2: Vivek Ramaswamy

I started paying attention to this guy only recently. I think he is a serious candidate, and he does have a shot.

1: Vivek Ramaswamy

Rupert Murdoch Turned Passion and Grievance Into Money and Power The retiring Fox leader built a noise-and-propaganda machine by giving his people what they wanted — and sometimes by teaching them what to want.

‘Germany 1923’: When Democracy Held Nazism at Bay In his latest book, the German historian Volker Ullrich describes a nation buffeted by poverty, hyperinflation and political extremism, but managing — for the moment — to thwart Hitler’s ascent......... the psychological and political effects of hyperinflation were profound. Reality seemed to be breaking down. Suffering deepened, along with inequality. Industrialists and those with access to foreign currency got richer, while swaths of the middle class had to barter family heirlooms in exchange for food. Germans turned on one another. Conspiracy theories proliferated. Foreigners and Jews were targeted. Old people who had to live on worthless pensions resented the young; the young, in turn, resented the old for owning homes purchased when the value of money stayed put long enough so that saving some was possible. ......... The government also issued a new currency — Rentenmarks, each of which was worth a trillion marks — and announced a fixed exchange rate at 4.2 trillion marks to the dollar. ........... trust in Rentenmarks took. “When you offered them in payment for the first time, you waited in suspense to see what would happen,” recalled the historian Sebastian Haffner. “They were actually accepted, and you were handed your goods — goods worth a billion marks. The same thing happened the next day and the day after. Incredible.” ............ When Hitler and the other putschist conspirators were put on trial, he used the courtroom to grandstand and rail against the Weimar Republic. In prison, he spent “a few quite comfortable months” biding his time and writing “Mein Kampf.” He also learned something from his failed uprising. “If he wanted to take power,” Ullrich explains, “he needed to follow a different path: not that of a putsch but of ostensible legality in concert with conservative economic, military and administrative elites.” ........... Conservatives believed that they could invite Hitler into their governing coalition and benefit accordingly. Such opportunism was breathtakingly cynical — and horrifically naïve. As Ullrich puts it at the end of his book, “The notion that they could harness the Nazi leader for their own reactionary interests and control the dynamic of his movement would be revealed as a tragic illusion.”

