Syria’s armed opposition says its fighters have captured the capital, Damascus, and that President Bashar al-Assad has fled. His whereabouts remain unknown.
The commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, says all state institutions will remain under the supervision of al-Assad’s prime minister until they are handed over officially.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkiye and Russia issued a joint statement earlier in the night, describing the crisis as a “dangerous development” and calling for a political solution.
Seems the Islamist rebels already have their solution. The autocrat is gone. What comes next is the question. ISIS? A Taliban? Al-Qaeda?
We are here, by the N-5 Highway. Cars are moving on the highway with people returning to their homes in Syria for the first time in 14 years.
The joy of the people is insurmountable. We’ve talked to the civilians here as they transport their belongings back into the country. Their joy is shared across the Syrian geography – from Idlib to Hama, Homs, Damascus, and Deraa.
This is the most significant moment in the history of the Syrian revolution.
Two senior Syrian officers told Reuters that Assad had fled Damascus, his destination unknown. The report could not be independently verified.
The senior Emirati diplomat Anwar Gargash declined to say whether Assad was fleeing to the United Arab Emirates.
“When people ask where is Bashar al-Assad going to, I say, you know, when you really look at this, this is really at the end of the day a footnote in history,” he told reporters at a conference in Bahrain.
When opposition forces threatened Assad a decade ago, other government worried that an Islamist government might replace him (Washington Post):
What if Assad fell, analysts asked, only to be replaced by groups that Washington regarded as terrorists? The scenario was given a name: the “catastrophic success.”
The same question is being asked with urgency as intelligence agencies around the world contemplate the sweeping gains over the past week by the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS — an Arabic name that translates to the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant.
The group’s pedigree is well known, with historic links to both the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. From Jerusalem and Amman to Washington and Paris, governments are bracing for the real possibility that Damascus could come under the sway of a militant faction that the United States has officially labeled a terrorist organization.
Updates are rolling in every few minutes. It’s too early to know much more. Not that the Sunday talkies won’t spend the morning asking “experts” to speculate. So if speculation your jam, have at it. The dust won’t clear for days.
The Steve Bannon plan is to overwhelm the media with Trump’s horrible nominees. What gets to the MSM, that makes them disqualified, isn’t the same as what makes it to late night comedy shows, or to Fox News, or RW social media.
Part of what we can do with our audiences is to show how weird these people are. There are serious reasons these people are horrible, that would disqualify them to normal people like us. But we need to also point out stuff that the MAGAs have a hard time with, but we can’t reach their channels. If we tried they’d say, “I thought you were COOL WITH DEI, gays, and leather daddies!” So we put stuff out saying, “We’re cool them being gay or leather daddies, but we are not cool with their policies to destroy our national security, are you?”
Frankly I don’t know which weird, corrupt, sick, incompetent or illegal activity of Trump’s nominees will knock them out of the process. But we need to find them and share them. And if we don’t succeed in knocking them out, we need to prepare for weaknesses in the crappy choices number 2 & 3.
What we find disqualifying, like failing to protect the people of Florida from bank fraud, THEY like! Such as when Bondi fired the Florida AG staff who were prosecuting the banks offering fraudulent loans. She got donations from one of the companies behind the fraud. The corporations would LOVE and AG that gives them a pass for fraud. So, we have to show all the Trump supporters who were harmed by Bondi’s failure as Florida AG, that she is not going to protect them in the future. (Sadly, people who lost their homes to mortgage fraud, and the attorneys who resigned or were fired don’t have a big lobbying arm, but they are available to talk on camera during a nomination hearing.
Yes, I know. That’s an oddly generic (some might even say silly) title for a post by someone who has been scribbling about film here for 18 years. Obviously, I love movies. That said, I am about to make a shameful confession (and please withhold your angry cards and letters until you’ve heard me out). Are you sitting down? Here goes:
I haven’t stepped foot in a movie theater since January of 2020.
There. I’ve said it, in front of God and all 7 of my regular readers.
It turns out that it is not just my imagination (running away with me). A quick Google search of “Seattle rain records” yields such cheery results as a January 29th CNN headline IT’S SUNLESS IN SEATTLE AS CITY WEATHERS ONE OF THE GLOOMIEST STRETCHES IN RECENT HISTORY and a Feb 1stSeattle P-I story slugged with SEATTLE BREAKS RECORD WITH RAIN ON 30 DAYS IN A MONTH. Good times!
