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One of the undercurrents at the recent UK MMT Conference in Leeds was the apparent unwillingness of MMT economists to acknowledge their mistake in dealing with international trade. In our new book – Modern Monetary Theory: Bill and Warren’s Excellent Adventure (published July 2024) – we devote a chapter to this issue. There are various…

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Here’s a shocker: The US could have avoided almost 250,000 Covid-19 deaths if every state had adopted stricter mask and vaccine requirements seen in the Northeast during the height of the pandemic, according to a new study. Researchers say that the country, which saw more than 1.1 million Covid deaths, could have been spared an estimated 118,000 to 248,000 more lives. The research from University of Virginia public policy and economics professor Christopher J Ruhm, published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Health Forum, analyzed mortality data between 2020 and 2022, comparing it to a baseline of 2017 through 2019. “These study findings do not support the views of those opposing COVID-19 restrictions who erroneously believe the restrictions did not work,” Ruhm writes.

Authors Peter Dreier, who teaches politics at Occidental College and Maurice Isserman who teaches history at Hamilton College warn people who care about the Palestinian people not to protest at the DNC next month if they don’t want to set back their cause: In a democracy, protest movements can play a vital role in reshaping the national debate on important issues. But they have to hone their message and choose when and how to make their case. There were major protests at all three Democratic conventions in the 1960s. Two of them eventually got the results they hoped for. One backfired. In 1960, when John F. Kennedy was nominated in Los Angeles, civil rights protesters, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., carefully orchestrated a 5,000-person march and daily pickets at the convention demanding a strong pro-civil rights plank in the Democratic platform. It was a first at a convention, and Kennedy was cautiously supportive, though it took several more years of protests before he embraced the Civil Rights Act, which became law in 1964, the year after his assassination. When Lyndon B.

Roman poet Juvenal coined the phrase “bread and circuses” nearly 2,000 years ago for the extravagant entertainment the Roman Empire used to distract attention from imperial policies that caused widespread discontent. Imagine the lavish banquets, gladiatorial bouts, use and abuse of young men and women for the pleasure of the rich, and so much more that characterized the later years of that empire. And none of it seems that far off from the situation we, in these increasingly dis-United States, find ourselves in today. Although the Roman Empire described itself as being in favor of life and peace, the various Caesars and their enablers regularly dealt death and destruction in their wake. They spread the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace),... Read more

Source: Project 2025 appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Steve from Accounts, otherwise known as the office-know-it-all, has been spotted hanging out in the break room flicking through an Olympic program in an attempt to lure people in to a one-sided chat about the Paris Olympics. ”Last month it... Read More ›

I watched the video of this yesterday and it made me sick. Sonya Massey’s last words before a Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office deputy shot and killed her in her Springfield, Illinois, home earlier this month were, “I’m sorry.”  The 36-minute body camera footage released Monday depicting her July 6 killing showed her interaction with the officers she called for help began calmly enough. At times, it even appeared to veer into light-hearted conversation as they responded to her 1 a.m. local time report of a possible home invasion. But the tone changed suddenly just under 15 minutes into the exchange after the 36-year-old Black woman went to remove a pot of boiling water from her stove at the direction of Deputy Sean Grayson, who informed her with a laugh as she did so that he was distancing himself to get away “from your steaming hot water.” “Away from the hot steaming water?

The killing of ultra-nationalist Ukrainian politician Iryna Farion at the hands of a Neo-Nazi is filled with irony. Linked to the Maidan false flag massacre, Farion was instrumental in bringing fascist forces into the mainstream. On July 19, prominent Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Iryna Farion, a former lawmaker with the fascist Svoboda party, was shot dead in Lviv. A longtime advocate of purging her country of all Russian speakers through violence, she and her political faction were directly linked to the false […]

The post Ultra-nationalist linked to Maidan false flag assassinated first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Ultra-nationalist linked to Maidan false flag assassinated appeared first on The Grayzone.

I know most of you would rather stick chopsticks in your ears than watch an entire Trump rally. But you should know that he’s actually getting worse. And he’s admitting it. Rather than post all the highlights, you might want to watch this video which also features some clever commentary: He also appeared at a Bitcoin convention. Oh dear:

Rupert Murdoch demands loyalty from his followers, not competence. A repost from August 28, 2022 The way News Corp operates must be traced to Murdoch himself for he has told us that ‘for better or worse (News Corp) is a reflection of my own thinking, my character and my values’. Let me give some examples Continue reading »

Nobody does it better: Fox viewers don’t get to hear this normally. It takes someone skilled to do it and Buttigieg is very skilled. If you follow the Never Trumper Sarah Longwell and her focus groups (which are fascinating) you have heard for months now that the Democrats needed to get the surrogates out on the road. I think some of her rationale was that Biden wasn’t doing a good job of making he case and so needed to be shored up. But it’s important even with Harris at the top of the ticket. As you can see, Buttigieg is just excellent. Here’s a guy speaking to the non-Fox audience and he’s excellent too: Another one: Those last three are auditioning for VP right now and they’re all good. And there are a lot more where that came from who aren’t on that list: Whitmer, Newsom, AOC, Wes Moore, Pritzker and on and on. The Democrats have a very impressive bench. The Republicans have imploded leaving them with people like Vance and Elon Musk — nutcases just like Trump. The battle for the soul of the country as Biden has always said is now a battle for the brain of the country.

Trump should have listened to him Politico playbook: The WSJ editorial board is joining the pile-on over Sen. JD VANCE’s (R-Ohio) comments about “childless cat ladies.” In a tough piece posted last night, Paul Gigot and colleagues call the comment “the sort of smart-aleck crack that gets laughs in certain right-wing male precincts” but that “doesn’t play well with the millions of female voters, many of them Republican, who will decide the presidential race.” They see the speed and breadth of the coverage of Vance’s remark as evidence “that this is Mr. Vance’s first big cultural impression, and not a good one.” They are unimpressed with Vance’s efforts to clean things up on Megyn Kelly’s podcast yesterday (“he wasn’t at all apologetic”), and they come away with this surprising conclusion about the episode: “One possibility is that at some level Mr. Vance really doesn’t respect people who make different life choices.” And then they move on to attack some of Vance’s other past ideas.