Trump's rhetoric, lies, Epstein bombshells

Trump ratchets up rhetoric, Epstein bombshells dropped, Jimmy's Election Eve closing argument

Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story

(Jimmy Kimmel Live) Nov. 4, 2024: It’s Election Eve and the polls are all over the place, the candidates are pulling out all the campaign stops, Harrison Ford made a very powerful video in support of VP Harris, Trump fantasized about seeing Liz Cheney with guns in her face, we learned through bombshell audio tapes that he was Trump’s “closest friend,” The Don is ratcheting up the rhetoric, his spokesperson Stephen Cheung immediately ran to his defense, Trump ranted and raved for four minutes because he was unhappy with a microphone, Herschel Walker was back on stage to introduce his favorite candidate, Tucker Carlson confessed that he was attacked by demons in bed, JD Vance made a confusing closing pitch to voters in Wisconsin, and Jimmy makes his final closing argument going into election day. #Kimmel

Should we laugh at politics? (SNL)

Saturday Night Live, Dec. 2, 2023; Sheldon S., Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick, says reelecting Trump would be mistake

Republican Representative George Santos on his way to court like Trump

The vote to expel GOP Rep. George Santos was a humiliation for a liar.

WARCRIMES: US soldiers: "I killed innocents"

Om Swastik; Thoughts Awakening (DN!); Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

 

WARCRIMES - US soldiers speak - "I killed innocent civilians" U.S. War on Iraq soldiers -- American troops sent in by Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Ashcroft -- tell the truth themselves about war crimes committed in the name of free trade for corporate profiteers (full documentary).

 

• VIDEO: American soldiers are WAKING UP from the false war they did in IRAQ and on Muslims

U.S. war on Afghanistan ended! (video)

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; activist Kathy Kelly (facebook.com), Amy Goodman (DemocracyNow.org, Dec. 29, 2014)

Rural children of Afghanistan look on as they are invaded and stripped of autonomy (AP).

Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence

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13 is lucky

(Paul Fitzgerald and Liz Gould)

Lucky 13, we all know it. Or do we? Before 14 years of formal war, the third Bush White House (called the Obama administration) is changing the name of things. It is a semantic shift. We are no longer at "war" formally. Now it's an "informal conflict" and "peacekeeping mission," a "low-level kinetic dispute," a crossing the t's and dotting the i's "cleanup" and imperial escapade involving lots of the empire's invading military troops and more being sent.

Warlords Obama, Pannetta, Tenet, Gates, Hagel, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Biden, Ashcroft, Bush, and others have failed in disgrace after squandering one trillion dollars and still planning to spend 54 billion in the coming year and more in the future.

Money is the root of all war.

But not all is lost. While taxpayers and official coffers have been stripped of funds, private corporations have been enriched. Contractors had a boon. The CIA made out well. The effort was, after all, a product of the U.S. military-industrial complex, which means the union of the Pentagon (public government) and industry (private corporations). Many multimillionaires were minted by our foreign exploits. U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler said it long ago, "War is a Racket" (published 1935), and it always has been in modern times.

The Afghan War is NOT over but we will be pretending as if it is: U.S. officially ends 13-year formal combat mission, but 11,000+ troops to informally continue the illegal imperial invasion and offensive fight

When peace is a crime
Peace activist Kathy Kelly sent to prison for PROTESTING our drone war
[What CODE PINK's Medea Benjamin calls "war by remote control" peace activist Kathy Kelly protests: Our illegal assassinations, which kill many more innocent civilians ("collateral damage") than "targets," use killer drones. Why?] "At its core, war is impoverishment [impoverishing the needy to enrich the greedy].

"War’s genesis and ultimate end is in the poverty of our hearts.

"If we can realize that the world’s liberation begins within those troubled hearts, then we may yet find peace…What good has ever come from the slaughter of the innocents?" (Americans Who Tell The Truth)

Kathy Kelly is thinking about the U.S. military's insatiable appetite for war in Afghanistan and the stark facts about children near death from starvation (vcnv.org).

