Argentina

no merri

BESSANT THIEL DIALOG 20 BILL $ BAILOUT

see uber1

see javier melei

see singer vulture debt

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB0FFHw3laU

laje bs ; left vio, # wrong

complete memory

30k kia

Al Jazeera is funded in whole or in part by the Qatari government. Wikipedia

9,532 views Jun 29, 2026 #aljazeeraenglish #politics #news

As right-wing populists take power across Latin America, they have waged a ‘cultural battle’ to reclaim the past. In Argentina, President Javier Milei – and a legion of supportive influencers and YouTubers – are revising how the country’s history of military dictatorship is remembered and debated.

Reporter: Tariq Nafi

Producer: Ella Willis

Featuring:

Agustín Laje – President, Fundación Faro; YouTuber

Sol Montero – Professor, National University of San Martín

4:044 minutes, 4 secondsA movement advocating for the so-called complete memory of the events [music] of the dictatorship. One that reframed the

4:114 minutes, 11 secondsrepression of that time as part of a dirty war between two sides.

4:264 minutes, 26 secondsWhat the complete memory narrative seeks to do is incorporate a historical truth that had been denied from the outset.

4:334 minutes, 33 secondsThose who attack the complete memory narrative are the ones denying a portion of history that for reasons of political, ideological, and economic

4:404 minutes, 40 secondsconvenience, they choose to leave out of the picture. It means recognizing that gerilla and terrorist groups existed and

4:484 minutes, 48 secondsthat they too systematically violated human rights against the civilian population.

4:584 minutes, 58 secondsIt's true that a few years ago it was inconceivable to talk of a dirty war or question the figure of 30,000

5:055 minutes, 5 secondsdisappeared. And those limits have been pushed. What's acceptable speech has shifted with the arrival of this new radical right-wing in power.

5:205 minutes, 20 secondsToday, you can find content on prime time news channels or online that trivializes or relativizes the seriousness of the dictatorship's crimes for a young audience.

jm 2023, cut forensics; school denounced; hu rts gp cit corrupt; univ left indoc; voice have been excluded

sol Montero prof

defensora patria tshirt workout w/ name

Over the past few months, Peter Thiel has become fully infatuated with Argentina. He bought a house there, enrolled his kids in school, has been attending local soccer matches, playing chess with locals, and the Argentine government is exploring offering the billionaire permanent residence and citizenship.

But why Argentina? Why now? ... taylor lorenz gmail 6 26

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mizz welch yt says argentine toxic china refused

an 8 26

President Donald Trump set American ranchers ablaze with his recent decision to import foreign beef.

The Cattlemen's Association released a statement about Trump's decision, saying that they were "disappointed" with the move.

"While America’s cattle producers share the goal of keeping groceries affordable for consumers, flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd," CEO Colin Woodall said.

"Cattle markets have already turned sharply lower this morning, to the detriment of farmers and ranchers. This is a critical time of year for cattle producers, as we approach the season where they are making decisions regarding their herds. Cattle farmers and ranchers are responding to strong market signals and historically high demand, and we are already working to rebuild after years of ongoing drought, high input costs and other challenges that have reduced U.S. cattle numbers. Today's announcement and other market interventions throw cold water on the prospect of herd expansion and sacrifices long-term stability for short term messaging," Woodall added.

Cattlemen's Association President Justin Tupper made it clear to MS NOW, "You don't put America first by putting US cattle producers last.

Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins refused to say where the new beef will come from.

Commentator Aaron Parnas questioned this detail, wondering "how is the Secretary of Agriculture not willing to talk about where Americans are getting their beef from?"

"The Trump administration refusing to tell us where beef is coming from should convince everyone not to buy it or eat it," Nebraska activist Jamie Bonkiewicz said.

"Insane ... They’re buying disgusting beef on the cheap to pawn off on the American people and won’t even tell us where it’s coming from," the influencer account Wu Tang is for the Children said.

Podcaster and activist Joanne Carducci similarly questioned, "Why won’t they tell us where this beef is coming from?"

Congressional candidate Fred Wellman pointed out that it's "literally" Rollins' "job to be 'privy' to this information."

The pro-democracy group of conservatives, Republicans Against Trump, commented on the White House's oft-repeated slogan that it's "the most transparent administration in history."

The New Republic's Greg Sargent posted on X, "The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture is not privy to talk about 300,000 metric tons of food that, according to the president, is right now making its way to the dinner tables of countless ordinary Americans? Isn't she curious about this? Didn't she ask Trump for clarification of it?"

Tennis star turned commentator and Trump critic Martina Navratilova thinks Rollins is being disingenuous with Americans. "You mean you won’t tell, right Brooke? Lying liars," she wrote on X.

One commentator urged Americans to get to know their local butcher so that folks will know where it's coming from.

After another USDA recall was announced, historian Kevin M. Kruse commented on BlueSky, "Sure seems like a cascading series of contaminated food making Americans sick should be a massive scandal for the USDA and Secretary Brooke Rollins."

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HISTORY

JAN 2024

Milei’s Fever Dreams

BUENOS AIRES—With his wild hair, flashing eyes and lashing tongue Argentina’s new libertarian president Javier Milei is fast becoming the world’s fourth instantly-recognizable Argentine revolutionary icon after Ché Guevara with his Cuban cigar and red-star emblazoned beret, Eva Perón with her outspread welcoming arms and tight bun of blonde hair, and Pope Francis with his white robes, deep humility and constant commitment to social justice.

The big difference of course is that Milei is a revolutionary of the reactionary right, not a progressive like his forebears, for he seeks not to champion social justice, but to be its fiery nemesis. On the campaign trail for congress in 2020 Milei called Francis a “communist turd” and ” for the pope’s support of social justice, which Milei loathes.

Now, into the second month of his presidency, Milei has extended the pope a courteous invitation to visit his home country. This reversal could be a good sign if it is a harbinger of a softer, gentler Milei to come. So far this seems unlikely.

Milei’s twentieth-century predecessors in their different ways, “el Ché” by creating a socialist utopia, “Evita” by fashioning a worker’s paradise, wished for the less-fortunate many to partake in the accumulated wealth of the few. Pope Francis, over three decades older than Milei, is also a product of the previous equality-conscious century.

But Milei, his feet firmly anchored in an increasingly selfish present, is as much a child of his era as “el Ché,” “Evita” and “Francisco” were of theirs, and therefore envisions a world where the fortunate few can multiply their wealth without hindrance or compassion, and without having to feel guilty about sharing their bounty only with themselves.

It’s a message that has won Milei powerful new friends. Chief among them is Elon Musk, richest man in the world, owner of X (formerly Twitter), Tesla and SpaceX. Musk was so impressed by Milei’s paean to capitalism at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 17 that he shared the full 23-minute video of Milei’s speech twice on his X account, once translated into English by the WEF official translator and a “better version” dubbed into English by AI replicating Milei’s own voice.

Musk was so eager to transmit his excitement for Milei’s speech that he posted a picture of a couple having sex, the woman astride the man with her back to the camera, while the man (who bears a reasonable likeness to Musk) is fixated not on the woman above him but on a laptop resting on his stomach transmitting Milei’s speech, with the caption: “So hot”.

Musk and Milei share more than the first initial of their last names, they are both born and raised in the southern hemisphere, Musk in South Africa, and are almost the same age (Musk was born in 1971, Milei in 1970). Milei has said that Musk called him to express interest in Argentina’s lithium deposits and mentioned Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink in an important speech announcing his broad deregulation program and they have frequently commented on each other’s X posts.

Milei’s Davos speech appealed to other billionaires in his same age group such as Marc Andreessen, born 1971, co-founder of Netscape, who posted on X: “President Javier Milei, techno-optimist,” over a video of Milei declaring himself an adherent to Andreessen’s techno-optimist creed.

Listening to his words at Davos, Milei’s appeal to billionaires is not difficult to understand. “Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral. If you make money, it’s because you offer a better product at a better price, thereby contributing to general wellbeing,” Milei said in preacher-like tones. “You are the true protagonists of this story and rest assured that as from today, Argentina is your staunch and unconditional ally.”

