[YouTube] Col Douglas Macgregor Straight Calls - Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world.
#3
A lot is times the military brass will exaggerate our dire straits in comparison to our enemies for the purposes of securing funding either needed or unneeded. In this case, the problem is leadership. His assessment is accurate. The system has corrupted men and women that once had promise. It is the same for most of our institutions.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/10/2023 15:56 Comments ||
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[FOX] Meta (Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed recently that the scientific "establishment" asked his platform to "censor" posts about COVID-19 that ended up being "debatable or true."
In his comments during Thursday's episode of the "Lex Fridman Podcast," Zuckerberg discussed the "issues and challenges" of executing his platform's policies on removing "misinformation."
He said it can be "really tricky" when some content is false, "but may not be harmful, so it's like, alright, are you going to censor someone for just being wrong, if there’s no kind of harm implication of what they’re doing?’"
As an example, Zuckerberg said, "Just take some of the stuff around COVID earlier on in the pandemic, where there were real health implications, but there hadn’t been time to fully vet a bunch of the scientific assumptions, and, unfortunately, I think a lot of the establishment on that kind of waffled on a bunch of facts."
#1
Jeff is trying to say that FB suppressed the truth an promoted propaganda in a way that was detrimental to public health and good, but that it was really hard for him.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/10/2023 12:50 Comments ||
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#2
the scientific "establishment" asked his platform to "censor" posts about COVID-19 that ended up being "debatable or true."
So, we can put that stale stereotype that science is a search for the truth behind us now...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/10/2023 13:09 Comments ||
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#3
Science these days is a quest for grant money.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/10/2023 14:10 Comments ||
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#4
Can't believe anything you see or hear anymore. It could all be AI deepfakes.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Georgy Bovt Russian political scientist, candidate of historical sciences
[REGNUM] Former popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson , who left the channel a few weeks ago with a scandal, launched his own talk show on social networks, which gained 35 million views in a day. This is about 20 times more than any popular political show is gaining viewers, including the former transfer of Tucker Carlson himself on the same Fox News.
Now former employers have set out to somehow pinch the former employee in the courts so that he finally shuts up. Like, this was not provided for in the parting contract.
In fact, this is the result of black envy. The former popular TV presenter was just one of those who “shot” on social networks, confirming the extraordinary liveliness of such a phenomenon as a mass media person, when a single content producer outnumbers the so-called traditional media by dozens of times in terms of the number of users, subscribers and viewers.
This once again restarted the discussions about whether it is time, they say, to completely bury these same traditional media and play some kind of multimedia funeral march over them.
I remember that earlier paper newspapers were buried in the same way, then radio. Then they said that the Internet would kill the TV, and along with the cinema. However, many decades have passed, and all these shortcomings are still alive and even feel good. Although many individuals have died in the terrible suffering of bankruptcy and neglect by former fans.
And now a new attack. Thanks to the flourishing of social networks, on which some regular man-orchestra sings and dances in splendid isolation, he is also a man-mass media.
If we take the top ten or even at least a hundred content producers in terms of the number of users and readers, then there is not a single so-called traditional mass media now.
In first place will probably be Elon Musk with 140 million followers on his Twitter account alone. A little, by 10 million, former US President Barack Obama lags behind . He is still on the "information horse". Further four places in a row are occupied by no politicians, and Canadian musician Justin Bieber (112 million), football player Cristiano Ronaldo (108 million), singer Rihanna (108 million), musicians Katy Perry and Taylor Swift (107 and 92 million respectively).
Only in 8th place in terms of the number of users is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (89 million, which, with India's one and a half billion population, is a drop in the ocean of people) and the former US presidentDonald Trump (86 million). And closes the top ten again representative of pop culture singer Lady Gaga .
Today Russia has its own specifics.
