“The media had a rough year, a dishonest one, worsened only by a high-stakes election — that’s something to both celebrate and lament. Month after month, corporate media opened up a firehose of propaganda, the worst of which was that President Joe Biden was as energetic as a spring chicken and brighter than an MIT math whiz. It was such a naked lie that it’s hard to believe it was spread so far and wide. But it was. Corporate media’s failure to seek truth should be celebrated, yet it should also serve as a warning. They still have power, if a little, to protect the corrupt and powerful, and push narratives that harm the country.” (12/31/24)
“Critics like John Quiggin question bitcoin’s legitimacy, comparing it to worthless assets, but the value of any commodity, including bitcoin, often depends on community recognition and market demand. The analogy of the diamond rush in Zimbabwe illustrates that value is often realized only when a market exists.” (01/02/25)
Source: The American Conservative
by James W Carden
“For those of my vintage, impeachment recalls the tawdry tale of Clinton, Lewinsky, and the Blue Dress. Younger Americans, while only dimly aware of what is happening in the world outside their devices, may all the same have some notion that the incoming president, Mr. Donald Trump of Queens, New York, was twice impeached during his first term in office. And of course there is the very first impeachment, that of Andrew Johnson, who escaped conviction in the Senate because the act he was accused of violating, the Tenure of Office Act, was itself unconstitutional. One will note, however, that none of these impeachment efforts concerned the constitutionality of America’s misadventures abroad, the wars (or ‘police actions’) waged in the absence of a Congressional declaration as laid out in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution.” (01/02/25)
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson
“Those who dismiss electoralism and lesser evilism have a mistaken view of the proper role of electoral politics for anarchists and anti-capitalists. The goal is not to take control of the state and implement post-capitalist transition through state policy, but simply to choose the least bad available background against which to carry out the process of constructing a post-capitalist society. The process itself — our primary goal — is the interstitial construction process itself. Every argument I’ve seen against electoralism and lesser evilism has amounted either to ‘the worse, the better’ accelerationism, or to Stalin’s Third Period denunciation of the Social Democrats as ‘social fascists.’ I’ve never yet seen a plausible scenario for the former, or anything but hand-waving. The latter — equating mushy centrist corporate neoliberalism to actual fascism — reflects a total lack of contact with reality.” (01/01/25)
“America’s healthcare workforce has been the subject of renewed attention and anxiety since the Covid pandemic began. The crisis only deepened projected shortages that were already set to plague the sector as the country will need hundreds of thousands more physicians and nurses in the decade ahead to meet demand. Every imaging test and every blood draw relies on a large web of personnel that’s also strained. ut that’s only part of the problem. Roughly 60% of America’s healthcare workforce is employed in what the industry calls ’allied health’ roles: medical assistants, technicians, physical therapists and others who make up much of the background infrastructure of American medicine. A 2022 survey of some 1,000 healthcare facilities around the country found that more than 85% of them were short allied health workers. And the pipeline for educating and training them leaves much to be desired.” (12/31/24)
“Oren Cass’s ‘What Economists Could Learn From George Costanza’ (The New York Times, December 23) has forgotten what economics Henry George taught. That’s the pundit named Cass who invariably calls for constrictions on consumers, as opposed to Cass Sunstein‘s advocacy of ‘choice-preserving but psychologically wise interventions’ that would make ‘automatic enrollment in government programs’ the default (in the words of the University of Pennsylvania’s Angie Basiouny). In 2012, Oren Cass campaigned for Mitt Romney versus the incumbent who had Sunstein head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. If it’s harder to tell the party lines apart three presidential elections later, maybe it’s because such ‘choice’ was an echo all along.” (01/02/25)
“Last night in New Orleans, while people were enjoying an evening of partying and fun, someone came out in a Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck (with a long gun as backup, though it was not used) and rammed down Bourbon Street, plowing through a large number of party revelers, killing 10 and injuring at least 30 people …. So, while if you magically were able to have all the guns disappear from America tomorrow, it does not magically prevent mass killings. There is zero reason to violate the inalienable rights of Americans seeking to defend themselves by taking their guns away or taxing their ammo to the point of oblivion. In contrast, those seeking to wreak havoc are still able to kill many people at one time via other methods.” (01/01/25)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“Experts at the Quincy Institute have assembled several key priorities, keeping in mind Trump’s stated desires to pursue foreign policy in the national interest and reduce Washington’s foreign entanglements and new wars abroad. Can he keep to his own goals, considering the hot wars in Israel and Ukraine and Washington’s continued involvement in them — and growing tensions with Beijing? 2025 will be the test.” (01/01/25)
“The United States stands at a critical crossroads in space policy. While our space activities already generate over $380 billion annually and support 100,000 American jobs, we risk falling behind international competitors in the next great economic frontier. It’s time to fundamentally reimagine our approach to space — not as a ‘government-led program,’ but as America’s next realm for economic expansion and industrial development. The current NASA-centered approach, exemplified by the Artemis program, is both unsustainable and insufficient for maintaining American leadership in space. Already $100 billion over budget and years behind schedule, Artemis represents an outdated model of government-led space exploration that cannot compete with nimbler commercial alternatives or match the pace of international rivals like China. Instead, our nation needs a bold new vision centered on enabling private enterprise to develop the economic potential of the Earth-Moon system.” (01/01/25)
