ivanafterall

Setting aside Capitalism vs. Communism (or maybe I just think I am), this structure vs. that. Why is it that there aren't really huge lists of alternatives? Where are the people who are imagining new government structures?

Like electing citizens to office at random, like we do with jury duty (forget the word for it). Or totally different arrangements of legislatures. Or even a pure democracy in a modern sense. That one is especially probably a terrible idea, and they're not even that unique, but who is brainstorming this stuff? Is it mostly just sci-fi authors? Where is it talked about that isn't already bending toward a team in the already-existing scheme of things? Even the most radical sorts are referencing back to books/ideas that are a century old. There are ultimately like four ideas and we just kind of gave up? That's all of them?

Why have we seen so few different approaches tried? Or seemingly even imagined? I feel like even in fiction, it'll be 2,000 years in the future and the whole thing is structured like a glorified city council ruling entire star systems. I feel like it's difficult even for our minds to imagine anything truly inventive, in that sense. Is that baked into the concept? Is it because we're just dumb monkeys that only understand "big strong monkey better?" HAS this stuff been written about extensively and I'm just unaware (probably, yes)?

Russia's rapid advance through Kursk toward the town of Sudzha in recent days has sparked claims online that the U.S. could have coordinated with Moscow on a pause of military aid to Ukraine.

There is no evidence to suggest that the U.S. collaborated with Russia to time its military aid block ahead of a Russian offensive in Kursk.

Newsweek has reached out to the White House and the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

Why It Matters

Kyiv launched a surprise incursion into Russia's western Kursk region in August 2024, quickly gaining swathes of territory close to the border. While Russian and North Korean troops had managed to peel back some of Ukraine's control, Moscow had struggled to push Ukrainian forces from Sudzha.

The chunk of territory held by Kyiv's forces, sometimes referred to as the Ukrainian salient in Kursk, provided Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with a bargaining chip in ceasefire negotiations, particularly on the difficult issue of territory.

Russia began a fresh assault towards Sudzha in recent days, making rapid gains on the outskirts of the town. Reports on Wednesday indicated Ukrainian troops were pulling out of Sudzha to avoid being trapped by advancing Russian forces, while footage from Russian sources purported to show the Russian flag in the center of the town.

Ukraine had not officially commented at the time of writing.

What To Know

Several social media accounts claimed, without providing evidence, that Russia's assault on Sudzha could have been timed to take advantage of Ukraine's lack of access to military supplies and intelligence.

"Russia's moves in Kursk appear to have been coordinated with Trump's move to cut supplies & intel," one account claimed.

"The American administration is trying to remove Ukraine's options before any negotiations," another wrote.

The U.S. paused all shipments of military aid to Ukraine in early March, followed by a block on much of the U.S.-derived intelligence shared with Kyiv shortly after. The military aid and intelligence cooperation was restarted this week after U.S.-Ukrainian talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

"As a result of this pause, there are hundreds of dead Ukrainians," an unnamed Ukrainian officer told TIME.

An unidentified source in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office told the magazine that Kyiv's operations in the Kursk region had been hardest hit by the U.S. intelligence cut-off.

"Not only Kursk, in all Russian territory there are problems now," the source said.

Ruslan Leviev, a Russian opposition figure who runs the Conflict Intelligence Team open-source intelligence project, said on Wednesday that "Ukrainian troops are leaving" Sudzha.

One of Russia's prominent military bloggers said on Wednesday that Russian troops were operating in industrial areas of Sudzha, and had attacked Ukrainian troops trying to transport resources along the main supply route from Sumy to Kursk. Russia has been concentrating on cutting off Ukraine's logistics and supply routes to Sudzha.

"Russian forces continue to make confirmed advances in Kursk Oblast and have likely begun attacking Sudzha," the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said on Tuesday.

Geolocated footage shows Russia has seized a set of villages southeast and east of Sudzha, while advancing to the north and south of the settlement, the think tank said.

What People Are Saying

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said on Wednesday that "deliveries of weapons through Jasionka have returned to previous levels," referring to U.S. aid passing via eastern Poland into Ukraine, after Washington lifted its ban.

What Happens Next

It is not clear how quickly Russian troops will be able to re-establish control of the remaining Kursk territory still held by Ukraine, and how the area will play into ongoing ceasefire negotiations as Russia engages in talks with Washington.

All U.S. population growth in 2022-2023 happened because of immigration, not births — the first time that’s occurred since 1850, a migration think tank reported Wednesday.

That immigration growth has happened as U.S. birth rates have fallen, the Migration Policy Institute reported as part of its latest edition of “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States.”

