Expertise Costs Money

 

An interesting article from one of Tony Wikrent's Week-end Round-ups at Ian Welsh's blog:  "Monopoly Round-Up" by Matt Stoller ...

In 1995, the Republican Party took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Led by Newt Gingrich and a small group of right-wing politicians who called themselves “Jihadists,” these men sought to revamp a legislative chamber held by the Democrats since 1949.

Gingrich was an intellectual, as were some of his colleagues. When he first was elected in 1978 as part of what was known as the “New Right,” every young Republican candidate was obsessively reading Robert Bork’s The Antitrust Paradox. In 1995, his goal wasn’t just to pass legislation, but to fundamentally re-gear Congress so it could no longer serve as the brains for the Democratic Party, as it had for the last half century. That was an institutional task, and he set about restructuring the institutions.

First to go was the Office of Technology Assessment, a nonpartisan think tank that conducted long-term studies on important scientific and engineering topics, like how to decommission the Space Shuttle or early warnings on climate change. Gingrich also slashed Congressional staff by a third, eliminated dozens of subcommittees, and killed budgets for the legislative service organizations that helped specific groups of members, like the Black Caucus, the Caucus on Women’s Issues, the Environment and Energy Study Conference, and so forth. Most importantly, the Democratic Study Group, a network of staff and members who organized the rhythm of the House, disappeared.

...

The effect was revolutionary. From 1949 to 1995, there was immense institutional knowledge within Congress. There were staffers who know everything there was to know about the Mississippi River and could go toe-to-toe with the Army Corps of Engineers on reclamation projects. There were dozens of staff who understood the Post Office. The Antitrust Subcommittee had a swath of antitrust lawyers who could investigate industries and develop litigation. 

When I was in the archives, I found that members of Congress like Wright Patman worked insanely hard, and were rewarded for it. Patman started working early and ended his day very late, reading books, publishing reports, and sending queries to figure how the banks worked. His lead investigator had a stack of blank subpoenas and a travel budget, and could just go anywhere he wanted to track down evidence. His people were confident they could do as good a job as the bankers in running powerful institutions, and so they could negotiate effectively.

But you don’t have to go back to the 1930s, just watch a Congressional hearing on C-Span from the early 1990s. The level of substantive knowledge is at an entirely different level than it is today. In 1995, Gingrich struck the death blow to that culture, and the House was soon staffed by 25-year-olds.

  

I don't agree with everything in the article, from the tone to the analyses.  I also don't think that the victories of corporations against legislation is the result of the deliberate lobotomization of the USA's federal legislative branch.  Much of this is just brazen corruption, based on stupid, transparently selfish, corrupt arguments, being rubber-stamped by a totally bought-and-paid-for political class.

That having been said, 21st Century societies are complex and effective regulation requires knowledgeable legislators. 

That was one of my motivations for giving citizens paid positions on public-sector committees.  If I were the God-Emperor of Canada, all public institutions would be managed by committees with one-third of the membership representing the public, one-third representing the workers in that sector, and one-third representing the government of the day.

Anyone could put their name in.  There would be no actual campaigning.  The electorate will be expected to have looked at the list and done their own research.  Naive, I'm sure.  But an organized Left could effectively meet any corporatist usurpers. 

Racism Is Stupid

 

We are all human beings.  That's it.  There ain't no other way to say it.  We're equal.  We are the same.

Accidents of various sorts, random developments, ... such as European innovations in cannons and sailing ships in the 16th Century, ... made some groups of people capable of militarily defeating other people, ... which made the victorious people delude themselves into thinking that they were "SUPERIOR."

It's all crap.

 

Every human community on every single part of this planet Earth is statistically as capable of producing a genius as is any other human community.

Which is not to deny the set of circumstances that produced the European Scientific Revolution.  Or whatever else was lasting from "Western Civilization."  But that's a whole other kettle of fish.

EVERY racist society has its imbecilic justifications for its shit-headed racism.  But they are all garbage rationalizations.  Whether it's some Israeli zio-nazi putz or some empty-headed Canadian fulminating about the First Nations wanting clean water, or clearly stolen lands, or their Constitutional Rights, ... or whatever garbage racist you can think of. 

Pretty good summary of the entire Russia-Ukraine Conflict so far

 It's from SONAR21, "Why Can't the Russians Defeat Ukraine?"

