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Even the institutions are waking up to the fact that copyright law is unfair
“Home taping is killing music” – the OG anti-piracy/pro-IP rights campaignYou all probably are familiar with copyright law. Broadly speaking, at least: Disney owns Star Wars, and only they are allowed to do stuff with it. In other words, Disney has a sort of “commercial monopoly” on what you can or cannot do with those characters, or with parts or the entirety of those movies. Together with patents and trademarks, copyright is considered an “intellectual property” (IP), Disney is the “rights holder” which “owns the IP”.
IP rights have been strengthened pretty much non-stop for the past 50 years. From the first scare of home taping (which resulted in TRIPS) to the scare of file sharing (resulting in the DMCA in the US, and InfoSoc in the EU) to the EU copyright directive of 2019, we have seen copyright developed into a tool from which there is barely any escape.
At its conception, copyright was meant as a tool to protect authors from publishers. Publishers back then, much like AI companies today, looked at the wealth of knowledge and stories found in the local library and just yoinked whatever they liked, and printed it en masse. Yet, through the magic of capitalism, a few centuries later we now have a system that is primarily concerned of the well-being of publishers, not authors.
A 20+ year long lawsuit
Which brings us to today’s item I want to discuss: The European Court of Justice’s Attorney General’s opinion on Case C-590/23. This is a lawsuit of Kraftwerk vs Pelham, where Kraftwerk made a song (“Metall auf Metall”), and Pelham sampled the drum loop of it in his song “Nur mir”. To be clear, the two songs here are completely dissimilar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlatOPOMlyA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RUbxEO-A-w
On the surface, this is an entirely benign problem to have, but thanks to copyright, it turned into one of the most complicated cases we can have, questioning the very foundation of copyright law and creative freedom.
I’ll do my best to paraphrase and condense it down to a more casual audience; if you are a bit more familiar with the matter, I recommend reading the original opinion.
The core point the AG is making is that, thanks to the relentless lobbying of the big rights holders, copyright has now advanced to a stage where artists cannot really safely use or reference the material that is available in the public to craft something new. No, you must be able to fit your new work into a very narrow range of copyright exceptions (quotes, parody, pastiche or a handful more), which through the nature of creativity, is always going to be inadequate. There are few things harder to categorize than the entire spectrum of human creativity.
What is a pastiche?
A pastiche is – well, that’s the big question. Formally, the ECJ just needs to provide a more thorough definition than what’s written in law, because nobody knows what the fuck a pastiche is. But for the lack of something better, a pastiche is when you use certain elements of a creative work to evoke its feeling, without being a parody. So for example, when you want to film a classic Western, you’ll use certain tropes (bad guy wears black, wild west, sheriff, horses, guns, alcohol, high noon, etc) and techniques (cowboy-shot, ultra-close-up, etc) and whatever else. However, that’s a bigber thing and not really what Pelham did with his sampling. He just liked a beat and wanted to use the beat in his song. So that’s not really a pastiche as per my definition, it’s too little referential for that.
And because it’s not, it’s being laid out as a copyright violation as if he had reuploaded the original song unmodified. Regardless of the fact that Pelham made a hip-hop song and the original is an electro-avantgarde song, that doesn’t matter.
Can we use other exceptions?
Besides a pastiche, there are other exceptions one could go for. However, all of them are very narrowly scoped, so it’s hard to use them by accident. To make a quote or a parody, you have to try really hard to make those happen in a copyright sense; for example, merely writing “Iwbnfouevcmifnruimmmvn Government” — Winston Churchill on a postcard would not qualify as a quote because it’s not embedded into a work that does something with it. However, me writing this description on why it wouldn’t be a quote now makes it a quote in the context within this article. Probably. Sue me, Churchill estate, I’d be down to open up another 20 year long copyright case over silly stuff.
Anyhow: Everything but the pastiche is already properly defined, leaving the copyright cage with very few weak points. So the ECJ will need to figure out whether or not a pastiche is this weakpoint.
pastiche vs pastiche, EU vs EU
Since the copyright directive was drafted, two camps on the “what is a pastiche” have developed:
- “imitating doesn’t mean using”. The law states that the feeling of the original work(s) must be imitated, but it doesn’t mention using.
- “using an original is recognizable of the original”, therefore, remixes, mashups, memes, gifs, sampling and such are legal.
The German government, the European Commission, Pelham and others support the latter meaning, but the Attorney General notes:
While I have sympathy for the interpretation suggested by Pelham and Others, the German Government and the Commission (for it is a well-intended attempt to provide a pragmatic solution to the issue of creative reuse of protected material […] I am afraid, to conclude (in most, but not all aspects) in favour of [the former interpretation].
The AG then goes on to a long linguistic exercise which I’m sure everyone involved had enormous amounts of fun with (the AG’s opinions are translated into all EU languages), followed by another section analyzing how wide the scope of a parody and a quote is compared to a pastiche. Finally, almost 100 paragraphs in, we get to the truly juicy bits.
Copyright vs freedom of the arts
Pastiche aside, there is a certain pulling in different direction in the law: On the one hand, the freedom of the arts must be preserved in essence, the EU charter (think: constitution) says so. However, it can be proportionally limited where benefits outweigh the cost. So where is this proportionality?
We’re all familiar with the (supposed) benefits of copyrights – artists can sell their works this way, as they have the sole right to their own works. The AG lays out the downsides:
For instance, to borrow legally a ‘sample’ of a phonogram [think “song from a CD”] and use it in a new composition, an artist would, as a rule, need to obtain (i) necessarily a licence for the use of the phonogram and (ii) potentially a licence for the use of the underlying work (if the ‘sample’ embodies ‘original’ elements of the latter). In addition, the ‘sample’ may also trigger the related right of reproduction of the interpreter of the recording, requiring further authorisation. In that regard, beyond the fact that the rightholders are not always known or easy to locate, obtaining such licences will often be too much of a burden for new creators.
A workaround for this could be compulsory licenses, so a central system where you just send in a list of what songs you used, and the central system then figures out who gets the money. The GEMA in Germany grants such licenses, albeit only for public playback and not to incorporate a song into another work. But:
In the absence of a system of framed, compulsory licences for artistic reuse of works or phonograms (and so on), it is the freedom of contract that rules. However, the parties are not in the same negotiating position. The copyright system leaves rightholders entirely free to grant, or not to grant, a licence,which puts them in a strong bargaining position from the outset. They may claim, for the use of their material, a fee which may not be commensurate to the revenues that the ‘derivative’ creation could generate, should it be exploited.
Furthermore, the artists of yesterday and their producers (such as ‘the big majors’) will often have the financial means necessary to reinforce their bargaining position. While other famous artists and producers will be in a position to negotiate at arm’s length, that will not be the case for small artists. This leads to a risk of a ‘two-tier’ possibility of creation, with ‘derivative’ works being something reserved to the mighty and wealthy.
Finally, the rightholders of yesterday may simply refuse to permit the reuse of their work, leading to creators having to choose between (i) not creating the envisaged artwork or (ii) re-using the protected material anyway, and facing the risk of a costly infringement claim. Such constraints are particularly formidable when the art form at issue depends on concrete borrowing, such as ‘sampling’ (but also collage, and so on). Overall, it may stifle many a form of creation.
Draconian measures over nothing
In the many years this case has been going on, the law has changed several times: Back when Pelham made the song in 1997, what he did was legal. However, following the enforcement of InfoSoc on 22 Dec 2002, his song has become illegal, and it definitely was illegal from then up til the new EU copyright directive was implemented a few years ago – German supreme court has made that ruling.
The exceptions are so narrow, yet get applied to a wide spectrum of creativity. And when not fitting into an exception, one gets punished as if they just sold a billion copies of pirated Star Wars movies and caused George Lucas to die penniless.
In the AG’s opinion:
With respect to the related rights granted to producers of phonograms, films and broadcasts, as interpreted by the Court, [the balance between the freedom of the arts and rewarding existing creators with exclusive rights] is manifestly wrong.
This is also what the German constitutional court found. The AG continues with a pounding of the Disney Lobby in general:
Indeed, in that balancing exercise, freedom of the arts under Article 13 of the Charter should carry significant weight. That is so because, as an emanation of freedom of expression, it ‘constitutes one of the essential foundations’ of a democratic society. Indeed, the right for everyone to take part in the cultural life of the community is ‘one of the basic conditions for [such a society’s] progress’.
By contrast, the claim of producers and broadcasters under Article 17(2) of the Charter is less compelling. I recall that the right of intellectual property laid down in that provision must be considered in relation to its function in society. In other words, the protection of the ‘property’ of the producer or broadcaster is not an end in itself. The exclusive related rights over phonograms, films and broadcasts should be considered in the light of their justification. In fact, as limitations on everyone’s freedom of the arts, those rights must not be given a wider scope than is required by that justification.
In my view, the investment-protection rationale that justifies the related rights granted to producers and broadcasters, explained in point 28 above, irrespective of its merits, cannot require, in the light of freedom of the arts, those related rights to cover the creative reuse of any ‘recognisable’ extract of phonograms, films or broadcasts.
The mere fact that producers and broadcasters may draw revenue from licensing such extracts is not, in itself, relevant. The related rights were designed to ensure that the sales of, and lawful transactions related to, those subject matters are not threatened by illegitimate copies, so that the producers and broadcasters can obtain satisfactory returns from them and redeem the investment they put into their production. They were not designed to guarantee producers and broadcasters a possibility to collect the highest possible remuneration from their phonograms, films and broadcasts, through the licensing of any extract.
It’s moments like this I love this case for. We’re well beyond the problem of “can I use 2s of a Kraftwerk song?”, we’re now fundamentally asking ourselves “but why did we hand the entirety of creativity to the Culture Industry?”
Where to go from here?
The Attorney General made his statements. For those unfamiliar with the workings of the European Court of Justice, after the parties to the case have stated their positions, it’s the AG’s job to produce an independent first evaluation and collection of the case, to assist the judges in their decision finding. The judges usually do follow the AG’s recommendation, but not always.
Unfortunately for us, despite those pretty damning paragraphs quoted above, the AG does end with “just use a definition for a pastiche”, and it’s entirely possible that the ECJ’s judges end up deciding that they’d rather not open this particular can of worms by trying to assess the balance between copyright and freedom of the arts.
However, this does show that there is broad support for a true copyright reform, both from the civil society, from institutions – just not from the Disneys of the world. We should keep pushing for a reform, one which supports artists and creators instead of publishers and AI tech firms.
