A progressive Pentagon? Talk about an oxymoron! The Pentagon continues to grow and surge with ever larger budgets, ever more expansive missions (for example, a Space Force to dominate the heavens and yet more bases in the Pacific to encircle China), and ever greater ambitions to dominate everywhere, including if necessary through global thermonuclear warfare. No wonder it’s so hard, to the point of absurdity, to imagine a Pentagon that would humbly and faithfully serve only the interests of “national defense.” Yet, as a thought experiment, why not imagine it? What would a progressive Pentagon look like? I’m not talking about a “woke” Pentagon that touts and celebrates its “diversity,” including its belated acceptance of LGBTQ+ members. I’m glad the... Read more
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Oh please let them do this. Please. Mike Lee on Fox News is talking about Republicans continuing the impeachment inquiry of Biden *even if the government is shut down*. The optics of that would be interesting! pic.twitter.com/BhdfAOvYKU — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2023
In a previous post (pictured above) I wrote how I would like to enable mobile users to read the title text in the <dfn> tags. I didn’t mention that I also thought …
A former James O’Keefe antagonist believes that if the law can hold Trump accountable then it’s possible. I wish I felt confident that they were following the same path but I’m not During its 13-year history, the right-wing group Project Veritas tried to infiltrate progressive organizations, political campaigns and mainstream media organizations, and it published selectively edited videos intended to discredit those groups and compromise their operations. In February, the tables turned, as Project Veritas founder and president James O’Keefe was questioned by his own board for what it called “financial misconduct.” (Allegations that O’Keefe has disputed.) He left the organization, and it sued O’Keefe some months later. Now Project Veritas has announced that it’s suspending operations indefinitely. When O’Keefe founded Project Veritas in 2010, he unwittingly provided a model for Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican right. When O’Keefe founded Project Veritas in 2009, he unwittingly provided a model for Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican right.
Australia’s existing relationships and collaborations with China give Australian Industry and consumers a head start in the cost-effective use of some of the most important technologies of the future, including those vital to achieving net zero emissions. Most countries would give anything to be at the forefront of such developments, but Australian University researchers are Continue reading »
There’s little doubt that the American government has decided to slow China’s economic rise, most notably in the fields of technological development. To be sure, the Biden administration denies that these are its goals. Janet Yellen said on April 20, 2023, “China’s economic growth need not be incompatible with U.S. economic leadership. The United States remains the Continue reading »
In the lead up to the high-level UN meeting on universal health coverage (UHC) Australia has joined the US, UK and the EU in blocking any acknowledgement that ‘unilateral coercive measures’ (sanctions) can have negative impacts on the achievement of universal health coverage. The health consequences of sanctions include avoidable morbidity arising from increased barriers Continue reading »
Australia’s main Active Labor Market Program, the Duttonesque sounding “Workforce Australia”, is the latest iteration of a long line of models for Employment Services inflicted on the unemployed since the demise of the CES 25 years ago. It’s yet another Morrison government turd that the Albanese government should have flushed away the minute the ink Continue reading »
Former Liberal party leader John Hewson, in a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, enquired why the United Nations was not acting on proposals to deal with a series of well documented and interacting catastrophic threats. Three recent books, two of them by Australians, have highlighted the predicament our human Continue reading »
Avid readers each day of Pearls and Irritations (of which I am one) hopefully enjoyed Paddy Gourley’s review of Martin Flanagan’s new memoir ‘The Empty Honour Board: A School Memoir’. Stimulated by that review I have now read Flanagan’s remarkably honest and painful memoir. His story is consistent with repeated accounts of sexual abuse and Continue reading »
Okinawa governor Denny Tamaki has implored the UN for international backing in his opposition to the prefecture being overrun with US military bases. The Japan Times reports: “I am here today to ask the world to witness the situation in Okinawa,” Tamaki told a session of the world body’s Human Rights Council, arguing that the Continue reading »
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 24, 2023
by Tony Wikrent
USA Government Shutdown
The Looming Government Shutdown Is Not the Fault of Dysfunction
Jason Linkins, September 22, 2023 [The New Republic]
God, I admire Penny Wong. I honestly do.
