“A roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure investment [sic] bill advanced in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, passing a key milestone that moves the emerging legislation toward formal debate and possible passage. The Senate voted 67-32 to take the first procedural step toward debating the measure that has the support of Democratic President Joe Biden. The bipartisan agreement, which follows months of negotiations, gained the support of all 48 Democrats, two independents and 17 Republicans on this first procedural vote. … Democrats intend the bill — which includes funding for roads, bridges, broadband and other physical infrastructure — to be the first of a pair of packages, followed by a sweeping $3.5 trillion ‘human infrastructure’ package that faces staunch Republican opposition and some dissent among moderate Democrats.” (07/28/21)
“‘Nikole Hannah-Jones and other 1619 acolytes,’ Dr. Brion McClanahan writes at the Tenth Amendment Center, ‘have been consistently pushing the idea that the Constitution was a ‘pro-slavery’ document.’ McClanahan disagrees — and not just with Hannah-Jones, but also with the namesake of the institution I write for. American abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison referred to ‘the pro-slavery’ Constitution as ‘a covenant with death and an agreement with hell,’ calling for ‘no Union with slaveholders.’ ‘The Constitution,’ McClanahan claims, ‘was neither proslavery nor anti-slavery. It was neutral. … slavery was left up to the constituent members of the Union.’ There’s no kind way to put this: McClanahan manages to get it completely wrong …. Where the Constitution touches on slavery, it was, irrefutably and beyond a shadow of doubt, crafted for the benefit of slave owners and with the goal of perpetuating slavery.” (07/28/21)
“You go, Simone Biles :: The only good cop :: CA bans gaming PCs :: New South Wales lockdown :: Relative and absolute risk reduction :: Greg talks about Intellectual Property again :: Cop blocking :: Major Pain’s interpretation of events :: Discrimination against a trans woman :: Show: 2021-07-28 Aria, Angie, Nikki.” [Flash audio or MP3] (07/28/21)
“Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Thursday he would request the deployment of Russian border guards along his country’s frontier with Azerbaijan to prevent further escalation after new clashes. Last year Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a six-week war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict claimed some 6,500 lives and ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire that saw Armenia cede territories it had controlled for decades. In recent months tensions have been running high over the two countries’ shared border. On Wednesday, three Armenian soldiers were killed in fresh border clashes with Azerbaijani forces, in some of the heaviest fighting between the Caucasus rivals since last year’s war.” (07/29/21)
“Can the government get away with planting the seeds of a crime in the minds of innocent folks, providing them with the means for the crime, arresting them before the crime takes place and then charging them with a crime that never occurred? … the FBI repeatedly gets away with this because of wrongheaded Supreme Court decisions that permit law enforcement to lie, deceive and talk persons into committing crimes so long as they were predisposed to criminal acts before law enforcement came along. … being bad and having a criminal predisposition are not crimes; they are states of mind protected by the First Amendment.” (07/29/21)
“In space flight, as with anything else, the early users are going to be those who can afford the immense price. I’m not envious. Other people buy more expensive cars, bigger and better houses, and take nicer, longer vacations than I can afford. For me to envy anyone who can afford things I can’t would be pointless. In this case, they are also taking the greatest risks. By the time the cost of space travel has dropped to the point where people like me can afford a ride, most bugs should be worked out. I’m glad others are going first.” (07/28/21)
“Peru has sworn in new President Pedro Castillo, a leftist former teachers’ union leader who already faces mounting challenges to build his government, tackle the coronavirus crisis and unite a deeply polarised country. Castillo was sworn in at midday local time (17:00 GMT) on Wednesday in the capital, Lima, after weeks of uncertainty following a hard-fought June presidential runoff that saw him edge right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori by about 44,000 votes. … Castillo, a 51-year-old former rural schoolteacher, becomes Peru’s first president in decades with no ties to the country’s political or economic elite and he has promised, among other things, to ensure there are ‘no more poor people in a rich country.'” (07/28/21)
“In the scramble to drum up antitrust objections to the four alleged Big Tech monopolies, congressional aides and compliant journalists invariably make two crucial mistakes. First, they adopt indefensibly narrow definitions of the markets that have supposedly been monopolized. Second, they confuse popularity with dominance. Consider that first stumbling block, which requires defining the relevant market. Whenever any firm is accused of having a monopoly, the first question to ask is: ‘A monopoly of what?’ Facebook shows how hard it can be to answer such a seemingly easy question.” (07/28/21)
“‘What we’re alleging is that gain-of-function research was going on in that [Wuhan] lab and NIH funded it,’ Sen. Rand Paul told Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for the last 37 years and the chief medical advisor to the president, at a Senate hearing last week. Paul contended that Fauci had lied to Congress by claiming ‘NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,’ when NIH did indeed finance such activity in that lab. But Fauci denied that research met the official definition of ‘gain of function.'” (07/28/21)
“For a special edition celebrating the 100th episode of the Science of Politics, Matt talks with Ezra Klein about how well political science informs American politics and public policy.” [various formats] (07/28/21)