How Benjamin Netanyahu Pushed Israel Into Chaos The nation’s current crisis can be traced back, in ways large and small, to the outsize personality of its longest-serving prime minister. ................ Israel has no written constitution. Its Parliament is largely toothless as a check on power: The governing coalition has the majority and the means to impose its decisions there. Now it was proposing to neutralize the only curb to executive overreach: the country’s Supreme Court. ....... The energy and breadth of the protest movement has been staggering. To see this human wave surge through blocked highways shouting “Democracy!” is to glimpse Israeli society in all its variety: There are white-coat groups (doctors) and black robes (lawyers), Brothers and Sisters in Arms (military reservists), Handmaids (women’s groups), students, teachers, young people, academics, anti-occupation activists, “religious Zionist democrats,” high-tech workers and civil servants.......... “If it were up to Bibi, the overhaul would simply disappear ............ “Netanyahu has become a puppet on a string of messianic extremists.” .......... Netanyahu has pushed Israel to the brink, gradually and then suddenly. .......... These days, his gait is halting; his shoulders are hunched. His eyes sag. Try as his aides might, they have no way to spin this: The man looks exhausted. ............. Netanyahu is “in a Job-like state” ............. His coalition members embarrass him on a daily basis. .......... “He can’t travel to the White House, and it’s killing him.” .......... His status is such that his personal base of supporters is far greater than that of his party. ............. a once-in-a-generation leader, suave and polished, speaking a refined American English, and also a bare-knuckled sabra who has shown no qualms about taking on Barack Obama, the Palestinian leadership and the U. N. Security Council. ........... One of Netanyahu’s main achievements in office has been overseeing Israel’s transformation into a country with one of the highest per-capita investments in start-ups in the world; a second has been forging relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. ............ Admirers credit Netanyahu with “changing the paradigm” around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .......... the Abraham Accords, are the diplomatic end result of an arms deal in which Israel would provide nearly all signatories with licenses to its powerful cybersurveillance technology Pegasus .......... The Likud electorate has historically been the Mizrahi (Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent), the religiously observant, the noncollege-educated and the poor. But it has expanded to include Israelis who support his conservative economic agenda and others who cite his reluctance to go to needless wars and his international connections ........... Netanyahu has refashioned Likud from a hawkish yet liberal party into a populist party wholly in his thrall. ......... Under Netanyahu, the Israeli left has not only diminished but is regarded by much of Israeli society as illegitimate: not Jewish enough, not patriotic enough. .............. If the various components of the judicial overhaul pass, Israeli democracy will be in peril: The courts will be powerless, a government-appointed authority will be tasked with overseeing broadcast media, a parallel system will be set up for the ultra-Orthodox, who will be exempt from military conscription and whose children will receive only minimal education in core subjects such as math and science. The experiment of finding a balance between the Jewish and the democratic aspects of the state will be tipped toward the former. .............. a leader who has fallen prey to the idea that, in the words of his wife, “Without Bibi the country is lost.” .......... In “Bibi: My Story,” his 2022 memoir, which he wrote longhand in English, Netanyahu underplays his privilege: military service in the elite Matkal Unit; university studies at M.I.T.; a job at the prestigious Boston Consulting Group. “I had taken all these decisions with an attitude of ‘What the hell, let’s give it a try and see what happens,’” he writes. .............. Iddo, his younger brother, was on the line from Jerusalem. Yoni, their older brother, had been killed in the raid. ............. “Netanyahu presents this impressive combination of a strongman who’s also a victim,” Barnea says. It’s a paradox typical of right-wing leaders in the West ............ The night in 1976 when he heard of Yoni’s death, Bibi drove seven hours to Ithaca, N.Y., to break the news to his parents. Benzion greeted him with a surprised smile, but “when he saw my face, he instantly understood,” Netanyahu writes in his memoir. “He let out a terrible cry like a wounded animal.” The Netanyahu family founded a think tank in Yoni’s name, the Jonathan Institute, for the study of terrorism. The institute would lend Netanyahu gravitas and connections; it would also help start his political career. People who knew Netanyahu at the time say that were it not for Yoni’s death, they doubt whether he or his parents would even have returned to live in Israel. ................ “It is not the Jews who usurp the land from the Arabs, but the Arabs who usurp the land from the Jews,” he writes in his memoir, adding, “The Jews are the original natives, the Arabs the colonialists.” ........... In 1984, Netanyahu was named as Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, and he later threw himself into defending the right-wing policies of Yitzhak Shamir, the prime minister, with gusto and skill. He became a fixture on “Nightline” and U.S. news, learning to present his best side to the camera: the one that hid the scar on his lip (a result of a childhood game involving an electric socket). During one memorable appearance, at the height of the gulf war, air-raid sirens sounded while he was on the air from Jerusalem. Rather than cut the interview short, Netanyahu — ever attuned to ratings — suggested that they keep rolling with gas masks on. Larry King told Vanity Fair that women used to stop by the studio to inquire about his dashing guest from Israel............ “He was a person who walked around without a wallet.” ............... He showed little reverence for party seniority. “His innovation was that he moved from the outside in .............. and he tells me: ‘Listen, there are only two people who can run this country. Me and you. Let’s make a deal. I don’t need more than one term. I’ll take a term, and you take a term.’ .............. A few days later, Olmert says, he recounted that conversation to Meridor. Meridor told Olmert: “He told me that there were only two people who could run this country. Him and me.” Later, Olmert ran into Benny Begin, who said: “He told me that it was him and me.” .............. Netanyahu presented himself as a bellicose alternative to the left-wing government’s concessions. He installed himself at the sites of the attacks, lambasting Rabin. ......... For the left, there was no recovering from the bloodied circumstances that brought about his rule. ............. an exasperated Bill Clinton came out of their first meeting in 1996 fuming to aides: “Who the [expletive] does he think he is? Who’s the [expletive] superpower here?” Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, used to describe Netanyahu unfavorably as an “Israeli Newt Gingrich” and felt condescended to, Miller, who worked for her, has written. In 2011, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France was caught on mic complaining to President Barack Obama, “I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar.” Obama responded, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.” ................. “Bibi,” he recalled Obama saying. “I meant what I said. I expect you to immediately freeze all construction in the areas beyond the 1967 borders. Not one brick!” .............. “Iran is the big issue for him. His thinking is, Everything else I have to navigate to thwart that danger; if I’m not here, then I can’t deal with this big issue. Saudi Arabia is also very big for him right now. Principles are big issues, and the rest is pragmatism.” ............. At least three former Mossad chiefs have called Netanyahu’s actions on Iran dangerous. ................ Iran now has enough enriched uranium to produce “several” bombs, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned earlier this year. Iran’s enrichment is “100 percent the result of the U.S. pulling out of the agreement,” Tamir Hayman, a former Israel military intelligence chief and the managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies, told me. Hayman called the pullout from the deal a “grave mistake,” adding, “We retreated from Plan A without having a Plan B in place.” .............. “He began with a worldview that said, ‘I’m the best leader for Israel at this time,’” Elkin says. “Slowly it morphed into a worldview that said, ‘The worst thing that can happen to Israel is if I stop leading it, and therefore my survival justifies anything.’ From there, you quickly reach a worldview of ‘The state is me.’ He believes in it wholeheartedly.” .............. He met Sara Ben-Artzi in 1988 on a layover at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. She was 30 and a flight attendant; he was 39 and Israel’s deputy foreign minister. ............ The state prosecution claims that from 2011 to 2016, Netanyahu accepted a steady supply of cigars, cases of Champagne and jewelry from Arnon Milchan, an Israeli film producer in Hollywood, and James Packer, an Australian billionaire. In exchange for these presents, estimated to have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, the prosecution says that Netanyahu lobbied U.S. officials to help Milchan renew his U.S. visa and tried to lighten his tax burden in Israel. .......... A former Netanyahu spokesman who turned state witness in 2018 told prosecutors that he had learned of “a method, let’s say, in which, on every visit abroad, the Netanyahu family was attached to a walking credit card on two legs” — meaning to local benefactors. ............... He said, ‘If I don’t call an election now, I won’t get to nominate the next state prosecutor.’ He was willing to risk everything just to save his own skin.” ............ Long before the invention of Trumpism, there was Bibism. ............ With Trump, in general, “Netanyahu got everything he wanted,” Amit Segal, a political reporter for Channel 12, told me in 2021. Israel got a pass on settlement construction in the West Bank and signed normalization accords with four Arab states; the United States withdrew from the Iran agreement and moved its embassy to Jerusalem. “Our years together were the best ever for the Israeli-American alliance,” Netanyahu writes in his memoir. .............. In recent years, he has shunned Israeli mainstream media, opting instead for Facebook Live videos and frequent “exclusive” interviews with Channel 14, a media outlet that he has personally helped elevate into one of the most-watched news programs in the country. ............ In July, as the judicial overhaul resurfaced, Netanyahu fainted. Several days later, he was fitted with a pacemaker. ........... For years, liberal Israelis were afraid that a right-wing coalition would come along and annex West Bank settlements. “Then came the twist,” the author Etgar Keret wrote earlier this year. “Instead, the settlers annexed the country.”