Milei’s almost holy crusade against taxation and social justice seems to be music to the ears of billionaires such as Musk and Andreessen. “The problem is that social justice is not just, and it doesn’t contribute to general well-being. Quite the contrary, it’s an intrinsically unfair idea because it’s violent. It’s unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively.”

It is a deeply-held belief. “Social justice is an aberration, fuelled by envy, which is a sin, and financed by taxes, which is theft, another sin,” Milei has said on other ocassions. The president claims his ultra-capitalist philosophy is backed by “the Forces of Heaven,” which he salutes in each of his presidential speeches.

To remove any doubt where those forces reside, he has claimed, bursting into tears on television at the thought, that he is not important, that it is his sister Karina who is Moses, the real purveyor of the law made word, while he is merely Aaron, brother and spokesperson of the true prophet. If it sounds like something out of Monty Python, then you’re getting the right impression of Milei, rather than the pasteurized version being sold to, and sometimes sold by, the financial press.

Karina Milei is now the facto First Lady to her never-married 53-year-old brother, plus presidential secretary with broad thumps up, thumbs down power over cabinet appointments. Milei’s first act as president was signing a decree overturning the rule prohibiting presidents from naming close kin in office to appoint his sister.

He calls her “The Boss.” Three years ago, she was a Tarot reader on Instagram and a medium who helped clients communicate with their dead pets. Her top client? Her brother, who it has been widely reported receives political and economic advice from his dead dog Conan. Far from denying he talks to God through his dead dog, Milei jokes about it in interviews. Shortly after being elected president Milei posted an AI-generated image of himself with his dead dog Conan and the four clones he had made out of Conan’s cells on his Instagram account with the caption “family album.”

Milei’s philosophy is not only tailor made for billionaires. Indeed, Milei for eighteen years was a trusted aide of one of Argentina’s richest men, Eduardo Eurnekian, owner of airports and television concessions, who launched Milei’s political career on his flagship television channel A24 in 2018. If ours is an age of narcissistic billionaires, Milei holds the key for their guiltless exploration and exploitation of our, or rather, their age.

Milei has often been compared to Donald Trump, their physical attributes, that indescribable hair and that frazzled unkempt look, lend themselves to this journalistic shorthand, but he is upon closer look another beast entirely.

Not only because Milei is a product of Argentine culture, having more in common with other South American caudillos, or strongmen, than with Trump, but because Milei is a man of deep faith, a theological warrior, a born-again Rothbardian economist willing to rip his country asunder to rebuild it along the principles of American economist Murray Rothbard, who died in 1995. This libertarian-reactionary outcast with a cult-like following in the US (but regarded askance by academia) is Milei’s intellectual and spiritual guide.

Milei is a born-again Rothabardian since an epiphany he had in 2013 reading Rothabrd’s 1962 book Man, Economy and State. “I had been teaching microeconomics for more than 20 years,” Milei said in one interview. “But when I finished reading Rothbard, I said, ‘Everything I taught about market structures is wrong. It’s wrong!’”

Milei turned Rothbard dogma such as “Tax Is Theft” and the abolition of the Central Bank into presidential campaign slogans. He went as far as saying in media interviews that he would be in favour of not only the sale of body organs but also, in time, the sale of children by their parents, referring to Rothbard’s “The Ethics of Liberty” in which this idea is proposed. Three times he was asked by his interviewer if the answer to “could parents sell their children?” shouldn’t be “no”. Three times he deflected giving “no” as an answer.

In another interview, asked if he believed in democracy, Milei replied: “Are you familiar with Arrow’s impossibility theorem?” Asked again and again, his answer remained that he couldn’t answer the question unless he was first allowed to explain the theorem by 1972 Nobel economics prize winner Kenneth Arrow, a social-choice paradox that posits that no voting system is flawless and identifies the shortcomings in each. The interviewer gave up.

His frequent references to Rothbard tend to fly over the head of most interviewers, ignorant of the fact that Rothbard, inventor of anarcho-capitalism, is to economics what Trump was to medicine when he suggested injecting people with disinfectant—at best a quack, at worst a malignant if unintentional sect leader.

But bankers and business leaders are not about to quibble over such irrelevant details when it comes to Milei. They hear only his siren song of deregulation and reduction of state interference in their affairs. With such a carrot dangling before them, any questioning of Milei’s spiritual world or his devotion to Rothbard, who flirted with Holocaust denialism and racial segregation, is consigned to irrelevance by business and finance leaders.

The world’s eighth-largest nation is at a crossroads that even stronger democracies would have trouble navigating. Milei, if he cannot be first stopped by those of his allies who perceive the danger inherent in his holy quest, plans nothing less than turning Argentina into Liberland, a quasi-fictional libertarian paradise that actually exists as an unrecognized micronation in Southeast Europe.

This he in the early days of his political campaign dressed head to toe in a shiny caped black and yellow Captain AnCap costume. Get it? Black for anarchism and yellow for the gold of capitalism. “I have come to announce the creation of Liberland,” Captain AnCap explained to the camera, bursting into song as he rendered Liberland’s national anthem.

In Milei’s fictional Liberland there is no state and there are no laws. Free and unfettered capitalism creates a peaceful and harmonious society. In his zeal to reshape Argentina along the lines of this quack intellectual utopia, Milei if unchecked could become almost the Pol Pot of capitalism.

As his boldest act of government shows, the president wishes to destroy every vestige of the old Argentina, which Milei confusedly assigns as the handiwork of socialist design. To this effect he has sent a mega-package to Congress, a combined bill of law and a presidential decree that jointly contain 1649 articles that overturn or modify labor, environmental, gender, education, consumer, business, finance, culture and health system laws that over more than 100 years have made Argentina the country it is today, with free public education right up to university level, free public health, and a hodgepodge of a social welfare system that is a far cry from being the populist, socialist free-for-all Milei makes it out to be. For all the bluster about Argentina as a populist social paradise, it is really quite a tame capitalist nation, in which even the despised Peronists bow to the IMF.

In fact, some of the “socialist” reforms Milei seeks to undo, free public education chief among them, were the creation of Argentina’s 19th century conservative leaders who decided Argentines required a leg-up if they wished to compete with their northerly capitalist competitor, the United States.

Argentina is, despite its bad rap as a populist disaster area, by far one of the most livable Latin American nations, a magnet for immigrants from its less fortunate neighbors, as well as a constant stream from Europe, and also Russia since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, with enviable education and health indices, with progressive social policies, the first major Latin American country to introduce abortion and same-sex marriage, all despite an appalling economic record, not just today, but stretching back to its independence from Spain in 1816.

Massive overspending coupled with incessant state borrowing and rampant corruption, leading to inflation, half-hearted dollarization programs, social instability, nine foreign defaults, is not a thing of today or the birthchild of Peronism, as Milei claims and journalists repeat. This calamitous, but evidently survivable, state of affairs stretches back into the early nineteenth century.

The first convertibility program was introduced in the 1860s, the second in the 1880s. Even Charles Darwin in his Voyage of the Beagle, passing through Argentina in the 1830s, comments on the rampant corruption and quirky ways of Argentina’s politics, with prescient words still applicable today. Darwin admired Argentina’s gauchos, ranch hands usually of mestizo origin equivalent to US cowboys, but was not impressed by the country’s ruling class. “The character of the higher and more educated classes who reside in the towns, partakes, but perhaps in a lesser degree, of the good parts of the gaucho, but is, I fear, stained by many vices of which he is free. sensuality, mockery of all religion, and the grossest corruption, are far from uncommon. nearly every public officer can be bribed. The head man in the post-office sold forged government franks. the governor and prime minister openly combined to plunder the state. Justice, where gold came into play, was hardly expected by any one,” Darwin wrote.

Additionally, and here’s the scary part, Milei is asking Congress to delegate its law-making prerogative to him personally, so that the world’s first Rothbardian president can draft new laws or repeal old ones at whim by a mere stroke of his presidential pen. That is more power than any democratically-elected president, and even some of Argentina’s many nasty dictators, who always set up some makeshift form of Congress to legislate, has ever had.

