts) were it not for outside support. US Nazis had always lend support to their West German brethren but that did not carry that much weight (except as a safe haven for fugitive neo nazi criminals and as a provider of propaganda platforms outside the reach of German authorities). I think the turning point came when Putin realized that supporting the East German far right (and parts of the far left) would give him a powerful wedge. Musk&Accomplices are late-comers to that game and my personal impression is that they had not that much of a net effect (this time). He and Vance probably made as many voters question their own support of AfD as they drove extra voters towards the party.
What really worries me is that the AfD got that high a percentage of the vote despite a huge turnout (the highest in almost 30 years). Usually a high turnout marginalizes the fringe. That this was not the case this time tells me that it was not just protest voters and 'eternal yesterdayers'. I fear this time we got a critical mass and the party/movement is here to stay.
All or almost all other European states got to that stage decades ago and it is a small miracle that Germany withstood the trend as long as it did.
The traditional expectation was that a strong neo-Right would arise from the old swamp (Middle Franconia, the brown heart of Germany) not from the East. Maybe that's the same error as the pre-WW1 assumption that Russia was too backward to get communist.

[novakant]

Yes nous, and the West German far-right, which was almost extinct, capitalized on that potential right after the wall came down, by setting up structures in the East. Less than a year after reunification, you had Hoyerswerda.

Another problem was that the GDR regime systematically excluded foreigners from society - while of course upholding a socialist fiction of international solidarity. East Germans simply weren't exposed to many foreigners in day to day life and for all the talk about immigration, they still have much less interaction with them than people elsewhere.

This is not to diss East Germans. There are many, many examples of a working civil society and international cooperation like Frankfurt/Oder & Slubice. However, these good people are often drowned out by the orcs.

[russell]

Thanks for the insights into the whole AfD / East Germany thing, everyone. It was startling (to me) how geographically specific the support for the AfD was.

Good luck over there.

[GftNC]

The rise of the far right in Europe (I include the UK) has been really upsetting and depressing. It is, as someone (Hartmut?) said, amazing Germany avoided it so long. Maybe as a result of inoculation. But it looks as if that's expired now.

It really does seem as if large-scale immigration is something that most societies now just cannot tolerate for long. Too bad that the sorts of political parties who make it (objection to immigration) a main plank of their offering are the very same ones who most loudly object to net zero policies, when anthropogenic climate change is clearly going to exacerbate mass immigration vastly more than anything we have seen so far.

[liberal japonicus]

When reunification took place, South Korea was observing very closely, and, according to a lot of observers, decided that drawbacks of reunifying the country were too great and while the rhetoric holds this up as a goal, actual practices and policies don't consider this as something to work towards. I can imagine that these developments really underline this choice.

https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/09/will-south-koreas-new-unification-doctrine-succeed-where-past-polices-have

https://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/the_economic__costs_of_korean_reunification

[GftNC]

lj, that's very interesting, and now you mention it, it makes total sense.

[wj]

Today at the UN: the US votes with Russia, North Korea, and such, and against democracies across the globe, on a resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Words fail me.

[Hartmut]

Those regions where the AfD is strongest are actually those least affected by immigration/refugees. It's similar to the known effect that antisemitism is strongest where there are no actual Jews to be found. It's something already known as a 'problem' to the Nazis: People are easy to manipulate to hate groups they have no personal experience with but it's difficult to get them to hate their neighbours that somehow do not fit the vile caricature of the propaganda.
Even most neonazis buy at their local Turkish greengrocer and want to exclude them from discrimination (while in the abstract they want to kick all Turks out of the country).

[Hartmut]

An example I have brought up here in the past already: East German kids below primary school age already know that to call someone a Jew is among the worst possible insults but have no idea what a Jew actually is. That's what propagandists get wet dreams about.

[Michael Cain]

I would be fascinated to hear what people think about Europe taking steps to organize military defense without the US. Also which side Canada might choose. And whether Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan might be having their own second thoughts.

Since this is the open thread, I'll say here that my comments are likely to be erratic for a while. My wife, in memory care, has become much less responsive to things around her in the last 3-4 weeks. The docs agree that she's into the last weeks/months stage before her brain fails to the point she dies.

