Daily Archives: August 2, 2022

The US supreme court, with its new rightwing supermajority, is transforming America at breakneck speed. In a single judicial year, it overturned the right to an abortion, unleashed legally carried guns on to city streets, stymied government action to combat the climate crisis and Covid pandemic, and took a hatchet to the time-honored separation of church and state.

Seasoned observers described the 2021-22 term that ended in June as perhaps the most momentous in the courts 233-year history. The six rightwing justices three of them appointed by Donald Trump demonstrated an iron grip over blockbuster cases.

The three liberal-leaning justices, by equal measure Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor were outnumbered and bloodied. When the court reconvenes in October, the retired Breyer will be replaced by Ketanji Brown Jackson, but the same punishing 6-to-3 dynamic will prevail.

Bloodied but unbowed. The three liberal justices may be in the minority, but they are fast emerging as a vital resistance to the Trump-instigated judicial revolution now under way.

That resistance is reflected in the dissenting opinions produced by the three. Not only were liberal dissents more in evidence in 2021-22 Sotomayor alone wrote 13, more than she has in any previous term but the language deployed in them was also direct and unrestrained.

The dissents went beyond polite disagreements over jurisprudence. They amounted to the sounding of an alarm, alerting the nation that equal rights, constitutional government, and even what it is to be an American, are all under threat.

Here are six of the most visceral warnings contained in the dissents of the three liberal-leaning justices.

1. Attacking equal rights and individual freedoms

Over 60 white-hot pages of dissent, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan tore into the majority ruling in Dobbs v Jackson that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. Pointing out that such a right had been the law of the land for half a century, they decried the ruling as a full-on attack on an individuals freedom.

After today, young women will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers had, the dissenting opinion said. From the moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of.

The decision struck at the core of American values, they said. Individual freedom and equal rights have gone far toward defining what it means to be an American. For in this nation, we do not believe that a government controlling all private choices is compatible with a free people.

2. Overriding the will of Congress and that of the American people

The ultimate source of power in the United States is we the people. Today there are 240 million citizens eligible to vote for their representatives in Congress and president.

And then there are the five men and one woman who control the supreme court and who are busily changing the face of America.

The liberal-leaning justices accuse their rightwing peers of supplanting their own will over that of we the people. Kagan wrote the dissent to West Virginia v EPA, the majority ruling which hobbled the power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to tackle the climate crisis by regulating fossil-fueled power plants.

Kagan charges the six rightwing justices of ignoring clear instructions given to the EPA by Congress to address the potentially catastrophic harms of global heating. The justices had in effect rewritten the Clean Air Act in favour of their own policymaking.

The court appoints itself instead of Congress or the expert agency the decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening, Kagan said.

In a separate 6-to-3 ruling, the supermajority blocked the Biden administrations requirement that employees of large businesses vaccinate themselves against Covid or take weekly tests. A dissenting opinion from all three liberal justices said that, here too, the majority had negated the will of the people as expressed in the 1970 law that commanded the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) to protect workers exposed to grave danger.

On the one hand, the dissent said, there is the Osha trying to protect employees from the grave danger of Covid. The agency is responsible to the president, who in turn is responsible to and can be held to account by the American public.

On the other hand, there is the supreme court. Its members, the dissenters noted acerbically, are elected by, and accountable to, no one.

3. Undermining the integrity of the supreme court and the rule of law

The liberal-leaning justices accuse the supermajority of abandoning long-held legal principles in their rush towards radical change. Foremost of these is stare decisis to stand by things decided a respect for past precedents set by the court.

By throwing out the right to an abortion established in 1973 by Roe v Wade, the six rightwing justices had disregarded stare decisis, and shown that today, the proclivities of individuals rule. The court departs from its obligation to faithfully and impartially apply the law, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan wrote.

The rightwing justices are very sensitive to the suggestion that they are acting according to political whim rather than legal principle. Last September, Clarence Thomas, arguably the de facto leader of the new supermajority, irritably denied the claim.

The media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference, he bemoaned.

He need not look to the media for such an accusation. Three of his fellow justices have expressed it forcefully.

In their dissenting opinion in Dobbs, the liberal justices noted that it took less than two years following the appointment of Trumps third pick, Amy Coney Barrett, for the court to overthrow Roe v Wade. Such a rapid shift, they argued, could not be explained by any change in the social landscape of the country.

The only thing that had changed was the composition of the court, and with it the new views of new judges. The majority has overruled Roe for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now has the votes to discard them.

The consequences of the highest court being seen to be swayed by personal biases rather than legal principles are potentially cataclysmic. It undermines the courts legitimacy, the dissenters warned.

4. One law for the rich, another for the poor

In their Dobbs dissent the three justices spell out the impact of ending of abortion rights for women of contrasting means. Wealthy women will find ways around a states assertion of power, travelling out of states that ban abortion to those where it is legal.

Other women without the resources will not be so fortunate. They might resort to an illegal abortion and be harmed or even die; they might give birth to the child at great cost to themselves and their families; at the least, they will incur the cost of losing control over their lives.

The dissenters warned that the consequences go beyond the devastating impact on individual women. A central pillar of the US constitution, of American values, has also been destroyed equal protection under the laws.

The constitution will, todays majority holds, provide no shield, despite its guarantees of liberty and equality for all.

5. Turning the clock back to the 18th century

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, the supermajority threw out New Yorks restricted licensing regime for firearms, opening the door to concealed and loaded handguns being carried publicly in US cities.

Thomas, who wrote the ruling, rejected any argument relating to the dangers posed by guns in modern America, where gun violence far exceeds that in comparable countries. Instead, he argued that licensing regimes had to be consistent with this nations historical tradition of firearm regulation and specifically with the way the US ruled in 1791 when the second amendment right to bear arms was ratified.

