None. None at all. I realize it’s cheap and easy to make fun of Trump and that’s not what I’m trying to do here. I just think it’s vitally important that people are reminded of what he really is and how his mental faculties are going. Everyone has a slip now and again. I do too. And I know he’s always loved to sing his greatest hits. But that’s not what these are. They’re takes on these scandals and events from the past as if they’re fresh. And he literally makes no sense at times, like the clip below when he says he wants to build a wall on Day One and literally in same breath says he already built it. Also, he is dumb as a post. The following aren’t examples of decline. He’s always been this stupid:
Reading
This is more that just the usual, tiresome “I know you are but what am I” nonsense. He’s right about Bannon, Giuliani and Trump but not because Joe Biden is threatening to put them behind bars if he’s re-elected (like someone else we know is doing.) It’s because all of them are under indictment. Unless he knows something we don’t, Gaetz was actually let off the hook by the DOJ for his predatory behavior with drugs and underage girls. But yes, these people are accused criminals and they are going to trial and if they are found guilty they could go to jail. That’s how the Law and Order Party believes it should be for anyone but their crooked leaders.
We provide new evidence on the effect of monetary policy on investment in Australia using firm-level data. We find that contractionary monetary policy makes firms less likely to invest and lowers the amount they invest if they do so. The effects are similar for young and old firms, indicating that the decline in the number of young firms in Australia over time is unlikely to have weakened the effect of monetary policy. The effects are also broadly similar for smaller and larger firms. This suggests that evidence that some, particularly large, firms have sticky hurdle rates does not mean that they do not respond to monetary policy. It also suggests that overseas findings that expansionary monetary policy lessens competition by supporting the largest firms likely do not apply to Australia. We find evidence that financially constrained firms, and sectors that are more dependent on external finance, are more responsive to monetary policy, highlighting the important role of cash flow and financing constraints in the transmission of monetary policy.
As the 24th EU-China Summit concluded on Thursday, it is natural to want to look behind the declarations and official speeches to identify the deeper forces shaping the European Union’s relationship with China and its policies toward China. But to understand the nature of these forces, it is crucial to go back to the very […]
The post Why Europe is not free to relate to China – China Daily op-ed appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
In early 2024, a new, grim chapter may be written in the annals of journalistic history. Julian Assange, the publisher of Wikileaks, could board a plane for extradition to the United States, where he faces up to 175 years in prison on espionage charges for the crime of publishing newsworthy information. The persecution of Assange is […]
The post By continuing the persecution of Julian Assange, Biden jetissons the 1st Amendment – The Nation appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
Discussing the surge of ultra-rightist populism, where I argued it all started with the West’s response to the 2008 crash – just like after 1929. When $35 trillion was printed on behalf of financiers (between 2009 and 2022), while most people were subjected to some variant of austerity, and given the Left’s failure to defend […]
The post On the causes and nature of Populism’s Surge – interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.
The latest filing takes on the Big Lie directly We are told by the TV legal beagles that, in the interest of expediency, Jack Smith is going the extra mile to lay out the case he is planning to make and it’s becoming clear that he plans to make it clear that the election was not stolen which would be a real service: Special counsel Jack Smith on Saturday sharply rejected former President Donald Trump’s contention that foreign governments may have changed votes in the 2020 election, laying bare new details about his team’s extensive probe of the matter and its access to a vast array of senior intelligence officials in Trump’s administration. In a 45-page filing, Smith’s team describes interviewing more than a dozen of the top intelligence officials in Trump’s administration — from his director of national intelligence to the administrator of the NSA to Trump’s personal intelligence briefer — about any evidence that foreign governments had penetrated systems that counted votes in 2020. “The answer from every single official was no,” senior assistant special counsel Thomas Windom writes in the filing.