[GftNC]

Speaking personally, I think the European (and for "European" I include us, unless otherwise specified) response is the only sane one under the circumstances. It is going to be really tough, since (apart from Spain) I believe most European countries' economies are in poor shape, but I think there's no sensible alternative. I confess that I felt very sad when I read in the Times this, from a Reagan speech to Normandy veterans (and please believe me, I was no fan of Reagan):

The strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny. Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for.

Of course it's also true that, as Palmerston said, countries have no permanent friends, only permanent interests. And yet, and yet. It seems clear to me that the defence of Ukraine, and of Poland and the Baltic States, from Putin's gangster regime, would in a sane world constitute a common interest between the US and Europe. As for Canada and the Asian countries, their choice is less sharp and immediate. But it's clear that to put any faith whatsoever in Trump and Trumpistan would be a fool's move, even for Taiwan. I cannot begin to imagine what the re-ordering in the rest of the world is likely to be.

Michael, strength to you in tough and trying times.

[JanieM]

Michael -- Check in when you can and let us know how you're doing. Will be thinking of you.

*****

On the other topic, I don't have any knowledge to share, except that anecdotally it sounds like Canada has had it with our untrustworthy, lunatic nation. I don't blame them.

[wj]

Of course it's also true that, as Palmerston said, countries have no permanent friends, only permanent interests. And yet, and yet. It seems clear to me that the defence of Ukraine, and of Poland and the Baltic States, from Putin's gangster regime, would in a sane world constitute a common interest between the US and Europe.

Supporting Ukraine, and defeating Putin's kleptocratic would-be empire, is definitely in America's interest. It's just not, apparently, something Trump is interested in.

Whether because he lusts after something like the Russian kleptocracy, or because Putin has played him effectively, doesn't really matter at rhe moment. Unless Ukraine's supporters in the US Congress, specifically the Republican members, suddenly discover their spines, Europe will get to demonstrate just how little they actually need us.

My guess is that they'll pull it off. It will be painful, of course. But good for their self-esteem. Here's hoping.

[russell]

Michael, that is very sad news, and I hate to hear it. I can't think of anything worse than seeing the ones we love decline.

We'll all be thinking of you. Please do check in when you can.

I can't think of anything useful to say about the state of this nation at this point. We have, as a nation, made a very foolish choice, and now we're going to pay, and we're going to make the rest of the world pay as well.

Europe should assume that we are not going to do one damned thing to honor our decades-long commitment to their security. Certainly not without some kind of exorbitant quid pro quo, preferably one that flatters the current president in the most obsequious manner possible. Canada and our Asian partners, likewise.

Our president has some kind of, I don't know what - fanboi crush? - on Vladimir Putin, and appears to be determined to give him whatever he wants.

Sheinbaum appears to have taken an accurate measure of the man. She is probably the best model I can think of at the moment for how to deal with the US, now and probably going forward for at least the next few years.

I have no idea what things are going to look like after that.

[liberal japonicus]

It was difficult with my father's decline, my brother was living next door and doing the heavy lifting, but having it happen to a parent seems easier to accept/deal with than a spouse, so I'm thinking of you Michael.

As far as countries in Asia rethinking their stance, certainly South Korea and Japan governments (I don't believe that this is a popular position, but it is hard to say) are rethinking their commitment to nuclear bans. Some links

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/3790/

https://asiatimes.com/2025/02/s-koreas-new-missile-both-bunker-buster-and-nuclear-hedge/

https://www.frstrategie.org/en/events/2024-12-03-going-nuclear-strategic-and-domestic-considerations-south-korea

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/why-south-korea-might-go-nuclear-trump-s-term

[nous]

Oh lord, Michael, that's hard.

[Donald]

It is possible that Trump’s main interest in Ukraine is extortion. Being pals with Putin is a way of applying pressure, but if Ukraine agreees, as it appears they have according to this story, the war goes on.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20le8jn282o

I have been reading people confused by Trump’s contradictory policy in Ukraine and it is possible he is just a demented idiot with no overall plan, but it is also possible this is just Trump’s tendency to bully people in weak positions ( as he perceives it) in an attempt to extort whatever wealth they have. Beachfront property in Gaza, mineral wealth in Greenland and Ukraine. Presumably the same in Canada.

[novakant]

I'm very sorry, Michael. All the best.

