[Finfinder]

Tremendous empathy. You can tell he really feels your pain and cares deeply about you. He's a man of integrity and empathy, a man of the people, a man that will fight for all of us and won't rest until justice has been restored to the world. Joe Biden is an inspiration to us all.

Well of course he lived in Scranton for a year.

[Doug64]

Two very different Democratic reactions to Biden’s vow to end the oil industry, neither of which I suspect his campaign are enjoying. First, representing the hurrahs:

Buttigieg backs Biden on saying goodbye to oil industry: 'We've got a few short years'

Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden unleashed a gusher of criticism for his debate comment about making a “transition” from the oil industry, but former Democratic primary rival Pete Buttigieg was solidly in Mr. Biden’s corner.

“Remember, there’s no do-over on climate,” Mr. Buttigieg said Friday on CNN. “We’re literally entering the event horizon. We’ve got a matter of just a few short years before some of these things become irreversible.”

And representing the “what the hell are you thinking!?”:

Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small blasts Biden as 'out of touch' on fossil fuels

Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small slammed Joe Biden for claiming during Thursday’s presidential debate that he wants to “transition” the country off of fossil fuels.

The Democratic presidential nominee and former vice president made waves Thursday night after he declared, “I would transition from the oil industry” to renewable energy “over time.”

Mr. Trump called it a “big statement” and said Mr. Biden’s plan would “destroy” the oil industry.

Mrs. Torres Small, who represents New Mexico, where oil and gas are the largest contributors to the state’s economy, strongly pushed back against Mr. Biden’s comments in a pair of tweets.

“I disagree with VP Biden’s statement tonight,” she wrote. “Energy is part of the backbone of New Mexico’s economy. We need to work together to promote responsible energy production and stop climate change, not demonize a single industry.

“I will continue to stand up to my party when they’re out of touch with the reality on the ground in #NM02,” she added.

Mrs. Torres Small’s tweets were first reported by Breitbart News.

The lawmaker has said she opposes a full ban on oil and gas, instead advocating for energy production that minimizes its environmental impact.

“I don’t support that policy,” she said in February after Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, then-presidential front-runners, promised to ban oil and gas leasing on federal lands if elected.

“It’s important for me to be an advocate for the work that is happening in southeastern New Mexico in producing energy and making sure that New Mexico continues to be a net energy exporter and making sure that we’re doing it in a responsible way,” Mrs. Torres Small said at the time. “I know that if we were to shut down oil and gas drilling in New Mexico today, we’d have to shut down our schools tomorrow, statewide.”

[skinster]

[colliric]

.... Lol. The Prodigal daughter???

How long till she gets rehired by Fox News?

Even I find this funny. And I know you Biden supporters are gonna have fun with it. I'm allowed to agree with you on some things. Lol.

[skinster]

No Matter Who Wins, The War Machine Wins
The US government is pushing yet another unproven election meddling narrative about yet another disobedient government, this time targeting Iran and Russia.

This is exhausting. Do I really need to type this bullshit out?

Fine. Okay. Here we go again:

At a press conference with Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Christopher Wray it was announced that Iran and Russia have separately obtained some voter registration information, and that Iran has been using its information to send bizarre threatening emails to Democratic voters with the goal of swaying the election.

As usual, no evidence of these allegations has been provided. Democrats are saying this completely unsubstantiated claim proves the Iranians want to help Trump, Republicans are saying it proves they’re trying to help Biden. Both are ridiculous.



The Reuters write-up on the allegations cites one source who says it’s unclear who was actually behind the threatening emails, and that “the evidence remains inconclusive” that Iran had anything to do with them. Washington Post‘s report notes that the allegation against Iran “was leveled without specific evidence”, and that metadata gathered from the emails points to “the use of servers in Saudi Arabia, Estonia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, according to numerous analysts.” No attempt is made to address this discrepancy.

If the US government held a press conference announcing that Iran is in the Middle East I’d have to check a map just to make sure it’s not an island in the South Pacific or something, that’s how much constant, shameless lying they’ve been doing about that nation lately. There is no reason whatsoever to believe unproven assertions by opaque government agencies who have an extensive and well-documented history of lying about governments they want to target.

