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While Congress weighs sending more aid to both countries, a new inspector general report details oversight issues and waste within the U.S. military.

The post As U.S.-Funded Wars Rage in Israel and Ukraine, Pentagon Watchdog Warns of Military Failures appeared first on The Intercept.

The poverty blindness of too many climate activists overlooks the huge complexities facing the world’s poorest

How ancient Hawaiian ways of understanding the natural world led to a scientific breakthrough for managing local waterways

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

Republicans understand that America loves celebrities. Democrats need funny and famous people running for office.

The post Jon Stewart for Celebrity President. This Is Not a Joke! appeared first on The Intercept.

Take inspiration from Diogenes, the philosopher in a barrel, and transform your negativity into a liberating force for good

- by Ansgar Allen

Read at Psyche

Today (December 6, 2023), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, September 2023 – which shows that the Australian economy grew by just 0.2 per cent in the September-quarter 2023 and by 2.1 per cent over the 12 months. If we extend the September result…

The lack of a risk strategy to tackle weather crises means ministers are not properly informed about how to tackle problems, according to the National Audit Office

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Krugman is on the case Let’s deal in reality for a moment shall we? Over the past six months, the personal consumption expenditure deflator excluding food and energy — I know that’s a mouthful, but it’s the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of underlying inflation — has risen at an annual rate of only 2.5 percent, down from 5.7 percent in March 2022. The Fed’s inflation target is 2 percent, so we’re not quite there yet. And you shouldn’t expect the Fed to declare victory any time soon. As I can tell you from personal experience, anyone suggesting that inflation is more or less under control can expect an avalanche of hate mail and hostile commentary on social media. In fact, I believe that the vehemence with which some Americans insist that inflation is still running wild distorts coverage in conventional media, too, because journalists are deterred from saying anything positive. And the Fed has to be especially careful, because it would lose credibility if inflation went back up after sounding too optimistic. The truth, however, is that inflation is looking very much like yesterday’s problem.

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Though I have been interested in ecological economics ever since I read The Limits to Growth (Meadows, Randers, and Meadows 1972), E.F. Schumacher (Schumacher 1973, 1979) and Hermann Daly (Daly 1974) in the early 1970s, and I have been a critic of Neoclassical economics for just as long, I didn’t start critiquing the Neoclassical approach … Continue reading "Capitalism, with friends like these, you don’t need enemies"

I could hardly believe I heard him right and had to listen to it twice. Not much is shocking these days but this is. The Speaker of the House is protecting the insurrectionists from the FBI. And he’s admitting it as if it is perfectly normal. This is so far beyond normal we’re living in another dimension now. We are broken.

Forget ugly sweater parties, this is our new national Christmas tradition: 1) a public venue...

It’s way more likely than we think David Frum is one Never Trumper from whom I still recoil even though I’m a big believer in a popular front against Trump. He’s still a wingnut in some very important ways. Nonetheless, this big Atlantic issue about what will happen if Trump wins has a number of good articles and I thought his was was especially thought provoking: A second Trump term would instantly plunge the country into a constitutional crisis more terrible than anything seen since the Civil War. Even in the turmoil of the 1960s, even during the Great Depression, the country had a functional government with the president as its head. But the government cannot function with an indicted or convicted criminal as its head. The president would be an outlaw, or on his way to becoming an outlaw. For his own survival, he would have to destroy the rule of law. From Trump himself and the people around him, we have a fair idea of a second Trump administration’s immediate priorities: (1) Stop all federal and state cases against Trump, criminal and civil. (2) Pardon and protect those who tried to overturn the 2020 election on Trump’s behalf.

The author on writing her new book, “Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure.”

The post My 3 Greatest Revelations appeared first on Nautilus.

“The United States cannot fix Syria,” an Obama administration official said. “I simply fail to understand why we have U.S. troops there.”

The post Rand Paul Wants to End Undeclared War in Syria appeared first on The Intercept.

Proud White-Ribbon day ambassador, shock-jock Ray Hadley, has been boasting to colleagues that he no longer needs Viagra to help get things started, instead he just begins to dream of Prime Minister Peter Dutton. ”A lot of our ageing right-wing... Read More ›

The post Doctor Who Magazine 598 appeared first on Doctor Who Magazine.

I’m sure he’ll be right back in the Senate GOP fold now. No biggie. He’s still on their team. FFS: Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, announced on Tuesday that he would lift his blockade of nearly all the military promotions he had delayed for almost a year in protest of a Pentagon policy ensuring abortion access for service members, continuing to hold up only the most senior generals. Mr. Tuberville said he had lifted his holds on about 440 military promotions. “Everybody but the 10 or 11 four-stars,” he said. “Those will continue.” The announcement represented a stark reversal from Mr. Tuberville, who for 10 months had steadfastly defended his move to stall senior military promotions over a new Pentagon policy that offers time off and travel reimbursement to service members seeking abortions or fertility care. His blockade had single-handedly disrupted the Pentagon’s ability to fill its top ranks, leaving hundreds of promotions in limbo.

With “friends” like these … This story about the head of the Florida GOP and his wife, the founder of LGBTQ-hating Moms for Liberty, is stunning: The head of Florida’s Republican Party indicated Saturday he will not step down while facing an investigation into sexual assault, rejecting calls by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to give up his role as the party’s top operative. In a letter to the state GOP, chairman Christian Ziegler did not address the allegation – which continued to send shockwaves through the state on Saturday as troubling new details about the investigation emerged – but suggested a conspiracy was afoot to leak details from the Sarasota Police Department probe. “We have a country to save and I am not going to let false allegations of a crime put that mission on the bench as I wait for this process to wrap up,” he wrote.