Numerous, moderately thoughtful and analytical bloggers, as well as completely frivolous so-called insta-females, in recent years have gained millions of fan subscribers, which numbers could not be dreamed of by any Pravda newspaper even in the most totalitarian Soviet times, when every communist was obliged to subscribe to it (and in the CPSU at its peak there were 18 million), and not only them. CPSU is the acronym for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a banned organization in Russia.
They banned the Communist Party but pine for Stalin? How crowded it mustve inside their heads..
With the beginning of the SVO, a completely new phenomenon appeared in the blogosphere and in the mass media at the same time, what became the so-called military correspondents (actually bloggers from the war zone), the number of subscribers for many is in the hundreds of thousands. In the first place, probably, in this regard, it is by no means worth putting a military correspondent in style, but a blogger who actively writes about the SVO - Yuri Podolyak (not to be confused with Zelensky's adviser Mikhail Podolyak , who was very angry at Musk, who reposted Carlson), with the number of subscribers under 3 million and the number of views of his posts in the tens of millions.
As of the end of 2021, just under 70,000 media outlets were registered in Russia, of which a little more than half were print media, more than 20,000 electronic media, and more than a thousand had the status of news agencies. However, without a doubt, none of these mass media could boast of a number of subscribers comparable to that of top bloggers (they are now pompously called content producers).
Does this mean that now the latter will kill and finally bury the former. No no and one more time no. For a variety of reasons.
One of the reasons for the rise in popularity of individual content producers is that new technological opportunities (namely, the possibilities of social networks and various electronic platforms) give them the right and chance to distribute their content almost free of charge or with minimal promotion costs. Moreover, in fact, on an equal footing with the so-called “old status media”, which also contain editorial offices, numerous service personnel and, most often, also rent some kind of premises. They also pay all taxes.
At the same time, in the minds of the mass user-reader, the content produced by "status media" and distributed by amateur bloggers often has absolutely equal value. Largely because status media sometimes confine themselves to censorship or self-censorship, so-called personal content also often gains a notorious advantage.
For example, the same military correspondents are much less restrained by considerations of military censorship, which is quite understandable in wartime conditions, than the speaker of the Ministry of Defense Konashenkov. At the same time, it is far from always possible to limit the dissemination of objectionable information even for the Ministry of Defense.
At the same time, it is very difficult for a modern consumer of information content to independently build in his head an adequate hierarchy of information flows that fall upon him. All this often represents a kind of white noise for him, in which an unprepared user is absolutely unable to distinguish between the main and the secondary, or to separate the truth from the truth, or to accurately define what is called the term “fake”.
It should also be noted that many, if not the vast majority of millionaire bloggers working in the information field, in fact, often parasitize, exploit the results of the work of status media.
Often their posts are either reposts of content already produced by traditional media, or an expression of a purely subjective value judgment. Which, of course, from the lips of some Elon Musk has a self-sufficient meaning, however, relatively speaking, the entire information space cannot be sown with subjective "columns of opinions".
Someone has to get "primary news", someone has to make expensive reports. Finally, someone must cross-check the information received in several sources, checking it first of all for reliability. And in this regard, the importance of status media remains indispensable, since the demand for verified information in society remains.
And finally, the last one.
The current triumph of social media and the millionaire bloggers they have elevated is also, in fact, temporary. And at some point they will begin to say that this format is dying, that they are tired, that this format has come to an end and the time has come for some “completely new” media formats.
For example, many are already predicting the rise in popularity of the so-called “augmented reality”, when a subscriber user will not only be a consumer of some information content, but thanks to this very augmented reality, he will have the full impression that he is already a direct participant in this content. .
#1
I don’t think Boyt accurately portrays the decimation of cable news by independent bloggers. I have no idea how much content Obama excretes through Twitter into the minds of his acolytes, but I suspect that if he produced a nightly monologue many of them would “like” it while few feasted on his putrid viewpoints. Key fact, Obama is not doing that type of work. Tucker is effectively giving Fox News the shiv that they deserve and former viewers are elsewhere. CNN has also imploded. The result is American news has become an asteroid belt of opinion makers that are not controllable. The original three news planets and the hinter cable news planets will increasingly become uninhabited by viewers and then advertisers as they become increasingly irrelevant.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/10/2023 13:16 Comments ||
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[Barrons] So much for the Chinese economic boom. Last year China ended a disastrous zero-Covid policy that had crippled its economy. A rush of growth was widely expected to follow. Instead of booming, five months after the ending of its Covid restrictions, the Chinese economic recovery is sputtering. That is due in no small measure to the bursting of its outsized housing and credit market bubbles.
