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Fergawdsakes

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/24/fergawdsakes-8/
Created
Wed, 25/01/2023 - 12:00
Apparently, no one ever died before the COVID vaccines My god this is stupid … so stupid it makes my head hurt. Many of Donald Trump’s fiercest supporters are convinced MAGA influencer Rochelle “Silk” Richardson—half of the “Diamond and Silk” duo—attempted to send the former president a secret message during Saturday’s ceremony to celebrate her sister’s life. And what supposedly was that covert message that Silk floated while speaking at Lynnette “Diamond” Hardaway’s funeral? A plea for Trump to stop pushing COVID-19 vaccinations. In her nearly hour-long speech, Silk shared what occurred during Diamond’s final minutes with around 150 attendees at a theater in Fayetteville, North Carolina. “She said to me, ‘I can’t breathe.’ It was something out of nowhere and no warning,” Silk recalled. “Each breath was less and less and less.” “What I want to say to everybody is don’t you dare call me a conspiracy theorist. Because I saw it happen. I saw how it happened.

CWU speaks out on recall to Parliament of ‘misleading’ Royal Mail CEO

https://skwawkbox.org/2023/01/25/cwu-speaks-out-on-recall-to-parliament-of-misl…
Created
Wed, 25/01/2023 - 11:54
Simon Thompson recalled by parliamentary committee to answer for alleged false claims The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has spoken out about the decision of a committee of MPs to recall Royal Mail CEO Simon Thompson to Parliament to answer for allegedly misleading in his answers to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee alongside […]

The Good Neighbor

https://adamcroom.com/2023/01/the-good-neighbor/
Created
Wed, 25/01/2023 - 11:04
I’m posting a talk, which I gave nearly two years ago. Whoops! Forgot to publish it! This was an original talk for Lead Night 2021 which was hosted by OU President’s Community Scholars (PCS). The event was held on March 11, 2021 and included four TED Talk-style presentations. The theme was “Leadership Unmasked” (very 2021, […]

About the debt

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/24/about-the-debt/
Created
Wed, 25/01/2023 - 09:00
Paul Krugman on where we stand From his newsletter today (subscription only) ​The U.S. federal government last ran a budget surplus in the fiscal year 2001. (Fiscal years begin in October of the previous calendar year. Don’t ask.) Since then, the government has borrowed roughly $20 trillion. That’s a large number, even for an economy as big as America’s: Federal debt held by the public has roughly tripled as a percentage of gross domestic product, from 32 percent to 94 percent. I argued in my last column that, despite all this borrowing, we are not in any kind of debt crisis. Historically, in fact, U.S. debt isn’t all that unusual. For example, over the past three centuries Britain emerged from each major war with debt as a percentage of G.D.P. well above the current U.S. level, and took many decades to bring that debt ratio back down:Britain has borrowed a lot over the years. Still, the political history of America’s 21st-century deficits isn’t edifying. George W. Bush squandered that 2001 surplus he inherited largely on tax cuts that favored the wealthy and the invasion of Iraq, both sold to the public on false pretenses.

“Entitlements” are on the menu

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/24/entitlements-are-on-the-menu/
Created
Wed, 25/01/2023 - 07:30
You knew they would be, right? The WaPo reports: House Republicans have started to weigh a series of legislative proposals targeting Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, part of a broader campaign to slash federal spending that could force the new majority to grapple with some of the most difficult and delicate issues in American politics. Only weeks after taking control of the chamber, GOP lawmakers under new Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have rallied around firm pledges for austerity, insisting their efforts can improve the nation’s fiscal health. They have signaled they are willing to leverage the fight over the debt ceiling — and the threat of a fiscal doomsday — to seek major policy concessions from the Biden administration. So far, the party has focused its attention on slimming down federal health care, education, science and labor programs, perhaps by billions of dollars. But some Republicans also have pitched a deeper examination of entitlements, which account for much of the government’s annual spending — and reflect some of the greatest looming fiscal challenges facing the United States.