Want to Attend an Indian Wedding? Now You Can Pay To. Join My Wedding allows tourists to purchase tickets to Indian weddings. Some say it’s resulted in meaningful cultural exchange. Others believe selling the experience can be cultural fetishism.......... “Indian weddings are world famous,” she said, pointing to Bollywood as what drew her attention to them. “It’s like a music festival,” she said. .......... “Every cultural element is right there at a wedding,” she said. “If I had just one day in any country in the world, I would want to just go to a wedding.” ............. Around 250 people attended Yamini and Aditya Sharma’s opulent wedding in January, which took place at a venue in Jaipur called R Chandra’s Palace. The entire wedding cost about 30 million rupees, said Mr. Sharma, 27, who runs a construction equipment business, which is roughly equivalent to $360,000 ............... “A non-Indian, particularly white person, attending one’s wedding is seen as a status symbol,” she added. “It communicates that the couple or their family have social networks beyond their country and by that token, demonstrates a sort of cosmopolitanism and ‘success.’” ............... “I’m never the only white person in a room,” Ms. Lord said. “That’s only happened to me maybe twice in my entire life.” .......... When it came to food, there were moments where other guests “would laugh at me and be like, ‘No, you can’t dip that in there.’ And I’m like, ‘It tastes good, try it,’” Ms. Lord said. “It felt like if someone came here and put ketchup and applesauce on their hot dog.” ........... “We tried to buy saris, but when we were in our rooms trying to put them on, we couldn’t make it work. It’s a bit complicated. So we wore flowy skirts and pants that had some decorative, Indian-style embellishments.” ............. In interviews, some travelers referred to traditional clothing as “costumes” and religious ceremonies as “Bollywood performances.” ............. “it’s a very big country, and weddings aren’t held in the same way everywhere.” She added, “For example, where I’m from in Bengal, people typically don’t dance in their weddings, and yet now you have a standard model of what an Indian wedding is, and it looks very much like watching Bollywood.”

The Magic Number: 32 Hours a Week The autoworkers picketing factories across America aren’t just seeking higher pay. They are also, audaciously, demanding the end of the standard 40-hour workweek. They want a full week’s pay for working 32 hours across four days. And we'll all benefit if they succeed........ Though the 40-hour week may feel like an immutable law of nature, it’s barely a century old. ......... American workers fought to establish the eight-hour workday around the turn of the last century, campaigning on the catchy slogan, “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what you will.” But the workweek then was six days long for almost everyone. .......... It took until 1940 for Congress to legislate a 40-hour week. The law said that hourly employees who worked longer got overtime pay. .......... In a famous 1930 essay, the British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, people would work only 15 hours a week because technological progress would reduce the amount of labor required to meet people’s wants and needs.

Corruption Is an Existential Threat to Ukraine, and Ukrainians Know It The Maidan revolution, which sent a pro-Russian president packing, wasn’t just about freeing Ukraine from Russian influence. It was also about breaking the stranglehold of oligarchs who — as in so many former Soviet republics — controlled everything from television stations to the politicians on ballots. The fight against corruption amounts to a second front in Ukraine’s war against Russia. ...........

it is still ranked the second most corrupt country in Europe, after Russia

........... Since the February 2022 Russian invasion, a host of characters — from arms dealers to suppliers of soldiers’ meals — has stood to reap big profits, creating vested interests in prolonging the conflict. ......... Ukrainians consider corruption the country’s second-most-serious problem, behind only the Russian invasion ............ Ukrainians are starting to resist corruption with the same can-do spirit that repelled the Russian invasion. ............ the Ukrainian Defense Ministry paying huge markups for supplies — 46 cents for eggs that should have cost five cents, $86 for winter coats that were worth just $29. ............... We didn’t fail in Afghanistan because we couldn’t stop corruption. We failed because we didn’t foster Afghan institutions that could withstand a U.S. withdrawal. Americans were so worried about stamping out corruption that they micromanaged everything, creating a shadow government — staffed by temporary, highly paid consultants that answered to Washington. They wrote beautiful reports but weren’t accountable to the people who mattered most: Afghans. ............ It would have been better to spend far less money in Afghanistan but in a way that empowered local leaders. Instead, we spent more than a trillion dollars on a war that ended disastrously. Does it matter that we had a special inspector general perfectly documenting the disaster? ..................... donor countries should work with local Ukrainian government entities to rebuild the country instead of using “vast armies” of foreign contractors and nongovernmental organizations.

