With DeSantis on board, it might be This is going to be interesting in this presidential campaign. It’s not because I take Mike Pence seriously but because it does represent the GOP giving up a pillar of its appeal with both Trump and DeSantis adopting isolationist rhetoric. As I’ve written before, this is not unprecedented — they did this with Clinton and the Balkans too. But Trump has made this rhetoric standard and it’s leading to some real disorientation among Republicans: Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday rebuked fellow Republicans who have given less-than-robust support for America’s defense of Ukraine — a group that includes potential presidential campaign rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “I would say anyone that thinks that Vladimir Putin will stop at Ukraine is wrong,” Pence said in an exclusive interview with NBC News when asked about DeSantis’ position on U.S. efforts to help repel Russia in Europe. The interview came moments after a Pence speech at the University of Texas on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Reading
China criticizes the distributional structure of the US economy. China appears to be becoming more aggressive in the information war that the US has dominated until recently.
The Federal Government must take action to halt regional bank closures, which would have serious welfare impacts, especially for the elderly, writes Dale Webster. read now...According to Rep. Scott Perry the speech and debate clause in the constitution protects members of congress who are plotting a coup with the president of the United States. One judge doesn’t think so. It remains to be seen if others do: The chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., secretly rejected Rep. Scott Perry’s bid to shield more than 2,000 messages relevant to Justice Department investigators probing efforts by Donald Trump to subvert the 2020 election, according to newly unsealed court filings. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell unsealed her extraordinary Dec. 28 decision on Friday evening, determining that the “powerful public interest” in seeing the previously secret opinion outweighed the need for continued secrecy. Perry, a Republican lawmaker from Pennsylvania, had urged Howell to block the Justice Department from accessing 2,219 documents stored on his phone, which was seized and imaged by the FBI last August as part of the 2020 election investigation.
Veteran New York Times reporter Jeff Gertz dissects the role of the media in concocting a false narrative portraying Trump as a ‘Russian asset’ rather than a homegrown horror.
The post The Chris Hedges Report: How the Press Misled the Public on Russiagate appeared first on scheerpost.com.
By Katrina vanden Heuvel and James Carden / CounterPunch As 2023 unfolds, we fear that American policy will continue to be characterized by both mission creep and the absence of any sort of diplomatic engagement with Russia. Throughout the course of the war, the Biden administration has slowly, steadily, even stealthily increased America’s involvement. Calls […]
The post The Case for Diplomacy in Ukraine appeared first on scheerpost.com.
By Vijay Prashad / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research A few years ago, a minor medical problem took me to the Hospital Alemán-Nicaragüense in Nicaragua’s capital, Managua. While I was being treated, I asked the doctor, a kindly older man, if the hospital had been built in association with a German missionary organisation, given its […]
The post The True Test of a Civilization Is the Absence of Anxiety About Health appeared first on scheerpost.com.
Corporate media spin and revisionist reporting on Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 election continue.
The post From Russiagate With Love appeared first on scheerpost.com.
The House will be forced to vote on the resolution within 18 days of its introduction.
The post Rep. Gaetz Introduces War Powers Resolution To Pull US Troops Out of Syria appeared first on scheerpost.com.
Laws don’t work well when many people openly defy them. Prohibition in the US is a good example of that. In Iran, it took massive protests against the hijab laws to dismantle the morality police. But what may cement this new tolerance of women showing their hair in public is the simple, casual defiance by many women in their day to day lives: [S]ince the death last year of Mahsa Amini, 22, while in the custody of the country’s morality police, women and girls have been at the center of a nationwide uprising, demanding an end not only to hijab requirements but to the Islamic Republic itself. Women are suddenly flaunting their hair: left long and flowing in the malls; tied in a bun on the streets; styled into bobs on public transportation; and pulled into ponytails at schools and on university campuses, according to interviews with women in Iran as well as photographs and videos online. While these acts of defiance are rarer in more conservative areas, they are increasingly being seen in towns and cities.
I don't know if any of you saw this, but last weekend I was in Granite Falls, WA, doing a wilderness survival training course.
It was the hardest thing I ever did. Tested me to the limit, even more than my rim-to-rim Grand Canyon day hike in 2021.
Nonstop rain, cold. Slept outside under a tarp. Had really poor equipment. I had to learn to compartmentalize my thoughts into half hour intervals just to get through the night. No sleep, by the way. I simply couldn't.
Frankly, I am still processing the whole thing in my head. Like, what did I do this for? What did I get out of it? Did it make me stronger, more resilient, expose me in any way? (The latter, YES.)
