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Starting a Holy War Against Taylor Swift Is a Surefire Way to Get Trump Reelected

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/starting-a-holy-war-against-taylor-swift-is…
Created
Thu, 01/02/2024 - 00:00

“Taylor Swift hasn’t even endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection yet. That hasn’t stopped members of MAGAland’s upper crust from plotting to declare—as one source close to Donald Trump calls it—a ‘holy war’ on the pop mega-star, especially if she ends up publicly backing the Democrats in the 2024 election.”
— Rolling Stone 1/30/24

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Put down your scotch and cigars, and listen up closely. We’ve all seen the numbers. Anyone who voted for our guy the first time is going do it again, we know that much. Our base is loyal through and through. But whether or not the election was stolen—no, shut up, not now, Rudy—is frankly beside the point. If the same number of people vote for him in November, then it’s all for nothing. Again. And it’s not like we can exactly count on the Proud Boys come January 2025—they’re turning on each other quicker than the Kardashians.

King of the Extrinsics

https://www.monbiot.com/2024/01/31/king-of-the-extrinsics/
Created
Wed, 31/01/2024 - 23:46
The deep and crucial reason why Trump could win again. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 29th January 2024 Many explanations are proposed for the continued rise of Donald Trump, and the steadfastness of his support, even as the outrages and criminal charges pile up. Some of these explanations are powerful. But there is […]

The Keynes-Ramsey-Savage debate on probability

https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2024/01/31/the-keynes-ramsey-savage-debate-on-p…
Created
Wed, 31/01/2024 - 23:20
Mainstream economics nowadays usually assumes that agents that have to make choices under conditions of uncertainty behave according to Bayesian rules, axiomatized by Ramsey (1931) and Savage (1954) — that is, they maximize expected utility for some subjective probability measure that is continually updated according to Bayes theorem. If not, they are supposed to be […]

Biden Stands at the Precipice of a Greater War in the Middle East and His Political Future

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/31/intercepted-podcast-biden-middle-east-war/
Created
Wed, 31/01/2024 - 22:00

A deadly attack by Iraqi militias against a U.S. military base in Jordan sets the stage for a potential new era of U.S. conflicts triggered by its support for the war in Gaza.

The post Biden Stands at the Precipice of a Greater War in the Middle East and His Political Future appeared first on The Intercept.

GRIND, sealed, delivered: i'm yours

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4150
Created
Wed, 31/01/2024 - 19:00
archive - contact - sexy exciting merchandise - search - about
January 31st, 2024next

January 31st, 2024: I call this comic "T-Rex in: Frame of GRIND", only not really becaus

Australia – inflation falling rapidly

https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61539
Created
Wed, 31/01/2024 - 14:31
Today (January 31, 2024), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Consumer Price Index, Australia – for the December-quarter 2023. The data showed that the inflation rate continues to fall sharply – down to 4.1 per cent from 5.2 per cent in line with global supply trends. There is nothing in this quarterly…

And This God Has Granted To Me, That

https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/niyBMplQItCUNNxz74iTinHnycKeoCpf
Created
Wed, 31/01/2024 - 11:27
And This God Has Granted To Me, That

I shall live to see the destruction of my enemies.

The great joy of watching the American government be humiliated, over and over again, as their empire collapses.

To watch as those they oppressed cease to fear them, as their enemies circle the old brute, nipping at their heels, tearing at them, as they dies innumerable wounds.

This, God has granted to me.

And so too has God granted to me to watch the end of Neoliberalism. “Greed is good” they screamed, as they strip mined the economy, becoming the richest rich in the world’s history, even as they destroyed the basis of their power.

Soon they will be the rich of undeveloping countries; the rich of India in 1950. Scream at China as they will, nothing will change that they sold the golden geese to china for cash on the barrelhead and two generations of epehemeral wealth.

The Fascist Four Know Not What They Do

https://digbysblog.net/2024/01/30/the-fascist-four-know-not-what-they-do/
Created
Wed, 31/01/2024 - 10:15
Adam Serwer with an interesting observation on the Supreme Court’s decision in the Texas border case which Gov. Abbott and 25 other red state extremist Governors are openly defying: There are many factors that led to this point. One is the reigning Republican ideology of Trumpism, which holds that only conservative electoral victories, conservative laws, and conservative governments are legitimate and must be obeyed—the ideology that led a mob to ransack the Capitol to overturn an election. Another is the steady drumbeat of catastrophizing right-wing propaganda about the recent rise in migrants at the border, which seeks to validate extreme responses, including violence and lawlessness. But even accounting for those two elements, the most significant proximate reason for Abbott’s response may be that four Supreme Court justices sent Abbott an implicit message that they agreed with him. When the Court sided with the Biden administration, it was a 5–4 split, with Justices John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett joining the three Democratic appointees.

The Half-Liz

https://digbysblog.net/2024/01/30/the-half-liz/
Created
Wed, 31/01/2024 - 08:30
JV Last at the Bulwark points out that everyone needs to take a breath and remember that Nikki Haley is untrustworthy. All you have to do is look back at the way she’s been trying to have it both ways throughout the primary campaign to realize it. I would add that her decision to work for Trump and then sing his praises when she left the administration, promising to campaign for “this one” gesturing to Dear Leader was a low point. Anyway, Last writes: Nick Catoggio argues that Haley is trying to execute “the Half Liz.” He means that she’s attempting to thread the needle between the Liz Cheney and Ron DeSantis positions on Trump: But Catoggio points out that what Haley is saying about Trump now will ultimately matter a lot less than what she says after she quits the race: I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Last notes that she is still trying to hedge her bets quoting her saying that despite all his problems, “I trust the American people to make good decisions.” “I trust the American people to make good decisions” is tautological.

Synthetic Philosophy within the division of Labor

https://crookedtimber.org/2024/01/30/52348/
Created
Wed, 31/01/2024 - 06:44
When I first published on what I call ‘synthetic philosophy’ back in 2019, I presented the two key components of the view in such a way that it caused confusion about the position I was trying to describe as a sociological phenomenon within philosophy of science. I developed the idea of ‘synthetic philosophy’ in order to give […]