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Discussing the surge of ultra-rightist populism, where I argued it all started with the West’s response to the 2008 crash – just like after 1929. When $35 trillion was printed on behalf of financiers (between 2009 and 2022), while most people were subjected to some variant of austerity, and given the Left’s failure to defend […]

The post On the causes and nature of Populism’s Surge – interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

The latest filing takes on the Big Lie directly We are told by the TV legal beagles that, in the interest of expediency, Jack Smith is going the extra mile to lay out the case he is planning to make and it’s becoming clear that he plans to make it clear that the election was not stolen which would be a real service: Special counsel Jack Smith on Saturday sharply rejected former President Donald Trump’s contention that foreign governments may have changed votes in the 2020 election, laying bare new details about his team’s extensive probe of the matter and its access to a vast array of senior intelligence officials in Trump’s administration. In a 45-page filing, Smith’s team describes interviewing more than a dozen of the top intelligence officials in Trump’s administration — from his director of national intelligence to the administrator of the NSA to Trump’s personal intelligence briefer — about any evidence that foreign governments had penetrated systems that counted votes in 2020. “The answer from every single official was no,” senior assistant special counsel Thomas Windom writes in the filing.

Recently, on a commuter train, I ran into an acquaintance who works for a government agency here in Washington, D.C. Soon after we started chatting, he indicated a desire to switch jobs in case Donald Trump was reelected president in 2024. “I’d like to be somewhere that Trump wouldn’t be able to politicize,” my buddy said. I listened as he mused about which government institutions would remain well-funded despite Trump’s desire to destroy “the deep state.” “Maybe I’ll work for the Department of Defense,” my companion finally suggested all too logically. I can see just where he’s coming from since, during Trump’s first term, with some notable exceptions, “his” generals made it a point to stick to the Constitution rather... Read more

Source: Trump, the Second Time Around? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

They’re all in on abandoning Ukraine and NATO A global far right get together: Allies of Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán will hold a closed-door meeting with Republicans in Washington to push for an end to US military support for Ukraine, the Guardian has learned. Members of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and staff from the Hungarian embassy in Washington will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank. The first day includes panel speeches about the Ukraine war as well as topics such as Transatlantic Culture Wars. It is expected to feature guests including Magor Ernyei, the international director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights, the institute that organized CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) Hungary. Kelley Currie, a former ambassador under then president Donald Trump, said she was invited “but declined”. According to a Republican source, some of the attendees, including Republican members of Congress, have been invited to join closed-door talks the next day.

Last Friday (December 8 , 2023), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – November 2023 – which showed payroll employment rising by 199,000 which is a good sign. The unemployment rate also fell as employment growth outstripped the growth in the labour force –…

Thoughts and prayers, America. That’s all you get.

Local man-child and social group deadweight, Trevor Millson (33), has again attended a Christmas social bbq with his friends brandishing nothing but a $10 box of Cadbury favourites. Wearing a t-shirt and jeans combo recycled from his laundry hamper, Trev... Read More ›

None of that matters. They have order from Dear Leader and they do what he wants: House Republicans are preparing to formalize their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden with a House vote this week, as their investigation reaches a critical juncture while right-wing pressure grows. Up until this point, House Republicans have not had enough votes to legitimize their ongoing inquiry with a full chamber vote. The probe has struggled to uncover wrongdoing by the president which is why it hasn’t garnered the unified support of the full GOP conference. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally launched the inquiry in September, even though he had previously criticized Democrats for taking the same step in 2019 when they launched the first impeachment probe of then-President Donald Trump without taking a vote at the beginning.

Back in the day, there used to be a lot more arguments across blogs. Perhaps we’ll see more of it happening again as Twitter continues its collapse into a dwarf star composed of degenerate matter.  To get things started, this seems to me to be a quite wrongheaded claim by Tyler Cowen.   In a […]

The Fifteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver reveal video also previews the Doctor Who Christmas Special. Plus, new preview images & more.

