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Wed, 04/01/2023 - 10:30
Not bloody likely This strikes me as hilarious: OPPONENTS OF Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the House speakership are digging in after a tense discussion on the House floor between Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. The pair’s conspicuous exchange in the back of the chamber on the first day of the 118th Congress was caught on C-SPAN — and noted by many members in the building. Thanks to Gaetz and his far-right allies, McCarthy, a California Republican, failed to win the speakership on the first round of voting. Gaetz told Ocasio-Cortez that McCarthy has been telling Republicans that he’ll be able to cut a deal with Democrats to vote present, enabling him to win a majority of those present and voting, according to Ocasio-Cortez. She told Gaetz that wasn’t happening, and also double-checked with Democratic party leadership, confirming there’d be no side deal. “McCarthy was suggesting he could get Dems to walk away to lower his threshold,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Intercept of her conversation with Gaetz on McCarthy’s failed ploy.
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Wed, 04/01/2023 - 09:30
I thought I would share this piece about Jim Jordan from 2016 just in case anyone forgets that this House circus started long before they invited their superstar clown Donald Trump into the tent: Jordan won his House seat in 2006, the year Democrats took the majority, but he didn’t emerge as a force until five years later. Republicans reclaimed the House and elected him to lead the Republican Study Committee, a powerful faction within the GOP Conference focused on crafting policy. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) remembers turning to Ryan at the time and asking who he should vote for. “Jim Jordan, of course!” Ryan responded, according to Gowdy. Jordan that year also befriended a bunch of firebrand freshmen who rode the 2010 tea party wave to Washington but didn’t quite fit in with their establishment colleagues. They admired Jordan for his conservative purity and they quickly formed an alliance. Within six months atop the study committee, Jordan began to divide the Republican Conference.
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Wed, 04/01/2023 - 08:00
The descent of MAGA into chaos continues Charlie Sykes: By the end of what promises to be a very long day Kevin McCarthy will either (1) be narrowly elected with the votes of fabulist and accused felon George Santos, conspiracist MTG, and a handful of dissidents who hate his guts, or (2) he’s going to have to move his stuff out of the Speaker’s Office a day after prematurely moving it in. Time after time, the man who would be speaker tried to shrink himself into the office, and is ending his bid by offering multiple concessions to the bomb-throwers in the caucus who will hold him hostage if he survives. Even Newt Gingrich is alarmed by the shambles. “The precedent that sets is … any five people can get up and say, ‘Well, I’m now going to screw up the conference, too.’ The choice is Kevin McCarthy or chaos.” But it’s chaos either way, isn’t it? McCarthy is a hollow man and a weak leader, and his caucus is now in the process of testing just how weak he is. One of the most powerful speakers in House history is about to be replaced by one of the puniest.
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Wed, 04/01/2023 - 07:53
4 eggs, separated4 ounces sugar4 ounces plain flour, siftedPinch of saltStrega liqueur (or a mixture of cognac and rum)½ pint double cream, whipped¾ pint vanilla pastry cream (see below)1 pint chocolate pastry cream (see below)2 ounces chopped nutsCoarsely grated orange peelChopped glacé cherries Combine eggs and sugar in the top of a double saucepan and […]
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Wed, 04/01/2023 - 07:43
[attention conservation notice: I am neither a philosopher nor a cognitive scientist] A quick friendly-critical response to this piece by Liam Kofi Bright, which also plugs some of my own collaborative work with Hugo Mercier and Melissa Schwartzberg. The short version – many arguments against the human capacity for reason rest on shaky empirics, as […]
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Wed, 04/01/2023 - 07:20


The Little Secret About Corporate Profits 

Have you noticed that when workers get better wages, the media blames them for rising prices, but when corporations rake in record profits, there’s silence?

That’s because corporate profits aren’t tracked nearly as closely as worker wages. And the reason why comes down to power.

Every month we get measurements of prices, jobs, and wages — these are the three economic variables we hear repeatedly because they are released each month like clockwork.

Created
Wed, 04/01/2023 - 06:51

Diario.ES The Guardian Ver artículo en el sitio original In English Durante meses, un presidente en funciones con inclinaciones autoritarias puso en duda la democracia de su país. Sus simpatizantes protagonizaron una violenta marcha sobre la capital para negar su derrota electoral por un estrecho margen. Pero las instituciones de la democracia fueron más fuertes que los ataques y el […]

The post Así será la política exterior de Lula: un mundo multipolar y alianzas lejos de EEUU appeared first on Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Created
Wed, 04/01/2023 - 06:21

The Guardian Diario.ES See article on original site En español For months, a sitting president with authoritarian sympathies sowed doubt in his country’s democracy. When he lost the election by a narrow margin, his supporters led a violent march on the capital in denial of the final result. But the institutions of democracy proved robust […]

The post Lula’s Foreign Policy? Encouraging a Multipolar World appeared first on Center for Economic and Policy Research.