This unprecedented power would include, as he has recently warned us via Twitter, the ability “to reduce or eliminate the power of the state.” This from a man whose hatred of the state is such that during his campaign, on daytime television, he creepily compared the state to “a pedophile in a kindergarten, with the children in chains, and coated in vaseline,” a disturbing step beyond Rothbard’s definition of the state as a mere criminal enterprise. Congress seems to be willing to cede Milei’s wish to emasculate the perceived aggressor.

It would be tempting to interpret the surrender of Argentina’s legislators to Milei (he got 56% in the presidential second electoral round in November) as a sign of Argentina’s sudden conversion to libertarianism. But it would also be mistaken, akin to walking in the Argentine rain without getting wet because you don’t know where the raindrops are.

As mentioned before, Milei cannot be judged by US or European standards. He is almost exclusively a product of his country’s and South America’s history, a history deeply steeped in “caudillismo,” strongman politics, in which true democracy has been the exception and dictatorship, or severely limited democracy, the rule.

Argentina has responded to Milei more as a strongman than as a man of ideas. His ideas take second place to the sheer energy of his electric personality. A Messianic flock has found again its Messiah, as it did in the 1940s with that other strong duo Juan and Eva Perón, as it did in the 19th century with dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas and his influential daughter Manuelita, in more recent years with that other power couple, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, as Brazil has with Lula, as Venezuela did with Hugo Chávez, who also promoted a personality cult around himself. Indeed, despite inhabiting opposite ends of the political spectrum, Milei has a lot in common with Chávez, including a complete disregard for democratic norms, the demand for enabling acts assigning himself virtual one-man rule, and their undisputed roles as regional paradigm-shifters, in the case of Chávez as leader of South America’s “pink tide”, in the case of Milei as a new prophet of capitalism.

Milei is seen as someone who can take charge of not only the reins of power but also wield the whip needed to control the untamable horses of Argentina’s unruly political actors. Democracy, grafted upon former former Spanish and Portuguese colonies by an enlightened group of 19th-century liberals, never fully took hold in South America, as its long history of internal strife, feuding 19th-century warlords and 20th-century military dictatorships attests. Caudillismo, strongman rule, the organic South American alternative, has been a much better fit.

What’s vital to Argentina is not what Milei believes but simply that he is. Congress is surrendering all power to him not because its legislators have been awakened from their proverbial stupor by the clear tones of Rothbard’s voice but because they instinctively react to a caudillo/president on a mystical quest, because he proclaims in his every speech to act in the name of “the forces of heaven,” because he listens to no one, except his sister Karina, because he wants all power for himself, because he is willing to assume full personal responsibility for putting order in a country of forty-seven million kings and no subjects that is in a perpetual unholy mess since 1816.

As the fugitive Belgian Nazi collaborationist Pierre Daye, who met with General Juan Perón in Buenos Aires to organize the Nazi escape, wrote in his memoirs in the early 1950s: “Argentina is a country of fascists who don’t obey orders.”

In a strongman society Milei’s personal attributes are more powerful motivators than his political or economic ideology. The proof is that Congress is not attaching any conditions for Milei to march right or left or head safely down the middle. Just give him the power and let him guide us out of this mess whoever he deems best, is their message.

The 40 years since the collapse of Argentina’s last military dictatorship in 1983 have been the longest democratic interlude in our country’s history. The only similar long period of relative political stability was the Conservative Republic that, thanks to fraudulent elections and military presidents, lasted 42 years between 1874 and 1916. This is the period Milei seeks to emulate, mistakenly painting it as an era of unhindered capitalist-driven growth when Argentina rivalled Canada, Australia and much of Europe in terms of GDP growth.

Except that this growth was not driven by real capitalism nor stopped by the “socialist” governments that followed, which were socialist only in the feverish imaginings of Milei and his followers.

The economy of Milei’s golden age was an era of recurring social, economic and debt crises. Argentina’s economy grew thanks not only to its fertile Pampas region, but also to excessive and unpayable private and state borrowing. And it then collapsed driven by that same excessive borrowing, plus the rampant graft, corruption and tax evasion of the country’s absentee landlords, who poured the profits of Argentina’s booming agricultural exports not into reinvesting in the land that they quickly abandoned as soon as it made them rich, but into building the gaudy Parisian palaces that they made their semi-permanent homes.

The almost entire land-owning class of the two generations of Argentina’s Conservative Republic grew up speaking French, not Spanish. Argentina’s failure to become Canada or Australia is because Argentina borrowed too much and failed to reinvest its profits at home. Instead, export earnings in gold francs were smuggled back to Europe hidden in cheese export shipments, to be spent there by its absentee landlord class.

Capital flight is an age-old problem in Argentina. As countless other “saviors” in the past, Milei plans to issue yet another tax pardon to the wealthy evaders willing to repatriate their offshore plunder, perpetuating a two-century-old cycle of evasion and tax pardons that have made it impossible to balance state accounts. This age-old magic trick, an almost inside joke between the country’s business community and the political class, is camouflaged by blaming the deficit instead solely on socialist overspending. But it’s hard to balance any budget if the big tax creditors can postpone payment until the next fiscal pardon.

Oblivious to all these real reasons for Milei’s electoral triumph, especially also to the fact that Brazil’s reelected president Lula da Silva is achieving far better economic results than Milei by applying diametrically opposed policies, right-wingers in the US are celebrating that Milei is the first libertarian president elected to office in world history, a fact that is being hailed as paradigm-changing.

“Rothbardian Javier Milei Takes Control of a Major Country,” hailed one US libertarian media after his election, comparing Milei’s “revolution” to the triumph of Marxism in the 1917 Russian revolution.

Not only cult-like Rothbardians are depositing perhaps ill-advised positive expectations on Milei, so are the IMF and the banking world. What are the implications of this? If, as may yet happen, Milei’s experiment ends in a fiasco of hyper-inflation and social chaos, as the similar 2000-2001 economic policies of then-president Fernando de la Rua did, it will be a tremendous setback for real democratic free-market reforms in Argentina.

De La Rua was forced to abandon the presidential palace in a helicopter to avoid being physically ripped to pieces by an irate middle-class population that had taken to the streets after their savings were confiscated by banks that not only closed their doors but boarded them up with wooden planks.

The fact that De La Rua’s labor minister and economy vice-minister, Patricia Bullrich and Federico Sturzeneger, are Milei’s two main political allies behind his Napoleonic redrafting of Argentina’s entire legal canon, does not bode well.

If Milei turns out to be nothing more than a flash in the pan of libertarianism, while “populist” Lula continues to report economic advances, the libertarian dream could conceivably be finished, at least in Argentina.

If instead Milei pulls even a small, sickly rabbit out of his Rothbardian top hat, it will be a true game-changer. Historical precedent is against him. Previous shocks attempts to cut welfare subsidies, privatize state companies and tie the peso to the dollar failed spectacularly during the 1976-83 dictatorship and again in the 1990s, applied incongruously by a right-wing Peronist, Carlos Menem, that last time.

But even a half-way scenario with monthly single-digit inflation, if he manages to tame December’s 25.5% spike, and only sporadic street protests, could pave the way for a formidable North-South axis of authoritarian presidents if Donald Trump wins the US elections.

Moved by Milei’s socialism-bashing Davos speech, Trump posted on his Truth Social site that he is looking forward to aiding his southern emulator. “The new President of Argentina, Javier Milei, who truly loves his country, is working hard and, according to many in the “know,” MAKING GREAT PROGRESS! He inherited a “total mess,” but he is MAGA (MAKE ARGENTINA GREAT AGAIN!), working very hard and, against long odds, will succeed. I look forward to helping him in the future!”

It was not Trump’s first energetic endorsement of Milei. After his electoral victory in November, he posted a video message saying: “The whole word was watching, i am very proud of you, you will turn your country around.”

If that happens, the histories of the US and Argentina may become so intertwined that any prediction today would be nothing short of a fantastical shot in the dark. Especially if through some feedback loop Trump pulls that joker card out of the Argentine president’s authoritarian pack and confers upon himself Milei-like power to enact legislation single-handedly bypassing the US congress.

