Banking
Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Credit Suisse, 2023
Fig. 1. “The monument sign in front of the parking lot of the Silicon Valley Bank headquarters at 3003 West Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, California.” Photograph by Minh Nguyen, March 13, 2023, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
There is a new blog post entitled, “The Silicon Valley Bank collapse exposes our system for what it is: neo-feudalism.”
Margot Patrick, Justin Baer, and Dana Cimilluca, “UBS Nears Deal to Take Over Credit Suisse,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-in-talks-to-take-over-credit-suisse-ed932b01
Margot Patrick, Ben Dummett, and Dana Cimilluca, “UBS Offers $1 Billion to Buy Credit Suisse,” Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-offers-1-billion-to-take-over-credit-suisse-bfac51fa
Gilead
Donald Trump
Stormy Daniels
Fig. 1. Stormy Daniels at Ron Jeremy’s birthday party. Photograph by Luke Ford (Lukeisback.com), March 10, 2007, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.
I think I’m gonna be really surprised if the arrest of Donald Trump,[1] assuming it actually happens, generates anything like the turnout of the January 6 coup attempt.
But just because I think much of his support has dissipated,[2] doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have some. If I had to guess, I think I might be seeing a few more Trump flags around Allegheny County since word leaked of his possible arrest. Some of his supporters are complete lunatics, some are in right wing militia groups.
The context is different now. Trump has, I believe, far fewer supporters. But if we’re to judge from how Doug Mastriano ran for Pennsylvania governor and lost, and how Trump is running for president,[3] and, I believe, almost certain to lose, those supporters are almost certainly more extreme. Will they also be more violent?
We’ll have to wait and see.
Jonathan Dienst, “Law enforcement agencies are prepping for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week,” NBC News, March 17, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/law-enforcement-agencies-are-prepping-possible-trump-indictment-early-rcna75493
Joe Palazzolo and Corinne Ramey, “Donald Trump Braces for Potential Charges in N.Y. Hush-Money Case, Calls for Protests,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-braces-for-potential-charges-calls-for-protests-dd879b1f
Tom Nichols, “Trump Did It Again,” Atlantic, March 18, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/trump-arrest-indictment-protesters-mob/673437/
Abortion
Fig. 1. Sign at demonstration in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, May 3, 2022. Janni Rye, via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
David W. Chen and Pam Belluck, “Wyoming Becomes First State to Outlaw the Use of Pills for Abortion,” New York Times, March 17, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/us/wyoming-abortion-pills-ban.html
Imperialism
Russia
Ukraine
Fig. 1. “Destroyed Russian military vehicles located on the main street Khreshchatyk are seen as part of the celebration of the Independence Day of Ukraine in Kyiv, August 24.” Photograph by Gleb Garanich for Reuters, August 24, 2022,[4] fair use.
Joe Biden’s applause for the International Criminal Court[5] would be, by far, more persuasive if the U.S. accepted the Court’s jurisdiction generally, not merely when it approves of the Court’s actions.
Erin Banco and Sarah Anne Aarup, “‘Hunting rifles’ — really? China ships assault weapons and body armor to Russia,” Politico, March 16, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/chinese-companies-are-shipping-rifles-body-armor-to-russia/
Dan Ladden-Hall, “Prigozhin Says Jealous Kremlin Deliberately Stopped Wagner Taking Bakhmut,” March 16, 2023, https://www.thedailybeast.com/prigozhin-says-jealous-kremlin-deliberately-stopped-wagner-taking-bakhmut
Nicolas Camut, “China’s Xi to visit Putin in Russia next week,” Politico, March 17, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/china-xi-jinping-visit-vladimir-putin-in-russia-next-week/
Mike Corder and Raf Casert, “International court issues war crimes warrant for Putin,” Associated Press, March 17, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/icc-putin-war-crimes-ukraine-9857eb68d827340394960eccf0589253
Ishaan Tharoor, “20 years later, U.S. invasion of Iraq hangs over war in Ukraine,” Washington Post, March 17, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/17/iraq-invasion-ukraine-history-shadow/
Emma Graham-Harrison and Pjotr Sauer, “Joe Biden hails decision to issue ICC arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin,” Guardian, March 18, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/18/biden-hails-decision-icc-arrest-warrant-against-putin
- [1]Jonathan Dienst, “Law enforcement agencies are prepping for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week,” NBC News, March 17, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/law-enforcement-agencies-are-prepping-possible-trump-indictment-early-rcna75493; Tom Nichols, “Trump Did It Again,” Atlantic, March 18, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/trump-arrest-indictment-protesters-mob/673437/; Joe Palazzolo and Corinne Ramey, “Donald Trump Braces for Potential Charges in N.Y. Hush-Money Case, Calls for Protests,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-braces-for-potential-charges-calls-for-protests-dd879b1f↩
- [2]David Benfell, “More questions than answers as Donald Trump flags come down,” Not Housebroken, February 28, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/28/more-questions-than-answers-as-donald-trump-flags-come-down/↩
- [3]David Benfell, “More questions than answers as Donald Trump flags come down,” Not Housebroken, February 28, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/28/more-questions-than-answers-as-donald-trump-flags-come-down/↩
- [4]Reuters, “Ukraine puts destroyed Russian tanks on display in Kyiv,” August 25, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/ukraine-puts-destroyed-russian-tanks-on-idUSRTSALV9Q↩
- [5]Emma Graham-Harrison and Pjotr Sauer, “Joe Biden hails decision to issue ICC arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin,” Guardian, March 18, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/18/biden-hails-decision-icc-arrest-warrant-against-putin↩