https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

Der neue Sprecher des US-Repäsentatntenhauses Mike Johnson ist ein aktiver Klimaleugner, der von der Öl- und Gasindustrie im vergangenen Jahr mehr Spenden erhalten hat als von jeder anderen Branche. Der Klimaleugner Steven J. Milloy nannte Johnson eine "Quantensprung-Verbesserung" gegenüber seinem republikanischen Vorgänger. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/climate/mike-johnson-climate-policies.html

Korupsi proyek digitalisasi.

Will artificial intelligence create useless class of people? - Yuval Noah Harari

1:00 "bring the latest findings of science of the public", otherwise the public space "gets filled with conspiracy theories and fake news and whatever".<br /> he fails to mention that ALL his beautiful "scientists" are financially dependent on corporations, who dictate the expected results, and who sabotage "unwanted research".<br /> for example, the pharma industry will NEVER pay money for research of natural cancer cures, or "alternative" covid cures like ivermectin / zinc / vitamin C, because these cures have no patent, so there is no profit motive, and also because the "militant pacifists" want to fix overpopulation this way.<br /> a "scientist" should be someone, who has all freedom to propose hypotheses, which then are tested in experiments (peer review), and compared to real placebo control groups. because that is science, or "the scientific method". everything else is lobbying for "shekel shekel".

https://web.archive.org/web/20231108064402/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/07/portuguese-pm-antonio-costa-resigns-amid-corruption-inquiry

This corruption case seems connected to the lithium mining announced in [[Portugal genehmigt riesigen Tagebau Lithium für 500.000 E-Autos im Jahr]] last June. #2023/11/08 that I marked https://hypothes.is/a/fags5ARSEe62spthvORyHQ

• for: climate change - individual change, producer-consumer entanglement, big oil, COP28

• for: Long Knife, Charles Koch, Osage, Koch Industry, big oil - corruption, Koch Industry - Osage, climate denial

54:30 Max utopian in his head, trust in random people

• see index zk on Apollonian and Dionysian theory (idealism, good or bad?)

57:00 inherently, people are good, but they get corrupted (good and evil)

57:44 “there is some light” (life can be good): see zk 9 section on light & darkness

• four mitigating factors that make power appear to corrupt when something else is actually going on.
  • dirty hands
    • people in power often are faced with no good alternatives and your hands will appear dirty, even when you choose the lesser of the evils
  • the idea of learning
    • authoritarian leaders are new to the job in the beginning and they have to learn to be good at being bad. Their leadership may appear to get worse but they are just learning how to be more effectively ruthless - on-the-job training
  • the problem of opportunity
    • a scaling effect. A leader of a country has far more people they can harm with his/her decision than a janitor.
  • the problem of scrutiny
    • people in power get more scrutiny
    • if you are not in power, you could be committing a crime but never get caught because you are not scrutinized to the same degree - think Donald Trump

• we look at a bad person
• try to get rid of him/her
• when we do, then another bad person ends up in the role
• this is because we are treating the symptom, not the root cause

• how to create a system that mitigates abuse, based on the UN diplomat parking example
  • create a system that attracts the right kind of people so that the people who are clean and nice and rule-following end up in power.
  • Give them all the right incentives to follow the rules once they get there.
  • If you do have people who break the rules, there needs to be consequences.

• key insight
  • changing a psychopath is hard
  • changing a system that produces the psychopath is easier

• key finding
  • rotten systems attract rotten people
  • good systems attract good people

• key insight
• quote
  • if we want to end up with a world that is shaped by the best of us, rather than very often the worst of us,
    • we have to think carefully, we have to engineer a system.
    • think of the worst person for the job position you are hiring for
    • design the system to
      • screen that person out
      • if they do manage to get in, have oversight that can eliminate them from the post
      • have a system in place that looks upwards to the top position to scrutinize them and hold them accountable

• key strategy
  • design system to screen out power hungry people

• quote
  • power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely
• Author
  • Lord Acton
• Context
  • Lord Acton coined the term to whiitewash the brutality o Spanish Inquisition

Some important points about Blackstone:

