Welcome to The Now

 

 From their story about the poorly attending rally : The rallies were very poorly attended, with no more than a couple dozen in many cities. At the main D.C. rally outside the Capitol building, an area which regularly hosts protests in the tens and hundreds of thousands, a little more than 100 people turned out, consisting mostly of press, Democratic Party staffers and union officials, with perhaps a dozen actual railroaders. The low turnout is an expression of the deep hatred and distrust which workers regard the union bureaucracy. A high turnout, however, was no doubt deliberately discouraged. A too-high ratio of rank-and-file workers to bureaucrats would have proven impossible to control. Hardly any of the speakers who appeared at the D.C. rally would have been able to speak before getting shouted down. The rallies were held during the middle of the week in areas far removed from major railyards. There were no rallies held in the major centers of the rail industry, including Kan...

 Instead of denouncing the Squad's role in denying railroad workers sick leave, the DSA doubles down and attacks Kshama Sawant:

 Second Thought explains:

  This is (more or less) a follow-up to a previous post :

 Over ten years ago, I did a few tongue-in-cheek reviews of vehicles from the 1982-1994 G.I. Joe: ARAH line, mostly highlighting how they were ridiculously overpowered and as much a danger to the operators/riders than to any potential target. They are easily among the most viewed posts. Well, a combination of time, nostalgia and the desire to break the monotony of posting stories about the downfall of society as we know it has lead me to do what everyone does when they stumble upon something remotely popular: do a sequel of questionable quality.  So here goes; one humble person's review of the G.I. Joe Motorized Action Packs: PREFACE: This was a unique time for the G.I. Joe line. G.I. Joe: The Movie had come out, and instead of scaring young kids into buying new toys like Transformers: The Movie did, this film introduced a bunch of Joes of questionable character/ability while revealing that Cobra was found by the decedents of a race too weird for the Fantastic Four. In other w...

 

 This AAA article tries to answer that question .

 Second Thought explains:

Keep in mind that this is the same group who think that giving railroad workers seven days sick leave was too costly and also fretted that allowing them to strike would have cost the economy $2 billion/day and therefore not worth it:

 A story in headlines: Chinese President Xi Jinping has acknowledged the frustration within China amid his government’s unrelenting zero-Covid strategy, a European Union official told CNN, in his first known remarks on the protests that have erupted across the country in recent days. It may be too early to call it a complete victory, but a collective uproar from people across China against stringent Covid controls has forced a remarkable partial climbdown from one of the world’s most authoritarian governments – and its leader, Xi Jinping. Empty streets, deserted shopping centers, and residents staying away from one another are the new normal in Beijing – but not because the city, like many Chinese ones before it, is under a “zero-Covid” lockdown. It's almost like the West is so scared of China's economic progress, they were willing to shame them into getting their population sick. 

 Whitney Webb spills the tea, connects the dots, and lays it out:

 RBN breaks it down:

 Now she's "independent" (like Tulsi Gabbard, I suppose). Sabby breaks it down:

 The whole article is worth reading, but Hedges' conclusion needs to be repeated: An uprising will be used by Israel to justify savage reprisals that will dwarf the  punishing  economic  blockade  and wholesale slaughter meted out in Gaza during Israel’s assaults in  2008 ,  2012  and  2014 , which left approximately 3,825 Palestinians killed, 17,757 wounded and over 25,000 housing units partly or completely destroyed by Israel, including multi-story apartment buildings and entire neighborhoods. Tens of thousands were left homeless and huge swaths of Gaza were reduced to rubble. During the 2018 Great March of Return protests, where young people in the  besieged  enclave  demonstrated  in front of the Israeli barrier, 195 Palestinians were  shot dead  by Israeli snipers, including 41 children, as well as medics  such as  Razan al-Najjar.  Don't let anyone try to convince you that one group oppressi...

 Just a reminder that the political media will try to funnel every issue, action and event through an electoral lens. Any options that doesn't involve voting for someone else to address your problems (and pretty much trusting in them blindly to fix them) are dismissed as unrealistic: Imagine a football team that only tried to scored by throwing passes, and never ran the ball or even tried to kick a field goal. That's essentially what these types of media people advocate.

