55 thoughts on “The Kahns, Genghis and Kublai or Xi Con?”

  1. for example this by Pierson
    David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.

    Xi Jinping Embracing Vladimir Putin in Defiance of the West – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

    Days after returning from a trip to Europe where he was lectured about the need to rein in Russia, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, used a summit with President Vladimir V. Putin to convey an uncomfortable reality to the West: His support for Mr. Putin remains steadfast.
    Mr. Xi’s talks with Mr. Putin this week were a show of solidarity between two autocrats battling Western pressure. The two leaders put out a lengthy statement that denounced what they saw as American interference and bullying and laid out their alignment on China’s claim to self-ruled Taiwan and Russia’s “legitimate security interests” in Ukraine.
    They pledged to expand economic and military ties, highlighted by Mr. Putin’s visit to a cutting-edge Chinese institute for defense research. Mr. Xi even initiated a cheek-to-cheek hug as he bade Mr. Putin farewell on Thursday after an evening stroll in the Chinese Communist Party leadership compound in Beijing.
    Western leaders looking for signs of any meaningful divergence between Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin, particularly on the war in Ukraine, would find none. Neither the risk of alienating Europe, a key trading partner needed to help revive China’s struggling economy, nor the threat of U.S. sanctions targeting Chinese banks that aid Russia’s war effort appeared to deter Mr. Xi’s embrace of Mr. Putin.
    “The overarching goal of both Putin and Xi is to fight back against what they perceive as their existential enemy, which is the United States and the U.S.-led international order,” said Alicja Bachulska, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the European Council on Foreign Relations. For China, “Yes, there are tensions with the West, but these tensions won’t lead to any kind of qualitative change in the way China has been approaching Russia and the war in Ukraine.”
    Put another way, analysts said, Mr. Xi has already priced in the potential sanctions and tariffs as an acceptable cost for his strategic partnership with Russia. To Mr. Xi, Mr. Putin is an indispensable friend helping reshape the global order in China’s favor. And the more Washington pushes back — including on trade issues such as the latest tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles — the more Mr. Xi feels validated about his choices.
    “Moscow’s strategic value to Xi only strengthens as geopolitical competition with the United States becomes more intense,” said Jude Blanchette, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
    What is paramount to Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin is what they call the “democratization of international relations” — essentially the erosion of U.S. dominance and the empowering of nonaligned countries and rogue states to coalesce around their common grievances toward the West.
    Their joint statement this week laid out their vision of a new global order. It was one in which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or U.S. security alliances in Asia would not interfere with their territorial claims to Ukraine or Taiwan; the United States could not bully other countries with sanctions because the dollar would no longer be the world’s reserve currency for trade; and autocracies would have the right to rule “according to their own national conditions,” unimpeded by universal values like human rights and social equality.
    […]
    “Xi thinks this is a good trade for China. He’s exchanging a United States he can’t control with an isolated, declining Russia that he can,” wrote Michael Schuman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
    “The problem is that Xi is exchanging ties to a twenty-five trillion dollar economy with the advanced technology China needs for a two trillion dollar economy that’s not much more than a gas station,” he added. “It’s not a great bargain.”
    For the partnership to remain strong, Mr. Putin will have to stay in power and stave off a humiliating defeat in Ukraine. Mr. Xi will probably do as much as he can to back Mr. Putin, but he will ultimately be guided only by China’s best interests.
    Natasha Kuhrt, a security expert at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, said Mr. Xi was preparing for all outcomes in Ukraine. If Russia wins, he will offer to help reconstruct Ukraine, as outlined in China’s 12-point peace proposal last year, a document widely dismissed in the West for being insincere and focused only on protecting Russian interests.
    But if Russia loses, Mr. Xi will need to distance himself from Mr. Putin to avoid dragging down China’s global status.
    “Whatever happens, China will try to make sure it is pole position,” Ms. Kuhrt said. “If it seems like Russia is going to be defeated, China will put some distance between itself and Moscow. It doesn’t want to be shackled to a corpse.”

  2. @RonFilipkowski
    This new interview by Powell is interesting. It suggests that the purpose of the insurrection was to DELAY the electoral college certification to give Alito time to intervene on this legal challenge. But, Powell says they didn’t anticipate Pelosi reconvening Congress that day.
    **********************

    These people were out for blood They deserve no sympathy and they deserve no mercy from the courts. What they do deserve is to be ground into the dust.

    Once again the steely resolve of Nancy Pelosi pulled our fat out of the fire and actually literally saved democracy. Talk about Medal of Freedom. Grace under pressure was the Hemingway phrase, I believe.

    And, ok….thank you also to Mike Pence.