• In separate cases in 2018 and 2019, the hotel chain Motel 6, owned by Blackstone, agreed to settle for a total of $19.6 million for giving guest lists to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without a warrant.
• The company has invested in companies with links to the commercialization and deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
• In 2019, a United Nations report found that Blackstone's massive purchasing of single-family homes after the financial crisis of 2007–2008 had "devastating consequences." The report alleged that Blackstone had abused tenants with exorbitant fees, rent hikes, and aggressive eviction practices, and that Blackstone's real estate practices had a disproportionate impact on communities of color, in part because the company targeted foreclosures resulting from subprime loans.
• In July 2020, Blackstone invested US$200m in the Swedish oat milk brand, Oatly, for a 7% stake in the company, triggering outrage among some segments of its customer base.

The former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma tried to shut down investigations into corruption that he was engaged in but democratic advocates won out in the end.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/world/africa/south-africa-corruption-jacob-zuma-cyril-ramaphosa.html

correction: "a greasy little scrotum has been vindicated"

This is the critical observation - everything is interconnected. It is a nexus of problems that requires that we deal with all dimensions of the problem simultaneously.

Putin is the nexus of so much that is wrong with the world. He is like an octopus that has its arms in multiple crisis of the planet.

The political polarization of the US, the ascendancy of the puppet government of Trump and the blatant cognitive dissonance of the extreme right who are impervious to facts is reminiscent of the propaganda imposed upon the Russian people themselves for one reason - it was part of Putin's master plan: https://youtu.be/FxgBuhMBXSA The US population has been split by Putin's information warfare system, the same one he uses on the Russian population.

The fake news programmed by Russian propaganda about the Ukraine war has worked effectively to mislead the Russian populus: https://youtu.be/kELta9MLOzg The same pattern of psychological manipulation has also had the same impact in the belief system of the typical hardcore Trumpist.

This is the key connection between many authoritarian regimes and fossil fuel.

Δεν σήξωσε το γάντι ο Βαξεβανης με [το μπερδεμα των εφημεριδων του (https://hyp.is/D_8S1JTwEeyann-PRzCW-w/www.iefimerida.gr/ellada/ntokoymento-ihitiko-toy-bgenopoyloy-kaiei-thanoy-papaggelopoylo-kai-paradikastiko-pos-ton) στο δημοσίευαμ της iefimerida].

Απιστευτο πως ο Βαξεβάνης "κεριδισε" 33 μηνυσεις από τον ισχυρό ανδρα της Ελλάδας που επινόησε την πατέντα πέτσα με τα ΜΜΕ!

Αυτό φαίνεται να ειναι η λορυφαία πράξη διαπλοκής των "αρμών" της Δικαιοσύνης στο σκάνδαλο της MIG του Βγενόπουλου. Και έγινε ενω κυβερνούσε ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ.

Ο Αγγελής κατονομάζει Κουτζαμάνη, Ράικου & Τσατάνη πως συγκαλύπτουν Βγενόπουλο.

Δεν ηταν η Τσατάνη που αθώωσε τον Βγενόπουλο μία μερα πριν την αφιξη των Κυπρίων εισσαγγελέων και του επέτρεψε να μην ανακριθεί από αυτους??

Το Hot Doc πρωτοεκδόθηκε τον Απρίλιο του 2012 (από wikipedia και συνέχισε m;exri το Νοέμβριο του 2016 όπου ενσωματώθηκε ως νεθεμα στη νέα, τότε, εφημεριδα, Documento.

Βεβαια η Τσατάνη "πρόλαβε" και τις διάβασε σε 3 μέρες μεσα αφότου τους πήρε τη δικογραφία, και εβγαλε αθωοτικό πόρισμα 803 σελίδων...

Come on, people. It's the "Trade Commission". They're not a health agency of any kind, they're about keeping the trade status quo. When was the last time you ever heard of a "Trade Commission" say what's not in the interest of the biggest trading partners? Great Scott, "Federal Trade Commission", "United Trade Federation" from star wars ... same thing. Yeah, that was just a movie, but the algorithm is the same ... they're run by the most powerful banking and business conglomerates to subjugate the masses for maximum profits for those who put the FTC commissioners into place, paid for with campaign contributions, soft money, under the table deals, you name it. Not a health organization, and even if it were ... it's a lobbying organization under the false guise of a research entity. Look at the historical credentials of the members. Cronyism incarnate.

