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...