In his dissent, Breyer said that this history-only approach not only ignored the real and present danger of guns in modern American society, it set a framework that was so rigid it would be impossible to apply to modern situations beyond the Framers imaginations.

How, for instance, could centuries-old laws dictate the legality of regulations targeting ghost guns constructed with the aid of a three-dimensional printer?

6. This is just the beginning

Perhaps the most chilling warning given by the liberal justices is that the hurricane of contentious rulings issued by the supermajority this term is not the end of the revolution it is just the beginning.

No one should be confident that this majority is done with its work, they write in their Dobbs dissent.

The supermajority could go on to ban all abortions nationwide, from the moment of conception and with no exemptions for rape or incest. They could also use exactly the same arguments deployed to overturn Roe to go after contraception, the right to same-sex intimacy and marriage, and even interracial marriage.

The logical conclusion of the supermajoritys legal tactics is that all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid-19th century are insecure Additional constitutional rights are under threat.

Sotomayor closed her dissent in Carson v Makin on a profoundly disturbing note. The 6-to-3 ruling bulldozed decades of precedent on the separation of church and state by insisting that Maine had to extend its taxpayer-funded tuition assistance program to include students attending religious schools.

With growing concern for where this court will lead us next, Sotomayor wrote, I respectfully dissent.

Read more:

Bloodied but unbowed: liberal justices wield dissents as weapon of resistance - The Guardian

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In a 2021 interview with the Stanford Review, Blake Masters was asked for a historical figure he admired. He chose two. The first was George Washington, possibly the best-known military general, slave owner, and president in American history. I dont think people realize how much of a boss this guy was, Masters explained. The second was Lee Kuan Yew.

LKY, as hes often called, was Singapores prime minister from 1959 to 1990 and oversaw what some call its economic miracle. He turned the former British colony into a go-go free market paradise. As it grew, Singapore instituted a far-ranging welfare state. The government built extensive public housing; it heavily subsidized health care and education. Today, municipal order is apparent: The streets in Singapore are relentlessly clean, almost everyone has internet access, and modern buildings are ringed by ample green space.

During his reign, LKY successfully fused pro-corporate libertarian economics and state socialism, creating a distinctly conservative mishmash of social and political control. Singapore has banned all kinds of free speech; intervened in marriages and family planning; encouraged eugenics; caned people for minor crimes; created an ethnically homogeneous ruling class; treated the migrant worker population as second-class citizens; and, famously, banned chewing gum.

This is LKYs model: economic development above all elseeven human rights. A soft authoritarianism, as Fareed Zakaria has called it. The exuberance of democracy, LKY explained, leads to indiscipline and disorderly conduct, which are inimical to development.

For a new breed of right-wing thinkers, politicians, and activists, LKYs approach to government is appealing. Curtis Yarvin, Silicon Valleys resident neo-monarchist, compares LKY to FDRboth good examples, he says, of a unilateral leader. And Nick Land, an accelerationist philosopher, calls LKY an autocratic enabler of freedom. To them, LKY is the paradigm of an illiberal ruler who created a paradise for his subjects: a freedom without rights, a prosperity without disorder.

But its not just a few Silicon Valley nerds who love dictators. LKY has long been lauded by Western leaders. He was a member of J.P. Morgan Chases International Council. In 2009, Barack Obama called him one of the legendary figures of Asia. Henry Kissinger later delivered an introduction as LKY accepted a lifetime achievement award from the US-ASEAN Business Council. Margaret Thatcher said he was never wrong. Tony Blair noted that LKY was the smartest leader I think I ever met. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prizewinning economist, wrote an encomium touting Singapores Lessons for an Unequal America. The Wall Street Journal reported that Netflix has its managers study him.

All this suggests that American interest in the efficacy of illiberalism is far from recent or consigned to Thiels minions. The policy toward LKY was part of a larger Cold War ethosthe long and messy history of failed Western attempts to replace colonial governments with democratic ones, particularly in Southeast Asia. In general, as long as an authoritarian kept their country open to foreign investment and didnt commit too many atrocities, a hostility to liberal democracy could get a pass.

The important thing about LKY, says Singaporean journalist Kirsten Han, is that he helped make sure that Singapore has never properly decolonised. For the British, their colonies in Southeast Asia were a highly profitable hub for a bustling opium, rubber, tin, and slave trade. Singapore, an island off the tip of Malaysia, was at the epicenter of this commerce. Even as a decolonization movement swept through Southeast Asia and Singapore became independent, LKY, a Cambridge-educated lawyer and the son of a Shell Oil depot manager, and his Peoples Action Party (PAP) rose to power. Nominally, it was independent, but the pap was working with the West to keep Singapore open for business. In effect, Han explains, We just swapped the British colonial masters for LKY and his pap.

After coming to power, the PAP suppressed political opposition. In 1963, LKYs government launched Operation Coldstore. The police rounded up about 100 supposed communists and communist sympathizers and detained them without trial. No evidence of a plot to overthrow the government ever emerged, but they languished in prison for up to 10 years. Once independence came in 1965, LKYs government kept a British law that, among other things, suspended civil liberties and allowed for indefinite detention without trial. (The law is still on the books.)

As opposition faded, the government took a turn toward further control of bodily autonomy. LKY started programs to encourage college-educated women to procreate and incentivize poor women to be sterilized, an unapologetic instantiation of eugenics and racial engineering.

Despite all this, much of LKYs legacy is buried behind a thick fog of propaganda. In the West, the narrative accepted by many is largely Singapores state-issued story of successin large part because, for those in power, especially the Reagan administration officials who adored LKY, a dictator was better than a communist.

LKY left power in 1990, but his party continues to rule. Today, his son runs the country. In the last 20 years, the social welfare state has deteriorated. As the price of both health care and housing rise, the cost of living is a concern for Singaporeans. New apartments are smaller than ever, and older ones are depreciating in value. The government owns about 90 percent of all land, so theres little room to bargain. One Gallup poll of 148 countries found Singaporeans were the least likely to report feeling positive emotions.

