Twenty-first-century America may be dominated by oligarchic elites, but arguably the biggest threat to our economic and political system might be located further down the food chain. This most dangerous class comes from the growing number of underemployed, overeducated people. They’re what has been described in Britain as the lumpenintelligensia: alienated, angry, and potentially agents of our social and political deconstruction.
Shortly after The New York Times quietly admitted that Hunter Biden’s laptop is legitimate even though it was smeared as “disinformation” to protect then-candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 election, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin released bombshell receipts showing Hunter received payments from foreign oligarchs that further reveal “the extent to which President Biden might be — and almost certainly is — compromised.”
Most people know about Amazon’s Alexa because there was a great deal of fanfare when the device, which listens to everything you say, answers your questions, and controls your home appliances, first appeared on the market. Less well known is Google’s “Home” pod, a little gray mushroom of a thing that does much the same. However, it appears that the Home pod may have a blind spot: Donald Trump. A video has emerged that purports to show the Home pod device incapable of answering a simple question: who is Donald Trump?
The birth rate in the United States, along with many other industrialized nations, has been cratering for well over a decade and it’s not expected to turn around any time soon. For proof, look no further than the rapidly shrinking number of students enrolled in public elementary schools around the country. This is bad news on a number of levels and portends some significant economic and societal upheavals in the not-so-distant future. But before you can work out any solutions for a problem, you need to understand the underlying causes. At The Atlantic, Derek Thompson gamely takes a stab at figuring out why America’s population growth has almost disappeared and what, if anything, can be done about it. But one of the suspects on the list may come as a surprise to even the most hardened partisans in the political world.
The war in Ukraine is unlikely to cause mass starvation
The blue-and-gold flag of Ukraine evokes the country’s landscape. The blue stands for the sky and the gold represents a field of ripening wheat. It’s a reminder of Ukraine’s reputation as the bread basket of Europe.
And that prompts a pressing question for the rest of the world: what is this invasion doing to global food supplies? Nothing good, that’s for sure, but some of the figures quoted in the media are downright terrifying.
“Justice demands this result.” That’s what Ketanji Brown Jackson said in 2011 after the U.S. Sentencing Commission knocked as much as three years off the prison terms of crack-cocaine convicts. As vice chair of the commission, Jackson believed the nation’s drug laws were overly harsh and especially “unfair” to blacks.
A month earlier, Jackson had shrugged off Justice Department warnings that the decision — which made more than 12,000 federal crack inmates eligible for early release — could flood the streets with dangerous criminals who would likely reoffend.
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy pushes for Europe to transition to “green energy”:
“Russia’s aggression against Ukraine … is an argument to accelerate green transformation on the continent. Europe must give up Russian oil, give up as soon as possible!” pic.twitter.com/5YFs8VdRm5
— The Recount (@therecount) March 29, 2022
I’m hoping this is a deep fake but suspect no such luck. Sure give up Ruuskie oil but there’s no need to go suicidal green.
H/t RM
Ukrainian authorities are investigating video footage which has been claimed to show Ukrainian soldiers shooting Russian prisoners of war in the legs.
The grainy video has been circulating on social media after first appearing in the early hours of Sunday morning (27 March). Since then, it’s been widely reposted by pro-Russian accounts on various platforms.
Ukrainian armed forces Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said Russia was “filming and distributing staged videos” in order to discredit Ukraine’s treatment of Russian prisoners.
Ukraine Soldiers torturing and shot and beating russian soldiers after they were taken into prisoners… This is a war crime because they are war prisoners…@POTUS @ZelenskyyUa #war #Biden #USA #Russia pic.twitter.com/OovksydnLw
— Memes (@squirrel_tweets) March 27, 2022
The number of Russians killed in the 20th century is staggering.
The number of Russian combat deaths in Ukraine is striking, perhaps already exceeding the total dead in 10 years of war in Afghanistan from 1979-89. A NATO official has estimated that 7,000-15,000 Russians have been killed in Ukraine and that there are up to 40,000 casualties.This has prompted many observers to hope that this could signal the end of Russia’s assault. After all, why would Russians persist when they’re getting their butts kicked on the battlefield?
Sorry, but here’s the sad reality: The Russians always persist when they’re getting their butts kicked on the battlefield, whether by the Kaiser or Hitler or retreating from the Mujahedin. It’s a way of life for them; or a way of death. They know death unlike any other people.
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will meet again on Tuesday to discuss the outline of an emerging deal that would keep most of Ukraine intact in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality and a pledge not to seek NATO membership.
If past practice is the best indicator of future performance, take Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s about-to-be-announced plan to dramatically lower Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, with a huge grain of salt.
Defence procurement in Canada has long been marked by failures and poor outcomes. Where the CF-18 fighter jet replacement plan is unique is that no program has been the subject of so much political interference. After 2010, at nearly every step of the way, governments made decisions based more on political perception than fundamental realities, leading to a lamentable series of events that finally concluded with Monday’s announced selection of the F-35.
Video has gone viral of apparently angry Russian soldiers complaining that they were ill-equipped and ordered to go into a region of Ukraine with no clear planning from Moscow.
The clip shows the troops in a military vehicle describing how they were members of the armed forces from Donbas, the eastern Ukrainian region at the center of a conflict with Kyiv-backed forces since 2014.
During the one minute 40-second video, the troops outline how they were heading to the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is best known for its extensive list of hate groups, is racist, according to its employees.
SPLC Union members protested outside of their employer’s office Monday in opposition to the legal advocacy group’s plan to require certain employees to return to in-person work. The union, in a statement, claimed the move targets black women because it primarily requires workers in low-level positions to return to the office.