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SEDER 6 22 26

14:34

14 minutes, 34 seconds

Peter Thiel's been collecting passports for decades. He's also a citizen of New Zealand. I think he's pursued a passport in Malta. He really feels the need to

have multiple passports. And this traces back to a 1997 book called The Sovereign Individual, which is which Tal regards as prophecy, this sort of conspiracy

theory doom book that said that in the 21st century, technology would overthrow nation states and that these cognitive elites, a term taken from eugenics,

would be able to profit from this by using uh something called cyber currency to evade government uh uh power and

authority and by having basically by shopping for jurisdictions where they could move between different countries.

that would cater to them by giving them no taxes and no regulations and laws.

15:17

15 minutes, 17 seconds

Specifically, the book recommended New Zealand and Argentina among the handful of countries where one should pursue these passports. So, as my book spells

15:26

15 minutes, 26 seconds

out, Peter Thiel is obsessed with the sovereign individual and it explains a lot of what he's doing. But people were wondering about the the Argentina move.

15:34

15 minutes, 34 seconds

Obviously, they have a president, Javier Mille, who's an anarcho capitalist, totally aligned with these venture capitalist guys, even though his policies have failed and we had to send

them $20 billion to basically bail them out. But what happened uh two weeks ago that really clarified what Peter Thiel's doing is MLE wrote a piece in the

15:49

15 minutes, 49 seconds

Financial Times, an op-ed that said that Argentina was going to introduce a law to ban AI regulation and keep law uh

15:57

15 minutes, 57 seconds

taxes very low for venture capital and tech and also allow for the creation of nonhuman corporations. basically AI

corporations where no human would be liable for the outcomes of this. So this is some far out radical experimental stuff. Clearly Peter Thiel had a heads

16:13

16 minutes, 13 seconds

up on that. And once again, he's trying to model behavior and show people, let's put down roots in Argentina, which just

like the sovereign individual said is now going to allow a menu of options for us to escape from rules and laws we don't like. You know, in the fantasy,

Argentina would now become the trillionaire fortress of AI future and become a powerful country where the

oligarchs rule. But the positive part of this is that Peter Thiel seems to be betting against the Trump regime. He's very nervous. And Curtis Yarvin, his

16:45

16 minutes, 45 seconds

little political guru, has been weeping openly in interviews and saying people need to leave the United States because Trump's going to fail and there's going

16:52

16 minutes, 52 seconds

to be retribution for all the stuff we did right now. So, in a way, you know, it's always a mix of things with Teal.

...

MMA

1. ### Fox Noticias host: “It is no secret that President Donald Trump expects Argentines to vote for candidates from Milei's party”

10/16/25

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AN 10 25

SUBSIDY SOYBEAN TO CHINA, us ZIP

ADMITS MONEY ONLY TO INFL ELECTION, PROP UP LOSER, IF SOCIALIST ELECTED, TAKE BACK

BESSANT BUDIES ARE INVESTED?!

Even MAGA is fuming as Trump official raises pledge to 'total of $40 billion for Argentina'

On Tuesday afternoon, October 14, U.S. President Donald Trump met with visiting Argentina President Javier Milei at the White House. Trump is offering the South American country, which has suffered major problems with its currency, a $20 billion bailout.

Trump, talking to reporters, made it clear that the bailout money is conditional on the right-wing Milei staying in office.

Trump told reporters, "If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina… I think he’s going to win. And if he wins, we're staying with him — and if he doesn’t win, we're gone."

$20 billion, however, may not be all the money Argentina receives from the U.S. According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Argentina may receive as much as $40 billion from the U.S. when all is said and done.

As Semafor's Eleanor Mueller reports, "The Trump administration is 'working on a $20B facility that would be adjacent to our swap line' for Argentina, Bessent [told] reporters Wednesday.

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"That would be a total of $40B for Argentina," Bessent added, according to Mueller.

The $40 billion figure and Bessent's comments are getting a lot of reactions on X, formerly Twitter.

MeidasTouch's Ron Filipkowski posted, "Now we are up to $40 billion for Argentina. Can anyone stop Bessent from unilaterally sending unlimited amounts of our money to South America? And Republicans won’t even negotiate with the Democrats on health care for Americans. Where is Congress?"

X user Jordan wrote, "America First is slashing SNAP funding for hungry American families while sending $40 billion to Argentina.

Another X user, Scott, commented, "Why doesn't congress have to approve 40 billion of our tax [money] going to Argentina? Can Bessent legally send our tax [money] there?"

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-New Mexico) tweeted, "Breaking news! 15 days into a government shutdown, and Trump has promised a $40 billion bailout to the Argentinian government on the backs of the American people using YOUR taxpayer dollars, while threatening to cut off food assistance to American families."

Self-described "straight, white alpha male" Politics Sloth wrote, "MAGA — 'We need to stop sending money overseas [and] use the money on Americans!' Support cutting government programs — bailing out a foreign country."

Some MAGA Republicans are speaking out as well, arguing that giving $40 billion to Argentina is inconsistent with the America First agenda.

America First proponent Kwasny posted, "Wow. Yesterday, it was $20 billion. Today, it is $40 billion? Sounds like you are pulling numbers from your rear end."

White House Xray wrote, "The Monroe Doctrine 2.0: Dollar Diplomacy edition. Trump's admin rebrands imperialism as 'philosophical charity' -—where foreign aid becomes a loyalty test administered through ATMs. They’ve tied $40 [billion] to Milei’s Oct 26 election, Trump admitting 'we don’t have to do it' (10/15). Yet during America’s 15th day of shutdown, farmers beg for relief while Medicaid gets $1 [trillion] cuts. Bessent calls this 'strategic interest' as Argentina’s market drops 30percent YTD - but US workers? 'Gone,' per Trump’s playbook. Priorities: ideological crusades abroad, austerity at home."

---

mma

Right-wing media touted Milei’s austerity schemes. Now Argentina might need a US bailout.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent floated a financial lifeline for the right-wing leader even as Trump cuts lifesaving foreign aid across the globe

Written by John Knefel

Published 09/26/25

Right-wing media figures have long embraced Argentina President Javier Milei and his extreme austerity and privatization measures, which have now plunged his country into chaos and even triggered the possibility of a bailout from President Donald Trump.

Conservative pundits have consistently celebrated Milei’s drastic cuts to pension programs and social services, sometimes offering them as a template for domestic policy. When Milei took office in late 2023, he implemented a suite of right-wing economic policies — deregulation, privatization, slashing public sector employment — and took steps to artificially bolster Argentina’s currency to bring down inflation. His government saw temporary success in taming inflation, but his policies created widespread misery and he’s now facing a political backlash that threatens to compound Argentina’s troubles.

With the Argentinian economy in free fall, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent assured global markets that the Trump administration would consider extending a series of extraordinary bailout measures to help Milei’s beleaguered government. On September 24, Bessent went as far as to admit the Trump administration’s goal was to provide Milei support to “bridge him to the election.”

For all the support Milei has gotten over the years from conservative media, Fox News and others in right-wing media have barely mentioned the potential bailout at all.

• ### Right-wing media praise Milei’s austerity program

Conservative pundits have embraced Milei — some even prior to his victory in November 2023 — and have repeatedly pointed to his social spending cuts as a model for Trump’s administration.

