Farah Stockman, American Made

 From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Farah Stockman, American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears.

Alex Epstein, Fossil Future

See, Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less.

New Dua Lipa No Panties

See, "Dua Lipa Lays in Bed Panties Off Spread Eagle."

Not kidding. This is very real. Shaved and wide open. 

Mariana Mazzucato, Mission Economy

Breathtaking.

Mariana Mazzucato, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism.

Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies

See, Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies.

Cartoon Round Up....

 

Renaud Camus, You Will Not Replace Us!

Here's the report on the New York white supremacist massacre: "Payton Gendron, 18-Year-Old White Supremacist, Massacres 10 in Buffalo Supermarket Racist Attack (VIDEO)."

Word has it that this book's been an inspiration for the recent wave of racially-motivated mass casualty incidents. Here, Renaud Camus, "You Will Not Replace Us!"

Andrew L. Urban and Chris McLeod, Zelensky

See,  Andrew L. Urban and Chris McLeod, Zelensky: The Unlikely Ukrainian Hero Who Defied Putin and United the World.

Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won

A great book.

Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won.

Josh Weidmann, The End of Anxiety

See, Josh Weidmann, The End of Anxiety: The Biblical Prescription for Overcoming Fear, Worry, and Panic.

Hot Mama Hilary Duff Nude Cover

She's beautiful.

See, "Hilary Duff Poses Nude."

Joshua Cohen, The Netanyahus

This one just won the Pulitzer Prize for best in fiction. 

See, Joshua Cohen, The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family.

Tony Messenger, Profit and Punishment

See, Tony Messenger, Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice.

Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, This Will Not Pass

See, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future.

Anya Taylor-Joy Nude

The star of "The Queen's Gambit" on Netflix, and "The Northman," in theaters. 

Here, "See Anya Taylor-Joy Nude (PHOTOS AND VIDEO)."

She's dreamy. 

WATCH: Ukraine President Zelensky Gives Emotional Victory Day Address Marking Defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two

The full speech is here: "Zelensky releases video on day of remembrance: 'We hear "never again" differently'."

And at the New York Times, "Both Sides Harden Positions on Anniversary of Nazi Defeat in Europe":

PARIS — On a day of commemoration of the end of World War II in Europe, the war in Ukraine was marked by posturing and signaling on Sunday, as each side ramped up its rhetoric and resolve.

Leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies vowed to end their dependence on Russian energy and ensure that Russia does not triumph in its “unprovoked, unjustifiable and illegal aggression,” as President Vladimir V. Putin pursued his indiscriminate bombardment of eastern Ukraine and orchestrated celebrations for Russia’s Victory Day holiday on Monday.

A statement by the Group of 7 major industrialized nations said that on a day when Europe recalled the devastation of World War II and its millions of victims, including those from the Soviet Union, Mr. Putin’s “actions bring shame on Russia and the historic sacrifices of its people.”

The leaders, signaling to Mr. Putin that their unrelenting support of Ukraine would only grow, said, “We remain united in our resolve that President Putin must not win his war against Ukraine.” The memory of all those who fought for freedom in World War II, the statement said, obliged them “to continue fighting for it today.”

The tone was firm, with no mention of any potential diplomacy or cease-fire.

In Moscow, as fighter jets streaked across the sky and nuclear weapons were put on display in preparation for Victory Day, Mr. Putin appeared to signal back to Western leaders that he was determined to double down on the war until he could conjure something that might be claimed as victory.

There was fresh evidence of that on Sunday, as rescuers picked through the rubble in Bilohorivka, a village in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine where a Russian bomb had flattened a school building the day before, killing people sheltering there, local authorities said.

“Most likely, all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Gov. Serhiy Haidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app. But it was unclear how many people were in fact in the school and that toll may prove inflated. If confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest single Russian attacks since the war began in February.

Despite the World War II commemorations in most of Europe on Sunday and in Russia on Monday, a painful reminder of the tens of millions of people killed, there was no indication that the war in Ukraine was anywhere near ending. If anything, all signals pointed in the opposite direction. Russian attacks on Ukrainian towns and villages met a crescendo of Western rhetoric, accompanied by the constant danger of escalation.

