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Sanctions on Russia are isomorphic to a strict policy of trade protection, industrial policy, and capital controls.

Most assessments of the effectiveness of sanctions on Russia, with some exceptions, hold them to have been highly effective. My new INET Working Paper analyzes a few prominent Western assessments, both official and private, of the effect of sanctions on the Russian economy and war effort. It seeks to understand the goals of sanctions and bases of fact and causal inference that underpin the consensus view. Such understanding may then help to clarify the relationship between claims made by Western economist-observers and those emerging from Russian sources – notably from economists associated with the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). As we shall see, Russian views parallel those in the West on many matters of fact yet reach sharply different conclusions.

Despite the shock and the costs, the sanctions imposed on the Russian economy were in the nature of a gift.

In its quest to build nuclear-powered submarines, the government of Australia recently hired a little-known, one-person consulting firm from Virginia: Briny Deep, write Craig Whitlock and Nate Jones in the Washington Post. Briny Deep, based in Alexandria, Va., received a $210,000 part-time contract in late November to advise Australian defence officials during their negotiations to Continue reading »

In September 2014, in the aftermath of the Maidan coup that saw yet another in the distressingly long list of US-engineered regime change coups in foreign lands where the government proved insufficiently deferential to the ruling Washington foreign policy elite, I argued that NATO’s mission creep had become a threat to European and world peace. Continue reading »

Australia is inventing an unheard-of way to go to war at the invitation of a ‘non-sovereign nation’ – an obvious reference to Taiwan. The Government’s intent seems to be to have it ready for the conflict with China that US Generals keep telling us is coming. When it reported on 31 March, the Inquiry into Continue reading »

There is a huge difference between the problem Robert Menzies faced in creating the Liberal Party from the ruins of the United Australia Party during the second World War, and that facing Peter Dutton as he tries to unify the Liberal Party after its succession of defeats at federal and state levels in the past Continue reading »

Instead of thinking through and independently acting in Australia’s best interests, Prime Minister Albanese has followed in the footsteps of his discredited predecessors and outsourced defence and foreign policy to the US. A repost from January 15, 2023 The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is a provincial man with a strong social conscience. He understands issues Continue reading »

April 5, in Jerusalem, Israeli police using stun grenades and firing rubber coated steel bullets invade the Al Aqsa Mosque. Hundreds of worshippers are arrested. Fourteen Palestinians are wounded by bullets, beatings and tear gas inhalation. While the world looks on, how do we explain, how might this latest example of violence as policy be Continue reading »

French President Emmanuel Macron has urged Europe to reduce its dependence on the United States and avoid getting caught up in confrontation between the US and China. Experts said Macron’s recent three-day trip to China had contributed to bilateral relations and hopes of a peaceful settlement of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In an interview with reporters Continue reading »

She and her accomplices built a political party based upon bigotry and hate. They approve of torture and celebrate death. They addicted their followers to conspiracy theories and rank tribalism. Old people like me watched it happen over time and it was just slow enough that we didn’t see the full scope of how ignorant and nihilistic their movement had become until Trump came along. Young people see them for what they are — and they are appalled. They and their friends don’t want to live in a country where people like this are in charge. They have large numbers and they are engaged and active. As for the issues of abortion, guns and climate change, young people know hypocrites when they see them and they won’t be fooled by insincere outreach efforts. And they will be insincere because Republicans have trained their own voters over many years to believe that abortion is murder, unfettered gun rights are inalienable and climate change is a hoax. Nobody will be able to thread that needle. All that’s on top of the fact that they are racist, homophobic and transphobic, misogynist monsters. And then there’s this: Good luck Kellyanne…

~ Today's Water Cooler ~

John Amato at Crooks and Liars: Bill Barr, Trump’s former Attorney General, told ABC’s This Week that Trump’s legal trouble may help him in the Republican primary; however, it all but assures he would lose in the 2024 general election. “What do you think the likelihood is at the end of the day that we are actually going to see Donald Trump convicted and sentenced to prison?” Host Jonathan Karl asked. Barr at first made the case that the indictments are part of a conspiracy to help Trump by those in power wanting the cockwombler to be the nominee in 2024. “I also think though, as far as the general election is concerned, it will gravely weaken Trump. He is already, I think, a weak candidate that would lose,” Barr said. ” But I think this sort of assures it.” Barr seems perturbed by this. Why should that be? He knew what he was dealing with when he covered for Trump’s massive obstruction of justice while he was president. (Also, everything else.) . But then Trump lost and was no longer of use to him.

