“There's a beautiful bunch of flours waiting for you in the kitchen sweetie"
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I mentioned this before but in case you missed it, this write up of the judicial assault on Social Security is worth reading: During his passionate and very focused 2023 State of the Union address on Tuesday night, February 7, President Joe Biden slammed Republicans for their efforts to “sunset” Social Security and Medicare. Biden was referring specifically to a proposal by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida), who has called for dramatic changes to the way in which those programs are funded. Instead of perpetual funding, Scott has called for Social Security and Medicare to “sunset” in five years. The Florida senator’s exact words were: “In my plan, I suggested the following: All federal legislation sunsets in five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” But in an article published by Slate on February 9, journalist Mark Joseph Stern emphasizes that Republicans have a tool other than Congress for attacking Social Security and Medicare: the federal courts. Stern explains, “Recently, the 5th U.S.
- by Brandon Bretl
Issue 47 of the Nautilus print edition combines some of the best content from our November and December 2022 issues. It includes contributions from paleoclimatologist Summer Praetorius, science writer Katharine Gammon, astrobiologist Caleb Scharf, and more. This issue also features a new illustration by Katherine Streeter.
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Sure, why not? I’ve been saying this for awhile and I think it becomes truer every day. Despite the fact that he is an ex-president Trump’s path to the nomination is the same one he had in 2016: the anti-establishment outsider, especially in light of the party elites pushing Ron DeSantis. JV Last at the Bulwark takes a look at the lay of the land: I have some Deep Thoughts on Ron DeSantis for later this week, but I want to start by asking you to consider a parallel: Is he Scott Walker or George W. Bush? I don’t mean on the merits or as an ideological figure. I’m talking exclusively about DeSantis’s political position at this moment in the primary. Is he a rocket about to take off? Or is he the stalking horse for the entire spectrum of the Republican party / Conservatism Inc.—from the think tanks to the donors to the grifter class? The reason this question is interesting is because there’s evidence to support both views. Nate Cohn has done a deep dive on the data and concluded that DeSantis is definitely not Walker; but may not quite be W.
The evidence is damning: many outlets in the mainstream media worked in support of the former Coalition government's establishment of its illegal Robodebt scheme, writes Dr Victoria Fielding. read now...Michael Hollis ‘outraged’ at Tory MP’s claim that ‘brown envelopes of cash’ changed hands Tory party chair ’30p’ Lee Anderson is being sued by Michael Hollis, after Anderson posted a claim on Facebook that Hollis – who runs a local food bank charity – had exchanged ‘brown envelopes of cash’ in relation to a planning […]
Trump has a new nickname for Ron DeSantis: Meatball Ron, which is a lot more like it. I’m not sure what it means but it sounds more insulting than Ron DeSanctimonious which is just a little bit too “elitist” for the cult. Meatball Ron is starting to take some incoming: As Gov. Ron DeSantis prepared for an election night party in downtown Tampa last year, city officials received a surprising — and politically sensitive — request. The Republican governor’s campaign wanted weapons banned from his victory celebration at the city-run Tampa Convention Center, a city official said in emails obtained by The Washington Post. And the campaign suggested that the city take responsibility for the firearms ban, the official said — not the governor, who has been a vocal supporter of gun rights. “DeSantis/his campaign will not tell their attendees they are not permitted to carry because of the political optics,” Chase Finch, the convention center’s safety and security manager, said in an Oct.
Celebrating a victory for workers everywhere (and especially non-smilers).
The NFL’s Super Bowl pre-game tribute to Army Ranger Pat Tillman reminded the ScheerPost staff of this piece by his brother Kevin Tillman, originally published in 2021. By Kevin Tillman / TomDispatch Just about everyone was shocked by what happened at the Capitol building on January 6th. But as a former soldier in America’s forever […]
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Upon the recent death of the conservative British historian Paul Johnson, the right-wing journal Public...
INET is invested in identifying the complex global interactions that influence poverty and development with a focus on strategies that have proven successful in promoting equitable growth, promoting capabilities, and reducing poverty.
More neoliberalism gone bad.
Overall, the main takeaway is that decentralization is not a silver bullet that occurs in an abstract environment. As in other contexts, decentralisation can worsen problems when pursued within insecure environments, where people are already marginalised and/or elite capture is rife, as in Ukraine. Despite promises that decentralization in Ukraine would reduce oligarchic power and empower marginalised groups, it seems these aims have not been met and may now, post-reform and with the 2022 Russian Invasion, be even more difficult to achieve. For Ukrainian decentralization to meet its laudatory aims, concurrent fundamental structural change must dismantle elite patrimonial-criminal nexuses, bring political and economic power to regular and marginalised Ukrainians, and unravel violent capitalist relations.
