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They held their breath until they turned blue and nothing happened Awwwwww: House conservatives are furious about the government funding bill negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson that sailed through Congress last week, calling it a betrayal of Republican promises to cut spending and reshape the federal budget. But in a twist, this time they aren’t threatening to overthrow the man in charge of cutting those funding deals with a Democratic-led Senate and White House, even as they’ve begun to paint him as a functionary for status quo policies. House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., has blasted the first of two funding packages and said he doesn’t expect a better deal in the second one, which must pass by March 22 to avoid a partial government shutdown. “Because the speaker doesn’t want to do that. He just wants to pass what the Senate wants so that we avoid any conflict,” Good told NBC News, saying that Johnson, R-La., wants to “join hands with the Dems” to “increase spending” and yield “no policy wins.” “The speaker is unwilling to tell the Senate no,” he said.
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The conjucture of the first few decades of the twenty-first century witnessed Alex Callinicos usefully mapping the contours of imperialism as set out in his pivotal book Imperialism and Global Political Economy. As somewhat of a successor text, this is now accompanied by The New Age of Catastrophe that seeks to address today’s conjuncture of the multidimensional crisis (or polycrisis), the conditions of which are situated as immanent to capitalism as a totality. The creativity of Imperialism and Global Political Economy flowed from Callinicos offering an innovative reading of Nikolai Bukharin to propose a theory of imperialism at the intersection of two logics of power: capitalistic and territorial, or two forms of competition, economic and geopolitical. The book bears repeated revisiting. Indeed, I have done so recently in an article for the pages of International Affairs (see ‘Mainstreaming Marxism’, International Affairs 99: 3, 2023). There I demonstrate how unique Marxist approaches to both the structural theory of anarchy (drawing from Nikolai Bukharin) and racial capitalism (drawing from C.L.R.
It was the day we all were told to stay home or die There has been a lot of talk in the last week or so about “the week before” meaning the last normal week before the country (sort of)locked down for COVID and changed everything. The trauma of that experience is still with us as it should be. We lost well over a million people from that plague and the government did not handle it well. But as Melissa Ryan explains in her great newsletter, it was way more than COVID: … The week before is a unifying event that all Americans experienced. I’ve also learned that most folks who share their story experienced one or more seismic life changes during the pandemic. Losing loved ones, moving to a new location, and everything in between. We all seem to have a version of that story, and I always find them fascinating. At the same time, I bristle at the idea that this was the week that changed everything. At least in America. In early 2020 we were in the 4th year of Donald Trump’s first term in the White House. Things hadn’t been normal for quite some time, and a seismic cultural and political shift had already taken place.
Like many APS officers I had dealings with ASIO on occasion. Following Mike Burgess’s playbook I cannot name specifics in the interest of National Security, but almost without exception I found ASIO activities to be conducted by a mob of arse-clowns; the old TV cartoon comedy of Spy-vs-Spy rang terrifyingly true. Many excellent recent articles Continue reading »
Two significant acts invited to play WOMADelaide 2024 have been treated in vastly different ways in recent months by the Director, Ian Scobie. One head-line act, renowned reggae singer/songwriter, Ziggy Marley, has faced strong calls to be cancelled due to his support of the apartheid state of Israeli, yet his inclusion was defended by WOMADelaide’ Continue reading »
If you watch a TV channel that airs commercial advertising (my preference is SBS) no doubt you would have seen the recent advertisement by Glencore. The ad advises the viewing public: “The world needs natural resources to power our future. For 25 years Glencore has responsibly mined for metal and minerals that advance our everyday Continue reading »
Litigation about the alleged rape in a minister’s office at Parliament House in 2019 – more than five years ago – seems to continue to multiply, if with ever decreasing prospects of ever resolving any issues at the heart of the matter. This is something that is now, at law, unknowable in any sort of Continue reading »
Efforts to keep Chinese electric vehicles out of the US will only hurt American consumers and manufacturers in the long run. Instead, the Biden administration should embrace learning from Chinese carmakers to improve innovation and competitiveness. In the United States, sharp disagreements exist over numerous critical national issues. However, there is bipartisan consensus on reducing Continue reading »
GENEVA (1 March 2024) – A UN expert today expressed concern that the possible extradition and imminent prosecution in the United States of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could have serious implications for freedom of expression. “Gathering, reporting and disseminating information, including national security information when it is in the public interest, is a legitimate exercise Continue reading »
When Tasmanians go to the polls on March 23rd 2024, the ballot paper will have a new look to many voters. Yet, others will experience a “back-to-the future” feel by the return to a ballot so familiar a quarter century earlier. The ballot will reflect the changes needed to fill ten newly created seats in Continue reading »
The Economist, a leading British weekly, enjoys wide global readership. It recently covered the thoughts and written work of two scholars, both Chinese, one now government-based, in Beijing and the other based in an academic institution in the US. Only the former, was branded as an “ideologue” however. Paraphrasing Professor Julius Sumner Miller: Why is Continue reading »
“It’s looking like the entirety of the Southern Hemisphere is probably going to bleach this year,” one scientist said. Driven by sustained climate-fuelled oceanic heating, the planet is on the brink of another mass coral bleaching event that marine biologists warn could kill large swaths of tropical reefs including significant areas of Australia’s Great Barrier Continue reading »
It’s not benign. It’s dangerous. I’ve been following Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s increasing influence on the American far right for some time as he hosted the likes of former Fox News celebrity Tucker Carlson and held CPAC meeting in Budapest. (They’re doing it again in April with Orban once again doing the hosting duties.)He was the darling of a certain faction of the conservative coalition even before Trump won and whose election in 2016 super-charged the “illiberal democracy” ideology here in the US which we now know as MAGA. He likewise hopes to consolidate the European far-right into a MAGA-style movement throughout the continent. Orban CPAC appearance got a thunderous ovation last year and just last week he came to meet with members of the Heritage Foundation which is busily putting together “Project 2025” for the second Trump term. One imagines he had quite a few tips for them. He wrote the book on how to turn a modern country into a repressive autocracy without becoming a full-fledged police state.
“It’s voter fatigue,” my therapist, Dr. Tuttle, explained to me. Some people just get voted out.”
It all made sense. I was simply too tired of the constant voting.
I began my hibernation in the winter of 2023, when the articles started. I swallowed one New York Times Op-Ed About Biden’s Age and one Gen Z Is the Most Politically Disengaged Generation Yet, and was out for three days.
My year of Voter Fatigue would not be an act of self-centeredness; it would be an act of self-preservation. If I did not not vote now, I might never not vote again.
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I came to crave the comfort of the election coverage, which assured me that millions of other people were equally disengaged. Not Reva, my only friend, who had no qualms with voting for someone who was currently courting full-out war in multiple countries. Reva had not grown out of the “Grandpa Joe UwU” stage of praxis that the rest of us had dallied with in 2012. I hated her.
The Early Bird bird discount for DrupalCon Portland has been extended to March 31st.
Register before the deadline for $100 off!
For almost 20 years the Drupal community has hosted DrupalCon events in cities across the globe. This year, the North American event is being held in Portland, Oregon, USA from 6-9 May, 2024.
DrupalCon is an event for developers, marketers/content editors, site owners, and the Drupal-curious to join with the community. You'll find incredible keynotes, session content from expert speakers who have helped to build Drupal, networking opportunities with your peers, fun social events, and the chance to deepen your connection by contributing to the open source project.
A lot of people won’t believe this post was actually Trump, but it was. The punchline isn’t so funny.