Yes, the party is doing this but the question really is why. Jonathan Chait had a great insight that at least partly explains it: The House Republican majority is currently paralyzed by an internecine power struggle that, like some ninth-century Byzantine religious schism, is simultaneously all-consuming to the participants and utterly inscrutable to outsiders. Reporters attempting to discern the conflict have taken to describing the competing factions as “conservatives” (the far-right members opposed to Kevin McCarthy’s bid for Speaker of the House) and “moderates” (the much larger faction of Republicans loyal to him). But these labels do very little to clarify the strange mania devouring the House Republican caucus. If you define conservative in traditional terms — meaning loyal to the conservative movement of Goldwater and Reagan and opposed, in principle, to any new taxation or social-welfare benefits — the entire Republican caucus is composed of conservatives. McCarthy’s loyalists aren’t moderates and don’t describe themselves as such.
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Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican, said the debt ceiling fight is a “non-negotiable item.”
The post Kevin McCarthy Must Commit to Government Shutdown Over Raising Debt Ceiling, Says Freedom Caucus Holdout appeared first on The Intercept.
from Mark Weisbrot Here are eight predictions for the coming year, in accordance with a hallowed tradition that I have previously not honored. If some of the supporting facts below seem unfamiliar, it could be because they have not received the attention they deserve. But they are real, and links to sources are provided. First, […]
I went down a rabbit hole today trying to recover a memory. In 2009, I had just graduated college and moved home. I was recording a lot of music and learning a lot through watching early YouTube videos. I stumbled upon some footage of a master class at Berkelee that John Mayer had done. Here […]
As the GOP House majority implodes … And a plaintive cry arises from a distant outpost: Yeah, that didn’t work.
With the cost of living and wealth inequality still plaguing our economy, reforms are in need for our taxation system to stabilise it. read now...At least houses were built in the great financial crisis.
— Turning hippies into Reagan voters: The values of the 1960’s countercultural movement (liberation, freedom, etc) were co-opted by corporations and used to perpetuate a culture of consumption and production. An interview with Carl Cederström, an author of The Happiness Fantasy — Mariana Mazzucato recommends 5 books explaining how political forces shape the markets: Franzen’s […]
Now they’re eating their own…
Low rating cable station Sky news Australia has urged their last remaining viewer to sleep through the year 2023, so as to avoid being woke. ”Wokeness is a dangerous disease that inhibits the mind of all those who disagree with... Read More ›
Of course this isn't a service I provide even in the best of times, but when I am diverted by other obligations I feel tremendous stress at not even being able to pretend to do it.
My life is easy and my stresses are mostly self-imposed and I fully understand that, but I still feel the stress when this blog is shittier than usual!
My life is easy and my stresses are mostly self-imposed and I fully understand that, but I still feel the stress when this blog is shittier than usual!
There currently is a problem with the commenting system, with some readers reporting comments not showing up. While the site may indicate some number of comments on a post, new comments are not visible on the post’s page. (I can see them as an administrator for the site, but at least some readers cannot.) I’m looking into what the cause of this is, but in the meanwhile one fix appears to be for the reader to switch the ordering of the comments from “oldest” (the default) to “newest.” The arrow in the image below (screenshots of the latest Mini-Heap post) shows where you click to do this. As you can see, the site indicates that there are 5 comments, but the fifth one is only visible once the view is switched to “newest.” Thanks to Daniel Dennett for inadvertently making the problem known to me. With luck, I’ll be able to resolve it soon.
Noam Chomsky: Another World Is Possible. Let’s Bring It to Reality Noam Chomsky Interviewed by C.J. Polychroniou January 4, 2023. Truthout. It’s a truism that the world is in a dismal state; indeed, there are too many great challenges facing our world and the planet is in fact at a breaking point, as Noam Chomsky […]
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Our fundraiser is extended until January 20, which means you have more time to participate in helping us reach our goal! Miriam discusses how memberships help drive our advocacy.
Owning the libs is all that matters As we watch the unfolding dumpster fire in Washington, keep in mind that this is what these people are doing to their own constituents. There is no good reason for this other than a deep and abiding belief that they must kill people rather than have the government help pay for their health insurance. This is who they are: Mississippi’s health-care crisis is worsening, and an overhaul of the state’s “current system of care is unmistakably essential,” a leading medical group warned hours before the State Legislature was set to begin its 2023 session at noon Monday. “The lack of access to healthcare for many Mississippians is currently a crisis, not a new crisis, but one that has been fermenting—and is getting worse,” the Mississippi State Medical Association said in a press release this morning. “As hospitals close across Mississippi, access to life-saving medical care becomes a real threat to all Mississippi.
The rising tension over Taiwan is not the making of either of the two Chinese parties to the dispute. After all, the fundamental problem has been the same since its inception. It was an unfinished civil war between two political factions, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, over control of the country after Continue reading »
There is some terrible double-foolishness afoot, that is certain to be widely noticed beyond the Western bubble. Australia is stepping forward with gusto to secure its position as a best-military-buddy not only with America, the most warlike nation in history, according to Jimmy Carter, but also with Japan, one of the 20th century’s most infamous Continue reading »
In an interview, John Lander outlines the “Herculean” task ahead to repair the China-Australia relationship. The odds are heavily stacked against Albanese and Wong, who will need both political courage and diplomatic skill to bring it off. But for Australia’s sake, bring it off they must. Watch it here. Commemorating fifty years of relations between Continue reading »