Salt and Terror in Afghanistan

(Voices for Creative Nonviolence) Two weeks ago in a room in Kabul, Afghanistan, I joined several dozen people, working seamstresses, some college students, socially engaged teenagers... (vcnv.org)

 

Fire and Ice in Afghanistan

Little Shuba, 3-y.o., Afghan survivor

(HuffingtonPost.com) Shuba, 3 1/2 years old, survived a terrible fire. Her uncle found her and her twin sisters inside a hut that was blossoming into flames. Such relief in the refugee camp that no one was killed. Locked in Winter: As many as 35,000 displaced persons are now living in the slum areas in the capital of Kabul alone. The fire in the Chaman e Babrak camp extended to adjacent homes, swiftly rendering nine families homeless in the midst of already astounding poverty.

The worst narco-state in history? After 13-year war, U.S.-administered Afghanistan’s opium trade floods the globe [and the CIA pockets the profits to fund its illegal missions]

(Democracy Now! FULL episode, Monday, December 29, 2014)

NYPD officer speaks out on fellow racist cops who turned backs to NY mayor and why people of color FEAR police

• U.S.-led NATO occupation formally ends combat role, but war continues
• Racist LAPD officers mock murder of Michael Brown in song parody
• Anti-police brutality protests continue across U.S. 
• NSA discloses trove of violations in Christmas Eve document dump
• Indonesian officials say missing plane likely at bottom of the sea
• U.S. drone strike kills 7 as Pakistani forces expand offensive
• U.S. continues Iraq, Syria bombing; group says ISIS has killed nearly 2,000
• Thousands attend funeral for slain NYPD officer
• Police Commissioner: "Inappropriate" for officers to turn backs on mayor
• Ferguson police spokesperson suspended for calling roadside memorial "a pile of trash"
• Mexican protesters mark 3 months since student disappearances
• Al Jazeera journalists mark 365 days of imprisonment in Egypt
• Egyptian appeals court upholds convictions, reduces jail terms of pro-democracy protesters
• Cuba rejects calls to extradite Assata Shakur to U.S.
• Oregon doctor freed in East Timor, but still can’t return home

Note strategic importance of formerly Buddhist Afghanistan, home of the Buddha (ranajitpal.com) next to Iran, former Soviet Central Asia, Pakistan, India, and China/Tibet. Greek, British, and Russian empires came here to die, now the USA has. China is next.

The U.S. War on its Whistleblowers (video)

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, James Risen, Julian Assange, Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake (democracynow.org); FPF

National Security Journalism: Funded cutting-edge investigative journalism projects: Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Center for Public Integrity, Truthout, and Wikileaks to report on secret U.S. drone strikes, Guantanamo Bay, and Pentagon spending (freedom.press). More

James Risen on NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden: He Sparked a new national debate on government surveillance on citizens

Heroic whistleblower Ed Snowden (FPF)

New York Times investigative reporter James Risen -- being persecuted by the Obama administration/U.S. government -- faces jail time if he refuses to name a whistleblowing source.

But he insists the actual whistleblowers, including Edward Snowden, are “much more courageous that we reporters are." 

 

Risen won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting about warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the National Security Agency (NSA). "We revealed the framework for…how the Bush administration turned the NSA on the American people," Risen says.

 

The Chelsea Bradley Manning Transcripts

He argues Snowden revealed that "under Obama and in the years since we had first written about it, the American people had become much more of an online citizenry…as a result, the NSA had grown dramatically in their ability to watch the online presence of Americans."

Pay Any Price

James Risen is the journalist at the center of one of the most significant press freedom cases in decades. In 2006, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting about warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the NSA. He has since been pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations in a six-year leak investigation into that book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.