Same with FDA ... it's a regulatory agency, not a research branch of the government. The NIH ... that's a research branch (although there is cronyism there too, it's not as bad, being just research, no regulatory authority). The NIH does not agree with all the contentions here. For many of the mentioned treatments they agree, but for many others of these "treatments", although they are not cures, the NIH has repeatedly said "not enough data" to make a conclusive assessment. The NIH admits there is "scientific evidence" for some of these, although, again ... not enough in their opinin to recommend them. That's different than discouraging them and labeling them all failures.

This paper defends the greek government decision to accept turists without test.

Which is rather strange, since this study in Cyprus, another turistic destination, shows quiet the opposite, of variants coming from multiple countries.

Ξεκαθαρη εμπολκή του πρωθυπουργικού γραφείου.

Ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ στρώνει το δρόμο για να τα βρει με τους καναλάρχες.

Alper, S., Douglas, K., & Capraro, V. (2021). Conspiracy Beliefs and Generosity across 52 Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/fdyxr

I LOVE the dysfunctional thought process of this statement. This is Social Engineering 101. An educated public not drinking the cool-aid of Neoliberalism, aristocracy or silver-spoon wealth would realize the deception of that statement simply by the fact that the US is already a socialistic ideological nation in the same way the US is already a democracy or that the US is already a capitalist ideological nation. Point being: The US is like a "mutt", meaning it's not a pure bred anything and will never be a pure anything.

The original United States through the early 1970's represented the true American experiment and dream. The US (America) created opportunity and limited support for impoverished citizens and understood the strength and meaning of leadership (taking care of it's own). Having a somewhat balanced (more perceived) societal ideology for the US allowed America's unique nature to shine strong. Modern America (early 1980's to current) is not and should not be compared to what I call the Original America. Modern America is a nation corrupted by wealth and power. Modern America does not shine brightly anymore, the experiment is over and old school European aristocracy (wealth, status, power) rules the land. The problem is the public does not realize the extent of damage done to America and will completely forget within 2 generations.

The baby-boomer generation is the last representation of original America and makes up the largest demographic in our nations history. Boomers hold the true America in their hearts and minds. The real Patriotism and ideology derived from the original America has become the weapon of choice for those wishing to exploit the the concept of America past. Meaningless rhetoric tied to patriotic ideals is behind the controlled social engineering of today.

The statement above is a great example of meaningless rhetorical pandering with ambiguous words and phrases from a morally corrupt 1 to 2% of the new aristocracy grabbing power in America.

Deep Concept: Modern America is mostly corrupt from it's own creation of wealth. Wealth is power, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely! Money and wealth have completely changed the underlying foundation of America. Modern America is the corrupted result of wealth. Morality and ethics in modern American have been reshaped to "fit" European Aristocracy, ironically the same European aristocracy America fled in the Revolutionary War.

Billions and billions of tax payer money is spent on projects that could never pass rigorous examination and best public ROI use. Political authoritative conditions rule public tax money for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many. The public "cult-like" sheep have no clue how they are being abused.

The authoritative abusers (politicians) follow the "mostly" corrupt American (fuck-you) form of government and individual power tactics that have been conveniently embedded in corrupt modern morality and ethics, used by corrupted lawyers and judges to codify the fundamental moral code that underpins the original American Constitution.

Wow, so if Beijing Briben is more popular than the Camel, how can anyone say the election results were trustworthy? Think about the total lack of support for these two scoundrels during the election season last year. ZERO turnout, yet, we are led to believe by big media that Briben and Cammy had a larger turnout than even Barack Hussein Obama? Puhlease!

Abbasi, K. (2020). Covid-19: Politicisation, “corruption,” and suppression of science. BMJ, 371, m4425. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4425

WTF is wrong?

