If you want to push to change the Democrats' platform, by all means, do so! But let's not pretend that either party was somehow more ideologically coherent in the 1920s than today ...

A hundred years ago, the Democrats were deeply divided between a progressive wing and a conservative wing, and maintained what party unity they could by allowing white supremacists to set policy on anything touching on race.

I have an entire PhD in political science and have never been sure what constitutes "The West" in a meaningful, consistent way.

What is the term meant to include - or exclude? Are the differences between "the West" and other "civilizations" greater than the differences within the so-called "west"?

I have heard exactly one person in my entire life use that phrase, and it was, guess who, Andy Beshear

Extremely normal and fine for a company to put this in a public statement

Phils deserve to be muted anyway.

"After imposing the tariffs, the United States negotiated several bilateral trade deals with other countries. However, ... it is unclear whether these deals with actually improve agricultural market access for US exporters."

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum: “I want to propose a declaration against military intervention in Cuba. Let dialogue and peace prevail..”

Thank you for alerting me! I wondered about it, but saw multiple people sharing.

Who is the R.E.M. of baseball players?

Rockwell guy standing up painting

This chair is uncomfortable.

Speaking in Washington at a Semafor media event, Lutnick said reports that Canada was slowing down trade talks with the US "is like the worst strategy I've ever heard. They suck." Trump signed the 2020 trade deal during his first term to replace Nafta. "[Prime Minister Mark] Carney has a problem with us," he said. A commerce department spokesperson said Lutnick had been misquoted. "Secretary Lutnick, describing our unfair trade imbalance with Canada, explained how Canada sucks off of our $30tn economy," the spokesperson said.

Do they think that sounds better? Because it really doesn’t.

www.ft.com/content/22f2...

Reporter: If you don’t have a deal by Wednesday, will you extend the ceasefire or restart attacks? Trump: Maybe I won’t extend it… and we’ll have to start dropping bombs again.

Peace when markets are open

War when markets are closed

Lutnick also called the USMCA a "bad deal."
If true, whoever negotiated it for the US must be a real dope

China should invade Taijuan

Tweet from Cenk Uygur

Nothing good is going to come out of this reframing of the political spectrum.

USMCA review update 😬

RFK Jr claims Trump's post threatening to "end Iranian civilization" was actually "a message of love and compassion to the Iranian people"

European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp Governments want to move away from “platforms over which we have no control,” says Dutch minister.

🚨🚨Welcome news: European governments are getting #WhatsApp and #Signal out of their system in a move which is part of Europe's search for alternatives to American technology, sparked by fears of being strategically dependent on Washington. 🧵
www.politico.eu/article/euro...

Accelerate building an independent European social web This week Bluesky went down. This is why our vision for a fully independent European social web matters. You are the first users of Eurosky. You are the community making this vision a reality. We are ...

Yesterday Bluesky went down. @eurosky.social servers worked but we couldn't communicate as we don't have an app.

Our next step is to build everything we need to operate without Bluesky. We're raising €100,000 to build a European app backend supporting 100k+ users.

Let's do this

fund.eurosky.tech

Viet Nam submits request to join Expansion of the Information Technology Agreement Viet Nam has submitted a request to join the 2015 Expansion of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA II), the Chair of the Committee of Participants on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products, Mr Andrei Rusu of Romania, informed members at a meeting on 15 April. Viet Nam, already a member of the 1996 ITA, which eliminates duties on 203 IT products, intends to submit its draft tariff commitments in due course to cover a further 201 products under the ITA II.

Viet Nam submits request to join Expansion of the Information Technology Agreement

Checking in on some majority-Hispanic areas in the NJ-11 special election.

Belleville Township (50.2% Hispanic)

2020: Biden 61-38 (+23)
2024: Harris 51-47 (+4)
2025: Sherrill 63-37 (+26)
***
2026: Mejia 65-35 (+30)

“They call it a Royale with Cheese” - John 2:11

"Questioning the proposal are some of the president’s most hardcore supporters: fiscal conservatives"

This fiscal conservatives are having about as much success as the anti-war conservatives.

I had been thinking it would be nice to have a LinkedIn competitor on the Atmosphere, and these folks are giving it a shot, so I set up a profile:

sifa.id/p/simonleste...

The Kids Are Alright in Australia, No Thanks to the Social Media Ban The government and tech companies will never be good parents. Rather than pursuing bans and other policies that make the government and companies responsible for children, policymakers should pursue a...

Australia's social media ban for minors "going about as well as many critics predicted. Kids are largely avoiding enforcement, with 61% of kids ages 12–15 who had accounts before the ban still having access to at least one of them." VPNs, Groucho-esque "look older" disguises help. [David Inserra]

Demographics and financial development play a larger role than industrial or trade policies in China's current account imbalances, from Chang Ma and Shang-Jin Wei www.nber.org/papers/w35056

On 2, that may have been based on real world experience with how industrial policy was being carried out, e.g., everyone decided they needed a big steel industry and that wasn't working out very well.

Two questions:

1. This picture is of you?

2. [Putting on my Cato hat] Hasn't the World Bank always done significant lending and investment, and isn't this an example of industrial policy?

MAGA Indians Went All In on Trump. Many Right-Wingers Can’t Stand Them South Asians are a powerful, visible minority in the Trump administration. They’re also facing a racist backlash, fueled in part by the white nationalist Groyper movement.

South Asians are a powerful, visible minority in the Trump administration. They’re also facing a racist backlash, fueled in part by the white nationalist Groyper movement. www.wired.com/story/maga-i...