• • A day after Milei was elected, conservative economist Art Laffer argued Milei was “not a kook” or “far-right-winger” and bet he would make Argentina “the outstanding, pro-growth economy of Central and South America” as president. Fox host Larry Kudlow concurred, adding that “the socialism they’ve been flirting with almost all over the continent hasn’t worked. … This guy might turn that around.” Fox Business, *Kudlow*, [11/20/23]

• • In June 2024, Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt praised Milei over a chyron that read: “Argentina's Milei shows gov't reduction can be done.” Schmitt said: “When Milei came in to this government, and he’s just ripping up all these different agencies he wants to defund, cut government — cut, cut, cut, cut, cut — and now we see this week, the first time in 30 years they’ve had no inflation on food.” He added: “This is how it has to be done.” Former and current Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka, then out of government, concurred, arguing that Milei understands “the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [6/26/24]

• • That September, Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo said: “I love that guy, Javier Milei. He's done such a great job.” Bartiromo continued: “It's really amazing to see the kind of change that he has spurred in Argentina.” Earlier in the segment her guest praised Milei because he had “cut half the government.” Fox Business, *Mornings With Maria Bartiromo*, [9/23/24]

• • On January 15, as Trump was preparing for his second term, a frequent guest on Steve Bannon’sWar Roompodcast said, “Look at what Milei has achieved in Argentina in such a short space of time.” The guest, Phillip Patrick, continued: “He cut government spending significantly, gutted useless government departments.” Patrick added: “The people are suffering shorter term, but longer term, the economy is looking much healthier. We need that same aggressive move today for the U.S. economy because we’re at the point of no return.” Patrick is a spokesperson for Birch Gold, which is a sponsor of War Room. Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [1/15/25; Fudgie, accessed 9/26/25; Birch Gold, accessed 9/26/25, 9/26/25]

• • In February, Fox News host Will Cain discussed the Trump administration’s early efforts to gut the federal workforce and referred to Argentina as a “source of inspiration.” Milei “came in with meat cleaver, cutting away government waste and spending,” Cain said, later concluding: “The success for America could have been modeled in Argentina.” Fox News, *The Will Cain Show*, [2/18/25]

• • Also in February, as the Trump administration was cutting hundreds of thousands of federal jobs, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade defended the administration’s actions by arguing, “Argentina is doing it.” ABC News, [2/24/25; Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/25/25]

• • In March, Schmitt again praised Milei, claiming he had “slashed a bloated government in a country that had terrible inflation and a cratering economy, and he's managing to turn his country around.” His guest, John Stossel, also celebrated Milei’s breakneck deregulation rate and said of the Trump administration: “If they do that, it would be great in America. But I doubt that will happen.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [3/11/25]

• • In March, a Brazilian journalist on Bannon’sWar Roomsaid conservatives in the U.S. “are thrilled with Millei in Argentina — we all are. We love Argentina.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [3/31/25]

• • As congressional Republicans advanced their One Big Beautiful Bill, Fox News host Will Cain presented a video of Milei promising to eliminate vast swaths of the Argentine government and suggested it was a template that the United States could follow. “It can be done,” Cain said, repeating Milei’s own phrasing. “It’s been done in Argentina. Can it be done here in the United States?” He added: “If you’re going to make government cuts like they did in Argentina, you would think you have to start with Medicaid.” Fox News, *The Will Cain Show*, [6/11/25]

• • As recently as July, Bannon argued onWar Roomthat “Argentina is on a tear right now.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [7/22/25]

The promised lifeline to Milei comes amid Trump’s escalating military campaign against Venezuela, which has included extrajudicial strikes on several boats in the Caribbean, and what The Associated Press terms “a unilateral wave of attacks from the Trump administration against Brazil” after former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, was sent to prison for attempting a coup. Those attacks have included blistering, retaliatory tariffs on Brazil as punishment for Bolsonaro's prosecution. The bifurcated approach — a carrot for Trump’s allies, a stick for his enemies — illustrates MAGA’s broader goals in Latin America.

• ### MAGA-endorsed austerity has impoverished Argentina

Trump’s supposed beneficence to Argentina stands in stark contrast to his unprecedented cuts to foreign humanitarian aid and reveals his commitment to defending anti-left-wing politicians and market fundamentalism.

The move may have come as a surprise to some, given Trump's dismantling of the government’s foreign aid capacity, but what’s on offer to Argentina isn’t life-saving food and medicine to those in extreme poverty. Instead, it’s a lifeline to a far-right government hell-bent on eliminating social services and exposing its citizens to the discipline of the market. It’s a project shared by Trump, the Republican Party, and their right-wing media allies. In other words, Milei is too big to fail.

In December, The New York Times reported that Milei’s slash-and-burn approach has plunged more than 5 million people in the country into poverty. Although some financial elites praised his efforts to trim inflation, the effects for working class Argentines have been disastrous. Public sector wages cratered by 15 percent as Milei has forced workers into precarious gig and contract labor, part of his larger plan to privatize large sectors of the economy.

Unfortunately for Argentinians, Milei’s bloodletting has failed to cure the patient. Unemployment hit its highest level in four years in the first quarter of 2025, ticking down only slightly in the second quarter, largely due to jobs added in the informal economy. The economic downturn helped drive a loss by Milei’s party in recent local elections in Buenos Aires, which then spurred a run on the peso and a stock market collapse. Milei is facing legislative elections next month, further adding to the political crisis engulfing his administration.

Milei responded to his recent electoral loss by promising to “deepen and accelerate” his regulatory and privatization schemes. That level of commitment to right-wing economic orthodoxy may help explain why Trump recently Milei, at a bilateral meeting during the United Nations General Assembly, as having “done a fantastic job.”

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bb 6 24

As if dealing with COVID-19, conflicts, and climate change wasn't enough, emerging nations are now suffocating under a colossal $29 trillion in public debt.

According to a new UN report, the debt crisis is so bad that "15 countries are spending more on interest payments than they do on education" and "46 spend more on debt payments than they do on health care."

As the NY Times' Patricia Cohen reports, "Unmanageable debts have been a recurring feature of the modern global economy, but the current wave may well be the worst so far. Overall, government debt worldwide is four times what it was in 2000."

Who is cashing in on poor countries debts? According to the Times: old school development banks and major Western banks, shady private lenders, official creditors like China, "as well as a variety of sometimes secret loan agreements governed by different national regulations."

These lenders rake in extra money with usurious surcharges, too:

Martin Guzmán, a former finance minister of Argentina who also experienced the devastating impact of his native country's debt crisis, was at the Vatican meeting last week. In his view, I.M.F. help is sometimes counterproductive, offering bailout loans, now with high interest rates, that end up increasing a country's already burdensome debt

He has also railed against the extra fees, or surcharges, that the fund imposes on struggling high-risk debtors, siphoning precious funds that could be used to provide health care and rebuild an economy.

The five largest borrowers — Ukraine, Egypt, Argentina, Ecuador and Pakistan — paid $2 billion alone in surcharges last year, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. On average, surcharges ended up raising the cost of borrowing for all affected countries by nearly 50 percent.

Until the global financial system is fundamentally reformed, this cycle of debt and misery for emerging nations will keep spinning.

Previously:

• 'Your debt is someone else's asset', a short film from The Intercept, Mollie Crabapple and co., and Astra Taylor

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an 2 24

critics are blasting CPAC (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=CPAC), the Conservative Political Action Conference, as the embattled head of the organization that puts together and hosts the event, Matt Schlapp (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Matt+Schlapp), is attacking NBC News (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nazis-mingle-openly-cpac-spreading-antisemitic-conspiracy-theories-fin-rcna140335) over its report that states: “Nazis mingle openly at CPAC, spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and finding allies.”

“Nazis appeared to find a friendly reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year,” writes Ben Goggin, NBC News Digital deputy editor for technology. “Throughout the conference, racist extremists, some of whom had secured official CPAC badges, openly mingled with conference attendees and espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories.”

“The presence of these individuals has been a persistent issue at CPAC. In previous years, conference organizers have ejected well-known Nazis and white supremacists such as Nick Fuentes,” NBC News also reported. “But this year, racist conspiracy theorists didn’t meet any perceptible resistance at the conference where Donald Trump has been the keynote speaker since 2017.”

Schlapp is the head of the American Conservative Union. He and his wife Mercedes Schlapp (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Mercedes+Schlapp) were once described as the “Trump-Era ‘It Couple’ (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/us/politics/schlapp-trump.html).” Now he is facing a $9 million lawsuit (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2023/01/male-staffer-sues-matt-schlapp-for-9-million-lawsuit-alleges-sexual-battery-after-aggressively-fondling-groin-area/) over alleged sexual assault, including “aggressive fondling,” after Republican strategist Carlton Huffman, a staffer at the time for the failed Herschel Walker senatorial campaign, says Matt Schlapp groped him in January of 2023.