February was a bit better: 15 rainy days with 4.1 hours a day of average sunshine. But hey-I didn’t move to the Emerald City to be “happy”. No, I moved to a city that averages 300 cloudy days a year in order to justify my predilection for a sedentary indoor lifestyle.
In fact it was a marvelously gloomy, stormy Sunday afternoon in late January when I ventured out to see Japanese anime master Makato Shinkai’s newest film Weathering with You (yes, this is a tardy review gentle reader…but what do you expect at these prices?). Gregory’s Girl meets The Lathe of Heaven in Shinkai’s romantic fantasy-drama.
That excerpt is from my review of Weathering With You, published February 9, 2020. If I had only known of the more insidious tempest about to make landfall, I would have savored that “…marvelously gloomy, stormy Sunday afternoon in late January” (and every kernel of my ridiculously overpriced popcorn) even more.
Of course, I’m referring to the COVID pandemic, which would soon put the kibosh on venturing to movie theaters (much less any public brick-and-mortar space in general) for quite a spell. Keep in mind, I live in Seattle, which is where the first reported outbreak of note in the continental U.S. occurred; I think it’s fair to say that the fear and paranoia became ingrained here much earlier on than in other parts of the country (and justifiably so).
Well, that’s all fine and dandy (you’re thinking)…but hasn’t the fear and paranoia abated since everything “opened up” again in (2022? 2021? I’ve lost track of the time-space continuum)? Here’s the thing-even before the pandemic, I had been going to theaters less and less frequently due to physical issues. I won’t bore you with details, suffice it to say I had both knees replaced (the first in 2014, the second in 2016)…but it didn’t quite “take”. And admittedly, I still mask up whenever I go to any public venue (including the grocery store). Perhaps that all adds up to “functional agoraphobia” (maybe one of you psych majors can help me out here?).
And you know what? I’m also tired of dealing with traffic, parking hassles, fellow theater patrons who are oblivious to people with disabilities, and astronomical ticket prices (add the $7 box of Junior Mints, and it’s cheaper to wait several months and just buy the Blu-ray).
And get off my lawn, goddammit.
Anyhoo, I haven’t been dashing out on opening weekend to see many first-run films in recent years; at least not the major studio releases that are playing on a bazillion screens. But thanks to “virtual” film festival accreditation, I am still able to screen and review a number of “new” movies (albeit many that have yet to find wider distribution).
So that is my long-winded way of explaining why I have decided not to entitle this (obligatory) end-of-year roundup as “the best” 10 films of 2024. Rather, out of the new films I reviewed on Hullabaloo this year, here are the 10 standouts (sans sand worms or wicked witches). I’ve noted the titles now streaming …hopefully the rest are coming soon to a theater near you!
Bonjour Switzerland (original title: Bon Schuur Ticino) – Bananas meets The Mouse That Roared in this refreshingly old-school political satire directed by Peter Luisi. Beat Schlatter (who co-wrote the screenplay with the director) stars as a mild-mannered German-speaking federal agent who gets tasked with overseeing implementation of a controversial new Swiss law that mandates French as the country’s official language (in true Peter Sellers fashion, Schlatter also plays the high-profile media demagogue who pushed for the law). Problems quickly pile up for the hapless agent; he can barely speak French, his dear old mom becomes radicalized, and he finds himself falling for an Italian woman who belongs to a separatist group he’s been assigned to infiltrate. OK, I’ll say it: This is a hilarious, good-natured romp.
The Dog Thief (original title: El ladrón de perros) – The future doesn’t look so bright for orphaned, semi-literate working class teenager Martin (Franklin Aro). Cruelly ridiculed by his bourgeois schoolmates, Martin ekes out a meager living as a shoeshine boy on the streets of La Paz and is only afforded lodging by the good graces of his late mother’s friend, who works as a maid in the spacious home of an ailing widow. Martin’s most loyal shoeshine customer is well-to-do tailor Mr. Novoa (Alfredo Castro). Novoa is an empty-nester who spends his off-hours training and pampering his prized German Shepherd.
One day, Martin has a sudden brainstorm for a get-rich-quick scheme; he will kidnap Mr. Novoa’s dog and then enlist his best bud to “find” it and collect the reward. As Martin ingratiates himself into insular Mr. Novoa’s life (initially as part of the scheme), an unexpected bond develops between the two, greatly complicating Martin’s not so-masterminded caper.