  4. Ruth (god love her) Buzzi:
    I hear that maybe Disco is making a comeback. 

    At first I was afraid.
     I was petrified.
    ************************

    @Ruth_A_Buzzi
    ·Aug 2, 2021
    Marriage is like a deck of cards. It all starts with two hearts and a diamond.

    A few years later you wish you had a club and a spade.

  5. BREAKING: MAGA world breaks into a cold sweat as Senator Richard Blumenthal demands major changes to the Supreme Court to crack down on the blatant corruption of Republican justices like Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. This is way overdue… “I couldn’t be more worried. You know, the judicial system has no armies, has no police force,” Blumenthal said during an appearance on Morning Joe. “Its orders are obeyed because of its credibility, because people trust it. It has squandered that trust.” “The ones who have squandered it most irresponsibly are the highest court justices,” he continued. “We’ve worked for a code of ethics, been rejected by Republicans. We’ve worked for an inspector general. My proposal is the judicial branch have an inspector general, just like every other agency of government.” Blumenthal called for an inspector general to oversee the justices to ensure that they start following their own rules after it was revealed that Alito displayed a MAGA symbol outside of his house after the 2020 election. The symbol in question was an upside-down American flag meant to indicate “distress” that Biden was supposedly stealing the election — at the same that Alito was helping decide election cases. Alito has claimed ignorance and blamed his wife. “The Supreme Court has no code of ethics, uniquely among the branches of government,” Senator Blumenthal went on. “So I think it is a moment of reckoning for our democracy in a very real sense because of the trust that has been lost in our judiciary. I think we have a bipartisan obligation, we ought to come together as Republicans and Democrats because this issue is bigger than either party and any of us individually.” Additionally, Blumenthal is calling for Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves from Trump’s immunity case and all others involving him. It’s an incredibly reasonable request that these criminal corrupt hacks will almost certainly refuse. “No one would have believed it,” Blumenthal went on. “Justice Alito should not sit on any of these cases involving Donald Trump, he ought to recuse himself. Here is the challenge to chief justice Roberts. The United States Supreme Court’s credibility is plummeting, lower than perhaps even the united states congress, and that’s saying something.” “It is due to the Supreme Court’s own self-inflicted wounds,” he added. “Alito and Thomas directly involved in the January 6 insurrection, now they’re going to sit on cases involving pivotal legal questions? Absolutely unthinkable.” “I think that Chief Justice Roberts has to take leadership of this court,” he went on. “He has to tell these justices that they have no business sitting on the court. It will still be able to decide the cases but not with justices Alito and Thomas because, by virtue of flying the flag upside-down, whether it was his wife or not, it was his own. Justice Thomas, through his wife, being involved in helping to organize the insurrection, both have a direct interest here.” Blumenthal is absolutely right. The American people are being terrorized by a lawless court. These right-wing justices are violating all ethical norms and raking in bribes. They belong in prison, not deciding our most important cases.

  6. Alex Cole:
    Trump called women ugly, nasty, pigs, dogs, and many other horrible things, but Republicans are horrified because Jasmine Crockett said Marjorie Taylor Greene is built like Barney Rubble.

  7. SNL tonight won’t have to rewrite or punch up much of this for a good comedy sketch

    Rep. Jasmine Crockett calls Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ‘fake eyelashes’ comment a racist attack (msn.com)

    The Oversight Committee met Thursday to consider holding U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over audio recordings of President Joe Biden’s conversations with special counsel Robert Hur.
    The session had been scheduled for the morning but was postponed until late evening because some committee Republicans had traveled to New York to be in court with Trump during his hush money trial.
    That meant tensions were already high before Greene asked whether any committee Democrats were employing the consultant daughter of Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing Trump’s trial.
    “Please tell me what that has to do with Merrick Garland,” Crockett responded, adding a moment later: “Do you know what we’re here for?”
    After some crosstalk between Crockett and Greene, the Georgia Republican said, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”
    Democrats on the committee swiftly rose to Crockett’s defense.
    “That’s beneath even you, Ms. Greene,” said U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the committee’s top Democrat.
    U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, asked that Greene’s words about Crockett be “taken down” as a violation of committee rules against personal attacks, a procedure that would have prevented Greene from speaking further during the hearing.
    “That is absolutely unacceptable, how dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?” Ocasio-Cortez said.
    “Are your feelings hurt?” Greene said.
    “Oh girl, baby girl, don’t even play,” Ocasio-Cortez said as the session devolved from there.
    As members and staff conferred, they could be heard on hot mics debating whether Greene could be allowed to remain if she apologized and whether such an apology would be sincere.
    “You will never get an apology out of me,” Greene said later.
    After the chairman ruled against Ocasio-Cortez, Crockett asked for recognition to “better understand” the ruling.
    “If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?” she said in an obvious reference to Greene.
    That prompted more back-and-forth between members as they continued to talk over one another and hurl insults.
    Crockett said Friday she had no regrets about using physical-appearance language during the hearing, adding she needed to demonstrate she was willing to stand up for herself to show she would stand up for her constituents.
    She said she waited patiently for the committee’s Republican chairman to follow the rules and take Greene’s words down, but after he declined, she wanted to know how the committee was going to operate and whether only Greene was allowed to make insults.
    She also suggested Greene was looking for attention that will help her raise money from supporters.

