Obsidian Wings

Hi-de-ho To war we're going go

by liberal japonicus

Seems appropriate

A poem

liberal japonicus
1914
by Wilfred Owen
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.

For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for a new Spring, and blood for seed.

And so....

Press conference in Minnesota.

No Kings demonstrations around the country and around the world today, counterpoint to North Korea lite in DC.

Open thread.

Another week spent trying to figure out what level of schadenfreude is appropriate

by liberal japonicus

This Graniaud piece caught my eye.

A group of men removed from the US to Djibouti, in east Africa, are stranded in a converted shipping container together with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers sent to supervise them after a deportation flight to South Sudan was stopped by an American court.

The eight deportees and 13 Ice staff have begun to “feel ill”, the US government said.

Eight men, from Latin America, Asia and South Sudan, and the Ice staff have been stuck at a US naval base since late May. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the Ice officers began to fall ill “within 72 hours of landing” in Djibouti, and continue to suffer from suspected bacterial upper respiratory infections.

[...]

Mellissa Harper, a top official at the DHS and Ice, said in a court declaration that the detainees are being held in a shipping container that was previously converted into a conference room. The Ice officers are “sharing very limited sleeping quarters”, Harper said, with only six beds between 13 people.

In the declaration, Harper said burn pits in Djibouti have led to Ice officials experiencing “throat irritation”. She said the outside temperature frequently exceeds 100F (38C) in the daytime, and said Ice officials were at risk of malaria because they did not take anti-malaria medication before arriving in Djibouti.

“Within 72 hours of landing in Djibouti, the officers and detainees began to feel ill,” Harper said, but they were unable to obtain proper testing for a diagnosis.

Harper added: “Upon arrival in Djibouti, officers were warned by US Department of Defense officials of imminent danger of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Yemen. The Ice officers lack body armor or other gear that would be appropriate in the case of an attack.”

I'd like to think that guys in ICE might rethink their career choices seeing how little thought goes into their safety. More importantly, why does the Guardian write it as Ice rather than ICE?

What Next?

There is a column over on Digby’s Hullabaloo this morning on Trump’s increasing dementia.  It will probably have to get a lot worse before the members of his Cabinet and Republicans in Congress will be willing to act to remove him.  But it is at least possible that they will do so before the end of his term. 

So, if that happens, what next?  What could we expect from a Vance administration?  Fewer abrupt reversals, perhaps.  Possibly some replacement for farcical appointees by people who are halfway competent. 

I think it might be good to give some serious thought to what we would be looking at, and to what we might need to do to oppose that.  Because I can see how it might be even worse for the country as a whole.  While requiring a different approach to opposition.

Open Thread

Rarely is the question asked: Is our reporters learning?

by liberal japonicus

A thread to discuss the topic du jour, Biden's cancer diagnosis. To plant my stake, this is Hillary's emails redux, reporters jumping up and down on a topic that they can put themselves at the center of, while the rest of the world burns. Have at it.

They are sending their best

by liberal japonicus

It's possible that this wouldn't piss me off at other times, but as Russell noted earlier, tis the season of rants. Still, seeing this interview with Cornelis Piet 'Pete' Hoekstra, the new US ambassador to Canada, makes me realize 1) how truly rotten this administration is and 2) how much this shit is baked into the system. Hoekstra was the ambassador to Holland in the first Trump administration, where he immediately stepped in it. (reported second hand is this now favorite question by a reporter of whether the ambassador could name a politician who had been set on fire in recent years) and this report gives some other details. Reading the interview, I got the impression of the blowhard in a restaurant that has you asking for the check and skipping your coffee and desert. And this loser is an immigrant. That he has been able to float in the right wing ecosystem makes one realize that the whole enterprise is a clogged toilet.

I have thoughts

by liberal japonicus

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

it's been a bit since there was a post and the most recent comments, centered around Starmer's volte-face about migrants, seems to suggest that would be a good topic.

As the Lazarus poem suggests, I'm pretty sympathetic to novakant's anger and disgust about the Starmer and what he has been saying. I'd also observe that this seems almost totally driven by gains made by Reform in local elections, and Starmer wants to co-opt. This can be seen as another knock on effect of Brexit and if Starmer really wanted to kneecap Reform, working on reversing Brexit might be a lot better. This isn't to claim that the EU is just letting migrants through to punish the UK for Brexit, if you step out of the room where stuff is being negotiated, don't be surprised if your interests aren't represented.

I also look at Australia and Canada, with both countries affirming an approach that celebrates more diversity and wonder why Starmer doesn't consider trying to act in a similar way. Is it because the Brexit debacle has made trade with the EU toxic, so they have to run to the embrace of the US?

And, while I definitely think that Starmer's turn is pretty horrible, I am left wondering if Japan, which has a fetish with maintaining homogeneity in the face of a lot of liberal criticism, wasn't on to something. For sure, there are a lot of very problematic things with Japan's regime, but the larger framework looks a lot better if it avoids the excesses of an ICE regime or the UK riots of 2024. Lots of stuff to parse here, so I'm hoping to work this out more in the comments.

Australia, Australia, Australia, Australia, we love you amen!

by liberal japonicus

(Title from here, which includes the incredibly racist bit at the end)

Well, Oz has spoken. I've enjoyed watching lots of reportage, here is a summary. I'll leave it to all of you for your thoughts, but some notes

• After the defeat of the Voice amendment, I wasn't super confident, so thank god.
• Ranked choice for the win!
• Damn, Aussie journalists really have sharp elbows
• Some things I learned: Negative gearing, teal
• Watching Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (who said she wanted to 'Make Australia Great Again') flail in interviews was gold
• Also fun to learn that a party called 'The Trumpet of Patriots', (wink wink, nudge nudge) which paid to make unsolicited text messages to phones, got blown away. Ha ha

Thoughts on where the anglosphere is headed.

Pardon?

by liberal japonicus

Just wondering what all those people who tsk-tsked about Biden's pre-emptive pardons have any thoughts. An open thread (if it wasn't obvious)