This is a good book. It has a cover and many pages. This book is endorsed by parents and is church-friendly. It is clean and full of Grace, as in it was approved by a Florida state media consultant named Grace.

It is designed to offend no one. It does not mention war, sex, drugs, politics, depression, alcohol, drugs, violence, scantily dressed women (any mentions of women, really), selfless fish, California, hungry caterpillars, or drugs, except for the addictive power of prayer.

There is absolutely no pronoun ideology in this book. This is a sample sentence.

Adam White is going to the park because the father of Adam White is there. Adam White and the father of Adam White are biologically men.

Big words? Not in here. This book operates on the understanding that education is hard, and teachers can be led astray by YouTube or egregious left-wing media like C-SPAN.

This book does not mention homosexuality or anything that could be construed as “queer.” There are no rainbows. The only color allowed is a neutral gray.

We live in an unequal society where inequality is increasing in many areas, especially regarding income and wealth. The differences in living conditions for different groups, in terms of class, ethnicity, and gender, are unacceptably large. In the world of education, family background still has a significant impact on pupils’ performance, and it becomes even […]

The FDA has the power to ignore the mifepristone ruling, legal experts say. But only the courts can cure its dangerous implications.

The post Texas Judge Cosplaying as Medical Expert Has Consequences Beyond the Abortion Pill appeared first on The Intercept.

The weapons are similar too Teens and college students across the country protested the war in Vietnam not just because of disagreements over U.S. foreign policy. Their lives were on the line. Or their brothers’ or their friends’ or their husbands’. Hundreds of students, parents and teachers protested against gun violence inside the Tennessee state House on April 6 for the same reason. Lives are on the line. Theirs and friends’ and their kids’. We watched Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear in a Monday press conference hold back tears after friends were shot and one killed in a mass shooting at a bank in Louisville. How long will these daily shootings go on unchecked before each of us is personally affected the same way, if not shot ourselves? Hope for our democracy and for an end to the daily slaughter may lie with the young. This is their Vietnam. Ironically, the weapon of choice in many of these shootings is a variant of those the Pentagon sent in bulk to Southeast Asia 60 years ago.

Using the same land for the production of both agriculture and solar energy is a win-win for the climate and farmers.

First, journalists lapped up Russian culpability. Then, interest wilted. Now they peddle a preposterous James Bond-style story. Anything to ignore the US’s role.

The post Why the Media Don’t Want to Know the Truth About the Nord Stream Blasts  appeared first on MintPress News.

Republicans are fighting a cold civil war “The doomsday prepper of the past has become a mainstay of rightwing culture,” Jeff Sharlet (The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War) said recently of scattered rural militiamen. Elected Republicans in control of state legislatures don’t need AR-15s to fight their cold civil war. They are manipulating democracy to undo democracy in full view of state capitol and national press. The Republican majority voted to expel three Democrats from the Tennessee state House last week for what they insisted were breaches of decorum in loudly calling for action against gun violence. They kept the white woman, Rep. Gloria Johnson (barely), and expelled two young Black men. The Nashville Metropolitan Council voted 36-0 Monday to reinstate Justin Jones to the position Republicans revoked last week. Justin Pearson of Memphis is expected to be reinstated when the Shelby County Board of Commissioners meets on Wednesday. Pardon the cliche, but if you haven’t noticed that MAGA Republicans have declared war on representative democracy, you haven’t been paying attention.