  8. “Are your feelings hurt?” Greene said.
    “Oh girl, baby girl, don’t even play,” Ocasio-Cortez said as the session devolved from there.

    not so sure MTG should be getting into it with AOC a former bartender who once told the New Yorker

    ” And so the day-to-day of my day job is frustrating. So is everyone else’s. I ate shit when I was a waitress and a bartender, and I eat shit as a member of Congress. It’s called a job, you know?”

    seems like AOC knows it when she sees it and is apt to fling it back two-fold.

  9. This is not the first time I’ve had cause to love Rep Crockett and AOC but it may be the best so far.  I’m sure it won’t be the last.  

    That bleached blonde bad built butch body Georgia. cracker/bimbo better stay the hell out of THEM woods. She might draw back a nub as my dad used to say.

  10. In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree —-

    Little did we know that it would later be known as the White House

     

     

  11. Run for the Black Eyed Susans that aren’t really Black Eyed Susans.  Those don’t bloom until summer so the blanket is made from an earlier blooming look alike that need their centers painted black.

     

    1.  Mugatu 20 – 1

    2.  Uncle Heavy 20 – 1 – Ivy Green / Sturgeone

    3.  Catching Freedom 6 – 1 – Craig

    Muth Scratched 

    5.  Mystic Dan 5 – 2 – Jack / Patd 

    6.  Seize the Grey 15 – 1 – Jamie

    7.  Just Steel 15 – 1

    8.  Tuscan Gold 8 – 1

    9.  Imagination 6 – 1 – Renee / Pogo 

  12. TheScottCharles
    Rudy Giuliani getting served at his 80th birthday party within an hour of taunting Arizona officials in his fake electors case is the most Rudy Giuliani thing ever.

  13. Sturg,
    whenever someone plays the game of… if you were to be stranded on a deserted island and could take 5 books with you, which ones would you take?  I know that ” Milagro Beanfield War” would definitely be one of mine.

  19. I would take
    BENET’S THE READER’S ENCYCLOPEDIA 
    VAN LOON’S GEOGRAPHY
    ECCE HOMO, by FWN
    THUKYDIDES
    A DISTANT MIRROR Barbara w Tuchman
    Tomorrow I might switch out one or two and then totally re-evaluate in 3 or 4 days, and of course I would bust my ass to smuggle several more.
    Right after that I’d attempt to re-negotiate.

  21. Cagney movie didn’t really get the essence of the book that was much more complex with all the interaction of historical events with various cultures.  The musical came closer as each group had its own songs.

     

  22. I was told something by a guy who did a lot of business with China (manufacturing); our long game is 5 years, theirs is at least 20 years. 

  24. Chinaman:
    (Steinbeck)
    Only one brave and beautiful boy of ten named Andy from Salinas ever crossed the old Chinaman. Andy was visiting in Monterey and he saw the old man and knew he must shout at him if only to keep his self-respect, but even Andy, brave as he was, felt the little cloud of fear. Andy watched him go by evening after evening while his duty and his terror wrestled. And then one evening Andy braced himself and marched behind the old man singing in a shrill falsetto, “Ching-Chong Chinaman sitting on a rail–‘ Long came a white man an’ chopped off his tail.”
    The old man stopped and turned. Andy stopped. The deep-brown eyes looked at Andy and the thin corded lips moved. What happened then Andy was never able either to explain or to forget. For the eyes spread out until there was no Chinaman. And then it was one eye–one huge brown eye as big as a church door. Andy looked through the shiny transparent brown door and through it he saw a lonely countryside, flat for miles but ending against a row of fantastic mountains shaped like cows’ and dogs’ heads and tents and mushrooms. There was low coarse grass on the plain and here and there a little mound. And a small animal like a woodchuck sat on each mound. And the loneliness-the desolate cold aloneness of the landscape made Andy whimper because there wasn’t anybody at all in the world and he was left. Andy shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see it any more and when he opened them, he was in Cannery Row and the old Chinaman was just flap-flapping between Western Biological and the Hediondo Cannery. Andy was the only boy who did that and he never did it again.

    **********+++*++
    I’m pretty sure that Andy was Steinbeck.

  30. Movies have a hard time squeezing a hundred years into an hour and a half movie, particularly one named in the top 100 books of the 20th century.

