They're plutocrats, and they're already talking in terms of a "post-government world order".
Billionaires are parasites.
If we don't tax them now
we'll have to eat them later.
Jun 24, 2026
Coin-Operated Politicians
Since the Citizens United decision, outside spending (Super PACs, dark money, etc) has increased by almost 700%.
Get Up And Go
Regular ‘exercise snacks’ boost mood and reduce fatigue without affecting work performance, according to US researchers
A five-minute “exercise snack” every hour can offset the damage of sitting down for long periods, researchers have said.
Walking or moving for five minutes at regular intervals boosted mood, reduced fatigue, and did not affect work performance, a large study revealed.
The health benefits of getting up from an office desk every so often were already known, but this was the first study to test how often five-minute walking breaks should be taken and the respective effect.
Authors, led by Columbia University in New York, said that adults in high-income countries now spend 11 to 12 hours per day sitting down or “sedentary”, which equates to “three-quarters of the waking day”.
“Excessive sedentariness has emerged as a significant public health concern that incurs increased risk of many chronic conditions, poorer mental health and mortality and poses a substantive economic burden to healthcare systems,” they wrote.
Sitting for prolonged periods is thought to have a negative effect on the lower limbs because of the reduced activity in the skeletal muscles and arteries.
However, moving at regular periods can undo or prevent these damaging effects by improving blood flow and reactivating the body’s metabolic processes, such as using fat and glucose for energy.
‘Improve psychosocial well-being’
The researchers said their results suggested “that brief, regular movement breaks (i.e., interruptions to prolonged sitting achieved by walking, such as a five-minute walk every half-hour) can counteract the harmful cardiometabolic effects of prolonged sedentary behaviour and improve psychosocial well-being”.
To test the theory, they examined data from 11,484 people taking part in a US nationwide challenge aimed at moving more by undertaking little movement breaks.
People followed their usual routine for seven days, then chose five-minute walking breaks either every 30 minutes, every 60 minutes, or every two hours for 14 consecutive days.
During the 21 days in total, people filled in questionnaires on their fatigue, mood and work performance.
A random sample of 1,200 full-time employees received five text messages every day at 9am, noon, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm to assess the immediate effect of movement breaks.
Analysis of the results suggested that all three break times were seen by people as doable, acceptable and appropriate, although fewer breaks were seen as more obtainable.
People were more likely to report good mood from taking breaks, with every 30-minute break leading to the highest improvement, while fatigue and low mood scores fell across all break times.
Overall, taking a five-minute break every hour offered the best balance between what people thought was achievable day-to-day and effectiveness for health, researchers said.
Taking short breaks also did not affect work performance, the survey results suggested.
“Concerns that movement breaks might disrupt work productivity have been documented as a perceived barrier to implementation/adoption. However, our findings counter this perception,” the experts said.
Emily McGrath, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “This study looked at how movement breaks affect mood and fatigue, but we also know that sitting for long periods increases the risk of heart and circulatory disease and early death.
“Taking regular ‘energy snacks’, like a five‑minute walk each hour, can boost mood and support heart health.
“While busy schedules can make this challenging, the findings suggest that simple additions of movement can improve overall health.
“However, the study relied on self-reported data and was short-term, so longer research is needed to confirm its impact on heart health.”
The study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
We'll See
... but the times they are a-changin'.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani shook the Democratic establishment by helping drive three progressive candidates to victory.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his allies swept a series of congressional primaries in New York City on Tuesday in a remarkable show of strength for the insurgent left that sent shock waves through the Democratic Party.
Mr. Mamdani’s candidates toppled a pair of incumbents backed by the city’s political establishment, including major labor unions and the House Democratic leader. Another candidate backed by the mayor won an open House seat, and a handful of democratic socialist challengers he supported were winning down the ballot.
For months, Mr. Mamdani threw himself and his energized political organization into the three marquee congressional contests, campaigning late into the night in the race’s final days and calling the election a referendum on the direction of the party.
All the winning candidates share Mr. Mamdani’s progressive economic platform, and they each ran campaigns that focused intently on ending American support for Israel, a sign of how far public opinion has shifted on the issue, even in New York.
Late Tuesday night, the mayor stood beaming at a victory party in Brooklyn, where supporters chanted “Free, free Palestine” and “D.S.A.” After embracing many of the same advisers who led his own successful campaign last year, he declared “a new chapter in our party’s history.”
