Paul Krugman writes: A few days ago Donald Trump floated a truly terrible, indeed unworkable economic proposal. I’m aware that many readers will say, “So what else is new?” But in so doing, you’re letting Trump benefit from the soft bigotry of rock-bottom expectations, not holding him to the standards that should apply to any presidential candidate. A politician shouldn’t be given a pass on nonsense because he talks nonsense all the time. But in a way the most interesting thing about Trump’s latest awful policy idea is the way his party responded, with the kind of obsequiousness and paranoia you normally expect in places like North Korea. What Trump reportedly proposed was an “all tariff policy” in which taxes on imports replace income taxes. Why is that a bad idea? First, the math doesn’t work. Annual income tax receipts are around $2.4 trillion; imports are around $3.9 trillion. On the face of it, this might seem to suggest that Trump’s idea would require an average tariff rate of around 60 percent.
Reading
Nigel Farage echoes Trump supporters’ conspiracy theories about electoral fraud in 2020 and makes unevidenced claims of corruption in the UK postal voting system
SCOTUS is stalling The National Review comments on the remaining decisions to come out of the Supreme Court: The Supreme Court is scheduled to deliver opinions this Thursday and Friday. There should be 21 opinions remaining because there are 23 cases left, including two pairs (the Chevron challenges and the Florida and Texas social-media laws) that are consolidated and likely to be decided together. We will likely get at least five or six opinions this week, maybe as many as nine. The Court will need to schedule more opinion days next week, probably at least three of them if it intends to wrap up the term by the end of the week; otherwise, it could spill over to July 1 or 2. NR provides a handy chart of what’s left. Notice what’s at the bottom: Leah Litman writes at the New York Times: For those looking for the hidden hand of politics in what the Supreme Court does, there’s plenty of reason for suspicion on Donald Trump’s as-yet-decided immunity case given its urgency. There are, of course, explanations that have nothing to do with politics for why a ruling still hasn’t been issued.
It was never really “mostly harmless” Daniel Dale of CNN by now has got to be burned out fact-checking the firehose of false and misleading statements made by the immediate past president at every rally. Dale’s ability to do it in near-real-time has always impressed. But to have that as a job? He runs through 30 of Trump’s lies/exaggerations/misstatements from his Tuesday rally in Racine, Wisconsin in the clip below. Even more soul-sapping, as Tom Nichols puts it, is that millions of people who live next door lap it up like cream from a saucer, “willfully blinding” themselves to the truth, as Peter Wehner put it, or exhibiting “motivated unreasoning” as I did.
The season finale of Doctor Who will screen in special theatrical showings across the UK on June 21st. Why didn't Disney+ do this in the US?
Quentin Tarantino’s visit to Israeli military bases ignites controversy and protests, highlighting the disconnect between Hollywood and the American public.
The post Quentin Tarantino Under Fire for Posing with Israeli Soldiers appeared first on MintPress News.
The politicisation of literary events and artistic institutions began when corporate sponsors bought their way into these spaces, writes Russell Warfield
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: The Boys, The Acolyte, Doctor Who, Peacemaker, Resident Alien, HOTD, Superman & Lois, Modern Family & more!
‘Four years ago, we were a very different service,’ says Kimberly Lawrence, a 38-year-old mental health social worker working for Barnet Council. However, since the council decided to implement a restructuring, taking social workers out of its multidisciplinary community mental health teams, the service is now experiencing ‘astonishingly high waiting lists,’ a spiralling workload and […]
Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture can reveal some troubling insights into the flagship political debate programme
The ‘Shy Tory’ effect now extends beyond voters to Conservative incumbents as critics complain that voters shouldn't need a 'magnifying glass to work out' who they are voting for
- by Aeon Video
- by Anna K Zinn
Crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah intensified last week, with the Lebanese militia calling for a Gaza ceasefire.
The post War Clouds Over Lebanon as Hezbollah and Israel Clash appeared first on The Intercept.
As artificial intelligence guzzles water supplies and jacks up consumers’ electricity rates, why isn’t anyone tracking the resources being consumed?
Martin Frick told the BBC that some of the most deprived areas had now reached a tipping point of having “zero” harvests left, as extreme weather was pushing already degraded land beyond use.
He said that as a result, parts of Africa, the Middle East and Latin America were now dependent on humanitarian aid.
Mr Frick warned that without efforts to reverse land degradation globally, richer countries would also begin to suffer crop failures.
The Global Environment Facility estimates that 95% of the world’s land could become degraded by 2050. The UN says that 40% is already degraded.
This seems… bad. Of course, we could do something about it. In theory:
It’s Wednesday and as usual I present commentary on a range of topics that are of interest to me. They don’t have to be connected in any particular way. Today, RBA interest rate decisions, COVID and some great music. Yesterday, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) held their target interest rate constant. In their media…