• This book contains reporting too hot for the New York Times, the U.S. "paper of record" (i.e., official propaganda gatekeeper), to get permission from the gov't to publish

From mainstream media to whistleblower

Risen now faces years in prison if he refuses to testify at the trial of a former CIA officer, Jeffrey Sterling, who is accused of giving him classified information about the CIA’s role in clandestinely disrupting Iran’s nuclear program, which he argues effectively gave Iran a blueprint for designing a bomb.

The Obama administration [and its handlers, the real movers and shakers who nothing to do with who gets elected] must now decide if it will try to force Risen’s testimony, despite new guidelines issued earlier this year that make it harder to subpoena journalists for their records.

Read excerpts of the new book (DN!)

Risen’s answer to this saga has been to write another book, released today, titled Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. "You cannot have aggressive investigative reporting in America without confidential sources — and without aggressive investigative reporting, we can’t really have a democracy," Risen says. "I think that is what the government really fears more than anything else." Risen also details revelations he makes in his new book about what he calls the "homeland security-industrial complex."

• READ: James Risen's Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War (excerpt)

• Attention disorders can take toll on marriage
• Prone to Error: Earliest Steps to Find Cancer [not cure it, just treat it, which is much more profitable over long run]
• Adventures in very recent Evolution
• [Tragedy of curriculum manipulation under the guise of "better" education:] Many states adopt national standards for their schools
• Recipes for Health: Spicy Quinoa, Cucumber, Tomato Salad

Cracking down on whistleblowers

DemocracyNow.org ("Part 2: Former NSA Employee Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack on Obama Admin. Whistleblower Crackdown," March 26, 2012)

We Meant Well in Iraq (Peter Van Buren)

Thomas Drake was prosecuted by the Obama administration after challenging mismanagement, waste, and possible constitutional violations at the NSA.

"I’m the first to acknowledge that there are secrets that must be protected. But not when it comes to government wrongdoing and illegalities and when in fact they’re endangering the safety of our own country," Drake says.

Former U.S. Justice Department spokesperson Matthew Miller now says the case may have been an "ill-considered choice for prosecution." Drake faced 35 years in jail, and his case ended last year in a misdemeanor plea deal.

TRAITOR: The Whistleblower

Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake’s lawyer and a whistleblower herself, was interviewed by Democracy Now! She is currently the director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower organization.

Radack has written a new book called TRAITOR: The Whistleblower and the "American Taliban." Democracy Now! also discusses the case of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer who also has been charged under the Espionage Act, allegedly for providing details about the CIA’s covert spy war with Iran that formed a chapter in James Risen’s book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. More 

• VIDEO: Part 1 of this interview, "NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake prevails against charges in unprecedented Obama admin crackdown"
• NSA Whistleblowers: "All U.S. citizens" targeted by surveillance program, not just Verizon customers
• Journalist Chris Hedges sues Obama admin over indefinite detention of U.S. citizens approved in NDAA
• NDAA: Obama signs law restricting transfer of Guantánamo prisoners and EXPANDS indefinite detention

Assange on Snowden, Intercept, embassy

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Now I'm "The Man," CIA says so!

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sits down with Democracy Now! inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has been living in political asylum for over two years. Assange explains his critique of First Look Media and The Intercept for agreeing not to name a country targeted by bulk National Security Agency spying, following U.S. government concerns that doing so could lead to increased violence.

(Bolling/tomthedancingbug.com)

Assange and WikiLeaks went on to reveal the targeted country, Afghanistan, which along with the Bahamas had all of its cellphone calls recorded.

 

"That is as great an assault to sovereignty as you can imagine, other than completely militarily occupying a country, to record the intimate phone calls of every single Afghan citizen," Assange says. 