Progress in Political Economy (PPE)
Devolution or Decapitation? Decentralization and the War in Donbas
Elliot Dolan-Evans
Elliot Dolan-Evans
Ukraine’s decentralization reform has been hailed as one of the country’s most successful since the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity. Recently, a piece in Foreign Affairs claimed that Ukraine’s decentralization has ‘brought the country together’ in the face of Russia’s 2022 invasion, fostering political legitimacy, solidarity, and community pride. Offering a different perspective, in my research paper published in the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, I argue that the political, administrative, and fiscal processes of decentralization in Ukraine during the War in Donbas has further instituted certain inequalities and emboldened oligarchic power, which may pose difficulties for future post-conflict reconstruction, summarised here.
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~ Today's Water Cooler ~
Farmers in low-income countries have multiple channels through which they respond to climate change. Some switch to growing more heat-resilient crops or crops that require less water. Others migrate or leave agriculture altogether. In new research, Amrit Amirapu, Irma Clots-Figueras, and Juan Pablo Rud find that temperature shocks to agricultural production in India increase voter turnout in rural areas and push rural voters to elect candidates who are on average poorer, less tainted by corruption, and have a background in agriculture....
A growing academic literature documents how farmers in low-income countries respond to the harmful effects of extreme heat on agricultural production. In many cases, farmers can change the way they produce, by using more land or labor or by switching crops. They can also try to move out of agricultural activities, sell assets, or migrate.
A new cold war is upon us, but only China is in a position to push it beyond the point of no return. That moment will come when China’s policymakers cross the Rubicon and decide to wean Chinese economic growth off the US trade deficit.
Interesting article about the symbiotic relationship and the changing conditions that threaten it. One of these factors is the development of the Chinese economy beyond the point that the Americans that entered into the deal foresaw.
Yanis Varoufakis points out, correctly in my view, that neither side wants to end this "dark deal" since it is highly beneficial to powerful interests in both countries. But US attempts to undermine China's development and challenge it militarily through creation of a "Pacific NATO" may force its closure.
Blair Fix caused a bit of a stir last week on economics Twitter with a cleaned up version of the above chart taken from his article on interest rates and inflation. My chart is a scatter plot of the U.S. annual CPI inflation rate versus the effective funds rate, from 1954-2022. The blue line is the best linear fit of the two variables. The “linear model” suggests that inflation is an increasing function of the nominal interest rate.
Blair was met with a predictable howl of indignation on Twitter. Why predictable? The belief that higher interest rates reduce inflation (with a technical twist I note below) is pretty much enshrined as an assumption in neoclassical economics. (I use “neoclassical” as a fancy-pants word to describe “mainstream academic economics,” as “mainstream” is somewhat ambiguous if we are not referring to academia.)
In contrast to Labor politicians such as Paul Keating, Bill Hayden, Gareth Evans and Gough Whitlam, the four part series recently published by Keating and Stanford on Australian national security sees no place for arms control measures and peace initiatives. Michael Keating and John Stanford recently wrote a four-part series in P&I arguing the case Continue reading »
Labor came to office last May, replacing a government that had steered Australia’s relationship with the United States to new heights of servility. Our ties with China were in tatters. Many had hoped that the change of government would usher in a shift to a more imaginative and less subservient foreign policy. Nine months later Continue reading »
Overseas students are a key source of export income and a tool of Australia’s soft diplomacy. Whether for good or bad, they have also become a major funding source for university research. But far more importantly, they have since around the year 2000, contributed around 25 percent of the annual migration program – in other Continue reading »
Peter Dutton faces a stern test of his leadership and his strategies in preparing for a by-election in the Melbourne outer suburban seat of Aston. It’s in Victoria, where the Liberal Party has been on the nose, as most recently demonstrated in November by the swingeing repudiation of the party in favour of “Dictator” Dan Continue reading »
There has been a flurry of mention of the Australian War Memorial (‘AWM’) concerning the removal of Chinese-made security cameras from Government buildings . The new Chair of the AWM, Kim Beazley AO, announced that it would so do, out of ‘an abundance of caution’ (codespeak for ‘this is complete BS but we will do Continue reading »