Reminiscent of P. T. Anderson’s Hard Eight, writer-director Vinko Tomičić Salinas’ film makes excellent use of the La Paz locales, rendered in a decidedly neorealist style (not so surprising, given the title’s wordplay on Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves). Keep an eye on this filmmaker.
Hacking Hate – Move over, Lisbeth Salandar…there’s a new hacker in town, and she’s stirring up a hornet’s nest of wingnuts. Simon Klose’s timely documentary follows award-winning Swedish journalist My Vingren as she meticulously constructs a fake online profile, posing as a male white supremacist. Her goal is to smoke out a possible key influencer and glean how he and others fit into right-wing extremist recruiting.
Vingren is like a one-woman Interpol; her investigation soon points her to U.S.-based extremist networks as well, leading her to consult with whistle-blower Anika Collier Navaroli (the former Twitter employee who was instrumental in getting Trump booted off the platform) and Imrab Ahmed (another one of Elon Musk’s least-favorite people, he was sued by the X CEO for exposing the rampant hate speech on the platform).
This isn’t a video game; considering the inherently belligerent nature of the extremist culture she is exposing, Vingren is taking considerable personal risk in this type of investigative journalism (she’s much braver than I am). Especially chilling is the shadowy figure at the center of her investigation, who is like a character taken straight out of a Frederick Forsyth novel. In light of the results of our recent presidential election (and the ancillary right-wing extremist threats to our democracy), this could be the most important documentary of 2024.
In Our Day (original title: Uriui haru) – Look in the dictionary under “quiet observation”, and you’ll find a print of auteur Hong Sang-soo’s character study of two artists (a 40-ish actress and an aging poet), each at a crossroads in their creative journey. Sang-soo’s beautifully constructed narrative chugs along at the speed of life; I understand that this may induce drowsiness with some viewers-but the devil is in the details, and those who pay close attention to them will be richly rewarded.
(Available on Google Play and Apple TV)
Linda Perry: Let it Die Here – Initially bursting onto the music scene in the early 90s by creating and belting out the most distinctive “yeah yeah yeah” hook this side of The Beatles’ “She Loves You” (“What’s Up”), Linda Perry has long since slipped the surly bonds of “4 Non-Blondes’ lead singer with the hat” to become an in-demand songwriter and producer for a number of notable artists (Adele, Christina Aguilera, Brandi Carlisle, Miley Cyrus, Celine Dion, Gwen Stefani, et.al.).
What makes this otherwise by-the-numbers music doc (directed by Don Hardy) really pop is its subject herself: charismatic, indomitable and boundlessly creative. One sequence, which observes Perry as she improvises, produces and arranges one of her own songs (essentially directing an orchestra on the fly) is one of the most riveting captures of the creative process I’ve seen on film since Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil.
The Old Oak – The bookend of a triptych of working-class dramas set in Northeast England (preceded by I, Daniel Blake in 2016 and Sorry We Missed You! in 2019), The Old Oak marks 87-year-old director Ken Loach’s 28th film.
The story (scripted by Paul Laverty) is set in an economically depressed “pit town” on the Northeast coast of England in 2016 (which was 2 years into the implementation of the UK’s Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme), and centers on TJ (Dave Turner), a former labor organizer barely making ends meet as owner and proprietor of “The Old Oak” pub.
One day, a busload of Syrian refugees appears and disembarks in the center of town. Unfortunately, not all the locals appear willing to roll out the welcome wagon. When xenophobic catcalling escalates into a scuffle that results in a young Syrian woman’s camera getting damaged, TJ intervenes and defuses the situation.
What ensues is rife with Loach’s trademarks; not the least of which is giving his cast plenty of room to breathe. The ensemble (which ranges from first-time film actors to veteran players) delivers uniformly naturalistic performances. Hovering somewhere between Do the Right Thing and Ikuru, The Old Oak is raw, uncompromising, and genuinely moving (rare at the multiplex nowadays), with an uplifting message of hope and reconciliation. If this is indeed its director’s swan song-what a lovely, compassionate note to go out on. (Full review)
(Available on Google Play, Amazon Prime, Fandango at Home and Apple TV)
Rainier: A Beer Odyssey –“Raaay-neeEER-BEEERrrrr….” If you lived in Alaska or the Northwest in the 70s and 80s, you’ll “get” that-and likely start chuckling. That said, you don’t have to have lived in Alaska or the Northwest to get a chuckle out of Isaac Olsen’s documentary. Olsen recounts the origin of the small (and unconventional) Seattle ad agency led by madmen Terry Heckler and Gordon Bowker that dreamt up a series of now-iconic Rainier Beer TV ads. A many-tendrilled odyssey indeed, with some unexpected sidebars (like cross-pollination with the inception of the Starbucks empire, and the story behind Mickey Rooney’s involvement with the campaign). A fascinating, entertaining look at the process behind the creative side of marketing, bolstered by a generous helping of the original TV ads.