The question now is whether China will experience a lost economic decade as Japan did in the 1990s following the bursting of its property and credit market bubble. We may be at the end of the period when China, the world’s second-largest economy, served as the world economy’s main growth engine and the main driver of international commodity prices.
At the start of this year, against the backdrop of dimming prospects for the inflation-ridden U.S. and European economies, the International Monetary Fund along with many market analysts projected that the reopening of the Chinese economy would provide much needed support to the global economy. Led by an anticipated sharp rebound in consumer spending, the IMF forecast that Chinese economic growth would pick-up from its multi-decade low of 3% last year to 5.2% percent this year.
Alas, this does not seem to be transpiring. A bundle of recent disappointing Chinese economic data, including retail sales, factory orders, and imports, all suggest that the Chinese government will have trouble meeting its 5% economic growth target. So too do indications that a number of major Chinese local governments are struggling to meet their debt obligations and that Chinese youth unemployment has risen to a worrying record 20.4%.
The apparent failure of the Chinese economy to regain its past rapid economic growth path following the ending of the Covid restrictions should have come as no surprise to those who had been paying attention to the bursting of the Chinese housing and credit market bubbles. This is especially the case considering that those bubbles exceeded the size of those that preceded Japan’s lost economic decade in the 1990s and that preceded the U.S. recession of 2007-2009.
Chinese non-public-sector credit has increased by more than a staggering 100% of gross domestic product since 2008, according to the Bank of International Settlements, since 2008. Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, a little lightbulb figuratively appeared over Bossy's head... housing prices in relation to incomes in a number of major Chinese cities increased to levels exceeding those in London and New York, a study by Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff found.
Anyone doubting that the Chinese housing and credit market bubble has burst need only recall that last year Evergrande, along with 20 other Chinese property market developers, defaulted on its debt. They also might take note of the fact that Chinese housing prices have declined in each of the last 12 months and that a number of major local governments are now running into difficulties in repaying their debt as land sales have screeched to a halt.
This is all not to say that China is likely to experience a U.S.-style bust led by a housing and credit market collapse. Rather, it is to say that the Chinese government’s efforts to prop up the housing market and the ailing local governments will leave little credit available for the more productive sectors of its economy. That in turn threatens to usher in a lost Chinese economic decade a la Japan’s of the 1990s.
One silver lining of a likely lost Chinese economic decade is that we no longer need to worry that China will eat our economic lunch. As occurred with the supposed Japanese economic miracle in the 1980s before it, we will find that the Chinese economy had clay feet. Another silver lining of a secular Chinese economic slowdown is that we might get much needed inflation relief in the form of lower international commodity prices and reduced Chinese export prices. That might allow the Federal Reserve to let up on its newfound monetary policy religion.
#1
...First, you can be quite sure that the CCP leadership knows and understands this very well.
Second, never forget for an instant that Imperial Japan - knowing full well their chances of ultimately defeating the Allies were slim and none - went to war convinced that if they didn't, they were going to be economically strangled and defeated.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/10/2023 9:05 Comments ||
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#2
knowing full well their chances of ultimately defeating the Allies were slim and none - went to war convinced that if they didn't, they were going to be economically strangled and defeated.
And President Putin went to war against the Ukraine, because without that actuality, future threats would be completely impotent. Not to mention that the Ukraine fought back against Russia, because whether they did or not the outcome would be the same erasure for them — but at least if they fought back the rest of the former Soviet Union would have a weakened opponent.