Amazon Is the Apex Predator of Our Platform Era The Congress of 1890, which passed the first of those laws, could never have imagined the world we now inhabit. ........... Today’s tech barons at huge platforms like Amazon, Google and Meta can deploy anticompetitive, deceptive and unfair tactics with the agility and speed of a digital system. As in any shell game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. ........... Amazon is the apex predator of our platform era. Having first subsidized end-users, and then offered favorable terms to business customers, Amazon was able to exploit its digital flexibility to lock both in and raid them for an ever-increasing share of the value they created. ............. Amazon has become a vestigial place, a retail colossus barely hindered by either competition or regulation, where prices go up as quality goes down, and the undifferentiated slurry of products from obscure brands is wreathed in inauthentic reviews. ............. It became progressively harder not to shop there. ........... The more locked in we were, the less Amazon needed to offer us. ........... the company began to allow retailers to buy their way to the top of listings, and by 2021, ads generated $31 billion in revenue. ............ Its warehouse workers urinate in bottles to keep up with impossibly high fulfillment demands; its drivers are forced to defecate in bags. Amazon pioneered the “megacycle,” a 10.5-hour, mandatory graveyard shift at its warehouses, as well as a new kind of arm’s-length quasi entrepreneur who borrows small fortunes and hires legions of drivers kitted out in Amazon livery, only to be stuck with the bill for all those delivery vans ............ Now we are at the final stage of monopolistic decay. The nation’s dominant online retail marketplace not only claws away much of its sellers’ revenues but also now penalizes them if they sell their products for lower prices at other retail outlets (including at its archrivals Target and Walmart). Amazon gets the American consumer coming and going, providing worse goods at higher prices while receiving vast sums in subsidies from state and local governments. ............

14: China

अनिल झा मेरै प्रस्तावमा धनुषा आउनुभएको हो : निधि
अनिल भर्सेस जुलीमा विमलेन्द्र फ्याक्टर !
मेरा लागि विमलेन्द्रजी रातदिन खटिरहनुभएको छ : अनिल झा
मेरा प्रतिस्पर्धी छैनन्, मै चुनाव जित्छु : जुली महतो

No

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022

Urging peace with Russia, top US general challenges DC’s proxy war https://t.co/k0ku4mxryg

— Janet's Good News (@JanetsGoodNews) November 13, 2022

Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022

Especially bizarre given that almost no one came to the office. Estimated cost per lunch served in past 12 months is >$400.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022

I hope they keep cursing me on Twitter, as it increases advertising revenue!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022

🙏 https://t.co/IjYR5ZyTGV

— Jenifer Rajkumar (@JeniferRajkumar) November 9, 2022

यो नभुल्नुस् कि जो चुनिन्छन् तिनीहरू तपाईँकै मतले विजयी भएर तपाईँले तिरेको करबाट तपाईँमाथि नै शासन गर्छन्!

भोट हाल्दा!!

— Madhu Raman Acharya (@MadhuRamanACH) November 13, 2022

(1) There was a form of God Moses was not allowed to see. (2) Abraham met God. (3) Nobody has seen the Father but me. A reference to people in the immediate audience or those alive at the time? (4) If God the Son is capable of human incarnation, why not God the Father?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 13, 2022

Who taught you to pray to the Holy Father asking him to come establish His direct rule on earth?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 13, 2022

Ranked choice voting has now passed in a blue state, a red state, and a purple state, along with dozens of cities. It’s the most viable, substantive reform to make our democratic system more representative of the electorate.

— John Arnold (@JohnArnoldFndtn) November 12, 2022

this dog is friends with a crow and it's like a real life pixar movie
(jukin media) pic.twitter.com/JwziS1cGtf

— theworldofdog (@theworldofdog) November 12, 2022

BREAKING: @dellavolpe calculates that the record-breaking turnout among voters between 18-29-years-old canceled out *every voter* above the age of 65. Gen Z literally saved democracy. And going forward, there is no path to victory for Democrats without young voters. Full stop.

— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) November 12, 2022

man, if I was asked to write a fiction, I won't be able to imagine what's already happened IRL.

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) November 12, 2022

Twitter at its best!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022

SBF was a major Dem donor, so no investigation

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022

Those calls come as children's hospitals across the province are overwhelmed, with many operating over capacity.

The CEO of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children says universal masking will help beleaguered pediatric hospitals.

— Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) November 13, 2022

Four years ago, when I released my memoir, Becoming, I traveled across the country and around the world, meeting so many incredible people—including many of you. It was a little scary to share so much of my story for the first time, but I was so moved by your response. pic.twitter.com/RUDCs1cEKe

— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) November 13, 2022

10: US

Wesley Hunt
Donald Trump Was the Midterm’s Biggest Loser
Russia’s Retreat From Kherson Brings Ukraine One Step Closer to Victory Ukraine has a very clear understanding of what victory will entail....... Ukraine’s victory will require defeating the Russian Army on Ukrainian territory, including in Crimea. Ukraine’s recent advances prove that this is not a distant dream anymore. Russia struggles to control the 800-mile front line that stretches from the Black Sea coast to the northeastern mining cities of Luhansk Oblast. In September, better-trained, well-equipped and highly motivated Ukrainian troops regained the strategic initiative........ To prevail, Kyiv has fought smart, causing the front line to crumble by attacking deep behind enemy lines. U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers have enabled this strategy. ........ Ukrainian victory without reclamation of Crimea is no Ukrainian victory. ....... For the war to end, a power transfer must happen in the Kremlin. ........ Losing a war is lethal to any dictator.

After Near Wipeout in Election, Israeli Left Wonders: What Now? Support for Israel’s left collapsed against Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right alliance in last week’s election. To regain relevance, the left’s leaders say they need to change — but disagree on how. ....... Israel’s Jewish-led left-leaning parties, long the standard-bearers for negotiations with the Palestinians, suffered a near wipeout in the elections, accelerating a long-term decline that has kept them from the prime minister’s office for more than two decades. ........ The Labor Party, which once dominated Israeli politics with its brand of social democracy and secularism, barely scraped into Parliament, winning just four seats. Meretz, a champion of the peace movement, dropped out of Parliament entirely. Yesh Atid, the centrist party led by the departing prime minister, Yair Lapid, who forged a coalition with leftists to form the last government, scooped up several new seats. But Mr. Lapid’s wider alliance was defeated because of the broader collapse of parties on the left. ........ Veterans of both Meretz and Labor have called for the two groups to merge into a single party with a clear goal and message, welcoming not only Jews but also large numbers of Arabs. Israel’s Arab minority forms about a fifth of the country’s nine million citizens, but they typically vote for Arab-led parties. ........ Arab politicians typically want to downplay Israel’s Jewish character, while the Zionist left, by definition, seeks to maintain it. Even in the aftermath of last week’s game-changing election, few are ready to compromise.