Mr. Putin, whose steady militarization of Russian society in recent years has turned the May 9 celebration of the Soviet defeat of the Nazis into an annual apotheosis of a resurgent nation’s might, is expected to portray a war of repeated setbacks in Ukraine as a successful drive to “de-Nazify” a neighboring nation whose very existence he denies.

His much-anticipated speech may go further, possibly signaling that whatever conquest in Ukraine there has been up to now will become permanent through annexation. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and began stirring military conflict in the eastern Donbas region...

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine released a black-and-white video address on Sunday marking the Allied victory in 1945. Standing in front of a destroyed apartment block in a Kyiv suburb hit hard by Russian troops before their withdrawal from the region around the capital, he said, “We pay our respect to everyone who defended the planet against Nazism during World War II.”

Mr. Putin has portrayed Mr. Zelensky, who is Jewish, as the leader of a nation threatening Russia with revived Nazism. His aim has been to instill the spirit of the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is known in Russia, among Russian troops, but to little apparent avail.

In the vast Azovstal steel mill that is the last remaining part of Mariupol not under Russian control, Ukrainian troops again rejected Russian deadlines to surrender. In a virtual news conference, Lt. Illya Samoilenko, an officer in a Ukrainian National Guard battalion known as the Azov regiment, said: “We are basically dead men. Most of us know this. That is why we fight.”

Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of the regiment, said, “We don’t have much time, we are under constant shelling,” with attacks from Russian tanks, artillery, airplanes and snipers.

The remaining civilians in the steel plant were evacuated on Saturday. Local officials estimate the death toll in the city at over 20,000...

Keep reading.

 

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Churchill's Shadow

See, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Churchill's Shadow: The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill.

David M. O'Brien, Storm Center

The essential text, David M. O'Brien, Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics.

Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up

Hot book, from Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults.

Ilya Shapiro, Supreme Disorder

See Ilya Shapiro, Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America's Highest Court.

Addison Rae Total Nudes

Wow! 

Here, "Addison Rae Photographed Total Nude In Her Hotel Room."

She's got a very beautiful but somewhat unique body, seemingly atypical for a woman just 21-years of age. 

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

At Amazon, Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

C. Bradley Thompson, America's Revolutionary Mind

C. Bradley Thompson, America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It.

Richard Overy, Blood and Ruins

Here, Richard Overy, Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945.

Adam Tooze, Shutdown

See, Adam Tooze, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy.

Cartoon Round Up....

 

Fredrik Logevall, JFK

Spectacular new book.

See, Fredrik Logevall, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956.

Instagram Influencer Addison Rae

She's got 40 million followers on the META social media platform.

See, "Addison Rae Nude Photos." 

I think all of her followers are going for her breasts. 

Olga Tokarczuk, Books of Jacob

At Amazon, Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob: A Novel.

Martin Gurri, The Revolt of the Public

Said to be a prescient book explaining the challenges of our times. 

See, Martin Gurri, The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium.

Elizabeth Hurley Total Nude

Here, "Elizabeth Hurley Nude Photo Shoot Colorized and Enhanced."

Very nice breasts, dang!

E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class

The seminal study of its kind: E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class.

Jamie Thompson, Standoff

Here, Jamie Thompson, Standoff: Race, Policing, and a Deadly Assault That Gripped a Nation.

Andy Slavitt, Preventable

Hmm...

Andy Slavitt, Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response.

Charles Murray, Human Diversity

From the "controversial" author of the Bell Curve, see Charles Murray, Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class.

Amazing Anike Ekina

Wow!

Amazing woman, a German actress, music/fitness/lifestyle influencer, not to mention OnlyFans star, on Instagram.

See, "Huge-Breasted Anike Ekina in Sheer T-Shirt Cinch-Tied at the Midriff." 

Holy cow, man!

Richard J. Evans, The Hitler Conspiracies

Formerly the Regius Professor of History at  Cambridge, Evans was knighted in 2012 for his services to scholarship.

Here, Richard J. Evans, The Hitler Conspiracies: The Protocols - The Stab in the Back - The Reichstag Fire - Rudolf Hess - The Escape from the Bunker.