“A year ago, it was not the end of a political movement,” he said. “It was the beginning.”
Mr. Mamdani’s deep involvement amounted to an audacious gamble for a brand-new mayor trying to lead an already fractious city. He alienated key allies along the way, but the payoffs were far-reaching.
At home, the outcome will now cement him as the unquestioned political kingmaker of the nation’s cultural and financial capital and the Democratic Socialists of America as a formidable force.
The results also shook the foundations of the Democratic Party far beyond the five boroughs. When they are certified, Mr. Mamdani, 34, and his movement will be on track to double the number of socialists in Congress from two to four. The outcome will also force a Democratic Party, already searching for its identity, to reckon with its ascendant, unapologetic left.
“It’s seismic,” said Jon Paul Lupo, a Democratic consultant who was a top adviser to the city’s last progressive mayor, Bill de Blasio.
The races do not necessarily suggest Mr. Mamdani has expanded his appeal. Each of the contests in which he endorsed took place in areas where the mayor won comfortably in last year’s election and remains deeply popular.
But Tuesday’s results showed two things about his young mayoralty. Mr. Mamdani has a high tolerance for political risk-taking, well beyond that of any of his modern predecessors. And, at least for now, he has the ability to transfer his high-wattage political brand onto other candidates in a way that only a few politicians in any office have been able to.
Brad Lander, 56, a close ally whom Mr. Mamdani urged to run for Congress, ran up a staggering 30-point margin in the affluent 10th District in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. He defeated Representative Daniel Goldman, a wealthy Levi Strauss heir who had opposed the mayor in last year’s elections and had close ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby.
Claire Valdez, 36, a little-known state assemblywoman also recruited by Mr. Mamdani to run, ran up larger than expected margins for the open seat in the Seventh District in a gentrifying swath of Brooklyn and Queens so far left it has been nicknamed the “Commie Corridor.”
She defeated Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president, who had far deeper roots in the district and the support of the popular congresswoman, Representative Nydia Velázquez, who is retiring; the left-leaning Working Families Party; and nearly every major labor union in the city.
And Mr. Mamdani’s allies even won in the predominantly Black and Dominican 13th District in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. In perhaps the night’s most surprising victory, Darializa Avila Chevalier, 32, another democratic socialist who entered the race as a political unknown, narrowly knocked off Representative Adriano Espaillat, the influential chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
“This is a wake-up call,” said Letitia James, the state’s progressive attorney general, who supported Mr. Mamdani’s mayoral campaign but ended up opposed to him on Tuesday.
“Obviously, there’s some hurt feelings tonight, particular in communities of color,” she said, adding, “What we have to do is sit down and work with the left-leaning part of the party and see if we can come to some sort of understanding going forward.”
Where previous mayors have taken a wide berth around intraparty primaries, Mr. Mamdani dove in. Before he even clinched his own mayoral win, he began recruiting candidates to run for seats he felt were ripe for leftist wins. He headlined fund-raisers, appeared in ads and dispatched his top political advisers to run two of the campaigns.
In the race’s final days, Mr. Mamdani exhausted himself shuttling between events with Ms. Valdez and Ms. Avila Chevalier, who were in the closest races. Wherever the mayor went, large crowds seemed to materialize.
Mr. Mamdani’s aggressive interventions were not without collateral damage. His positions on some of the races put him at odds with the Working Families Party, prominent Black and Latino Democrats, major labor unions and members of the City Council, all of whom had supported his campaign for mayor and are now involved in his governing agenda.
He infuriated Ms. Velázquez, Mr. Mamdani’s first supporter in Congress, who believed the mayor should have deferred to her wishes about a successor. She came to accuse the D.S.A. in particular of trying to erase the contributions she and other progressives had made to pushing the city leftward for decades.
Others, including Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, were even more upset when Mr. Mamdani decided in May to endorse Ms. Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist activist and Ph.D. student, and break with Mr. Espaillat.
Mr. Espaillat did not back Mr. Mamdani in last year’s primary, but afterward, he quickly endorsed him and brought along Latino support. Mr. Mamdani had privately assured Mr. Espaillat at the time that he would reciprocate if he ever needed it.
The mayor never explained his change of heart in detail, but his advisers said he watched Ms. Avila Chevalier’s momentum and believed he could make a difference in the race. Supporters of Mr. Espaillat were furious, and said they could no longer trust Mr. Mamdani’s word.