     

     

  31. Letters from Earth, Mark Twain
    Always Coming Home, Ursela LeGuin
    Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut
    Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
    and a book of poetry by Bukowski

  32. I do either the book or the movie. I’m always disappointed if I do both.
    I think it is because if I do the book first then I have my interpretation/impressions in my mind. These are mine alone. With the movie first I see someone else’s interpretation/impressions. There is something to be said for experiencing either one. But for me they get in each others way.
    Jack

  33. Jack

    three of your five are among my favorite books.  Trying to narrow my list down to five is almost impossible.  

  35. Poor old Sporkfoot can’t seem to catch a break…,,she thinks she’s got all the cover in the world for her crude remarks about a black lady’s appearance and all of a sudden she’s set upon like a pair of angry ducks on a June bug. I could hear her blathering at one point, “…I LIKE my body—I’m fifty years old I have a great body—I’m 50! Etc”
    Bleach blonde bad built butch body
    WHAM!!!! They knocked her dumbass into the middle of next month.
    How the bullies quail before actual righteous anger.

  36. Bit of trivia.  Every horse in the Preakness today traces their lineage back to Northern Dancer.  Any horse winning can blame it on Canada.

    Northern Dancer(May 27, 1961 – November 16, 1990) was aThoroughbredthat, in 1964, became the first Canadian-bred horse to win theKentucky Derby. After being retired from racing, he became one of the most successfulsiresof the 20th century. He is considered a Canadian icon and was inducted into theCanadian Sports Hall of Famein 1965. Induction into the Racing Hall of Fame in both Canada and the United States followed in 1976. As a competitor,The Blood-Horseranked him as one of thetop 100 U.S. Thoroughbred racehorses of the 20th century. As a sire of sires, his influence on the breed is still felt worldwide.

     

  37. There ain’t a single person in that graduation picture running their mouth but him.  lol

    Thought balloon to her head: (“shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up)

  39. https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/politics/rudy-giuliani-served-arizona-indictment/index.html

    “Caroline Wren, a GOP operative and adviser to Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, told CNN she was hosting Giuliani’s 80th birthday party in Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday evening when the former New York City mayor was served.”

    “An attendee of the party told CNN that Giuliani was served papers by two agents of the Arizona attorney general’s office in the late hours of the birthday bash. “They stormed him on his way out,” the attendee said, adding that “many of the guests were visibly upset.”

    “On Friday evening, Giuliani tweeted a taunting message and photo of himself surrounded by smiling friends. “If Arizona authorities can’t find me by tomorrow morning,” he wrote in a now-deleted tweet, “1. They must dismiss the indictment; 2. They must concede they can’t count votes.”

    “Hours later, Giuliani was served notice of the indictment.”

    Rudy had birthday cake and got his just desserts.

  40. Ursula Ke Guin – The Lathe of Heaven 
    The movie from the 1980s (which I probably saw 15 years later) creeped me out; it was filmed in Dallas. 
    Katherine Dunn – Geek Love 
    I lived the book so much that I just could watch the movie.  I agree with Jack, the difficulty of one form matching another.   I will say the the first Harry Potter movie followed the book; shot by shot, it’s a match.  I read the book right before the movie came out, and never read the other books. 
    Mark Twain’s Bible is fun.
    Vonnegut, anything by Vonnegut. 

  41. According to local news, Orange Adolf has been yapping away for 45 minutes and he’s still spewing filth and lies.
     
    Outside the NRA convention, families of gun violence victims are protesting.  The school in Uvalde, the mall in Allen, etc.

    Protests that Project 25 will squash if he’s elected.

  42. I love Rep. Jasmine Crockett! I hate Project 2025 and the petulant, little white boy who helped write it. Listen to this!
     
     

  43. https://msmagazine.com/2024/02/08/project-2025-conservative-right-wing-trump-woke/

    “The authors of “The Conservative Promise” claim to support equality, while advocating for dismantling the government agencies that enforce laws ensuring equality, such as Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.”

    “They claim to support freedom and liberty, while advocating for a total ban on abortion, rolling back the rights of LGBTQ people and closing the border.”

    “They claim to support free speech, while advocating for banning any mention of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” from schools and other societal institutions.”

    “They claim to support the working class, while calling for tax cuts for the rich, elimination of labor protections and deregulation of big business and the oil industry.”
     
    Biden/Harris 2024 and let’s give them a strong, Dem majority in the House and Senate, so POTUS Joe can fix SCOTUS by adding more Justices who aren’t in the bag for a dictatorship.

  49. Hope you put $2 on that horse, Jamie. 
    Sturge, Svengali is challenging the PC crowd tonight. 

  52. I can’t see Svengoolie tonight, I’m in Jersey and there’s no tv in the basement.  I’m mortified.

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