"The former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow."
I personally dont think Trump works for FSB/KGB (he is just naturally attracted to russias authoritarianism) but I guess if you had kompromat on someone back then and pressured them to commit treason then it does not matter what they did back then in the first place because the action of betreaying your country would in itself be kompromat: Keep on cooperating or we will everyone you committed treason.
I bet that is how they get many people hooked. Commit one treason for money and after that you own them because you know they committed treason.
It's not about Trump. The FBI was pretty sure that the Russians hacked both the DNC and RNC servers in the leadup to the 2016 election, but strangely, we only got to see the DNC's dirty laundry.
It seems likely that the entire GOP is a captive asset of Putin. If not, it's hard to imagine what they would do differently.
If this is how we are finally defeated as a world power, it's hard to say anything but "Well played, I guess."
You don’t need kompromat if you are the FSB. The carrot is your family gets to join the oligarch club, which has always been a fascination for Trump ever since he managed to piss away most of the fortune he inherited.
The stick is that we will kill your children and everyone you care about if you turn your back on us. You too, if it’s not hard, but we don’t even care at that point.
The FSB shares that kind of reach with the USA and Isreal only on the global stage, and they have made it into a principal resource for projecting influence.
Trump told a room packed with people he was going to make it so they didn't have to vote again. They just didn't realize he was going to achieve it by cutting off all their healthcare so they die
>but the GDF is the underlying infrastructure that makes it all possible, and shutting it down stops treatment for millions of people and will spell their death.
It's good policy. I could go into detail but the short version is we live on a single planet, what goes around comes around. Some people think the US can isolate itself and not worry about what the rest of the world does or thinks, but that is a dangerous delusion.
What ever assistance we provide others is paid back in other ways, just like being neighborly isn't mandatory but is a very good idea.
My understanding is that it is impossible for TB to become pandemic. It is an unusually slow-progressing disease. Pandemics are always diseases that spread quickly like influenza and measles.
It's infectious and deadly, it actually doesn't have to do anything more to scare the bejesus out of people and have profound social and economic effects, should it show up in numbers in the future.
As I understand it, it is treatable with antibiotics. I am not saying it isn't serious, but the argument that it poses any real risk of pandemic in the West is absurd.
If you interrupt antibiotic treatment (like we're right now to a few million people, no big deal) you evolve antibiotic-resistant strains that are no longer treatable.
- "According to the report, approximately 20% of TB cases globally are estimated to be resistant to at least one of the first- or second-line anti-TB drugs, and 5% are resistant to both isoniazid and rifampicin, the most powerful and commonly used antibiotics in first-line treatment. Of the estimated 480,000 cases of multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB, approximately 10% are either extensively drug-resistant (XDR)—with additional resistance to second-line drugs—or totally drug resistant."
- "While TB is curable when patients adhere to the treatment regimen, MDR- and XDR-TB are more problematic. Treatment options are limited, expensive, and often toxic, and drug therapy can last up to 2 years. The report estimates mortality rates of around 40% for MDR-TB and 60% for XDR-TB. And while China, India, Russia, and South Africa have the highest burden of MDR- and XDR-TB, widespread international travel and migration means drug-resistant TB has no borders."
The United States is not a bubble. Outbreaks overseas can have impacts here not only through possible infection reaching here but also the potential for the disease to develop antibiotic resistance in an improperly handled antibiotic treatment (such has cutting off access to the drug mid treatment) and of course 2nd order effects like outbreaks disrupting global supply chains.
The COVID 19 global pandemic was only a few years ago and its impacts lasted years. TB is not as infectious and would have a reduced spread but treating it helps contain possible issues and may one day lead to its eradication.
How does cutting funding reduce risk? Reduce suffering?
Did America voted in an enemy as their president????
Entirely possible:
"The former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow."
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5162890-assessing-...
Entirely feasible and yet I can’t imagine any kompromat from a visit to Moscow - sexual or financial - hanging over Trumps head today.
I personally dont think Trump works for FSB/KGB (he is just naturally attracted to russias authoritarianism) but I guess if you had kompromat on someone back then and pressured them to commit treason then it does not matter what they did back then in the first place because the action of betreaying your country would in itself be kompromat: Keep on cooperating or we will everyone you committed treason.
I bet that is how they get many people hooked. Commit one treason for money and after that you own them because you know they committed treason.
