And yet he’ll probably die being hated because he was old Those numbers are the envy of the world. The US under Joe Biden and the Democrats engineered a soft landing from a global economic catastrophe. I wonder if anyone will ever take the chance again. Doing the right thing turned out to be politically suicidal. Just as he did last time and he’ll seize credit for it. If you ever thought life was fair, think again. By the way, Democrats are gloomy about the economy, and Republicans are optimistic. I don’t think it’s just pure partisanship on the Dems part. They’re worried about the tariffs, tax cuts and deportation which isn’t irrational. If Trump carries out his plan the risk of killing this economy is very, very high. Of course, he’ll just blame the Democrats so… Here’s his latest: Biden is a ghost and the Democrats are nowhere to be found. Everyone knows it’s a GOP shitshow show. Let’s hope most people see the truth.
Reading
(With thanks to Dr. Henry Gorman)
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Aristotle: Be good for goodness’ sake.
Plato: To be “good” or “nice” is to cultivate one’s knowledge of Santa and to choose actions that make him happy. For these purposes, “Santa” can be defined as a bearded featherless biped in a red suit.
Diogenes: Pluck the fattest chicken you can find, paint it red, glue cotton balls to its chin, and say, “Behold: Santa!”
Epicurus: As long as you savor it, you can eat exactly one cookie off the plate you left out for Santa.
Marcus Aurelius: Worrying about whether Santa perceives you as “Naughty” or “Nice” is an impediment to your flourishing. Cultivate a state of indifference as to whether you receive presents or coal.
Thomas Aquinas: Sometimes, Santa brings you items with the accidents of presents, but the essence of coal (e.g., wool socks).
The battle is on to see which side of politics can boast of siphoning the most profits to the weapons industry – at the expense of health, education, climate and environmental action, and everything else we need – and of bowing more obsequiously before the US and its war machine. Serious examination of AUKUS and Continue reading »
I know what antisemitism looks like and it is to desecrate the memory of my parents and the victims of real antisemitism when it is weaponised to silence justified criticism of Israel’s crimes. Rally Speech in Hyde Park, Saturday December 15, 2024 I’m proud to stand with you again today together with many Jews around Continue reading »
Australia and Germany are quite literally a world apart, and expecting to find many parallels between the two countries might appear counter-intuitive. But as secondary powers in the Anglo-American sphere of influence, many of the resulting challenges the two nations face are indeed identical. Most significantly, the severe curtailment of national sovereignty by a foreign Continue reading »
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy turns a blind eye to “unethical conduct” between Thales and the Defence Department despite national audit office warning of “capture” by weapons giants. Part 3 of 3 (read part 1 and part 2) The number of corruption investigations into the Thales Group continues to mount internationally with another announced two weeks ago. The UK’s Serious Continue reading »
In response to arson on a Melbourne synagogue, ill informed politicians, ignorant media commentators and a bully Israeli Prime Minister have rushed to declare this crime is not only anti-Semitic but an act of terrorism. A year of pandemic like claims about a rise in anti-Semitism has reached a climax in interpretations of the meaning Continue reading »
There are no Christmas presents for public schools in new interim funding agreements between the Albanese Government and the major states. Government funding shares for public schools in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia in 2025 will be largely stuck at their previous levels because of continued squabbling between government levels. Public schools in these Continue reading »
At 4am in the morning, Ballarat was dark and dismal. Nonetheless, about forty people, suitable dressed for the cold and the light drizzle, assembled at the Eureka Stockade Memorial Park to commemorate the 170th anniversary of the 1854 Eureka rebellion. The sky was clouded, and the Southern Cross was shrouded, but it was present in Continue reading »
What are the five most precious things in my life? I have wondered often lately what might catch the attention of those who are busy despoiling our planet, and cause them to reflect on what they are destroying, and whether that matters to them. What if they asked themselves ‘What are the five most precious Continue reading »
Let me directly address the narrative pushed by the United States and its allies regarding the alleged “genocide” of Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang province. This narrative is not only riddled with inconsistencies but reeks of the same imperialist strategies the U.S. has employed for decades to destabilise dozens of nations and advance its own geopolitical Continue reading »