Citizens have recently protested the use of the death penalty. The country routinely executes residents and foreignersdisproportionately Malay and Indian peoplefor drug-related offenses, in violation of international law. The recent celebration of LKYs deliberate limitation on rights by American conservatives is undoubtedly new. It goes beyond the generic praise heaped on Singapore from Americas technocratic elite, who ignored abuse in the name of commerce. It is an embrace of the cultural crackdown, Americas idea of human rights abuses abroad coming home.

And so, as people like Masters rise to prominence, it requires a reevaluation of the American economic system in light of Singaporesboth have an economically significant migrant underclass, an indebted lower class, and a depressed, hopeless middle class praying for stability. The combination of a more disciplinarian rule and ameliorating welfare interventions might be more seductive than we ever thought.

Not that the American right has many ideas for a functioning welfare system. For all the pomp of a revamped worker-friendly Republican Party, state solutions remain vague.

LKY often suggested that the West should not try to push democracy on Singapore, because democracy was incompatible with what he called Asian values. But that story, says University at Albany, SUNY, professor Meredith Weiss, was primarily a way to deflect criticism.

LKYs sales pitch was that authoritarians are better at getting things done, an idea with appeal to billionaire bosses and the candidates they fund. In fact, says Dr. Pingtjin Thum, a historian of Singapore, LKYs most successful social programs emerged from an era before he had absolute power. The dirty secret of Singapore, Thum says, is that Lee Kuan Yews success comes from democracy.

Without democracy, he adds, governments dont care about the citizens that much.

Here is the original post:

How the soft dictatorship of Lee Kuan Yew became a template for the American right - Mother Jones

his book is a valuable and timely addition to the literature on issues around marginal communities, forms of contestations, the challenges they are faced with and the resultant changes in the urban spaces of South Asian cities. The book is a compilation of nine chapters, authored by writers from India and Pakistan and has been carefully edited by Nida Kirmani, a faculty member at LUMS. Kirmanis work revolves around issues related to gender, violence, insecurity, Islam, womens movements and development and urban studies in India and Pakistan.

The book is set within the premise of neo-liberal and capitalist agendas, and how these processes are driving, developing and shaping our urban centres. As a result of these agendas, the urban experiences are being transformed leading to the emergence of various possibilities as well as challenges for different classes. Being driven by imageries of world class and smart cities, people having decision-making powers often overlook or ignore ground realities, local aspirations and everyday struggles of the common man inhabiting the urban space. Many a time, these decisions are taken by the city managers in an ad hoc manner, without any ground research or reliance on literature debating the peculiarities of global aspirations and local realities. Thus, this scholarship serves as an important milestone in bridging this gap in literature and research.

In this publication, the contestations, contradictions and eventual changes in cities are approached from various vantage points. These range from struggles related to identities, resources, urban space, mobility, governance, access, approach and environment. A prologue underpins these concepts. It introduces the reader to the various condensations that wait to be discovered. The chapter highlights the connection to literature around neo-liberalism and capitalism. The Afterward is penned by Nausheen H Anwar who sensibly summarises the current state of our urban centres and the challenges they face with environmental and ecological depletion - issues of governance, ethnicity and marginalisation being some of them.

The first three chapters introduce case studies of housing displacement, exclusion geographies and loss of place and identity in the process. All three make points about the modernisation of cities in the Global South in the name of development and how in the process a loss of physical, social and communal relations and practices is witnessed. The cases also highlight the importance of land and its ownership acquired within the neo-liberal agenda and how traditional relations are no longer valued. Chapter two uses some creative mapping techniques to explain the state-driven housing projects. These housing projects were aimed at improving life for the underprivileged. Most of these end up promoting exclusivity and deepen the intangible divide between the underprivileged jhuggi dwellers and other citizens.

The first three chapters discuss the marginalisation of the urban poor being pushed to peripheral locations and having only limited access to the city centre. The idea is taken forward in Chapter Four which weaves together a theoretical framework based on the works of Mike Davis, Theresa Caldeira and Landman, and tweezes out the restriction of access within the public realm. Various physical barricades around Karachi have been documented in this chapter and linked to ideas of control and contestation of spaces.

Chapter Five, with in-depth research of Karachis public sector, challenges the popular belief that Karachis public transport is dominated by a mafia. It puts forth the thesis that the failure of the public sector in the provision of transport has left a void filled by private transport operators. This lack of provision of affordable public transport is attributed to the adoption of a neo-liberal model by the state. As Kirmani states in the Introduction, these chapters demonstrate how the neo-liberal model of privatisation has led to the marginalisation of not only land and resources but also, access to the city.

Chapters Six and Seven are located in Delhi with one chapter critically analysing the city via an environmental lens and the other taking the vantage point of the political arena. Toxic urbanism is the term used in Chapter Six, where activism around environmental pollution and deteriorating quality of air is traced in Delhi, and how this resulted in court decisions in favour of the public. The authors outline several factors contributing to this toxic urbanism, ranging from a massive rise in consumerism in the neo-liberal era to extensive industrialisation and other development policies outlined for cities in the Global South to be recognised as world-class cities. Chapter Seven highlights how election campaigns cash on broken promises of neo-liberal agendas to gain vote bank, yet the promises remain unfulfilled. The process keeps repeating in successive election campaigns. It is in-depth research on various dialogues, contestation, negotiations and exclusion of the urban poor through unfulfilled promises.

Chapter Eight focuses on the vital role of the informal economy in the cities of the Global South. This specific case reviews actors in the waste economy and the dilemma they face in being marginalised from mainstream policies related to formal sector urban development. This chapter brings to the limelight the important role of the marginalised working class of waste pickers in Nayandahalli and paves the path for advocacy of their rights using appropriate means within the market-led urban developments in cities of the Global South.

