Not bloody likely The Freedom Caucus belated realizes that negotiations mean they won’t get everything they want: The House Freedom Caucus is calling for “no further discussion” on legislation to raise the debt ceiling until the Senate passes the bill House Republicans approved last month that would pair an increase in the borrowing limit with steep spending cuts. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called the bill “dead on arrival.” The hard-liner conservative caucus said it adopted its official position on Thursday as debt limit negotiations continued behind closed doors between representatives for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the White House. “The U.S. House of Representatives has done its job in passing the Limit, Save, Grow Act to provide a mechanism to raise the debt ceiling. This legislation is the official position of the House Freedom Caucus and, by its passage with 217 votes, the entire House Republican Conference,” the caucus wrote.
Reading
Listening for the sounds of coastal restoration.
The post What an Oyster Hears appeared first on Nautilus.
This week on our Callin show, where listeners ask us questions in real time.
The bigots won, but it’s not enough. Ted is such a worm: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) this week opened a Senate investigation into his allegations that Anheuser-Busch markets Bud Light to underage consumers in its ad featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. In a letter to Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth, Cruz and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) also asked the beer industry trade group Beer Institute, which Whitworth chairs, to conduct its own investigation. Or the company could say it’s sorry for any infraction and publicly disassociate from Mulvaney to avoid further inquiry, the senators wrote, making their actions appear more like a publicity stunt.
The Twitter CEO draws establishment media outrage for criticizing a NATO state propaganda outfit. Twitter CEO Elon Musk has triggered headlines by claiming that the website Bellingcat, a trusted source for establishment US media outlets, engages in “psyops.” Musk invoked Bellingcat’s role in “psychological operations” while expressing skepticism about the group’s claims that the mass shooter in Allen, Texas was motivated by white supremacist views. Prominent voices came forward to defend Bellingcat as a “a great journalistic organization” (CNN anchor Jake Tapper), and “a […]
The post Elon Musk is right: Bellingcat is a Western ‘psy-op’ appeared first on The Grayzone.
Which side will the cops be on? On January 6th the police did their jobs fighting against the rabid mob threatening to kill members of congress and Vice President Pence. But I still wonder what police around the country might do in the face of an organized right wing rebellion. So many of them are MAGA. Here’s the story of one who was in cahoots with the Proud Boys leading up to January 6th: It’s good to have friends in high places. Federal prosecutors on Friday highlighted a nexus between a top intelligence official in D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, a relationship which continued from July 2019 through the Jan. 6 insurrection. Former Metropolitan Police Department officer Shane Lamond, who supervised the intelligence branch of the department’s homeland security bureau, faces four counts stemming from allegations that he fed information to Tarrio about law enforcement investigations into him and then lied about it to federal agents. An attorney for Lamond didn’t immediately return our request for comment.
Here’s something to make your blood run cold. From Semafor (sub. req.) Think tanks often act as an administration-in-waiting for presidents — a place to stash future appointees, generate policy plans, and flag promising young staffers. This year their role on the right is taking on outsized importance, however, as the 2024 Republican field has made overhauling the bureaucracy with more reliable allies one of their top stated goals. That’s where the Heritage Foundation, alongside 50-plus conservative organizations in partner roles, hopes to come in. In April, the conservative nonprofit unveiled the start of a new $22 million project intended to staff the next Republican presidential administration from day one — a “private LinkedIn for conservatives,” as Paul Dans, the lead of “Project 2025,” described it. Their work dovetails with the goals expressed in Donald Trump’s calls to “destroy the deep state,” for example, and his plans to fire and replace federal workers en masse.
