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We Wrote Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, and We Damn Well Meant What We Said

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/we-wrote-section-three-of-the-fourteenth-am…
Created
Fri, 22/12/2023 - 03:15

Constitutional Framers here. We’re just sending a little missive to clear up some confusion. We hear there’s been a bit of hullabaloo regarding the precise meaning of the words our colleagues and we labored over about eight score years ago. We’re here to clarify that we indeed meant what we fucking said.

Some of you are suggesting that when we wrote that someone who previously took an oath “as an officer of the United States … to support the Constitution of the United States” but “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” cannot be president, perhaps we meant something other than the literal fucking meaning of those words.

We can understand the confusion. Sometimes, people’s words are the opposite of what they mean, as when using sarcasm or engaging in a bit of satire. I can assure you that we were not employing such literary devices when we drafted the goddamn Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.

The Price Of Muffins

https://digbysblog.net/2023/12/21/the-price-of-muffins/
Created
Fri, 22/12/2023 - 02:30
And $6 boxes of cereal Between degrees I worked as a waiter. I preferred tips on a credit card. Yes, that made them more reportable. But it also made them bigger. Customers seemed more generous when the cash didn’t come directly out of their wallets. They felt the bite more when they plopped down cash. Americans’ sense that their personal economy remains unwell may stem from something like that. Great economic data is abstract. Six-dollar boxes of breakfast cereal are not. Nor five dollars for a dozen eggs. That’s what Americans feel most, The Atlantic‘s Gilad Edelman explains: Working with Leger, a North American polling firm, we asked 1,005 Americans how they felt about the economy. As with other recent polls, this one painted a gloomy picture. Only 20 percent of people said that the economy has gotten better over the past year, compared with the 44 percent who said it has gotten worse. (There was a big partisan split, but even among self-identified Democrats, only 33 percent said the economy has improved.) Then we asked them to choose, from a long list, what factors they consider when deciding how the national economy is doing.

Half Of Gaza’s Population Is Now Starving

https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/niyBMplQItCV8-Fcac5zIlyOSYGFl6uu
Created
Fri, 22/12/2023 - 02:12
Half Of Gaza’s Population Is Now Starving

And 90% aren’t eating every day.

The US could stop this tomorrow, Israel is a small country completely dependent on America.

The only country really doing anything to help is Yemen. They have been attacking Israeli associated freighters whether Israeli flagged or not (but not any freighter that is not owned or heading to Israel.) The US has been protecting this Israeli freight and has announced a campaign to stop them and keep the Red Sea open with twelve partners, none of whom are on the Red Sea: Britain, France, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the Seychelles and Bahrain.

Approaching the Energy Cliff

https://steadystate.org/approaching-the-energy-cliff/
Created
Fri, 22/12/2023 - 01:21
by Dave Rollo

Warn anyone in the USA about the coming energy crisis and you’re likely to see eyes roll. “What energy crisis? That was half a century ago! Markets and technology won. Today we’re back among the top oil suppliers!”

All true, but the response gives a false sense of security that has policymakers and publics sleepwalking toward a cliff. An energy crisis is likely ahead, no matter our rank (currently third) among oil supplying nations.

The post Approaching the Energy Cliff appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

The U.S. and China at Year’s End

https://tomdispatch.com/the-u-s-and-china-at-years-end/
Created
Fri, 22/12/2023 - 01:20

This hasn’t exactly been a year of good news when it comes to our war-torn, beleaguered planet, but on November 15th, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping took one small step back from the precipice. Until they talked in a mansion near San Francisco, it seemed as if their countries were locked in a downward spiral of taunts and provocations that might, many experts feared, result in a full-blown crisis, even a war — even, god save us all, the world’s first nuclear war. Thanks to that encounter, though, such dangers appear to have receded. Still, the looming question facing both countries is whether that retreat from disaster — what the Chinese are now calling the “San... Read more

Source: The U.S. and China at Year’s End appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Screwed: Them Or Us?

https://digbysblog.net/2023/12/21/screwed-them-or-us/
Created
Fri, 22/12/2023 - 01:00
This was your court, John Roberts SCOTUS-watcher Dahlia Lithwick comments on the dilemma in which the Roberts court finds itself. Choose your clichéd metaphor: painted itself into a corner, hoisted on its own petard, shot itself in the foot, chickens coming home, etc. Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife are just one court soap opera. The fact that conservative funders expend lavish sums to sustain the pair in the style to which they’ve become accustomed makes it clear that both the Federalist Society and SCOTUS conservatives believe justice goes to the highest bidder. The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to ban Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot for engaging in insurrection is on its way to D.C. Thomas will surely not recuse himself from that and other Jan. 6 cases involving players with which his spouse Ginny is closely aligned.

Bully Beef

https://www.monbiot.com/2023/12/21/bully-beef/
Created
Fri, 22/12/2023 - 00:58
The meat industry’s misinformation tactics are even worse than the fossil fuel industry’s. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 14th December 2023 Everything that makes campaigning against fossil fuels difficult is 10 times harder when it comes to opposing livestock farming. Here you will find a similar suite of science denial, misinformation and greenwashing. […]

An Open Letter to People Who Hate the Paul McCartney Song “Wonderful Christmastime”

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-open-letter-to-people-who-hate-the-paul-…
Created
Fri, 22/12/2023 - 00:00

Dear People Who Hate the Paul McCartney Song “Wonderful Christmastime,”

Hi, it’s me. I’m that person who loves the song “Wonderful Christmastime.” What do I mean by “love,” you ask? I don’t mean I find myself accidentally humming along with it while I’m shopping for sherpa-lined sweatpants or driving to a December root canal. No. I mean I listen to it on purpose. I mean I seek it out.

Because you have not replied to my previous letters, I’m brainstorming my own best-guess reasons for your hatred of this song. Before we begin, please understand that hatred is almost always based on one primal, human emotion: fear.

You might fear the Paul McCartney song “Wonderful Christmastime” because you are afraid of being left out of wonderful Christmastime celebrations. These range from ironic ugly sweater bashes to sincere gingerbread-swap scenarios to glittery how-is-she-not-freezing-in-that-sleeveless-dress galas you’ll remember into your twilight years. The joy of not being alone in December!

Appeasement R Us

https://digbysblog.net/2023/12/20/appeasement-r-us/
Created
Thu, 21/12/2023 - 12:00
JV Last has a great piece up today about the Colorado decision that you should read in its entirety. I’ll just excerpt this one part: Have you ever noticed how, whenever Trump does something terrible, there is always an argument that holding him accountable can only help him? You can’t impeach him in 2020, because it’ll just make him stronger. You can’t impeach him in 2021, because you’ll turn him into a martyr. You can’t raid Mar-a-Lago to take back classified documents, because you’ll rile up his base. You can’t prosecute him for crimes X, Y, and Z, because it’ll make Republican voters love him more. There is a strange, self-limiting, helplessness to that thinking: A wicked man does immoral and illegal things—and society’s reaction is to say that we must indulge his depredations, because if we tried to hold him accountable then he would become even worse. Is there any other aspect of life in which Americans take that view? That’s not how parents deal with children. It’s not how regulatory agencies deal with corporations. And it’s not how the justice system deals with criminals.