The threat by president-elect Trump to place 100% tariffs on any country that backs any other currency to replace the US dollar is an open attack on global trade stability. “Snap, crackle, pop.” No, its not the sound of an American breakfast cereal. It’s the sound of global trade and supply chain stability under strain Continue reading »
The Prime Minister's acceptance of right-wing economic orthodoxy is pushing his party and the country towards disaster, argues his former adviser Simon Fletcher
Our new president is a different kind of MAGAmaniac Back in 2016, the whole country was left in shock when celebrity businessman Donald Trump managed to take over the Republican Party and win the presidential election. At the time there was quite a bit of resistance within the GOP establishment due to the fact that Trump had not run as an ordinary conservative but rather as a populist demagogue and they had no idea that their voters were so hungry for his message. Gone were all the usual paeans to small government and family values and even his strong advocacy for expanding the military was coupled with a discordant isolationist stance that harkened back to the pre-WWII America First movement. (Trump had no idea about that history — he thought he came up with it himself.) However he was all for tax cuts for the wealthy, which is the lifeblood of the Republican party. And he was reflexively hostile to anything his predecessor Barack Obama ever did which meant that he was willing to reverse much of the progress that had been made in the previous eight years, pleasing Republicans to no end.
Biden is running out of time to stop another Trump execution spree.
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I det senaste avsnittet av podden Vi bygger landet presenteras och diskuteras Ernst Wigforss bidrag till arbetarrörelsens kamp för full sysselsättning och den ekonomiska politiken. Väl värt att lysssna på! Ernst Wigforss kunde som Sveriges finansminister under stora delar av mellankrigstiden och de tidiga åren efter andra världskriget bidra till att omvandla Sverige till en […]
For Republicans, for Democrats, for the republic In yesterday’s Starting The Steal, we discussed the Republican legal challenge to losing the North Carolina state Supreme Court race in November. But today consider the national implications. Even a Republican gets it (sort of). Andrew Dunn of Longleaf Politics believes it a bad idea for Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin to fight his loss all the way to the GOP-controlled state Supreme Court he’s desperate to join. Republicans want to throw out 60,000 votes “on technicalities in voter registration.” Read more about that here and here. “I’m not sure who’s leading the push here — but it needs to end now,” writes Dunn: If the Supreme Court sides with Griffin, the fallout will be immediate and brutal. This isn’t just bad optics; it’s potentially a credibility-shattering disaster for the court, the party, and conservatism in North Carolina. Overnight, this becomes a national story about Republicans “stealing” a Supreme Court seat. The allegation would be impossible to defend against. And it wouldn’t end there.
Welcome Chaos Games With so much chaos this morning in Washington, D.C., I don’t know where to focus. Government shutdown looms, blares CNN unless that’s changed since I last hit Refresh. Kate Riga at TPM wonders just where “on the spectrum of incompetence to malice” the incoming Trump II administration will land. It appears Donald Trump has ceded the presidency to, in NewsHoundEllen’s view, a “likely illegal immigrant.“ David Rothkopf wonders how a great nation functions with three presidents at once. The official president is “currently MIA. Our president-elect has been acting since the first week of November like he has already taken office, meanwhile, but has also effectively appointed a shadow president in Elon Musk, who appears to be the one of the three with the most clout right now.” The rule of law is going on holiday except for punishing them what’s done Trump wrong: U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan says she has often reassured police officers traumatized by the violence of Jan.
Jon Pertwee's debut season as The Third Doctor is finally getting a Blu-Ray box set release with Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 7.
Congress was about to vote on a bill called a “Continuing Resolution”, which would fund the operations of the federal government. But yesterday, Musk started tweeting around the clock about how he hated the bill and that he would fund the campaigns of politicians who ran against Congress members who supported it.
….Shortly after Musk decided he was against the Continuing Resolution, Trump and JD Vance issued a statement saying they were against it, too. The politicians in Congress fell in line, and now it looks like the government funding plan is dead.