Steve Kasner (he/him)

‘Coexistence, My Ass!’ Review: Facing Conflict With Comedy

I've not been in the mood for comedy for 5 months — ever since the most important and most admirable person in my life unexpectedly died. And it's a death that I could have easily prevented. Nevertheless, I'm going to watch this movie…
GIFT LINK:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/m...

It was also reckless to use arms race rhetoric: a race in which the US must maintain a strong lead, says Trump. Plus, he issued a nuclear threat to Putin, referring to a US nuclear-armed sub deployed near Russia. (But the liberal Putin paranoiacs ignorant of the Cold War may be fine w/ all this…🤷)

This is one of the most glaring examples of Trump not knowing what he's talking about. In addition to conflating missile launch tests with nuclear tests, he was unaware of recent US missile launch tests. And if he meant to call for bomb testing, then he should have contacted the DOE not the DoD.

Trump Threatens to Resume Nuclear Weapons Testing, Minutes Before Xi Meeting

Trump confused nuclear-capable missile launch tests w/ weapons tests. The US test-launched an ICBM last month. It's been decades since China, Russia, or the US, exploded a nuclear device. (Thanks partly protest movements, computer modeling is used instead)
GIFT LINK:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/u...

A U.S. Peace Plan for Ukraine In advancing a peace settlement to resolve the Russia–Ukraine War, Washington must prioritize a concrete and detailed settlement to end this catastrophic conflict along terms that harmonize the vital,...

Guess we'll just have to disagree on that one. Anatol Lieven of the Quincy institute is a worthwhile voice on this subject. He co-authored the piece below, which outlines a possible peace plan. Don't miss the analysis below the plan, especially on Russian incentives:
quincyinst.org/research/a-u...

Photograph is of part of a transcribed interview which aired on NPR all things considered on August 7th 2025. JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: The fighting in Ukraine is now dominated by drones. They've had a devastating effect on human life. A U.N. report earlier this year said that short-range drones are the deadliest threat to civilians in Ukraine, but experts are now also sounding the alarm over the long-term effects of drone debris, saying it could pose serious harms to both wildlife and people. In particular, researchers are focused on a type of drone that is tethered to the ground with a fiber-optic cable. The thin cable looks like a fishing line and unspools as the drone flies away. And once the drone crashes or explodes, the cable remains, and it's littered all over the Ukrainian front lines. Here to talk more about this is Doug Weir, director of the Conflict and Environment Observatory in the U.K. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. DOUG WEIR: Hi. Thanks for having me on. SUMMERS: Thanks for being here. So Doug, if you could, just start by telling us, according to your estimates, how much of this cable is out there? WEIR: It's very difficult to say. Some of the data on how many drones are being produced is not entirely clear, but we think that Russia's producing around 50,000 of these drones every month, which assumes that around 50,000 of these drones are being used and destroyed. We also think that this year, Russia will need about 6 million kilometers of fiber. So for reference, that's around seven times to the Earth and the moon and back. SUMMERS: Wow. WEIR: So we think it is a huge amount. We've tried to do some calculations, and that suggests that for every kilometer of the front line, we think there might be around 2,900 kilometers of this plastic cable. For the full transcript visit this link: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/07/nx-s1-5493263/fiber-optic-drones-are-leaving-miles-of-plastic-trash-along-ukraines-front-lines

Millions of kilometers of thin plastic fiber optic cable litter Ukraine. There's enough to reach the Moon and back several times. (Russian drones have cables attached like kite strings to avoid signal jamming)

NPR-ATC 8/7/25 4min segment by Larson, Aslam, and Summers:
www.npr.org/2025/08/07/n...

The Ukrainian leader came to the dystopian picture of a world a wash in deadly drones, one that he said could eventually carry nuclear warheads. Ukraine has become a world leader in developing inexpensive drones and testing its innovations In real time on the battlefield. Russia is also deploying drones in antichrome systems, as well as electronic warfare, in its military offensive against Ukraine. The future, Mr zelenski said, will be even more dangerous as artificial intelligence is integrated into drones The regulation of that technology is as urgent as stopping spread of nuclear weapons, he said. The above excerpt is from an article in the New York Times on September 24 2025

Zelensky warns of a drones arms race. Like it or not, this war will end with a negotiated agreement. Hopefully, the agreement will include a section on drones that goes beyond airspace concerns. For example, drones with fiber optic cables could be banned.

