Новости за 09.10.2018

One thing that the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings destroyed was the myth of legal neutrality.  That may be a good thing because it is time to recognize both that the Supreme Court and its Justices are not politically neutral and that neither should be. An enduring myth of American politics is that the Supreme Court More

In 1980, when I turned 18 and first voted, John Anderson sounded the alarm about the duopoly rot. The Democrats hit the snooze button and Reagan won. In 1984, Gary Hart sounded the alarm and the Democrats slapped him down, again in 1988, and hit the snooze button, nominated the execrable Mondale and Reagan won. More

Although the Trump Administration, it was recently revealed, concluded that it’s too late to do anything to avert catastrophic climate change (and, so, why even bother), the UN just announced that there’s still time to avoid mass death and suffering – if there is “massive, immediate transformation.” But how would such an immediate transformation unfold? Because we seem More

Over the past half century, critics have often predicted the fall of the House of Saud or emphasised the fragility of its rule. They were invariably proved wrong because the Saudi monarchy enjoyed limitless oil revenues, had the support of the US, and avoided becoming a front-line combatant in Middle East crises. Saudi strengths and weaknesses may have been long More

As I write this, Kris Kobach, the ‘He Was Trump Before Trump’ Republican nominee for Governor of Kansas, along with Donald himself, are getting ready for a rally in Topeka at the Kansas Expocenter. Kobach’s campaign manager and chamcha@jrclaeys tweeted recently in regard to the rally, “It’s gonna be YUGE! #ksleg #RemainRed #MAGA.” As you More

Wilderness Watch recently objected to a Forest Service decision to allow permanent seismic monitoring stations in the Glacier Peak Wilderness in Washington state.  If this decision doesn’t change, the Forest Service would fail to protect and preserve Glacier Peak’s wilderness conditions consistent with the 1964 Wilderness Act.  Beyond Glacier Peak, any Wilderness—including those surrounding seismically-active Yellowstone National More

I don’t know if it’s irony, synchronicity, or just a coincidence.  Whatever it is, there it was on the front page of Saturday’s New York Times.  At the top of the page was the headline: “Votes Secured to Confirm Kavanaugh.” Sure enough, by early Saturday afternoon, the US Senate had narrowly confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee More

The emotional outrage over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court raised numerous questions about who determines what is right or wrong. Kavanaugh’s defense – superbly satirized by Matt Damon on Saturday Night Live– was an equally emotional counter-attack to defend his reputation. After Kavanaugh had passed examination of his legal qualifications, allegations More

Further evidence that there is no God: Henry Kissinger is still with us at 95, but we just lost revolutionary artist, poet and vocalist Marty Balin at age 76 (after losing his Jefferson Airplane collaborator Paul Kantner at 74 in 2016). I know I am not alone in feeling great sorrow at his passing. I More

Regarding Brett Kavanaugh, I’ve been wondering how I can blame the state for what we’ve endured these past weeks. I can safely say that without the state, we would have been spared the Kavanaugh episode. Natural-law, pro-market anarchists are not utopians. To paraphrase the old hit: we beg your pardon; we never promised you a More

In 2015, India’s internal intelligence agency wrote a report that depicted various campaigners and groups as working against the national interest. The report singled out environmental activists and NGOs that had been protesting against state-corporate policies. Those largely undemocratic and unconstitutional policies were endangering rivers, forests and local ecologies, destroying and oppressing marginalised communities, entrenching More

The turbulence and turmoil that has haunted Kashmir for the past twenty-three years holds all of us, as a people, accountable for the degeneration of our politics and society. While it is important for us to condemn, question, and seek redress for the human rights violations in Kashmir, it is also important for us to More

I know it’s considered bad manners to bring data into an economic debate, but after seeing numerous stories telling us how bad China’s economy has been hit by Trump’s tariffs (e.g. this NYT piece), I thought it was worth looking at the numbers. In the first eight months of 2018, China’s exports to the US were More