READ MORE: Democrats Discredit GOP Claims on IVF as Republicans Try to Regain Ground After Fallout (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2024/02/democrats-discredit-gop-claims-on-ivf-as-republicans-try-to-regain-ground-after-fallout/)

CPAC’s list of speakers last week included the far-right ultra-conservative (https://www.npr.org/2023/11/19/1214092698/javier-milei-a-radical-libertarian-populist-elected-president-of-argentina#::text=BUENOS%20AIRES%2C%20Argentina%20%E2%80%94%20Argentines%20have,by%20more%20than%2010%20points.) president of Argentina, Javier Milei, who “gave Donald Trump on Saturday an ecstatic hug,” the AP (https://apnews.com/article/trump-milei-cpac-argentina-biden-f8e97d401a13318f8cc55faf29021030) reported. Donald Trump (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Donald+Trump), calling himself a “proud political dissident (https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/24/politics/cpac-speech-trump/index.html),” delivered the keynote address at CPAC on Saturday. CNN (https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/24/politics/fact-check-trump-delivers-another-lie-filled-cpac-speech/index.html) described it as “lie-filled.”

Schlapp was both furious and dismissive of NBC News’ report.

“NBC’s claim that there was a Nazi presence at CPAC 2024 is false, misleading, and grossly manipulative—especially coming from a writer who has carried the water for Hamas in much of his reporting on the Israel-Gaza war,” Schlapp wrote (https://twitter.com/CPAC/status/1761805247331090911) in a statement posted by CPAC to X. “When we come across someone at CPAC peddling any kind of anti-semitism, we deal with them immediately. Knowing this, NBC weaved together lies and fabrications to create a false perception, and we won’t stand by idly while NBC engages in willful misinformation.”

In a separate post, Schlapp also wrote (https://twitter.com/mschlapp/status/1761804394012479597):

“Yawn. This is a tired old cliche. The Neo-Nazis in our midst are the ones controlling our college campuses and major institutions and grossly populate the newsrooms of corporate media, calling for an Israeli surrender.”

READ MORE: ‘Insultingly Stupid’: Trump’s Move to Toss Out Classified Docs Case Torn Apart by Experts (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2024/02/insultingly-stupid-trumps-move-to-toss-out-classified-docs-case-torn-apart-by-experts/)

NBC’s Goggin responded (https://twitter.com/BenjaminGoggin/status/1761912963315781966):

“The Nazis introduced themselves to me at a mixer and said they were national socialists, started talking about skull measurements and pushing the conspiracy theory that all races were being controlled Jewish people. They were posting about their presence at CPAC online.”

He also provided photos and video:

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“Either CPAC is lying about having no idea about this, or they simply don’t have a grasp on who they approved to come to their conference…,” Goggin added (https://twitter.com/BenjaminGoggin/status/1761916216896094322).

READ MORE: Smirnov Scandal: Experts Call for Investigations, Warn GOP of Possible Conspiracy Charges (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2024/02/smirnov-scandal-experts-call-for-investigations-warn-gop-of-possible-conspiracy-charges/)

“Nazis, antisemitism, the great replacement theory, [white supremacist Nick] Fuentes, have become so common among conservatives that I think attendees, even journalists, didn’t think too deeply about them being at CPAC. There was very much an ‘oh them’ attitude about the nazis.”

“It really illustrated how successfully extremists have shifted the Overton window. This year, they were expected, and their presence was tolerated,” he added (https://twitter.com/BenjaminGoggin/status/1761522234005369108).

Critics blasted CPAC.

“At CPAC, avowed Nazis mingled openly & spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, as speakers welcomed the ‘end of democracy.’ They are all saying the quiet part out loud. And most GOP lawmakers are silent (or cheering). This is how extremism is normalized,” warned (https://twitter.com/amyspitalnick/status/1761742552246505933) Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Spitalnick “led a group that won a $25 million judgment against the neo-Nazis who organized the deadly 2017 Charlottesville march in Virginia,” The Times of Israel (https://www.timesofisrael.com/amy-spitalnick-who-fought-neo-nazis-in-court-to-lead-leftist-group-bend-the-arc/) reported in 2022.

“Seriously, read this @BenjaminGoggin piece and tell me those of us ringing the alarm bells on increasingly mainstreamed Nazism are being hyperbolic,” Spitalnick added (https://twitter.com/amyspitalnick/status/1761744100003393806).

“CPAC denies the presence of Nazis at their conference this year, but when I reported that @cpac was teeming with white nationalists in 2022 there wasn’t a peep from Matt Schlapp about it,” wrote (https://twitter.com/stevanzetti/status/1761914884248293431) Texas Observer special investigative correspondent Steven Monacelli.

IFrame Content

Former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), currently a candidate for Congress running to unseat U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), said (https://twitter.com/MondaireJones/status/1762140215596962164): “I am appalled that Nazis were allowed to attend CPAC—an event Donald Trump headlined again this year. Make no mistake: the Republican Party and Trump have empowered white nationalists for years.”

Responding to the NBC News article, former U.S. government official Mike Walker wrote (https://twitter.com/New_Narrative/status/1761552234880417837) on X: “This is not Munich, 1933. This is Washington, DC, 2024.”

See the photos and video above or at this link (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2024/02/how-extremism-is-normalized-schlapp-furious-as-critics-slam-cpac-over-report-of-nazis/).

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/world/americas/nazi-artifacts-argentina.html

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9 22

https://boingboing.net/2022/09/02/jammed-gun-foils-assassination-attempt-on-argentina-vice-president.html

Argentine Accused of Torture Under Dictatorship Extradicted from France

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guk1219

The polluters

Argentina How fracking is taking its toll on indigenous people

In collaboration with Forensic Architecture, this video looks at the Mapuche community’s claim the oil and gas industry has irreversibly damaged their ancestral homeland

5:03

'Greed is killing the world'Indigenous Mapuche pay high price for fracking dream

Fossil fuelsTop asset managers oversee $300bn investments

State StreetFossil fuel bosses 'must change or be voted out'

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evangelicals burning houses?

==

anti-austerity Peronistas  Mauricio Macri was defeated by a ticket that included former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the No. 2 spot

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Argentine_general_election

019 Argentine general election

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2019 Argentine general election| * * * |

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General elections were held in Argentina on 27 October 2019, to elect the president of Argentina, members of the national congress and the governors of most provinces.^[2] Alberto Fernández of the Justicialist Party won the presidency, and incumbent president Mauricio Macri lost his re-election bid for a second term. Macri is the first incumbent president in Argentine history to be defeated in his reelection bid.

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Electoral system:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

The election of the president will be conducted under the ballotage system, a modified version of the two-round system. A candidate can win the presidency in a single round by either winning 45% of the vote, or if they win 40% of the vote while finishing 10 percentage points ahead of the second-place candidate. If no candidate meets either threshold, a runoff takes place between the top two candidates.^[3] Voting is compulsory for citizens between 18 and 70 years old.^[4] Suffrage was also extended to 16- and 17-year-olds, though without compulsory voting.^[5]

There are a total of 257 seats of the Chamber of Deputies. They are elected from 24 electoral districts–the 23 provinces, plus the federal district of Buenos Aires, which elects its own executive and legislature and is represented in the national Congress like all other provinces.^[6] The number of seats are distributed in relation to the population of the province. One-third of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies are reserved for women. The 130 seats of the Chamber of Deputies up for election were elected from 24 multi-member constituencies based on the 23 provinces and Buenos Aires. Seats were allocated using the D'Hondt method of proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of 3%.^[4]

The 24 seats in the Senate up for election were elected in three-seat constituencies using the closed list system. Each district is represented by three senatorial seats. Each party is allowed to register up to two candidates; one of those registered must be female. The party receiving the most votes wins two seats, and the second-placed party won one.^[7] The third senatorial seat was established in the Constitution of 1994 in order to better represent the largest minority in each district.

Congress

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Argentina election: Centre-left Alberto Fernández wins ... - BBC

https://www.bbc.com › news › world-latin-america-50203727

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1.

