As for the concern about markets, I think it’s exaggerated. Nobody in their right mind is expecting to keep their assets in foreign banks if they pursue a war of agression.
Glances at the US and Venezuela
Glances at Israel and… everyone else
The liberal wholehearted embrace of Evil Bad Foreigner rhetoric, combined with their cuddling up to AI / Crypto / Silicon Valley MIC, is not giving me a bright picture of the future.
I used IAU for the few instances I banked gold as a hedge. But I’ve never held longer than a year and it’s never outperformed by overall portfolio returns.
It’s just not a good long term investment.
The joke of all this is how her humiliation will be scrubbed from the headlines and replaced by some AI Slop that conservatives insist makes he cool
Democrats continue to be all hat and no cattle, sadly
‘blood red’ Kentucky has one of the highest dependencies in federal programs in the country.
It’s home to a large military base and two of the nation’s twelve federal prisons.
Besides, if we’re being critically all-inclusive in the beneficiary of federal programs, the two biggest winners have been Silicon Valley, California and Lower Manhattan, NYC, with bright-blue Langley Arlington, Virginia and Boeing HQ / Secondary Financial Capital Chicago, IL running close behind. The $22B Kentucky’s economy sees pales behind our Pentagon spending, our international shipping, and our multi-trillion dollar trade in US Treasuries.
also, Mitch is just an awful “human”.
Like so many other powerful Senators, McConnell’s real power flows through his wife’s billionaire family. Her family ties to the lucrative Taiwanese shipping magnet, the Foremost Group, has made her husband’s support for US operations in the South Pacific pivotal to both their family fortune and American geopolitical dominance.
McConnell is actually a military transplant from Alabama, with family tied into the Redstone Arsenal and its attendant social circle. He’s been a political chameleon for most of his adult life, slipping seamlessly between Democrat and Republican circles through the Clinton and Bush Eras. He dumped his lefty-liberal activist Sherrill Redmon the same year Ronald Reagan won the presidency, then matched with his current anti-communist beau through Ambassador to Nepal under Bush 41, Julia Chang Bloch.
So much of Mitch’s position and policy have been directed by this political marriage. It’s got virtually nothing to do with the political character of Kentucky voters.
Not just Republicans. Most voters are fixated on local and personal issues. National politicians typically have a free rein on foreign policy thanks to the significant disconnect between international affairs and voter household issues. To add to the problem, Presidents can’t be recalled. Judges serve for life. Senators hold office on six-year stretches. The only people who really face the wrath of a disgruntled populace on a regular basis are House Reps (and gerrymandering blunts that knife most election cycles).
If you really get under the hood of the GOP and ask what makes them tick, one thing that sticks out is the degree to which the fossil fuel industry’s presence in a district/state influences the number of Republican voters. Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are great textbook examples, with rises and falls in the profitability of petroleum products neatly tracking their success at electing conservative leaders.
One question you might want to ask, as a liberal who claims to love universal programs like health care and education and housing and public transportation, is why your own state leaders suck at it so much. California’s the 7th largest economy in the world. And they’ve got broad control over their Medicaid dollars, same as any other state. Why aren’t they doing Public Options or State Run Hospitals like their peers in Canada and the UK?
FFS, blood red Kentucky has a more leftwing health care system than anything in bright blue Washington State or New Jersey.
I feel for all those whose insurance premium is about to become unaffordable
Idk. I’ve been told a bunch of them are Republicans and therefore they deserve to suffer.
Oh cool, you’re a real person under here
Chinese businesses in the textile district have long operated within what investigators call the “Prato system”, marked by corruption and irregular practices, including labour and safety abuses as well as tax and customs fraud.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_crime_in_Italy#Largest_crime_groups
Real “I’m shocked to discover there’s gambling going on in the casino!” energy in these allegations.
Mafia families have a long and storied history of partnering with state police and prosecutors to rub out rival gangs and cartels. And given Meloni’s own mafia connections, combined with regular press criticism of the same, I can’t say I’m surprised to see her government rediscovering religion on anti-mafia policing as her polling numbers sag.
Without the mafia designation or Chinese cooperation, Tescaroli’s case in the China Truck trial relies on the fragile scaffolding of Italian procedure, and the willingness of translators to show up.
Who do they have running this investigation? Kash Patel?
Sino-Soviet split is over, bro. You aren’t going to wish it back by shitposting.
Wait till their gone, then when you co trol the material
Like when? 2021? 2022? 2023? Maybe 2024, an election year, when the material can do the most damage?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epstein_files
We have flight logs that are a Who’s Who of the rich and powerful. We have photographs of him and dozens of high profile businessmen and politicians. We have the Birthday Book. We have his Quora search history, ffs.
I don’t know what else anyone is waiting for. At what point do we get a file drop that results in anything other than Ghislaine Maxwell getting a pardon? This feels like people coming in after the “Grab’em By The Pussy” video in 2016 insisting that there’s a second, even more secret, even more derogatory film that Hillary refused to produce, but which would definitely have won her the election.
Really excited to hear people demanding the release of the release of the epstein files files.
Get the fuck off Twitter, get the fuck off Reddit, get the fuck off Facebook.
I mean, way ahead of you. But we’re just jerking each other off if we think saying this downthread of a Lemmy post is changing anyone’s mind. This is the most Preaching To The Choir ass post you can make outside of an actual church.
We weren’t ready for the internet and it’s time to turn it off.
eye-roll
Listen, if you want to walk around downtown with a big sandwich board that says “Log The Fuck Off And Touch Grass”, I’ll cheer for you when I see you. But there’s a reason people flock to an easily accessible portal for social engagement. And its naive to keep shouting “Log the fuck off!” from within the medium you can’t seem to quit yourself.
Idk, man, but its a statement that gets you upvotes.
I’m genuinely curious to see what qualifies as compromat in the modern political climate. You’ve got folks fully undeterred in running for office who have been held done dead to rights on child sex trafficking charges. And you’ve got AI generated slop used to smear people in municipal elections.
Meanwhile, this is policy Massie campaigns on. It’s not like he’s risking his neck to run on leaving NATO. It’s his whole brand.
“Don’t worry, we’ll fix it once we’re in charge again” is a line I’ve been hearing since Nixon.
Libertarians will cut every federal program at arms length, but they’ll never cut their own salaries.
It’s always other people’s money they’re after
Gotta wonder how many of these trained, blooded combat veterans are going to take this abuse laying down.