Recently, on a commuter train, I ran into an acquaintance who works for a government agency here in Washington, D.C. Soon after we started chatting, he indicated a desire to switch jobs in case Donald Trump was reelected president in 2024. “I’d like to be somewhere that Trump wouldn’t be able to politicize,” my buddy said. I listened as he mused about which government institutions would remain well-funded despite Trump’s desire to destroy “the deep state.” “Maybe I’ll work for the Department of Defense,” my companion finally suggested all too logically. I can see just where he’s coming from since, during Trump’s first term, with some notable exceptions, “his” generals made it a point to stick to the Constitution rather... Read more
Source: Trump, the Second Time Around? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
They’re all in on abandoning Ukraine and NATO A global far right get together: Allies of Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán will hold a closed-door meeting with Republicans in Washington to push for an end to US military support for Ukraine, the Guardian has learned. Members of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and staff from the Hungarian embassy in Washington will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank. The first day includes panel speeches about the Ukraine war as well as topics such as Transatlantic Culture Wars. It is expected to feature guests including Magor Ernyei, the international director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights, the institute that organized CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) Hungary. Kelley Currie, a former ambassador under then president Donald Trump, said she was invited “but declined”. According to a Republican source, some of the attendees, including Republican members of Congress, have been invited to join closed-door talks the next day.
Last Friday (December 8 , 2023), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – November 2023 – which showed payroll employment rising by 199,000 which is a good sign. The unemployment rate also fell as employment growth outstripped the growth in the labour force –…
Thoughts and prayers, America. That’s all you get.
None of that matters. They have order from Dear Leader and they do what he wants: House Republicans are preparing to formalize their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden with a House vote this week, as their investigation reaches a critical juncture while right-wing pressure grows. Up until this point, House Republicans have not had enough votes to legitimize their ongoing inquiry with a full chamber vote. The probe has struggled to uncover wrongdoing by the president which is why it hasn’t garnered the unified support of the full GOP conference. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally launched the inquiry in September, even though he had previously criticized Democrats for taking the same step in 2019 when they launched the first impeachment probe of then-President Donald Trump without taking a vote at the beginning.
Back in the day, there used to be a lot more arguments across blogs. Perhaps we’ll see more of it happening again as Twitter continues its collapse into a dwarf star composed of degenerate matter. To get things started, this seems to me to be a quite wrongheaded claim by Tyler Cowen. In a […]
The Fifteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver reveal video also previews the Doctor Who Christmas Special. Plus, new preview images & more.
As the bloodbath in Gaza moves towards 18,000 casualties, 70% of whom are women and children, as a humanitarian catastrophe affecting a whole people persists, the rich and powerful US vetoes a U.N. Resolution calling for a ceasefire. The rich and powerful UK ducks for cover and abstains. The governments of both nations apparently believe Continue reading »
By going beyond the good and evil binary, the Australian media could play a more constructive role in fostering enduring stability between Australia and China, delineating a path that maintains Australia’s safety and integrity. China, undeniably a significant actor on the global stage, is a nation with which Australia not only can but should seek Continue reading »
Henry Kissinger’s role in expediting the Sino-US normalization and recognition process represented one of the greatest feats in modern diplomatic history. The Australian’s conflicted 2-3 December 2023 obituary of Henry Kissinger came under the banner-head, “Flawed Giant of Realpolitik”. Although we are never to see his like again, many in the Western media have left Continue reading »
Privileged people trying to save the world shouldn’t be dismissed as bourgeois virtue signalling. There are worse things to signal and it could make a difference. Even for the optimists amongst us, the problems of the world can seem overwhelming and beyond our control to change. The understandable temptation, especially for those of us fortunate Continue reading »
The recent plan of Newington College to become co-educational has initiated an uproarious reaction from their old-boys as well as influential Head Masters of such schools. This ridiculous reaction is simply a response to girls being admitted into the exclusive masculine territory that once was Newington. Their opposition to the inclusion of girls is not Continue reading »
Last month, Chris Bowen, the Climate Change Minister, delivered the second Annual Climate Change Statement to the federal parliament. The Minister’s address was in part detailed – especially when it came to the government’s many policy achievements – but less so when it came to the question of climate heating and national security. Bowen lauded Continue reading »
‘Off off the record’ with the man who secretly taped our telephone calls. I left the New York Times in 1979, after many good stories and some not so good times, to write a book, The Price of Power, about Henry Kissinger and his years as a manipulating and dissembling national security adviser and secretary Continue reading »
There is, I think, the hint of a better future after the latest heartbreaking revelation to emerge from the Middle East that the Israeli government knew a year ago about Hamas’ plans for the horrific murders on October 7. It knew. It did nothing. Why is that knowledge good news? It means Israelis must be Continue reading »