 Prof. Richard Wolff discusses this question:

 Time again for Danny Haiphong to do some debunking and clarifications regarding countries people have barely studied but think they know everything about:

 Including social media: Seems like most people (but not everyone ) thinks that Jim Baker was simply a rogue Twitter employee.

 The BBC may come off as civil and objective, but their ties to the state (in this case, Great Britain) runs deep. 

 

 WSWS talks about Trump's latest Trump-like behavior : Trump was responding to a report by new Twitter owner Elon Musk that the social media site had blocked distribution in October 2020 of a New York Post report on Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden. Trump claimed the actions by Twitter had decided the outcome of the presidential election. “Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he wrote, adding, “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!” Both the Post article and the decision of Twitter to block its distribution for several days are well known and were widely reported in the days leading up to the November 2020 election. Trump’s claim that this constituted some sort of decisive media and FBI intervention...

 With three members of the Democratic Socialists of America (AOC, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush) voting to make a railroad strike illegal, World Socialist WebSite notes how the DSA is twisting itself in knots in an attempt to maintain their image as pro-worker while justifying The Squad's political shenanigans : The role of the DSA shocked and angered many of its own members, which include sincere but politically inexperienced youth who joined in the belief that the DSA was a genuinely socialist organization. The DSA leadership, meanwhile, is in full damage control mode. The DSA Political Committee issued a statement Monday titled “Stand with Railworkers, Build Workers Power,” which was in reality wholly devoted to whitewashing the role of the DSA in illegalizing a strike by railroaders. “We condemn the move by President Biden and Congress to force over 100,000 rail workers to accept the TA by denying them the legal right to strike,” the statement claimed. It added, “When every major po...

 Ever since Congress ( and Democrats in particular ) showed their true colors by forcing railroad workers to not strike and accept a terrible union deal, the question has been, "What next?" Well as Chris Hedges reminds us that the Democrats have been like this for a few decades , RBN notices that the response from the union workers sounds familiar:

 

Fortunately, the idea is not universally popular...yet: The proliferation of police robots has sparked pushback from civilians, elected officials, and civil rights groups alike. In 2021, residents and local politicians castigated the New York Police Department for its use of a so-called “Digidog”—an unarmed, four-legged, robotic “dog” built by Boston Dynamics—after footage of its deployment in two separate incidents went viral. The city has since canceled a $94,000 contract to lease the robo-dog. While Boston Dynamics was one of multiple companies that signed an open letter last week condemning the use of armed robots, other companies haven’t drawn such a line in the sand. As TechCrunch noted this week, a Philadelphia company named Ghost Robotics sells its products to the U.S. military and seems totally fine with the strapping of rifles to its robo-dogs. On Monday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital privacy nonprofit, issued a scathing statement slamming the San Franc...

 As this excerpt from a CNN story about a former VA Officer-turned-multiple murder shows, very easy : Edwards was hired by the Washington County, Virginia, Sheriff’s Office on November 16, the office said in a news release. He had recently begun orientation to be assigned to the patrol division. “It is shocking and sad to the entire law enforcement community that such an evil and wicked person could infiltrate law enforcement while concealing his true identity as a computer predator and murderer,” Washington County Sheriff Blake Andis said in the release. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the Winek family, their friends, officers, and all of those affected by this heinous crime.” Before being hired in Washington County, Edwards had resigned as a trooper with the Virginia State Police on October 28, the agency told CNN in an email. Edwards, of North Chesterfield, Virginia, entered the academy in July 2021 and graduated January 2022, after which he was assigned to Henrico County wi...

 It's up to the Senate now to either pass it, kill it, or send it back to be modified.

 Professor Richard Wolff on the US almost-pathological need to frame everything as playing the role of the "defender:"

  Whistle-blower John Kiriakou believes so, which is probably why US Presidents go for the low-hanging fruit of pardoning turkeys .

 

 

 AOC is basically a liberal, like Nancy Pelosi before her:

 Apparently, there are tons of connections between the US government/US military/Intelligence Community and the popular video game . As the article states, "a closer inspection of Activision Blizzard’s key staff and their connections to state power, as well as details gleaned from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Call of Duty is not a neutral first-person shooter, but a carefully constructed piece of military propaganda, designed to advance the interests of the U.S. national security state."