What Republicans Are Saying About Tuesday Night The midterms’ results showed the limits of “Team Crazy,” in the words of Representative Peter Meijer — one of many harsh judgments coursing through a demoralized Republican Party.

Path to 218: Tracking the Remaining House Races
Poor Countries Need Climate Funding. These Plans Could Unlock Trillions. As global warming delivers cascading weather disasters, leaders at U.N. climate talks say it’s time to radically overhaul the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. ......... The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were created 80 years ago to rebuild countries devastated by World War II and to stabilize the global economy. But an expanding group of world leaders now say the two powerful institutions need a 21st century overhaul to handle a new destructive force: global warming........ If implemented, the reforms being considered would make significantly more money available to developing nations to mitigate the effects of climate change, deploy those funds faster, offer struggling countries lower interest rates and allow them to pause debt payments after major disasters. Supporters say the changes would also enable the institutions to attract trillions of dollars in private capital to help nations prepare for climate disasters and transition to wind, solar and other clean energy. ........ Bridgetown Initiative, put forward this summer by Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, a heavily indebted Caribbean nation that is highly vulnerable to climate disasters. Ms. Mottley began her campaign at last year’s climate summit in Glasgow by calling attention to the plight of poor and small island nations. ........ the bank’s “current model” was “no longer appropriate in this time of global crises.” ........ more than $1 trillion in new funding ....... reform of the bank and the fund is being seen as the most immediate and practical way to help the developing world face the severe threats posed by increasing floods, fires, heat and drought. ..........

“It’s not right that some countries can borrow at 3 percent and others at 14, 15.”

A Compromise on Immigration Is Possible. This Bill Could Make It Happen. immigration imposes significant short-term costs on local governments but that the children of immigrants “are among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the U.S. population.” Immigration, in other words, is an investment in America’s future, but someone still needs to cover the upfront costs. ..... Winning broader support will require more compromise and courage. But regardless of the results of the midterm elections, Congress has a real opportunity to begin the critical work of fixing the nation’s immigration system by overhauling the asylum process.

Nope, I was alway 🥜 !

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022

Looks like where @BarackObama got his start! :) #badhaiho

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

Amazon has lost a record $1T in value
Bitcoin sinks on FTX collapse

@HarvardDivinity How To Verify My Identity? https://t.co/b6Mvs1sbYv I am Jesus come back as promised.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

@YaleDivSchool How To Verify My Identity? https://t.co/b6Mvs1sbYv I am Jesus come back as promised.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

@UChiDivinity How To Verify My Identity? https://t.co/b6Mvs1KlcD I am Jesus come back as promised.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

@DukeDivinity How To Verify My Identity? https://t.co/b6Mvs1KlcD I am Jesus come back as promised.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

@VUDivinity How To Verify My Identity? https://t.co/b6Mvs1sbYv I am Jesus come back as promised.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

@CandlerTheology How To Verify My Identity? https://t.co/b6Mvs1KlcD I am Jesus come back as promised.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

@ptseminary How To Verify My Identity? https://t.co/b6Mvs1KlcD I am Jesus come back as promised.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

@Presbyterian How To Verify My Identity? https://t.co/b6Mvs1JNn5 I am Jesus come back as promised.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

@fullerseminary How To Verify My Identity? https://t.co/b6Mvs1JNn5 I am Jesus come back as promised.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 10, 2022

24: US Mid-Terms

Facebook: February 27

My first #NFT -- five poems. https://t.co/NhAnpU1aSX

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 20, 2022

MCC: Last Minute Pass

बालुवाटार बैठकको निष्कर्ष : काँग्रेस-एमाले मिलौँ, देशलाई निकास दिऔँ काँग्रेसले अब वर्तमान गठबन्धनलाई नबोक्ने, नयाँ गठबन्धन बनाउने
सत्ता गठबन्धन अघि जाँदैन, धरापमा परिसक्यो : गगन थापा
नेपालबाट ७०० मेगावाट बिजुली किन्न भारत तयार, ४०० केभी प्रसारणलाइन बनाउन कम्पनी खोलिने
. पार्टीभित्रै उपेन्द्र यादव अल्पमतमा !

प्रचण्डको एकलौटी निर्णयले माओवादी केन्द्र फुट्दै, यी पाँच सिनियर नेताले आजै गर्दैछन् पार्टी परित्याग !

मै पोष्ट करेगा साला 😜😂🤣 pic.twitter.com/vzmFmpx0mZ

— 🇳🇵रोशन (@Rakeshlhn) February 27, 2022

#UPDATE Ukraine says it will hold talks with Russia at its border with Belarus -- near the Chernobyl exclusion zone -- after a phone call between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko pic.twitter.com/A4dLmWuu1N

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 27, 2022

BREAKING: Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his military command to put the country's nuclear deterrence forces on high alert.

