“Even before relations with Russia deteriorated, the United States had been steadfastly committed to open-ended NATO enlargement and the gradual expansion of security partnerships in other key regions. By 2015, in fact, the United States was committed to defending nearly 70 countries around the world, together comprising more than 2 billion people and about 75 percent of global economic output. That impulse has only deepened in the wake of the war in Ukraine, with Washington actively supporting the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO and insisting that Ukraine (and possibly others) will be welcomed into the alliance at some point in the future. The Biden administration has also worked to deepen the so-called Quad (U.S., India, Australia, and Japan) in the Indo-Pacific and has helped broker a new level of security cooperation between Australia and Great Britain through the AUKUS technology-sharing deal. But wait, there’s more!” (10/03/23)
“Net neutrality regulations have been dead for years. They should stay that way. Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has moved to reopen and relitigate the issue. … The law has changed and markets have changed, and yet the arguments for and against net neutrality have largely remained the same. Then as now, the strongest argument against the rules is that it puts services that people love under FCC scrutiny. These new rules could, for example, put T-Mobile’s Binge On package on the chopping block. This deal exempts YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Sling, ESPN, SHOWTIME, Starz, and other content from counting toward the data cap on all T-Mobile phone plans. The FCC never liked this plan and might go after it again. Cox Communications’ ‘Elite Gamer’ service could also be cut.” (10/03/23)
“On August 28th, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks chose the occasion of a three-day conference organized by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), the arms industry’s biggest trade group, to announce the ‘Replicator Initiative.’ Among other things, it would involve producing ‘swarms of drones’ that could hit thousands of targets in China on short notice. Call it the full-scale launching of techno-war. Her speech to the assembled arms makers was yet another sign that the military-industrial complex (MIC) President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about more than 60 years ago is still alive, all too well, and taking a new turn. Call it the MIC for the digital age.” (10/03/23)
“Federal spending is so out of control that it only took three months for the federal debt to increase by one trillion dollars to over 33 trillion dollars. In contrast, it took almost 200 years for the federal debt to reach one trillion dollars. … according to some experts, federal debt is increasing by approximately 14 billion dollars a day. Those tempted to blame the increase on President Biden, the Democratic Congress, or the covid-related spending spree, should consider the debt increased by around a trillion dollars a year in 2017 and 2018 — years when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. … Unfortunately, the welfare-warfare spending coalition has once again triumphed over the small group of fiscal conservatives, as a continuing resolution that did not even pretend to cut spending passed in Congress over the weekend.” (10/03/23)
“At the heart of the problem is the stability and reliability of an aging electrical grid that was never designed for a total Green New Deal-style overhaul. An August 2023 report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) underscores the scope of these difficulties. Very soon, NERC says, America will no longer have most of the coal, gas or even nuclear power stations that have served it well for decades. Most were located close to end users, required only short transmission lines, and provided affordable electricity almost 24/7. Shortsighted policy decisions are closing them far more rapidly than even unreliable wind and solar can theoretically replace them. The new onshore and offshore wind and solar installations will be much farther from customers, will thus require tens of thousands of miles of new interconnected transmission lines, in addition to numerous transformers, control rooms and other specialized technologies.” (10/03/23)
“The Matt Gaetz moment is upon us, and unless you enjoy politics as absurdist theater, you might want to skip it. The bomb-throwing Republican congressman from Florida, who has hitherto distinguished himself with sundry attention-getting antics, is making his biggest play yet by threatening to try to remove Kevin McCarthy from the speakership by offering a so-called motion to vacate. McCarthy’s alleged offense is relying on Democratic votes to pass a last-minute spending measure over the weekend to avert a government shutdown that would have been blamed on Republicans. … Gaetz and some of his GOP confederates refused to get behind any remotely plausible Republican alternative. So Gaetz is the arsonist and the fireman, forcing McCarthy into the expedient for which he maintains McCarthy should be fired. Joseph Heller would understand.” (10/02/23)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“During my entire life I have watched immigration-control advocates try valiantly to make their immigration-control system work. I’ve always been bemused because no matter how much failure the government has experienced, immigration-control advocates have never given up hope that some day their immigration-control system will finally — finally! — work. From the very beginning, the goal of America’s immigration-control system has been to prevent foreigners from entering the United States illegally. I think everyone, including the most fanatical of immigration-control advocates, would agree that year after year, decade after decade, their system has failed to achieve its goal. … They’re saying that there is now an ‘open border’ on the U.S.-Mexico border and that that is the reason why so many immigrants are illegally ‘invading’ the United States.” (10/03/23)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“As opposition to funding the US proxy war in Ukraine increases on Capitol Hill, empire apologists have been frantically churning out think pieces about how much the war serves US strategic interests in order to manufacture support for its continued backing by Washington. Such arguments flatly contradict the propaganda messaging we were inundated with at the beginning of the war that this was an ‘unprovoked invasion,’ but empire managers don’t seem particularly interested in defending that narrative anymore. The latest appearance in this new ‘our Ukraine proxy warfare greatly advances US strategic interests’ genre of op-ed comes to us courtesy of notorious war propagandist Max Boot via The Washington Post.” (10/03/23)
“It’s a mild form of terrorism … perpetrated by a sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) pulled a fire alarm in the Capitol, apparently to postpone a vote on a measure that would have kept the federal government operational, as it lurches into another of its periodic debt ceiling crises.” (10/03/23)
“We are entering the end stage of the 30-year U.S. neoconservative debacle in Ukraine. The neocon plan to surround Russia in the Black Sea region by NATO has failed. Decisions now by the U.S. and Russia will matter enormously for peace, security, and wellbeing for the entire world. Four events have shattered the neocon hopes for NATO enlargement eastward, to Ukraine, Georgia, and onward. The first is straightforward. Ukraine has been devastated on the battlefield, with tragic and appalling losses. Russia is winning the war of attrition, an outcome that was predictable from the start but which the neocons and mainstream media continue to deny. The second is the collapsing support in Europe for the U.S. neocon strategy: Poland no longer speaks with Ukraine. Hungary has long opposed the neocons. Slovakia has elected an anti-neocon government.” (10/03/23)