The outcome on Tuesday could pose particular problems for Mr. Jeffries, the New Yorker in line to become speaker if Democrats reclaim control of the House this year. Ms. Valdez and Ms. Avila Chevalier have not committed to supporting Mr. Jeffries’s leadership bid and could become persistent thorns in his side.
Democrats aligned with Mr. Jeffries, who fought hard to defeat Ms. Avila Chevalier, have privately raised concerns about her victory in particular. They fear that Republicans will weaponize a trove of her inflammatory old social media posts, including her saying that “all deportations are wrong” and using crude language about Kamala Harris, against more moderate Democrats running in swing districts that will decide the fate of the House this fall.
Mr. Jeffries repeatedly sidestepped the issue during an interview on NY1 Tuesday night as the results came in. Others were less reluctant to register concerns.
“Republicans will very quickly seek to elevate, as they always do, the most radical voices in the Democratic Party,” said Howard Wolfson, a former head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm and a top adviser to Michael R. Bloomberg. “And after tonight, they will have more radical Democrats to choose from.”
Mr. Mamdani and his allies saw it very differently.
Gustavo Gordillo, a D.S.A. co-chair in New York, said that his organization was already casting its attention to next year’s budget fight in Albany and beyond.
“We’re going to start thinking about 2028 and what comes next,” he said.
Down Down Down
I've long held that there's something wrong with the polling, and I'm coming to believe that polling is more a matter of finding out how well your propaganda campaign is going than anything else.
While that may always have been the case to some extent, I think it's more and more likely that bigger and bigger chunks of humanity are being more and more mis-informed and dis-informed.
That said, dive right in - it's a long one.
36-country survey finds declining ratings for the U.S. amid rising concerns about its foreign policy and the health of its democracy
About this research
A new Pew Research Center survey finds negative – and often overwhelmingly negative – views of U.S. President Donald Trump in regions around the globe.
A bar chart showing How people in 36 countries see the U.S. and Trump
Across 36 nations polled, a median of 23% of adults express confidence in his leadership of world affairs. In many countries, confidence in Trump has slipped since last year.
Overall ratings for the United States are also largely negative. Favorable views of the country have declined in many places over the past year, including double-digit drops in Indonesia, Italy, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey.
What is a median?
In this analysis, median scores are used to help readers see overall patterns in the data. The median percentage is the middle number in a list of all percentages sorted from highest to lowest.
There are seven nations in the study where a majority of adults rate the U.S. positively. The highest rating (81% favorable) comes from Israel. Some of the lowest ratings are from predominantly Muslim publics, such as Malaysians, Pakistanis, Turks, and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. (We were unable to survey in Gaza.)
Trump gets mostly poor marks for his handling of key foreign policy issues, including tariffs, Gaza, Iran, Greenland and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The survey reveals striking changes over time in how people perceive the U.S. and its role in world affairs.
A set of line charts showing that Decreasing shares see the U.S. as a reliable partner
The share of the public who considers the U.S. a reliable partner has declined steeply in many countries since we last asked this question in 2022, during Joe Biden’s presidency.
This downward turn in opinion has taken place in several nations with which the U.S. has longstanding economic and security ties. For example, in Canada, 83% described the U.S. as a reliable partner in 2022, compared with 35% today. Large declines have also been measured in some of America’s key Asia-Pacific partners.
A 36-country median of 35% say the U.S. contributes to peace and stability around the world. The share of people who hold this view is down significantly in many countries since 2023.
Similarly, the share who think the U.S. takes into account the interests of other countries when making foreign policy decisions has declined in most nations where trends from 2023 are available.
For instance, 60% of Germans three years ago said the U.S. considers other countries’ interests, but that share has dropped to 23% today. German public opinion is now similar to or more negative than what was measured during George W. Bush’s presidency, when many people in Europe and elsewhere strongly opposed the war in Iraq and other major elements of U.S. foreign policy. In surveys conducted from 2002 to 2007, between 27% and 53% of Germans said the U.S. considers the interests of countries like theirs when making foreign policy.
Our polling over the past few years has found widespread concerns about the health of American democracy in many places, and the new survey shows that large shares of people around the world no longer believe the U.S. respects individual liberty.
A 36-country median of 39% say the U.S. government respects the personal freedoms of its people, while 56% say it does not.
In 12 of the 13 countries where we last asked about this in 2021, during the Biden administration, there have been double-digit declines in the shares who say the U.S. respects personal freedoms.