The context changes back to Pakistan in the last chapter where a thought-provoking exploration of newly emerging middle-class spaces in Lahore is the focus. The investigation of hostels for young men in Lahore, and the role of various actors in everyday processes, resultant spatial and social formations and connection to migration, economics and urban planning, is explored. The focus of the investigation remains on spatial and social cohesion in Lahore.

The various essays in this book bring forth numerous contestations that the cities of the Global South face. They focus on what these processes and procedures mean for the urban future of these cities. The book efficiently reflects upon the contestation and mitigation measures taken by state and non-state actors in various roles in the cities of the Global South. The eventual discourse will prove very useful for academics, researchers and practitioners trying to comprehend these emerging phenomena in cities of the Global South. Most of the chapters add to the existing knowledge, literature and discourses. A viable question, as mentioned in the Afterword, is does the future of South Asian cities exhibit a radical instability premised on reproducing power structures, inequality and ecological destruction? (pg. 211).

Marginalisation, Contestation and Change in South Asian Cities

Edited by Dr Nida Kirmani

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2021

Pages: 224

Price: Rs 800

The reviewer is an architect/ urban researcher and associate professor at

the NED University of Engineering & Technology

More:

Urban future of the Global South - The News International

Spending the last few days arguing and responding to people who do not understand that all First Nation Indigenous are not the same has been energy sapping. One non-native person wrote on my social media platform that Could all the matriarchs, patriarchs, elders and whoever just get together and have one definitive stance?

There can only be one stance if the mainstream believes in the outdated textbook definition of the Indians. They then believe the Indians roamed all over North America savagely fighting one another and not knowing the worth of the land. Can we move on from this doctrine of discovery definition? Apparently not.

The doctrine of discovery is a racist enabling document that allowed European nations to claim land if the inhabitants were not Christianized populations.

Canada, through the federal Liberal government, has only become more politically correct in the way they describe Indians, but they still treat the original peoples as Indians. The federal government continues to be duplicitous in their actions using words like aboriginal, and now Indigenous to try to put labels that will hopefully stick to the Indians.

All distinct fifty plus Nations of original peoples are linguistically separate. They speak different languages and are located on six hundred plus reserves throughout Canada. We are not all just one big group of brown and red people. We are distinct Nations with distinct languages, customs and traditions.

Fast forward to the Indians who went to see the Pope in April. A group of Indians, sanctioned by nobody knows who, went to see the Pope at the Vatican. They asked for an apology for the residential school abuses made by the Roman Catholic churches against thousands of First Nation children.

Please do not start telling me there were white children in these schools, or some First Nation parents put their kids there or that it was not such a bad experience. Since the finding of the two hundred plus graves adjacent to Kamloops Residential School, First Nation Indigenous across Canada have heard every take on how our truths are false narratives.

Even in furthering our education, we have to explain this to the different professors. It is true even in law schools. First of all, Indigenous law is not being taught. It is mainstream law with First Nations as plaintiffs. True Indigenous laws are not found in Canadas made-up legal system. They are the immutable laws, the laws of the universe where the sun rises, the waters flow and the grass grows.

Giving cogent explanations does not seem to be settling with the settlers. They want the one-size fits all cookie cutter Indians to come out of the cupboards. This understanding fits with the Canadian narrative, and if it aint broken, why fix it?

Take for example the Indians who wandered to the Vatican, then came running out duped into believing the Pope had apologized. Maybe he tripped over his skirt or accidently jostled someone, so he in fact did mutter an apology, who knows? But the explanation that was finally given was that the words of the Pope were not adequate. Therefore the Pope had to come to Canada to formally apologize for the abuses in residential schools.

What the world witnessed on Monday July 25, 2022 in Maskwacis, Alberta was the Pope saying he was sorry and then he threw the blame for the residential schools back at the Canadian government.

Devout, Christianized Indians believe these words suffice. But First Nation traditionalists or the non-denominational Indians are questioning the veracity and meaning of the Popes so-called apology.

The Pope made no mention of sexual abuses when he talked about the atrocities of the Christians that were inflicted on the Indians. The Pope said that it was terrible of the Catholic Church to follow the residential school policies made by Canada.

With that, he stated some kind of investigation would be done and with healing dollars to follow. In fact, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is already posting how the money still owed to the residential school survivors will be distributed.

More troubling were the actions of the Indians present at the Maskwacis gathering in the gifting or transfer of a headdress to the Pope.

The headdress is sacred because it comes from the Eagle. Moreover, there is a specific origin story to wiyage tesnaga from the Sioux people. It has been gifted for use to other tribes on the plains but there are strict stipulations that come with this ability to give away or honour someone with a sacred object.

Not all First Nations went to Catholic residential schools though the worst crimes against humanity happened at some of these schools. The use of the electric chair, the nutrition experiments and the sterilization of First Nation women were all by-products of the Catholic Residential school experience. Many of these residential school survivors are still seeking acknowledgement, documents and closure for their harms.

The Roman Catholic church is also responsible for issuing historic papal bulls with the doctrine of discovery.

There are a multitude of wrongs that have caused harm to the First peoples of this land. The federal government was responsible for the taking of land without adequate compensation. The taking of children which broke First Nation families and clan systems was a joint church and state operation.

Aside from asking, who speaks for all Indigenous, the other question is solution oriented. What are the necessary steps to make reparations?

How can there be one approach or one solution when there are a multitude of First Nations, and a multitude of actions taken that were meant to destroy the original peoples?