The immigrant population grew by 1.6 million people between 2022 and 2023, reaching a record high of 47.8 million in 2023, according to the analysis. That’s about a 3.6% population increase, the largest annual growth since 2010, the institute stated in its report.

However, the foreign-born percentage of the U.S. population is 14.3%. That puts it slightly below the 14.8% registered in 1890, MPI said.

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of immigrants in the U.S. are legally present and almost half are naturalized citizens, according to MPI.

In addition to naturalized citizenship, those with legal status include green-card holders (legal permanent residents), refugees, those who have been granted asylum, had long-term visas as students, temporary workers or other categories.

U.S. birth rates reached a historic low in 2023, falling 2% from the previous year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fertility rate fell to 54.5 birth per 1,000 females of ages 15-44 in 2023, down from 56 in 2022.

The Census Bureau began collecting nativity data in 1850, when 2.2 million immigrants made up 10% of the U.S. population.

The U.S. is in the midst of a major immigration policy shake-up, with the Trump administration making a number of moves to curtail it. Many of its efforts are focused on illegal immigration, but some legal immigration and naturalization programs and pathways are also being affected.

The U.S. debt and deficit problem worsened during President Donald Trump’s first month in office, as the budget shortfall for February passed the $1 trillion mark even though the fiscal year is not yet at the halfway point.

Government spending eased slightly on a monthly basis though it still far outpaced revenues, according to a Treasury Department statement Wednesday. The deficit totaled just over $307 billion for the month, nearly 2 1/2 times what it was in January and 3.7% higher than February 2024.

Receipts and expenditures set records for the month, a Treasury spokesman said.

For the year, the deficit totaled $1.15 trillion through the first five months of fiscal 2025. The total is about $318 billion more than the same span in 2024, or roughly 38% higher, and set a new record for the period.

Net costs to finance the $36.2 trillion national debt edged lower to $74 billion for the month. However, the total net interest payments year to date rose to $396 billion, just behind national defense and health. Social Security and Medicare are the largest costs in the U.S. budget.

The deficit swelled in the final three years of former President Joe Biden’s term, growing from $1.38 trillion to $1.83 trillion.

Trump has made getting the government’s fiscal house in order a priority since taking office. Since taking over, he created the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk. The advisory board has spearheaded job cuts across multiple departments in addition to early retirement incentives. A Treasury spokesman said there were no apparent impacts yet from the DOGE efforts but referred further comment to the Musk-led panel.

At the same time, Trump wants to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, spearheaded during his first administration. While Trump has touted growth that the tax reductions would bring, multiple think tanks say renewing the act also would add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

AUSTIN -- The Texas Senate is poised to pass legislation requiring public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, one of several Republican-led efforts to blend religious concepts with education.

Senate Bill 10 instructs elementary and secondary school classrooms to conspicuously display a 16-inch by 20-inch poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments in type large enough to be legible for a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.

The proposal, with all 20 Republican senators signed on as co-authors, would allow schools to accept donations of Ten Commandments depictions or use district funds to purchase copies.

The goal of SB 10 is to provide "moral clarity" to students and promote the nation's heritage, said Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, who believes the bill can be a vehicle to get the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Louisiana has already passed legislation requiring the display of Ten Commandments in public schools, and at least 14 other states have introduced similar legislation," King said at a recent committee hearing on the bill. "It is time for Texas to pass SB 10 to bring back the historical tradition of recognizing our national heritage."

The Senate Education K-16 Committee approved SB 10 last week, teeing up floor votes to send one of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's priority bills to the House.

During the committee hearing on the bill, King said a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that abandoned the Lemon test opened the door for a Texas law.

The Lemon test, used to determine when government actions improperly favor one religion over another, was the basis of a 1980 Supreme Court decision in Stone vs. Graham that struck down a Kentucky law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

King said he expects a lawsuit to be filed before SB 10 becomes law.

"Some judge will issue an injunction," he predicted, "and then hopefully it'll work its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court and that bad law of Stone v. Graham will be overturned."

None of the 11 Democratic senators are co-authors of SB 10.

Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, voiced concerns about Texas choosing one religion over others and teachers having to explain "adultery" and what it means to covet a "manservant" to young students.

Children read the Ten Commandments in Sunday school, King said, and students are "crying out for moral clarity" and "a heritage to hold onto."

Matt Krause, a lawyer with First Liberty Institute, a religious legal advocacy group, told lawmakers SB 10 has "solid legal standing."

"A lot of times you hear on these kind of bills, 'Well, if we're going to open it up to the Ten Commandments, we're going to have to open it up for this and this and this,'" Krause said. "There's no other document, really, in our country's history that comports with the history and tradition like the Ten Commandments does. So any other kind of religious reference or any other kind of document, even if I agreed with it, probably would not survive that constitutional scrutiny because it doesn't have that history and tradition."