This is the Hottest Woman You Will See All Weekend, Guaranteed

Try not to get a boner.

Here, "Beautiful College Blonde in Pink Thong Bikini Featuring Such Massive Breasts She Will Blow You Mind (And That's Not All)."

Absolutely unreal. This babe is to die for, damn.

Giles Tremlett, The International Brigades

A new history, from Giles Tremlett, The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War.

Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World

A very important book.

Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order.

Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership

This guy's amazing, wow!

Here, Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win?

 

Monday Mopsies

Start your day with beautiful Abby Leftwich.

And more at the link.

Cartoon Round Up....

 

Kayla Erin Fantasy Cosplay

Your biggest fantasy: Cosplay with the biggest all-natural tits you'll see, damn!

All natural snowy white breasts on that little anime pixie? Check. Plunging "hot for teacher" white-silk top with short black skirt and pumps? Check. What's not to like?

Here, "Kayla Erin: 'No Paywalls, Hardcore Content."

Giles Milton, Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Roaring history of the nastiest, most devious men in all of World War II (well, at least on the Allied side). 

Here, Giles Milton, Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat.

GRAPHIC: Mass Suicides, ALLCats and Dogs Killed, As Shanghai Lockdown Tests Lmits of Xi Jinping's 'Zero-Covid' Policy

Don't watch if you get queasy.

Here, "Shanghai Crackdown on Omicron Shows Brutality of China's 'Zero Covid' Policy (VIDEO)."

Citizens are jumping from high-rises. People hanging themselves in groves of trees. The worst images of stuff like this since the September 11 attacks.

Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater

Cited as a "crackling exposé," from Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Geoffrey P. Megargee, War of Annihilation

Here, Geoffrey P. Megargee, War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941.

Russians Denounce Other Russians Who Don't Support the War in Ukraine

Just like the good old times with Uncle Joe or back to the future?

At the New York Times, "Spurred by Putin, Russians Turn on One Another Over the War":

Citizens are denouncing one another, illustrating how the war is feeding paranoia and polarization in Russian society.

Marina Dubrova, an English teacher on the Russian island of Sakhalin in the Pacific, showed an uplifting YouTube video to her eighth-grade class last month in which children, in Russian and Ukrainian, sing about a “world without war.”

After she played it, a group of girls stayed behind during recess and quizzed her on her views.

“Ukraine is a separate country, a separate one,” Ms. Dubrova, 57, told them.

“No longer,” one of the girls shot back.

A few days later, the police came to her school in the port town of Korsakov. In court, she heard a recording of that conversation, apparently made by one of the students. The judge handed down a $400 fine for “publicly discrediting” Russia’s Armed Forces. The school fired her, she said, for “amoral behavior.”

“It’s as though they’ve all plunged into some kind of madness,” Ms. Dubrova said in a phone interview, reflecting on the pro-war mood around her.

With President Vladimir V. Putin’s direct encouragement, Russians who support the war against Ukraine are starting to turn on the enemy within.

The episodes are not yet a mass phenomenon, but they illustrate the building paranoia and polarization in Russian society. Citizens are denouncing one another in an eerie echo of Stalin’s terror, spurred on by vicious official rhetoric from the state and enabled by far-reaching new laws that criminalize dissent.

There are reports of students turning in teachers and people telling on their neighbors and even the diners at the next table. In a mall in western Moscow, it was the “no to war” text displayed in a computer repair store and reported by a passer-by that got the store’s owner, Marat Grachev, detained by the police. In St. Petersburg, a local news outlet documented the furor over suspected pro-Western sympathies at the public library; it erupted after a library official mistook the image of a Soviet scholar on a poster for that of Mark Twain.

In the western region of Kaliningrad, the authorities sent residents text messages urging them to provide phone numbers and email addresses of “provocateurs” in connection with the “special operation” in Ukraine, Russian newspapers reported; they can do so conveniently through a specialized account in the Telegram messaging app. A nationalist political party launched a website urging Russians to report “pests” in the elite.