Where is the moral character and backbone of the American people. We know something is wrong! It smells and stinks yet no one does anything. Most of our elected politicians are useless turds floating in wastewater and the rest are multiple term professional corrupt politicians waiting for the appropriate revolving door opportunity. This has nothing to do with party affiliation, it is rampant on both sides. Political parties perpetuate the illusion as a control mechanism. We see it yet do nothing about it! WHY?

This paper (topic) is typical of the continued "head in the sand" passive financial regulatory system loaded with Sheeple and kiss-ass do nothing idiots. Alarms have been going off since 2005/6 and as predicted then, our financial system imploded in 07/08.

1. What lesson was learned?
2. Who were the players?
3. What disciplinary actions took place?
4. Who went to Jail?

Nothing has changed. Corruption and fraud fuel a dysfunctional financial system destined to cripple the American and Global economies. Economists and many within the financial sector know what is going on. Maybe they care about the average person but are afraid to come forward. Maybe they don't care and fully intend to rape and pillage as much of the global society as possible.

The question is what are YOU going to do to protect future generations, your children, grand children and so on?

their union is a political act

Batohi, S. (2020, June 23). Covid-19 has changed everything from crime to policy. Legal systems must keep up. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/commentisfree/2020/jun/23/covid-19-has-changed-everything-from-to-policy-legal-systems-must-keep-up

Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH. (2020, November 20). Today was a very, very odd day I testified before @senatehomeland They held a hearing on hydroxychloroquine. Yup, HCQ In the middle of the worst surge of pandemic HCQ It was clear how our information architecture shapes questions of science and medicine of COVID A thread [Tweet]. @ashishkjha. https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1329646432958156801

It has, unfortunately, been this way for years:

• In 2020, the nonpartisan group Coalition for Integrity ranked Virginia 46 out of 51 (including the District of Columbia)
• In 2018, Virginia ranked 43 out of 51.
• In 2015, the last time to my knowledge the Coalition for Integrity gave letter grades, Virginia earned a "D" rating (although in all fairness they did rank notably better, 16th out of 50, likely due to short-term reforms after the fallout over former Gov. Bob McDonnell).
• In 2012, Virginia earned an "F" rating and was 47th out of 50 states.

This is unacceptable. Virginians deserve better.

That exterminator guy

Pure corruption here. Protectionism to prop up profits of approximately 630 million versus major benefits and savings of 300 billion. Even if you look at the calculus of the entire industry of 70 billion it becomes a no brainer.

Given his past history of insider trading and stock market manipulation, I can't help but think that Trump makes statements and does activities like this to influence the markets directly like this.

The question is who is colluding with him and where is the money going? How is it being hidden? Is it foreign (Russian) investors? Is he dumb enough to be doing it from within his own company?

Here, we see a distrust of Democratic systems, commoners, and burgher-capitalism.

The thread of logic is that people from lower classes - coming from positions of less power and wealth - are more susceptible to corruption as they attempt to shore up their own interests by surrounding themselves with flunkies and sycophants.

The nobility, on the other hand, need no such false assurances.

Fung, D. J. (2018, April 10). The Corruption of Evidence Based Medicine—Killing for Profit. Medium. https://medium.com/@drjasonfung/the-corruption-of-evidence-based-medicine-killing-for-profit-41f2812b8704

Expert Summaries of the Mueller Report

The PDF is found here.

The decision did not favour his financial interests and has been misreported by the journalist. In fact, Mr Petch was pressuring an inexperienced General Manager to attend to an entitlement affecting multiple councillors. The entitlement - reimbursement of legal expenses incurred in legal action initiated by council - is not discretionary, but must be extended to councillors incurring costs in carrying out their civic duties in good faith. The entitlement is explicitly coded in the NSW Local Government Act and NSW Office of Local Government expenses guidelines for serving councillors and Mayor's. No evidence was submitted that the affected councillors had acted in a manner other than "good faith". Therefore the only logical conclusion that could be drawn for delaying the reimbursement

Lovely fraud scheme. Good thing that Office Depot and support.com are paying for this.

The list of indictments from the Mueller investigation, as of 7 Dec 2018.