Over a longer span, some of these shares have fallen even farther in several of these nations.
A 2013 Center survey represented a high point for this measure in several nations we have polled regularly. That year, as Barack Obama began his second term as president, three-quarters or more in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea and the United Kingdom said the U.S. respected personal freedoms.
However, in 2014, this view became less common in some countries after disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the government’s vast capacity to intercept communications around the world.
This year, the share of the public saying the U.S. respects personal freedoms is the lowest it’s been in several countries we have surveyed for years, including Australia, Brazil, Chile, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, South Korea and Sweden.
For this report, we surveyed 42,151 people in 36 countries from Feb. 8 to May 13, 2026.
In Israel, views of Trump are considerably more positive among Jews (79% have confidence in him) than among Arabs (13%).
And in Nigeria, Trump receives more positive ratings among Christians (87%) than Muslims (33%). Since last year, confidence in him has risen by 6 percentage points among Christians but dropped by 41 points among Muslims.
There are 26 places surveyed in which 30% of the public or less expresses confidence in the U.S. president. In Turkey, as well as in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, that share is in the single digits.
Confidence in Trump has declined since last year in 16 of 24 nations where trend data is available. There is no country surveyed in which attitudes toward him have become more positive.
In 18 of 27 countries where we measure political ideology, people on the right are more likely than those on the left to express confidence in Trump. He receives particularly positive marks from Europeans with favorable views of right-wing populist parties. Still, even among supporters of some of these parties, Trump’s ratings have worsened since last year.
How do ratings of Trump compare with previous presidents?
Pew Research Center has measured international attitudes toward U.S. presidents for over two decades, charting large shifts in public opinion in many regions. Findings from France, Germany, Spain and the U.K. highlight some long-term trends in views of recent presidents.
The latest ratings for Trump in these four nations, while low, tend to be slightly higher than at the end of his first term. They’re about equal to or somewhat higher than ratings for Bush at the end of his second term.
A line chart showing Confidence in U.S. presidents across Western Europe
Obama consistently received much higher ratings in these Western European countries during his two terms in the White House. Views of Biden were also relatively positive, although attitudes toward Biden turned more negative over the course of his presidency.
For more on confidence in Trump and previous U.S. presidents over time, refer to our detailed data sheet.
Do people approve of how Trump is handling major international issues?
We asked respondents whether they approve or disapprove of how Trump is dealing with eight key global issues. At least half of adults in most countries disapprove of how he is handling each of these.
In every nation surveyed, most or all interviews took place after the U.S. and Israel launched the military conflict with Iran on Feb. 28, 2026.
Overall, a median of 74% of adults across 36 nations disapprove of how Trump is dealing with Iran. Israel is the only country where a clear majority (73%) approve, though 51% also express this view in Kenya and Nigeria.
Relatively few approve in Pakistan (21%) and Turkey (5%), which share a border with Iran. Similarly, just 5% of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem approve.
To explore how the war may have affected overall views of the U.S., we conducted a separate analysis using a statistical technique called regression. The results suggest that as the war – and our survey fieldwork – progressed, attitudes toward the U.S. became more negative in some countries.
Trump gets his highest ratings on international humanitarian aid, though most disapprove of how he’s handling this issue. (We did not ask about knowledge of the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid or knowledge of its other policies.) Majorities approve of how he has dealt with humanitarian aid in five of the middle-income nations (as defined by World Bank lending groups) surveyed: the Philippines (66%), Kenya (65%), Sri Lanka (57%), Colombia (56%) and Peru (55%).
Trump gets his second-highest ratings on immigration. His immigration policies tend to be more popular among people on the ideological right, and especially Europeans who support right-wing populist parties.
A median of just 22% approve of the way Trump has dealt with Venezuela. Still, views are slightly more positive in some Latin American nations, including Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia (46%).
Trump receives low marks in Europe for his handling of both Greenland and the Russia-Ukraine war. For more, read: “European views of Trump and the U.S. are especially negative.”
There is no country in which a majority approves of how Trump is dealing with the conflict in Gaza. (At the time of our survey, a fragile ceasefire existed between Israel and Hamas.) Very few Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem approve (3%), while Israelis are divided: 48% approve and 48% disapprove, with Israeli Jews (57% approve) and Israeli Arabs (14%) expressing very different views.