[CaseyL]

Oh gods, Michael. May you find the strength and grace to endure. I am so sorry.

[GftNC]

Further to Trump/Putin/Ukraine, this today from Tortoise Media (I don't know why I get this, I never signed up for it) seems fairly comprehensive:

Keir Starmer flies to Washington today to disagree as diplomatically as he can with an American president who has sided with a murderous warmonger against democratic Europe.

So what? The clichés are broadly accurate. Trump’s lies and betrayals of the past ten days are a geopolitical earthquake. The post-war order is being torn up. The Atlantic alliance is hanging by a thread. A president who gives every sign of having been captured by Russian propaganda seems determined to end Russia’s war on Russia’s terms.

Through his defence secretary he has ruled out letting Ukraine into Nato and called a return to Ukraine’s 2014 borders unrealistic.
At the UN he has refused to let the US condemn an unprovoked invasion as an act of aggression.
In person he has called Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator and blamed him for the war; a complete inversion of the truth.

The question is: why? As Starmer tries to make sense of this he could group his answers under four headings:

Power. Trump admires it, enjoys it and defers to it. He has condoned rather than condemned Putin’s use of naked military force ever since 2014.

In April that year, a month after the annexation of Crimea, he said Putin had “done an amazing job” and parroted a Kremlin line that crowds in the peninsula were “marching in favour of joining Russia”.
In 2015, as a presidential contender, he gave Putin an ‘A’ for leadership.
In 2018, at a meeting with Putin in Helsinki as president, he accepted Putin’s claim not to have meddled in the 2016 election over the verdict of the FBI. Senator John McCain said no president had ever “abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant”.

This month, having conceded Putin’s key war aims for nothing in return, he told journalists on Air Force One the Russians “have the cards”.

Money. Trump has used Russia as a source of finance in the past and he is being invited to do so again.

In the early 2000s Trump “could not get anybody in the United States to lend him anything,” an architect who worked for Trump for many years told Foreign Policy. “It was all coming out of Russia.”
In 2008, the year Putin invaded Georgia, his son Donald Trump Jr said Russian funds “make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of our assets”.

In 2016 Trump Sr admitted flipping a Florida mansion bought for $40 million to a sanctioned Russian oligarch for $100 million.
In 2017 Reuters calculated that Russians had bought property worth nearly $100 million in seven Trump apartment buildings in Florida.
This month the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund told Trump’s delegation to talks in Riyadh there were “joint wins” to be had as soon as sanctions were lifted in Russia, where he said US businesses had lost $324 billion since the start of the war.

Kompromat. Theories that Russia holds compromising material on Trump have not been proved. Neither have they gone away. A 35-page report compiled by the former MI6 officer Christopher Steele and handed to the FBI by McCain in 2017 claimed the FSB had sensitive personal and financial information about Trump, some gleaned from a 2013 trip to Moscow as owner of the Miss Universe contest. Trump dismissed the dossier as a “witch hunt” and Putin’s spokesman called it a fabrication. Steele stands by it.

Revenge. Trump has his own story involving Zelensky. Six years ago he phoned the Ukrainian president hoping to tarnish Joe Biden before the 2020 election by persuading Zelensky to open an investigation into Biden’s son’s business dealings in Ukraine. Instead the call led to Trump’s second impeachment.

What’s more… Trump’s new intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, has blamed Nato in part for the war and repeated Moscow’s bogus claim that Ukraine hosted US-funded bioweapons labs. She’s responsible, among other things, for Trump’s top secret presidential daily brief.

All four possibilities make plenty of sense, given what we know about Trump, but personally I think Kompromat is involved.

And, further to lj's point about various nations reconsidering their nuclear options, I have to admit (and I can't quite believe I'm saying this) that if I were Zelensky, and bearing in mind the assurances of security given to Ukraine by the US and others when it gave up its nuclear arsenal, I would be considering (would have been considering for a couple of years but hastened by Trump's re-election) developing a Ukrainian tactical nuke. Apparently they have what they need in materiel and knowhow to do just that. If you ask me what I would do with it, I have no real answer, but with everyone so sure Putin holds all the cards, it would at least be one card, albeit a terrible one.

[russell]

My old wild-ass guess is that Trump's weird relationship with Putin is less about kompromat and more about just seeing him as a model.