The bureau agreed not to interview Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford, who accused him of sexually assaulting her, or to respond to many people stepping forward with new information. They agreed not to follow up on possible lies Kavanaugh is accused of telling in his Senate testimony. And they made other concessions unknown to the public or even Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

According to the New York Times’s reporting, White House lawyer Don McGahn made sure relevant questions went deliberately unexplored because, he believed, “a wide-ranging inquiry like some Democrats were demanding — and Mr. Trump was suggesting — would be potentially disastrous for Judge Kavanaugh’s chances of confirmation to the Supreme Court.”

85

85

85

70

70

70

84

84

84

17.49

In relation to the question of mind-control verses corruption, I wonder where the difference exists. Does corruption involve some element of 'mind-control' to convince somebody that this is the answer?

This is one of the best and undisputable representations of politics promiscuity with business. It clearly shows that not all parties are equal...

For most of last year, Ross served as secretary of commerce while maintaining stakes in companies co-owned by the Chinese government, a shipping firm tied to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, a Cypriot bank reportedly caught up in the Robert Mueller investigation and a huge player in an industry Ross is now investigating. It’s hard to imagine a more radioactive portfolio for a cabinet member.

To this day, Ross’ family apparently continues to have an interest in these toxic holdings.

...

Absurdly, maintaining all those conflicts of interest appears to be entirely legal—a reflection of ethics laws woefully unprepared for governing tycoons like Donald Trump and Wilbur Ross.

Ross appears to have broken one law, however: submitting a sworn statement to federal officials in November saying he divested of everything he had promised he would—even though he still held more than $10 million worth of stock in financial firm Invesco, his former employer.

Robert Mercer's hedge fund owes the IRS $7 billion.

Since the IRS found in 2010 that a complicated banking method used by Renaissance and about 10 other hedge funds was a tax-avoidance scheme, Mercer has gotten increasingly active in politics. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, he doled out more than $22 million to outside conservative groups seeking to influence last year’s elections, while advocating the abolition of the IRS and much of the federal government.

Maryland and the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit against Trump concerning his violations of the Emoluments Clause.

Trump cabinet meeting.

First, he boasted of his accomplishments as president. He doesn't have any.

Then, the cabinet members took turns praising Trump.

Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters.

Trump's speech for Black History Month was so absurdly stupid, it reads like satire. So McSweeney's simply republished it.

The Republican's Guide to Presidential Behavior

Sebastian Gorka's claimed PhD might be bogus.

A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official.

Rainey died inside that shower. He was found crumpled on the floor. When his body was pulled out, nurses said there were burns on 90 percent of his body. A nurse said his body temperature was too high to register with a thermometer. And his skin fell off at the touch.

But in an unconscionable decision, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle's office announced Friday that the four guards who oversaw what amounted to a medieval-era boiling will not be charged with a crime.

Robert Mercer, Steve Bannon, Breitbart, Cambridge Analytica, Brexit, and Trump.

“The danger of not having regulation around the sort of data you can get from Facebook and elsewhere is clear. With this, a computer can actually do psychology, it can predict and potentially control human behaviour. It’s what the scientologists try to do but much more powerful. It’s how you brainwash someone. It’s incredibly dangerous.

“It’s no exaggeration to say that minds can be changed. Behaviour can be predicted and controlled. I find it incredibly scary. I really do. Because nobody has really followed through on the possible consequences of all this. People don’t know it’s happening to them. Their attitudes are being changed behind their backs.”

-- Jonathan Rust, Cambridge University Psychometric Centre

Paul Ryan (WI) and Bob Goodlatte (VA) are claiming authority over who other congressmen are allowed to meet with.

Rep. Gutiérrez was among the Members who requested the meeting with the Acting ICE Director in a letter on February 11. A meeting originally scheduled for Tuesday with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other Democrats in the House was cancelled at the last minute by ICE. It was rescheduled to today and turned into a Republican-led meeting run by Chairman Goodlatte and was apparently made invitation-only. Members were told by Chairman Goodltte at the meeting that any further meetings with ICE officials would have to be cleared by the Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who was eager to launch new investigations of Hillary Clinton, doesn't care about Donald Trump's huge, glaring, absurd conflicts of interest. He's even trying to intimidate the director of the Office of Government Ethics for commenting about it.