The Trump administration’s tariff policies are widely unpopular. Kenya is the only country surveyed in which a majority (55%) approve of how Trump is handling this issue. Attitudes are especially negative in many nations with which the U.S. has major trade relationships, including the U.K. (27% approve), India (18%), Canada (17%), Japan (15%), South Korea (14%), Mexico (11%) and Germany (8%).
Do people around the world view the U.S. favorably or unfavorably?
Across the 36 countries surveyed, a median of 37% of adults express a favorable view of the U.S., while 57% have an unfavorable view.
In Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, opinions are largely negative: Seven-in-ten or more in many of these nations rate the U.S. unfavorably.
The U.S. receives its highest rating in Israel, at 81% favorable, while roughly eight-in-ten in Turkey and in the West Bank and East Jerusalem see the U.S. negatively.
In past surveys, the U.S. has received largely favorable ratings in the African nations surveyed. This year, views are relatively more positive than not in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria. Still, favorable ratings are down 15 points since last year in Nigeria, as well as in South Africa.
Latin Americans express a range of opinions. Most Colombians rate the U.S. positively, while views are more divided in Peru, Brazil and Argentina. Around half or more Mexicans and Chileans have an unfavorable opinion.
Favorable views have declined significantly in 15 of 24 nations where trends from last year are available. Mexico is the only country where views improved, from 29% to 40% favorable.
In many of the countries we have surveyed since 2002 – including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea and the U.K. – positive ratings are at or near the lowest they’ve been.
And although overall ratings for the U.S. are positive in Israel and Nigeria, they are at historic lows in our polling among some subgroups in both countries. Only 19% of Arab Israelis express a favorable view of the U.S., down from 29% last year and the lowest share we’ve measured in any of our Israel surveys. In contrast, 96% of Jewish Israelis have a favorable opinion of the U.S.
Similarly, a record-low 36% of Nigerian Muslims rate the U.S. favorably, down drastically from 73% last year. Roughly eight-in-ten Nigerian Christians (82%) express a favorable view.
Does the U.S. contribute to peace and stability?
A median of 35% of adults across the 36 nations polled think the U.S. contributes a great deal or a fair amount to peace and stability around the world.
However, opinions vary widely. Around seven-in-ten or more in the Philippines (77%), Kenya (74%) and Israel (73%) say the U.S. contributes to global stability, while one-in-five or fewer share this view in Argentina (20%), the Netherlands (19%), the West Bank and East Jerusalem (14%) and Turkey (10%).
People have become much less likely to believe the U.S. adds to global peace and security since we last asked this question in 2023, during the Biden administration. This share of the public has shrunk in 19 of 22 countries where trend data is available. In Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, Canada and Australia, it’s fallen by 30 points or more.
Does the U.S. consider other countries’ interests?
Across the 36 nations polled, a median of 32% of adults think the U.S. takes into account the interests of countries like theirs a great deal or a fair amount in its foreign policy decisions.
Majorities hold this view in the Philippines (74%), Kenya (68%), Israel (68%), Nigeria (64%) and Sri Lanka (62%).
Few in the NATO member states surveyed say the U.S. considers their interests. Hungarians (35%) are the most likely of these allies to say it takes other nations’ interests into account, followed by the U.K. (26%). Only 10% in France and 8% in Sweden express this opinion.
This view has become less common in 19 of 22 countries where trend data from 2023 is available.
In many nations where we have been asking this question over many years, the share of the public who think the U.S. considers other countries’ interests is at or near an all-time low, while the share who say it does not is at or near an all-time high. This is the case in Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, South Africa and the U.K.
Rationality Rules
When you admit your ability to think independently is nothing more than a rounding factor.
Jun 23, 2026
A.I.
AI is not ready for prime time. The products aren't very great, the developer companies are drowning in debt, turning no profit, and their stock is wildly over-valued.
Coupla Points:
- When they're so deep in the hole, why are the big companies in such a hurry to build giant, ridiculously expensive data centers?
- Companies are in business to turn a buck, and products that tell customers uncomfortable truths are just going to piss a lot of those customers off.
JoJo
It starts to feel boring to call out MAGA hypocrisy. It's maddening that they seem never to flinch, even a bit, when the new daily outrage comes to light and shows them up as the shameless fucks they are.
But we can't allow ourselves to be bored by it. They count on us to get fed up and wipe our hands as we walk away because it really really really sucks.
Embrace the suck
Stay in the fight
Trickle Down
A rising tide lifts all boats.
Boat? What boat? I don't have a boat. Where's my fuckin' boat?
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