:{Oct 28, 2019 - Centre-left opposition candidate Alberto Fernández has been elected :{president:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: of :{Argentina:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: in a vote dominated by economic concerns.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

In Argentina Election, Leftists Savor Victory Over Incumbent ...

https://www.nytimes.com › 2019/10/27 › world › americas › argentina-electi...

Oct 27, 2019 - President Mauricio Macri was defeated by a ticket that included former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in the No. 2 spot.

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https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/13/bolivia_evo_morales_coup_debate

In  Bolivia, right-wing Senator Jeanine Áñez declared herself president Tuesday night despite a lack of quorum in Congress, amid a deepening political crisis in the country. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, left the country Monday after being granted asylum in Mexico. Morales announced his resignation Sunday shortly after the Bolivian military took to the airwaves to call for his departure. His Movement Toward Socialism party is refusing to recognize Áñez as president, calling her claim illegal and decrying Evo Morales’s resignation over the weekend as a military coup. Last month, Morales was re-elected for a fourth term in a race his opponents claimed was marred by fraud. He ran for a fourth term after contesting a referendum upholding term limits. On Tuesday, the Organization of American States held an emergency meeting in Washington, where U.S. Ambassador Carlos Trujillo read a statement from President Donald Trump applauding Evo Morales’s resignation and warning it should “send a strong signal” to Venezuela and Nicaragua. Mexico, Uruguay, Nicaragua and the president-elect of Argentina have all denounced Morales’s departure as a coup. Morales’s departure has sparked demonstrations and clashes across Bolivia. We host a debate on the political crisis in Bolivia with Pablo Solón, former ambassador to the United Nations under President Evo Morales until 2011, and Kevin Young, assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the author of “Blood of the Earth: Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia.”

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junta http://www.yendor.com/vanished/junta.html

is related to vulture cap.

guy doing coup does it to fend off investigation of was worse corruption than he accuse gov't of

https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/secret-archives-reveal-a-dirty-war-how-the-us-backed-a-foreign-militarys-conflict-that-kill-30000/

Rut Diamint, Torcuato di Tella University

History books may never tell the full story of the dictatorship that terrorized Argentina from 1976 to 1984.

But newly declassified United States military and intelligence documents recently delivered to Argentina offer new details about the country’s brutal military junta.

The archival documents were the fourth and final batch of 43,000 declassified U.S. telegrams, military records, intelligence and confidential memos given to Argentina following an extraordinary 2016 agreement between Argentine President Mauricio Macri and former U.S. President Barack Obama.

“Argentines now have more information about a dark period of our history that will allow us to continue strengthening justice, seeking and finding the truth,” Macri said on Twitterafter receiving the 7,500-document report on April 12.

The archives narrate the human rights abuses committed by Argentina’s military government, often with the assistance of the United States. They include the forced disappearances of 30,000 people, international assassination squads that stalked their victims abroad and the kidnapping of hundreds of babies born in detention.

Bloody history of US intervention

The U.S. declassification effort began under persistent pressure from Argentine human rights groups founded to uncover the atrocities of the dictatorship – a period I have spent my academic career studying.

Argentine democracy was interrupted by military coups six times in the 20th century.

The declassified documents outline what happened after the last coup, staged in 1976 by Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla. It gave way to the cruelest, most repressive and violent eight years of Argentina’s history.

In August 2000 representatives from Argentina’s Center for Legal and Social Studies and the original Grandmothers and Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo – a human rights group that locates the lost children of the dictatorship, which has since splintered into several factions – met with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

That encounter led to the declassification of 4,700 State Department documents in 2002. Those documents included U.S. diplomatic cables, memoranda, reports and meeting notes related to the Argentine dictatorship, and revealed clear U.S. involvement in the junta’s “dirty war.”

Now, Argentina has the military and intelligence archives behind these operations, too.

The declassified documents show that U.S. intervention in Latin America went well beyond giving “a little encouragement” to Latin American military regimes, as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger put it in 1976.

Argentina was the operations center for Plan Condor, a U.S-organized alliance between the dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, created in 1975 and operational until around 1980.

Fearing the spread of communism across the Americas, the Ford administration offered these rightist military regimes everything from counterinsurgency training and financial assistance to intelligence briefings.

With U.S. support, Argentina’s junta kidnapped leftists, dissidents, union leaders and anyone who looked remotely like a threat. They tortured detainees, and then threw them alive and conscious out of airplanes into the River Plate, near Buenos Aires, or dumped their bodies in mass graves.

Pregnant women were killed after giving birth, their babies adopted by the families of childless generals. Neighbors under police surveillance informed on other neighbors to appease the junta, then were abducted and tortured anyway.

The U.S. eventually grew uncomfortable with the activities of its Argentine allies.

In 1976 Robert C. Hill, U.S. ambassador to Argentina, reported to Washington that the number of people detained by the junta must “run into the thousands” and, with Kissinger’s knowledge, confronted the Argentine government about its human rights abuses.

“[Argentina’s] security forces are totally out of control,” Assistant Secretary of State Harry Shlaudeman told Kissinger in 1976.

The U.S. withdrew its support from Plan Condor after Jimmy Carter became president in January 1977. Carter, a Democrat, hoped to see democracy restored in Argentina.

That would take another six years.

A bloody history learned little by little

Argentines have learned the details of this sadistic regime little by little.

Even in the waning days of the dictatorship, human rights groups began filing freedom of information requests and writs of habeas corpus with the dictatorship, to little effect.

The law began to work in democracy’s favor again after Argentina’s first post-dictatorship leader, the late President Raúl Alfonsín, was elected in 1983. He created a truth commission that uncovered 340 secret detention centers across Argentina and identified 8,690 “disappeared” people.

Once some perpetrators and victims were known, the victims’ families could file suits to hold the people who oversaw torture centers criminally responsible for their loved ones’ disappearance.

Painstaking archival research, interviews, investigations, lawsuits and prosecutions have followed under every administration since, albeit with differing levels of priority.

Much of what is known about the fates of those abducted by the military regime was discovered in the basement of the Argentine Air Force in 2013, where “black lists” of identified leftists were archived.

The newly declassified U.S. archives offer little new information that might bring closure to thousands of Argentine families whose loved ones remain, officially, “disappeared.”

As of 2017, 2,979 people had been tried for their role in the dictatorship. The charges include crimes against humanity, arbitrary detention and kidnapping. Another 593 cases remained in process.

‘Never again’

The newly declassified U.S. telegrams and confidential communications may spur new prosecutions.

They include the names of government officials and informants complicit in Plan Condor, as well as details on the torture techniques used to extract information from detainees.

“The release of these documents stands as a uniquely valuable contribution to the cause of human rights, the cause of justice and the cause of our fundamental right-to-know,” said Carlos Osorio, a Latin America analyst at George Washington University’s National Security Archive.

In 2014, under President Cristina Fernández, Argentina began its own declassification program, alongside that of the United States. Among other disclosures, it published thousands of dictatorship-era archives, including 648 pages documenting the staffing and day-to-day operations of the military junta’s foreign ministry, including its relations with the United States.

Argentina’s commitment to uncovering every dark detail of the dictatorship derives from a national sentiment that its democracy depends on understanding the past.

“Nunca mas” – “never again” – has become the rallying cry of a population that insists that history should not repeat itself.

Rut Diamint, Political Science Profesor, Torcuato di Tella University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

https://www.ecowatch.com/argentina-fracking-indigenous-lawsuit-2623742584.html

A major indigenous group in the Argentine Patagonia is suing some of world's biggest oil and gas companies over illegal fracking waste dumps that put the "sensitive Patagonian environment," local wildlife and communities at risk, according to Greenpeace.

The Mapuche Confederation of Neuquén filed a lawsuit against Exxon, French company Total and the Argentina-based Pan American Energy (which is partially owned by BP), AFP reported. Provincial authorities and a local fracking waste treatment company called Treater Neuquén S.A. were also named in the suit.

The Mapuche accused the companies of contaminating the environment with "dangerous waste" due to "deficient treatment" close to the town of Añelo, according to AFP.

