Source: The Hill
by Alizeh Ahmad

“Over half of America is one unpayable bill from sleeping on the street. And before the end of June, the Supreme Court will decide whether you can be punished for doing so. On April 22, the court will hear oral argument in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson to decide whether three of the city’s anti-homelessness laws are cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. Collectively, the three laws ban sleeping on streets, sidewalks, alleys, park benches and numerous other public areas. They also ban the use of blankets, or even cardboard scrap, for warmth and protection from the elements. Because unhoused people in Grants Pass have nowhere to go when night falls, they involuntarily violate the ordinances by existing outdoors — that is, unless they stay awake and walk indefinitely.” (04/22/24)

https://thehill.com/opinion/4610634-will-scotus-allow-cities-to-punish-the-homeless-for-being-homeless/

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“There is a William F. Buckley Jr. line for every occasion, and the one for Sen. J.D. Vance is: ‘I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.’ Vance came to his heartland populism via an education at Yale Law School, Peter Thiel’s money, Hollywood, and the New York Times bestseller list. A venture capital man who once denounced Donald Trump as unfit for the presidency and who currently is so intimately and uncomfortably attached to Trump that it is impossible to distinguish him from a hemorrhoid, Vance has decided to be the clown prince of a very small kingdom: the realm of people who feel very strongly that the U.S. government should accommodate Vladimir Putin’s imperial project in Ukraine and beyond.” (04/22/24)

https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/wanderland/pinching-pennies-for-putin/

Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine

“There was a macabre familiarity to the sight last week of a dead man in Brazil being wheeled into a bank by a greedy relative to sign a loan document. The woman is seen on social media video talking to the corpse in the wheelchair while trying to hold up his floppy head with one hand. In her other hand, she clutches a pen lodged between the dead man’s fingers as she attempts to sign documents to secure a loan of $3,250. … Rio de Janeiro police who arrested Nunes said Uncle Paulo, who was actually her cousin, had been dead for at least two hours. Isn’t it a pity we can’t charge the Democratic Party with the same offenses?” (04/22/24)

https://nypost.com/2024/04/21/opinion/democrats-are-using-an-infirm-81-year-old-joe-biden-to-defraud-the-electorate/

Source: Jacobin
by Boris Kagarlitsky

“In today’s Russian prisons, a sign of a prosperous and materially well-off cell is the presence of a television set, usually provided together with a refrigerator. For me, the television is less a source of pleasure than of torment, as I have already explained several times. The shrill, malicious voices of the propagandists literally pierce my ears, while the vulgar humor makes me want to vomit. But the television, which is constantly turned on, nevertheless has a positive effect as well. In scientific terms, it provides a window into the dominant discourse.” (04/22/24)

https://jacobin.com/2024/04/boris-kagarlitsky-multipolarity-social-change/

Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders

“As we create new prosperity zones and digital collaboration spaces, two ancient institutions recommend themselves, at least symbolically.” (04/22/24)

https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-temple-and-the-brothel

Source: The Nation
by Michael T. Klare

“As I peered down inside a briefing tent at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, California, on March 5, a giant floor screen projected the back-and-forth maneuvers of ‘red’ (aggressor) and ‘blue’ (defending) forces across the western Pacific. Over and over again, air and sea assets of the red force (identified as a ‘near-peer adversary’ of the United States — a common stand-in for China) penetrated deep into ‘blue’ territory occupied by Washington’s allies, only to be repulsed or destroyed by blue’s own combat forces. In a scenario that can only be described as a modernized version of World War II in the Pacific, blue forces augmented their air and naval strikes with amphibious assaults to drive red invaders from islands they had seized at the onset of the exercise.” (04/22/24)

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/ai-military-power-war-china-taiwan-silicon-valley/