We launched our premium member only newsletter in partnership with News Beat this week and several of you wrote in to let us know you dig the amount of content we’re throwing your way. One of the things I wrote about in the inaugural edition was the unfolding catastrophe in the shipping industry that could lead to inflation in the coming months. While some of the business media channels are beginning to get hip to this, it’s not something that has really made it through to the mainstream media.
To be clear, more than any other failure or perceived failure of the Biden term, this is the thing that could lead to his undoing. If we head into a sustained summer of high gas prices and inflationary pressures on consumer goods, he’s fucking done. I don’t care if Trump is running against him from a communication management unit in Terre Haute.
Governing by CR
Elsewhere in Bizarro Land, aka DC, Speaker Mike Johnson is finding out what it’s like to deal with his mirror image. The rookie Speaker is being Rick Rolled by Democrats and excoriated by the lunatic fringe of his own party by passing continuing resolutions (CRs) to keep the government funded in short bursts. Purportedly flying the face of vehement demands on the far right, Congress passed a stopgap bill to fund the government so Johnson can claim a marginal victory, Schumer can hold his standing Sunday night presser, Gaetz & Co. can make the rounds on conservative TV to rattle their sabers and the Pentagon can roll around in billions of freshly minted coins like Scrooge McDuck.
Democracy, party of Three?
Democratic operatives are working overtime to try and stop the bleeding out to third party candidates such as RFK Jr. and No Labels, though the latter has yet to declare a bid for the presidency. No Labels is the brainchild of former Senator and droopy dog douchebag Joe Lieberman. The organization has secured ballot access in 12 states and has dangled names ranging from Joe Manchin to Nikki Haley as potential candidates. Few outlets are talking about Dr. Cornel West, of course, but that’s to be expected. Nevertheless, massive fundraising efforts are underway to stall ballot access in key battleground states and to work against third party efforts on the ground.
Trump/Carson 2024?
Current GOAT (IMO) in the punditry arena Marc Lamont Hill did a livestream the other night revealing his bet for Trump’s running mate. Even though I’m spoiling it here, it’s worth watching him go through the list of potential candidates before landing on none other than Ben Carson. I gotta say…it makes a ton of sense when you hear him break it down. Carson is still respected in the Black community, thereby theoretically negating the advantage Kamala Harris brings to the Biden ticket. He served in a cabinet capacity, stayed loyal to Trump and wasn’t indicted unlike Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulous, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Rick Gates, Elliott Broidy, Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Allen Weisselberg and Donald Trump himself.
Other things I’m obsessing over…
Paolo Nutini. Referred by a friend. I’m late to the dance but happy to be there.
I stand by my assertion that Warrior is the best sports film ever made.
I thought Nikki Haley was neck-and-neck with Trump in Iowa. Whaaah happenn?
Bassem Youssef running circles around the Valuetainment crew.
The five richest men in the world doubled their wealth since 2020. Nothing to see here.
Someone should send the memo to Big Tech that layoffs aren’t in fashion right now. With more than 8 million jobs open and continuing claims at 1.8 million, there are way more jobs than people looking for them. It will be interesting to see how the Fed interprets inflation data moving forward against what appears to be a resilient and strong job market. Will Powell see an inflation uptick from supply chain woes (see above) as something that needs to be punished or will he leave average Americans well enough alone by lowering interest rates?
Headlines
How about a nice game of chess?
I’m not really sure what to make of this story other than I can’t wrap my brain around how this could possibly end well. The Intercept reported that OpenAI quietly deleted a section that specifically banned warfare and weapons development from its usage policy. I suppose if the policy never existed it would be one thing but to deliberately rethink it to provide “more clarity” feels kind of dystopian. If you just think about who the fuck would use ChatGPT to develop weapons, that should be enough to give us all pause.
From the article:
“Up until January 10, OpenAI’s ‘usage policies’ included a ban on ‘activity that has high risk of physical harm, including,’ specifically, ‘weapons development’ and ‘military and warfare.’ That plainly worded prohibition against military applications would seemingly rule out any official, and extremely lucrative, use by the Department of Defense or any other state military. The new policy retains an injunction not to ‘use our service to harm yourself or others’ and gives ‘develop or use weapons’ as an example, but the blanket ban on ‘military and warfare’ use has vanished.’”
In case you forgot, the Clinton years were a neoliberal disaster.