Santora & Nechepurenko, NYT 24 Sept 2025:

What to Know About the Deportees the U.S. Is Trying to Send to South Sudan

Background on these 8 men & how they ended up in Africa at all. (NYT, 22 May 2025)

GIFT:
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/w...

Supreme Court Lets Trump Deport Eight Migrants to South Sudan

WTF?! Supreme Court — in a decree without explanation —approves deportation of 8 to South Sudan. “Before coming to the United States, the men hailed from Vietnam, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar. Just one is from South Sudan”
GIFT:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/u...

‘We just want to stop people being murdered’: Kneecap on Palestine, protest and provocation The Irish rap trio have recently faced censure and a court case, but have also had support for their pro-Palestine stance. Ahead of a Glastonbury appearance deemed ‘inappropriate’ by Keir Starmer, the...

"If you believe that what a satirical band who play characters on stage do is more outrageous than the murdering of innocent Palestinians, then you need to give your head a fucking wobble.”

We did a wee feature interview ahead of Glastonbury with the Guardian...

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

BREAKING: At least 13 Palestinian aid seekers were killed by an Israeli air attack in Gaza's Khan Younis, sources at Nasser Medical Complex told Al Jazeera.

🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/2s5r30

Video shows an Israeli drone killing a Palestinian carrying flour in Gaza City. The UN says food sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, where 600 were killed, are 'an abomination' and 'a death trap.'

Israel Slaughters Dozens in Attack on Popular Gaza Cafe as Trump Claims a Ceasefire Deal is Moving Forward Israel is intensifying its mass-killing operations in Gaza as Netanyahu plans White House visit. Hamas says no real progress on a deal

🚨NEW from @dropsitenews.com: Israel Slaughters Dozens in Attack on Popular Gaza Cafe as Trump Claims a Ceasefire Deal is Moving Forward

✍️ Story by Abdel Qader Sabbah, Sharif Kouddous and @jeremyscahill.com

www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-bom...

Screenshot of text from nyt article linked above. Below are the paragraphs included in the screenshot plus a few more: While Israeli military planes bombed Iranian nuclear sites and Iran fired barrages of ballistic missiles at Israeli cities over the past two days, Palestinians in Gaza were struggling to find food, connect to the internet and avoid strikes. “Everyone is speaking about Iran now,” said Khalil al-Halabi, a 71-year-old retired U.N. official living in a partially destroyed home in Gaza City. “Gaza has become a secondary matter.” Aid distribution sites in Gaza have been shuttered since Friday morning, which was shortly after the initial Israeli attacks on Iran began. Finding flour, Mr. al-Halabi said, had become a nightmare for his family, with some street vendors selling a 55-pound sack for more than $350 dollars. More concerning, he said, was that the Israel-Iran conflict could undermine desperately needed efforts to hammer out a cease-fire in Gaza. Repeated efforts to clinch a deal between Israel and Hamas have failed in recent months, with Israel saying it would end the war only after dismantling Hamas, and Hamas saying it will not surrender. Sharif al-Buheisi, 56, a resident of Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, said he thought the war would continue regardless of the fight between Israel and Iran. “Israel and Hamas are in agreement about the continuation of the war,” he said. “They both benefit in their own way.” Still, Mr. al-Buheisi, who was a university administrator before the war, said that any diminished focus on Gaza would have negative consequences for Palestinians. He argued that Israel would now be able to make contentious moves “without a real response from the international community.” In particular, he said, he worried that the international community would not put enough pressure on Israel to fix the new system for delivering aid to Palestinians, which has had a chaotic, and often deadly, roll out.