Restless -Writer-director Jed Hart’s audacious and blackly comic debut feature is driven by a terrific performance by Lyndsey Marshal, who plays a mild-mannered elder care nurse who likes nothing better than spending her off-hours baking, listening to light classical music, and settling in with her cat for some reading and quiet time. Imagine her chagrin when it becomes abundantly clear that her new next-door neighbor likes nothing better than hosting all-night ravers…every night of the week.
Her first few polite requests (usually made around 4am) for the young man and his friends to keep it down are initially met with bemusement, but the situation takes a more sinister turn once she threatens to call the police. The woman’s steady descent into madness and desperation turns a “neighbor from hell” story into a modern Edgar Allan Poe tale. A satisfying revenge fantasy for anyone who’s “been there”, and a solid reinforcement for the old adage, “Watch out for the quiet ones.”
Solitude (original title: Einvera) – Ah, look at all the lonely people. Ninna Pálmadóttir’s quiet drama concerns an unassuming farmer named Gunnar (Thröstur Leó Gunnarsson) who reluctantly sells his beloved horses and relocates to Reykjavik after getting pushed off his land by a hydroelectric project. He has received a generous settlement, which enables him to offer cash for a condo.
For Gunnar, moving to the city is tantamount to getting drop-kicked into the 21st Century; he is overwhelmed by the stimuli. He strikes up a sweet friendship with a bubbly 10-year-old paperboy named Ari. The boy’s parents are separated. While they try to share equal time with their son, squabbles arise over scheduling conflicts, frequently leaving Ari in the lurch. As a result, Gunnar becomes his de facto babysitter. Gunnar’s naivety eventually leads to a misunderstanding that could have serious consequences for him. A beautifully acted treatise on the singularly destructive power of “assumption”.
Under The Grey Sky (original title: Pod szarym niebem) – This “ripped from the headlines” political drama is set during the 2020 Belarusian election. In a genuinely tense and unnerving opening scene, a journalist (Aliaksandra Vaitsekhovich) opposed to the current regime is in a friend’s apartment, live streaming an aggressive police action against demonstrators on the streets below.
Soon after an ominous pass of a police camera drone, the authorities burst in and arrest her. As her Kafkaesque nightmare ensues in the oppressive government’s court system, her husband (also a journalist) suffers his own travails as he is harassed by the police and eventually arrested on trumped-up charges. Based on a true story, writer-director Mara Tamkovich’s film is a sobering reminder that Orwellian totalitarianism is not dead…hell, it’s never even been resting. And yes…it could happen here.
…and just for giggles
Holy Krampus…have I really been writing reviews here for 18 years?! I was but a child of 50 when I began in November of 2006 (I was much older then, but I’m younger than that now). Here are my “top 10” picks for each year since I began writing for Hullabaloo.
(You may want to bookmark this post as a handy reference for movie night).
In February 1941, Henry Luce, the influential publisher of Time and Life magazines, penned an article heralding the “American Century,” a post-war era in which the United States would apply its newfound standing as the “dominant power in the world” to spread “free economic enterprise” and “the abundant life” around the globe. Luce envisioned the United States as “the principal guarantor of the freedom of the seas” and “the dynamic leader of world trade,” and saw in this future “possibilities of such enormous human progress as to stagger the imagination.”
Until now.
Donald Trump’s second presidential victory represents a sharp break, and perhaps a permanent one, with the American Century framework. It’s a framework that rested on four key pillars:
A rules-based economic order that afforded the U.S. free access to vast international markets.
A guarantee of safety and security for its allies, backed up by American military might.
An increasingly liberal immigration system that strengthened America’s economy and complemented military and trade partnerships with the rest of the non-Communist world.
And finally, in Luce’s words, a “picture of an America” that valued — and exported to the rest of the world — “its technical and artistic skills. Engineers, scientists, doctors … developers of airlines, builders of roads, teachers, educators.”
