“For years, the idea of speaking forthrightly to China would evoke an admonition from the US State Department and most of the American policymaking class: ‘We can’t do that. They won’t like it.’ They’d often add, ‘China has red lines, don’t you know?’ There are things you are told you just can’t say – questioning China’s political system, Taiwan, democracy, human rights and China’s ‘development rights’ (challenging China’s right to do anything it wants – legal or illegal – to develop its economy and industry). In short, you can’t mention any of the things that make communist China such a threat to peace and prosperity. … When it comes to the Chinese Communists, if you won’t say it in public – as Reagan did with the Soviets – it’s a win for the communists.” (10/19/26)
“Imagine that the U.S. had a gifted progressive president, with a common touch and a large majority in Congress. That’s basically what Britain has today with its new prime minister, former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, whose Labour Party has a working majority of 167 seats in the House of Commons. For a generation, Labour had been badly fragmented into Corbynites on the left and Blairites on the center-right, as well as a middle group representing a ‘soft left’. Burnham mercifully bridges over yesterday’s schisms. He has explicitly repudiated neoliberalism (both Margaret Thatcher’s and Tony Blair’s), espousing and defining a new kind of leftism that he calls business-friendly socialism, rooted in his success as an effective northern mayor far from the infighting of Westminster.” (10/20/26)
“Modern grocery stores are amazing. You can walk into one virtually any time and find an incredible selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, snacks, treats, and drinks. Out of season? No such thing. Want strawberries in January? No problem. Grocery stores are so amazing that it’s hard to believe no one is in charge. How do they manage to have all the things we want, all the time? Who coordinates the farmers, food processors, truckers, and store owners to make this happen? The answer, of course, is no one. The invisible hand of the free market takes care of it for us. And it does a spectacular job.” (10/19/26)
“A little later than expected, flying cars have arrived. Welcome to the 21st century. A rockets-enhanced Roadster can zoom up a nearly vertical ramp and execute a flip in mid-air before landing. Also, ‘on cold gas thrusters,’ the prototype can jump into the air from a stationary position on the ground, fly for a few seconds, and do a flip before landing.” (10/19/26)
“Last week, not only did Oregon’s restrictive gun laws fail to stop a shooter intent on killing innocent people, but a passing good Samaritan had to violate those laws to end the murder spree. Fortunately, authorities don’t appear intent on prosecuting Kaylub Giamanco, father to two girls who attend the school, for ignoring the ban on guns on school grounds to save lives. But the law is clearly more of a threat to people with good intent than it is to those bent on doing harm. Such laws should and must be defied, but lawmakers need to remove these legal minefields before they do more damage.” (10/19/26)
“South Korea is making a concerted effort to avoid becoming entangled in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, to promote a possible rapprochement between Washington and Pyongyang, and to ease the ROK’s own tensions with North Korea. Lee and his advisers are also attempting to steer a middle course with respect to the mounting animosity between Japan and the People’s Republic of China. Both Beijing and Tokyo seek Seoul’s backing regarding a number of disputes. One emotional spat is the territorial dispute between Japan and the PRC over control of the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands, which has led to several provocative deployments of maritime vessels in the past year.” (10/19/260
“Many people assume that once something is published online, it will remain forever retrievable. The saying that ‘the internet never forgets’ has produced a dangerously false sense of permanence. In reality, the internet forgets continuously. Websites are constantly revised, deleted, and abandoned altogether. This is why, 30 years ago, I founded the Internet Archive. I wanted to build a mechanism for permanence in the internet age. Soon after that, I helped build the Internet Archive’s most-used resource, the Wayback Machine, a system that would preserve webpages as they appeared at any one moment in time, allowing future readers to return to those moments. … What began as an effort to preserve the web has become an essential tool for journalists, researchers, historians, and the broader public.
Yet the future of this tool has become extremely vulnerable.” (10/19/26)
“The idea that tax cuts, deregulation, and a slightly less destructive monetary policy can produce enough economic growth to eliminate deficits has been an article of faith among many conservative economists and Republican politicians since the late seventies. An insight of supply-side economists is that, since cutting taxes incentivizes people to work and invest, government can increase revenue by cutting taxes. Over time, the growth produced by low tax rates is expected to enable government to reduce or even eliminate its debt without making spending cuts. This theory benefits Republicans who can campaign promising to cut taxes while avoiding discussing what may be unpopular spending cuts. One of the problems with this theory is deficit spending itself inhibits economic growth by causing the Federal Reserve to monetize the federal debt.” (10/19/26)
“The Republicans have been so successful at hyping the fraud around the Feeding Our Future child nutrition program in Minnesota that even liberal Democrats reflexively all say ‘fraud’ when they discuss Minnesota. Apparently, it is news to even well-informed types that Trump and his sycophants lie about liberal politicians, especially successful ones like Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Rather than wallow in contrition over the fraud that took place, it would be worth spending more time in Reality Land. No one should ever apologize for fraud. It is a serious crime, especially when the money was designated for a nutrition program designed to help children from low- and moderate-income families. But we need a sense of proportion. Fraud in government programs will never be zero.” (10/19/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Politico has a new article out titled ‘Anthropic quietly pitches its own AI safety bill to lawmakers’, revealing the contents of a leaked confidential draft on regulations the tech giant would be willing to accept in the name of public safety. Buried in paragraph four of the article, we come to the real story in these revelations: ‘The bill would let the government block a model’s release or use only if it poses a foreseeable, imminent risk of more than $1 billion in damages, or of killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people.'” (10/19/26)