Photo from Getty images. It portrays in elderly relatively short man with a sign in front of him that he is holding. The sign reads: THIS HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR SAYS: STOP THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA The photo shows one person on each side of him, each with a hand on his back or shoulder, leaning in for the photo, clearly displaying support in solidarity with the Holocaust survivor who is standing against the genocide in Gaza. The image also includes the full details provided by Getty images about the photo. Unfortunately there is a woman to the left of him in the photo who goes unnamed and unmentioned in the caption by Getty images. She has long black hair and brown skin, and given her appearance in the context, it is likely she is Palestinian. The photo was shot at a large London demonstration in 2024 against the genocide in Gaza. Here is the image info provided by Getty images: Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos (c) is pictured with Dr Ismail Patel (r), founder and chair of Friends of Al-Aqsa, during the National Demonstration for Palestine rally in Hyde Park to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza on 27th April 2024 in London, United Kingdom. The event was organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain, Palestinian Forum in Britain and CND. (photo by Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)

GAZA GENOCIDE CONTINUES as world looks elsewhere, after Israel attacks yet another country — this time Iran.

‘Gazans are worried that Israel-Iran conflict will shift the world’s attention from their plight’ by Adam Rasgon NYT 6/14
www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...

that's little rock, arkansas showing the hell up #nokings

Tanks, fighter jets, and 6,000 troops.
All this… for one man’s birthday.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are out here building a world where power isn’t something you hoard, but share. 🎂🪖 #NoKings

Screenshot above comes from the intro to this open-access article: Capelos, Tereza, and Nicolas Demertzis. 2022. “Sour Grapes: Ressentiment as the Affective Response of Grievance Politics.” Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 35 (1): 107–29
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This is a screenshot from a Minnesota Facebook thread. It shows one comment and one reply, within a larger thread focusing on the contentious legislative vote in Minnesota to repeal Medicaid coverage for undocumented immigrants (or face a government shutdown, and an extended summer session until the GOP gets what it wants.) The comment within this thread at the top of the screenshot is from Meghan Grimm Lorenzen: “I pay 1500 for a family of 4 and have a large deductible on each of us. I support this BIG time.” Indented below that comment is a reply by Josanne Wiorek: “[To] Meghan Grimm Lorenzen: And now your medical bills will go up and you'll pay more. We all will. When uninsured people have to go to the ER, the hospital makes up for their loss by charging paying customers more. You support paying MORE.”

This is a screenshot from the abstract, or summary, of an academic article about the psychology and politics of ressentiment. (FYI: this term was popularized by Nietzsche. It can be defined as resentment in a political or social context.) The entire article is open access, so anyone can read it; there is no paywall. The full article citation and URL appears below, and then the screenshot text will follow. (Please note that there is a button to listen to the full article on the web page.) Capelos, Tereza, and Nicolas Demertzis. 2022. “Sour Grapes: Ressentiment as the Affective Response of Grievance Politics.” Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 35 (1): 107–29. doi:10.1080/13511610.2021.20230 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13511610.2021.2023005#d1e195 The beginning of this article features the abstract, or summary. The first part of that abstract is what appears in the screenshot. Here is the text from the screenshot: Abstract: This article examines the psychological orientations and political preferences of citizens ‘in ressentiment’, a particular psychological state that is a characteristic feature of contemporary grievance politics. Similarly to the Fox in Aesop’s ‘Fable of the sour grapes’, in ressentiment the value of an impotent self and a desirable but unattainable object change to a morally superior self and an unwanted object, while maintaining an aura of victimhood [Demertzis, 2020. The Political Sociology of Emotions. Essays on Trauma and Ressentiment. London: Routledge; Salmela and Capelos, 2021. “Ressentiment: A Complex Emotion or an Emotional Mechanism of Psychic Defences?” Politics and Governance 9 (3): 191–203].

MN repealed state Medicaid coverage for undocumented immigrants, to avoid govt shutdown by GOP.

The right-wing populist & fascist tide is fueled by the precarity experienced by millions of working-class & middle-class voters. Precarity breeds resentment.

We need *Medicaid* (not Medicare) for all.

Sarcasm? NYT says nothing about killer’s mental health. It was *very* premeditated.

It's not an impulsive & spontaneous action by one in throes of SMI w/ a head filled w/ racist or conspiratorial BS from right-wing.

Latter incidents should still be politicized by blaming culture of violence & hate

The “appears” line isn’t from the article; it's from the person who posted the link. Obviously it’s common for people to summarize articles & give their opinion above links.