#ai #artificialIntelligence #copyright #MetallAufMetall #news #technology #writing
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CW: Part 2 This is the startling truth about the GOP 'establishment' As obscenely wealthy right-wing nutjobs have dramatically increased their funding of the GOP and fringe candidates, the GOP has been remade into something Dr. Frankenstein would find horrifying!
Part 2
As obscenely wealthy right-wing nutjobs have dramatically increased their funding of the GOP and fringe candidates, the GOP has been remade into something Dr. Frankenstein would find horrifying! No longer content with mere tax cuts, now the new donors want Christian nationalism, abortion bans, racist policies, the dismantling of public education and the creation of right-wing propaganda schools in their place. Embracing fossil fuels and massive gun ownership, the vilification of intellectuals, the free press, migrants and non-traditional sexual roles, and the labeling of liberals as traitors, and authoritarianism and fascism as desirable, is now what the GOP stands for. They are crazy and they think they are winning and inevitable.This is the startling truth about the GOP 'establishment'
https://www.rawstory.com/this-is-the-startling-truth-about-the-gop-establishment/#GOPFascism
#MAGAIdiots
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPHatesDemocracy"Well, it was actually a long time percolating in the party.
We can go all the way back to Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, and then Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich to see the evolution of what was once the party of Main Street into an ideologically extreme political faction. The seeds were sown all through those eras. But this new MAGA establishment is a direct outgrowth of a specific movement of the past decade or so: the Tea Party.
The whole Tea Party phenomenon seems sort of quaint now but it had a powerful influence on the Republican Party. There were a lot of rationales for its formation, but the real impetus was the election of the first Black president which seemed to send a good number of Republicans into a frenzy of revolutionary zeal.
As is usual when a Democrat wins the White House after a GOP president has run up the national debt, Republicans suddenly claimed to be intensely concerned about deficits, spending and the size of government, which soon came to be symbolized by their rabid opposition to the Affordable Care Act. It was a heavily astroturfed movement, supported by big-money donors like the Koch Brothers, but it was a genuine grassroots movement as well, largely enabled by the right-wing media and emerging social media platforms.
Their organizing was impressive with big marches, cross-country bus tours and, once they got rolling, riotous Town Hall protests against the health care reform. And soon they were electing people to Congress carrying their message. In 2010, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida were both Senate Tea Party candidates. In the House, there were a number of Tea Party winners who signed something they cleverly called "The Contract From America" and went on to form the Freedom Caucus. (Founding member Jim Jordan was a back-bencher elected in 2006 who joined this new "revolutionary" movement.)
The anti-tax, government-slashing extremists are one with the revolutionary MAGA culture warriors.
The Freedom Caucus went on to engineer the ousting of the Speaker of the House John Boehner, shut down the government more than once and refused to negotiate in good faith or compromise on anything. They were drunk with power and did what they wanted damn the consequences. But then Donald Trump came along and the Freedom Caucus rebels, with their hardcore adherence to free market capitalism, global trade and slashing government programs got very, very quiet. They did get some massive tax cuts in the first year of Trump's term but they were passed by acclamation — there were suddenly no dissenters in the party on that one.
Meanwhile, the MAGA movement, under Trump, took up what was once the undercurrent of the Tea Party movement, the culture war, and brought it to center stage. No longer did anyone have to pretend that all they cared about was spending cuts. They could hate on immigrants and Black people and gays and liberals right out in the open and could do it in the crudest terms possible. Conspiracy theories were encouraged to flourish and loyalty to Trump was the only "issue" they needed to care about.
This new Congress finally brings it all to the fore. It's all come together. The anti-tax, government-slashing extremists are one with the revolutionary MAGA culture warriors. Today Speaker Kevin McCarthy embraces Freedom Caucus member and MAGA heroine Marjorie Taylor Greene while Freedom Caucus founder and MAGA leader Jim Jordan leads a crusade to "take down the deep state" and Freedom Caucus member and MAGA superstar Matt Gaetz plots ways to destroy the economy if they don't get their way. They are all one. These former gadflies and bomb throwers are the establishment now. They are the Republican Party. The metamorphosis is finally complete."
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The Drugs Used by the #AncientGreeks and #Romans
November 26th, 2021
"Many of us living in the parts of the world where marijuana has recently been legalized may regard ourselves as partaking of a highly modern pleasure. And given the ever-increasing sophistication of the growing and processing techniques that underlie what has become a formidable #cannabis industry, perhaps, on some level, we are. But as intellectually avid enthusiasts of #psychoactive substances won’t hesitate to tell you, their use stretches farther back in time than history itself. 'For as long as there has been civilization, there have been #MindAlteringDrugs,' writes Science’s Andrew Lawler. But was anyone using them in the predecessors to western civilization as we know it today?
"For quite some time, scholars believed that unlike, say, Mesoamerica or north Africa, 'the ancient Near East had seemed curiously drug-free.' But now, 'new techniques for analyzing residues in excavated jars and identifying tiny amounts of plant material suggest that ancient Near Easterners indulged in a range of #psychoactive substances.'
"The latest evidence suggests that, already three millennia ago, 'drugs like cannabis had arrived in #Mesopotamia, while people from #Turkey to #Egypt experimented with local substances such as blue water lily.' That these habits seem to have continued in ancient Greece and Rome is suggested by archaeological evidence summarized in the video above.
"In 2019, archaeologists unearthed a few precious artifacts from a fourth-century Scythian burial mound near Stavropol in Russia. There were 'golden armbands, golden cups, a heavy gold ring, and the greatest treasure of all, two spectacular golden vessels,' says narrator Garrett Ryan, who earned a PhD in Greek and Roman History from the University of Michigan. The interiors of those last
'were coated with a sticky black residue,' confirmed in the lab to be #opium with traces of #marijuana. 'The #Scythians, in other words, got high' — as did 'their Greek and Roman neighbors.' Ryan, author of Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans, goes on to make intriguing connections between scattered but relevant pieces of archaeological and textual evidence. We know that some of our civilizational forebears got high; how many, and how high, are questions for future scholastic inquiry."Source:
https://www.openculture.com/2021/11/the-drugs-used-by-the-ancient-greeks-and-romans.html#MysteryCults #Rituals #RomanHistory #GreekHistory #AncientHistory #BlueLotus
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The Drugs Used by the #AncientGreeks and #Romans
November 26th, 2021
"Many of us living in the parts of the world where marijuana has recently been legalized may regard ourselves as partaking of a highly modern pleasure. And given the ever-increasing sophistication of the growing and processing techniques that underlie what has become a formidable #cannabis industry, perhaps, on some level, we are. But as intellectually avid enthusiasts of #psychoactive substances won’t hesitate to tell you, their use stretches farther back in time than history itself. 'For as long as there has been civilization, there have been #MindAlteringDrugs,' writes Science’s Andrew Lawler. But was anyone using them in the predecessors to western civilization as we know it today?
"For quite some time, scholars believed that unlike, say, Mesoamerica or north Africa, 'the ancient Near East had seemed curiously drug-free.' But now, 'new techniques for analyzing residues in excavated jars and identifying tiny amounts of plant material suggest that ancient Near Easterners indulged in a range of #psychoactive substances.'
"The latest evidence suggests that, already three millennia ago, 'drugs like cannabis had arrived in #Mesopotamia, while people from #Turkey to #Egypt experimented with local substances such as blue water lily.' That these habits seem to have continued in ancient Greece and Rome is suggested by archaeological evidence summarized in the video above.
"In 2019, archaeologists unearthed a few precious artifacts from a fourth-century Scythian burial mound near Stavropol in Russia. There were 'golden armbands, golden cups, a heavy gold ring, and the greatest treasure of all, two spectacular golden vessels,' says narrator Garrett Ryan, who earned a PhD in Greek and Roman History from the University of Michigan. The interiors of those last
'were coated with a sticky black residue,' confirmed in the lab to be #opium with traces of #marijuana. 'The #Scythians, in other words, got high' — as did 'their Greek and Roman neighbors.' Ryan, author of Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans, goes on to make intriguing connections between scattered but relevant pieces of archaeological and textual evidence. We know that some of our civilizational forebears got high; how many, and how high, are questions for future scholastic inquiry."Source:
https://www.openculture.com/2021/11/the-drugs-used-by-the-ancient-greeks-and-romans.html#MysteryCults #Rituals #RomanHistory #GreekHistory #AncientHistory #BlueLotus
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The Drugs Used by the #AncientGreeks and #Romans
November 26th, 2021
"Many of us living in the parts of the world where marijuana has recently been legalized may regard ourselves as partaking of a highly modern pleasure. And given the ever-increasing sophistication of the growing and processing techniques that underlie what has become a formidable #cannabis industry, perhaps, on some level, we are. But as intellectually avid enthusiasts of #psychoactive substances won’t hesitate to tell you, their use stretches farther back in time than history itself. 'For as long as there has been civilization, there have been #MindAlteringDrugs,' writes Science’s Andrew Lawler. But was anyone using them in the predecessors to western civilization as we know it today?
"For quite some time, scholars believed that unlike, say, Mesoamerica or north Africa, 'the ancient Near East had seemed curiously drug-free.' But now, 'new techniques for analyzing residues in excavated jars and identifying tiny amounts of plant material suggest that ancient Near Easterners indulged in a range of #psychoactive substances.'
"The latest evidence suggests that, already three millennia ago, 'drugs like cannabis had arrived in #Mesopotamia, while people from #Turkey to #Egypt experimented with local substances such as blue water lily.' That these habits seem to have continued in ancient Greece and Rome is suggested by archaeological evidence summarized in the video above.
"In 2019, archaeologists unearthed a few precious artifacts from a fourth-century Scythian burial mound near Stavropol in Russia. There were 'golden armbands, golden cups, a heavy gold ring, and the greatest treasure of all, two spectacular golden vessels,' says narrator Garrett Ryan, who earned a PhD in Greek and Roman History from the University of Michigan. The interiors of those last
'were coated with a sticky black residue,' confirmed in the lab to be #opium with traces of #marijuana. 'The #Scythians, in other words, got high' — as did 'their Greek and Roman neighbors.' Ryan, author of Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans, goes on to make intriguing connections between scattered but relevant pieces of archaeological and textual evidence. We know that some of our civilizational forebears got high; how many, and how high, are questions for future scholastic inquiry."Source:
https://www.openculture.com/2021/11/the-drugs-used-by-the-ancient-greeks-and-romans.html#MysteryCults #Rituals #RomanHistory #GreekHistory #AncientHistory #BlueLotus
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The Drugs Used by the #AncientGreeks and #Romans
November 26th, 2021
"Many of us living in the parts of the world where marijuana has recently been legalized may regard ourselves as partaking of a highly modern pleasure. And given the ever-increasing sophistication of the growing and processing techniques that underlie what has become a formidable #cannabis industry, perhaps, on some level, we are. But as intellectually avid enthusiasts of #psychoactive substances won’t hesitate to tell you, their use stretches farther back in time than history itself. 'For as long as there has been civilization, there have been #MindAlteringDrugs,' writes Science’s Andrew Lawler. But was anyone using them in the predecessors to western civilization as we know it today?