The time it has taken to break a civilization is probably the time that it will take to resurrect this civilization. In the Canadian world that is time oriented with the attention span of a TikTok video, this seems unreasonable. It did not take one or ten years to break the original peoples; it will take generations to resolve the harms of residential schools. It will also take generations to resolve the harms that were intentionally inflicted on all First Nation Indigenous. Can a three to four day tour and one mans apology fix this genocide? No. We the First Nations are saying that if you cannot differentiate that we are many nations with many harms, then how can there be resolution, let alone reconciliation?

Related

More:

Understanding we are a multitude of First Nations is key to reconciliation - rabble.ca

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It didn't take long. It took, well, about a year and a half for the Biden administration to destroy the American economy and drive this nation into a recession. Now, the Biden administration won't admit that we're in a recession. In fact, they've actually redefined the word "recession" just as they've redefined the words "democracy," "racism" and "woman," but you don't need to know what the word is to know what is happening. If you live here, you see it every single day.

We're in a recession. The economy has been shrinking all year. Real wages are at record lows and at the same time, inflation is the highest it's been in the lifetime of most Americans. So, call it whatever you want, but it's a recession and it's scary and they're ignoring it. We're going to spend the next hour investigating how exactly this happened. How did they tank the economy so fast and what does it mean?

To get to the answers to those questions, we're going to speak to people who have actual credibility on economics and that emphatically does not include our most highly credentialed economists, people who, like the public health experts we've watched the last two and a half years, have thoroughly beclowned and discredited themselves.

A year ago, right about the time he told us that vaccines will absolutely prevent you from getting or transmitting COVID, Joe Biden was asked about, "Hey, what happens if we go into a recession?" In response, as he invariably does, Joe Biden invoked highly credentialed experts. Watch this.

CLAIMS OF A BIDEN COMEBACK IN THE MEDIA? 'THE FIVE' RESPONDS

PRESIDENT BIDEN: We also know that as our economy has come roaring back. We see some price increases. Some folks have raised worries that this could be a sign of persistent inflation, but that's not our view. Our experts believe, and the data shows, that most of the price increases we've seen were expected and are expected to be temporary.

President Biden speaks about inflation and supply chain issues in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Every word read off a teleprompter. A decade from now, we're going to see tape like that and think, "I cannot believe that man was the president of the United States." But consider what his handlers wrote for him. The experts Biden was referring to are, in fact, some of the most well-credentialed figures in all of academic economics. In fact, two months later, in September of last year, 17 winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics signed a letter urging Joe Biden to spend as much money as possible and we're quoting "The Build Back Better package," they wrote, "will transform the U.S. economy to be more efficient without presenting an inflationary threat."

So, go ahead and spend more money, create it out of thin air, print it and there's no chance you'll get inflation. Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics said that. If you took Econ 101, you're laughing at that.

By the way, it wasn't just them. The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said the same thing. "The incoming data are very consistent with the view that inflation will move down toward our goals," Powell said.

It's like idiotic, and it turned out not to be true. Now, the remarkable thing, the way you know this isn't simply incompetence, they did this on purpose, is what happened when these so-called experts were exposed as frauds, which they are. Not a single one of these eminent Nobel Prize-winning economists ever apologized for the letter they wrote or even explained how they got it wrong. They're still saying the same thing spend more money, and it won't affect inflation because when you have much more of something, it's worth the same.

BIDEN ADMIN QUIETLY APPROVES CONSTRUCTION OF U.S.-MEXICO BORDER WALL NEAR YUMA, ARIZONA

Oh, because supply and demand isn't real. They're all saying this to the extent they're even paying attention. Most of them aren't. They're way off into lifestyle liberal-land, like they all are. They're worried about trans rights. The St .Louis Fed, for example, one of the most important financial institutions in the United State, one of the banks that make up the central bank, they've been conducting studies about what? About what monetary policy would be best to avoid complete economic collapse? Well, you'd think so. That's their job, but that's not what they've been doing.

Instead, for the past month, (We're not making this up) the St. Louis Fed has been meditating on equity, a term that no one can really define, but clearly means your life, Mr. and Mrs. American, is about to get much worse.

So, just as Joe Biden audibly took office, equity is now the top priority of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. Again, books will be written about this years from now and no one believe it actually happened, but it's real. Take a look at their website. Some of the top articles on the website, on the blog of the St. Louis Fed include, "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Access to COVID-19 Relief," "COVID-19 Disruption by race, Ethnicity and Geography," "The Role of Diversity in Public Institutions," and "Reducing Racial Employment Gaps for Young Adults Without College Education."

Again, this is not a syllabus from the sociology department at Brandeis. This is the Fed. These are the people in charge of our monetary policy who are supposed to be keeping America from collapsing. But they're ignoring their actual job in favor of pretending that they're professors at Brandeis.

CHINA ACCUSES WHITE HOUSE OF LYING ABOUT BIDEN BRINGING UP GENOCIDE, FORCED LABOR WITH XI

It's lunatic and they're still talking this way. In April, well after it was very clear inflation was not transitory, Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, former head of the Fed, someone who should be charged for what she did to the U.S. economy, gave a speech not about the U.S. economy. She's the Treasury Secretary. No, but about climate change and why climate change is more important than saving the United States.

We're quoting, "We must redouble our efforts to decarbonize our economies," Yellen said at an address at the Atlantic Council. Keep in mind, Janet Yellen doesn't know anything about climate. She can't drive a standard transmission. She knows nothing about the material world, but there she is, spouting off on climate change and decarbonizing, reading every stupid, faddish talking point the Atlantic Council audience wanted to hear about and she's still doing it. We're in a slow-down, she said on Sunday, and it's not affecting too many sectors of the economy, says Janet Yellen. Watch.

JANET YELLEN: This is not an economy that's in recession, but we're in a period of transition in which growth is slowing, and that's necessary and appropriate, and we need to be growing at a steady and sustainable pace. So, there is a slowdown and businesses can see that, and that's appropriate given that people now have jobs and we have a strong labor market, but you don't see any of the signs now. A recession is a broad-based contraction that affects many sectors of the economy. We just don't have that.