As the bloodbath in Gaza moves towards 18,000 casualties, 70% of whom are women and children, as a humanitarian catastrophe affecting a whole people persists, the rich and powerful US vetoes a U.N. Resolution calling for a ceasefire. The rich and powerful UK ducks for cover and abstains. The governments of both nations apparently believe Continue reading »

By going beyond the good and evil binary, the Australian media could play a more constructive role in fostering enduring stability between Australia and China, delineating a path that maintains Australia’s safety and integrity. China, undeniably a significant actor on the global stage, is a nation with which Australia not only can but should seek Continue reading »

Henry Kissinger’s role in expediting the Sino-US normalization and recognition process represented one of the greatest feats in modern diplomatic history. The Australian’s conflicted 2-3 December 2023 obituary of Henry Kissinger came under the banner-head, “Flawed Giant of Realpolitik”. Although we are never to see his like again, many in the Western media have left Continue reading »

Privileged people trying to save the world shouldn’t be dismissed as bourgeois virtue signalling. There are worse things to signal and it could make a difference. Even for the optimists amongst us, the problems of the world can seem overwhelming and beyond our control to change. The understandable temptation, especially for those of us fortunate Continue reading »

The recent plan of Newington College to become co-educational has initiated an uproarious reaction from their old-boys as well as influential Head Masters of such schools. This ridiculous reaction is simply a response to girls being admitted into the exclusive masculine territory that once was Newington. Their opposition to the inclusion of girls is not Continue reading »

Last month, Chris Bowen, the Climate Change Minister, delivered the second Annual Climate Change Statement to the federal parliament. The Minister’s address was in part detailed – especially when it came to the government’s many policy achievements – but less so when it came to the question of climate heating and national security. Bowen lauded Continue reading »

‘Off off the record’ with the man who secretly taped our telephone calls. I left the New York Times in 1979, after many good stories and some not so good times, to write a book, The Price of Power, about Henry Kissinger and his years as a manipulating and dissembling national security adviser and secretary Continue reading »

There is, I think, the hint of a better future after the latest heartbreaking revelation to emerge from the Middle East that the Israeli government knew a year ago about Hamas’ plans for the horrific murders on October 7. It knew. It did nothing. Why is that knowledge good news? It means Israelis must be Continue reading »

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – December 10, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

War in Ukraine

Seymour Hersh, Anatol Lieven and the desperate DC gambit to end hostilities in Ukraine while claiming ‘victory’ 

Gilbert Doctorow [via Naked Capitalism 12-04-2023] Excellent.

Even pre-schoolers understand this In one of the Atlantic articles about “If Trump Wins” Mark Liebovich goes where everyone else is afraid to go. He talks about the Trump voter. Of course, he does it after explaining that you can’t really point any of this out because it upsets the MAGAs and we can’t have that. But he does explode this high minded myth that “we’re better than that,” meaning Americans write large, which clearly only applies to some of us. Anyway: After the shock of Trump’s victory in 2016, the denial and rationalizations kicked in fast. Just ride out the embarrassment for a few years, many thought, and then America would revert to something in the ballpark of sanity. But one of the overlooked portents of 2020 (many Democrats were too relieved to notice) was that the election was still extremely close. Trump received 74 million votes, nearly 47 percent of the electorate. That’s a huge amount of support, especially after such an ordeal of a presidency—the “very fine people on both sides,” the “perfect” phone call, the bleach, the daily OMG and WTF of it all.

November 2024 is a referendum Call it a referendum. Call it a ballot measure. Whatever. The race at the top of every voter’s ballot next year will not be a race for president. Not pumped enough to show up and vote in a race between (highly likely) two old white men? How do you feel about a choice between authoritarianism and democracy? That’s what’s really the first contest on your ballot. Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré (Ret.) is counting on Gen Z, first-time voters to help save the country he served for decades: In 2024, 41 million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote. For the youngest 8 million of this group, Election Day in 2024 will be the first in which they are old enough to cast a ballot, according to recent findings by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. This new generation of voters will be the most diverse our nation has ever seen. And already, these same young people have been politically engaged.

The upcoming Doctor Who Christmas Special will bring us more of Russell T. Davies' uncompromising writing and an apparent move into Fantasy.

From profit mongers eyeing an immigrant surveillance boom to corporate media ignoring Trump’s climate death cult, here’s a roundup of our reporting from the past week.

A document obtained by The Intercept shows India was targeting Sikh separatists with a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” in the West.

The post Secret Indian Memo Ordered “Concrete Measures” Against Hardeep Singh Nijjar Two Months Before His Assassination in Canada appeared first on The Intercept.