Though this was the second time Trump won the presidency, the meaning of the 2024 election is different. For one, he won the popular vote — becoming the first Republican to do so in the last 20 years. What’s more, in his most recent electoral bid, Trump and his advisers (including his running mate) made tariffs, rapprochement with foreign dictators, a drawback from NATO and gutting federal agencies core themes of their campaign. Much more so than in 2016, when Trump lacked any demonstrated track record in political office, this campaign was very specific about the world it intended to construct — and nearly 50 percent of voters endorsed that program. This time, the president-elect is quite serious about ending the American Century. In fact, he’s already making moves to tear it down.
Maybe it’s for the best. Empires are costly. But it would have been nice if we didn’t just take a wrecking ball to the world order with nothing to replace it but ego and bluster — and nuclear weapons.
The article traces the development of the “American Century” and what it came to mean. To the extent it was a good thing (and it often wasn’t) we will lose more than the rest of the world when it’s gone.
This is America:
Trump: We had a great relationship… The people of France are spectacular. It’s one of our largest groups in the US. French people. We respect and love them. Very talented people. Extremely energetic people as you know.. We had a good time together and we had a lot of success..… pic.twitter.com/5vq8cVlV2E
Here’s another example of how the champion of the working man Donald Trump is filling cabinet with robber barons and their henchmen (and women.)
Over the past six years, Pam Bondi has worked as a Washington lobbyist for one of the top firms in the country, representing corporate behemoths such as Amazon and Uber.
Now, some of the same clients her firm represents are squaring off against the Department of Justice she’s poised to lead. And corporate interests are cautiously optimistic that her selection will shepherd in an administration more friendly to their interests than President Joe Biden’s.
Her appointment, lobbyists say, could be a win for major U.S. corporations that find themselves crosswise with the Justice Department, including health care giant UnitedHealthcare and social media company TikTok. Those companies have paid tens of thousands of dollars this year to Bondi’s current employer, Ballard Partners, according to lobbying disclosures.
Bondi’s confirmation as attorney general would also pose a myriad of ethical questions about what kind of access she will grant her firm and whether she will recuse herself from issues involving Ballard.
She’s not one of the 14 billionaires he nominated. She just does their bidding. No wonder the Big Money Boyz are so excited. And she will never recuse. Trump considers that a personal betrayal.
Taking Republicans literally, and watching Trump build a government, the incoming administration really does seem to want to establish a new Gilded Age. To shed Reagan-era pretenses of top-down prosperity and just loot the place.
“The change in ideology is clear from Trump’s cabinet picks,” wrote the historian
Heather Cox Richardson. “While the total net worth of the officials in Biden’s Cabinet was about $118 million, Laura Mannweiler of U.S. News and World Report noted, a week ago she estimated the worth of Trump’s roster of appointees to be at least $344.4 billion, more than the gross domestic product of 169 countries. That number did not include his pick for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, whose net worth is hard to find.”
And of course Trump’s cabinet doesn’t include his interloping co-president, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. When Musk isn’t fusing his business interests to Trump’s political ones—hectoring and threatening critics, steering contracts his own way—he’s drawing up plans to cut trillions of dollars out of health-care spending for poor and working class people.
[…]
Robber Barons—not as hyperbole, but in their self-conception. Trump in particular seems to valorize the Gilded Age (or what he knows of it) because the industrialists who purchased the government back then lived opulent lives in gaudy mansions. As best I can tell, that’s why he says silly things like, “in the 1890s, our country was probably the wealthiest it ever was.”
And, I think it’s no coincidence that the GOP’s new appeal to voters is largely bereft of Reaganite cliches. They’ve turned the clock back a century further than that. They don’t talk about freedom or liberty. The speak instead in the language of fiat, coercion, zero-sum conflict, and sacrifice. (Other people’s, naturally.)
Well at least the bathrooms will be safe from trans people. Apparently, that’s the most important issue we face.
Declines in remote work — and the recent proliferation of high-profile firms ordering workers back to the office — are a sign that the labor market is weaker than it might appear. That’s because return-to-office mandates are, effectively, an invisible pay cut. Let me explain.
Like other employment benefits (e.g., health insurance, paid leave), telework is not available to everyone. Only about 38 percent of full-time workers report being hybrid or fully remote, according to the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes. Those jobs are disproportionately in higher-paid, white-collar occupations.
