In his memoir Returning to Reims, the author Didier Eribon recalls his father’s revulsion towards French politicians and the journalists in whose presence they were far too comfortable. Watching TV after a day’s work in a factory, the negativity he felt over their chummy familiarities was matched only by his satisfaction when a trade unionist ‘with a worker’s accent’ arrived on the […]
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The Court of Appeal upheld sentences totalling 35 years for climate activists
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March 10th, 2025: Unrelated to the above comic, but I just spent 5 days in New York City and not ONCE did someone say "Hey, I'm wa I earlier wrote that the West’s elites were too tentative in their approach to lawfare, using Trump (where I’m right) and Georgescu as examples. With Goergescu they had initially just annulled an election, but let him run again. Seems I was wrong about Georgescu. Using charges of Russian influence after “finding” weapons and cash and whatnot in his network. I’m—skeptical, at best, this looks like a stitch up to me, but I can’t rule out that it isn’t fake. So Romania has now banned Georgescu from running at all. But here’s the thing, take a look at the polling: Life expectancy has fallen since Covid in almost every country although the policy response has been exactly the opposite to what should be expected. We now have the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services advocating ‘personal choice’ in vaccine take up while he recommended Vitamin A to deal with a spreading measles outbreak…
ABC’s Antony Green applauded for his analysis of Western Australia’s election that saw Roger Cook returned as premier. Cyclone Alfred impacts on the South-East Queensland and Northern NSW coastline. Conflict in Syria must challenge Australia’s government while a policeman in the UK advises protesters it is ok to protest for Israel, but not Palestine. Once Continue reading »
This is the Polish foreign minister: Speaking of small men… That’s li’l Marco trying to make amends with Elon by doing a very adorable little Col. Nathan Jessup impression: And, needless to say, Musk is very much threatening to pull Starlink and he will have Trump and Putin’s total support if he does it. In fact, it will probably be their idea. (I guess his statement that he challenged Putin to one on one physical combat is supposed to make us all tingly down there or something… I’m not sure. But it’s a very weird non-sequitur.) Update: Trust him? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
NBC News reports: As U.S. and Ukrainian officials prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia this week, President Donald Trump has privately made clear to aides that a signed minerals deal between Washington and Kyiv won’t be enough to restart aid and intelligence sharing with the war-torn country, according an administration official and another U.S. official. Trump wants the deal, which would give the U.S. a stake in Ukraine’s mineral resources, signed. But he also wants to see a change in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s attitude toward peace talks, the officials said, including a willingness to make concessions such as giving up territory to Russia. Trump also wants Zelenskyy to make some movement toward elections in Ukraine and possibly toward stepping down as his country’s leader, the officials said. Elections in Ukraine have been paused under the country’s constitutional provision for martial law, which has been in effect since Russia invaded in 2022. I don’t think there’s any doubt about Trump is up to.
Good evening Brussels! We once had a dream. It was a dream of what Europe could have been. A Europe of shared prosperity, dignity, freedom – a Europe of Peace and Hope. That dream is now dead, lost, gone, kaput. Why? What the hell happened to Europe? We know what happened to Europe! We know […] The post WTF happened to Europe? Speech at DiEM25’s Brussels Event (National Theatre, 7th March 2025) appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis. “It is pretty wild how you can make someone mad by just holding a sign,” my 18-year-old Ro told me, as an irate driver peeled out of the intersection, shaking both his middle fingers at us but managing not to hit us. Phew! Ro was right. It didn’t take much to turn a perpetually busy intersection in New London, Connecticut, into a discussion forum on presidential overreach, cruelty, and immigration politics — with all the excesses, including those fingers, of the Age of Trump. In fact, all it took was four of us, four signs, and a little midday coordination. Oh, and some noise makers! Our signs said: “New London cares about our neighbors” and “ICE Not Welcome” and two... Read more Source: Courage Is Contagious appeared first on TomDispatch.com. Don’t look to the elites to step up. They’re all running for cover. This article in the NY Times surveys the cowardly retreat overtaking American elites both public and private. More than six weeks into the second Trump administration, there is a chill spreading over political debate in Washington and beyond. People on both sides of the aisle who would normally be part of the public dialogue about the big issues of the day say they are intimidated by the prospect of online attacks from Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, concerned about harm to their companies and frightened for the safety of their families. Politicians fear banishment by a party remade in Mr. Trump’s image and the prospect of primary opponents financed by Mr. Musk, the president’s all-powerful partner and the world’s richest man.
