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Originally published July 2, 2019

The full transcript from the CNN Presidential debate between President Thomas Whitmore and challenger Governor Patrick Stevens.

WOLF BLITZER, MODERATOR: Welcome to the CNN debate for the 1996 presidential election. President Whitmore, let me begin by thanking you for saving our country and the entire world from the alien invasion this past July Fourth.

(THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE)

PRESIDENT THOMAS WHITMORE: I just did what any other fighter jet pilot hero president would have done.

(THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE THAT TURNS INTO A STANDING OVATION)

Inflation and a broken supply chain created chaos across the world. Corporate consolidation is the reason it all happened.

The latest episode of the hit Media Storm podcast focuses on how political parities missed a trick on TikTok and connecting with young voters - and how the media must do better

‘Even during those episodes, I’m still there. I’m still me’: vibrant animations colour Anne’s memories of bipolar disorder

- by Psyche Film

Watch at Psyche

A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations and the scope of human freedoms

- by David Wengrow

Read at Aeon

In the UK, we’re all waking up to the prospect of a new government. The election was an oddity: Labour has converted a modest 35% vote share into a whopping Parliamentary majority; the Tories did somewhat better than suggested, on around 24%, but have lost more than two-thirds of their MPs. (The final figures were […]

Rishi Sunak's historic defeat was a direct result of a decade of ideological hard-right policies that have decimated our political and social fabric

. Two hundred years ago, on 19 April 1817, David Ricardo’s Principles was published. In it, he presented a theory that was meant to explain why countries trade and, based on the concept of opportunity cost, how the pattern of export and import is ruled by countries exporting goods in which they have a comparative advantage […]

Heute scheint unklarer als je zuvor, was das politisch überhaupt genau bedeutet, links und rechts. Die Unterscheidung hat zwar eine lange Tradition, die auf die Sitzordnung der verfassungsgebenden Versammlung in Frankreich im Jahr 1789 zurückgeht, wo die Royalisten rechts vom König Platz nahmen, die revolutionseifrigen Jakobiner hingegen links. Doch mit dieser Klarheit ist es lange […]

Here is a short video about our new book – Modern Monetary Theory: Bill and Warren’s Excellent Adventure – which will be published on July 15, 2024.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Oy vey. Just what we need, right? Axios has been one of the most hysterical of all media outlets over Joe Biden’s debate debacle so I’m loathe to put much stock in their gossip reporting. However, this is actually informative: If President Biden steps aside, Vice President Harris would be almost impossible to beat for the nomination, thanks to endorsements, money, optics  and 2028 politics, top officials tell us.  All Harris needs is Biden’s backing. If she gets it, the Obamas and Clintons likely would follow, making any challenge an affront to the sitting president and two former presidents.  If she gets Biden’s endorsement, the only way a top-tier Democrat could challenge her would be to risk their future by saying “not your turn” to the first woman vice president, first Black American vice president and first South Asian vice president. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chaired the House Jan.

Source - Patreon

Former Australian Prime Minister (yep, really), Tony Abbott, has told the UK Conservatives who have just been walloped in the British election, that they lost due to being not far enough to the right. ”Rishi had some good ideas, national... Read More ›

(Unless this country gets it shit together) I’m not looking forward to the Harris slut-shame fest that may be coming. But he clearly won’t be able to help himself.

Labour has won the 2024 General Election. Let's take a look back at the multiple crises successive Conservative administrations worsened, created or ignored

There are two huge elections taking place in Europe right now, one in the UK and one in France. Most of you no doubt understand that various electoral systems but it is rather complicated, especially in France, so in case you have some questions I thought I’d direct you to an excellent guide by Daniel Nichanian at Bolts.com. Here’s the intro: Two major elections are taking place this week, within days of one another. The United Kingdom votes on Thursday to elect its members of parliament for the first time since 2019. France then heads to the polls on Sunday for runoffs that will decide the make-up of its National Assembly. The timing of both elections are major surprises. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called them in late May, while French President Emmanuel Macron shocked his country on June 9 by announcing that he was dissolving the National Assembly and organizing elections within a month. Each election will decide who governs the country, using rules that often differ from U.S. norms.

A friend sent this, which I’d never heard of: Gödel’s Loophole is a supposed “inner contradiction” in the Constitution of the United States which Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and analytic philosopher Kurt Gödel postulated in 1947. The loophole would permit the American democracy to be legally turned into a dictatorship. Gödel told his friend Oskar Morgenstern about the existence of the flaw and Morgenstern told Albert Einstein about it at the time, but Morgenstern, in his recollection of the incident in 1971, never mentioned the exact problem as Gödel saw it. This has led to speculation about the precise nature of what has come to be called “Gödel’s Loophole”. It has been called “one of the great unsolved problems of constitutional law” by F. E. Guerra-Pujol. When Gödel was studying to take his American citizenship test in 1947, he came across what he described as an “inner contradiction” in the U.S. Constitution.

The world and its people are facing serious local and global challenges. Climate change, economic instability, limits to free speech, threats to independent media reporting, and increasing social inequality all signal the breakdown of democratic systems across the world. Our political institutions and leaders are failing us with increasingly conservative policies that favour big business. Continue reading »

In the wake of Labor Senator Fatima Payman’s shock decision to cross the floor and vote with the Greens against her party I was bemused, to say the least, to see social media light up with valiant attempts to press Gough Whitlam into service as the arbiter of what the ‘correct’ labor response should be. Continue reading »

The conflict in Gaza has generated vigorous discussion about the assumed ethical prohibition against attacks on health facilities in times of war and the circumstances in which this prohibition might be validly circumvented. The actions of Hamas on October 7th 2023 have been widely condemned and no-one has attempted to offer an ethical justification for Continue reading »

The purpose of this paper is to help promote discussion about the ways in which the efficiency, effectiveness and capability of the Australian Public Service (APS) and its integrity can be improved, and the standing of the APS as a key institution in Australia’s democratic system can be restored. Competent democratic government in the public Continue reading »

As legacy media dies we seek its phoenix. With the new financial year comes a welcome slump in begging e-mails for newsletter subs. Not just from the spare room laptoppers but also the towering universities that pay their vice chancellors millions yet want the public to fund an editor. Appeals stress reading is free but Continue reading »