"For quite some time, scholars believed that unlike, say, Mesoamerica or north Africa, 'the ancient Near East had seemed curiously drug-free.' But now, 'new techniques for analyzing residues in excavated jars and identifying tiny amounts of plant material suggest that ancient Near Easterners indulged in a range of #psychoactive substances.'
"The latest evidence suggests that, already three millennia ago, 'drugs like cannabis had arrived in #Mesopotamia, while people from #Turkey to #Egypt experimented with local substances such as blue water lily.' That these habits seem to have continued in ancient Greece and Rome is suggested by archaeological evidence summarized in the video above.
"In 2019, archaeologists unearthed a few precious artifacts from a fourth-century Scythian burial mound near Stavropol in Russia. There were 'golden armbands, golden cups, a heavy gold ring, and the greatest treasure of all, two spectacular golden vessels,' says narrator Garrett Ryan, who earned a PhD in Greek and Roman History from the University of Michigan. The interiors of those last
'were coated with a sticky black residue,' confirmed in the lab to be #opium with traces of #marijuana. 'The #Scythians, in other words, got high' — as did 'their Greek and Roman neighbors.' Ryan, author of Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans, goes on to make intriguing connections between scattered but relevant pieces of archaeological and textual evidence. We know that some of our civilizational forebears got high; how many, and how high, are questions for future scholastic inquiry."Source:
https://www.openculture.com/2021/11/the-drugs-used-by-the-ancient-greeks-and-romans.html#MysteryCults #Rituals #RomanHistory #GreekHistory #AncientHistory #BlueLotus
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Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime
“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes: “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression. Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century. Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life. One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records. So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.
The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history. Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves. Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens. They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.
These are indeed Dark Times.
The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom. The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.
We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s. It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%. The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion. It’s even lower for Black Americans. However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful. In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant. Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers. I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me. My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research. And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World. America’s first University, Harvard. If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.
Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump. “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson. Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.
A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.
The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”
United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”
The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.
Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.
Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.
Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.
You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason. BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here. It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.” I personally cannot take much more of this.
I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.
That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.
We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.
But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.
Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.
Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.
At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”
But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”
Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.
President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.
There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty. While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”. Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents. But then, our #FARTUS is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA. The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate. All, at the expense of the United States and its economy. This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display. All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.
Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.
Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.
World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.
Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.
The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.
In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.
Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore. Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.” If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it. Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments. We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”
President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.
The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.
At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”
It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.
“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.
The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.
Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”
That sure is different than the 2021 #FARTUS who told Fox News. He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess. This is from the BBC. “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.
Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.
“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”
He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.
As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters. This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.” This was written by Mike Wendling.
Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.
The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.
But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.
“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”
Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.
So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it. That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades. The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it. This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”
US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.
All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.
At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.
The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.
It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.
All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.
Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula. It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands. It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.” This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.
The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”
Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs. Wow, how free market is this? Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party? This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone? Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?
President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.
Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.
Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.
This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.
“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.
Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.
Apple declined to comment for this story.
So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep. You know how I am about Rabbit Holes. How much longer before the economy collapses? I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.
You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy. Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you. There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in. Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #academicFreedom #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #FARTUS #HarvardVTrump #NeoRobberBarons #NoKingsProtestOverFARTUSParade #TheHinduLoveGods #TrumpSoursApple #WeLiveInDarkTimes
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Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime
“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes: “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression. Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century. Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life. One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records. So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.
The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history. Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves. Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens. They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.
These are indeed Dark Times.
The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom. The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.
We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s. It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%. The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion. It’s even lower for Black Americans. However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful. In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant. Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers. I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me. My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research. And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World. America’s first University, Harvard. If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.
Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump. “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson. Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.
A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.
The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”
United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”
The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.
Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.
Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.
Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.
You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason. BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here. It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.” I personally cannot take much more of this.
I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.
That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.
We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.
But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.
Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.
Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.
At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”
But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”
Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.
President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.
There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty. While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”. Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents. But then, our #FARTUS is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA. The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate. All, at the expense of the United States and its economy. This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display. All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.
Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.
Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.
World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.
Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.
The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.
In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.
Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore. Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.” If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it. Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments. We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”
President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.
The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.
At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”
It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.
“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.
The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.
Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”
That sure is different than the 2021 #FARTUS who told Fox News. He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess. This is from the BBC. “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.
Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.
“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”
He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.
As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters. This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.” This was written by Mike Wendling.
Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.
The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.
But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.
“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”
Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.
So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it. That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades. The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it. This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”
US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.
All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.
At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.
The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.
It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.
All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.
Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula. It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands. It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.” This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.
The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”
Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs. Wow, how free market is this? Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party? This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone? Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?
President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.
Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.
Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.
This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.
“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.
Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.
Apple declined to comment for this story.
So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep. You know how I am about Rabbit Holes. How much longer before the economy collapses? I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.
You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy. Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you. There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in. Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #academicFreedom #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #FARTUS #HarvardVTrump #NeoRobberBarons #NoKingsProtestOverFARTUSParade #TheHinduLoveGods #TrumpSoursApple #WeLiveInDarkTimes
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Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime
“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes: “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression. Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century. Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life. One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records. So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.
The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history. Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves. Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens. They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.
These are indeed Dark Times.
The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom. The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.
We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s. It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%. The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion. It’s even lower for Black Americans. However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful. In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant. Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers. I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me. My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research. And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World. America’s first University, Harvard. If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.
Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump. “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson. Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.
A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.
The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”
United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”
The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.
Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.
Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.
Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.
You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason. BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here. It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.” I personally cannot take much more of this.
I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.
That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.
We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.
But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.
Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.
Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.
At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”
But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”
Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.
President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.
There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty. While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”. Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents. But then, our #FARTUS is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA. The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate. All, at the expense of the United States and its economy. This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display. All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.
Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.
Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.
World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.
Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.
The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.
In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.
Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore. Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.” If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it. Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments. We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”
President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.
The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.
At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”
It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.
“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.
The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.
Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”
That sure is different than the 2021 #FARTUS who told Fox News. He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess. This is from the BBC. “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.
Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.
“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”
He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.
As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters. This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.” This was written by Mike Wendling.
Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.
The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.
But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.
“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”
Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.
So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it. That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades. The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it. This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”
US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.
All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.
At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.
The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.
It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.
All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.
Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula. It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands. It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.” This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.
The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”
Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs. Wow, how free market is this? Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party? This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone? Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?
President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.
Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.
Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.
This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.
“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.
Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.
Apple declined to comment for this story.
So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep. You know how I am about Rabbit Holes. How much longer before the economy collapses? I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.
You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy. Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you. There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in. Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #academicFreedom #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #FARTUS #HarvardVTrump #NeoRobberBarons #NoKingsProtestOverFARTUSParade #TheHinduLoveGods #TrumpSoursApple #WeLiveInDarkTimes
-
Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime
“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes: “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression. Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century. Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life. One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records. So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.
The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history. Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves. Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens. They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.
These are indeed Dark Times.
The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom. The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.
We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s. It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%. The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion. It’s even lower for Black Americans. However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful. In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant. Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers. I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me. My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research. And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World. America’s first University, Harvard. If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.
Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump. “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson. Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.
A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.
The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”
United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”
The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.
Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.
Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.
Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.
You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason. BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here. It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.” I personally cannot take much more of this.
I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.
That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.
We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.
But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.
Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.
Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.
At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”
But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”
Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.
President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.
There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty. While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”. Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents. But then, our #FARTUS is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA. The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate. All, at the expense of the United States and its economy. This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display. All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.
Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.
Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.
World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.
Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.
The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.
In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.
Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore. Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.” If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it. Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments. We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”
President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.
The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.
At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”
It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.
“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.
The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.
Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”
That sure is different than the 2021 #FARTUS who told Fox News. He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess. This is from the BBC. “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.
Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.
“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”
He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.
As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters. This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.” This was written by Mike Wendling.
Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.
The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.
But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.
“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”
Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.
So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it. That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades. The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it. This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”
US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.
All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.
At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.
The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.
It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.
All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.
Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula. It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands. It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.” This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.
The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”
Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs. Wow, how free market is this? Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party? This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone? Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?
President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.
Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.
Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.
This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.
“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.
Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.
Apple declined to comment for this story.
So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep. You know how I am about Rabbit Holes. How much longer before the economy collapses? I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.
You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy. Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you. There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in. Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?
#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #academicFreedom #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #FARTUS #HarvardVTrump #NeoRobberBarons #NoKingsProtestOverFARTUSParade #TheHinduLoveGods #TrumpSoursApple #WeLiveInDarkTimes
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By Steel Druhm
India’s Kryptos have been rocking an entertaining retro metal formula for several albums now, fusing classic metal sounds with slight black and thrash edges. Platters like Burn Up the Night and Afterburner are nigh-irresistible rocket rides of gleaming chrome, black leather, and glistening steel, delivering more fun than a barrel full of hobo wine and wiffle bats. 2021s Force of Danger was a bit of a step down in overall fun factor, with too much mid-paced chugging, though it had several big moments to endear it to fans of their schtick. Now comes 7th album Decimator and there’s a new page or two in the Kryptos cookbook. They still sound like someone forced Coroner’s Ron Royce into vocal duty for 80s Accept and they still aim to rock you like a Kryptocane, but there’s a greater emphasis on melodic guitar-play this time out. That means riffy, rowdy, hard rock-infused metal anthems made for the stadium circuit and that’s not a bad place to re-position the Kryptos persona. But does the pure metal fire still burn brightly on Decimator or is their throwback fetish beginning to show its age?