We must not exchange American hegemony for a dominant China. A new regional balance of power is the best answer. The Defence Strategic Review rightly tells us that the unipolar moment has passed. But if that also marks the end of US strategic primacy, no one has told the Americans. Maintaining global US primacy and Continue reading »
Titan Comics' solicits for August include new sci-fi series Blitmap by Jack Timmer and Matias Basla as well as Robotech, Conan and Doctor Who
I enjoyed seeing Susan Glasser in The New Yorker take precisely my view of the polarisation and dysfunction in Washington and how it must be seen as an influence on US behaviour. Read the full article here: For more on this topic, we recommend: Australia’s real status as a submissive ally Continue reading »
A radical approach to building an ecologically sustainable and socially just society. Collectively we are driving Earth and civilisation towards collapse. Human activities have exceeded planetary boundaries. We are changing the climate, losing biodiversity, degrading land, contaminating freshwater, and damaging the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles upon which we all depend. We ask how this could happen. Continue reading »
In Asian Media this week: Big economies talk about rules-based order. Plus: empire strikes back in Imran Khan showdown; hot Asian summers will add to climate change; US return to Philippines sparks sex abuse fears; Gandhi bests Modi in latest test; post-poll scenarios after progressive victory in Thailand. The G7 is meeting this weekend in Continue reading »
Many Australians might not realise that the 2022 federal election was the first to be accompanied by an independent report on the performance of the outgoing parliament in building a better Australia. The State of Australia 2022, prepared by Australian Community Futures Planning (ACFP), supplied Australians with detailed and summary views of whether during the Continue reading »
A 15% pay rise forms the centrepiece of Labor’s 2023 aged care budget. It is one of three significant aged care reforms that Labor has introduced since coming to office – a new funding model, mandated minimum staffing and now a pay rise for aged care workers. It’s a great start. But there is much Continue reading »
Young people are doing it tough; How accounting cosmetics have driven dumb housing policy; and Dutton blows the dog whistle. Read on for the Weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy. The budget Fiscally it continues the Howard “small government” tradition. Its Continue reading »
Despite the horrors of conflicts around the globe, the United States and Israel compete for headlines about their latest killing sprees. These close allies have cultivated cultures of violence, have aided one another with weapons, with military mindsets, with a fascination with violence as the way to solve problems and eliminate opponents. Figures show the Continue reading »
You may have heard the harrowing story of homeless veterans being thrown out of housing to make room for the foreign invaders. It was very sad. It was also a lie: Seven homeless men have come forward to say they were part of a group of men recruited at a Poughkeepsie homeless shelter to act as veterans that had been displaced from a Newburgh hotel in order for a non-profit organization to perpetrate a fraud on the public. The men told Mid-Hudson News on Thursday night that they were part of a group of 15 men that were supposed to pretend they were veterans that had been kicked out of the Crossroads Hotel in the Town of Newburgh last Friday, in advance of the arrival of migrants brought up from New York City. The saga of the displaced veterans received national attention when Assemblyman Brian Maher stepped in to denounce the hotel’s actions and grabbed headlines along with an appearance on a conservative tv network to raise money for the YIT Foundation, which claims had housed the homeless veterans at the hotel.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, Gilles et Fanny Deleuze … Jack Lang … André Glucksmann, et bien d’autres encore; tous font partie des 69 intellectuels français qui, aux côtés de l’écrivain Gabriel Matzneff … ont signé une tribune publiée le 26 janvier 1977. D’abord dans Le Monde puis dans Libération pour défendre trois […]
Το μέλλον δεν είναι αυτό που ήταν. Προσφέρει στα παιδιά μας όλο και λιγότερες ευκαιρίες απ’ όσες είχαμε εμείς. Τόσο οι καλές σπουδές όσο κι η σκληρή δουλειά δεν εξασφαλίζουν τίποτα. Γι’ αυτό, τα παιδιά μας είτε μεταναστεύουν είτε αναγκάζονται να ζουν χωρίς όνειρα, σκυφτά. Τα νέα παιδιά… γονείς… γιαγιάδες και παππούδες… απαιτούμε ένα καλύτερο […]
The post To βίντεο-μανιφέστο του ΜέΡΑ25 για τις εκλογές της 21ης Μάη 2023 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
Join MintCast hosts Mnar Adley and Alan MacLeod to discuss Washington’s permanent drive to war with author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges.
The post Chris Hedges on Weapons to Ukraine, Military buildup to China and Pentagon Spending appeared first on MintPress News.
You’re going to love camping. Trust me, it’s awesome. The multi-mile hike to the campsite is super rewarding. Carrying your clothes, shelter, water, and food on your back is an incredible way to connect with your body.
Don’t worry about slowing us down if you can’t keep up. It’s not a problem, because the group doesn’t wait for stragglers. We’ll check in on you, though, and you’ll just let us know you’re okay by continuously yelling, “No, really, I’m okay!” while gasping for air.
Building shelter with the rest of the group is super fulfilling. It’s like one big group project where everyone is expected to have the skillset of a mechanical engineer and the dexterity of a Cirque du Soleil acrobat as we orient a giant pane of polyester across a tangled web of bendy metal poles. It’s surprisingly cozy spending hours in a synthetic triangle while your usual shelter, which costs thousands and comes with Wi-Fi, television, and access to modern plumbing, sits vacant. Who needs that junk, anyway? You won’t even miss it.
Although it was a financial success, The Pope’s Exorcist, featuring a virile Russell Crowe as...
Now that one of the most outrageous state legislative sessions in US history has mercifully concluded, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is finally set to formally announce his candidacy for president. He has quite a record to run on. In a very short time he’s built a multi-dimensional legacy of repression, abuse of power and intolerance rarely seen in modern politics. Now he wants to take that agenda to the whole country. Some highlights from the last few weeks include a law to ban abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, a law granting permitless concealed carry, a ban on diversity programs in state colleges, a law to prevent teachers from using pronouns they don’t believe are appropriate, easier access to the death penalty and an expansion of the “Don’t Say Gay” law to block teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity through the 12th grade. That’s just for starters.