This latest allegation adds to the steadily increasing pile of narratives the US intelligence cartel has been heaping onto public consciousness that no matter who wins the presidential election, a foreign enemy will have been partially responsible for it. The ODNI made an announcement in August that Russia is interfering to ensure Trump’s re-election while China and Iran are interfering in favor of Biden.

What this steadily-growing narrative means is that no matter who wins this election, America’s spies and cold warriors are going to be able to use it to advance their pre-planned agendas against the world’s few remaining nations which have resisted absorption into the US-centralized power alliance. In exactly the same way they’ve been able to use Russiagate to advance pre-planned cold war escalations against Russia during the Trump administration, they are ensuring their ability to roll out pre-planned escalations against Iran and China in the event of a Biden win.

Imagine for example if Biden gets in after the US intelligence cartel has successfully marketed the narrative to click-hungry media outlets that Iran has been meddling on his behalf. What kinds of political pressure will his administration be placed under if it wants to restore the Iran deal and begin rolling back sanctions and de-escalating tensions? Probably very similar to the pressures Trump was placed under to continually advance hawkish cold war escalations against Russia despite his stated desire for Washington and Moscow to get along.



You can understand the purpose all these “election meddling” narratives are serving if you can understand two points: firstly, that we are in the middle of a slow-motion third world war between the US-centralized empire and the remaining nations which have resisted being absorbed into it. Secondly, that this war is moved along by propaganda.

Point 1: We are in the middle of a slow-motion third world war between the US-centralized power alliance and the nations which have resisted being absorbed into it.
A loose alliance of nationless oligarchs who use governments as weapons have secured control over a large empire-like cluster of nations with economic and military might loosely centralized around the United States. In order to gain more power and ensure its ongoing hegemony, this oligarchic empire must keep expanding by absorbing more nations and brutalizing them if they resist. China is by far the most powerful of the unabsorbed nations, followed by Russia at a distant second and Iran at a distant third.

Nuclear weapons make another hot world war undesirable, so this one takes the form of resource control, economic warfare, staging coups, arming oppositional militias to use as proxy armies, expanding military presence in key geostrategic regions under the pretense of fighting terrorism, and “humanitarian interventionism”, with old-school full-scale ground invasions used only as a last resort, and only after manufacturing sufficient international approval to ensure the continued cohesion of the empire-like power alliance.

But the end goal is the same as that of a conventional world war: to beat the other side into submission and compliance. And, in this case, absorption into the imperial blob. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the prevailing orthodoxy in US power structures became that the US must maintain unipolar hegemony at all cost to maintain a “liberal world order” (even if it means abandoning “liberal” values whenever it’s convenient). From that point on the agenda has been global domination and the slow, suffocating subversion of anyone who gets in the way.

Point 2: Propaganda is used to move this world war along.
In a conventional war each side has clear military objectives that everyone understands, and the weapons are naturally moved around in accordance with these objectives. In this weird slow-motion world war, nobody understands what’s going on besides the major power players and those who are paying very close attention. The various agendas against the governments of Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, China etc appear different and unrelated when looked at individually, and indeed you will see different political factions supporting some of these agendas but not others. The only thing unifying this slow-motion movement toward the destruction and absorption of all unabsorbed nations is carefully constructed propaganda narratives.

The way these unifying propaganda narratives operate is simple. It would never occur to rank-and-file citizens that a nation on the other side of the planet that’s pretty much just doing its own thing needs to be sanctioned, subverted and brought to heel, so the imperialist oligarchs who own the political/media class make sure everyone is fed custom-made narratives according to their own ideological echo chamber to prevent any domestic inertia from being thrown on these agendas. Once there’s sufficient agreement that Saddam/Gaddafi/Morales/Assad/Maduro/whomever must go, the campaign to subvert, sabotage and absorb that government can safely be escalated.

