Reading

Some uplifting messages from your once and (hopefully not) future dictator I love that “additionally, I did nothing wrong…” Dingell criticized his “rot in hell” Christmas message which clearly got to him. Aaaand a little RINO bashing for good measure I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t sound to me like he’s having a very good day. Maybe his Flock of Seagulls do isn’t cooperating?

If the gloves are off from the blood-soaked hands of Israel and the United States, then the gloves should come off for the rest of the world to tell them what they think of their genocidal actions and brutality. There’s no longer any pretence, no false humility, no drawing of the veil from either country. Continue reading »

It is the urgent task of the American people to overhaul a foreign policy that is so broken, corrupted, and deceitful that it is burying the government in debt while pushing the world closer to nuclear Armageddon. US foreign policy seems to be utterly irrational. The US gets into one disastrous war after another — Continue reading »

“The human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them,” said the Pope in his Christmas Day blessing. “And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise?” Pope Francis condemned the global arms Continue reading »

Under Australia’s Constitution, the people of Australia have no way of binding the parliaments and governments they elect to be loyal to them. This is because once parliaments and governments are elected the members must take an oath that obliges them to give their loyalty solely to a foreign monarch who has no reciprocal obligation Continue reading »

From the perspective of a 1960s and 1970s protester, the domestic and international scenario looks worse than grim. Following the 2016 US election cycle, a campaign worker for a moderately liberal Congressional candidate working from an upstate New York campaign headquarters told me after that candidate’s abysmal loss to a far right-wing Republican, “I refuse Continue reading »

Western Australia is famously a long way from everywhere. Given our isolation, it’s not surprising that politics can be a bit parochial. While this may have been forgivable in another era, at this current historical juncture it’s becoming rather embarrassing. But before ‘eastern staters’ start feeling too smug, it’s important to recognise that in many Continue reading »

There is greatness in a system that tolerates public grumbling. Australia’s brand of democracy is a wonderful thing, in which the integrity of every referendum and election relies on the care, commitment and community spirit of thousands of ordinary citizens. People like you and me. It is citizen civics (expertly coordinated by the AEC) and Continue reading »

‘Alternative’ medicines and therapies comprise the biggest scam in the country. But if you think that industry is going to be cleaned up … you’re joking. According to the best estimates, Australians spend well over $5 billion a year on alternative medicines and therapies. Globally, the market is valued at $2.4 trillion, equal to the Continue reading »

Henry Kissinger did not invent some novel doctrine of foreign-policy-by-barbarous-atrocity, he simply continued the family tradition. Henry Kissinger straddled US foreign policy across two presidencies from 1969-1977. Notable in the current moment is the framing that Kissinger was somehow uniquely evil–and that he shifted US policy in this direction. Christopher Hitchens described Kissinger as a Continue reading »

Our 17th most-read article of 2023.

Originally published April 17, 2023.

“Guillermo Rubio has found that his job as a copywriter has changed markedly since he started using ChatGPT to generate ideas for blog posts, write first drafts of newsletters, create hundreds of slight variations on stock advertising copy…”
— New York Times

Please, no more. I beg of you.

If you force me to generate one more “eye-catching email subject line that promotes a 10 percent discount on select Bro Candles and contains an Earth Day-related pun,” I’m going to lose it. What do you even mean by “eye-catching”? What are “Bro Candles”? What do they have to do with saving the environment? Why are we doing any of this?

