https://www.axios.com/2025/10/15/trump-wic-soldier-troop-pay-democrats-illegal

Hmmm.

«“You get this sense of a change, where China’s competitiveness has gone from being about government subsidies and low wages to a tremendous number of highly skilled, educated engineers who are innovating like mad,” British energy supplier Octopus CEO Greg Jackson told the newspaper.

…

And it’s not just a desire to keep margins low through the automation of human labor.

“China has quite a notable demographic problem but its manufacturing is, generally, quite labor-intensive,” Bismarck Analysis analyst Rian Whitton told The Telegraph. “So in a pre-emptive fashion, they want to automate it as much as possible, not because they expect they’ll be able to get higher margins — that is usually the idea in the West — but to compensate for this population decline and to get a competitive advantage.”»

https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/western-executives-shaken-visiting-china

Bear this in mind the next time you see some article talking about population decline in China.

Meanwhile, OrangeManBad et al. just want to go backwards in time, to muscular white men making steel with big hammers.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/11/autocracy-resistance-social-movement/684336/

Brooks, with all his words, is probably right; we’re in an emergency.

And *The Bulwark* is generally right.

And all the “formerly conservative” (or whatever they are) are probably right

But here’s the thing: 15 or 20 years ago, when the current moment was building, they were absent. William Buckley, William Safire, all those people, were absent when racists were running racist campaigns. There was just the mildest tut-tutting by them.

And I have seen very few mea culpas from them. Brooks, yeah, maybe. Nobody at The Bulwark, as far as I know. It’s just “how on earth did this come to happen?” No admission that maybe tactical appeals to racism during campaigns brought us here.

I don’t recall any particularly strident warnings about racism from Republican political strategists. It was all Democrats, who, by themselves, were just easy to dismiss as partisan polyannas.

So, yeah, “formerly conservative” (or whatever you want to call yourselves, “never-Trumpers”, whatever) we need your help now.

But history will render its verdict, the same as it did the German politicians in the 1930s who enabled Hitler. We see you. Especially if you revert to your former behavior if and when this crisis passes.

It’s NO FUN.

🙁

(I blame Republicans, btw, along with voters who just don’t give a shit.)

«Tear gas still hung in the air as Albany Park neighbors and elected officials hugged and cried, processing the scene they had just witnessed Sunday afternoon after at least four vehicles full of federal agents had taken a man and tear gassed their neighborhood as residents responded.»

https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/12/ice-chicago-albany-park-tear-gas

Ya know… this just doesn’t seem very cost-effective.

Ya know… I live in North Carolina. Zoran Mamdani means nothing to me. Trans people don’t really resonate with me. (I’m an old white Christian cishet male.)

But…his latest ad on the Christopher Street Pier slaps. The most marginalized among us are the canaries in the coal mine (“first they came for the….”).

The Democrats of NYC chose him.

I don’t know what to say after that. I hope he wins.

«Both sides also seemed convinced that they had the advantage and that the other side had overplayed its hand.»

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/world/asia/china-trump-tariff-threat.html

Thucydides Trap.

I wonder what will happen in Gaza.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/greg-bovino-trump-border-patrol-escalation

I really hope this is the last three years of Bovino’s career, and after this, he gets assigned to Alaska or West Texas or, I dunno, Haiti or Myanmar or something. Or just plain fired.

«It’s unclear whether all 12 panel members, who were handpicked by Kennedy, were aware that the move would undo his decision.

…

Children under six months old cannot get vaccinated against Covid-19, so vaccination during pregnancy is seen by many providers as a key tool for protecting vulnerable infants from the infection.»

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/08/cdc-covid-vaccine-pregnant-women-recommendation-00599151

TIL.

This just seems like a confederacy of clowns, with Kennedy maybe not knowing what I didn’t know (except it’s his job) and the committee not knowing how things work (which is their job).