Politics

With disaffection of both political parties in the USA at an all time high, remedying the issues created by both political parties may require a constitutional amendment and a large cultural movement amongst voters to push this issue onto future candidates, explicitly mandating them with the dissolution and abolition of all multi-issue political parties in the United States. The right to assembly is retained through the retained ability of voters to form parties around single issues, so that parties can attempt to remain solution based while focused on a singular area of governance. So, with all that said, what would the pros and cons of such a system be? With or wi…

Did I seriously just watch Vance trying to make claims about being more diplomatic, to then watch a master class on how not to do diplomacy? I don't know exactly the process by which Trump and Vance receive their paycheck from Putin, but pretty sure Putin will feel like they earned it 100%. This was like watching a pair of mangy scrawny dogs trying to pick a fight with a wounded bear. I've honestly never felt such sympathy for a politician but Zelensky shows such self restraint here, I'd have smacked the eyeliner right off JDs face. "Propaganda tour" seriously? Those are real buildings destroyed by Russia, real dead bodies, real stories. Where is the propagand…

There is an interesting new article in The Atlantic (Feb 24 2025) by Jonathan Rauch entitled ‘One Word Describes Trump’. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/ The article cites a recent book called The Assault on the State: How the Attack on Modern Government Endangers our Future - by two professors - Stephen E. Hanson and Jeffrey S.Kopstein. This book in turn reaches back over a century to the work of a seminal German sociologist called Max Weber (1864-1920) who is probably best known for his book called The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) Max Weber was interested in how leade…

During the recent US elections, polls were conducted in different countries to find out whom did people support more among the American presidential candidates; while in Europe the majority was for Harris, in Russia there were 7 times more people who supported Trump than Harris. This is understandable in light of the fact that the Trumpism is ideologically closer to Putinism: for example, in Russia, homophobia is part of the state ideology, and Trump also does not like LGBT. I wonder if Russians can now begin to change their views regarding their attitude to democracy. On TV, Russians have always been told that the excesses associated with LGBT in Europe, such as tra…

He's kinda the antichrist of Capitalism, which disturbingly, for a MAGA, is kinda Marxist. Discuss. Bing Videos

In the early 1990s, an american political scientist called Joseph Paul Overton (1960-2003) popularised a concept that became widely known as ‘The Overton Window’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overton_Window Also known as the ‘window of discourse’, it represents the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at any given time. It is visualised as a vertical axis divided into what one political commentator Joshua Terviño called ‘the six degrees of acceptance’ : - unthinkable - acceptable - sensible - popular - policy The hypothesis is that politicians and lawmakers typically attempt to ac…

Andrew Coyne a columnist for leading Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail had this to say on the eve of Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration - (quoted in full because of a paywall): https://www.theglobeandmail.com/.../article-trumps.../

Some time ago I wrote here, that Trump and Biden are two sides of the same coin, that the middle class is disappearing in the Western society, and that the inflation is a hidden taxation (for the poor, but not for the wealthy). Do you still deny these statements?

In August 2025, the owner of Telegram Pavel Durov was arrested in France. The French policemen accused him that because of the lack of the moderation in Telegram, the Telegram had become a platform for criminals like drug dealers. I am not sure that this arrest of Durov was legal. If I am not mistaken, the constitutions of all Western countries declare the right of secrecy of correspondence. Possibly all they were derived from the Article 2 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789. Because people like drug dealers use messengers for communication, the policemen indeed need to read their correspondence; so it seems that Durov was arrested beca…

Russian economy is now totally dependent on China: if China stops buying Russian oil, Russia would experience economic collapse and famine. Xi does not want to go this way yet, since he as a dictator supports dictator Putin. But Xi is probably unsatisfied with Putin's nuclear threats. I have already said that the West should declare that, in case of a very massive nuclear strike from Russia, the United States should retaliate not only against Russia, but also against of China. At the same time, there is a possibility to interest Xi with the following proposal. China will firstly join the sanctions; then Russia will experience an economic collapse and Putin's rating will…

Premises: World wide energy consumption is rising rapidly and will continue to do so; Energy distribution infrastructure upgrades are not keeping pace with increasing demand; Imported fuels have net negative economic effects to the American economy; Energy has a strong impact upon American political policy Imported fuels make America vulnerable to unstable world politics Energy producers wield too much influence over government energy policy Given those premises being accepted, questions: If there were no government subsidies, which method of generating electricity on a wide scale would be most practical? By practical, I mean p…

Eskimo Pie is no longer. The Cleveland Indians are no longer. The Washington Redskins are no longer. The cook on the Cream of Wheat box is no longer. Aunt Jemima is no longer. ESKIMO is a fun word. INDIAN is a fun word. The COOK made Cream of Wheat fun to eat. Ford got rid of the MERCURY trademark because it is a Roman god which might offend folks of other faiths. PONTIAC was Native American so General Motors axed it. PLYMOUTH is gone from Chrysler Motors because the name sounds too Anglo-Saxon. The OLD in OLDSMOBILE might have offended the anti-ageism crowd. Who knows? I hate it when there are those woke-sters who make every effort to rid America of her unique heritag…

Trump has just started gutting military leadership, starting with the chief of joint staffs. The chief of joint staffs is supposed to be a termed position that crosses over administrations precisely so they can't be partisan hacks. I assume most of us here have heard the Padme Amidala quote from Starwars I'd argue that liberty in fact dies once the slavers are made generals and leaders. This is the part where I ask the Americans here; how do you expect to keep your democracy intact after this? We all know where this is going, increased defiance of courts and Congress, no more checks and balances, the goading of the American public to engage in protest…