TREASURY SEC. JANET YELLEN ACKNOWLEDGES ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN BUT DOWNPLAYS RECESSION FEARS

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she was wrong about the path of inflation after months of downplaying the issue. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Okay. Let's be clear. Janet Yellen is a completely incompetent affirmative-action hire who did profound generational damage to the United States during her time running the Fed. Now, she's doing the same while running the Treasury Department and yet no one ever calls her on it. The things she says don't make sense. She can't even predict inflation when every single other person in the country knew it was coming based on the federal government's spending patterns.

Keep spending money. That's what she's still saying. Everyone in the Biden administration is saying that. In May, the head of USAID, Samantha Powershe's back declared that worldwide fertilizer shortage is actually a good thing. Starvation is a good thing because that means fewer carbon emissions. Never let a crisis go to waste, she said. She actually said that.

NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN CLAIMS WE ARE NOT IN A RECESSION, NEWS ON INFLATION IS ENCOURAGING

Inside the White House, no one's even pretending to care as the U.S. economy falls apart. They're not worried about the oil supply. In fact, they're selling our oil to our main global rival, China. They're not worried about the stock market. They couldn't tell you what's up or down. They cannot even define a recession. The one thing they're sure of is everything's fine, except for the trans community, which is suffering under your bigotry. Here's our press secretary.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: And nothing has changed on how we see the stock market. We do not. That's not something that we keep an eye on every day.

REPORTER: What is the latest update the White House has received on the current formula situation across the country?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Let me see if I have anything new for you on that.

THE HOME DEPOT CO-FOUNDER STANDS BY 'RECESSION' LABEL: 'THE ECONOMY IS RECEDING'

REPORTER: Does the president mind that some of this oil that was meant to ease the pain for consumers is headed overseas?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I have not seen that report, so I would honestly have to go look into it and see what the truth is in that statement that you just laid out and see exactly what's happening. I just have not seen that report.

REPORTER: Is he adamant that there is not going to be recession?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, it's not our definition. Right. We're talking about a definition from NBER.

REPORTER: And what is exactly the White House's definition of a recession?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Again, we don't, we don't, I'm not going to define it from here.

KILMEADE ROASTS BIDEN FOR REMARKS ON INFLATION, RECESSION: HOW CAN HE SAY THIS WITH A STRAIGHT FACE?

We're not going to define a recession. We're not going to acknowledge it's even happening, and so they're not and no one's forcing them to. That's what they're saying. This is untenable. Unless you're an utterly partisan economist, you have to acknowledge what's happening. But those highly credentialed are not acknowledging it. They're blaming Putin. They're blaming January 6 and of course, on the basic point of whether the economy is in trouble, there are very few people left to deny it.

GAYLE KING, CBS JULY 19: The threat of an economic downturn is shaking up consumers and small business owners. A recent survey taken by Goldman Sachs found 93%, 93% of small businesses, fear a recession.

LARRY SUMMERS, CNN JULY 24: I think there's a very high likelihood of recession. When we've been in this kind of situation before, recession has essentially always followed.

PAUL KRUGMAN, MSNBC JULY 21: We did, in fact, end up with what is clearly an overheated economy and the effect of that overheating on inflation was bigger than this past experience would have led us to believe.

NOURIEL ROUBINI, BLOOMBERG JULY 25: I think there are many reasons why we're going to have a severe recession and a severe debt and financial crisis. Debtratiosare historically high.

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So, if Larry Summers, who literally blamed the insurrection on January 6 for inflation, and Paul Krugman, who's been wrong about everything, humiliates himself weekly in The New York Times, if they're admitting that actually the economy is in trouble, then there's really no denying it. You can't deny it. We've reached the limit of denial.

Take a look at this chart. Notice that right before the 2008 recession, the consumer price index was surging just as it is now. Prices went up until the crash, so they always crash. Why does that happen? What happens? For a simple reason. Goods become too expensive for people to buy and then GDP collapses. The IMF is sending out warning signals as well. They now predict a global recession as soon as next year. What happens then?

Tucker Carlson currently serves as the host of FOX News Channels (FNC) Tucker Carlson Tonight (weekdays 8PM/ET). He joined the network in 2009 as a contributor.

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Tucker Carlson: The US is in a recession, the economy has been shrinking all year - Fox News

On July 4, 2022, in Samarpal versus Union of India, the Delhi high courtheld that the right to shelter was a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. It also observed that, Ameliorative and beneficial statutes and schemes have, it is trite, to be broadly and liberally interpreted, so as to maximise their scope and effect.

However, mere semantic gymnastics will do little to extend substantial benefits that may be offered to the poor through an enforceable remedy under the fundamental right to shelter.

The judicial interpretation cannot widen the purview of the statute/policy by tweaking the eligibility requirements for a person to be covered by a statute/policy; the interpretation can only determine whether a person meets the already-determined eligibility requirements.

Instead, the court should have avoided narrowing its jurisdiction by limiting itself to the challenge; it could have proceeded to direct the government to take reasonable measures to provide the evicted residents of the jhuggis with alternative accommodation.

The petitioners claimed entitlement to relocation under the Ministry of Urban Developments (MoUD) Policy for Relocation of Slum Dwellers (henceforth referred to as the Relocation Policy). The Relocation Policy requires that the jhuggi have been set up before November 30, 1998. The government argued that the claimants were not covered by the policy because the claimants jhuggi the Lahori Gate side basti was set up only in 2003.

The petitioner counter claimed that the jhuggi where they were originally residing the Shahid Karim basti was established in the 1980s, however, they were relocated to the side of Lahori gate during an exercise to increase the number of platforms in the New Delhi Railway Station in 2003. Because of the exercise, they claimed that they had to shift 10-15 jhuggis from the Shahid Basti, below the foot bridge, to the Lahori Gate side and that the petitioners were among the residents of these 10-15 jhuggis.

