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If you want analysis of today’s Supreme Court arguments in the Colorado Ballot case, just turn on any cable news show and you’ll get a snoot-full. They all pretty much come to the same conclusion: Trump will win this one, the only question is whether it will be unanimous or near unanimous. The justices were all “skeptical” apparently. Here’s Ian Millhiser at Vox which I think represents the overall view. But he makes the case that Trump’s lawyer was absolutely terrible and it won’t make any difference: Two things were obvious Thursday morning in the Supreme Court, where the justices pondered whether former President Donald Trump is disqualified from seeking the presidency because of his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. One is that Jonathan Mitchell, the lawyer representing Trump, was in way over his head. During Mitchell’s time at the podium, the justices took turns ripping apart his arguments — or even criticizing him for abandoning stronger legal arguments in favor of weaker ones.

Almost four years have passed since George Floyd was killed outside of a convenience store...

by Gary Gardner

Here’s some bad news for folks who see a circular economy as a way out of the polycrisis: Trends in global materials use, which recently bent modestly in the direction of circular flows, are flattening once again. The Circle Economy Foundation in Amsterdam reported in January that secondary materials amounted to only 7.2 percent of all materials in the global economy in 2023, down from 9.1 percent in 2018.

The post Two Cheers for Circularity appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

The WaPo’s Jeff Stein: Due largely to an unexpected surge in immigration, the U.S. economy will be about $7 trillion larger – & federal revenues about $1T bigger – the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday  That impact is over 10 years, to be clear. It does not take into account any legislation that Congress may or may not approve  Here’s the CBO statement cbo.gov/publication/59… CBO Director Phillip Swagel: “More workers means more output, and that in turn leads to additional tax revenue”  Who knew that immigrants during full employment would be so good for the country? Why, these people are paying taxes and everything! I’m sure you have noticed that none of the objections to “the invasion” include the usual lament of “they’re stealing out jobs!” because even they know how fatuous that is in this situation. They have exposed their true reason: they aren’t white. The anti-immigrant fervor is all about allowing people who don’t look like them to come into the country and put taco trucks on every corner. This is what they hate. And it’s obvious.

Hold up, hold up, hold up. I gotta spill the tea, bruh. I’m lowkey freaking out. I don’t wanna get all extra, but:

I got new Tupperware.

I know, man. I know. It’s bussin’.

No, no, no, no, no. Not from my mah’s. Hold up. Listen, yo. I’m not talking finish-your-ice-cream-leftover-homemade-gravy-in-a-Talenti-container-shit. Big facts. This stuff I got from the store is better than a used Talenti container, bruh. No cap. Even the good ones that hit different and haven’t been through the dishwasher yet. It’s straight fire. The GOAT, bruh. The GOAT.

There can be no meaningful peace without full recognition of Palestinian sovereignty. Only new leadership and new vision, on both sides, will help. No issue of foreign policy that does not involve direct Australian military participation has caused as much division as the current Gaza War. There are several reasons for this. Since the creation Continue reading »

100 Fossil Fuel CEOs directly and knowingly threaten all life on Earth. As a medical oncologist and palliative care physician I feel a strange resonance with the modern killing fields of petromachy (the oils wars), where the true enemies, behind the mephitic black liquid, are the demonically evil, amoral, virulent, cunning, banal, and totally self-obsessed Continue reading »

The Rhodium Group, an independent research organisation with a focus on China, says the nation’s economic policymaking process has stalled with it refusing to announce meaningful actions to overcome its pressing property and share market crashes let alone forge a clear path for the future. The full paper can be accessed here. Here is my Continue reading »

“If wars can be started with lies, peace can be started with truth,” Julian Assange: Petition EN5846 to the House of Representatives calls on the Australian government to suspend Australia’s ‘autonomous sanctions’ on Syria. A considered, conscientious response to the petition could have major implications for Australia’s foreign and defence policies. The US-led unilateral coercive Continue reading »

Rogue State – noun. “A nation or state regarded as breaking international law and posing a threat to the security of other nations.” (Oxford English Dictionary). Three unrelated statements have been issued recently that will change the way we look at the United States forever – or at least they should. They point to a Continue reading »

From the time Kevin Rudd romped into office as Australia’s first Labor Prime Minister since Paul Keating, the life of Australian Prime Ministers has been dangerous. Party hacks, factional gangsters, and pollsters shadow, stalk and linger, attempting to note signs of the weakness. A decline in the polls is treated as genuine political calamity, the Continue reading »

It matters for Australia that Biden not be re-elected to the US presidency. A Trump administration might mean domestic chaos, violence, and division for the Republic, however, the danger is that Biden would be more likely to lead the world into catastrophic war. Another Trump imperium would be sadly the least worst, yet still terrible, Continue reading »

When Myanmar’s military coup took place three years ago, few thought it would turn out this way. Never has a military in Southeast Asia staged a successful coup and then failed to consolidate power afterwards. Yet this is precisely what’s happening in Myanmar. A fierce and determined coalition of resistance forces is in the process Continue reading »

On Washington’s telling, Beijing is spreading authoritarianism through producing goods and building infrastructure around the world while the US is promoting freedom and democracy by bombing and selling weapons. People nowadays say literally when they really mean metaphorically. I don’t know why; maybe a linguist can explain. But when I wrote literally in the headline, Continue reading »

Trump keeps saying he’ll be a dictator for one day so that he can close the border and “drill, drill, drill” which, as Philip Bump points out in the Washington Post, he came up with on the fly during a Sean Hannity interview. Apparently the cult just loves it: On Wednesday, UMass Amherst released the results of a poll conducted by YouGov in which respondents were asked about the concept. The framing of the comment was stark, excluding Trump’s specific plans for using his theoretical dictatorial power. It was just, “Trump recently said that if elected, he would be a dictator only on the first day of his second term. Do you think that this is a good or bad idea for the country?” A plurality of respondents said this was “definitely bad” with 6 in 10 saying it was “definitely” or “probably” bad. Among Republicans, though, a third said it was “definitely good” with three-quarters saying it was at least “probably” good.

Where were you when? It’s tiresome by now, these “where were you when” events. The JFK assassination (or MLK’s or RFK’s) or the first moon landing or the Challenger disaster or September 11 were days you never forgot. Nowadays it’s U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Dobbs. If you are reading this between 10 a.m. and noonish EST, you may be missing today’s “where were you when” event at the U.S. Supreme Court (Washington Post): The Supreme Court on Thursday will confront the critical question of Donald Trump’s eligibility to return to the White House, hearing arguments in an unprecedented case that gives the justices a central role in charting the course of a presidential election for the first time in nearly a quarter-century. The justices will decide whetherColorado’s top court was correctto apply a post-Civil War provisionof the Constitution to order Trump off the ballot after concluding his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol amounted to insurrection.Primary voting is already underway in some states.

So, the New York Times has a headline:

China Deflation Fears Raised By Falling Prices For Food and Cars

No. China’s growth is fine, and some products dropping in price is also fine. Car prices are dropping fast because China has a competitive market for car production: they have hundreds. That is driving tech improvements and price competition. This is a good thing, it is not based on “no one has enough money to spend so everyone has to drop prices” which is what caused the Great Depression (the deflationary episode that makes everyone quake.)

I like to think that this kind of deference is a Baltimore thing.