Live updates: https://t.co/cz5NTchyMw

📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/MWaSWegeCv

— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 27, 2022

#BREAKING Ukraine army retakes Kharkiv, expelling Russian troops: governor pic.twitter.com/cnBVlOuLkJ

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 27, 2022

BREAKING: Invading Russian forces have blown up a gas pipeline in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, said Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office. The government warned that smoke from the blast could cause an "environmental catastrophe." https://t.co/TzSSrAynea

— The Associated Press (@AP) February 27, 2022

UPDATED: Major turnaround in Germany's military policy, as Berlin authorizes the Netherlands to send Ukraine 400 rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Until today, Germany did not permit lethal weapons that it controlled to be transferred to conflict zones. https://t.co/pbpejrom1p

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) February 26, 2022

#NEWS: Czech Republic, Netherlands and Portugal commit reinforcements to assist Ukraine against #Russia #UkraineRussia #Ukraine

— Jaqueline Hurtado (@HurtadoCNN) February 26, 2022

Factbox: EU sanctions target Russia's economy, elites and Putin himself https://t.co/rrV46zN645 pic.twitter.com/ENFLgu2VCK

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 26, 2022

एमसीसी सम्झौता संसदबाट पारित प्रनिनिधि सभाबाट एमसीसी सम्झौता पारित भएको छ । सम्झौतालाई सभामुख अग्निप्रसाद सापकोटाले ध्वनी मतका साथ पास भएको घोषणा गरेका हुन् । यसका साथै व्याख्यात्मक प्रस्ताव अनुमोदन भएको उनले घोषणा गरे । आइतबारको प्रतिनिधि सभाको दोस्रो बैठकमा व्याख्यात्मक घोषणामाथिको छलफल सकिएसँगै एमसीसी पारित भएको हो ।

एमसीसीका पक्षमा मतदान गर्ने निर्णय गरेका प्रचण्ड र माधव अवसरवादी भन्दै एमालेले खोल्यो मुख, दियो नेताकार्यकर्ताहरुलाई उत्साहित बनाइदिने अभिव्यक्ती !
लाल बने तमलोपाको अध्यक्ष

एमसीसीविरुद्ध हतियारसहित प्रदर्शनमा उत्रिए आन्दोलनकारी (तस्बिरमा)

MCC Controversy: The Anthropology Angle

News: February 14

साना २८ पार्टीले राष्ट्रिय मानव अधिकार आयोगमा बुझाए ज्ञापन पत्र (पूर्णपाठ)
सर्वदलीय बैठकः संसद खुलाउन पहल गर्ने सहमति
अब एमसीसी संसदमा टेबुल हुन्छ : रामचन्द्र पौडेल
महाभियोग फिर्ता नलिए देशभर आन्दोलन गर्ने चेतावनी
किसानको समस्या दीर्घकालीनरुपमा समाधान गर्ने रोडम्याप हामीसँग छ : ई.दीपक साह (भिडियोसहित)

They Took a Chance on Collaborative Living. They Lost Everything. A group that sought to create Connecticut’s first experiment in collaborative living fell short. Some of the investors lost their life savings. ........ “a structure where I didn’t have to be outgoing and could still get the benefit of getting to know people” ........ After more than a decade of planning, the project, called Rocky Corner, finally broke ground in 2018 on a 33-acre plot in Bethany, a suburb of New Haven. ......... But instead, the entire project went into foreclosure. And Ms. Ruffle’s dream — and finances — was dashed. “That money is now gone and there’s no way for us to retrieve it,” she said. “We lost about $170,000. And we both have very low incomes. Ever since, we’ve been living in not good circumstances at all.” .......... the increasing complexity of the project proved more than the group could afford or manage. ........ There are about 170 established co-housing communities in the United States, according to the Cohousing Association. There are about 30 co-housing communities in California and five in New York State. In a co-housing model, residents own their own homes, but share common spaces — a structure aimed at fostering connection and community through collaborative living. ....... At Rocky Corner, members managed the project and their community affairs using a process called sociocracy, which organizes people into various circles to make decisions consensually. ......... She blamed the debt pileup on a series of unanticipated costs and bureaucratic delays that dragged out the timeline. For example, she said, just getting the project approved by the town’s planning and zoning commission took two years, partly because it was an unfamiliar concept and drew some local opposition. Then, after they broke ground, they unexpectedly ran into a lot of ledge — an underground mass of rock — that had to be removed. ........ the lessons to be gleaned from Rocky Corner are to “control your costs and your timing, and get your home buyers lined up ahead of time or during the early stages of construction.” .

Mr. President, It’s Time for a Little Humility . recognize that we are still in the grips of a national trauma ........ Unsurprisingly, incidents of suicide, drug overdose deaths and violence in our homes and on the streets have grown dramatically. ........ those wage increases have been eaten up by inflation, the likes of which we have not seen in four decades. And all the while, the rich have gotten richer. ..........

The state of the union is stressed.

.......... the grinding concerns that have soured the mood of the country. ........ the heroic, unsung sacrifices so many have made to see their families and communities through. .

The Uneasy Alliance Between Frederick Douglass and White Abolitionists . On Aug. 6, 1845, Frederick Douglass set sail on a speaking tour of England and Ireland to promote the cause of antislavery. He had just published “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” an instant best seller that, along with his powerful oratory, had made him a celebrity in the growing abolition movement. No sooner had he arrived in Britain, however, than Douglass began to realize that white abolitionists in Boston had been working to undermine him: Before he’d even left American shores, they had privately written his British hosts and impugned his motives and character........ “the casual racism of the privileged class” within Garrison’s abolitionist circle. ....... the ambitious and self-possessed Douglass. ....... Behind Douglass’s back, Chapman depicted him as untrustworthy, arrogant, selfish and in need of white supervision. ............ she warned her British friends that Douglass had “the wisdom of a serpent” ........ Chapman’s correspondents in England wrote her back in similarly disparaging terms, describing Douglass as “injudicious and jealous.” ............ The self-righteous Chapman proceeded to quickly inform her many friends that Douglass was oversensitive, “selfish” and quick to take offense. ..........