This amenity has real value to these workers. It saves them commuting time and transit costs, lets them live farther away (where housing might be cheaper), and offers other conveniences (quiet working spaces, less surveillance from bosses). Some economists have even quantified the value of all these benefits: On average, Americans value the option to work from home two or three days a week at an estimated 8 percent of pay (the equivalent of about $5,000 for the typical worker).
Some workers, such as those in their 30s, with kids or with a university degree, value it even more — at the equivalent of 10 to 15 percent of their pay, says Nick Bloom, a Stanford economics professor and longtime researcher on remote work.
In other words, many workers effectively banked a sizable raise around the start of the pandemic. And it didn’t even cost employers anything! At least, it didn’t show up on pay stubs, per se.
There are many ancillary expenses you don’t have when you can work from home. All those lunches out, dry cleaning, work clothes, wear and tear on your car etc. It costs money to go to the office.
I’m not sure why the companies are requiring their people to come back to the office. I suppose some of them believe they aren’t getting the productivity they should when they aren’t there to crack the whip? Probably not true. My experience of years in the corporate workplace was that massive amounts of time was wasted in useless mettings, shooting the shit, paper shuffling and many other activities that didn’t translate into anything one would call productivity. I think that many people are much more efficient at home.
I also recall that for many years the idea of remote work was one hope for the future of the planet since the elimination of the commute would have a positive effect on pollution and ultimately climate change. I guess we’ve all decided that doesn’t matter anymore.
It’s about control, nothing more. Bosses like to be able to intimidate their workers and direct their working habits regardless of whether it works best for the worker or positively affects the outcome. Working from home changes the relationship of boss and worker and the bosses don’t like it.
Maybe Donald Trump doesn’t have the actual energy to do the job. Maybe letting Elon Musk basically conduct diplomacy and talk to Hill lawmakers while Trump collects awards from his fans is just the division of labor Trump can handle,” –— Chris Hayes
That Star-Bulletin box headline above points to the “other” Pearl Harbor day attack in the Philippines. Not sure I even knew about that one. Have another cup of coffee:
In the early morning hours of December 8, 1941 (still December 7 in Hawaii), Japanese land-based naval bombers and Zero fighters from Formosa were detected by radar heading over Lingayan Gulf in the direction of Manila. American planes were alerted and took off from Clark Field and Iba Field but, after hours of searching, they failed to make contact. The Japanese, on the other hand, had no problem finding their American targets.
The most serious aspect of the raid was the destruction of and damage to the 18 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses that were on the ground at Clark in the midst of refueling and rearming when the attack came. Most of the Curtis P-40 Kittyhawk fighters of the 20th Pursuit Squadron were lost when 10 of the warplanes were caught in the Japanese bomb pattern as they were preparing to take off, while several of the 3rd Pursuit’s fighters ran out of fuel and had to crash-land. The radar facility at the remote airfield at Iba was destroyed.
But half of the 35-plane force of B-17s had been deployed to Del Monte Field at Mindanao, and more than half of the P-40s in the islands had not been involved in the attacks at all. Although its strength had been greatly reduced, the U.S. Army Air Force in the Pacific was still very much in the war.
On Dec. 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched an air raid on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing more than 2,300 Americans. The United States declared war against Japan the following day.Read more about what happened on this date: t.ly/sJ7Un
I’m neither rich enough nor libertarian enough to have invested my time in deciphering how cryptocurrency works, much less invested any of my money. But uber-rich crypto investors, Chris Hayes reports, now have a president-elect ready to backstop their funny money with public money. Even after watching his Friday night report, I still don’t understand how crypto works. But he confirms how oligarchy does.
Like much libertarian dogma, protestations by these shrugging Atlases that government stay out of the way of their Randian penis-enhancement schemes is so much Trumpian puffery. Government is not their enemy. It’s a tool of the moneyed class for making more money.
Matt Taibbi in his heyday understood this. He wrote in Griftopia (2011), “There are really two Americas.” For the grifter class, government is “a tool for making money,” while “in everybody-else land, the government is something to be avoided.”
Elon Musk invested — what other word is there for it? — over a quarter billion dollars in getting Donald Trump reelected. Now it’s time for Trump to pay dividends. Not from his own stash, of course. From America’s. “They’re just backing the truck up to the government,” Hayes warns.
