dagon comments

Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, was arrested Dec. 18 in Grand Junction, Colorado, after police say he followed KKCO/KJCT reporter Ja'Ronn Alex's vehicle for around 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Delta area. Alex told police that he believed he had been followed and attacked because he is Pacific Islander.

MAGA messaging points their poorly educated faithful in the direction of the different colored, mannered 'other' to express their ire.

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/trump-loves-the-poorly-educated-and-social-media-clamors-idUSKCN0VX2DE/

While the more educated know the correct targets for societies ills lie with the oligarchs, as we saw in Midtown Manhattan.

Cats should not drink unpasteurized dairy products or eat raw meat. Pet owners should keep cats away from wild birds, livestock and poultry.

Don't let them wander freely in the outdoors, Bailey said, “because you don’t know what they’re getting into. Cats are natural hunters, and one of the animals they love to hunt are birds.”

Another reason to keep your aineko indoors for the most part.

Job openings are on the rise due to labor shortages, but an increasing number of people are searching for better-paying jobs as they endeavor to offset higher inflation, according to the ministry.

Sounds like the statements of ministry officials who have never had to navigate the desperate spider circling the toilet bowl economic conditions of late stage neo-feudalism. Their statements get increasingly divorced from the reality of conditions on the ground.

The Financial Services Agency has issued an order to Aeon Bank to improve its business practices after it judged the bank’s measures against money laundering to be inadequate.

"Business improvement orders" should probably be handed out for the many wage thieving companies and the ones that lazily handle client's data. But that never seems to be the case.

Curious.

In handing down the ruling, presiding judge Hidekazu Komada said he had given Kaufmann a suspended sentence as he has suffered social repercussions, such as his decision to step down as president of the company, and because he has promised to stop taking drugs

"Social repercussions'....

Weird legal metric probably only accessible for CEOs.

Almost every individual when arrested suffers social repercussions?

“You only have control of the Senate because of Donald Trump,” the president-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr, warned during a media appearance this month. “Without that, you’d be relegated to insignificance.”

This is what oligarchic Neo-feudalism looks like when we have to listen to the pronouncements of the wastrel sons of the autocrat. As he and his cronies exult in their lives of privilege.

Around 65 percent of companies in Japan employ foreign workers to resolve labor shortages, a government survey showed Thursday.

Cheap;er than giving a living wage to the laboring class of ware ware Nipponjin!

"I wanted to show that any ordinary middle-class person in the world we live in today can fall to the bottom of the economic ladder overnight," he has said.

The late stage capitalist messaging of Squid Game is profound and timely.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is planning to meet next month with members of Nihon Hidankyo, Japan's leading group of atomic bomb survivors that received this year's Nobel Peace Prize, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday.

Pathetic that for the LDP after decades of willful ignorance and prejudice they give the hibakusha the respect they deserve.

Russia is willing to work with Donald Trump's incoming administration to improve relations if the U.S. has serious intentions to do so but it is up to Washington to make the first move, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

The Asset has to demonstrate proposing the first measure with initiative.

Biden urged Americans to find a moment of "quiet reflection" to remind themselves to treat each other with dignity and respect, to "live in the light" and remember there was more to unite than divide Americans. "We're truly blessed to live in this nation," he said.

Trump published a mid-morning "Merry Christmas" message on Truth Social on Christmas Day with a photo of himself and his wife Melania, followed by over two dozen reposts of articles or other social media posts that backed his political positions on topics including Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and his pursuit of Greenland and the Panama Canal.

An exemplum of the feckless neo-liberal messaging of the DNC. Versus the maniac attention-grabbing of the MAGA alt-right.

And the last election was the result.

Until there is a real alternative, like a populist left, the result will be the same barring catastrophe.

"Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics, who are constantly trying to obstruct our Court System and our Elections," Trump wrote. "They know that their only chance of survival is getting pardons from a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing."

Case in point.

"Also, to Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada, whose Citizens’ Taxes are far too high, but if Canada was to become our 51st State, their Taxes would be cut by more than 60%," Trump wrote.