Also read: Homelessness Amid COVID-19: Miseries Untold and Promises Shattered

Conditional and systemic social rights

The fundamental right to shelter was declared by the court not as a systemic right but as a conditional right. A claim under the right to shelter would stand conditional upon the existence of a particular policy/statute which must provide for the means to facilitate exercising the right. In this case, such policy/statute is the Relocation Policy. The right would be violated only when the state fails to fulfil its obligations under the policy/statute, as opposed to other rights where the state has only to not actively violate or block them by taking a violative measure.

The distinction between systemic and conditional rights can be understood with the example of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act): The right to education is a systemic social right for children between the ages of six to 14. The state is obligated to take necessary measures to facilitate the right at a systemic level because any child in that age group can claim the right; the state would be duty-bound to provide necessary means to exercise that right.

On the other hand, for children above the age of 14, the right is conditional to some statute or policy that may provide for the education of children above the age of 14.

The benefits under ameliorative and beneficial statutes and schemes cannot significantly be extended to the poor by a broad and liberal interpretation. Instead, the court should grant a remedy of systemic nature where the government is directed to take reasonable measures to provide shelter to the poor residing in similar jhuggies instead of keeping the right to shelter conditional to a policy which may itself be restrictive in scope.

Also read: Fear, Uncertainty Loom Large As Delhis Kathputli Colony Resists Renewed Resettlement

In this case, a broad and liberal interpretation could not have tweaked the cut-off date of November 30, 1998 before/on which the jhuggis had to have been set up for the petitioners to be covered under the Relocation Policy. Traditionally, it would be within the function of the court to declare that the cut-off date could be held as arbitrary. However, the standard for holding a cut-off date arbitrarily is high.

In the Valliappan case, the court observed that, It is settled law that the choice of a date as a basis for classification cannot always be dubbed as arbitrary even if no particular reason is forthcoming for the choice unless it is shown to be capricious or whimsical in the circumstances. Likewise, the right to free and compulsory education is a fundamental right for children up to the age of 14 under the RTE Act. The court cannot re-interpret the cut-off age of 14 years as 18 to widen the benefits to poor children.

So, merely because a cut-off date/age is arbitrary does not mean that it is unreasonable. Courts in India have judicially reviewed even policy decisions on the touchstone of fundamental rights.

A liberal interpretation, therefore, can only assess if the petitioners jhuggi was set up before November 30, 1998; that too only in instances where ambiguity exists. However, it would also be within the judicial function to either trace the existence of jhuggis to the 1980s when they were originally setup; or alternatively, to recognise the existence of a right and compel the government to act.

Expressive value

When a right is held as fundamental, it continues to remain conditional to an existing policy/statute where a claim can be made against it only when the state has not fulfilled its obligation under the statute/policy. Sometimes, courts may declare a right as fundamental even when the challenge was concerning a different right altogether.

In Olga Tellis, the court held the right to livelihood as a fundamental right although the challenge was concerning the rights of slum dwellers to encroach upon public land, which was denied by the court to be a right. However, because such rights can be read under one of the Articles concerning fundamental rights in Part III of the Constitution, they hold a significant expressive value in two ways:

First, the text of constitutional provisions possess an expressive value which the public does understand. For instance, during the anti-CAA protests, the protestors were reciting the preamble to the Constitution to express their dissent.

Secondly, when a particular right is declared to be a fundamental right, a new social meaning of greater significance is generated. The public, policy-makers and administrators will associate the new social meaning of fundamental right with the ordinary right as well as the means that are necessary to exercise that right.

For example, when the right to shelter is declared as a fundamental right under Article 21, the public understands that relocation is something that is significant to the right to life because no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.

Also read: Delhi Slum Eviction: COVID-19 Took Away Everything, Now Roof Being Taken Away Too

But the expressive value of a fundamental right will extend the benefits of a policy/statute to the poor incrementally when, over the years, different stakeholders resolve to frame policies and laws to facilitate the right.

Hence it is imperative that courts grant remedies that are of systemic nature, including directions to the government to take proportionate measures beyond what the policy/statute mandates.

Talha Abdul Rahman is an Advocate-on-Record at the Supreme Court of India. Husain Aanis Khan is an advocate and Research Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi.

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What the Court Can Do to Really Implement the Fundamental Right to Shelter - The Wire

In this image taken from video, Nancy Pelosi leaves her plane in Taipei on Tuesday night.Credit:AP

Pelosis arrival followed a series of escalations by Beijing, some division within the US national security establishment and growing fears the visit may spark an accidental conflict between the worlds two largest superpowers.

In its first economic response to what Chinas Foreign Ministry had labelled a violation of Chinas sovereignty and territorial integrity, China on Tuesday blocked the importation of 180 Taiwanese foods including drinks and pineapple cakes and began live-fire exercises off its north-eastern coast.

The measures sent markets in China tumbling and saw the Shanghai Composite and Hong Kongs Hang Seng Index fall by more than 3 per cent.

Pelosi is the highest-ranking serving US official to visit Taipei in decades and the highest-ranking to meet with Tsai.

Republican Newt Gingrich was the last US House Speaker to visit in 1997, but he was not a member of the governing Democratic Party.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Credit:AP

The visit by Pelosi has been viewed by Beijing as an endorsement of Taiwans government by the Biden administration. Beijing claims self-governed Taiwan is a province of the mainland, despite the Chinese Communist Party never having ruled the neighbouring democratic island of 23 million people.

Pelosi had not commented publicly on the trip before her arrival in Taipei, but plans were leaked to US and Taiwanese media and the reports provoked an increasingly heavy rhetorical response from Beijing. It warned on Monday that its military will not sit idly by.