“I am absolutely sure that a cleansing will begin,” Dmitri Kuznetsov, the member of Parliament behind the website, said in an interview, predicting that the process would accelerate after the “active phase” of the war ended. He then clarified: “We don’t want anyone to be shot, and we don’t even want people to go to prison.”

But it is the history of mass execution and political imprisonment in the Soviet era, and the denunciation of fellow citizens encouraged by the state, that now looms over Russia’s deepening climate of repression. Mr. Putin set the tone in a speech on March 16, declaring that Russian society needed a “self-purification” in which people would “distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths.”

In the Soviet logic, those who choose not to report their fellow citizens could be viewed as being suspect themselves.

“In these conditions, fear is settling into people again,” said Nikita Petrov, a leading scholar of the Soviet secret police. “And that fear dictates that you report.”

In March, Mr. Putin signed a law that punishes public statements contradicting the government line on what the Kremlin terms its “special military operation” in Ukraine with as much as 15 years in prison. It was a harsh but necessary measure, the Kremlin said, given the West’s “information war” against Russia.

Prosecutors have already used the law against more than 400 people, according to the OVD-Info rights group, including a man who held up a piece of paper with eight asterisks on it. “No to war” in Russian has eight letters.

“This is some kind of enormous joke that we, to our misfortune, are living in,” Aleksandra Bayeva, the head of OVD-Info’s legal department, said of the absurdity of some of the war-related prosecutions. She said she had seen a sharp rise in the frequency of people reporting on their fellow citizens.

“This is some kind of enormous joke that we, to our misfortune, are living in,” Aleksandra Bayeva, the head of OVD-Info’s legal department, said of the absurdity of some of the war-related prosecutions. She said she had seen a sharp rise in the frequency of people reporting on their fellow citizens.

A recording of that exchange appeared on a popular account on Telegram that often posts inside information about criminal cases. The Federal Security Service, a successor agency to the K.G.B., called her in and warned her that her words blaming Russia for the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, last month were “100 percent a criminal case.”

She is now being investigated for causing “grave consequences” under last month’s censorship law, punishable by 10 to 15 years in prison.

Ms. Gen, 45, said she found little support among her students or from her school, and quit her job this month. When she talked in class about her opposition to the war, she said she felt “hatred” toward her radiating from some of her students.

“My point of view did not resonate in the hearts and minds of basically anyone,” she said in an interview...

Still more.

 

Fearing Regime Change by the U.S., China Bulks Up Its Nuclear Deterrence Capabilities

An eye opening report. 

My first thought, "Well that's just great (*Eye-roll*)."

At the Wall Street Journal, "China Is Accelerating Its Nuclear Buildup Over Rising Fears of U.S. Conflict":

China has accelerated an expansion of its nuclear arsenal because of a change in its assessment of the threat posed by the U.S., people with knowledge of the Chinese leadership’s thinking say, shedding new light on a buildup that is raising tension between the two countries.

The Chinese nuclear effort long predates Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the U.S.’s wariness about getting directly involved in the war there has likely reinforced Beijing’s decision to put greater emphasis on developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent, some of these people say. Chinese leaders see a stronger nuclear arsenal as a way to deter the U.S. from getting directly involved in a potential conflict over Taiwan.

Among recent developments, work has accelerated this year on more than 100 suspected missile silos in China’s remote western region that could be used to house nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the U.S., according to analysts that study satellite images of the area.

American leaders have said the thinking behind China’s nuclear advance is unclear. Independent security analysts who study nuclear proliferation say they are also in the dark about what is driving Beijing after exchanges between Chinese officials and analysts mostly dried up in the past few years.

The people close to the Chinese leadership said China’s increased focus on nuclear weapons is also driven by fears Washington might seek to topple Beijing’s Communist government following a more hawkish turn in U.S. policy toward China under the Trump and Biden administrations.

American military officials and security analysts are concerned China’s nuclear acceleration could mean it would be willing to make a surprise nuclear strike. The people close to the Chinese leadership said Beijing is committed to not using nuclear weapons first.

China plans to maintain an arsenal no larger than necessary to ensure China’s security interests, they said, adding that the Chinese military believes its nuclear weapons are too outdated to present an effective deterrent against a potential U.S. nuclear strike.