And Canadian billionaires could pay no taxes like President Musk and Trump.

https://inequality.org/article/why-is-elon-musk-supporting-donald-trump-tax-avoidance/

'Let a hundred flowers bloom' to steal from Mao and there is a lot of native talent.

Unfortunately it is often appropriated by 'agencies' and 'offices' which are just overcompensated middlemen and the actual creators do not even have living wages.

Witness the case of manga artists.

media is a business, not an altruistic endeavor, except for sites like propublica.

clicks, baby!

Yes ProPublica is the real deal amongst all the podcasting grifters and right wing/neolib corporate mouthpieces.

Ishiba leads a minority government following a significant election loss in October due to voter anger over his party's financial scandals.

“I hope to hold talks with President-elect Trump as early as possible so that we can elevate the Japan-U.S. alliance to even higher levels,” Ishiba told a news conference Tuesday marking the end of this year's parliamentary session.

That elevation of ties between the LDP of Ishiba et al and the incoming Supreme authoritarian oligarch of the US is the highest priority shows the sad state of affairs in both our countries.

However, the prime minister said he was told that meetings with world leaders before Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration were restricted under U.S. law.

Then Trump goes on to meet many other world leaders in the past weeks.

Number 50,135 of his lies?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-lies-false-presidency-b1790285.html

But too much fear does not keep someone engaged forever. That is because of another survival mechanism – what’s called “learned helplessness.”

What the article fails to mention is this is an outcome desired by the neo-liberal order, summarized by Margaret Thatcher in her phrase 'There Is No Alternative' (TINA).

Media and politics have been bought and paid for by corporations and all that is needed is for them to manufacture a fake consent for their policies.

https://chomsky.info/consent01/

A Catholic Holy Year, also known as a Jubilee, is considered a time of peace, forgiveness and pardon. They normally occur every 25 years. Pilgrims coming to Rome during the year can obtain special indulgences, or remission of their sins. This Jubilee will run through Jan. 6, 2026.

The Jubilee used to be a time of the cancellation of all debts. Bet that won't be happening in this neo-liberal world order.

The Church has abandoned its liberation theology for a prosperity gospel glorifying authoritarians and capital.

Remember what just happened, a trial of a man that did step in to stop someone from harming others.

No one is going to risk being arrested and put in trial for the political gains of one side or the other.

One man last month did step in on the streets of New York to take down one man who was harming many others and did not resist arrest and now he is being put on a massive politically/economically motivated show trial.

Who?

What?

MAGA does not even need to try anymore. The triumph of ignorance.

Basically a former SNL comedian became a Senator and participated in a USO tour where he mimed groping a passed out attractive conservative newscaster in a picture and was forced to resign by the Democratic establishment.

The committee found that between 2017 and 2020, Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to women "likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use.” He paid the women using through online services such as PayPal, Venmo, and CashApp and with cash or check, the committee said.

The MAGA get out of jail free pass is something else.

Trump has nominated several critics of the organization to top public health positions, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who is up for the post of secretary of Health and Human Services, which oversees all major U.S. health agencies including the CDC and FDA.

With the stellar record these two have about diagnosis of disease transmission and treatments what could go wrong?

Many of the women who the committee spoke to had already given statements to the Justice Department and didn't want to “relive their experience,” the committee said. “They were particularly concerned with providing additional testimony about a sitting congressman in light of DOJ’s lack of action on their prior testimony,” the report said.

MAGA demonstrates everyday that they are the beneficiaries of a two-tier justice system, though they cry victim all the time. From top to bottom any others would have suffered severe consequences.

Look at Al Franken!

https://apnews.com/united-states-congress-general-news-f702205106e1459ab43f5e0918d6f58c

Prosecutors demanded a 10-month prison term, while the defense called for leniency. The Tokyo District Court is set to sentence the 56-year-old defendant on Friday.

Foreigners and drugs; the two areas where the 'justice' system will display extreme rigor in prosecuting non-violent crime.

Mayor Adams explains why he joined the Luigi Mangione perp walk.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/eric-adams-explains-why-he-joined-luigi-mangione-s-perp-walk-i-wanted-to-look-him-in-the-eye/ar-AA1weBVf?apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1

I see CEOs are 'traumatized'.