Assange: fair trial for Snowden "not possible"

"My perspective is, [this is] up to the Afghan people." Assange also gives an overview of the close to eight million documents WikiLeaks has released since 2007 about nearly every country in the world; details how WikiLeaks helped Edward Snowden evade U.S. arrest and find political asylum in Russia; and addresses his prospects for ever being able to leave the Ecuadorean Embassy without fear of arrest. More

• Click here to watch Part 1 of this interview
• "Kill the Messenger" resurrects Gary Webb, journalist maligned for exposing CIA ties to U.S. crack trade
• Inside the Dark Alliance: Gary Webb on the CIA , the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine explosion
• Iraqi journalist who embedded with Shia militias on fighting ISIS and why U.S. strategy is bound to fail
• Seattle marks Indigenous Peoples’ Day amid calls to end federal holiday celebrating [genocidal Jewish convert to Catholicism, invader, rapist, mass murderer, slave driver, and Christian missionary Chris Columbus

Arresting journalists in Ferguson? (Freedom of the Press Foundation/freedom.press)

The Imperial Rulers of IRAQ: U.S.

CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Peter Van Buren (wemeantwell.com); PRI.org

Emperor Bush, Neocon Republicans to their mirror image Democrats like Obama, Feinstein

Tank u, Amerikkka! We greet u as liberators. U killed my family. As-salām 'alaykum!

The U.S. Embassy as a lush campus in the middle of a uranium-contaminated Iraqi desert

This yard will be your "campus," guys. That embassy will be ours. Deal, Maliki? Deal!

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We left Iraq a long time ago, didn't we?

Road to Ramadi is paved...

As the U.S. “relocates” personnel (rather than “evacuating” them) out of the World’s Largest Embassy [military base] in Baghdad, it is valuable to look at our one billion dollar monument to American hubris (overarching pride and ambition).

Hey, we meant well! And everyone knows the road to Ramadi is paved with good intentions.

Though likely tens of thousands of people have been inside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and a great many of them have scattered photos of the place across the social media landscape, actual official photos of the embassy have been limited to a handful of narrow views. The stated reason for all this is “security.”

 

Battle for one of Iraq's major oil refineries

Of course a simple Google search [which can be done better and more privately at Startpage.com, which incorporates Google search without tracking users] will reveal many images; there even were 3-D model of the place online.

• What does it mean when one says they're Shia vs. Sunni?
• PHOTOS: Iraq troubles photographer who covered first war 
• MAPS: How foreign investment fuels Sunni-Shia divide 
• The battle is on for one of Iraq's major oil refineries 

"It's heartbreaking" - veteran on Iraq crisis

US veterans are reflecting on the crisis in Iraq. Blake Hall served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, in Mosul and in Baghdad among other places. Nowadays, Hall runs a tech company in Washington, DC, and he's been following the news from Iraq closely. That's been frustrating, he says, and heartbreaking. 

 

Still, what has been missing is a really nice color shot of the lawn. We have that now, posted online by someone:

There is a very interesting backstory to that nice lawn you see pictured above. If you’ve read my book about Iraq, We Meant Well, you may already know the story:

 

Iraq: Babylon, Mesopotamia, Sumeria

The World’s Biggest Embassy (104 acres, 22 buildings, thousands of staff, a $116 million vehicle inventory), physically larger than the Vatican, was a sign of our commitment to Iraq, at least our commitment to excess. “Along with the Great Wall of China,” said the ambassador, Chris Hill at the time, “the Baghdad Embassy is one of those things you can see with the naked eye from outer space.” 

Iraqi troops reject puppet gov't, go militant

The newly-opened embassy was made up of large office buildings, the main one built around a four-story atrium, with overhead lights that resembled sails. If someone told us there was a Bath and Body Works in there, we would not have thought it odd.

Iraq's next PM? Peddler of WMDs

Iraq's next PM? Peddler of false WMDs The embassy itself, including juicy cost overruns, cost the American taxpayer about one billion dollars. [And never mind that Donald Rumsfeld lost a 2.3 TRILLION U.S. dollars in Iraq the day before 9/11 then never bothered to explain it. We were already illegally invading during the first Gulf War under Emperor Bush I and his boy wonder Dan Quayle threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons on Iraq.]

 

The World’s Biggest Embassy sat in, or perhaps defined, the Green Zone. Called the Emerald City by some, the Green Zone represented the World’s Largest Public Relations Failure. In the process of deposing Saddam, we placed our new seat of power right on top of his old one, just as the ancient Sumerians built their strongholds on top of fallen ones out in the desert.
 