I’ll say this for these chaps, they don’t go in for faff or fluff. They come right at you on opener “Sirens of Steel” with all guns blazing and engines in overdrive. It’s exactly the kind of tune you want from them, full of galloping riffs and soaring guitar flourishes as Nolan Lewis croaks and snarls like a rabid hedgehog that just humped your prize petunias. Lewis and lead axe Rohit Chaturvedi bring the best thunder from the Tundra with guitar heroics ripped out of the 80s so hard that the air reeks of the Reagan Administration and cheap gasoline. You simply can’t hear this song and be in a sour mood, no matter how trve and kvlt you pretend to be. “Fall to the Spectre’s Gaze” is the same gumbo but with spicier okra. Once again Lewis and Chaturvedi rob the graves of Dokken, Keel, Cities, and Accept for inspiration and rock your socks way off in the process. And that chorus is the chef’s kiss. “Electrify” is an album standout due to its fist-pumping, teen-rager energy and raucous charm. It makes you want to race from destination to destination chugging cheap beers with idiot friends til you can race no more. Elsewhere, the title track sounds like underappreciated Canadian thrashers of yore, Sacrifice, reminding me that Lewis’s vocals are not far removed from those of Rob Urbinati.
Other big winners include “In the Shadow of the Blade” which lashes you with uber-polished but blood-pumping riffs and offers a slightly heavier vibe approaching the lighter side of Kreator. If you play this in your vehicle you will almost certainly break the speed limit by unsafe margins. “Pathfinder” also offers an orgy of greasy guitars and a pugnacious attitude that sticks in your head. There are no bad songs here, though one or two hit a bit less forcefully. At a very lean 31-plus minutes, there’s not much here but muscle and skin. There’s a short interlude, but other than that, this is all alloy, rebar, and concrete and it goes by fast and easy.
With what Kryptos do, the guitar work has to be aces or the whole construct comes crashing down. Luckily Lewis and Chaturvedi know their roles and deliver a fuck-ton of blazing six-string glory. They absolutely nail the 80s metal ethos and sound and at any moment they remind me of several albums I worshipped as teenage metal mouthbreather. The infusion of more melodic fretwork is a boon, and though I wish they would delve deeper into speed and thrash at times, I love what they do across Decimator. Lewis is extremely limited as a vocalist, with a one-note ragged snarl that varies little from moment to moment, but somehow it fits and never seems to undersell the material. Vijit Singh pounds away on the kit manfully, providing a booming backdrop for the guitars, and Robin Utbult (Vicious Rumors, ex-Air Raid) guests as bassist, offering a workmanlike performance, rarely injecting himself forcefully into the fray.
Decimator is a comeback of sorts for Kryptos, moving them closer to killer albums like Afterburner. This is the kind of record you put on, bang your head to, and feel surprised when it ends and you realize you just lost 30-plus minutes. It’s not intellectual, innovative, or forward-thinking, but it will activate your dental plan as it forces a good time on your gloomy ass. In these days of stress and strife, we all need things like this. My advice: blast this thing as loud as humanly possible and let it take to Air Guitar Old School. I’ll be there selling smokes, test results, and discount wedgies. Ask for the Powerlord.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: AFM
Websites: kryptosindia.bandcamp.com/album/decimator | facebook.com/kryptosindia | instagram.com/kryptosindia
Releases Worldwide: July 5th, 2024Maddog
Screenshot
Along with Satan’s Hallow’s fantastic debut/swansong, Kryptos’ Afterburner rekindled my love of traditional heavy metal. Granting my lifelong wish of experiencing the 1980s firsthand, Kryptos whisked me along for a midnight motorcycle joyride. Afterburner did nothing that hadn’t been overdone before, but its command of thrilling riffs made me an immediate devotee. However, Kryptos’ 2021 follow-up Force of Danger lacked danger, settling into a mid-paced routine that left me satisfied but wanting. Decimator sees India’s rockstar darlings step into more melodic territory while ratcheting up the energy. Although hints of Force of Danger’s missteps remain, Decimator marks a triumphant new direction for Kryptos.
Decimator targets thrill seekers, headbangers, and foot tappers alike. Blending Priest circa 1980 with Priest circa 1990, Kryptos are hell-bent for leather. Speedier anthems channel the relentless fun of Motörhead (“Sirens of Steel”), while slower chugfests show Kryptos living after midnight. The biggest change in Kryptos’ sound is the band’s newfound melodic touch. Guitar wizards Rohit Chaturvedi (lead) and Nolan Lewis (rhythm) never stop riffing for a moment, but Decimator’s soaring leads and 110-on-the-freeway solos add a brand new dimension. Vijit Singh’s drums move in lockstep, while Robin Utbult’s bass melodies channel a young Steve Harris without the gallops, adding depth when the guitars take a breather. Lewis’ roaring vocals, spinning innovative tales about late-night drives and neon lights and perseverance and stuff, add an extreme metal energy that keeps Kryptos sounding modern. Decimator provides fodder for adrenaline junkies of all stripes.
As always, Kryptos’ greatest strength is their blazing riffwork. Kryptos’ speedier cuts on their earlier albums had hit me hard, and Decimator follows suit. “Sirens of Steel” opens the album with remorseless violence, while the title track’s frantic opening gives way to a touch of evil. Songs like “Electrify,” the “Mach Speed Running” of Decimator, rank among Kryptos’ best work with their magical blend of simplicity and sheer power. On the other hand, Decimator’s slower tracks are hit-or-miss. “Turn up the Heat” crushes me with a thumping bass line and a main theme that’s mid-paced but ferocious, mirroring Afterburner’s “Red Dawn.”1 However, the album’s closers “Pathfinder” and “We Are the Night” fall short of delivering the same goods, with sluggish ideas that lose my attention. More generally, Decimator’s second half seems to run out of ideas, with riffs that sound fun but uncannily familiar. Decimator is powerful, but it loses some steam despite its concise 31-minute runtime.
Decimator’s mastery of melody raises Kryptos to new heights. Stratospheric leads permeate each song, providing gorgeous backing that unexpectedly evokes Jess and the Ancient Ones (“Electrify”). But Decimator hits hardest when the melodies take the reins. “Fall to the Spectre’s Gaze” vies for Song o’ the Year through a divine guitar solo with a divine lead-in. Five tracks later, “In the Shadow of the Blade” miraculously pushes in front with solo work that summons the intensity of Painkiller. Each of these highlights shines through Decimator’s rich production job. When I listen to Decimator, I feel like I’m lodged in between the guitar strings, and mere inches from the bass. Every reverberation of every string bleeds through both melodic bonanzas like “Fall to the Spectre’s Gaze” and riff-fests like “Electrify.” Every guitar solo feels like a personalized jam, complete with thoughtful foreshadowing from Kryptos’ riffs. With tunes this powerful, Decimator is unstoppable.
While Decimator fizzles out near its end, it’s exhilarating nonetheless. Kryptos has yet to fully overcome the lethargic chugs that plagued Force of Danger, and Decimator struggles with repetition. Even so, every listen through the album feels like sprinting a marathon. Even more impressively, Decimator levels up Kryptos’ sound through both its supersonic guitar leads and its striking production. Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to burn rubber.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
#2024 #35 #Accept #AFMRecords #Afterburner #BurnUpTheNight #Cities #Decimator #Dokken #ForceOfDanger #HeavyMetal #IndianMetal #JudasPriest #Kreator #Kryptos #Motörhead #Review #Reviews #Sacrifice
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By Steel Druhm
India’s Kryptos have been rocking an entertaining retro metal formula for several albums now, fusing classic metal sounds with slight black and thrash edges. Platters like Burn Up the Night and Afterburner are nigh-irresistible rocket rides of gleaming chrome, black leather, and glistening steel, delivering more fun than a barrel full of hobo wine and wiffle bats. 2021s Force of Danger was a bit of a step down in overall fun factor, with too much mid-paced chugging, though it had several big moments to endear it to fans of their schtick. Now comes 7th album Decimator and there’s a new page or two in the Kryptos cookbook. They still sound like someone forced Coroner’s Ron Royce into vocal duty for 80s Accept and they still aim to rock you like a Kryptocane, but there’s a greater emphasis on melodic guitar-play this time out. That means riffy, rowdy, hard rock-infused metal anthems made for the stadium circuit and that’s not a bad place to re-position the Kryptos persona. But does the pure metal fire still burn brightly on Decimator or is their throwback fetish beginning to show its age?
I’ll say this for these chaps, they don’t go in for faff or fluff. They come right at you on opener “Sirens of Steel” with all guns blazing and engines in overdrive. It’s exactly the kind of tune you want from them, full of galloping riffs and soaring guitar flourishes as Nolan Lewis croaks and snarls like a rabid hedgehog that just humped your prize petunias. Lewis and lead axe Rohit Chaturvedi bring the best thunder from the Tundra with guitar heroics ripped out of the 80s so hard that the air reeks of the Reagan Administration and cheap gasoline. You simply can’t hear this song and be in a sour mood, no matter how trve and kvlt you pretend to be. “Fall to the Spectre’s Gaze” is the same gumbo but with spicier okra. Once again Lewis and Chaturvedi rob the graves of Dokken, Keel, Cities, and Accept for inspiration and rock your socks way off in the process. And that chorus is the chef’s kiss. “Electrify” is an album standout due to its fist-pumping, teen-rager energy and raucous charm. It makes you want to race from destination to destination chugging cheap beers with idiot friends til you can race no more. Elsewhere, the title track sounds like underappreciated Canadian thrashers of yore, Sacrifice, reminding me that Lewis’s vocals are not far removed from those of Rob Urbinati.
Other big winners include “In the Shadow of the Blade” which lashes you with uber-polished but blood-pumping riffs and offers a slightly heavier vibe approaching the lighter side of Kreator. If you play this in your vehicle you will almost certainly break the speed limit by unsafe margins. “Pathfinder” also offers an orgy of greasy guitars and a pugnacious attitude that sticks in your head. There are no bad songs here, though one or two hit a bit less forcefully. At a very lean 31-plus minutes, there’s not much here but muscle and skin. There’s a short interlude, but other than that, this is all alloy, rebar, and concrete and it goes by fast and easy.
With what Kryptos do, the guitar work has to be aces or the whole construct comes crashing down. Luckily Lewis and Chaturvedi know their roles and deliver a fuck-ton of blazing six-string glory. They absolutely nail the 80s metal ethos and sound and at any moment they remind me of several albums I worshipped as teenage metal mouthbreather. The infusion of more melodic fretwork is a boon, and though I wish they would delve deeper into speed and thrash at times, I love what they do across Decimator. Lewis is extremely limited as a vocalist, with a one-note ragged snarl that varies little from moment to moment, but somehow it fits and never seems to undersell the material. Vijit Singh pounds away on the kit manfully, providing a booming backdrop for the guitars, and Robin Utbult (Vicious Rumors, ex-Air Raid) guests as bassist, offering a workmanlike performance, rarely injecting himself forcefully into the fray.