I wonder why even our children and innocents who are victims of horrific, mass violence only get 'thoughts and prayers.

With the exploitative and extractive US health care system as an example, this is a case of mask off for predatory late stage capitalism.

No wonder the online reaction is so orthogonal to what the corporatocracy and their bought media want you to hear.

Ivy League graduate Luigi Mangione, who is accused of Thompson's murder, has been widely lionized online.

Brahmy said this demonstrated the "alarming power of unmoderated social media" to amplify violent narratives.

Oligarchic authoritarian capital is running rampant in America (and the world) and the MSM is desperately trying to re-frame the narrative.

Look at Mayor Adams doing a spectacular perp walk of Mangione like something out of movie.

The bringing of 'terrorism' charges against Luigi.

And Gov. Hochul setting up a special hotline for worried CEOs and other oligarchs.

Some lives are more important than others and this case more than any other has exposed the US two-tier injustice system, full stop.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday pledged to "stop the transgender lunacy" on day one of his presidency, 

The MAGA modus operandi is to refocus animus on vulnerable groups like the transgender community and away from oligarchic capital.

So Trump is doubling down on his attacks.

He knows recent events in NYC are making people focus on class war instead.

No Culture War, only Class war.

Trump vows to 'stop transgender lunacy' as a top priority

C'mon , don't worry about billionaire oligarchs who flout not paying taxes exerting authoritarian control.

Worry about the woke mind virus, transgender agenda, and radical academic leftists.

Please focus on the MAGA priorities and the real existential threats to your livelihoods.

He has cut out unprofitable products and, with government support, invested 80 million yen to automate his lines. But Shiota said he has little ability to pay workers more beyond a recent increase in the minimum wage, which will rise again next year.

If even tax-payer funded corporate welfare subsidies, socialism for capital owners essentially, still cannot result in these owners paying labor living wages most probably they should not be businesses.

Nationalize them, make a workers cooperative etc.

On what she and Trump discussed last Sunday, Abe did not give any details, only saying, "It was a good dinner."

Maybe they spoke about the mutual lucrative benefits Trump and her husband derived from the Unification Church.

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-speaks-at-moonies-911-event-praises-unification-church-2021-9

The LDP was called out for their ties though there were few consequences.

They still remain a force within Trump's MAGA GOP.

And a tax exempt money making machine defrauding the gullible and using their ill-gotten gains to exert political clout.

Because his tax cut for billionaires will balloon debt. 

Why libs want less money in working class pockets?

Boilerplate non sequitur and why MAGA voters are in for a shock once the Trump policies come into play.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/19/politics/arthur-laffer-curve-medal-of-freedom-donald-trump/index.html

It is just more warmed over trickle down voodoo economics, as Bush put it.

Balaji later shifted to organizing the huge datasets of online writings and other media used to train GPT-4, the fourth generation of OpenAI's flagship large language model and a basis for the company's famous chatbot. It was that work that eventually caused Balaji to question the technology he helped build, especially after newspapers, novelists and others began suing OpenAI and other AI companies for copyright infringement.

Sad for Mr. Balaji but the horse has already left the barn on that. LLM machine learning has consumed the internet.

And OpenAI is teasing AGI with the o3 model.

https://fortune.com/2024/12/20/openai-o3-sam-altman-agi-chollet/

“Clearly, Johnson is not up to the task,” said Trump ally and podcast provocateur Steven Bannon at a conservative conference. "He doesn’t have what we call the right stuff — that combination of guts and moxie and savvy and toughness.”

The world's richest man is fast becoming Capitol Hill's most feared influencer.

Musk and Bannon are clearly the powers behind the throne. Oligarchic money wanted Trump so bad because they knew it would lead to this. Unfettered power.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, decried the health care and other bipartisan provisions stripped from the bill to scale it back as Musk had demanded.

“The precedent that has been set today in Congress should upset every American,” Sanders said in a statement announcing his refusal to support the final bill. He voted against it.

“It appears that from now on no major legislation can be passed without the approval of the wealthiest person in this country,” Sanders said. “That’s not democracy, that’s oligarchy.”

And a lonely voice in the swamp of Washington rises to speak truth to power.