If you have heard her speaking before the UN General Assembly recently you know why. If you haven’t, just look at her. Listen to her.
The climate threat … Kiribati, Tuvalu and Marshall Islands are only a few metres above sea level … Many developing countries are rightly frustrated … Approaching climate tipping points … We must demand more from permanent members [of the UN’s Security Council], including constraints on the use of the veto …
Powerful words.
Sick, sick, sick More evidence of the war on science gaining ground: For years, groups at the vanguard of the anti-vaccine movement had been operating with relatively small budgets and only a handful of staff. Now, they’re awash in cash. The Covid-19 pandemic has produced a remarkable financial windfall for anti-vaccine nonprofits. Revenue more than doubled for the Informed Consent Action Network and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense in 2021 compared to the year prior, according to a POLITICO analysis of tax filings. The nonprofits that survived on operating budgets of around a few million dollars just a few years prior are now raking in more than $10 million each. “Covid vaccines have been the foot in the door for the more general anti-vaccine movement. And unfortunately, that door is open pretty wide now,” said Dr. Dave Gorski, a Michigan-based oncologist who has been tracking anti-vaccine efforts for two decades. The funding spike reflects a sea change for once-fringe entities. The anti-vaccine movement has now emerged as a modern political force.
Some Republicans think that McCarthy spent too much time on investigations and not enough on dealing with actual governing. Haha. Ya think? House Republicans have vowed to take a long, methodical approach to investigating President Biden over potential wrongdoing. “I want this to take a long time. I really do,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, said in a recent interview. “We’re just going to keep plowing ahead, doing our work,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told reporters Thursday. But there are whispers from some rank-and-file Republicans that their leadership got too fixated on these investigations, losing focus on processing the government funding bills from the House Appropriations Committee. That’s now left the House GOP certain to face the blame if there’s a shutdown of the federal government starting next Sunday — unless they can pull off a fast legislative trick.
More on Sideshow Bob Menenedez and his gold bars and stacks of bills (U.S. News): It was the second time Menendez has faced serious legal trouble. He avoided conviction on different federal bribery charges when a jury deadlocked in 2017, and he successfully ran for reelection in 2018. But this time, Democrats – who are demanding accountability for former President Donald Trump and who are battling GOP claims that the Department of Justice has been “weaponized” against Republicans under President Joe Biden’s administration – are not rallying around Menendez. In a stunning rebuke of a member of his own party and state delegation, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy Friday afternoon called on Menendez to resign from office, saying the “deeply disturbing” allegations “are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state.” “Therefore, I am calling for his immediate resignation,” Murphy said in a statement. As the day went on after the bombshell indictment, Democrats began bailing on their legally troubled colleague.
From missing inflation data to online mass surveillance, here’s a roundup of our reporting from the past week.
It’s not even Thanksgiving before 2024 Bill Scher on formerly Twitter calls the Washington Post-ABC News poll “obviously ridiculous.“ How ridiculous? This ridiculous: Among voters under age 35, Trump leads Biden in the new Post-ABC poll by 20 points. Some other recent public polls show Biden winning this group by between six and 18 points. In 2020, Biden won voters under age 35 by double digits. Among non-White voters, the poll findsBiden leads by nine points. In four other public polls, Biden’s lead among non-White voters ranges from 12 points to 24 points. Higher up in the story (emphasis mine): The Post-ABC poll shows Biden trailing Trump by 10 percentage points at this early stage in the election cycle, although the sizable margin of Trump’s lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat. The difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump’s and Biden’s coalitions in this survey, suggest it is probably an outlier.
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: WGA/AMPTP, Howard Stern/Bill Maher/Donald Trump, Doctor Who, AHS: Delicate, Daryl Dixon, Wonder Woman & more!
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
By Chip Gibbons: The Dissenter
Americans have repeatedly been told to keep the United States safe they must surrender their core civil liberties to a vast national security apparatus. Yet when this apparatus fails at this supposed objective, the response is to further expand its surveillance powers.
Rarely is the exercise of these powers seriously explored. Instead, the national discussion centers on a baseless notion that a shortage of surveillance powers is the root cause of intelligence failures.