Is Industrial Policy a Political Winner?

Source: The American Prospect
by Harold Meyerson

“By every economic metric, three signature achievements of the Biden presidency were a resounding success. Its infrastructure bill has led to long-overdue repairs and new construction of the nation’s roads, bridges, and digital interconnectors as well. Its CHIPS Act kick-started semiconductor production, a critically important field for the nation’s technological performance and security, which had been ceded to other countries. And the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act yielded a boom in new factory construction, in which America had lagged for decades as Wall Street and major corporations had preferred to offshore production to anyplace where labor was cheaper. By every political metric, however, American voters appeared largely indifferent to these achievements when they went to the polls.” (03/03/25)

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-03-03-kamala-harris-biden-industrial-policy/

Austria: Three-Party Regime Takes Office

Source: US News & World Report

“Austria’s centrist coalition government, the first three-party alliance since the aftermath of World War Two, took office on Monday, ending Austria’s longest-ever wait for a new government and keeping the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) in opposition. Although the FPO won September’s parliamentary election with about 29% of the vote, it failed to form a coalition government. When the FPO last month gave up trying to agree a government, the conservative People’s Party (OVP), Social Democrats (SPO) and liberal Neos revived a bid to form an alliance after abandoning an earlier effort in January. Had their latest effort failed, there would have been few alternatives to a snap election, which polls suggested would have increased the eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO’s share of the vote.” (03/03/25)

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-03-03/austrian-conservative-stocker-sworn-in-as-head-of-coalition-government

The Un-Banality of MAGA: Trump is Not Unprecedented, He’s Just Obnoxious

Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid

“You would have to be ethically anesthetized not to detest such an obviously loathsome beast but the only thing more horrifying than this pathological trainwreck’s still buoyant popularity is the fact that he actually isn’t all that unusual among his fellow elites who seem to only begrudgingly tolerate his existence when they aren’t using their dying news empires to openly declare him to be the reincarnation of Gilles de Rais. We all seem to forget that Donald is in fact one of them, the gilded class of American aristocracy that floats effortlessly back and forth through the revolving doors of big business and big government. This is largely because both Trump and his ilk of swampland predators have quite a bit invested in the notion of him being exceptional. But he’s not.” (03/02/25)

https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-un-banality-of-maga-trump-is-not.html

Palestine: Israeli regime blocks entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza

Source: BBC News [UK state media]

“Israel has blocked the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza as it demands Hamas agree to a US plan for a ceasefire extension. The first phase of the ceasefire expired on Saturday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Hamas had so far refused to accept a temporary extension under a proposal by Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff. … The Palestinian group wants phase two of the deal to go ahead as originally negotiated, with the release of [Israeli] hostages and Palestinian [hostages] and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. It previously said it would not agree to any extension of phase one without guarantees from US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators that phase two would eventually take place.” (03/02/25)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q4w99je78o

When Prosecuting Imaginary Crime Promotes Real Crime

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“Yes, sexual abuse of children is a horrific crime. Yes, those who engage in it are criminals. But can imaginary characters be ‘minors?’ And are fictional depictions of those characters being victimized really ‘crimes?’ Over the years, politicians and law enforcement agencies have increasingly exploited such claims to groom the public into moral panic at the expense of REAL children suffering REAL sexual abuse in REAL life. It’s a pretty simple con. Most people rightly find the sexual molestation of children horrifying. They want it stopped. They want the perpetrators brought to justice. But investigating and proving real crimes is hard work.” (03/01/25)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/19396

Trump names cryptocurrencies in strategic reserve, sending prices up

Source: Reuters

“U.S. President Donald Trump on social media announced the names of five digital assets he expects to include in a new U.S. strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies on Sunday, spiking the market value of each. Trump said in a post on Truth Social that his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies including bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana and cardano. The names had not previously been announced. More than an hour later, Trump added: ‘And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve.’ Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, was up more than 11% at $94,164 Sunday afternoon. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, was up about 13% at $2,516.” (03/02/25)

https://archive.is/G7jM5

Mass Immigration Is Not Class Warfare — Borders Are

Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson

“It’s not the practice of hiring foreign workers itself that undermines the bargaining power of labor. It’s the utter dependence of the foreign workers, under the H-1B program, on maintaining the favor of their employer in order to stay in the country. … Bernie [Sanders] is right, so far as it goes; it amounts in practice to a form of indentured servitude. The problem is his framing and his understanding of the structural causality. It’s indentured servitude because of foreign workers’ dependence on the employer. Their dependence on the employer results, not from their being allowed to enter the United States, not because immigration is so easy, but because legal immigration is so hard that it requires an employer’s sponsorship.” (02/28/25)

https://c4ss.org/content/60135