Center-right French senator Claude Malhuret gave a speech last week that was heard around the world. He’s an epidemiologist and former leader of Doctors Without Borders. This one’s for the history books. Europe is at a crucial juncture of its history. The American shield is slipping away, Ukraine risks being abandoned, and Russia is being strengthened. Washington has become the court of Nero: an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a buffoon on ketamine tasked with purging the civil service. This is a tragedy for the free world, but it’s first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. [President Donald] Trump’s message is that being his ally serves no purpose, because he will not defend you, he will impose more tariffs on you than on his enemies, and he will threaten to seize your territories, while supporting the dictators who invade you. The king of the deal is showing that the art of the deal is lying prostrate. He thinks he will intimidate China by capitulating to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but China’s President Xi Jinping, faced with such wreckage, is undoubtedly accelerating his plans to invade Taiwan.
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – March 09, 2025 By Tony Wikrent
Understanding Trump’s War on Research Funding & The Future [Pandemic Accountability Project, via Naked Capitalism 03-05-2025] Trump and his minions believe they have a mandate to completely dismantle the American economy. I guess it’s because the “vibes” over egg prices were so bad? Really? Axios reports: President Trump believes it’s worth risking pain to achieve his medium-term goal of rewiring the U.S. economy. He is attempting a form of economic shock therapy, while accepting there could be collateral damage. That willingness to shrug off risks of inflation or recession is now rattling financial markets and confidence — and has itself emerged as the biggest near-term economic risk. The administration has embraced that the economic disruption it envisions could be painful. Not painful for them of course. Trump’s cabinet is full of billionaires. Axios says this means that there will be no Washington cavalry coming to save us. I kind of doubt anyone believes that anyway. Trump is seeking to rapidly undo a global economic order that has been decades in the making. Americans enjoyed the fruits of cheap goods made around the world, at the cost of a diminished domestic manufacturing base.
A new report has torpedoed Peter Dutton’s claim that the Coalition’s nuclear power plan for Australia would be 44% cheaper than Labor’s plan for renewables, finding instead that it would inflate average consumer electricity bills by up to 41% between now and 2030. The report, commissioned by the Clean Energy Council, models the outcomes on Continue reading »
Trump 2.0 might as well use bombs and arson If citizens feel whipsawed by the contradictions and backpedaling by Trump 2.0 policy malfeasance, it is hardly surprising. It’s not just the obvious intention to privatize government services things ought to be public (and not-for-profit), it’s the threat those privatizing efforts pose to “Americans’ health, safety, and economic security,” writes Heather Cox Richardson. Social Security is a perennial target for the right, and is once again. Trump 2.0 will sabotage it, collapse it, then argue that Republican dysfunction by design is reason to kill it: In another blockbuster story that dropped yesterday, the Social Security Administration announced it will begin to withhold 100% of a person’s Social Security benefits if they are overpaid, even if the overpayment is not their fault. Under President Joe Biden the agency had changed the policy to recover overpayments at 10% of monthly benefits or $10, whichever was greater.
Wall Street corrupts an affordable housing program, hopeful parents lose embryos, dangers lurk in your pantry, and more from The Lever this week.
Trump welcomes Putin, abandons liberal democracy Donald Trump’s Oval Office ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (with a strong assist from J.D. Vance) was embarrassing and shocking in perhaps equal proportions. The convicted felon now occupying the White House got there with the approval of not even half of American voters (and only 64 percent of them) and with a little help from a “friend” of his and an enemy of democracy: Russian president Vladimir Putin. Trump immediately set about surrendering U.S. leadership in the post-WWII order. He has in fact already dismantled it. As obsessed as Mr. America First is with winning, the real winner of the 2024 presidential elections was Putin, writes Franklin Foer in The Atlantic. The Oval Office shouting match was a fist-pump moment for Putin signifying his “ultimate victory,” the moment when “the United States, became his most powerful ally.” Except Foer’s conclusion is only true if one accepts (as the felon-who-would-be-king does) that Trump is the state. The other half of U.S. voters would strenuously disagree.
In Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool (2023), author James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) is holidaying with his partner Em (Cleopatra Coleman) on the island of Li Tolqa, when he hits and kills a local man while driving back to his resort at night. The next day he is arrested by the authorities and told that the penalty […]
For those of us who would like to see a revival of the ‘techno-critical’ tradition in public debate (the tradition of Marshall McLuhan, Jacques Ellul, Neil Postman and Langdon Winner, inter many alia), it is a cause of some irritation that the hegemonic view of technology remains the ‘instrumental’ one.
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