“China’s inferior nuclear capability could only lead to growing U.S. pressure on China,” one person close to the leadership said.

Nervous international reaction to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s call for his nuclear forces to be put on alert following his invasion of Ukraine has offered Chinese officials a real-world lesson about the strategic value of nuclear weapons. So did Ukraine’s decision in 1994 to turn over the nuclear weapons left in the country after the breakup of the Soviet Union in return for security assurances from the U.S. and Russia.

“Ukraine lost its nuclear deterrence in the past and that’s why it got into a situation like this,” said a retired Chinese military officer with ties to the country’s nuclear program.

The people familiar with the Chinese leadership’s thinking said Beijing hasn’t conveyed any adjustments to the country’s nuclear policy as a result of developments in Ukraine. China’s Ministry of Defense didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The people have knowledge of Beijing’s thinking about nuclear policy through their work with various agencies involved in security issues. None are directly involved in the setting of nuclear policy. They didn’t preclude that future developments might change Beijing’s approach and said other factors may also be influencing the leadership’s approach to nuclear weapons.

Their observations nevertheless bring greater clarity to a shift in Beijing’s thinking that has far-reaching consequences globally. Rising tension between the U.S. and China over nuclear weapons could throw the world back into a Cold War-style nuclear standoff similar to that seen in the decades following World War II between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

The risk of miscalculations this time could be higher, however, because while the U.S. and Soviet Union communicated about their nuclear weapons during arms control talks from the late 1980s, the Chinese program and Beijing’s thinking on the role of nuclear weapons has been shrouded in secrecy. China has declined to engage in nuclear arms control talks with the U.S., saying Washington should first reduce its nuclear inventory.

U.S. government and private sector estimates put China’s nuclear arsenal in the low hundreds of warheads, far below the roughly 4,000 warheads held by both Russia and the U.S. The Pentagon says it now expects China to have 1,000 warheads by the end of this decade.

Satellite images taken during January show the last 45 of the temporary covers over each of 120 suspected missile silos near the city of Yumen have been removed, suggesting the most sensitive work at all of the silos has been completed, said Matt Korda, a senior research associate for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. At two other smaller silo fields in western China, work is at earlier stages.

The silos at each of the sites are large enough for a new long-range Chinese missile known as the DF-41 that was put into service in 2020 and is capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, analysts say. Tests of missiles that are launched from aircraft and can carry nuclear warheads also give Beijing a stronger chance of being able to retaliate if it is hit first in a nuclear attack.

In public, China has played down its nuclear pursuits.

“On the assertions made by U.S. officials that China is expanding dramatically its nuclear capabilities, first, let me say that this is untrue,” Fu Cong, director general of the Foreign Ministry’s arms control department, said earlier this year. He said that China is working to ensure its nuclear deterrent meets the minimum level necessary for national defense.

Chinese leaders had seen nuclear weapons as being of limited value because they don’t offer realistic options for fighting most wars. A major shift occurred in early 2020, according to the people familiar with the leadership’s thinking, as the U.S. government hardened its stance toward Beijing in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Strong criticism of the Communist Party from senior Trump administration officials spurred a consensus among Chinese leaders that Washington was willing to take greater risks to stop China’s rise, some of the people said.

A May 2020 speech in Mandarin by former Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger was particularly alarming, they said. Speaking on the anniversary of a pivotal 1919 student protest in China, Mr. Pottinger said: “Wasn’t the goal to achieve citizen-centric government in China, and not replace one regime-centric model with another one? The world will wait for the Chinese people to furnish the answers.”

“The speech was obviously calling the Chinese to topple the Communist Party,” one person familiar with the Chinese leadership’s thinking said.

In response to a request for comment, Mr. Pottinger said that such an interpretation was “a profound admission that the Communist Party knows it has failed to deliver citizen-centric governance, and it confirms what everyone already suspected: What Beijing fears above all is its own people.”

At the same time, increased support from the U.S. for Taiwan, a democratically self-ruled island that Beijing views as a part of China and has vowed to put under its control, prompted Chinese leaders to debate the prospect that the U.S. might be willing to use nuclear weapons in a conflict over the island, according to the people close to the leadership...