 

Russia committed approximately 150,000–190,000 troops to the initial invasion on February 24, 2022, drawn from essentially its entire available pool of pre-war Battalion Tactical Groups — roughly 100 BTGs out of approximately 120 available.

The initial objective was to create enough military pressure on Ukraine to force it to the negotiating table… That goal was achieved. When Judge Napolitano, Mario Nawfal and I interviewed Foreign Minister Lavrov on March 13, 2024, Mr. Lavrov emphatically stated that the proposed Istanbul Communique was based on a document provided by Ukraine.

The delegations led by Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia and Russian diplomat Vladimir Medinsky met in Istanbul with President Erdogan serving as the mediator. A draft agreement (sometimes called the “Istanbul Communiqué” or draft peace deal) was discussed and the two sides reached a tentative agreement that included Ukrainian neutrality, limits on Ukraine’s military, security guarantees, and the status of Crimea and Donbas. Then the US and the UK intervened and compelled Ukraine to abandon the talks.

...

Russia’s 2025 strategy represented a deliberate evolution from its single-axis focus of 2023 and 2024 toward a multi-front simultaneous pressure approach designed to overwhelm Ukraine’s ability to reinforce any single threatened sector. The year is best understood through its declared objectives, its operational execution across multiple axes, and the structural shift in how Russia was choosing to fight. It is important to emphasize that Russia’s SMO strategy was still intact — i.e., Russia was not mobilizing the country for war, it was continuing to carryout limited operations with the goal of demilitarizing Ukrainian forces without putting the Russian nation on a war footing.

Entering 2026, according to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi, more than 700,000 Russian soldiers were engaged against Ukrainian forces — a figure Putin has cited similarly. Note the rare convergence there: both Kyiv and Moscow have put the Ukraine grouping at around 700,000, which makes it one of the more reliable numbers in this space. This represents almost a four-fold increase in the number of Russian soldiers committed to the Ukraine battlefront compared to 2022.

...

The total strength of the Russian army now stands at 1.5 million soldiers, which means less than half are committed to the fight in Ukraine. Here is the critical difference between Russia and Ukraine: Russia has ample reserves of men and ammunition while Ukraine has no strategic reserve of fresh, equipped formations that could exploit success or backstop a major breach. While the war grinds on at a slow pace in terms of Western assessments, the facts on the ground show that Ukraine has no viable means of stopping the Russian advances. Russia, it appears, is content to inflict massive casualties on Ukraine using its superiority in artillery, drones and FAB-glide bombs. Ukraine’s artillery and drone forces are dwarfed by Russia and Ukraine does not have FAB-glide bombs and the aircraft to deliver them if it did.

The defeat of Ukraine is inevitable. The real question is how much of Ukraine outside of the Donbas, Kherson and Zaporhyzhia will Russia capture?

 

 

Very concise and comprehensive. 

"Sure there are homeless camps all over the place, but the economy is doing fine really!"

 

Two articles from the "Week-end Wrap" at Ian Welsh's blog.

First: "Why are a record number of Americans living with their parents?" from Robert Bridge at Russia Today.

A record 25.2 million young American adults (about 33%) under 35 have returned to the family nest as the cost of living has become prohibitive.

There is a stereotype of Americans living at home with their parents as freeloaders, living in the basement and spending their ample free time playing video games. That is far from the reality. Around 70% of young adults (ages 25 to 34) living at home are actively employed and use their income to contribute to the household expenses, like groceries and utilities.

One of the main reasons for Americans opting to live with their parents is the high price of home ownership. The median sales price for a single-family home in the US is approximately $434,300. Compare that to 1975 when the average price was under $40,000. That demonstrates how much the dollar has shrunk in terms of purchasing power.

 

Second: "Voters were right about the economy. The data was wrong." from Eugene Ludwig at Politico.

Take, as a particularly egregious example, what is perhaps the most widely reported economic indicator: unemployment. Known to experts as the U-3, the number misleads in several ways. First, it counts as employed the millions of people who are unwillingly under-employed — that is, people who, for example, work only a few hours each week while searching for a full-time job. Second, it does not take into account many Americans who have been so discouraged that they are no longer trying to get a job. Finally, the prevailing statistic does not account for the meagerness of any individual’s income. Thus you could be homeless on the streets, making an intermittent income and functionally incapable of keeping your family fed, and the government would still count you as “employed.”

