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Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 08:00
He killed that man. This is the sort of rhetoric I see on Next Door frequently. But I haven’t seen anyone suggest that the mentally ill should be ground up as dog food. Yet. It doesn’t sound like the man was threatening anyone. The 24-year-old passenger stepped in after the vagrant, identified by sources as Jordan Neely, 30, began going on an aggressive rant on a northbound F train Monday afternoon, according to police and a witness who took the video. “He starts to make a speech,” freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vazquez said in Spanish during an interview Tuesday, referring to the disturbed man. “He started screaming in an aggressive manner,” Vazquez told The Post. “He said he had no food, he had no drink, that he was tired and doesn’t care if he goes to jail. He started screaming all these things, took off his jacket, a black jacket that he had, and threw it on the ground.” That’s when he said the straphanger came up behind Neely and took him to the ground in a chokehold — keeping him there for some 15 minutes, Vazquez said.
Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 06:30
Memories… President Donald Trump on Friday extolled the debt ceiling as “a sacred element of our country” that should never be wielded as a bargaining chip in budget talks — despite urging Republican lawmakers to do just that 6½ years ago. “That’s a very, very sacred thing in our country, debt ceiling. We can never play with it. So I would have to assume we’re in great shape,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The president’s remarks come as White House officials, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, home in on a two-year budget agreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would raise the national debt limit. “When I first came into office,” Trump said, “I asked about the debt ceiling. … And I said, I remember to Sen. Schumer and to Nancy Pelosi, ‘Would anybody ever use that to negotiate with?’ They said, ‘Absolutely not.’” The president added: “That’s a sacred element of our country.
Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 06:00

Political economists often place the state at the centre of explanations of change in capitalism. The emergence of a ‘welfare’ or ‘nation building’ state during the twentieth century reflects the advance of democratic movements and Keynesian inspired macroeconomic management. More recently neoliberalism is associated with fiscal austerity enforced through the rise of corporate and financial power. Shifts in state finances, and how states finances are accounted for, were central to these broader political-economic shifts.

In a recent open access article published in the journal Critical Perspectives on Accounting, as part of a forthcoming special issue on ‘the future of the state’, we bring state theory into conversation with critical accounting literature to explore the relationship between fiscal accounting and capitalist change. Drawing on Joseph Schumpeter’s fiscal sociology and his concept of the ‘tax state’, we connect changes in fiscal practice to turning points in the reorganisation of the state’s role within capitalism [...]

Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 05:00
This one is a long time right wing operative as well: Federal prosecutors have charged a former F.B.I. agent with illegally entering the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot and said he had called police officers Nazis as he encouraged a mob of Trump loyalists to kill them. The former agent, Jared L. Wise, was arrested on Monday and faces four misdemeanor counts, including disrupting the orderly conduct of government and trespassing, after agents received a tip in January 2022 that he had been inside the Capitol, according to a criminal complaint. Mr. Wise, 50, told the police they were like the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s feared secret police, the complaint said. When violence erupted, he shouted in the direction of rioters attacking the law enforcement officers, “Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!” Mr. Wise raised his arms in celebration after breaching the Capitol in a face mask, and he escaped through a window, the complaint added. ‘ He seems nice. This is an interesting trajectory. I have to wonder how many people like him opted to stay in the FBI. More than we think, I’d guess. From 2004 to 2017, Mr.
Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 04:57
The Australian government is keen to talk about defence, big submarines, China and national security. And renewable energy, big batteries, electric cars and big hydrogen. But put the two together — security and climate — and an odd thing happens. When it comes to the biggest threat to the nation, that of climate-related risks to Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 04:56
Reports that Australia pays retired senior US military officials up to $7,500 a day for advice on AUKUS related defence projects, reveals a cultural cringe and taste for secrecy. Such practice is coupled to a common policy technique, of avoiding criticism by maintaining public ignorance. On controversial issues, such as the development of US military Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 04:55
It is difficult to imagine a scenario for next year’s Presidential elections which does not increase the already bitter polarisation of American society. The level of irrationality and violence in the United States means that in the coming decades it may well veer between bellicosity and isolationism. In the face of an uncertain American polity, Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 04:53
The horror stories revealed by the Robodebt Royal Commission have prompted commentaries that have criticised Robodebt as an ethical or moral failure, a legal failure, a failure of common sense, a failure to apply the laws of mathematics, a failure of the hollowed-out public service and a failure of leadership. However, there is an aspect Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 03:30

“Beef between Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shows no sign of abating.” — Axios

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My fellow Americans, we have a rodent problem.

Mickey Mouse and his handlers at Disney have gone too far.

Florida is where woke goes to die. And I, Ron DeSantis, am running for president so I can kill joy nationally. As the next president of the United States, I promise to slaughter Mickey Mouse. And if killing one universally beloved cultural symbol isn’t enough, I’ll use my pudding-slick fingers to choke every character that brought even a glimmer of joy to your childhood, even if that means snuffing Snow White, asphyxiating Ariel, or throttling Tinker Bell.

Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 03:30
Maybe. Among a very few GOPers. But that could make a difference in the general election. The front runner for the 2024 Republican nomination for president, former president Donald J. Trump, is currently on trial in civil court in New York for rape (rape!) and it seems that none of his potential voters care that he is jetting off to a new golf course in Scotland instead of appearing in court to defend himself. Neither do they care that he’s also been indicted on felony charges in New York City for illegally paying hush money to an adult film actress or that he and his offspring are the subject of a massive civil fraud case filed by the state Attorney General last September. And that’s just New York. Trump’s also got investigations pending in Georgia over election fraud and two major federal probes being handled by Special Counsel Jack Smith regarding the stealing of classified documents and criminal liability for the insurrection on January 6. But according to a new CBS/YouGov poll, the majority of Republican voters could not care less about any of that.
Created
Thu, 04/05/2023 - 02:00
There is something very, very familiar about these women. I knew their type in school. Female bullies. I’m sure they think of themselves as Christians but they’re evil, horrible people. It wasn’t enough for Montana’s Republican-led state legislature to take away Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr’s seat in the legislature. Now people are taking her seat outside of the House chamber too.  The Montana House of Representatives last week voted to censure Zephyr, Montana’s first openly transgender lawmaker. The vote came in response to Zephyr criticizing her Republican colleagues for restricting access to gender-affirming care. Zephyr announced Monday that she is suing to reverse the restrictions placed on her.