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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 09:23
by Vinícius Rodrigues Vieira* The literature on populism in the 21st century often assumes that far-right leaders draw their support from voters who have lost out to globalization. This is the case among low-skilled, white workers in Global North democracies, including the United States. But, there are also meaningful occurrences of backlash against the political establishment and […]
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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 07:30
This piece from Josh Kovensky about Manafort is epic. Switch over to read the whole thing. I didn’t know even half of this: Entertain this scenario for a minute: there’s a country sitting on a geopolitical fault line between the U.S. and one of its main adversaries, Russia. Its population is becoming increasingly pro-western; its governing and business elite largely remains beholden to Russia.   After years of fraudulent elections, a politician with a mafia past, widely seen as a stooge for Russia, comes to power in this contested country. The rise of The Stooge is seen as a breakthrough moment for Russia, a roadblock in the path of the country toward closer ties with the West. And yet, an American political consultant and insider in the traditionally hawkish Republican Party, who has worked with anti-communist guerillas around the world, has been quietly working his way into the inner circle of The Stooge and his backers. Once The Stooge is in power, The Consultant sets to work.
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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 04:58
The oil market is twice as large as all ten largest metal markets combined. Most oil and gas profits go to shareholders, not reinvestment in the industry. Since 2001 only 5 months have been cooler than the average for 1981-2010. Extinction Rebellion perform at the National Gallery of Victoria. Drilling into oil and gas (2) Continue reading »
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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 04:56
China is one of the most misunderstood and maligned nations when it comes to what it does and does not do in the South China Sea, and that it claims almost all features. China’s nine-dash line controversial claim in the South China Sea is actively challenged by five other coastal states in the region including Continue reading »
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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 04:51
One of the Ten Commandments says, with awkward bluntness: Thou Shalt Not Steal. Predictably, some are inclined to read certain qualifications in to this prohibition. As it happens, this sort of adaptive-thinking underpins arguments made in a recent article in the leading US journal, Foreign Policy. Briefly, in this article entitled: “Europe Edges Closer to Continue reading »
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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 04:50
Will a grid based around wind and solar kill manufacturing and industry? It’s what the naysayers – the Coalition and conservative agitators – want you to believe, but the experience in South Australia, which leads the world in the uptake of wind and solar, proves the opposite. The state’s transmission operator ElectraNet says wind and Continue reading »
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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 04:30
It’s the pandemic, stupid I’ve been writing here for a while that the reason everyone is so negative about everything because of mass PTSD from the pandemic. Here are a couple of eminent psychiatrists making the official diagnosis in The Atlantic: America is in a funk, and no one seems to know why. Unemployment rates are lower than they’ve been in half a century and the stock market is sky-high, but poll after poll shows that voters are disgruntled. President Joe Biden’s approval rating has been hovering in the high 30s. Americans’ satisfaction with their personal lives—a measure that usually dips in times of economic uncertainty—is at a near-record low, according to Gallup polling. And nearly half of Americans surveyed in January said they were worse off than three years prior. Experts have struggled to find a convincing explanation for this era of bad feelings. Maybe it’s the spate of inflation over the past couple of years, the immigration crisis at the border, or the brutal wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 04:19

A BUMPER crowd of some 400 turned up for the turning on of the historic South Solitary Island Lighthouse Optic at the Coffs Harbour Jetty Foreshores. “This is the perfect place for this light as it continues to be a meeting place,” City of Coffs Harbour Mayor Paul Amos said as he officially opened the...

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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 04:14

NOMINATIONS for the 2024/2025 Environmental Levy Grants Program run by City of Coffs Harbour (CoCH) are now open. Applications close on 26 April 2024. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message us. Phone us – (02) 4981 8882. Email us – media@newsofthearea.com.au Anyone can apply for grant funding,...

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Created
Sun, 24/03/2024 - 04:11

PERFORMANCE poet Taj Abdullah from Coffs Harbour joined an international act on stage in Bellingen earlier this month, in a show that focused on the global climate crisis. Taj’s Eritrean family came to Australia twelve years ago as refugees from Libya, having fled war and persecution in their homeland. Advertise with News of The Area...

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Created
Sun, 24/03/2024 - 03:00
Has it ever been this bad before? Nope: House Republicans have skipped town for Easter recess with their base enraged, their majority in tatters — and their speaker facing the prospect of a humiliating ouster at the hands of his own MAGA allies.  Dysfunction doesn’t even begin to cover it. The Senate’s passage of a $1.2 trillion spending bill at 2 am ET — narrowly averting a government shutdown — was perhaps the least dramatic development in a historic day on Capitol Hill. In a matter of hours: The Republican-led House passed the spending bill just before noon Friday and sent it to the Senate — with more than half the House GOP conference, including many furious hardliners, voting against it. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — one of those hardliners angry at Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for helping push the bill — introduced a motion to vacate the chair, calling for Johnson’s removal. Her move threatens to trigger the same type of vote that ended the career of his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. Rep.
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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 02:56
11) To criticise/oppose the current mathematical modelling emphasis is to adopt an antiscience stance. It is not. Mathematics is not essential (or inessential) to science; science involves using tools that are appropriate to the given task. A science of economics is perfectly feasible, and the current emphasis on mathematical modelling in economics serves, given the […]
Created
Sun, 24/03/2024 - 01:30
Truthiness doesn’t care about your prescription drug plan People feel what they feel. They cannot be reasoned out of them. But feelings can be manipulated, preyed upon. Con men know this. Too often, the American left kids itself that the truth will set people free, and that our own feelings do not influence our book-learnin’. They do. In a post titled, “Fascism will not be defeated by logic,” Anand Giridharadas considers “the role of emotion in the fraught political life of America in 2024.” Change by the boatload has left Americans anxious. The Ink talked to Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) for his seeming ability “to be both in the arena and up in the stands, observing the whole scene.” Giridharadas writes: They weren’t. Neither was the country (or the world). “You don’t solve a crisis of meaning and purpose by just giving people a little bit bigger tax credit,” Murphy told The Ink (subscription required): I want to start with what you’ve said about happiness.
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Sun, 24/03/2024 - 00:00
What’s a little scaremongering among Republicans? Donald “91 Counts” Trump is feeling especially vulnerable these days. For good reason. He sees his “empire” under threat on Monday of being seized to cover his half-billion-dollar bond in the New York financial fraud case. If he does not win the presidency, conviction in his other four pending cases could mean he spends the rest of his days in prison. The harshest cut of all is the damage to an ego so fragile it requires constant media and fan attention to keep from melting down. So he and his campaign are in damage-control mode after his big mouth spit out words to the effect of his threatening Social Security and Medicare if reelected. In Trumpian “I know what you are, but what am I?” fashion, Trump issued a panicked “Truth” accusing Democrats of being the party threatening the safety net.