#3
Mike reads a different history. The militarists who ran Japan were all out on territorial conquest as amply shown by their invasion of China, taking advantage of the 'Warlord' period and internal preoccupation with ascendancy among the natives. The Japanese knew full well that the Europeans, tied up with another round of self destruction, were in no position to effect Japanese expansion and growth through territorial acquisition. The only 'threat' was that posed by America. The objective of the Japanese was the Dutch East Indies, where they were in fact greeted by the local population in removing their colonial overlords. However, that line of supply went by the Philippines and the militarists assumed the American would use that as base to intervene in their action, thinking the Americans thought like them. As much as FDR blustered about the situation, they had absolutely no grasp that the American public would not involve itself in protecting European colonies while at the same time had already scheduled the Philippines for independence in 1946. It was a major and fatal political calculation on their part.
#4
A key point to Mike's look is that the Japanese felt they were destined to come into conflict with the Americans. The question then becomes do we fight now or later? Now when we are strong or later after we are starved for resources?
I think Putin made a similar calculation with regards to NATO. Hostile forces east of the Dniepr pose a threat to Russia. Having done the Battle of Stalingrad once, they have no interest in letting things get that far.
[ANDmagazine] Donald Trump is apparently being charged with seven counts of mishandling classified documents. All of this is related, it appears, to boxes of documents allegedly found in the former President’s home in Florida after he left office. Trump will appear in federal court on the charges next week.
I do not have any information regarding the documents in question beyond what has been reported widely in the press, so I will not presume to pass judgment on the validity of the charges in question. I will note for the record that the widely quoted claim that "nuclear launch codes" were amongst these documents is obviously false. Outside of Hollywood’s imagination, those codes don’t exist in the way the public has been told they do.
The broader issue here is this. How is it that DOJ and the FBI have found time to run this "crime" to the ground but apparently have dedicated no resources of any kind to pursuing the massive trove of evidence suggesting strongly that Joe Biden is fully compromised by the Communist Chinese and has taken literally tens of millions of dollars from individuals directly connected to Chinese intelligence?
If Trump was sloppy with classified documents — a claim as yet unproven — we can probably agree that is less than ideal. If the guy sitting in the Oval Office is in the pay of our number one foreign enemy that seems like it would be a much bigger deal.
The evidence of connections between Joe Biden and Communist China is overwhelming. Joe’s work at the Penn Biden Center is one of an almost endless number of examples. When Biden left office as Vice-President, he stepped into a position at the University of Pennsylvania with the newly established Penn Biden Center. This so-called think tank operates effectively as a propaganda arm of the CCP. It pushes China’s foreign policy objectives and attacks opponents of the CCP in the United States.
Joe took home at least $900,000 from this position. Meanwhile, millions of dollars from Communist China flowed to U Penn, most of it from unidentified "donors."
On November 2, 2022, unsecured classified documents were found stored in a closet at the Penn Biden Center. That was days before the midterm elections. DOJ and the FBI buried that story and have apparently done nothing to investigate the matter since.
#1
If Merrick Garland was not himself compromised in some way he would not be where he is.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/10/2023 12:24 Comments ||
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#2
Joe is more of an asset than a spy. He doesn’t have enough cognition left for reading a statement without reciting the cues. There certainly are spies in the White House, though Joe isn’t one of them. The spies are all of his Clinton and Obama riff raff. It would, in fact, be good to have a spy in his organization from the patriotic American people, but, unfortunately, his counter intelligence is too good in that respect.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/10/2023 13:25 Comments ||
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#3
And never forget, Trump is icky.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/10/2023 15:53 Comments ||
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#4
Not only is Trump icky he has a slightly orange glow possibly due to fake spray-on tan usage.
[The National Interest - August 10, 2022] According to Newsweek, a "confidential human source" was "able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents." 'Source' knows exactly which boxes contain classified and or sensitive documents? Fok'n amazing guy.