Donald Trump's insane conflicts of interest.

A report this afternoon from the Wall Street Journal, however, revealed that Trump’s disclosure was the tip of the iceberg. The FEC required Trump only to report debt from entities he fully controls. The disclosure left out “more than $1.5 billion lent to partnerships that are 30%-owned by him.” That debt has been securitized and is owed to at least 150 financial entities.

These financial institutions include many firms that are under the scrutiny of the federal agencies that Trump will soon control. Wells Fargo, for example, which services over $900 million in loans connected to Trump, “is currently facing scrutiny from federal regulators surrounding its fraudulent sales practices and other issues.”

Parents and students in the Mountain View school district consider their use of math software called Teach to One to be a failure.

The Mountain View school district apparently budgeted $521,000 to implement and operate this new-fangled math program in two local schools. Had they adequately beta tested the program beforehand, the school district might have discovered that Teach to One teaches math (we’ve found) in a disjointed, erratic, and non-linear fashion that leaves many students baffled and disenchanted with math. The program contains errors in the math it teaches. Parents end up having to teach kids math at home and make up for the program’s deficiencies. And all the while, the math teachers get relegated to “managing the Teach to One program rather than to providing direct instruction” themselves.

Sounds like they would have been much better off to just use http://khanacademy.org or http://schoolyourself.org So why are they using this expensive, seemingly untested service?

Sara Holbrook had two of her poems used on the Texas state assessment tests. She verifies what I thought as a student. The questions are ridiculous. The test makers seem to think that their interpretation of a work is the only interpretation, and that they can read the author's mind and know their intent.

"Texas paid Pearson $500 million bucks to administer the tests". Is that right? Was that for just one year? What else could we do with $500 million?

She mentions a study showing that the results of another standardized test could be predicted pretty well using just three data points about families in the community: the percentage with income over $200K; the percentage in poverty; the percentage with bachelor's degrees. So the standardized test tells you nothing that you can't guess by looking at local incomes and education levels.

What a scam.

This Russia does not aspire to be like us, or to make itself stronger than we are. Rather, its leaders want the West—and specifically NATO and America — to become weaker and more fractured until we are as broken as they perceive themselves to be. No reset can be successful, regardless the personality driving it, because Putin’s Russia requires the United States of America as its enemy.

Putin's Russia requires the U.S. to be weak. Even better if it's a weakling stupid enough to think Putin is its pal. I'm sure Putin will say lots of nice things about Trump as long as he's getting a piece of the action.

we first need to see the Russian state for what it really is. Twenty-five years ago, the Soviet Union collapsed. This freed the Russian security state from its last constraints. In 1991, there were around 800,000 official KGB agents in Russia. They spent a decade reorganizing themselves into the newly-minted FSB, expanding and absorbing other instruments of power, including criminal networks, other security services, economic interests, and parts of the political elite. They rejected the liberal, democratic Russia that President Boris Yeltsin was trying to build.

Following the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings that the FSB almost certainly planned, former FSB director Vladimir Putin was installed as President.

Kudlow makes the case not only that Trump and his administration are not corrupt, but also that they cannot be corrupt, by virtue of their wealth. “Why shouldn’t the president surround himself with successful people?” reasons Kudlow, “Wealthy folks have no need to steal or engage in corruption.”

-- Lawrence Kudlow, "reported leading candidate to head the administration's Council of Economic Advisors"

This asshole has a syndicated radio show, a column in The National Review, and used to host a show on CNBC.

A (very long) summary of Trump's ties to Russia, his pro-Putin comments, his Putin-friendly staff members, and his pro-Putin supporters.

Paul Krugman points out that our current situation is like that during the rise of fascism in the 1930s. And it is also like the situation during the gradual decline of the Roman Republic. Political norms are being ignored. Republicans are placing their party, their wealthiest campaign donors, and their careers, before their nation.

"Famously, on paper the transformation of Rome from republic to empire never happened. Officially, imperial Rome was still ruled by a Senate that just happened to defer to the emperor."

