Reading

Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 10:00
Yet another example of right wing arrested development CNN: Kevin McCarthy was behind interim Speaker Patrick McHenry’s move to kick former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer out of their office spaces, two Republican sources told CNN. GOP Rep. Garret Graves told reporters on Wednesday that McCarthy is getting the office that McHenry has ordered her to vacate. “Look the deal is that the office that Pelosi is in right now is the office of the preceding speaker. Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats determined that they wanted a new … speaker, and it’s Kevin McCarthy. So, he’s getting the office,” he said. Sources close to Pelosi and Hoyer say it was retaliation for Democrats siding against McCarthy in voting to vacate the speaker’s chair Tuesday. The unofficial offices are located near the House floor. McCarthy and McHenry’s did not respond to requests for comment. Graves then put the blame on Democrats for voting McCarthy out of office. “I don’t know what they’re complaining about,” Graves said. “They created this situation.
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 09:00

The selection committee for the Australian International Political Economy Network (AIPEN) Richard Higgott Journal Article Prize is pleased to announce the articles nominated by AIPEN members for the longlist for the 2023 prize.

The post Longlist for the 2023 Australian International Political Economy Network (AIPEN) Journal Article Prize appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 08:30
The House is in chaos? No biggie… How Fox News’ favorite show shared the news that the House GOP had completely blown itself up: The conservative panelists of The Five, much like the bulk of the GOP, focused most of their ire on Gaetz while arguing that House Republicans had actually accomplished quite a bit under McCarthy in his nine-month tenure. Noting that former President Donald Trump complained on social media that “Republicans are always fighting among themselves” rather than “fighting the radical left Democrats who are destroying our country,” Jeanine Pirro declared that she was “furious” over McCarthy’s removal. “Now what we’ve got is total chaos when the Republicans are playing out their infighting on national television in a historic way instead of fighting Joe Biden’s policies,” she exclaimed.
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 08:00
I enjoy reading the right wing apostates these days because in some ways they see certain aspect s of our politics more clearly than my own long-time allies. Maybe it’s because it’s newer to them to see this perspective or maybe it’s because some of my own allies are still mired in ancient, and currently irrelevant, internecine beefs. This piece by JV Last at the Bulwark isn’t exactly a new insight to many of us but it’s refreshingly sharp and very, very accurate: Imagine that it was the Democrats yesterday. Imagine that Pramila Jayapal and Cori Bush had forced Nancy Pelosi out of the speaker’s chair. What would the reaction have been? Dems in Disarray! Let me channel it for you: Sound about right? Did I miss anything? Yet when Matt Gaetz holds the Republican majority hostage in the House and forces the ejection of the speaker because he made a deal to avoid a government shutdown the reaction is more along the lines of . . . So raise your hand if you think Republicans will pay an electoral price for this debacle.
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 07:00
There’s quite a bit of punditry today suggesting that the Democrats did the wrong thing by failing to bail out McCarthy yesterday. Here is some important context as to why they voted in unity not to do it from a House staffer named Aaron Fritschner: Pretty evident people don’t understand a key piece of House Dems’ thinking on McCarthy and governance of the House. The idea that we acted out of schadenfreude or pique with no thought to the legislative outlook is, of course, silly nonsense. Here’s what the takes are missing-  On Saturday morning we had no idea what was happening. Scalise told the GOP they were moving bills that signaled imminent shutdown. This is what we expected. Then McCarthy suddenly and unexpectedly did an about face and announced a vote on a CR. We didn’t know what to make of it. How to interpret this? McCarthy has resisted doing this all along, the wingnuts threatened to kick him out if he did it and he was running every play at their call. My immediate read was he wanted and expected us to vote against the suspension so we would be blamed for a shutdown  I said this then (see below).
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 06:00
Your party turns its lonely eyes to you Some Republicans literally can’t think of anyone but Trump: Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) announced late Tuesday that he will file paperwork to nominate former President Trump to be the next Speaker of the House. “This week, when the U.S. House of Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J. Trump for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Nehls said in a statement. “President Trump, the greatest President of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America First and will make the House great again.” It’s mass delusion. And statements like that should prove to all of us that the idea that elected Republicans are all cynics and cowards is not entirely true. Some of them are brainwashed true believers in the cult of Donald Trump. To them he is literally the only leader they can conceive of. Trump said he was fully concentrating on becoming president (to stay out of jail) but that hasn’t stopped the speculation.
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 04:59
America is falling into a trap. It thinks the future will be decided by military dominance, despite losing one war after another. China, on the other hand, recognises that the future will be decided by economics. Pearls and Irritations has posted an outstanding series of articles by Percy Allan on the so called ‘China Threat‘. Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 04:58
Over the 50 years since Patrick White’s Nobel Prize, the progressive cultural nationalists, who borrowed White’s honour, challenged a tired old elite, and then generated a new cohort of tired old elites. They had broken with Britain, but embraced America and its fantasy of the universal progressive empire that dare not say its name. The Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 04:57
An opinion piece (‘Degrowth approach is disastrous’, Canberra Times, 9 September, p.38) by authors from the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) attacked the concept of degrowth to a steady-state economy (SSE) and defended the notion of continuing economic growth on a finite planet. The Canberra Times did not publish the opinion piece I submitted in Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 04:56
Bad-tempered coverage of China continues to flourish across the entire US media. It ranges from fire-breathing to pearl-clutching. Most commentators look daggers at Beijing in a dozen different over-cooked ways – and especially at the Communist Party of China – while reminding readers and viewers of America’s continuing paramount superpower status. What is relatively new, Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 04:55
Business is always telling governments, and the rest of us, that Australia would perform much better if we and our rulers took their advice. There would be fewer and lower taxes while ‘flexible’ freewheeling industrial relations policies and much less regulation are all common claims about how Australia could be improved. While all these assertions Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 05/10/2023 - 04:54
What a fabulous trove The Pezzullo Papers are. The hundreds of recently disclosed text messages sent by the Home Affairs Secretary Mr Michael Pezzullo to a person described as a “Liberal Party powerbroker” are morbidly fascinating. Poor Pezzullo – in a few days he attracted as much public commentary, most of it unflattering, as platoons Continue reading »