Racial prejudice ... permeated abolitionism.

......... Eager to manipulate him into becoming an unquestioning spokesman for nonpolitical abolitionism, they repeatedly reprimanded Douglass. Unmoved, and unwilling to limit the scope of his activities, Douglass responded, “I may do anything toward exposing the bloody system of slavery.” .......... was slavery itself sanctioned by the Constitution? Garrison had long maintained that it was, and therefore that abolition would never be achieved through law or politics. ....... Douglass, Smith and a small circle of abolitionist lawyers insisted that the Constitution did not sanction slavery, that natural law and the Constitution itself assured liberty, and that political action through the Constitution would be necessary to destroy slavery and secure freedom. .............. the personal was political. The alliance between Garrison and Douglass lasted long enough to power the fractious movement through its first decade, but broke because the Garrisonians had “actually never accepted the full humanity of Frederick Douglass.” .

The Conservative Case for Avoiding a Repeat of Jan. 6 . If these festering divisions cost the Republicans in the midterm elections and jeopardize their chances of reclaiming the presidency in 2024, which they well could, the believers and disbelievers alike will suffer. .

Can Democrats See What’s Coming?
There Will Be No Post-Covid . I believe that I experienced the pandemic like many others: stunned and isolated, shocked by the sudden withdrawal of social life and social customs. ...... the United States could have avoided 40 percent of deaths if its death rate reflected that of other Group of 7 nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. ........... I took joy in cooking. I learned to make bread. ...... I bought more plants. ...... Covid would most likely move from pandemic to endemic. ......... “If you look at the history of infectious diseases, we’ve only eradicated one infectious disease in man, and that’s smallpox. That’s not going to happen with this virus.” ........

The number of lives taken by Covid in this country alone — north of 900,000 — is almost unfathomable.

........... Covid has made us reconsider everything, the meaning of home and work, the value of public space, the magnitude and immediacy of death, what it truly means to be a member of a society. .

The End of the Pandemic May Tear Us Apart . For countries with high vaccination rates, 2022 may be the last year when strong measures are required against Covid-19. The end of the pandemic, however, will not come easily. ........

A waning pandemic does not mean the end of leadership on Covid, but may instead mean it’s more necessary than ever.

.......... we need to make complex trade-offs between deaths, the economy, public well-being and constitutional rights. ........ public trust has taken a hit in many countries, including Denmark. As fatigue, personal costs and miscommunications have accumulated, the public has become wary. ......... The key ingredients of an effective pandemic response — communication, trust and a shared sense of threat — are slowly dwindling. This can lead to social strife and will make it harder for leaders to steer their populations out of the crisis. .............

Republicans tend to overrate the risks of getting vaccinated, and Democrats tend to overrate the risks from the disease.

.

American Dysfunction Is the Biggest Barrier to Fighting Covid . One important step would be to implement and broaden vaccine mandates. There’s plenty of precedent for mandating vaccines in health care, the military and schools, so it wouldn’t be some novel step to do so for one of the safest vaccines we’ve ever had. .......... Some large employers already mandate flu vaccines. Kentucky legally requires everyone working at a long-term care facility to be vaccinated against the flu and pneumococcal disease, unless they have a medical or religious exemption. Mandates for Covid vaccines, too, should be issued, especially for people who work with high risk or vulnerable populations — children, the elderly, the incarcerated and those in medical settings — and possibly for employees in workplaces where large numbers of people congregate indoors. ........ A staggering 40 percent of workers at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities remain unvaccinated. ........ Some might feel less concern for the unvaccinated, viewing them as hard-core anti-vaxxers or eager consumers of extremist propaganda on social media or Fox News. It’s true that attitudes toward vaccination have become affected by our political polarization. At a major conservative event recently, a mention of low vaccination rates was met with cheers. As horrifying as this was, we still have to try to reach this population. .......... Black and Hispanic people are still less likely to be vaccinated, despite having suffered disproportionately throughout the pandemic. This is probably due to lack of access, especially early on .......... historic distrust of the medical system, in which, studies show, they continue to face discrimination. ........ good ventilation is essential for lowering the risk of airborne transmission ........... The federal government allocated more than $120 billion for K-12 schools in the latest relief package for improving ventilation and other mitigations, but rules for using these funds are flexible, and local implementation remains haphazard. .

Paranoia About #MeToo Overreach at Harvard . Maybe they thought they were standing up against woke illiberalism. What they were really doing was closing ranks. .

I’ve Never Slept Better Than on a Japanese Futon . It was cool in the sticky summer heat and cozy in the damp winter chill. My back felt great. ....... Unlike a bed, a futon isn’t a piece of furniture, dominating the bedroom. A futon serves its purpose when needed, at night, but then it disappears into a closet with ease. My kids could use their entire bedroom floor space for play during the day or pull their futon into our bedroom when they got sick. ........ they’re very easy to clean. People in Japan routinely air their futons and other bedding, often by hoisting them out of windows or over balcony railings. .......... gather the futons, comforters, and pillows, and hang them all over our balcony for a few hours of sunshine and fresh air. ........ In Japan, you can even send your futon to the laundromat for a deep clean. Suddenly the idea of sleeping for years and years on a mattress that I could never wash seemed kind of gross. .