Decimator is a comeback of sorts for Kryptos, moving them closer to killer albums like Afterburner. This is the kind of record you put on, bang your head to, and feel surprised when it ends and you realize you just lost 30-plus minutes. It’s not intellectual, innovative, or forward-thinking, but it will activate your dental plan as it forces a good time on your gloomy ass. In these days of stress and strife, we all need things like this. My advice: blast this thing as loud as humanly possible and let it take to Air Guitar Old School. I’ll be there selling smokes, test results, and discount wedgies. Ask for the Powerlord.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 11 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: AFM
Websites: kryptosindia.bandcamp.com/album/decimator | facebook.com/kryptosindia | instagram.com/kryptosindia
Releases Worldwide: July 5th, 2024Maddog
Screenshot
Along with Satan’s Hallow’s fantastic debut/swansong, Kryptos’ Afterburner rekindled my love of traditional heavy metal. Granting my lifelong wish of experiencing the 1980s firsthand, Kryptos whisked me along for a midnight motorcycle joyride. Afterburner did nothing that hadn’t been overdone before, but its command of thrilling riffs made me an immediate devotee. However, Kryptos’ 2021 follow-up Force of Danger lacked danger, settling into a mid-paced routine that left me satisfied but wanting. Decimator sees India’s rockstar darlings step into more melodic territory while ratcheting up the energy. Although hints of Force of Danger’s missteps remain, Decimator marks a triumphant new direction for Kryptos.
Decimator targets thrill seekers, headbangers, and foot tappers alike. Blending Priest circa 1980 with Priest circa 1990, Kryptos are hell-bent for leather. Speedier anthems channel the relentless fun of Motörhead (“Sirens of Steel”), while slower chugfests show Kryptos living after midnight. The biggest change in Kryptos’ sound is the band’s newfound melodic touch. Guitar wizards Rohit Chaturvedi (lead) and Nolan Lewis (rhythm) never stop riffing for a moment, but Decimator’s soaring leads and 110-on-the-freeway solos add a brand new dimension. Vijit Singh’s drums move in lockstep, while Robin Utbult’s bass melodies channel a young Steve Harris without the gallops, adding depth when the guitars take a breather. Lewis’ roaring vocals, spinning innovative tales about late-night drives and neon lights and perseverance and stuff, add an extreme metal energy that keeps Kryptos sounding modern. Decimator provides fodder for adrenaline junkies of all stripes.
As always, Kryptos’ greatest strength is their blazing riffwork. Kryptos’ speedier cuts on their earlier albums had hit me hard, and Decimator follows suit. “Sirens of Steel” opens the album with remorseless violence, while the title track’s frantic opening gives way to a touch of evil. Songs like “Electrify,” the “Mach Speed Running” of Decimator, rank among Kryptos’ best work with their magical blend of simplicity and sheer power. On the other hand, Decimator’s slower tracks are hit-or-miss. “Turn up the Heat” crushes me with a thumping bass line and a main theme that’s mid-paced but ferocious, mirroring Afterburner’s “Red Dawn.”1 However, the album’s closers “Pathfinder” and “We Are the Night” fall short of delivering the same goods, with sluggish ideas that lose my attention. More generally, Decimator’s second half seems to run out of ideas, with riffs that sound fun but uncannily familiar. Decimator is powerful, but it loses some steam despite its concise 31-minute runtime.
Decimator’s mastery of melody raises Kryptos to new heights. Stratospheric leads permeate each song, providing gorgeous backing that unexpectedly evokes Jess and the Ancient Ones (“Electrify”). But Decimator hits hardest when the melodies take the reins. “Fall to the Spectre’s Gaze” vies for Song o’ the Year through a divine guitar solo with a divine lead-in. Five tracks later, “In the Shadow of the Blade” miraculously pushes in front with solo work that summons the intensity of Painkiller. Each of these highlights shines through Decimator’s rich production job. When I listen to Decimator, I feel like I’m lodged in between the guitar strings, and mere inches from the bass. Every reverberation of every string bleeds through both melodic bonanzas like “Fall to the Spectre’s Gaze” and riff-fests like “Electrify.” Every guitar solo feels like a personalized jam, complete with thoughtful foreshadowing from Kryptos’ riffs. With tunes this powerful, Decimator is unstoppable.
While Decimator fizzles out near its end, it’s exhilarating nonetheless. Kryptos has yet to fully overcome the lethargic chugs that plagued Force of Danger, and Decimator struggles with repetition. Even so, every listen through the album feels like sprinting a marathon. Even more impressively, Decimator levels up Kryptos’ sound through both its supersonic guitar leads and its striking production. Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to burn rubber.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
#2024 #35 #Accept #AFMRecords #Afterburner #BurnUpTheNight #Cities #Decimator #Dokken #ForceOfDanger #HeavyMetal #IndianMetal #JudasPriest #Kreator #Kryptos #Motörhead #Review #Reviews #Sacrifice
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In one sense, the existence of "far-right influences among Project 2025 applicants" might be the most obvious thing I've ever posted on social media.
On the other hand, the details are pretty interesting. For all the managerial ineptitude of the Trump administration, the continuity between it and leaders in both the intellectual and on-the-ground brawler contingents of far-right activism in the US is striking. Some of the people mentioned here cite Carl Schmitt (albeit in the most superficial way possible), use jargon like "Heritage Americans," and talk about a left-wing "all out war" on the right, thereby justifying all-out reciprocity.
Others point to the influence Jared Taylor has had on their thinking. Taylor (I like to call him "Nazi Thurston Howell," but that's just me) is best known as the leading figure behind the American Renaissance website and the annual white nationalist conference by the same name, but he has also been a spokesman for the Council of Conservative Citizens, in which capacity he helped inspire the 2015 white supremacist mass shooting in a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, which left nine people dead. Taylor has also more recently been openly cavorting with members of Patriot Front as well as "active club" founder Rob Rundo.
This article doesn't delve too deeply into it, but it also hints at reaffirming antisemitism as a (maybe "the") major fault line within the US far right today. Several of the people mentioned here are at least very comfortable with some pretty deeply antisemitic ideas. However Taylor, for instance, says he opposes antisemitism and has been very open to the ideas and participation of far-right Jews in white nationalist spaces, and members of the Heritage Foundation have clearly taken a "philo-semitic" position in a variety of areas.
Anyways, like I said, nothing earth-shattering or all that surprising here, but I do think it's important to keep tabs on the details of just what kind of "leadership" we're all being subjected to. Worth reading.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/28/project-2025-heritage-foundation-hack
#HeritageFoundation #Project2025 #CarlSchmitt #antisemitism #JaredTaylor #AmRen #AmericanRenaissance #racism #PatriotFront #ActiveClub #RobRundo #CCC #fascism
-
In one sense, the existence of "far-right influences among Project 2025 applicants" might be the most obvious thing I've ever posted on social media.
On the other hand, the details are pretty interesting. For all the managerial ineptitude of the Trump administration, the continuity between it and leaders in both the intellectual and on-the-ground brawler contingents of far-right activism in the US is striking. Some of the people mentioned here cite Carl Schmitt (albeit in the most superficial way possible), use jargon like "Heritage Americans," and talk about a left-wing "all out war" on the right, thereby justifying all-out reciprocity.
Others point to the influence Jared Taylor has had on their thinking. Taylor (I like to call him "Nazi Thurston Howell," but that's just me) is best known as the leading figure behind the American Renaissance website and the annual white nationalist conference by the same name, but he has also been a spokesman for the Council of Conservative Citizens, in which capacity he helped inspire the 2015 white supremacist mass shooting in a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, which left nine people dead. Taylor has also more recently been openly cavorting with members of Patriot Front as well as "active club" founder Rob Rundo.
This article doesn't delve too deeply into it, but it also hints at reaffirming antisemitism as a (maybe "the") major fault line within the US far right today. Several of the people mentioned here are at least very comfortable with some pretty deeply antisemitic ideas. However Taylor, for instance, says he opposes antisemitism and has been very open to the ideas and participation of far-right Jews in white nationalist spaces, and members of the Heritage Foundation have clearly taken a "philo-semitic" position in a variety of areas.
Anyways, like I said, nothing earth-shattering or all that surprising here, but I do think it's important to keep tabs on the details of just what kind of "leadership" we're all being subjected to. Worth reading.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/28/project-2025-heritage-foundation-hack
#HeritageFoundation #Project2025 #CarlSchmitt #antisemitism #JaredTaylor #AmRen #AmericanRenaissance #racism #PatriotFront #ActiveClub #RobRundo #CCC #fascism
-
In one sense, the existence of "far-right influences among Project 2025 applicants" might be the most obvious thing I've ever posted on social media.
On the other hand, the details are pretty interesting. For all the managerial ineptitude of the Trump administration, the continuity between it and leaders in both the intellectual and on-the-ground brawler contingents of far-right activism in the US is striking. Some of the people mentioned here cite Carl Schmitt (albeit in the most superficial way possible), use jargon like "Heritage Americans," and talk about a left-wing "all out war" on the right, thereby justifying all-out reciprocity.
Others point to the influence Jared Taylor has had on their thinking. Taylor (I like to call him "Nazi Thurston Howell," but that's just me) is best known as the leading figure behind the American Renaissance website and the annual white nationalist conference by the same name, but he has also been a spokesman for the Council of Conservative Citizens, in which capacity he helped inspire the 2015 white supremacist mass shooting in a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, which left nine people dead. Taylor has also more recently been openly cavorting with members of Patriot Front as well as "active club" founder Rob Rundo.
This article doesn't delve too deeply into it, but it also hints at reaffirming antisemitism as a (maybe "the") major fault line within the US far right today. Several of the people mentioned here are at least very comfortable with some pretty deeply antisemitic ideas. However Taylor, for instance, says he opposes antisemitism and has been very open to the ideas and participation of far-right Jews in white nationalist spaces, and members of the Heritage Foundation have clearly taken a "philo-semitic" position in a variety of areas.