Less Mesopotamia but more MESS

In addition to the new buildings, Saddam’s old palaces in the Zone were repurposed as offices, and Saddam’s old jails became our new jails. Conveniently for Iraqis, the overlords might have changed, but the address had not. The place you went to visit political prisoners who opposed Saddam was still the place you went to look for relatives who opposed the Americans.

 

Read in reverse, add zeros for civilian deaths

The new Embassy compound isolated American leadership at first physically, and, soon after, mentally as well. The air of otherworldliness started right with the design of the place. American architects had planned for the Embassy grounds to have all sorts of trees, grassy areas and outdoor benches; the original drawings made it look like a leafy college campus. More

• Obama sends 300 "advisers" to Iraq by executive order, leaves open potential U.S. strikes
• NYC to pay $40 million to wrongly jailed Central Park 5
• Federal court strikes down Los Angeles law that bars people from living in parked vehicles 
• Tens of thousands displaced, dozens killed in Pakistan
• Ukraine claims killing of 300 separatists rear Russia
• Israel kills Palestinian teen in West Bank crackdown
• U.S. cuts aid, cooperation over Ugandan anti-LGBT
• Obama admin extends Fed benefits to same-sex couples
• House GOP elect new majority leader, whip
• Prosecutors: Wisconsin Gov. Walker engaged in "criminal" fundraising scheme
• WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange marks 2 years confined in Ecuadorean Embassy
• 50th anniversary of Miss. slaying of Civil Rights workers

AUDIO: What's the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims? (The World/PRI.org)

Told you so: War, what is it good for?

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Sidrah Zaheer (video); John Grula (pasadenaweekly.org)

Is it Mara, a demon (yaksha), a scary "guardian"? (Bighead4144/flickr.com)

"Berkeley in the Sixties" is an award-winning documentary about the origins of the Peace and Free Speech Movements along with the beginning of the counterculture .

Afghan girls (Marianne Elliott)

One of the saddest things ever seen on video is an iconic moment in the 1960s. Protesters decided to go to the mouth of the Beast, to demonstrate against the war(s) at military induction centers. They were met, not with gratitude by the lives they were trying to save -- those of new recruits as well as the Buddhists of Southeast Asia, namely, Laotians, Cambodians, and Vietnamese, all victims of illegal US bombing campaigns. 

 

One recruit grabs a peace demonstrator by the collar, waves a fist, and gets right in his face in a very homoerotic way, as if to kiss him, but yelling violently. It is shocking, and one has to wonder what became of that young soldier.

Sure, on the one hand, the peacenik was hurt but probably not harmed in the scuffle. The recruit, on the other hand, probably got it much worse than he gave.

Did he suffer PTSD as a result, did he live to regret assaulting the last American to try to stop him from making the biggest mistake of his life? Traumatized, if not by his being what he was, violent, or being violent toward someone who was being what he was, peaceful, certainly in a war meant only to reign violence on once-peaceful Asians defending their homeland from imperial invasion.

 

Why else were we there other than to make the world FREE for free-trade, tax-free for multinational corporations and war-profiteers? That recruit surely thought he was joining to kill anyone attempting to uphold a communal ideal rather than a competitive one, if he thought about it at all. Surely he thought he was defending his homeland against a nonexistent invader. Oh, those were heady times. There were enemies everywhere. "The enemy was within!" The enemy was us. And now we're going to teach Central Asians that lesson.

 

Yes, peace activists took it on the chin way back when. Vietnam era warmongers and flag waving military-violence-boosters got their way. But wouldn't you know, history repeated itself. And we, most of America that is, became like Berkeley in the 60's. Bush didn't care. No matter how many peace demonstrators marched, his son didn't care either. Cheney didn't care. Obama doesn't care. And new recruits hate peace activists who now have every right to say "TOLD YOU SO." But...