The waste comes from operations in the Vaca Muerta field, one of the largest deposits of shale oil and gas in the world that lies in the Neuquén province.

...

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http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/argentina-pastries-political

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/opinion/how-hedge-funds-held-argentina-for-ransom.html

How Hedge Funds Held Argentina for Ransom

By MARTIN GUZMAN and JOSEPH E. STIGLITZAPRIL 1, 2016

...ex trial in history between a sovereign nation, Argentina, and its bondholders — including a group of United States-based hedge funds — officially came to an end yesterday when the Argentine Senate ratified a settlement.

The resolution was excellent news for a small group of well-connected investors, and terrible news for the rest of the world, especially countries that face their own debt crises in the future.

In late 2001, Argentina defaulted on $132 billion in loans during its disastrous depression. Gross domestic product dropped by 28 percent, 57.5 percent of Argentines were living in poverty, and the unemployment rate skyrocketed to above 20 percent, leading to riots and clashes that resulted in 39 deaths.

Unable to pay its creditors, Argentina restructured its debt in two rounds of negotiations. The package discounted the bonds by two-thirds but provided a mechanism for more payments when the country’s economy recovered, which it did. A vast majority of the bondholders — 93 percent — accepted the deal.

Among the small minority who refused the deal were investors who had bought many of their bonds at a huge discount, well after the country defaulted and even after the first round of restructuring. These kinds of investors have earned the name vulture funds by buying up distressed debt, then, often aided by lawyers and lobbyists, trying to force a settlement.

The companies involved included some of the best-known vulture funds, including NML Capital, a subsidiary of Elliott Management, a hedge fund co-led by Paul Singer, a major contributor to the Republican Party, as well as Aurelius Capital and Dart Management. NML, which had the largest claim in the Argentina case, was the lead litigant of a group of bondholders in New York federal courts.

For a long time, Argentina refused to pay the holdouts. The funds tried all sorts of ways to change the country’s position, including, at one point, having an iconic Argentine ship seized in Ghana.

Then a 2012 ruling by Judge Thomas Griesa of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York threw the game in the vulture funds’ favor, ruling that Argentina had to pay them back at full value, a cost to Argentina of $4.65 billion. NML, for example, would get a total return of 1,500 percent on its initial investment, according to our calculations, because of the cheap prices it paid for the debt and because of a “compensatory” interest rate of 9 percent under New York law.

The ruling, which became effective in 2014, did something else: Judge Griesa issued an injunction blocking Argentina from paying anything to the creditors who had accepted the deal until it had paid the vultures in full.

The judge gave the vultures the weapon they needed: Argentina had to either pay them off or renege on the default they had negotiated, ruining the country’s credit in the future and threatening its recovery.

On Thursday, Argentina finally settled for something close to the terms that Judge Griesa set. NML Capital will receive about half of the total agreement — $2.28 billion for its investment of about $177 million, a total return of 1,180 percent. (Argentina also paid the legal fees for the vultures.)

This resolution will carry a high price for the international financial system, encouraging other funds to hold out and making debt restructuring virtually impossible. Why would bondholders accept a haircut if they could wait and get exorbitant returns for a small investment?

In some ways, Argentina was an outlier. It fought aggressively for the best terms from the initial set of bondholders, setting the stage for a spectacular recovery: From 2003 to 2008, until the global financial crisis intruded, the country grew 8 percent per year on average, and unemployment declined to 7.8 percent from more than 20 percent. In the end, the creditors who had accepted the initial restructuring got the principal value in full and even 40 percent more.

Most countries are intimidated by the creditors and accept what is demanded, with often devastating consequences. According to our figures, 52 percent of sovereign restructurings with private creditors since 1980 have been followed by another restructuring or default within five years. Greece, the most recent example, restructured its debt in 2012, and only a few years later it is in desperate need of more relief.

It’s common to hear the phrase “moral hazard” when looking at countries that face crushing debt, like Greece or Argentina. Moral hazard refers to the idea that allowing countries (or companies or people) to renegotiate and lower their debts only reinforces the profligate behavior that put them in debt in the first place. Better that the debtor faces disapproval and harsh consequences. But the Argentina deal reversed the moral hazard by rewarding investors for making small bets and reaping huge rewards.

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Britain and Belgium have made particular kinds of vulture suits illegal. Similar legislation, with bipartisan support, stalled in Congress in 2009. Last September, the United Nations overwhelmingly approved nine principles that should guide sovereign debt restructuring. During the debate, one ambassador apologized to actual vultures — the birds — for using the term. (One of us, Martin Guzman, made presentations to both the United Nations and to the Argentine Senate, but was not paid in either case.)

Only six countries voted against, but as those are the major jurisdictions for sovereign lending (including the United States), these principles will not be very effective.

Many countries have bankruptcy laws. But there is no equivalent framework for sovereign bankruptcies, not even something remotely close to that. The United Nations has taken the lead to fill this vacuum, and as Argentina’s case proves, the initiative is more important than ever.

Rubio’s Billionaire wins ransom

from Argentina

Monday, February 29, 2016

[Greg Palast has investigated Paul "The Vulture" Singer for BBC TV and The Guardian for the last 9 years.]

Paul Singer, known as The Vulture, won a $4.65 billion payment from Argentina — nearly ONE HUNDRED TIMES his "investment" of $50 million in old Argentina bonds.  It was, in finance speak, the most successful "vulture attack" ever.Singer’s actions are outlawed in most of the civilized world. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, attempted to stop Singer’s predatory act, but Singer did a brilliant end-run:  he used his cash to help elect a new President in Argentina that would jump to his tune and pay him billions.

Now, he’s attempting to do the same to the USA:  pick a president for us who will feather his vulture's nest.  He’s the number one donor sugar daddy for Marco Rubio’s candidacy [See, "Who Hatched Rubio"].  Singer is also the big bankroller of Karl Rove, to make sure that, even if he can’t sell Rubio to the GOP base, at least The Vulture can use "Turdblossom" Rove to ensure that Hillary won’t become President and put him out the of vulture business.

Rubio, in fact, skirted some ethical lines in his attempts to pressure the State Department to side with his corpse-chewing donor against Argentina.

As I’ve said, Singer directs his fellow billionaires’ investments in candidates.  So, it is not surprising to see The Koch's lend their top political operative, Marc Short, to Singer's man, Rubio.

Rubio’s affection for carrion-eating birds has no decent bounds. While Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders are currently siding with Puerto Rico against a whole flock of vulture financiers. Sanders and Clinton support Rico’s plea for the same bankruptcy protections afforded the 50 states (and afforded to Donald Trump).

But Rubio has actually switched positions. The Senator, who originally supported bankruptcy rights for Puerto Ricans, turned on a dime the moment Vulture financier Andrew Herenstein of Monarch Capital announced he would hold a big fundraiser for Marco in the Hamptons.

Rubio now is calling for Puerto Rico to lay off teachers and sanitation workers to pay more to Herenstein and his fellow vultures–financiers already cranking profits on Puerto Rico bonds.

Watching Rubio flip his positions to his donors’ wishes is like watching one of those little doggies glued to the top of an old mechanical piggy bank who jump through a clown’s hoop when you put a coin in their snout.

Well,

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http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/11/the_vulture_how_billionaire_rubio_backer

Argentina has reached an agreement to pay U.S. hedge funds that have sought for 14 years to profit off the country’s debt. The hedge funds bought up Argentina’s debt for bargain prices after its financial crisis, then demanded full repayment. Former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had refused to pay the firms, calling them "vulture funds." But under new right-wing President Mauricio Macri, Argentina has agreed to pay $4.65 billion to four hedge funds, including Elliott Management, run by billionaire Paul Singer. The deal would see the hedge funds take about 75 percent of what they demanded from Argentina—several times more than what they actually paid for the debt. Singer’s fund itself netted $2.4 billion—10 to 15 times its original investment. We speak to journalist Greg Palast. His recent article is called "Rubio’s Billionaire Wins Ransom from Argentina."

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http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-07/argentinas-vulture-paul-singer-is-wall-street-freedom-fighter

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