If the United States is serious about liberty and justice for all, respect for international law, and a rules based order that treats everyone fairly and even-handedly, it’s time to ditch the doctrine and its corollaries. When those of us of a certain age were in school, we learned that the Monroe Doctrine committed the Continue reading »

The random assignment plus masking are supposed to make it likely that the two groups have the same distribution of causal factors. It is controversial how confident these measures should make us that they do this. This issue bears on the trustworthiness of causal claims backed by RCTs. As we noted, trustworthiness is the central […]

America loves a fighter Polls we reported on Tuesday suggest that a large swath of maybe-Trump supporters are looking for an excuse to abandon him in 2024. A criminal conviction is what they’re waiting for: An October Times/Siena poll indicates the conviction gut-punch for Trump would be stronger in swing states, leading to Biden victories in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania as well as Wisconsin where Biden is already favored. The shift would be “seismic,” with Biden winning by 10 rather than losing by four percentage points. Democrats are their own worst enemies in this situation. Three years ago on the date the Electoral College met to officially elect Joe Biden president, I posted: It is never a good bet to think Donald J. Trump won’t stoop that low or lower. But the question Democrats have to answer now both for others and for themselves is what they will do to defeat the New Confederacy that announced itself last week. Democrats’ first instinct will be to put the Recent Unpleasantness behind them…. To refresh memories, mutliple post-election protests by thousands of Trump supporters resulted in violence.

“Profound losers” Readers may enjoy an older video making the rounds again from the show “Letters Live.” Contrary to JoJoFromJerz’s description (social media sometimes strips context), the words are not actress Edie Falco’s. She came to read them in 2018. Via YouTube: In the wake of violence in Charlottesville in 2017, a Salt Lake City resident named Jonna Ramey wrote an open letter to white nationalists that was titled, “What Is Wrong With You?” Her letter was published in The Salt Lake Tribune and was soon read by millions. At Letters Live at New York City’s The Town Hall back in 2018, acting legend Edie Falco joined us to read it. The Salt Lake Tribune, Aug. 19, 2017: Letter of the week: What is wrong with you, white supremacists? I am a 67-year-old American white woman. My parents enlisted in World War II to fight fascism. They both served; my mother was a nurse, my father navigated bombers. They lost friends in that bloody war so that all the world could be free of fascism. They did not fight so that some white people could claim supremacy or that Nazis could openly walk the streets of America.

A look at those Doctor Who "multiple Doctors" team-up events over the decades and how the show's storytelling style evolved over time.

. Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound masterpiece. And that 1960s choreography! I just love it.

Our 18th most-read article of 2023.

Originally published March 24, 2023.

Josh, I can’t believe that our big day is finally here. Today, I’m the luckiest woman in the world, because I get to marry you, Josh, my best friend.

To be clear, the five women to my left aren’t my best friends. Even though they’ve spent a cumulative total of sixty-seven years supporting me from elementary school until right now. They have been with me through thick and thin, including those six years when you refused to be exclusive, which really messed with my self-esteem. Yes, these ladies did all that and so much more, but ever since we became official last June, I’ve known that it’s you, Josh. You’re my best friend.

In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Echo, Taylor Swift/Skip Bayless, CM Punk/WWE, Superman: Legacy, Halo, Smiling Friends, Doctor Who, and more!

Blog posts on topics including inflation, wage growth, banks, U.S. debt and population growth were among the most popular for two of our blogs in 2023.

Wolfgang Schäuble was the embodiment of the political project of buttressing a monetary union in which he himself did not believe. To do so he had to impose violent austerity even in Germany and to dismantle democratic institutions in countries like Greece. In other words, Schäuble personified the explosive contradiction that gave birth both to […]

The post Wolfgang Schäuble (1942-2023) appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Ο Βόλφγκανγκ Σόιμπλε ήταν η προσωποποίηση της πολιτικής στήριξης (με μέσα βίαιης λιτότητας και κατάλυσης των δημοκρατικών θεσμών) μιας νομισματικής ένωσης στην οποία ο ίδιος δεν πίστευε. Προσωποποιούσε δηλαδή την εκρηκτική αντίφαση που γέννησε την Κρίση του Ευρώ και τις (αναπόφευκτα αποτυχημένες) πολιτικές αντιμετώπισής της που οδήγησαν, από τη μία μεριά, στην φτωχοποίηση της Ελλάδας […]

The post Βόλφγκανγκ Σόιμπλε 1942-2023 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.