MCC पनि, BRI पनि

एमसीसी अनुदान सहयोग हो। त्यस लाई इंडो पैसिफिक स्ट्रेटेजी अन्तर्गत को किन भनियो होला भन्दा नेपाल लाई सित्तै मा पैसा दिनु छ। पैसा आउने अमेरिकी करदाता बाट। अनि केही न केही त भन्नुपर्यो। नेपाल लाई अनुदान सहयोग दिए हामी आफै बलियो हुने हो भनेर भनेको होला। समस्या यो होइन कि अमेरिकी सेना आउँछ। समस्या यो हो कि एमसीसी लाई मेलम्ची बनाउने ठाउँ छैन। तीन वर्ष मा सकिने काम ३० वर्ष लगाउन पाइँदैन। नेपाल का नेता कर्मचारी लाई चाहिएको छ एमसीसी होइन मेलम्ची। मेलम्ची को नाम मा काठमाण्डु मा सयकडौँ बंगला हरु बने। 

एमसीसी अहिले ५०० मिलियन डॉलर लिने, राम्रो काम गर्ने, अर्को बिलियन डॉलर माँगने। त्यस पछि दुई बिलियन। 

चीन को BRI अनुदान सहयोग होइन। अनुदान राम्रो ऋण नराम्रो भन्ने पनि होइन। धमाधम पुर्वसंरचना बनाउन ऋण पनि लिन सक्नुपर्छ। तर कति ऋण हो? किन लिएको? ब्याज दर के हो? त्यो सब पुर्ण पारदर्शी हुनुपर्यो। नेपाल एमसीसी मा सहभागी हुन हुने तर बीआरआई मा सहभागी हुन नहुने भन्ने होइन। बेइजिंग बाट ल्हासा काठमाण्डु हुँदै दिल्ली लगोस चीन ले बुलेट ट्रेन। 

नेपाल सेना ले रोड पुल बनाउने होइन। नेपाल सेना ले फ़ास्ट ट्रैक बनाउँदैछ भनेको नेपाल सेना बढ़ी ठुलो भएको प्रमाण हो। सेना लाई डाउनसाइजिंग गर्नुपर्ने। ९०,००० सैनिक मध्ये २०,००० नेपाल सेना मा बस बाँकी ले कंस्ट्रक्शन कंपनी खोल। होइन भने फ़ास्ट ट्रैक लाई अर्को मेलम्ची बनाउने काम गरिएको छ। विदेशी कंपनी लाई ठेक्का दिएको भए अहिलेसम्म मा फ़ास्ट ट्रैक बनिसकेको हुने।

 

MCC Controversy: The Anthropology Angle

MCC Controversy: The Anthropology Angle

Too many of us, me included, have been tackling the geopolitical angle of the MCC debate too hard. Maybe we should go a little easy. I myself have suggested to the self-styled China friendly politicians in Nepal who China might or might not be aware of, the way for China to beat America would be to donate $600 million, or a billion, go get it, we shall readily accept!

I have also looked at the corruption angle. Maybe the MCC Dons (nodding to you, Fatima) should count as to how many bungalows got built in Kathmandu when the Melamchi project was stretched over three decades. It should have been completed in one tenth the time. The accountability part of the MCC package has been a problem. Just drop the money and go.

By now I feel the overwhelming angle has been not geopolitical (China Vs. America, better held in the South China Sea), or ideological (Communist Vs. Capitalist ..... every single party in Nepal is officially Socialist, go figure), or bookkeeping (read: theft, aka corruption), but rather how politicians in Nepal do business. They wait until the last minute even if they might have had, in this case, years to get it done, but they will not move until right before the deadline, and then they will move in a hurry. No debate, barely a voice vote. But at the very last minute.

Why? Watch the movie Interstellar. Our lead characters jump, hop, jump time.

Maybe not physical time the way Einstein explained it but cultural time perhaps moves in Nepal at a different speed than everywhere else.

MCC Controversy: The Anthropology Angle https://t.co/QJfpOFqpzL @fbhutto @fatimamanji @fattysanashaikh @FatimaAlQadiri @FatimaPtacek @Fatima_bn @khanthefatima @fbhutto

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 11, 2022

MCC Controversy: The Anthropology Angle https://t.co/QJfpOFqpzL @FatemaDC @USEmbassyNepal @SLinKathmandu @USAmbNepal @bdoot_kathmandu @UAEEmbNepal @FranceInNepal @IndiaInNepal @PRCAmbNepal @IsraelinNepal @QatarEmb_KTM

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 11, 2022

MCC Controversy: The Anthropology Angle https://t.co/QJfpOFqpzL @EONIndia @UKinNepal @AusAmbNP @NicolaPollittUK @USEmbassyBern @SwissEmbassyUSA @GerAmbKTM @usembassynz

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 11, 2022

MCC Controversy: The Anthropology Angle https://t.co/QJfpOFqpzL @narayanwagle @gunaraj @KanakManiDixit @kishorenepal @prashantktm @DRP39 @YubarajGhimire3 @salokya @belakoboli @DRP39 @Vijaykumarko @RishiDhamala @DilBhusanPathak @salokya

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 11, 2022

MCC Controversy: The Anthropology Angle https://t.co/QJfpOFqpzL @SherBDeuba @cmprachanda @ncp_madhavnepal @kpsharmaoli @jnkhanal @drckraut

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 11, 2022