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‘It needs to be understood how governments have facilitated inequality in the world. Billionaires don’t happen naturally. The rules by which a country’s economy operates is controlled by governments. If …

The post Money for big business and war but not for the public good appeared first on The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies.

Why is the Biden regime not making serious, vigorous representations in Beijing—threatening a break in relations, diplomatic expulsions, or other such retaliation for a breach of American sovereignty—about this "spy craft?"

The post Patrick Lawrence: The Pentagon’s Balloon Floats On  appeared first on scheerpost.com.

Double concludes with a Torchwood episodes which shocks with twists and turns from the very first scene Last time, Blogtor Who noted that it was hard to review Double Part One without knowing how, or if, its various plot points and character arcs were going to resolve. If anything, Big Finish’s release of Part One […]

The post REVIEW: Torchwood: Double Part Two – A Shocking Conclusion appeared first on Blogtor Who.

Greg Sargent makes the point that while GOP Governors are trying to turn their states into antediluvian hellscapes, Democratic Governors in the big blue states are moving forward: Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, is fond of describing his state as the place “where woke goes to die.” If so, perhaps Democratic governors can do more to advertise their states as places where Florida-style school crackdowns go to die. Some Democratic governors — not just in coastal states but also in Midwestern ones — are beginning to test this idea. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has seized on DeSantis’s latest culture-warring — Florida’s decision to ban an Advanced Placement course in African American studies — to articulate a contrasting vision for what topics should be permitted in classrooms. This week, Pritzker singled out DeSantis as an “extremist,” after the College Board introduced a revised AP course in Black studies in response to DeSantis’s attacks.

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 5, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

War

Russian Foreign Ministry Rejects Blinken and Nuland Proposals, Condemns Scholz for Reviving Hitler’s Plan to Destroy Russia 

John Helmer [Dances with Bears, via Naked Capitalism 1-29-2023]

Doctor Who Executive Producer Joel Collins had some very interesting things to say about how the new TARDIS interior design came about.

The state said Leonard “Raheem” Taylor fled after killing his girlfriend’s family. Witnesses said the victims were still alive days after he was gone.

The post Will Missouri Execute an Innocent Man? appeared first on The Intercept.

Another Message Board Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’ve moved my irregular email news from Mailchimp to Substack. You can read it here. You can also follow me on Mastodon here I’m also trying out Substack as a blogging […]

They’re getting in — against Trump The Washington Post reports: The network of donors and activist groups led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch will oppose Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, mounting a direct challenge to the former president’s campaign to win back the White House. “The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), wrote in a memo released publicly on Sunday. The three-page missive repeatedly suggests that AFP is taking on the responsibility of stopping Trump, with Seidel writing: “Lots of people are frustrated. But very few people are in a position to do something about it. AFP is. Now is the time to rise to the occasion.” I think this actually works in Trump’s favor for two reasons. First, it allows him to run against the “establishment elite” (which he is actually at the center of) and pretend he’s the outsider. His followers are dim so they’ll buy it.

By Jesselyn Radack - Kathleen McClellan: Salon.com What happened to whistleblowers like our client Daniel Hale never happens to high-level government officials We can now add Vice President Mike Pence to the list of former presidents and vice presidents who have had classified information found in their homes. While there are marked differences between Donald Trump intentionally keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and refusing to cooperate with authorities, and Pence and Joe Biden's apparent discovery of classified documents that inadvertently ended up in their homes — and were returned voluntarily and promptly — the commonality between these cases and others involving high-level officials is the lack of serious punishment.