We will not be intimidated by the PRCs weaponisation of trade, said Taiwanese MP Wang Ting Yu, referring to the initials for the Peoples Republic of China.

But analysts are concerned that Pelosis visit could escalate the dispute beyond trade sanctions.

Pelosis trip is unlikely to start a new crisis in the Taiwan Strait by itself, but it is indicative of a bigger spiral of tension that could lead to a serious crisis, or even an armed conflict, between the United States and China, said the Cato Institutes director of defence policy studies, Eric Gomez.

China began live-fire exercises in the Bohai Sea on Monday and has steadily increased its release of war propaganda to coincide with Pelosis visit and the 95th anniversary of the Peoples Liberation Army on Monday.

The Chinese response will likely involve additional large-scale military activities in the Taiwan Strait. All these manoeuvres in close quarters could lead to dangerous encounters or, worse, an accidental collision, which could in turn spark further brinksmanship and escalation, said International Crisis Group senior analyst Amanda Hsiao.

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If managed poorly, this event could lock in place a more confrontational approach to the Taiwan issue on both sides, making future dynamics yet more dangerous.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong and opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham have yet to comment publicly on Pelosis trip, but she has received support from the current and future chairs of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, Liberal senator James Paterson and Labor MP Peter Khalil.

Its a reaffirmation of the Biden administrations commitment to the region, Khalil told Sky News on Tuesday.

As James said, this is a really important trip because it is all about US presence and US engagement, both economic and in a security sense in our region as a stabilising force.

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Nancy Pelosi arrives in Taipei as China sends fighter jets to the Taiwan Strait - Sydney Morning Herald

MADRID Russian troops poured into Ukraine on the morning of Feb. 24, invading by land and sea as airstrikes rained down on cities, in an all-out attack unlike anything seen in Europe since the Second World War.

The months that followed have left thousands dead, millions more displaced, led to famine and fuel shortages and fundamentally changed the world order.

Now the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is prepared to embark on the greatest overhaul of the alliances deterrence capabilities since the Cold War at a leaders summit in Spain, but Canadas role in the new defence strategy remains uncertain.

NATO leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have gathered in Madrid for the landmark summit to discuss how they will respond to Russias ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

We meet in the midst of the most serious security crisis we have faced since the Second World War, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said as he arrived at the summit Wednesday. It will be a transformative summit because we will make historic decisions.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to address the leaders at the outset of meeting.

NATO has steadily stepped up its presence since the first inklings of a potential invasion in January, effectively flexing its muscle to deter Russia from picking a fight with an allied nation.

If Russia were to cross into NATO territory it would trigger an all-out international war between dozens of countries, as an attack on one allied nation is considered an attack on all 30.

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Ukraines aspirations to join NATO as one of the justifications for the invasion.

At the G7 in the Bavarian Alps in Germany, Chancellor Olaf Sholz described the fine line leaders must walk.

We are taking tough decisions, Sholz said, speaking to media during a walk around the G7 summit site with Trudeau on Monday.

We are also cautious that we will help Ukraine as much as is possible but that we also avoid that there will be a big conflict between Russia and NATO.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg signalled more troops are now needed and a heightened state of readiness will be necessary to keep Russia at bay.

Canadas foremost contribution to the front against Russia is in Latvia, a Baltic nation along Russias western border, where Canada has led a 2,000-strong battlegroup since 2017.

Similar units led by Germany, Britain and the United States lead are spread across the southern coast of the Baltic Sea.

Following Russias invasion of Ukraine, NATO members agreed to create four more battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, effectively extending the alliances eastern front to the Black Sea.

Earlier this week, Stoltenberg said the number of troops in those battlegroups would double to between 3,000 and 5,000.

The alliance is also dramatically increasing the number of forces who would be ready to respond quickly in the event of a full-scale war from 40,000 to 300,000.

The question is whether Canada will contribute those troops and the funds needed to keep them poised for potential action.

It sure seems like the alliance is looking to make some concrete announcements about increased actual capabilities, on higher readiness for the alliance, and Im interested to see whether or not we have any more gas left in that particular tank, said David Perry, defence and foreign policy analyst for the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Trudeau said thats what hell be speaking about with other leaders.

We, like others, are developing plans to be able to scale up rapidly, Trudeau said at a press briefing at the conclusion of the G7 summit in Germany Tuesday.

In a one-on-one meeting with Trudeau before the NATO meeting Wednesday, Stoltenberg heaped praise on Canada for its contributions to the alliance.

Its great to see how really Canada is playing a key role in strengthening NATOs deterrence and defence amidst the most serious security crisis weve faced since the Second World War in Europe, he told Trudeau in a small meeting room in the lower level of the convention centre where the summit was held.

But Canada is already under-delivering on a promise to NATO to dedicate two per cent of its gross domestic product to military defence.

Members of the 30-member military alliance agreed to the target in 2014, and its expected to be front and centre when leaders convene Wednesday.

A report released by Stoltenberg estimates Canadian defence spending will instead decline as a share of GDP to 1.27 per cent this year, down from 1.32 per cent last year and 1.42 per cent in 2020.

The leaders should also discuss an exit plan for the war, said Robert Baines of the NATO Association of Canada.

I think the NATO leaders have said, Well, were with Ukraine for as long as Ukraine needs us. And then to try to actually square that circle and say, OK, so theres no exit strategy. Thats always challenging, Baines said.

The summit will also welcome new potential partners in Europe and Asia. Delegations from Sweden and Finland, which have applied to join NATO, will be in attendance, and Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol will be the first leaders of their respective countries to attend a NATO summit.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 29, 2022.

With files from Lee Berthiaume in Ottawa

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

Originally posted here:

Liberals give themselves more time to meet five-year-old peacekeeping pledge - Todayville.com