 Second Thought hit another one out of the park:

 Sabby Sabbs breaks it down:

  This story in Mint Press News is a good example. Political Party currently in power authorizes money transfer to country in need, who in turn uses some of that money to support a company that has ties to the same political party. Jimmy Dore covers this as well:

 According to Lee Camp: no; no they don't .

 Tell me you're tying yourself in knots without telling me you're tying yourself in knots: This is the global version of "Dick Cheney shoots guy in face, and guy apologies." Only, you know, this inches us closer to WWIII.  UPDATE: This scheerpost article adds to the narrative . 

 Interesting conversation:

 Mainstream media would lean " yes ," but Patrick Lawrence from scheerpost doesn't think so : Straight off the top, it would be incautious to conclude that Russia’s pullback across the Dnieper represents a dramatic turn in the course of the Ukraine conflict. We heard this kind of thing last summer, when the Armed forces of Ukraine made swift territorial advances in northeastern Ukraine. The AFU is beating back the Russians, we read. Victory is suddenly within the Kyiv regime’s grasp. Only gradually did it emerge that Russian forces had abandoned the northeast and the AFU had shadow-boxed an enemy who was no longer there. No one seems to be trying this one on in the Kherson case, which is wise. There was no “Battle of Kherson,” no Stalingrad revisited, as Ukrainian propagandists have put it about in recent weeks. As of Friday morning there were no Russian troops left in Kherson, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, and none in the surrounding region on the river’s we...

 Link to Twitter thread here .

 Representative government isn't exactly democratic:

 

Apparently Briahna Joy Gray asking is we can have some consistency on American foreign policy is a bit much for some people:

 The first person from Generation Z to be elected to US Congress apparently threw his Palestinian constituents under the bus to gain favor with the Democratic Party establishment.

 First Twitter, now Facebook . It's a shame that these billionaires can't cut their own pay so they can retain some of their employees. But hey, when your product is no longer profitable, mass firing has always been the quick fix. 

  The Most Important Lesson From 2022 The Mid-Terms

 So who won and who lost? Well real quick: Winners : The Military-Industrial Complex, Russia-Gate, Political Duopolies . It appears that funding for the proxy war between Ukraine and Russia will continue, despite being an anchor . Fears of Russian interference reared it's ugly head again . Third parties were practically drowned out because Democrats propped up Trump-friendly GOP candidates to the point where they could scare and shame voters from considering alternatives.  Losers : The Working Class, Anti-War Activists, Third and Independent Political Parties . Whether Democrat or Republican, the issues impacting those who live paycheck-to-paycheck will continue to be ignored or exploited. Both parties also favor war, whether it be with Russia, China or Iran. And because smaller parties either aren't organized, aren't disciplined, or have too big an ego to collaborate on shared issues, the Big Two can use their money, power and media influence to make third and independent...

 Tulsi Gabbard, the anti-"regime change war" advocate who left a cushy position in the Democratic Party to support Bernie Sanders in 2016, challenged Hillary Clinton , had to explain her positions on everything when she ran for president in 2020, dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden (as a "good man" with a "good heart") and recently left the Democratic Party has endorsed forever politician Chuck Grassley  : In a statement, Gabbard praised Grassley’s conservative priorities and said Grassley’s Democratic opponent, Mike Franken, would be a “rubber stamp for the Biden administration.” “I’m supporting Chuck Grassley because we need leaders who will put the well-being of people ahead of party politics, and fulfill their commitment to uphold the Constitution and defend our freedoms,” Gabbard said. In a video posted to Twitter, Gabbard said Grassley was the alternative to what she called “radical, so-called woke idealogues” supported by the Democratic Party. Not t...

 Stay Classy:

 Chris Hedges goes through a laundry list of Biden's offenses : Biden  supported  the campaign to discredit and humiliate Anita Hill to appoint Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. He was one of the principal architects of the endless wars in the Middle East,  calling for  “taking Saddam down” five years before the invasion of Iraq. He  rehabilitated  the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, after  vowing  to make the country a pariah because of the assassination of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden is a fervent  supporter  of Israel,  calling  the apartheid state “the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East” and declaring “I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.” His campaigns have been lavishly  funded  by the Israel lobby for at least two decades.  In the 1970s, he fought school busing,  arguing  that segregatio...