Putin figured out how to seize control of the resources of an entire nation and use them to make himself and a group of sycophants bizarrely wealthy. Plus, an army at his beck and call, and a cadre of people willing to throw other people out of an open window at his say-so.

Barking "you're fired!" an actor on a reality TV show pales in comparison.

[Hartmut]

Now they are reshaping the world. Or at least they have begun to sell globes that reflect their distorted views.
I won't give the link to the company, naturally, but here is the Colbert takedown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eygKnzg21Ew&t=470s

[CaseyL]

russell - I agree. Okham's Razor and all that: Trump like Putin because Putin is what he aspires to be. The same is true of the GOP generally, from Cabinet members to voters.

Thomas Perry is one of my favorite mystery writers: I'll read pretty much anything he publishes. Among his early Jane Whitefield books is "Dance for the Dead."

Its antagonist was someone that, at the time (1996) I had trouble with - not at the individual himself, whose motivations I could easily believe (basically, simply, wanting whatever he wanted any time he wanted it, and no one to say "No" to him).

No, to me the unbelievable thing was that he attracted so many willing accomplices and employees. Surely, I thought, there can't be *that* many pure sociopaths running loose. And even if there are, surely they can't work together - their innate parasitism and solipsism would surely drive them to kill one another off.

I don't know why I thought that, with so much of human history indicating that, yes, there really can be that many pure sociopaths running loose, willing to put their solipsistic selfishness aside long enough to loot the world together.

Seems to me that's what Trump & Co are, and they've convinced 76 million people they can be that, too. And those 76 million are eager to sign up.

[wj]

I've been giving some thought to Zelenskyy's situation. His best course might be to take a page from Trump's own playbook: Promise Trump 50% (or whatever he asks). Then note that much of that mineral wealth is in places currently being fought over. Carefully avoiding mentioning that a lot of it is currently under Russian control; stick with "being fought over.". Use that to get US support going forward.

Then, when the war is won, just stiff him. Decline to turn over the 50%. Tell Trump to pound sand. Just like Trump traditionally does with contractors foolish enough to do work for him.

[nous]

wj - since Umber Napoleon is acting like a mafioso, Zelensky could absolutely agree to a deal in order to get his aid. No one in the US can extract those resources while the war is ongoing.

If he wants to stiff Don Orangeleone afterwards, though, he needs to make sure that he has protection in place from the EU and UK to keep the extortion racket administration from arranging that something terrible happen to Zelensky's nice little country.

Gotta be able to bypass sanctions and keep things going with multilateral deals, then just freeze the US out.

[Hartmut]

Britain should remember that it took until 2006 before the country had paid back the US for the 'help'* in WW2 and that almost the complete pre-WW2 gold reserves of Britain are now in Fort Knox as a result.

Ironically, Germany had not to pay official reparations after the war (although the Soviets plundered East Germany. And Britain confiscated a lot of stuff the US delivered as part of the Marshal plan until the US put an end to it).
In theory Germany still had to pay WW1 reparations into the 1980ies but afaik this did not really happen.

*first 'cash and carry' then 'lend-lease' and of course 'destroyers for bases'.

[GftNC]

Britain should remember that it took until 2006 before the country had paid back the US for the 'help'* in WW2

I was thinking of just this a couple of days ago. But it did not have the same sense of extortion, and after a slow start the US was all in with the assistance, participation etc. And despite what Trump has been saying, a) the American financial contribution so far has been a bit less than Europe's (not three times as much!), and b) like that of Europe it consisted partly of loans in any case. Not a word that comes out of that man's revoltingly shaped mouth is to be believed.

[Donald]

I missed Michael's post. I wish you the best--my mom went through that with my dad.

[GftNC]

This article from the Times discusses much we have been talking about, from Europe rearming to nukes. I hope this is a guest link. If not, let me know and I will copy and paste:

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/a-nuclear-reckoning-is-price-of-this-peace-sjx83rw5p

[wj]

Europe rearming to nukes.

Haven't had time to try the Times article yet. But I can see a distinction between Europe (i.e. the EU) taking on the nukes that France** already has and going on from there. Vs. various other European countries building their own nuclear forces.

** Whether Britain rejoins enough to add their nukes to the pot is a separate, and doubtless fraught, issue.