In July, Cynthia Lummis, a US senator from Wyoming, introduced a bill to establish what she called a “strategic bitcoin reserve”, a programme instructing the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to buy a million bitcoins over the next five years to then hold them for at least 20 more years.
Greeley roughs out the basic details but, more importantly, explains what this reserve would mean to the hodlers (I had to look it up):
The bill lays out a mechanism for paying for the reserve. Any surplus the Federal Reserve returns to the Treasury would be spent instead on bitcoin. The Fed doesn’t currently return any money to the Treasury. No matter. The bill also proposes that Fed banks mark all their gold certificates to the current market price of gold, then remit the difference to the Treasury to buy bitcoin. This is all plausible, but the bill doesn’t answer the most important question facing any piece of legislation: how will this change anything at all, for anyone?
A reserve would present both a consummation and an irony for bitcoin’s hardcore supporters — the hodlers. The state would recognise what hodlers call freedom money, but also prop that up with a state programme. The preamble to Lummis’s bill argues that in return, a million bitcoin would diversify America’s assets, improving financial and monetary resilience. Unlike a traditional banking reserve, however, they would be held by the Treasury and couldn’t start to be sold until 2045. An asset you cannot sell does not give you resilience. It gives you storage costs.
Greeley considers the financial ins and outs of this effort by the oligarchs, but there is another more insidious aspect of this scam.
What do men with more money than God, like Elon Musk, do with themselves when adding to their dragon hoards is as pointless as making the rubble bounce after a nuclear exchange?
Money is a kind of power. Controlling billions of dollars is even more power. But it’s like bitcoin that way. Money power is not altogether tangible. If an oligarch wants realpower, life-and-death power, he wants political power. Naturally, without the bother of rich narcissists having to serve humanity, perfect the union, defend the proposition that all persons are created equal, or any of that nonsense.
Oligarchs have discovered there are indeed more worlds to conquer: yours.
Christmas arrived early in the Kibwezi Forest: We just received the most beautiful gift, in the form of Lima Lima’s brand new baby boy! He is Lima Lima’s first child and our second Umani grandbaby.
Christmas arrived early in the Kibwezi Forest: We just received the most beautiful gift, in the form of Lima Lima’s brand new baby boy! He is Lima Lima’s first child and our second Umani grandbaby.
The story began on Tuesday, 3rd December 2024. That morning, Lima Lima and her fellow ‘nightclubbers’ linked up with the dependent orphans, as they always do. At the mud bath, we noticed Lima Lima rolling around on the dust pile, clearly trying to soothe her heavily pregnant belly. When she got to her feet, Keeper Evans put his ear to her side — as we joked, she was getting a house call from her personal obstetrician!
The story began on Tuesday, 3rd December 2024. That morning, Lima Lima and her fellow ‘nightclubbers’ linked up with the dependent orphans, as they always do. At the mud bath, we noticed Lima Lima rolling around on the dust pile, clearly trying to soothe her heavily pregnant belly. When she got to her feet, Keeper Evans put his ear to her side — as we joked, she was getting a house call from her personal obstetrician!
In hindsight, Lima Lima was in the early stages of labour. She had been moving slowly and showing obvious discomfort in recent days, so we wondered if this moment was on the horizon. However, the rest of Tuesday passed normally. All the orphans, both dependent and independent, spent the afternoon together before going their separate ways in the evening.
The next morning, more unusual behaviour was afoot. Quanza — who is typically a quiet, placid elephant — ran over to the staff quarters and started making a huge commotion, charging around and trumpeting at the top of her lungs.
A short while later, we understood why Quanza was behaving so uncharacteristically: She was heralding the arrival of a brand new family member! As Umani Head Keeper Philip drove back from the mud bath, Quanza intercepted him and directed his attention to an area just outside the stockades. Philip saw Lima Lima and Sonje standing sentry, with a tiny, newborn baby sleeping between them.
As soon as word got out, the other Keepers and orphans rushed over. This was exactly the moment Lima Lima had been waiting for: She proudly showed off her baby to her human-elephant family, inviting everyone to come close and admire her son. The celebration was off the charts, with happy rumbling and mile-wide smiles as we welcomed a new baby into our midst.
Established in 2004, Ithumba is one of our most successful Reintegration Units, where dozens of orphaned elephants have reclaimed their place in the wild. Located in the vast, untouched northern sector of Tsavo East, it has become a hub for wild elephants, with herds visiting… pic.twitter.com/cKgPXW2T9M