Earlier this week, former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida was raided by federal agents. Subsequent reporting showed that the raid was in connection with the probe into the former president’s handling of classified documents.
Now, a bombshell new report says that agents were led to the documents by an informer. Boxes 26, 31, 33, and 41. Look for the files with red tape, just like the red tape sample attached to my last contact report.
According to Newsweek, a "confidential human source" was "able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents." The report cited two senior government officials, both of whom have "direct knowledge of the FBI's deliberations and were granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters."
One of the sources was further identified as "a senior Justice Department official who is a 30-year veteran of the FBI." Who would have been able to retire soon thereafter and evade mandatory testimony as a former FBI employee, should things go badly.
The story added that the raid was timed for a day when the former president was not at the estate, in order to keep it "low-key," but that’s clearly not what happened.
"I know that there is much speculation out there that this is political persecution, but it is really the best and the worst of the bureaucracy in action," the official told Newsweek. "They wanted to punctuate the fact that this was a routine law enforcement action, stripped of any political overtones, and yet [they] got exactly the opposite.”
The piece also noted that Trump had signed a measure into law making it a felony to “remove and retain classified documents," in response to the Hillary Clinton email scandal, which was a major issue in the 2016 election.
In the days since the raid, supporters of the former president have pushed a surprising—and evidence-free—talking point: That FBI agents might have planted evidence during the raid. "Surprising talking point" to some possibly.
Alina Habba, an attorney for the ex-president said in a TV interview with Fox News this week that “This is a joke. This is a memento. Quiet honestly, I'm concerned that they may have planted something. At this point who knows? I don't trust the government and that's a very frightening thing as an American.” We should all be concerned that... "they may have planted something."
The former president himself suggested something similar, on his Truth Social platform.
"The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago," Trump said in the post. “Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, planting.” "Others from the Federal Government".... Who might that have been? Classified document couriers possibly ?
It is, in fact, the standard operating procedure for no one to be present, lawyers included, during such law enforcement raids.
#1
They were not classified if he declassified them as president. The no man is above the law stuff has to be the most annoying sophistry of this entire community theatre. Certainly all the Biden clowns are above the law. Certainly, Hillary is celebrating her emails. I don’t really think of her in terms of gender. Maybe my reluctance is a subtle victory for the left, but it truly is more of a way to keep her clothed in my nightmares.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/10/2023 11:54 Comments ||
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#2
I wonder who in the SS Detail might be vulnerable to persuasive/punitive DHS pressure? Hate to say it but they are the only ones inside the Trump household with access and visibility and a career to worry about.
[HOT AIR] Tucker Carlson dropped his second episode on Twitter yesterday, and this one is a doozy.
I had mixed feelings about his first episode, not so much because I thought the content wasn’t good—it was—but because he scattered insults into it unnecessarily. His opposition to the US’s zealous support for Ukraine is fine—I disagree with his vehemence, but don’t think that support for the war is a litmus test of decency—but he dipped into the personal insult well too often for my taste.
Still, it definitely caused a stir, and I was happy to see that Tucker’s voice was again being broadcast.
This second episode is, in my view, dramatically better. Or at least speaks more directly to my interests.
#1
I never used to watch his show. He reminds me of being in prep school. Going forward, I will watch whatever he does. It is my version of obliterating a case of Bud Lite with gun fire. I will support his show even if he transmits it over ham radio in Morse code. F them.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/10/2023 10:58 Comments ||
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#2
^^^ On Board!
The death of shame marks the end of the most potent self-regulatory mechanism of any society. Tucker is right to talk about keeping things taboo that are corrosive to the shared sense of community behind E Pluribus Unum!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[FOX] Meta (Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed recently that the scientific "establishment" asked his platform to "censor" posts about COVID-19 that ended up being "debatable or true."
[ANDmagazine] Donald Trump is apparently being charged with seven counts of mishandling classified documents. All of this is related, it appears, to boxes of documents allegedly found in the former President’s home in Florida after he left office. Trump will appear in federal court on the charges next week.