I don’t believe those who went into this past election taking pride in the unemployment numbers understood that the near-record low unemployment figures — the figure was a mere 4.2 percent in November — counted homeless people doing occasional work as “employed.” But the implications are powerful. If you filter the statistic to include as unemployed people who can’t find anything but part-time work or who make a poverty wage (roughly $25,000), the percentage is actually 23.7 percent. In other words, nearly one of every four workers is functionally unemployed in America today — hardly something to celebrate. 

"Anything that threatens my ability to do what I've always done is a hoax!!"

 

Some people REALLY don't like change.  It's unsettling.  Threatening.  Hence, they don't like immigrants.  They don't like people embracing non-traditional gender roles.  They hate challenges to their religion.  Basically, if they grew up with cars, air-conditioners, bbq's, television, etc., ... they imagine that it's always been this way and that there's no reason to change.  So Global Warming is a hoax.  COVID is a hoax.  And they need a Big Daddy leader to stand up against the sources of change and make everything all right. 

Foreign Minister Anita Anand Slinking Away

 

I've seen videos on Instagram and Facebook (but, evidently, they're hard to find on Facebook) of Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand being interrupted from her lunch at some patio in Toronto, having to face accusations about Canada's complicity in Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.

If you ever see those clips (they're usually only from 5 to 15 seconds long) notice how she just gets up and slinks away.

Which is a clear admission of guilt by the way.

I've seen videos of child molesters (that is; known, convicted, admitted child molesters) being confronted by angry people.  And they behave the exact same way as Anand does.  They don't protest.  How could they?  They don't argue back.  The issue is settled.  They are guilty as charged and they just want to get where they're going without getting their heads kicked in.

Which is not to say that the people confronting Anand want to kick her head in.  Just that Anand knows that she has no defence against these accusations.  She can't argue or try to justify her actions.  They're unjustifiable.  She's a war criminal, complicit in the deliberate torture and murder and genocide of innocent men, women and children.

There are other videos of political lapdogs of Israel, sometimes male politicians dealing with male or female accusers.  Sometimes a female politician dealing with male or female accusers.  With the female politicians it's almost always the same.  They look scared and they're trying to get away as fast as they're capable of walking.  They're upset and some of them look like they want to cry.

With the men, when facing a male accuser, they usually make some grim face and move steadily forward.  Some of them do try to talk tough to a male accuser, but it's generally some stupid shit about how the anti-genocide male trying to hold them to account for genocide are idiots wasting everybody's time.  With female accusers, male politicians are more likely to smirk and toss out stupid accusations of those women being dupes of Hamas or in the sway of some other foreign power.

The one constant is that they're all contemptible scum. 

Mark Carney Represents the Sickness, the Emptiness, of Canada

 

I never held out high hopes for Mark Carney.  He said one or two things in the past that caused me to think he'd be a much better prime minister than he's turned out to be.  But those were just idle musings.  The difference between thinking "He might" and "I wish."

But in practice, Carney has been a disaster.  A self-important, delusional, ruthless servant of oligopoly.  Even when he made his big speech at Davos, about "middle powers" aligning with other such nations to pursue their "values" I knew it was bullshit.  He was still supporting Israeli imperialism and genocide to the hilt.

Carney, the human being, is intelligent enough to have a tenuous grasp of what is right and what is wrong.  But in practice, in his day-to-day life, he obviously can't differentiate between ideology, dogmatism, delusion, corruption and evil.

Whether we like it or not, Canada is founded on theft and colonialism.  Canada was a settler colony of the British Empire and now we are an appendage of US imperialism.  We remain saturated with the barbarism and obscurantism of religion.  We are capitalist, at a time when capitalism has become a bloated, stinking, psychotic ideology.  We've long been one of the staunchest supporters of the fascist (which implies racist) Zionist movement.

This is a sick, ignorant, deluded, corrupt, inhuman culture with nothing worthwhile at its core, aside from the rudiments of failed attempts to implement the rule of law, representative government, democracy or human rights.  Those faint gleamings can barely be recognized under the pile of shit that explains why Mark Carney is behaving like stephen harper.