President Trump outlined his vision of of the future of the Middle East yesterday after a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/05/middleeast/takeaways-trump-gaza-proposal-intl-hnk/index.html Leaving aside the little matter that this plan would amount to the wholly illegal ethnic cleansing of nearly 2 million Palestinians who would be forcibly evicted at gunpoint by US forces to Egypt and Jordan (once the US has finished occupying and subduing Panama, Greenland, Mexico and Canada) - you have to wonder what muslim voters in such places as Dearborn Michigan USA will make of it all ? https…

... would it be a red state or a blue state? I've also heard Trump say that Mexico should become a US state. Maybe Claudia Sheinbaum should take him up on that offer. Then Trump would have to open the border with Mexico and allow Mexicans free reign of the US. Wouldn't THAT piss off his MAGA supporters?

The most common criticisms of centrally planned economy is that it stiffs innovation and that (due to lack of price signals) it cannot detect and respond to shortages or overproduction as fast as market economy. Are these valid criticisms? Does planned economy by necessity need to be less efficient?

Within the first week of this administration, they are starting a muzzling program, where federal researchers are not allowed in engage in "external communication". These would include the CDC and NIH (avian influenza, anyone?). This would also pause systems that are needed to evaluate research grants. But good news, a pause has also been ordered on all federal grants and loans. So there wouldn't be any grants to disburse, anyway. This applies to many other federal programs, including food programs and housing. But for the context in research, some see it is a strong indication that the administration seeks to control narratives by crippling critical resarch. ht…

When a reporter asked Trump if Musk and his Muskrats, really NEEDED that access to Americans' sensitive data? Trump replied, "Well, it doesn't, but they get it [DATA?] easily. I mean, we don't have very good security in this country, and they get it very easily." 'Disgrace': Critics outraged by apparent confession at Trump's latest press conference WHAT doesn't?! WTF "IT DOESN'T"?!! And WHO is "they" that gets "IT" easily? YES, "we don't have very good security in this country, so I will exploit that weakness. I will hollow out security services, FBI, CIA, Inspectors General everywhere, and anyone who can oppose me" (which will please Putin and Xi.) "THEY …

A 25 y/o member of Elon Musk’s DOGE team who had been given access to highly classified U.S Treasury payment systems has abruptly resigned Thursday after recently deleted social media posts were brought to light by The Wall Street Journal. His posts advocated the repeal of the Civil Rights Act, the adoption of a “eugenic immigration policy”, and the proud declaration: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5289337/elon-musk-doge-treasury Elon Musk has subsequently denounced the public identification of his DOGE aides on X and by The Wire as a “criminal offence” before conceding that an unknown number of his DOGE appointees are software engineers associated wi…

Elon Musk will be happy to be the shadow president. Trump has been aging rapidly recently, due to the immense stresses on him. Trump looks more depressed than ever. I think Trump may have some kind of nervous breakdown before his term ends, but Elon will be pulling his puppet strings. Elon is the false prophet. His T-shirt says "OCCUPY MARS." He wants people to take loans or sell their homes to afford a one-way ticket to Mars, and a SELF-SUSTAINING colony on Mars is so far away, according to all the scientists I've heard from, hundreds of years away, if ever. (Let's spend those billions fixing earth!) So ignorant people will throw their money at Elon for his projects. But…

There is literature that claims that all violence is a contagious disease, transmitted from person to person. This point of view gives primary weight to nurture, or learned behavior as opposed to genetic predisposition. Unfortunately, this discussion has not begun in the international relations literature, that I have seen, where there is an important caveat. In this literature, there is data that suggests that human conflict is related to a cumulative process, called power law data discovered by Lewis Richardson in 1949. A power law is a relationship between frequency and intensity such that wars are either small and frequent, or rare and huge. Forest fires and eart…

I wonder what the US would actually end up looking like if somehow their brand of Christian Nationalism was in fact fully implemented. Seems to me it wouldn’t be too far off a Republic of Gilead type situation. How could anyone actually want to live in that type of society? This is just beyond me. Maybe they simply don’t understand the ramifications of what it is they are advocating for. Even in Atwood’s novels, many of the main architects of the RoG are portrayed as secretly loathing what they had created. As they say, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.

We already had some discussions on this topic, but now the White House has decided to put their own definition of sex (they basically abolished gender- no, really). This is a feeble attempt to provide themselves with some pseudo-scientific credentials. The definition are as follows: Now, there is a biological definition that defines the different sexes as producing large or small gametes in anisogamous species. However (and as discussed earlier), that in various species the assignment can change. I.e. some fish start off by producing large gametes and produce small ones later in life. In other cases individuals do not produce either at some point in their life. Th…

Is this racist or some other reason why Trump is doing this? GO HOME’ — White House removes Spanish language from website https://www.local3news.com/regional-national/go-home-white-house-removes-spanish-language-from-website/article_0efe01bc-d7fd-11ef-b30e-2fdb0dc1e66d.html Minutes after Donald Trump took the Oath of Office to become the 47th President of the United States, the White House’s website was re-vamped, including the removal of a Spanish language section. The landing page for the White House’s Spanish language communications similarly went dark in 2017, but had been restored in 2021 during President Joe Biden’s tenure. https:/…

Funny. All the technology in the world won't beat commitment to a cause. As Ukraine shows as well earlier in the war and it is still pretty artisanal in its weapon development.