Anyways, like I said, nothing earth-shattering or all that surprising here, but I do think it's important to keep tabs on the details of just what kind of "leadership" we're all being subjected to. Worth reading.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/28/project-2025-heritage-foundation-hack
#HeritageFoundation #Project2025 #CarlSchmitt #antisemitism #JaredTaylor #AmRen #AmericanRenaissance #racism #PatriotFront #ActiveClub #RobRundo #CCC #fascism
-
In one sense, the existence of "far-right influences among Project 2025 applicants" might be the most obvious thing I've ever posted on social media.
On the other hand, the details are pretty interesting. For all the managerial ineptitude of the Trump administration, the continuity between it and leaders in both the intellectual and on-the-ground brawler contingents of far-right activism in the US is striking. Some of the people mentioned here cite Carl Schmitt (albeit in the most superficial way possible), use jargon like "Heritage Americans," and talk about a left-wing "all out war" on the right, thereby justifying all-out reciprocity.
Others point to the influence Jared Taylor has had on their thinking. Taylor (I like to call him "Nazi Thurston Howell," but that's just me) is best known as the leading figure behind the American Renaissance website and the annual white nationalist conference by the same name, but he has also been a spokesman for the Council of Conservative Citizens, in which capacity he helped inspire the 2015 white supremacist mass shooting in a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, which left nine people dead. Taylor has also more recently been openly cavorting with members of Patriot Front as well as "active club" founder Rob Rundo.
This article doesn't delve too deeply into it, but it also hints at reaffirming antisemitism as a (maybe "the") major fault line within the US far right today. Several of the people mentioned here are at least very comfortable with some pretty deeply antisemitic ideas. However Taylor, for instance, says he opposes antisemitism and has been very open to the ideas and participation of far-right Jews in white nationalist spaces, and members of the Heritage Foundation have clearly taken a "philo-semitic" position in a variety of areas.
Anyways, like I said, nothing earth-shattering or all that surprising here, but I do think it's important to keep tabs on the details of just what kind of "leadership" we're all being subjected to. Worth reading.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/28/project-2025-heritage-foundation-hack
#HeritageFoundation #Project2025 #CarlSchmitt #antisemitism #JaredTaylor #AmRen #AmericanRenaissance #racism #PatriotFront #ActiveClub #RobRundo #CCC #fascism
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Just published a #wikipedia article on the #FoundationAgainstIntoleranceAndRacism, AKA #FAIR. An organization with a name that screams double-speak and a tale of #racism, #transphobia, and #rightwing astro-turfing and culture warring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Against_Intolerance_and_Racism
So who are these guys? Simply put, a crew of #racist and #transphobic / #antitrans conservative intellectuals (think #quilette and the #kochbrothers) who helped push the #CRT panic into the American mainstream by aiding legal battles and infiltrating school boards across the country. They lobbied against any halfway honest accounting with America's racist history anywhere they found it, from just teaching about it to addressing it through equity programs, eventually starting the same in Canada. #ChristopherRufo, who has been credited with single-handedly launching the CRT panic in the US, is naturally a board member. For salt on the wound, they highlighted opposition to a debt relief program for black farmers as a "profile in courage", which with the barest knowledge of American history should tell you all you need to know.
They're also incredibly transphobic, which is how I found out about them originally. I mean, #AbigailShrier is a board member ffs. They started out defending the supposed "right" of students to misgender their trans classmates, now they routinely partner up with #genspect to push #conversiontherapy
https://genspect.org/an-open-letter-to-the-american-academy-of-pediatrics/
https://twitter.com/search?q=(%40fairforall_org)%20(%40genspect)&src=typed_query&f=top
https://twitter.com/search?q=(%40fairforall_org)%20(%40segm_ebm)&src=typed_query&f=top
I wrote the article because I'd been meaning to for a while, and recently I saw @tsn calling on them to cancel an upcoming pro-conversion therapy event with SEGM and Genspect. No dig at TSN, love the work they do, I wanted to clear up for the record that FAIR have been transphobic and racist from the start; that it's not an honest mistake on FAIR's part but another just support for another wing of the same astroturfed conservative campaign network.
https://twitter.com/trans_safety/status/1615839237705814016
Scratch a transphobe, a racist bleeds, and usually vice versa. We should all be fully aware that the same conservatives pushing racism are pushing transphobia. For some of us it's been obvious the whole time, others need a wake-up call. Either way, the details don't lie and people need to know their enemy to fight them. Same people, same tactics, same fight.
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Just published a #wikipedia article on the #FoundationAgainstIntoleranceAndRacism, AKA #FAIR. An organization with a name that screams double-speak and a tale of #racism, #transphobia, and #rightwing astro-turfing and culture warring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Against_Intolerance_and_Racism
So who are these guys? Simply put, a crew of #racist and #transphobic / #antitrans conservative intellectuals (think #quilette and the #kochbrothers) who helped push the #CRT panic into the American mainstream by aiding legal battles and infiltrating school boards across the country. They lobbied against any halfway honest accounting with America's racist history anywhere they found it, from just teaching about it to addressing it through equity programs, eventually starting the same in Canada. #ChristopherRufo, who has been credited with single-handedly launching the CRT panic in the US, is naturally a board member. For salt on the wound, they highlighted opposition to a debt relief program for black farmers as a "profile in courage", which with the barest knowledge of American history should tell you all you need to know.
They're also incredibly transphobic, which is how I found out about them originally. I mean, #AbigailShrier is a board member ffs. They started out defending the supposed "right" of students to misgender their trans classmates, now they routinely partner up with #genspect to push #conversiontherapy
https://genspect.org/an-open-letter-to-the-american-academy-of-pediatrics/
https://twitter.com/search?q=(%40fairforall_org)%20(%40genspect)&src=typed_query&f=top
https://twitter.com/search?q=(%40fairforall_org)%20(%40segm_ebm)&src=typed_query&f=top
I wrote the article because I'd been meaning to for a while, and recently I saw @tsn calling on them to cancel an upcoming pro-conversion therapy event with SEGM and Genspect. No dig at TSN, love the work they do, I wanted to clear up for the record that FAIR have been transphobic and racist from the start; that it's not an honest mistake on FAIR's part but another just support for another wing of the same astroturfed conservative campaign network.
https://twitter.com/trans_safety/status/1615839237705814016
Scratch a transphobe, a racist bleeds, and usually vice versa. We should all be fully aware that the same conservatives pushing racism are pushing transphobia. For some of us it's been obvious the whole time, others need a wake-up call. Either way, the details don't lie and people need to know their enemy to fight them. Same people, same tactics, same fight.
-
Just published a #wikipedia article on the #FoundationAgainstIntoleranceAndRacism, AKA #FAIR. An organization with a name that screams double-speak and a tale of #racism, #transphobia, and #rightwing astro-turfing and culture warring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Against_Intolerance_and_Racism
So who are these guys? Simply put, a crew of #racist and #transphobic / #antitrans conservative intellectuals (think #quilette and the #kochbrothers) who helped push the #CRT panic into the American mainstream by aiding legal battles and infiltrating school boards across the country. They lobbied against any halfway honest accounting with America's racist history anywhere they found it, from just teaching about it to addressing it through equity programs, eventually starting the same in Canada. #ChristopherRufo, who has been credited with single-handedly launching the CRT panic in the US, is naturally a board member. For salt on the wound, they highlighted opposition to a debt relief program for black farmers as a "profile in courage", which with the barest knowledge of American history should tell you all you need to know.
They're also incredibly transphobic, which is how I found out about them originally. I mean, #AbigailShrier is a board member ffs. They started out defending the supposed "right" of students to misgender their trans classmates, now they routinely partner up with #genspect to push #conversiontherapy
https://genspect.org/an-open-letter-to-the-american-academy-of-pediatrics/
https://twitter.com/search?q=(%40fairforall_org)%20(%40genspect)&src=typed_query&f=top
https://twitter.com/search?q=(%40fairforall_org)%20(%40segm_ebm)&src=typed_query&f=top
I wrote the article because I'd been meaning to for a while, and recently I saw @tsn calling on them to cancel an upcoming pro-conversion therapy event with SEGM and Genspect. No dig at TSN, love the work they do, I wanted to clear up for the record that FAIR have been transphobic and racist from the start; that it's not an honest mistake on FAIR's part but another just support for another wing of the same astroturfed conservative campaign network.
https://twitter.com/trans_safety/status/1615839237705814016
Scratch a transphobe, a racist bleeds, and usually vice versa. We should all be fully aware that the same conservatives pushing racism are pushing transphobia. For some of us it's been obvious the whole time, others need a wake-up call. Either way, the details don't lie and people need to know their enemy to fight them. Same people, same tactics, same fight.
-
Just published a #wikipedia article on the #FoundationAgainstIntoleranceAndRacism, AKA #FAIR. An organization with a name that screams double-speak and a tale of #racism, #transphobia, and #rightwing astro-turfing and culture warring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Against_Intolerance_and_Racism
So who are these guys? Simply put, a crew of #racist and #transphobic / #antitrans conservative intellectuals (think #quilette and the #kochbrothers) who helped push the #CRT panic into the American mainstream by aiding legal battles and infiltrating school boards across the country. They lobbied against any halfway honest accounting with America's racist history anywhere they found it, from just teaching about it to addressing it through equity programs, eventually starting the same in Canada. #ChristopherRufo, who has been credited with single-handedly launching the CRT panic in the US, is naturally a board member. For salt on the wound, they highlighted opposition to a debt relief program for black farmers as a "profile in courage", which with the barest knowledge of American history should tell you all you need to know.
They're also incredibly transphobic, which is how I found out about them originally. I mean, #AbigailShrier is a board member ffs. They started out defending the supposed "right" of students to misgender their trans classmates, now they routinely partner up with #genspect to push #conversiontherapy
https://genspect.org/an-open-letter-to-the-american-academy-of-pediatrics/
https://twitter.com/search?q=(%40fairforall_org)%20(%40genspect)&src=typed_query&f=top
https://twitter.com/search?q=(%40fairforall_org)%20(%40segm_ebm)&src=typed_query&f=top
I wrote the article because I'd been meaning to for a while, and recently I saw @tsn calling on them to cancel an upcoming pro-conversion therapy event with SEGM and Genspect. No dig at TSN, love the work they do, I wanted to clear up for the record that FAIR have been transphobic and racist from the start; that it's not an honest mistake on FAIR's part but another just support for another wing of the same astroturfed conservative campaign network.
https://twitter.com/trans_safety/status/1615839237705814016
Scratch a transphobe, a racist bleeds, and usually vice versa. We should all be fully aware that the same conservatives pushing racism are pushing transphobia. For some of us it's been obvious the whole time, others need a wake-up call. Either way, the details don't lie and people need to know their enemy to fight them. Same people, same tactics, same fight.
