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What’s that, Mikey? A piece of playground mulch? Nice. Let’s put that in our bucket, okay?

Oh, and who’s this? Hey there. Mikey, it looks like he has a piece of mulch for your bucket too. Can you let him drop it in? Very nice. Oh, and now you both want to keep collecting pieces of mulch, meaning I’ll get to keep standing next to this other adult, who I assume is your new friend’s dad, for the next few minutes and make awkward small talk with him instead of finishing my Counting Crows podcast? Terrific.

So, uh, hi. Yeah, I’m Mikey’s dad. I mean, I have a first name, but that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you need to know right now. I guess we don’t really have to talk at all while our toddlers collect mulch together, but we are going to be physically adjacent to each other for a little while, right? So we might as well break up staring at our kids to make sure they don’t eat the mulch with the occasional comment about how important it is to mostly stare at them to make sure they don’t eat the mulch. That would be fun, or at least polite.

Born into a family of legendary Bedouin musicians, the Palestinian actor, DJ and filmmaker Mo’min Swaitat is also a son of Jenin, the most northerly West Bank city that has faced some of the most brutal Israeli military operations in recent years — including the 2002 invasion, bombing and massacre of a refugee camp during […]

Big questions remain about Russia's attempts to interfere in US elections

The MVC team discusses the 2017 climate change drama.

Elevated funding costs and tightening credit markets point to the need for bankers and bank supervisors to remain vigilant.

The pandemic has revolutionised how an entire generation see work, education and society

A new wave of unionisation in the cultural sector is pushing back against a decade of austerity in the sector

All the Georgia Jail Kids are here.

And they're off! In many ways.

A veteran South African official detailed meeting with an unprepared and “desperate” Acting Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, begging for local help rolling back the popular coup in Niger. The recent BRICS conference might give Nuland even more to fret about. When US Acting Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, traveled to South Africa on July 29, her reputation as a blunt instrument of Washington’s hegemonic interests preceded her. According to a veteran South African official who attended meetings […]

The post Shocked by Niger coup, Victoria Nuland appeared “desperate” during Africa tour first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Shocked by Niger coup, Victoria Nuland appeared “desperate” during Africa tour appeared first on The Grayzone.

The billionaire presidential candidate leveraged dark money connections amid an “anti-woke” crusade to access workers’ retirement savings.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Mark your calendar. That’s the day Trump goes to trial. Donald Trump will go to trial in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 2024, on charges that he conspired to subvert the 2020 election and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a federal judge ruled Monday. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan set the date, contending that the six-month lead-up to trial would be adequate for Trump’s well-resourced attorneys to prepare for trial while acknowledging the public interest in resolving the case expediently. That schedule met an immediate protest from Trump’s attorney John Lauro, who said he doesn’t believe he can effectively defend Trump on a six-month timeline. He and co-counsel Todd Blanche had pushed for an April 2026 trial, a date Chutkan called “far beyond what is necessary.” The trial date raises the likelihood that Trump will spend nearly all of the presidential primary season in a criminal courtroom.

“Ideas in which economists have reposed the greatest confidence have been proved wrong and therewith, not surprisingly, the responding policy. And this has happened under circumstances which admit of no really plausible explanation, rationalization, or alibi—things in which we economists are more than minimally accomplished. There was, to be sure, more than a suspicion of […]

“This trial must be held out in the open, in a parking lot.”

For some time, it has been noticeable that, outside individual academic journals or associations, independent recognition of IPE scholarship in journal article form has been lacking. While there are independent and esteemed prize awards for academic book publishing, e.g. the British International Studies Association (BISA) International Political Economy Group Book Prize, the recognition of something similar for journal article accomplishment has been neglected. As a consequence, we are announcing the 2023 Australian International Political Economy Network (AIPEN) Richard Higgott Journal Article Prize.

The post Call For Nominations For The 2023 Australian International Political Economy Network (AIPEN) Journal Article Prize appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

Peter Navarro is batshit crazy: The federal judge presiding over the criminal contempt of Congress case against former President Donald Trump’s onetime trade adviser Peter Navarro in DC called some of the evidence from the defense “pretty weak sauce.” Navarro says he defied subpoenas from the House January 6 committee because Trump directed him to do so. But US District Judge Amit P. Mehta, sitting in the same courthouse as Judge Tanya Chutkin, seemed unconvinced.  “I still don’t know what the president said,” Mehta told Navarro’s attorney Stanley Woodward, referring to the February 20, 2022, call during which Navarro said it was made clear the former president was invoking executive privilege. “I don’t have any words from the former president.”  “That’s pretty weak sauce,” Mehta said, referring to a comment Navarro says Trump made to him about regretting not letting him testify.

The Opposition’s resident numerology expert, Sussan Ley, has spent the weekend considering whether to challenge unpopular Opposition leader Peter Dutton following last week’s horrific Robodebt findings. “Susssan has been ringing around checking with her numerologist, astrologist and even her kinesiologist... Read More ›

I wrote this last week: On Tuesday, Meadows became the first defendant in the Georgia case (but surely not the last) to announce that he would request moving his case to federal court because his alleged criminal activity “all occurred during his tenure and as part of his service as Chief of Staff.” In his statement, Meadows explained that “arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President” were all part of his duties and that you would expect the president’s chief of staff “to do these sorts of things.” It sounds like Meadows’ defense will be, as they say, that he was just following orders. I guess I was right. Much to the surprise of most legal observers, Meadows testified today in the hearing to request his trial be moved to federal court: In the hearing, Mr. Meadows said that Mr. Trump directed him to set up the now-famous phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State. During the call — a major focus of the case — Mr.