If you can understand points one and two, you can understand why US government agencies are advancing the narrative that unabsorbed governments are attacking the United States in a completely invisible yet extremely outrageous way.



Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been getting more and more brainwashed Trump supporters in my comments saying with high confidence that Joe Biden is bought and owned by China. This would be the same Joe Biden who saw an extreme escalation in aggression against China in the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia”, and whose anti–Beijing campaign rhetoric gives every indication that he intends to continue that aggression when elected. If he doesn’t, we may be certain that the US intelligence cartel will magically discover some top secret evidence nobody’s allowed to see that the rise of China needs to be stopped.

Only a blithering idiot would believe that this lifelong warmonger is going to be soft on China despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. These Trumpists spent years rightly mocking liberals for their maniacal Russia hysteria, yet their rhetoric about Biden and China sounds very much like the pre-election low rumble which eventually turned into the fever pitch demented shrieking of peak Russiagate insanity. If Biden wins the election it would not at all surprise me if evidence keeps being leaked to the press from anonymous sources painting Biden as a Xi puppet, and Republican hacks promulgate that narrative to demand increasing aggression against China.

So no matter who wins, the war machine wins. If it’s Trump then they continue manufacturing narratives to justify escalations against Russia, if it’s Biden (as looks very likely) they’ll sell escalations against China and Iran. They’re in no special hurry since they’ve got power on their side, so they can just keep ramping up the pressure on the world like a python squeezing its prey to death.

Meanwhile normal, healthy human beings just want a world where people cooperate with each other and with their ecosystem to create a harmonious world. We don’t have to put up with a world that is dominated by sociopaths who endanger us all with armageddon weapons with the goal of planetary hegemony. There are more of us than there are of them. If we wake up to what’s going on we can absolutely turn this thing around.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/10/23 ... hine-wins/

[colliric]

I like your honesty Skinster. I appreciate that.

[skinster]

What? I didn't write that article. Don't kiss the messenger.

[jimjam]

What country do you think Fat Donald will flee to after he loses so that he can avoid jail time?

[late]

What country do you think Fat Donald will flee to after he loses so that he can avoid jail time?

Perhaps a better question is, if it comes to that, what country would take him in. If he becomes a fugitive from justice, he's gonna be hot, hot, hot.

My first thought would be Putin, but guys like that don't like failure.

How are things going? You headed back to Florida?

[blackjack21]

Dream on guys. Between his debate performance and 50 cent endorsing Trump, his approval numbers among black likely voters is now at like 46% and his overall job approval is at 52%. Biden is going down in flames. Like Hillary Clinton, he's guilty. He will never be convicted of a crime though.

[Beren]

My first thought would be Putin

His first thought would be Netanyahu, but Israel wouldn't take him itself, I guess, so he'd end up in Brazil perhaps.

50 cent endorsing Trump

So 50 cent will save the presidency for Trump?

[blackjack21]

So 50 cent will save the presidency for Trump?

It's more ominous than that. If blacks start leaving the Democrats behind, the Democrats will become primarily an urban party. Black men roughly aged 18-50 all know who Ice Cube and 50 Cent are. They hold cultural sway among black men. If they are signaling Biden is a no-go for them, Biden is in trouble. Everybody already knew that Trump and Kanye have been buddies forever. So that's not really a big change. Yet, you also have black civil rights attorneys like Leo Terrell who are voting Republican for the first time in their lives.

The Democrats have already trashed blue collar white men--once the backbone of their party--to the point where they don't want to vote Democrat anymore. If we're seeing the beginnings of black men leaving the Democrats too, it's a game changer. All the transgender, intersectionality stuff isn't popular among the working classes. It's a niche issue at best, but for some reason the Democrats spend inordinate amounts of time on it.

Democrats depend on a large number of small factions. One of the biggest is the black vote. Democrats are in a situation now where they cannot win without the black vote--and by that, I mean like 90%, not 75%. A drop in support among black men could make a 2-3% difference in each state where a significant number of black men defect to Trump. That's all the difference you need in states like NC, PA, WI, MN, FL, etc.