Peace activists take little solace in KNOWING they were right about Afghanistan and Iraq.

Zero-sum Games

John Grula, edited by Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

The face of Afghanistan (NationalGeographic.com)

Pardon my language, but this is one p'd off hippie, p'd over our [US] wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm p'd because of the murdered Afghan civilians, the Pakistanis, civilians in the adjacent 'Stans, the signature "militants," the children, the victims of "friendly" fire, human costs, what good (if any) these wars have actually accomplished, and the monetary costs to the USA -- up to now and projected.

 

The US War on Afghanistan is in its 12th year, which makes it America’s longest war. It has officially claimed nearly 2,100 American military lives. And another 18,000 American soldiers have been wounded -- moral injury, lost limbs, deafness,  trauma, suicidal ideation...

 

Tens of thousands are suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and other deadly mental health problems. Listening to Slayer and Drowning Pool and thinking the songs are offering advice on how to actually live on the planet?

(Drowning Pool) "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor," US in Central Asia edition

 

Approximately 66,000 American troops currently remain in Afghanistan. And they will be there for a long time. Their label will change, but they will remain. A solider becomes an "advisor," an "attaché," a "consultant," a "strategic asset," and if s/he is lucky maybe a "private contractor" or, if one is unlucky, a "drone pilot.

And although about half are supposed to come home this year, in the meantime they remain in harm’s way doing more harm than is being done to them or anyone else.

In addition, more than 850 troops from non-US NATO members have been killed, with the UK (441) and Canada (158) taking the biggest hits. What about the Afghan people -- the noncombatants, the children, the mothers, the elderly, the utterly innocent civilians living in crushing poverty worsened by Million Dollar Men out to rob, imprison, rape (sodomize), and murder them for sport with a wink and a nod from the CIA?

 

Civilian murders ("casualties") have been difficult to tabulate. But military violence has caused tens of thousands of deaths. How many more have died of displacement, disease, drone strike, starvation, and exposure?

Afghan women and children have been killed by American air strikes. As recently as April 7th, the New York Times reported that 10 children died in a US bombing allegedly aimed at a senior Taliban commander. With "signature" strikes, no one actually has to be anyone to become a legitimate target. The US warlords have made it that way: Any "suspicious" behavior deserves a drone strike. AND any male, pubescent or elderly, in the area WAS a "militant." These are our rules of engagement. Sorry if we didn't make that clear when we didn't declare war. But, hey Afghanistan, if you can't live with it, die.

 

The Bushes in Iraq

Warlord Bush I (Republican naga king)

The Iraq War has been even bloodier. Nearly 4,500 American troops have died there. About 30,000 have been seriously wounded. PTSD is rampant. "Moral injury" rates are possibly higher. Iraq War veterans are homeless all over the place, and the V.A. (Veterans Administration) has better things to do than help them.

 

In addition, according to Iraq Body Count, well over 100,000 Iraqi civilian murder were carried out as military violence. At least this is how many have been documented since the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq began 10 years ago. Some estimates of the total civilian kill rate go much higher. Before Bush II's invasion, Bush I killed countless babies. No war was declared, but that didn't stop the military-industrial complex (with lip service by such memorable heads of state as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, and others).

The "surge in violence" in Iraq since our invasion in 2003 has continued even after our "official" departure in 2011. We're still there.

 

On April 7th, the Los Angeles Times reported that a murderous "suicide bomber" killed 20 people at a lunch hosted by a Sunni candidate in Iraq’s regional elections. Mayhem is common in Iraq. The CIA taught them well. (And the CIA may actually be the one sponsoring all these "random" bombings and terror campaigns. Nothing like a little destabilization to remind them who's still in charge).

 

The Good

What good has come from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? "War, what is it good for?!" Absolutely something. It turns out war is a great money maker...for corporations, the military, and the well dressed politician who plays his cards right. If all costs were counted, war would be good for absolutely nothing. But who's counting that way? In the case of our country's War on Iraq, we may all be worse off. More