A recent US Chamber of Commerce InSTEP program hosted three empire managers to talk about Washington’s top three enemies, with the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns discussing the PRC, the odious Victoria Nuland discussing Russia, and the US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides talking about Iran.
US Ambassador To China: “We’re The Leader” Of The Indo-Pacific
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Food stamp benefits are being reduced across the board Wednesday, with 42 million Americans, all of them poor and many of them children, seeing cuts ranging from $95 to $235 a month per household. The average per capita payment will fall to $6.10 a day, or about $2 a meal.
Biden’s program for mass hunger: Food stamps being cut back for 42 million
Elections & Lithium Mining: Why is the US Suddenly Running ‘Get Out the Vote Ads’ in Nigeria?
Last year, US-based electric vehicle company Tesla put in a bid for a contract to mine some of that Lithium, but the Nigerian government denied them. Nigeria, like most African countries, has a history of foreign powers exploiting them for their national resources while offering little value to the people of Nigeria.
Video via Activist News Network
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How Democracy Can Win: The Right Way to Counter Autocracy
The most important step the United States can take to counter foreign influence campaigns and disinformation is to help our partners promote media and digital literacy, communicate credibly with their publics, and engage in “pre-bunking”—that is, seeking to inoculate their societies against disinformation before it can spread. In Indonesia, for example, USAID has worked with local partners to develop sophisticated online courses and games that help new social media users identify disinformation and reduce the likelihood that they will share misleading posts and articles.
The United States has also helped Ukraine in its fight against the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation. For decades, USAID has worked to enhance the media environment in the country, encouraging reforms that allow greater access to public information and supporting the emergence of strong local media organizations, including the public broadcaster Suspilne. After Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, our work expanded to help the country’s local journalists produce Russian-language programming that could reach into Kremlin-occupied territories, such as Dialogues With Donbas, a YouTube channel that featured honest conversations with Ukrainians about life behind Russian lines. We also helped support the production of the online comedy show Newspalm, which regularly racks up tens of thousands of views as it skewers Putin’s lies. And even before Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, we worked with the government of Ukraine to stand up the Center for Strategic Communications, which uses memes [memetic warfare], well-produced digital videos, and social media and Telegram posts to poke holes in Kremlin propaganda.
I still need to look into Newspalm. I’ll update if I find anything. As I don’t know Ukrainian, or Russian, I’m using Google translate for the following information. Note, this is all speculation!
Speculation:
Read More »If we do not build left-right coalitions on issues such as militarism, health care, a living wage and union organizing, we will be impotent in the face of corporate power and the war machine.
There Are No Permanent Allies, Only Permanent Power
My Daily Helping of Propaganda from the New York Times
The State of the Union
China’s suspected spy balloon had Western-made components with English writing on them, report says
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EXPLAINER -What we know and don’t know about the Chinese balloon
By looks and by size, it resembles balloons made by U.S. firm Aerostar, whose own balloon was mistaken for the Chinese one while flying over Memphis.
Aerostar is an aerospace and defence contractor that supplies stratospheric balloons to the likes of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) made out of polyethylene film that can fly for over 200 days and carry hundreds of pounds.
It also previously had a deal with Google to use such balloons to provide internet to rural areas.
Other companies that develop stratospheric balloon systems include U.S. space tourism firm World View and French firm CNIM Air Space.
Stratollites can maintain position over specific areas of interest for days, weeks, and eventually months on end. This allows for more sustained measurements and monitoring capabilities over a targeted area. Stratollites can carry a wide variety of commercial payloads (sensors, telescopes, communications arrays, etc.), launch rapidly on demand, and safely return payloads back to earth after mission completion.
Worldview Stratollites are commercial high altitude balloons like Google Loon – Worldview had an explosion December 2017
Miguel speaks about Mexico’s growing role as a filter of South American immigration for the United States, and how unfair it is for Mexico’s limited resources to be pressured into that role, especially since they also suffer from the neoliberal policies that cause immigration in the first place.
“Mexico has been told to use its military against the Latin American siblings that have also endured the imperialist and neoliberal impositions which have produced the economic and political crisis that most of the South is currently suffering- undoubtedly the primary reason that these waves of migrants are traveling north.” – Miguel Robles-Durán
This is a clip from S03 E02 of Cities After… Neo-Imperialism & Neo-Fascism at the Border via Democracy At Work
Mexico Pressured to Filter Immigrants to US: The Situation South of the Border
By Richard Fontaine, the chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security.
China’s Balloon Could Be America’s Awakening
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Center for a New American Security (funding and employees):
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Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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