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Quand Monster of the Week rencontre Donjons et Dragons, ça donne: Dungeon of the Week!
Une chasse aux monstres du bestiaire DnD aux confins d’un univers inconnu.Dans ce 1er épisode, Jennnyyy, Riley et Coccinelle sont les interprètes brillants d’un groupe de colons intersidéraux,
embarqués sur le Magellan il y a 63 ans pour la promesse d’un avenir meilleur et confrontés,
malgré eux, à une faune hostile: le dévoreur d’intellect.Un mash-up mené et monté par Spidergrô, avec Jennnyyyy, Riley et Coccinelle,
inspiré de la série Scavenger’s ReignRetrouvez la suite des aventures de nos colons infortunés sur: www.jdracademy.com
Soutenez-nous sur: www.patreon.com/JDRAcademy
Plus de terreur spatiale sur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7hjS9KkNrI&list=PLru67HmqjK6yhVtEjwUfnfgEtnF0a_ruZPlaylist:
-Voyager Ambient space music for colonizing the cosmos
-Atrium Carceri – Old city Leviathan soundtrack
-RPG combat music – The airship Armada
-Alien covenant soundtrack – Shaws Paradise
-Metallica – Some kind of monster
-Miguel Abuel – Stressful Talks Tense Negotiating Music
-DnD horror music – Something’s not right
-Dylan Owen – Black Fingerprint
-David Bowie – Space oddityhttps://jdracademy.fr/dungeon-of-the-week-01-le-devoreur-dintellect/
#5E #actualplay #apocalypse #cerveau #creature #DD5 #dévoreur #dieu #dnd #donjonsEtDragons #dungeon #dungeonsAndDragons #édition #jdr #jeu #jeuDeRôle #liveplay #mashup #MonsterOfTheWeek #monstre #paris #partie #podcast #raiseDead #rediffusion #rpg #Supernatural
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Quand Monster of the Week rencontre Donjons et Dragons, ça donne: Dungeon of the Week!
Une chasse aux monstres du bestiaire DnD aux confins d’un univers inconnu.Dans ce 1er épisode, Jennnyyy, Riley et Coccinelle sont les interprètes brillants d’un groupe de colons intersidéraux,
embarqués sur le Magellan il y a 63 ans pour la promesse d’un avenir meilleur et confrontés,
malgré eux, à une faune hostile: le dévoreur d’intellect.Un mash-up mené et monté par Spidergrô, avec Jennnyyyy, Riley et Coccinelle,
inspiré de la série Scavenger’s ReignRetrouvez la suite des aventures de nos colons infortunés sur: www.jdracademy.com
Soutenez-nous sur: www.patreon.com/JDRAcademy
Plus de terreur spatiale sur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7hjS9KkNrI&list=PLru67HmqjK6yhVtEjwUfnfgEtnF0a_ruZPlaylist:
-Voyager Ambient space music for colonizing the cosmos
-Atrium Carceri – Old city Leviathan soundtrack
-RPG combat music – The airship Armada
-Alien covenant soundtrack – Shaws Paradise
-Metallica – Some kind of monster
-Miguel Abuel – Stressful Talks Tense Negotiating Music
-DnD horror music – Something’s not right
-Dylan Owen – Black Fingerprint
-David Bowie – Space oddityhttps://jdracademy.fr/dungeon-of-the-week-01-le-devoreur-dintellect/
#5E #actualplay #apocalypse #cerveau #creature #DD5 #dévoreur #dieu #dnd #donjonsEtDragons #dungeon #dungeonsAndDragons #édition #jdr #jeu #jeuDeRôle #liveplay #mashup #MonsterOfTheWeek #monstre #paris #partie #podcast #raiseDead #rediffusion #rpg #Supernatural
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Quand Monster of the Week rencontre Donjons et Dragons, ça donne: Dungeon of the Week!
Une chasse aux monstres du bestiaire DnD aux confins d’un univers inconnu.Dans ce 1er épisode, Jennnyyy, Riley et Coccinelle sont les interprètes brillants d’un groupe de colons intersidéraux,
embarqués sur le Magellan il y a 63 ans pour la promesse d’un avenir meilleur et confrontés,
malgré eux, à une faune hostile: le dévoreur d’intellect.Un mash-up mené et monté par Spidergrô, avec Jennnyyyy, Riley et Coccinelle,
inspiré de la série Scavenger’s ReignRetrouvez la suite des aventures de nos colons infortunés sur: www.jdracademy.com
Soutenez-nous sur: www.patreon.com/JDRAcademy
Plus de terreur spatiale sur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7hjS9KkNrI&list=PLru67HmqjK6yhVtEjwUfnfgEtnF0a_ruZPlaylist:
-Voyager Ambient space music for colonizing the cosmos
-Atrium Carceri – Old city Leviathan soundtrack
-RPG combat music – The airship Armada
-Alien covenant soundtrack – Shaws Paradise
-Metallica – Some kind of monster
-Miguel Abuel – Stressful Talks Tense Negotiating Music
-DnD horror music – Something’s not right
-Dylan Owen – Black Fingerprint
-David Bowie – Space oddityhttps://jdracademy.fr/dungeon-of-the-week-01-le-devoreur-dintellect/
#5E #actualplay #apocalypse #cerveau #creature #DD5 #dévoreur #dieu #dnd #donjonsEtDragons #dungeon #dungeonsAndDragons #édition #jdr #jeu #jeuDeRôle #liveplay #mashup #MonsterOfTheWeek #monstre #paris #partie #podcast #raiseDead #rediffusion #rpg #Supernatural
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Lordt.
Apparently the male half of the Disgusting Duo showed up where I am not, looking for me, asking people if I'm in charge.
Like I know none of them actually understand what anarchist means ("she's an archist?"), but he's not doing much to distance himself from the "Donalds with veneers" descriptor.
I guess he needs to get in my space to make me regret pointing out that his only power is physical intimidation.
Well, it sure as shit isn't going to be INTELLECTUAL intimidation, is it, dumbass?
Anyway, they don't actually know what my current project is because I haven't been discussing it. But I guess it's time to warn another org that I have a pair of deranged stalkers, and see how long it takes them to demonstrate that in person. 🤷🏾♀️
And they're REALLY going to hate what I'm working on and who I'm working with.
Oh hey!
Maybe I'm working with CAAAHHHHNNNNNN!They've finally added some colour, maybe they've decided to have two Black people. 🤣
Adam Lee Wasserman! You should definitely go stand outside their offices and annoy them daily.
That'll work out well for you.You seem determined to return to prison eventually. I ain't stopping you, even though I'm an abolitionist.
You want to do that? Go right ahead.
It's better than somebody innocent being inside.#CreepySpouseInDaHouse #CreepySpouseInDaBigHouse #AdamLeeWasserman #NadsMcKneely #CarymaNgo
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Lordt.
Apparently the male half of the Disgusting Duo showed up where I am not, looking for me, asking people if I'm in charge.
Like I know none of them actually understand what anarchist means ("she's an archist?"), but he's not doing much to distance himself from the "Donalds with veneers" descriptor.
I guess he needs to get in my space to make me regret pointing out that his only power is physical intimidation.
Well, it sure as shit isn't going to be INTELLECTUAL intimidation, is it, dumbass?
Anyway, they don't actually know what my current project is because I haven't been discussing it. But I guess it's time to warn another org that I have a pair of deranged stalkers, and see how long it takes them to demonstrate that in person. 🤷🏾♀️
And they're REALLY going to hate what I'm working on and who I'm working with.
Oh hey!
Maybe I'm working with CAAAHHHHNNNNNN!They've finally added some colour, maybe they've decided to have two Black people. 🤣
Adam Lee Wasserman! You should definitely go stand outside their offices and annoy them daily.
That'll work out well for you.You seem determined to return to prison eventually. I ain't stopping you, even though I'm an abolitionist.
You want to do that? Go right ahead.
It's better than somebody innocent being inside.#CreepySpouseInDaHouse #CreepySpouseInDaBigHouse #AdamLeeWasserman #NadsMcKneely #CarymaNgo
-
Lordt.
Apparently the male half of the Disgusting Duo showed up where I am not, looking for me, asking people if I'm in charge.
Like I know none of them actually understand what anarchist means ("she's an archist?"), but he's not doing much to distance himself from the "Donalds with veneers" descriptor.
I guess he needs to get in my space to make me regret pointing out that his only power is physical intimidation.
Well, it sure as shit isn't going to be INTELLECTUAL intimidation, is it, dumbass?
Anyway, they don't actually know what my current project is because I haven't been discussing it. But I guess it's time to warn another org that I have a pair of deranged stalkers, and see how long it takes them to demonstrate that in person. 🤷🏾♀️
And they're REALLY going to hate what I'm working on and who I'm working with.
Oh hey!
Maybe I'm working with CAAAHHHHNNNNNN!They've finally added some colour, maybe they've decided to have two Black people. 🤣
Adam Lee Wasserman! You should definitely go stand outside their offices and annoy them daily.
That'll work out well for you.You seem determined to return to prison eventually. I ain't stopping you, even though I'm an abolitionist.
You want to do that? Go right ahead.
It's better than somebody innocent being inside.#CreepySpouseInDaHouse #CreepySpouseInDaBigHouse #AdamLeeWasserman #NadsMcKneely #CarymaNgo
-
Lordt.
Apparently the male half of the Disgusting Duo showed up where I am not, looking for me, asking people if I'm in charge.
Like I know none of them actually understand what anarchist means ("she's an archist?"), but he's not doing much to distance himself from the "Donalds with veneers" descriptor.
I guess he needs to get in my space to make me regret pointing out that his only power is physical intimidation.
Well, it sure as shit isn't going to be INTELLECTUAL intimidation, is it, dumbass?
Anyway, they don't actually know what my current project is because I haven't been discussing it. But I guess it's time to warn another org that I have a pair of deranged stalkers, and see how long it takes them to demonstrate that in person. 🤷🏾♀️
And they're REALLY going to hate what I'm working on and who I'm working with.
Oh hey!
Maybe I'm working with CAAAHHHHNNNNNN!They've finally added some colour, maybe they've decided to have two Black people. 🤣
Adam Lee Wasserman! You should definitely go stand outside their offices and annoy them daily.