I always think of myself as a physically strong person. I wake up at 4am every day and workout out, then run outside, shirtless, regardless of temperature. (This morning was 25 degrees Farenheith.)
Nevertheless, I think I am still mentally weak. The course exposed me.
DeSantis’ latest attempt to win back the suburbs It seems he’s had a change of heart: A NEW BILL was introduced in Florida this week that would give Gov. Ron Desantis more power over state schools, and allow the Republican politician to ban gender studies and critical race theory, along with diversity and inclusion initiatives, at Florida colleges, CNN reports. The legislation, which follows through with DeSantis’ promise to ban universities from spending money on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, was filed by Rep. Alex Andrade from Pensacola on Tuesday. If passed, Florida state colleges would be barred from offering major and minor programs in intersectionality, critical race theory, and gender studies. Core classes would also be prohibited from touching on these teachings or presenting history of the U.S. as “contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence,” the bill reads.
I did a video on attachments and how attachments are a source of our suffering. (Buddhist concept.) I related it to investing and trading. (i.e. we are "attached" to the outcomes.)
People got pissed off. They unsubscribed or criticized me on talking about this.
Is this normal? I've been trading for over 40 years. Been a member and floor trader on 4 exchanges. Managed money for a major hedge fund. Ran a proprietary trading desk for a major international bank.
Economist by education. (Wharton, UCLA.)
Is talking about a non-Western philosophy so triggering to people? I don't fucking get it. I think we are ALL screwed up.
Indigenous owned forests in the Amazon absorb carbon; non-Indigenous forests produce carbon. Chicken and pig factories are bad for the animals and bad for the climate. Indigenous held forests capture more carbon The importance of natural forests as carbon sinks is well recognised – each year between 2001 and 2021 the world’s forests absorbed about Continue reading »
The Force Posture Agreement (FPA) clearly removes Australian sovereignty over what weapons may be launched or fired from this country by US Armed Forces. Even though the fiction is being peddled that this will occur at “Australian facilities”, the stark reality is that they are US bases under US control. Following the timely open letter Continue reading »
The ‘your atrocity is worse than my atrocity’ argument at the core of Richard Cribb’s response to Richard Culllen over Japan needs to be handled with care. Japan’s apologists can and do point to the very civilised treatment of Russian and German prisoners in the China wars at the beginning of the last century. They Continue reading »
Can we avoid, what a growing number of researchers and writers, consider, will be the likely collapse of human civilisation in the not-too-distant future, if we do not quickly and radically change direction? Two books, published in recent weeks, one by Canberra, science writer, Julian Cribb and the other, by a distinguished panel of authors, Continue reading »
There was a bothersome moment on television late in last week’s first cricket Test between Australia and India in Nagpur. It occurred when Allan Border expressed the opinion that Steve Smith’s behaviour in recognising with a thumbs-up sign that an opposing bowler had beaten his bat and scored a small victory was “ridiculous” and “stupid”. Continue reading »
In 1996, I was offered an untenured post in the department of philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. What made the offer particularly attractive is that I could live in a large subsidised flat on Hong Kong Island, with a balcony overlooking the ocean. The main reason I was offered such beautiful accommodation, I Continue reading »
Faced with a ‘mini-Chernobyl’ in Ohio and bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines, the Chinese balloon was a distraction White House needed. A stray Chinese spy balloon, a train wreck involving deadly chemicals, and an act of state-sponsored sabotage or terrorism – which events do you think have a greater impact on the actual safety Continue reading »
Better her than me A cabal of Muslim, communist, socialist refugees is coming for you. But you knew that. During most of my Hullabaloo tenure, I worked in a cubicle. Posting during work hours being frowned upon, my social media engagement until recently was more limited. And I wasn’t about to waste limited down-time watching Fox. The staff at Media Matters does that for a living. Presumably, they get an alcohol allowance. Kat Abughazaleh is building her online audience commenting on the slime from your video| Oozin’ along on your livin’ room floor. She sits in her cubicle in Washington, D.C. collecting clips to post to TikTok and Twitter (Clare Malone ofThe New Yorker): “There’s that stupid voice,” Kat Abughazaleh, a twenty-three-year-old senior video producer for the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America, said. She and I were watching Carlson’s show in side-by-side cubicles at her organization’s offices, in Washington, D.C. Abughazaleh, a pair of sunglasses perched on her head and a vape pen always within reach, was flagging moments from the episode to post online.