[Beren]

It's more ominous than that.

I see, besides saving Trump he and Ice Cube are going to ruin the Democratic Party as well.

[Rancid]

Intelligence reports are saying Iran and Russia are sending out spoofed campaign ads to various emails and phone numbers via text. They are mostly pro-Trump. Clearly, they understand that Trump is eroding the integrity of the US government, so they want him in for 4 more years.

OF course, our dumbass Trumpster will just go with the tired ass default excuse of "deep state", "FBI/CIA cabal", etc. etc. etc.

[Beren]

Intelligence reports are saying Iran and Russia are sending out spoofed campaign ads to various emails and phone numbers via text. They are mostly pro-Trump. Clearly, they understand that Trump is eroding the integrity of the US government, so they want him in for 4 more years.

OF course, our dumbass Trumpster will just go with the tired ass default excuse of "deep state", "FBI/CIA cabal", etc. etc. etc.

Iran still should rather be anti-Trump, though, if they want the US to return to the JCPOA.

[Rancid]

Iran still should rather be anti-Trump, though, if they want the US to return to the JCPOA.

Yea, not sure what the intent was. Current reports say they sent messages to democrat voters in swing states with far-right messages trying to demand they vote for Trump.

It could also be a non-Iran actor pretending to be Iran.

The didn't give many details. Hence the CIA cabal!

[blackjack21]

I see, besides saving Trump he and Ice Cube are going to ruin the Democratic Party as well.

Both parties are dependent upon discordant factions. The Republican establishment doesn't particularly like evangelicals, Tea Party types, or fiscal conservatives. They depend on them to get elected. The Democrats depended on blue collar working class people, but have trashed them and are now losing national and some statewide elections as a result. The Democrats also depend upon urban voters, blacks, Hispanics, sexual deviants, hedonists, and now a resurgent progressive movement. It's a difficult problem for them too, because their internal factions don't like each other. For example, blacks are culturally conservative church goers, so they aren't big into LGBTQ propaganda. Trump pisses off the fiscal conservatives, but he holds the other factions together. So he's considerably stronger.

When Trump is gone, that glue is gone too until another leader comes in to take his place. That's the same thing with Obama. His movement is dead without him.

OF course, our dumbass Trumpster will just go with the tired ass default excuse of "deep state", "FBI/CIA cabal", etc. etc. etc.

They are a bigger problem for the national security of the United States than our enemies.

Iran still should rather be anti-Trump, though, if they want the US to return to the JCPOA.

Threatening Democrats to vote for Trump by false flagging the Proud Boys is an anti-Trump move.

[Doug64]

Iran still should rather be anti-Trump, though, if they want the US to return to the JCPOA.

Yea, not sure what the intent was. Current reports say they sent messages to democrat voters in swing states with far-right messages trying to demand they vote for Trump.

It could be a variety of Sun Tzu’s “dead spies,” an operation intended to be discovered in an attempt to discredit Trump. Personally, given their respective histories with Iran’s junta, I find any suggestion that the Iranian mullahs would prefer Trump to Biden to be ludicrous.

[Dimetrodon]

Yea, not sure what the intent was. Current reports say they sent messages to democrat voters in swing states with far-right messages trying to demand they vote for Trump.

It could also be a non-Iran actor pretending to be Iran.

The didn't give many details. Hence the CIA cabal!

They're threatening people with violence if they don't vote Trump and pretending to be The Proud Boys. It's a false flag campaign to actually make Trump look worse and to further erode faith in our electoral system. No, I'm not a Trumper, it's just what they seem to be doing.

[Doug64]

When Trump is gone, that glue is gone too until another leader comes in to take his place. That's the same thing with Obama. His movement is dead without him.

In the case of Trump, I don’t see the movement dying once he’s out of office, whether next January or four years from now—he’s blazed the path to electoral victory, and will be followed by others. And those successors could well be more dangerous to Democrats, by being of better character and not so abrasive and divisive and so more appealing to the voters turned off by Trump personally. Certainly I could probably vote for a candidate like that.