Last year, a study from the End Child Poverty Coalition found that nearly half the children in Luton were growing up in poverty. For too long, economic policy has been detached from the lived reality of working-class people in places like Luton. Like many former industrial towns, our town has been left battered and bruised […]
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The LA Times’ Jonah Goldberg discusses the idea that Republicans are hooked on victimization, believing that they are under siege by powerful forces that are destroying their way of life: Among his core supporters, about 37% of the party according to a breakdown of the poll by the New York Times’ Nate Cohn, literally nobody thinks he committed any crimes and 94% think the party needs to rally around him against these presumably bogus charges. […] If the Republican establishment forces were as powerful as Trump and his voters think, they’d be able to do something about it. If the Deep State were half as formidable as they think, Trump would never have been president in the first place. But large segments of the GOP suffer from the delusion that they are victims of the ruling classes and that the woke left is running everything — or will — if Trump doesn’t stop them. Even in states with Republican governors and legislative supermajorities, like Tennessee, a certain paranoia that the left could take over at any moment dominates politics.
Bankruptcy, fistfights and leather couches Rachel Maddow’s staff noticed a sprawling story that while not exactly headline news ought to be. (I’d missed it until her show Monday night.) Multiple state Republican parties are at or near bankruptcy. The headline for Jim Geraghty’s National Review column last week dubbed it a “quiet collapse” in four key states. Political donations follow power. Especially in the states. Especially in non-general election years. So it is not surprising that in four states with Democratic governors that state Republicans are not seeing their coffers as full as when the GOP holds the governor’s mansion. What Geraghty sees in that less is something more. In Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota Republicans are “going broke and devolving into infighting little fiefdoms.” Arizona Republicans are down to their last $23,000 in their federal account while their failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake barnstorms the country as “real” governor in exile. She could be raising money to help her fellow Arizona Republicans, but no.
As regular readers know my judgment is that we are now into civilization collapse. It’s slow right now, and it will be stop and start, but it will continue and pick up speed over time.
That means that you should be preparing for collapse to get worse, including climate change and ecological collapse.
Civilizations rise and fall, that’s normal, and ecological collapse commonly happens at the same time, but what’s unusual right now is that we have a world system which is global, and thus is collapsing all at once, and we have a global ecological collapse.
So it’s going to be bad. Very bad.
Still, there are things to be done.
A government ad campaign poured cash into national newspapers during the pandemic. Byline Times is one of a number of signatories to a submission on the scheme to the COVID Inquiry
There can be little question that the grim prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which still shows no sign of closing anytime soon, is a key legacy — in the worst sense imaginable — of America’s post-9/11 forever wars. I’ve been covering the subject for decades now and that shameful legacy has never diminished. Last month, in response to a column I wrote for TomDispatch — one of dozens, I’m sad to say, that I’ve done on Guantánamo over these endless years — I received a surprise email: an invitation to attend a meeting at the British Parliament. A group known as the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Closing the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, formed this April, was gathering for the... Read more
To all who celebrate
The current spate of industrial action is the symptom of a deeper malaise revealed by the pandemic: a Government apathetic to the plight of teachers
My sister’s baby
Definitely wouldn’t bring my sister’s baby. That would be so unwise, so I can confidently say I wouldn’t bring them. That’s a good choice, right? Because then I’d have to bring the baby plus all the baby supplies. And I’d have the added difficulty of having to take care of the baby while also trying to survive myself—too many moving parts. Also, the baby doesn’t have any helpful survival skills like hunting, fishing, constructing shelters, etc. So pretty much just a total liability.
My Switch
Totally impractical. Like, yeah, maybe fun, but probably not something I would put in my top three if somebody asked, right? Like that would be embarrassingly wrong?
Flint
I want to say no? Or, wait, maybe yes? I’ll put a pin in this one for a moment. Forget I mentioned it.
Bubble gum
Haha, that would be so stupid. Unless you’re some sort of bubblegum whiz, who can construct almost anything out of bubblegum? But, alas, that’s not me. So, pass.
The Conservative Party may well be on the wrong side of public opinion – as well as history – when it comes to its lack of commitment to tackling the climate emergency
- by Jeanne Peijnenburg & Sander Verhaegh
- by Shayla Love
We have entered uncharted territory when it comes to climate breakdown, after climate agencies declared that the first week of July the hottest week ever recorded. The hottest week on record comes in the wake of the hottest June on record. And all of the warmest eight years ever recorded have come since 2015, with […]
Weekly usual hours worked per capita recovered faster from the COVID-19 recession than from Great Recession because of stable hours per worker and a fast recovery in the employment rate.
ULEZ – the Ultra Low Emmission Zone – has become a political football. Its significance to a general election manifesto became apparent as the Conservatives retained the Uxbridge and South Rusilip seat in a crucial by-election as plans to expand the clean air zone loomed over constituents. The prospect of being charged the £12 per […]
Bug Smash Initiative 3-year update
The Bug Smash community initiative started in May 2020 with the goal of reducing the number of open bugs against Drupal core.
Following advice from Gábor Hojtsy that 'an initiative should have an exit strategy', the initiative's definition of done was a 5% reduction in bugs in Drupal core.
Over the past three years, we've smashed this goal and passed our definition of done with a 27% reduction in bugs!
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Initial - 2020-04-21 |
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% Diff Elon gets a helping hand.
Breaking news: Aliens address congress!
The striking new plan to let voters reclaim democracy in a profoundly undemocratic system. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 26th July 2023 Trust no one, trust everyone: this paradox is the foundational principle of democracy. We should not trust any politician’s promises until they’ve been delivered. We should not trust anyone to represent […]
At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate target unchanged at 4.10 per cent and the interest rate paid on Exchange Settlement balances unchanged at 4.00 per cent.
The Trump election interference case raises unique questions about the role of a free press in preserving democracy. The post I Was Just Subpoenaed by Trump’s Georgia Grand Jury. Here’s What I’ll Tell Them. appeared first on The Intercept. The Trump election interference case raises unique questions about the role of a free press in preserving democracy. The post I Was Just Subpoenaed by Trump’s Georgia Grand Jury. Here’s What I’ll Tell Them. appeared first on The Intercept. |