A report on Putin's tactics in France, Germany, and the UK.

From 26 July 2016, Lawrence Lessig says it isn't the time to refuse to vote for "the lesser of two evils". Then he agrees with Robert Reich that people are angry about corrupt government, and Trump is likely to win unless Hillary Clinton makes it a central issue.

Now Trump is already working on using the presidency to line his pockets. His cabinet is basically ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs -- and a few lesser Nazis.

I wonder how many Trump voters are paying attention to this. How many notice they've been scammed? How many are busy rationalizing it? How many notice that they just voted to destroy democracy?

Donald Trump's conflicts of interest are already a source of ongoing corruption.

Oh, look. The Benghazi investigation is officially done.

I guess Republicans are probably really tired of investigating stuff right now.

In the last couple of days, I'm seeing more people using the appropriate words: coup, and treason.

Quick summary of Donald Trump's conflicts of interest.

I have watched as tobacco, coal, oil, chemicals and biotech companies have poured billions of dollars into an international misinformation machine composed of thinktanks, bloggers and fake citizens’ groups. Its purpose is to portray the interests of billionaires as the interests of the common people, to wage war against trade unions and beat down attempts to regulate business and tax the very rich. Now the people who helped run this machine are shaping the government.

Donald Trump has filled his staff with these liars.

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, chair of the House Oversight Committee, has shown great enthusiasm for persecuting Hillary Clinton. But for some reason, he doesn't seem to have any interest in investigating Donald Trump's glaring conflicts of interest.

Donald Trump's "lies about voter fraud are a prelude to massive voter suppression." This has become typical of the Republican party. But Trump and his staff are sure to make it worse, and they're already showing it.

Donald Trump's conflicts of interest are global.

Members of the Electoral College should not make Donald Trump the next president unless he sells his companies and puts the proceeds in a blind trust, according to the top ethics lawyers for the last two presidents.

Richard Painter, Chief Ethics Counsel for George W. Bush, and Norman Eisen, Chief Ethics Counsel for Barack Obama, believe that if Trump continues to retain ownership over his sprawling business interests by the time the electors meet on December 19, they should reject Trump.

Another way the Trump presidency is likely to be disastrous: he will (by his very nature) introduce systemic corruption in which friends of Trump and his cronies become "successful businesses" and those who oppose them are punished.

But according to regulators who have overseen potential conflicts of interests under two former presidents, Trump’s arrangements were unprecedented and present a host of issues.

This is in no way a blind trust, said Karl Sandstrom, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the regulatory body that oversees campaign finance, under Bill Clinton and George W Bush. “A blind trust is not anywhere near the same. You don’t still have access to the decision being made. That’s why you put assets in and don’t just have someone else manage the company,” he said. Trump’s assets will instead apparently remain united under his company, and operated under his name even if he is not directly in charge.

A biblical allusion, though I guess this isn't a surprise, referencing the captive Israelites' mourning song at the rivers of Babylon. The intriguing thing here is the contrast between that reference and the word "leman," which is apparently an obscure term for lover, and the preceding references to sexual exploits. Eliot seems to be emphasizing the pollution of sexuality by using the polluted Thames and himself "polluting" a traditional story.

https://panamapapers.icij.org/the_power_players/

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/why-you-should-care-about-panama-papers-mossack-fonseca

Some members of UK Parliament think it's a fine idea to spend thousands of pounds of public funds on portraits of themselves.

This article discusses the difficulty in attacking corruption. It uses Guatemala and Brazil as examples of direct corruption through embezzlement and fraud schemes with Chile and Mexico where corruption is rooted in access to political knowledge and nepotism. In Chile and Mexico, the link is less direct and investigations cannot be traced as concretely as was the case in Brazil and Guatemala. This can make tackling corruption extremely difficult where these cases are more difficult to prove.

人（民代表）大（会）＋政（治）协（商会议）

风暴 fēngbào ②名 比喻气势猛烈、震动全社会的事件。 政治风暴 | 金融风暴

inaugurer; ouvrir

打老虎

境外媒体

班子 bānzi ③名 指领导机构。 班子换届