It's not about Trump. The FBI was pretty sure that the Russians hacked both the DNC and RNC servers in the leadup to the 2016 election, but strangely, we only got to see the DNC's dirty laundry.
It seems likely that the entire GOP is a captive asset of Putin. If not, it's hard to imagine what they would do differently.
If this is how we are finally defeated as a world power, it's hard to say anything but "Well played, I guess."
You don’t need kompromat if you are the FSB. The carrot is your family gets to join the oligarch club, which has always been a fascination for Trump ever since he managed to piss away most of the fortune he inherited.
The stick is that we will kill your children and everyone you care about if you turn your back on us. You too, if it’s not hard, but we don’t even care at that point.
The FSB shares that kind of reach with the USA and Isreal only on the global stage, and they have made it into a principal resource for projecting influence.
A the techbros cost cutting to their desired their “cleansing fire” to rid the world of the unworthy low net worth individuals.
Trump told a room packed with people he was going to make it so they didn't have to vote again. They just didn't realize he was going to achieve it by cutting off all their healthcare so they die
[flagged]
Second comment in thread: https://bsky.app/profile/johngreensbluesky.bsky.social/post/...
"Most countries pay for their own drugs and tests"
But this stuff is a global public good. Diseases do not respect borders, did we not learn that from COVID?
Rest of that comment
>but the GDF is the underlying infrastructure that makes it all possible, and shutting it down stops treatment for millions of people and will spell their death.
They never did that, but here, as these things are being purged.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250131212146/https://www.usaid...
https://web.archive.org/web/20250131235054/https://www.usaid...
Where the money went:
https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/
https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_AIDGHIO1700003_72...
It's good policy. I could go into detail but the short version is we live on a single planet, what goes around comes around. Some people think the US can isolate itself and not worry about what the rest of the world does or thinks, but that is a dangerous delusion.
What ever assistance we provide others is paid back in other ways, just like being neighborly isn't mandatory but is a very good idea.
Sir this is not X
Setting humanitarian arguments aside, here it is: Because preventing pandemics is cheaper than ignoring their possibilities.
My understanding is that it is impossible for TB to become pandemic. It is an unusually slow-progressing disease. Pandemics are always diseases that spread quickly like influenza and measles.
It's infectious and deadly, it actually doesn't have to do anything more to scare the bejesus out of people and have profound social and economic effects, should it show up in numbers in the future.
As I understand it, it is treatable with antibiotics. I am not saying it isn't serious, but the argument that it poses any real risk of pandemic in the West is absurd.
If you interrupt antibiotic treatment (like we're right now to a few million people, no big deal) you evolve antibiotic-resistant strains that are no longer treatable.
- "According to the report, approximately 20% of TB cases globally are estimated to be resistant to at least one of the first- or second-line anti-TB drugs, and 5% are resistant to both isoniazid and rifampicin, the most powerful and commonly used antibiotics in first-line treatment. Of the estimated 480,000 cases of multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB, approximately 10% are either extensively drug-resistant (XDR)—with additional resistance to second-line drugs—or totally drug resistant."
- "While TB is curable when patients adhere to the treatment regimen, MDR- and XDR-TB are more problematic. Treatment options are limited, expensive, and often toxic, and drug therapy can last up to 2 years. The report estimates mortality rates of around 40% for MDR-TB and 60% for XDR-TB. And while China, India, Russia, and South Africa have the highest burden of MDR- and XDR-TB, widespread international travel and migration means drug-resistant TB has no borders."
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/report-... (2017)
The infrastructure to help get antibiotics to people is being shut down. This is absolutely an instance of someone tearing down Chesterton’s fence.
If TB poses no risk because antibiotics are widely available would it not follow that reducing their availability would increase the risk TB poses?
Antibiotics are widely available in the US. The claim I was responding to was that taking away this funding risked harm to the US, specifically.
The United States is not a bubble. Outbreaks overseas can have impacts here not only through possible infection reaching here but also the potential for the disease to develop antibiotic resistance in an improperly handled antibiotic treatment (such has cutting off access to the drug mid treatment) and of course 2nd order effects like outbreaks disrupting global supply chains.
The COVID 19 global pandemic was only a few years ago and its impacts lasted years. TB is not as infectious and would have a reduced spread but treating it helps contain possible issues and may one day lead to its eradication.
How does cutting funding reduce risk? Reduce suffering?