That'll work out well for you.You seem determined to return to prison eventually. I ain't stopping you, even though I'm an abolitionist.
You want to do that? Go right ahead.
It's better than somebody innocent being inside.#CreepySpouseInDaHouse #CreepySpouseInDaBigHouse #AdamLeeWasserman #NadsMcKneely #CarymaNgo
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By Doom_et_Al
A few years ago, my girlfriend and I went to a well-renowned barista in Paris. He was amicable and efficient, and when he handed my girlfriend her latte she enquired if she could have it with some sugar. “No,” he cheerfully rejoined. And that was the end of the conversation. I still smile when I think about this event because it sums up a lot of what I love about the French: quirky and uncompromising. Don’t fuck up their beautiful drink with your primitive sugar. The same attitude is what makes their black metal so endearing and interesting. So much of it is original and avant-garde and just… French. So I was intrigued to review Aube Noir, the debut of a new metal outfit, Arkaist, formed in 2023 by two stalwarts of the French underground scene, Beobachtan and Maeror. It also arrives on the well-regarded label Antiq. Much to be excited about. Lord knows I could do with some strong French coffee…
The first thing to note is that French may be, but Arkaist’s sound is much more closely related to their second-wave Norwegian counterparts. This is very straight-down-the-line black metal that borrows heavily from Immortal and Darkthrone. And this is where we hit the first snag. Aube Noir is so poker-faced and derivative that very little of it stands out. Arkaist surely have an identity, but you would be hard-pressed to find it on their debut. The music suggests they are aiming for something raw and scary, but the lyrics – focused as they are on the philosophy of a decaying society – muddy the waters by proposing introspective and intellectual ideas. The songs themselves are neither riffy enough to count as catchy black metal, nor fuzzy and distorted for a more atmospheric vibe. The result is an album that is unsure of what it is, and as a result, plays things far too safe.
This “safety first” approach is further evidenced in the compositions themselves. Beyond some nice moments here and there, they’re entirely formulaic. Chords move up and down with the unpredictability of a porn film. The structure is rigid with very few explorations beyond the most banal and unadventurous (“Ode à la haine” sounds like it lives and breathes its entire 4-minute run time in 5 notes). The whole endeavor can perhaps best be summed up by Maeror’s vocal performance. It is repetitive and one-note, lacking any real feeling or variation. Inexplicably, it is brought to the front of the mix, perhaps to hide the dearth of music ideas backing it.
It’s not all doom and gloom, of course. These are seasoned musicians, so there are some good moments here and there. “Terre ancestrale” has an interesting chant to begin proceedings, before launching into crunchy, mid-paced black metal that hits the spot. “Puer Aeternus” injects some feeling into a satisfying close. These moments paradoxically frustrate because they show what Arkaist are capable of, but so haphazardly deliver. The whole album has an authentically malevolent sheen, lending it an aura of authenticity. The downside is that the guitars are muddied at the expense of the unexciting vocals, creating a nondescript blur.
Aube Noir, then, is ultimately hugely disappointing. An exciting project from seasoned musicians on a discerning label? Combined with the fact that French metal is usually chock-full of character and personality? This thing checks so many interesting boxes. What we have instead is bland and lacklustre; music devoid of any sense of direction or personality. Songs that can’t decide what they’re going for beyond sounding kvlt. Arkaist need to inject some personality and drive into their material fast. In the meantime, there’s better coffee to be found elsewhere.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Antiq Records
Websites: arkaist.bandcamp.com/album/aube-noire | www.facebook.com/p/Arkaist
Releases Worldwide: February 24th, 2025#15 #2025 #AntiqRecords #Arkaist #AubeNoir #BlackMetal #Darkthrone #Feb25 #FrenchMetal #Immortal #Review #Reviews
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By Doom_et_Al
A few years ago, my girlfriend and I went to a well-renowned barista in Paris. He was amicable and efficient, and when he handed my girlfriend her latte she enquired if she could have it with some sugar. “No,” he cheerfully rejoined. And that was the end of the conversation. I still smile when I think about this event because it sums up a lot of what I love about the French: quirky and uncompromising. Don’t fuck up their beautiful drink with your primitive sugar. The same attitude is what makes their black metal so endearing and interesting. So much of it is original and avant-garde and just… French. So I was intrigued to review Aube Noir, the debut of a new metal outfit, Arkaist, formed in 2023 by two stalwarts of the French underground scene, Beobachtan and Maeror. It also arrives on the well-regarded label Antiq. Much to be excited about. Lord knows I could do with some strong French coffee…
The first thing to note is that French may be, but Arkaist’s sound is much more closely related to their second-wave Norwegian counterparts. This is very straight-down-the-line black metal that borrows heavily from Immortal and Darkthrone. And this is where we hit the first snag. Aube Noir is so poker-faced and derivative that very little of it stands out. Arkaist surely have an identity, but you would be hard-pressed to find it on their debut. The music suggests they are aiming for something raw and scary, but the lyrics – focused as they are on the philosophy of a decaying society – muddy the waters by proposing introspective and intellectual ideas. The songs themselves are neither riffy enough to count as catchy black metal, nor fuzzy and distorted for a more atmospheric vibe. The result is an album that is unsure of what it is, and as a result, plays things far too safe.
This “safety first” approach is further evidenced in the compositions themselves. Beyond some nice moments here and there, they’re entirely formulaic. Chords move up and down with the unpredictability of a porn film. The structure is rigid with very few explorations beyond the most banal and unadventurous (“Ode à la haine” sounds like it lives and breathes its entire 4-minute run time in 5 notes). The whole endeavor can perhaps best be summed up by Maeror’s vocal performance. It is repetitive and one-note, lacking any real feeling or variation. Inexplicably, it is brought to the front of the mix, perhaps to hide the dearth of music ideas backing it.
It’s not all doom and gloom, of course. These are seasoned musicians, so there are some good moments here and there. “Terre ancestrale” has an interesting chant to begin proceedings, before launching into crunchy, mid-paced black metal that hits the spot. “Puer Aeternus” injects some feeling into a satisfying close. These moments paradoxically frustrate because they show what Arkaist are capable of, but so haphazardly deliver. The whole album has an authentically malevolent sheen, lending it an aura of authenticity. The downside is that the guitars are muddied at the expense of the unexciting vocals, creating a nondescript blur.
Aube Noir, then, is ultimately hugely disappointing. An exciting project from seasoned musicians on a discerning label? Combined with the fact that French metal is usually chock-full of character and personality? This thing checks so many interesting boxes. What we have instead is bland and lacklustre; music devoid of any sense of direction or personality. Songs that can’t decide what they’re going for beyond sounding kvlt. Arkaist need to inject some personality and drive into their material fast. In the meantime, there’s better coffee to be found elsewhere.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Antiq Records
Websites: arkaist.bandcamp.com/album/aube-noire | www.facebook.com/p/Arkaist
Releases Worldwide: February 24th, 2025#15 #2025 #AntiqRecords #Arkaist #AubeNoir #BlackMetal #Darkthrone #Feb25 #FrenchMetal #Immortal #Review #Reviews
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By Doom_et_Al
A few years ago, my girlfriend and I went to a well-renowned barista in Paris. He was amicable and efficient, and when he handed my girlfriend her latte she enquired if she could have it with some sugar. “No,” he cheerfully rejoined. And that was the end of the conversation. I still smile when I think about this event because it sums up a lot of what I love about the French: quirky and uncompromising. Don’t fuck up their beautiful drink with your primitive sugar. The same attitude is what makes their black metal so endearing and interesting. So much of it is original and avant-garde and just… French. So I was intrigued to review Aube Noir, the debut of a new metal outfit, Arkaist, formed in 2023 by two stalwarts of the French underground scene, Beobachtan and Maeror. It also arrives on the well-regarded label Antiq. Much to be excited about. Lord knows I could do with some strong French coffee…
The first thing to note is that French may be, but Arkaist’s sound is much more closely related to their second-wave Norwegian counterparts. This is very straight-down-the-line black metal that borrows heavily from Immortal and Darkthrone. And this is where we hit the first snag. Aube Noir is so poker-faced and derivative that very little of it stands out. Arkaist surely have an identity, but you would be hard-pressed to find it on their debut. The music suggests they are aiming for something raw and scary, but the lyrics – focused as they are on the philosophy of a decaying society – muddy the waters by proposing introspective and intellectual ideas. The songs themselves are neither riffy enough to count as catchy black metal, nor fuzzy and distorted for a more atmospheric vibe. The result is an album that is unsure of what it is, and as a result, plays things far too safe.
This “safety first” approach is further evidenced in the compositions themselves. Beyond some nice moments here and there, they’re entirely formulaic. Chords move up and down with the unpredictability of a porn film. The structure is rigid with very few explorations beyond the most banal and unadventurous (“Ode à la haine” sounds like it lives and breathes its entire 4-minute run time in 5 notes). The whole endeavor can perhaps best be summed up by Maeror’s vocal performance. It is repetitive and one-note, lacking any real feeling or variation. Inexplicably, it is brought to the front of the mix, perhaps to hide the dearth of music ideas backing it.
It’s not all doom and gloom, of course. These are seasoned musicians, so there are some good moments here and there. “Terre ancestrale” has an interesting chant to begin proceedings, before launching into crunchy, mid-paced black metal that hits the spot. “Puer Aeternus” injects some feeling into a satisfying close. These moments paradoxically frustrate because they show what Arkaist are capable of, but so haphazardly deliver. The whole album has an authentically malevolent sheen, lending it an aura of authenticity. The downside is that the guitars are muddied at the expense of the unexciting vocals, creating a nondescript blur.
Aube Noir, then, is ultimately hugely disappointing. An exciting project from seasoned musicians on a discerning label? Combined with the fact that French metal is usually chock-full of character and personality? This thing checks so many interesting boxes. What we have instead is bland and lacklustre; music devoid of any sense of direction or personality. Songs that can’t decide what they’re going for beyond sounding kvlt. Arkaist need to inject some personality and drive into their material fast. In the meantime, there’s better coffee to be found elsewhere.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Antiq Records
Websites: arkaist.bandcamp.com/album/aube-noire | www.facebook.com/p/Arkaist
Releases Worldwide: February 24th, 2025#15 #2025 #AntiqRecords #Arkaist #AubeNoir #BlackMetal #Darkthrone #Feb25 #FrenchMetal #Immortal #Review #Reviews