Other Republican bills awaiting action this legislative session would protect school employees' right "to engage in religious speech or prayer while on duty" and allow school boards to require that every campus or school provide students and employees daily time for prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious texts.

In addition, House Republicans have filed at least four bills requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools.

In public testimony on SB 10, witnesses opposed to the legislation described it as divisive and bad policy.

"Government cheapens religious faith when it imposes mandates designed to promote it," said Rocio Fierro Perez, Texas Freedom Network's political director. "Matters of faith are best left to families and congregations, not legislation and not public schools."

Jaime Puente, economic opportunity director for the social justice organization Every Texan, said SB 10 would hurt schools.

"Since 2021, this Legislature has used its authority to impose increasingly divisive policies onto school districts," Puente said. "Banning culturally relevant curriculums, forcing libraries to purge undesirable books and putting teachers into the crosshairs of overzealous critics through the new complaints process are all examples of ways Texas has inserted fear and tension into already strained classroom environments."

Cameron Samuels, executive director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, said the bill does nothing to solve the problems Texans are facing.

"Amending this bill to require the Ten Commandments be made of bulletproof kevlar may actually be useful as a shield from gun violence, a real problem Texans face," Samuels said.

The committee also heard from Pastor Richard Vega of At His Feet Ministry, a Christian nonprofit, and Joe Kennedy, a football coach who sued a public school district that asked him to stop praying at the 50-yard line after games. Kennedy's case went to the Supreme Court, which in 2022 ruled the coach's conduct was protected by the First Amendment.

Kennedy said people shouldn't have to hide their faith in public, and Vega put the onus on lawmakers to pass legislation to help heal communities he said are suffering.

"We have come so far off the beaten path that our communities are ripped apart in this country and in our state," Vega said. "I hope that the men and women of God will rise up and start to be the voice that they've been called to be, because it's time that we do."

They can pretty much do no wrong. Good night time music.

Bunch of bluegrass prodigies in one band--like the Cream of the genre.

Bluegrass might be unfair, but they play bluegrass instruments. And bluegrass-y music, but it's hard to compare it to, say, Ricky Skaggs. (Ricky Skaggs is still okay sometimes.)

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I'm sure a lot of you have. For my part, I've been finally writing down my political experience, what I saw, etc...in a way that I think might be able to move some people on the right. But I also agree with this post. People always talk/write, etc...and rarely actually take action.

So, with that in mind, can we talk about what that looks like? Very specifically?

I suppose I'm hoping we can go a step beyond "go protest," having unanimously agreed that we should all be out en masse to make it clear we're pissed about...well...kinda everything.

But this is a fairly radical bunch. So, what do you all know about this? What concrete advice/tips/plans/ideas can we dumbass individual Americans learn from historic examples, political movements, etc...? Indeed, one of those questions might be: is this even the place to talk about this? If not, where? Does that already exist somewhere in the aether out there? Communications is always an interesting to me (I've wondered whether something like LoRa could be useful to setup in my area).

If I want to start a group locally, are there things I should think about? Practical tips beyond "talk to everyone you know?" Books to read? Etc...? Even if you get a group, it's easy for it to mean nothing. How do you make it not mean nothing?

I can't access CNN, BBC, CBSNEWS, and others. Seems to persist across multiple devices and others in household also having issue.

Anyone else?

Just seems weird that I'm not seeing any news about it. Is it likely connected to the Microsoft Outlook issue? I just don't see how?

Just found these quotes by Nancy Reagan and thought they were pretty powerful. Threw them on a nice photo of her, in case they might inspire a few of you, too.

I didn't know where else to post a quote like this, but it felt prescient. Orwell wrote it shortly after the bomb became public knowledge.

Here's the text:

We were once told that the aeroplane had “abolished frontiers;” actually it is only since the aeroplane became a serious weapon that frontiers have become definitely impassable. The radio was once expected to promote international understanding and co-operation; it has turned out to be a means of insulating one nation from another. The atomic bomb may complete the process by robbing the exploited classes and peoples of all power to revolt, and at the same time putting the possessors of the bomb on a basis of military equality. Unable to conquer one another, they are likely to continue ruling the world between them, and it is difficult to see how the balance can be upset except by slow and unpredictable demographic changes.

For forty or fifty years past, Mr. H. G. Wells and others have been warning us that man is in danger of destroying himself with his own weapons, leaving the ants or some other gregarious species to take over. Anyone who has seen the ruined cities of Germany will find this notion at least thinkable. Nevertheless, looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. James Burnham’s theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications – that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of “cold war” with its neighbours.

Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralised police State. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a “peace that is no peace.”