We spent a lot of time on the Clinton years. But it’s never a bad time to remind democrats why these years sucked so bad. In election years the whitewashing of this era seems inescapable as liberals fondly recall how Clinton put the economy back together. They joke about how he was the “first Black president.” It’s all a bunch of bullshit as this Jacobin article reminds us. Moving forward we need to continue pushing for progressive policies that actually make a difference to working class folks rather than romanticizing the pinnacle of neoliberalism under slick Willy.
From the article:
“Most of the job growth was in retail trade, hospitality, care work, and so on. These sorts of jobs — which Clinton had created as Arkansas governor — had no health benefits, pensions, or decent working conditions, and would soon morph into the ‘gig economy’ work blighting the world today, with workers additionally subject to a growing culture of surveillance and workplace spying. The benefactors were companies such as Walmart, McDonald’s, Amazon, and FedEx, not the software engineers and new technical specialists that many anticipated.”
Tax Plan. No, no, no, no, no. Why is everyone missing the point here?
The proposed bipartisan tax plan unveiled this week is being hailed as a win for working families with children because it expands the child tax credit. The rationale on the part of the Democrats is that the 2021 direct payments lifted millions of children out of poverty. This is a red herring argument. The reason the payments lifted people out of poverty is because it showed up in their bank accounts or mail boxes every month. Instead of a deduction to reduce one’s taxes it came as a payment. Credits and payments are not the same thing. Right now Republicans are tentatively supporting the bill (which needs to pass by the end of the month to take effect) because it includes tax relief for corporations and they know that credits are complicated and often aren’t taken advantage of by people on the lowest rung of the economic ladder.
From the article:
“The legislation, dubbed the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, expands the child tax credit for three years, and allows families with multiple children to take advantage of the credit. The current cap for the refundable child tax credit is $1,600. Under the bill it would lift the amount to $1,800 in tax year 2023, $1,900 in tax year 2024 and $2,000 in tax year 2025, and begin adjusting for inflation in 2024.”
This week’s episode examines the connection between capitalism and declining mental health in the United States. From the pressure the system places on workers to its ruthless manner of discarding those who suffer from mental illness, capitalism has become a central figure in the mental health narrative in frightening ways.
Here’s a snippet from the pod:
“Most of the time when I dig into a topic, I start by addressing my own biases and work backwards from there. In this instance, I had a long held assumption that somehow Ronald Reagan was responsible for destroying the mental health care industry and threw mentally ill citizens into the streets. This is partially true but as usual, there’s so much more to the story.”
The Intercept co-founder is one of the most important journalists of his generation. His work exposing imperialism, human rights abuses, war crimes, and much more is critical for anyone who wants to understand American hegemony.
“We are rooted in a moral analysis based on our deepest religious and constitutional values that demand justice for all. Moral revival is necessary to save the heart and soul of our democracy. We are committed to lifting up and deepening the leadership of those most affected by systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation and to building unity across lines of division. We believe in the dismantling of unjust criminalization systems that exploit poor communities and communities of color and the transformation of the ‘War Economy’ into a ‘Peace Economy’ that values all humanity. We believe that equal protection under the law is non-negotiable. We believe that people should not live in or die from poverty in the richest nation ever to exist. Blaming the poor and claiming that the United States does not have an abundance of resources to overcome poverty are false narratives used to perpetuate economic exploitation, exclusion, and deep inequality.”
“Six years ago four progressive women of color broke into Congress with the wind of the people at their backs. But what have been the lessons of the growing Squad? Ryan Grim, author of the new book The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution, joins Francesca to discuss how corporate and foreign lobbies have tried to tank the progressive agenda. Then Dave Anthony of The Dollop podcast joins to talk about South Africa taking Israel to the International Court of Justice for genocide, and Trump enriching himself DIRECTLY from foreign governments while in office.”
Nothing new to report, Unf*ckers. Still digging through Michael Albert’s work. What’s on your bedside table?
Unf*cker Comment of the Week
Tim V.:
“When it comes to economic issues, why [is] nobody is talking about the elephant in the room - demand for infinite growth. Maybe I’m ignorant to understanding all the intricacies of the modern economy, but I’m observant enough to notice how it affects day to day lives. And in my opinion, the fact that companies are supposed to grow infinitely looks ridiculous and just unrealistic. From an engineer perspective, I would call it a huge flaw of the design.”
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