Australia has been persuaded, enticed and strongarmed into taking gravely dangerous decisions. But Australia is a sovereign state and its fingerprints are, ultimately, all over the formation of its terrible abdication of national independence. We need to pay particular attention to a definitive insight advanced by Paul Keating: Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest. Continue reading »

We live in an integrated and connected world, not well understood by political leaders or military moguls. Nowhere is this more important than in East Asia. Destructive action towards important neighbours who are central to our trade with the world is of course contrary to our national strategic interests. We should not sit silent. For Continue reading »

Pearls and Irritations provides informed alternative perspectives on policy issues to those provided by the conventional-thinking mainstream media. It helps me check I’m not blindly going along with what it suits our political masters of the day to have us believe. I value it highly, consult it daily and so feel obliged to help ensure Continue reading »

As I watched the Four Corners program, Vape Haze, in 2022, I was struck by the program’s focus on addiction, a bad thing. A mother spoke of her devastation when her 16-year-old daughter told her she was vaping. Addiction to alcohol and drugs is viewed through different coloured spectacles. Rose-tinted for some, and through a Continue reading »

Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ essay in The Monthly, Capitalism after the Crisis, was the first real opportunity we have had to get a glimpse of his philosophy as an economist rather than a politician. I sometimes forget how academic Chalmers is, being a PhD, when we rarely see him in such academic settings. His essay is Continue reading »

Realisation is dawning that the climate and environmental crises will not be solved by current national policies. The reason is that the current market economy based on everlasting growth is the prime cause of these crises. At COP15 the UN Biodiversity Conference UN Secretary General António Guterres commenced the conference by noting “With our bottomless Continue reading »

The year of the Rabbit has arrived, and Hong Kong is bouncing back with a vengeance. Recently, we’ve seen dramatic changes in the Covid situation both here and across the border. And it’s been a long wait, as Hong Kong has been having a tough time since mid-2019 when the infamous anti-extradition protests started and Continue reading »

Our long national nightmare is over Oops: They have no idea how utterly daft they sound, do they? Reality: Kicker: (Is she running????)

In an age of vitriol, public service is an act of courage A Feb. 3 piece at Politico just caught my eye. I missed this news: Wednesday night, New Jersey councilwoman Eunice K. Dwumfour was found in her car with multiple gunshot wounds, according to authorities. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Dwumfour, a Republican, was only 30 years old. She was still a newcomer, serving her first term on the Sayreville Borough Council after being elected in November 2021. Her former campaign manager Karen Bailey Bebert told the New York Times that Dwumfour was an “inspirational woman” who was excited to get into politics at a young age. We know about recent shootings at the homes of politicians in Albuquerque, the attack on former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband that was meant for her, the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and the man with a loaded gun arrested outside the home of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). The threats and vitriol are that much worse for women in politics than men, especially if they are black (Dwumfour).

Unite denies GS even ‘aware of’ candidate running on pro-Graham ‘slate’ in elections to union’s executive The candidate on the ‘slate’ of hopefuls in Unite’s executive council (EC) elections who support the union’s general secretary Sharon Graham has reportedly ‘withdrawn’ from the contest after Skwawkbox’s exclusive coverage of Islamophobic and anti-immigrant social media posts was […]

Every Sunday, I blog about the geek-friendly radio shows the BBC are putting out in the forthcoming week! All of the following can be either listened to live or downloaded afterwards for free on the BBC Sounds app, no matter where you are in the world. (I’ve decided not to include later episodes of serials ... Read More

Our coverage this week is forcing people to take a hard look at an industry that operates in the shadows.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
I mean all of science works on the idea that you can't reallllly know anything but you can, like, pretty much know.

Today's News:

Koch network has had enough Trumpism “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security,” former President Donald Trump said in a video statement in January. Is it possible that that statement (plus a few insults) are connected to the Koch funds working against Trump in 2024? Washington Post: The network of donors and activist groups led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch will oppose Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, mounting a direct challenge to the former president’s campaign to win back the White House. “The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” Emily Seidel, chief executive of the network’s flagship group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), wrote in a memo released publicly on Sunday. The three-page missive repeatedly suggests that AFP is taking on the responsibility of stopping Trump, with Seidel writing: “Lots of people are frustrated. But very few people are in a position to do something about it. AFP is.

Abusers are five times more likely to kill their female victims if they have access to guns, according to one report.

The post Court of Appeals Rules That Domestic Abusers Can Own Guns appeared first on scheerpost.com.