Elon Musk claims to have found rampant fraud in the Social Security Administration. There’s a much simpler explanation
No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits
Musk’s minions need to leave the Social Security and Veterans Administrations alone!
Zelensky’s wear and tear (original)
For more than two and a half years, war has been the raison d’être of the Ukrainian state. The budget presented by Kyiv this week allocates more than 50% of the budget to the defence sector – to which must be added the cost of veterans – something that has been repeated since 2022. Maintaining the front, avoiding its collapse and ensuring that there is still enough support to continue fighting until the objectives are achieved is the priority of the government team, which has set aside practically all other obligations of the state, which today depends entirely on foreign subsidies that make it possible to pay salaries and pensions. One of the aspects that has completely disappeared under the cover of the unity demanded by the war is precisely domestic politics. The Russian invasion gave Zelensky’s team the opportunity to create for the president the image of a war leader, the representation of the nation, a savior capable of achieving what he sets out to do, the only person capable of rescuing the country from certain ruin.
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Authoritarians have a playbook when it comes to dealing with the media. It may not be written down anywhere, but the tactics are all too familiar to those with experience of these regimes: Demonize, detain (and if necessary even kill) — and defund. So it should ring alarm bells when supposed democracies engage in these behaviors. Israel’s decision on Sunday tocut funding for Haaretz — an internationally respected news outlet and Israel’s oldest newspaper — is the latest in Israel’s efforts to shut down criticism of its actions at home and to stifle coverage abroad.
Israel’s boycott of Haaretz is straight out of the authoritarian playbook
For so many years, we have complained and howled against political dynasties.
Ever since we established ourselves as a republic and began electing leaders in government, it has become a given, even deep-rooted and thus an innate limitation. Ever since, only a few, and therefore the same people from the same families are always elected into office.
“Dysfunction Sidelines Ukraine’s Parliament as Governing Force,” is the title of an article published this week by The New York Times in one of the few political critiques that has appeared in the Western press recently. It took two years after the Russian invasion for the grace period of absence of political comments on the Ukrainian authorities to be broken, although always partially and only temporarily. It was the news that included Vitali Klitschko’s words against what he perceived as authoritarian drift that opened the door. Like the current information, that news also lacked the contextualization that politics requires, and it was left unmentioned that the criticism of the mayor of Kiev and the measures by which the protesters were part of a confrontation that went back almost to the beginnings of the presidency of Zelensky. The origin of the rivalry lies in the struggle for power and control of the resources of the State between the two protagonists. What is more, the attempt to Zelensky snatch administratively, the mayor of Kiev Klitschko, a man with powerful connections and political contacts, especially in Germany, is one of the examples that show that the authoritarian drift of Volodymyr Zelensky is not justified in the wartime situation today, but that precedes it in several years to the military intervention of Russia.
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15-07-2024: The East African nation of Kenya was rocked by deadly protests mainly composed of youth during June, ostensibly in response to the Kenyan parliament’s Finance Bill 2024. By the end of the month around 30 protestors had lost their lives, despite forcing the government to withdraw the Bill, which contained some $2.7 billion in tax hikes.[1] The protests were mainly composed of “Gen Z” youth (those born during the late 90s and early 2000s) which gives the impression of young people fighting for their future. Kenya has a population of some 50 million, with 5 million inhabiting the capital Nairobi, and 4 million in the city of Mombasa on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Those aged between 15 and 29 make up roughly 30% of the population,[2] meaning such protests can draw in larger number than is generally the case in the ageing populations of the West. In the wake of the violence, Uasin Gishu Governor Jonathan Bii urged the Gen Z protestors to give dialogue with President William Ruto a chance. Despite goons and looters infiltrating the protests and causing mayhem, Bii conceded that the protestors have genuine issues that need to be addressed.[3]
Related:
Since publication of John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s ‘The Israel Lobby’ in 2007, superior public relations has served as the main explanation for the outsized influence that the nation of Israel holds over American politicians. In that telling, AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) and other supporters of Israel built a sophisticated and far-reaching public relations machine that promotes US politicians who support Israel and punishes those who don’t.
The ‘Israel Lobby’ Works for the US Military Industrial Complex – by Rob Urie – 27 June 2024
H/T: xenagoguevicene
Welcome to Kenya’s Gen Z Revolution!
Kenya had been praised to the heavens by the West in yesteryear: it was a beacon of hope and prosperity; East Africa’s most prosperous nation; a success story of capitalism and “development”; and (most important of all) a bulwark of the West amidst encroaching Chinese influence on the continent.
Kenya is a member of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and Ruto just sent the Kenyan Police to Haiti. 🤷🏼♀️
Related/Notes:
Gen Z Will Lead the People’s Revolution in Kenya (The Elephant*)
Read More »Sean Gervasi, 1992 lecture: The US Strategy to Dismantle the USSR
Related RAND Corporation documents:
Economic factors affecting Soviet foreign and defense policy: a summary outline
The Costs of the Soviet Empire
Sitting on bayonets : the Soviet defense burden and the slowdown of Soviet defense spending
Indonesia’s feared ex-general Prabowo claims victory in presidential election
But the likely victory of Prabowo — an ex-general who was kicked out from the army and subjected to a two-decade ban from the U.S. over human rights violations — raises fears of the world’s third-largest democracy sliding backward into authoritarian rule.
Related:
3 things you should know about Indonesia’s presidential elections
Continuity and its risks
Prabowo is expected to largely continue the policies of President Widodo, or “Jokowi,” as Indonesians call him. President Widodo is not up for reelection as he’s serving his final term.Through his two five-year terms, Indonesia’s economy — Southeast Asia’s largest — has grown at about 5% a year. His infrastructure building, cash and food assistance to the poor and health and education policies have been popular.
Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of nickel, used in making electric vehicle batteries, and Jokowi has barred the export of raw nickel, to help Indonesia move up the value chain from mining to manufacturing.
…
Prabowo is Suharto’s son-in-law. He received training in the 1980s from the U.S. military at Fort Benning, Ga. (now Fort Moore) and Fort Bragg, N.C. (now Fort Liberty).
Indonesia’s presidential election emerges as key battleground in US-China rivalry
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Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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