[new draft post] Balance as a norm https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2025/04/24/balance-as-a-norm/index.html
“The atrophy of Congress has left a gaping wound at the heart of our Constitutional order. The net effect has been the breakdown of our system of checks and balances and a combination of institutional gridlock and institutional unpredictability.” @sjshancoxli https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-present-crisis-and-the-end-of-the-long-90s/
“all that will really have happened is a confirmation that you can’t trust anything this administration says, including its threats.” @pkrugman https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/cronyism-capitulation-and-chaos
anyone else in JVM land find sonatype behaving weirdly this afternoon? atm https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/mchange/c3p0/ still doesn't show an 0.11.0 release from almost three hours ago. but oddly, as of a few minutes ago, https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/mchange/c3p0/0.11.0/c3p0-0.11.0.pom is served, even though the apparent directory index won't show or serve its parent directory.
"Standing alone, Trump’s executive orders represent a serious threat to the First Amendment. But the orders are backed by agency enforcement powers that drastically expand the danger... What we have seen in the early days of Trump 2.0 is an unprecedented government-wide and society-wide broadside against fundamental First Amendment commitments. And there is no indication that the Trump administration’s campaign is going to end any time soon." https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-amendment-news/executive-watch-breadth-and-depth-trump ht @light
There are good reasons to consider industrial policy that some might deride as “protectionist”.
There are no good reasons for Trump’s combination of chaotic tariffs and smothering government, which can’t possibly deliver good industrial policy.
cf @jwmason https://jwmason.org/slackwire/at-barrons-trumps-tariffs-dont-offer-an-alternative-to-free-trade/
“Donald Trump could not care less about ‘promoting freedom and combatting tyranny.’ In fact, he’s more interested in the opposite: promoting tyranny and combatting freedom.” @digby https://digbysblog.net/2025/04/23/soft-power-is-dead/
// from a depressing piece on the state of the state department
it's weird how the catholic church now has a moment when it has to decide whether it wants to accommodate or pointedly resist a global trend toward authoritarianism.
“Beneath his facade of talking about healthy living and wellness, Kennedy is actually a eugenicist. He insists that viruses and bacteria only kill people who don’t eat healthy and exercise by his lights—essentially rejecting the germ theory of disease.” @ryanlcooper https://prospect.org/health/2025-04-23-trump-administration-objectively-pro-cancer/
remember when we were a confident, generous, hopeful country?
under bukele it is starting to seem like "el salvador" was ironically named.
so, we are living under a fascist administration, but at least this is legal.
Sandwich board advertising “THC SLUSHY”
"since JFK and especially since Carter/Reagan, the US has been losing its ability to tax the rich. It has increasingly chosen to tax the rest of the world, moving industry, in particular, to other countries. Those countries made what the US needed, and sold it to them in US dollars" @ianwelsh https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-proximate-cause-of-revolutions-is-inability-to-tax-the-us-is-losing-that/
it’s true a “deep state” means the ship of state turns slowly, acts as a kind of low-pass filter on the effect of political decision making and remaking, and therefore in a certain sense “restrains democracy”. 1/
but it also helps immunize the polity from the consequences of political noise, short-lived passions, momentary errors, accidentally electing a mad king. 2/
genuine democracies don’t naively presume that popular passions are always perfect. they build institutions that give effect to values and interests durably expressed by the public, but frustrate controversial sharp turns unless they persist or recruit broad consensus. 3/
with apologies to Mencken, democracy is not when the people get what they want good and hard, but when government is responsive to the people but able to distinguish signal from noise, without any king or higher authority arrogating the role of deciding what’s signal. 4/
it’s the institution. /fin
existence is inconceivable, but so is its alternative.
it would be better if the stock market crashes us into a consensus to impeach and remove before the dollar and US Treasuries are permanently discredited.
if AI writes the law, what was the legislative intent?
[new draft post] Keynesian compromise https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2025/04/20/keynesian-compromise/index.html
it's weird that about the same time of year jews and christians celebrate the unrisen and risen respectively.