The word caught my eye too, as RFKJ first broke his confirmation hearing promises months ago. He lied under oath w/ impunity.

BREAKING: Federal agents in plain clothes and unmarked cars tried to snatch 1st graders from LA elementary schools—told staff they had “parental consent.”

They lied. When pressed, they HID THEIR IDS. DHS admits they sent them. This wasn’t a welfare check. It was a test run for a police state.

Screenshot of part of a June 9 New York Times article. I primarily took the screenshot for the photo. But the text above the photo reads “The Trump administration is test-driving a novel legal theory that you can circumvent the restrictions on domestic law enforcement by the American military,” said Kori Schake, who is an expert on defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming history of civil-military relations. She added that the administration appeared to be “blurring the line” between Title 10 federalization of the National Guard and the use of active-duty American milliary forces domestically, calling it “a dangerous undertaking.” Then the photo appears, which I will describe in a moment. But first here is the photo caption and byline that appears right below the photo in somewhat fine print: Burned cars in downtown Los Angeles on Monday after protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Credit...Alex Welsh for The New York Times All right, I'm not great at describing photos, but this is a daytime photo of a street filled with oncoming cars. We can only see one lane of moving cars. And they are coming towards the photographer, but the photographer is standing in the parking area beside that lane. The photographer is standing where cars parallel park. But what we see instead of 2 parked cars are 2 piles of gray metal, which apparently is the only thing that could not burn in the fires that destroyed these cars. In the pile closest to the photographer, one can make out the wheels and maybe the axle and a whole bunch of other gray & blackened metal. In the car behind this one, one sees what appears to be the frame of a rooftop. It was probably an SUV. Below that rectangular structure of bars is a similar pile of metal like the one I just described. There is no color left, no doors left, no glass left, no seats left, perhaps not even a steering wheel left. These were extremely hot fires.

Wow! These folks really know how to burn cars.

Obviously, this calls for 4,000 National Guard troops & 700 Marines.*

*sarcasm alert. GIFT LINK:
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/u...

Trump Is Calling Up National Guard Troops Under a Rarely Used Law

Trump orders National Guard to quell anti-ICE protests in County, without Gov Newsom’s consent.

If troops are sent against the governor's will, it will be the first time since 1965 — when LBJ was protecting Black CRM protesters against white supremacists.

GIFT LINK
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/u...

Nuclear states also use nuclear arms as leverage. When done, it inspires others to obtain nuclear arms. When a nuclear state tries to leverage another nuclear state (perhaps regarding a non-nuclear state), there's a higher risk of accidental launch on warning. And, the leverage can fail. Then what…?

The nuclear umbrella was important because Warsaw Pact & USSR had more conventional weapons, esp tanks, active forces. So NATO relied on nuclear arms. If invaded & overrun, the US would launch a 1st strike aimed at silos, bombers, C2, etc, to limit 2nd strike. MAD did not exist as policy or strategy

I'm not talking about imperialism. Expansion also means growth. If a member is attacked, or invaded (original concern), then US is to respond as though the US were attacked or invaded. Only countries that mean this much should be in NATO, otherwise the security guarantee becomes less credible.

But how would you feel about an article from the 1940s saying that X country should only intervene to stop the Holocaust if doing so would enhance X country's credibility elsewhere? The comparison is apt. Most Jews in the Holocaust didn't die in gas chambers; starvation disease & bullets killed them

A full takeover of Ukraine by Russia doesn't change NATO border distance regarding Petersburg, and puts NATO borders just 100 km farther from Moscow. Ukraine is in Russia's sphere of influence. RE: nukes — Google “counterforce” (Wikipedia has a good entry) & then read about the "Euromissile crisis"

Russia's invasion is horrific. I just say it was predictable & probably preventable. NATO membership probably wouldve prevented it too. But that membership wasn't going to happen. Empty gestures to placate Ukraine and deter Russia might have actually incentivized Russia to invade.

If you're referring to Ukraine, it was never allowed to join NATO and it never would have been, for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is clear — the US does not consider Ukraine strategically important enough to respond as if the US were invaded. Like it or not, that's what NATO is about.