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650 lines
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<title>10 January, 2023</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<body>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kevin McCarthy’s Hollow Victory Will Have Economic and Political Consequences</strong> - If the new House Speaker is to get anything done, he will need to retain the support of far-right extremists. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/kevin-mccarthys-hollow-victory-will-have-economic-and-political-consequences">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Dire Aftermath of China’s Untenable “Zero COVID” Policy</strong> - Why did the nation, which suppressed the virus for years, fail to prepare for the inevitable? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/16/the-dire-aftermath-of-chinas-untenable-zero-covid-policy">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Netanyahu’s Government Takes a Turn Toward Theocracy</strong> - The Israeli Prime Minister’s new coalition includes members who would enforce religious prohibitions over democratic liberties. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/netanyahus-government-takes-a-turn-toward-theocracy">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Maxwell Frost’s Vision Meets Washington</strong> - The Gen Z congressman from Florida won his seat on a promise of bold change. Can he deliver in a bitterly divided House? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/maxwell-frosts-vision-meets-washington">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How to Make Trump and the Wealthy Pay Their Taxes</strong> - Three core reforms would make the U.S. system eminently fairer for all Americans. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-to-make-trump-and-the-wealthy-pay-their-taxes">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>The paradox at the heart of the most diverse Congress ever</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="The chamber room, looking somewhat in disarray, with people standing, sitting, and milling about." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hsYy6-UXJJVV_6A00BQ_432YaBk=/568x0:7235x5000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71847448/1245991206.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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General view of the chamber of the US House of Representatives during the voting for a new speaker on January 4, 2023. | Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Given Republican House control, more representation may not translate to more inclusive policies.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mVNtEH">
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Once again, the new Congress is making history. For the seventh time in a row, it’s the most diverse that the body has ever been. The reality of a split Congress, however, may mean that such gains in representation don’t translate into policies that advance gender equity and racial justice in the near term.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YsPGQ7">
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This year, <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/news-media/press-releases/new-records-women-us-congress-and-house">there’s a record number of women</a> — 149 — as well as <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/01/09/u-s-congress-continues-to-grow-in-racial-ethnic-diversity/">a record number of people of color</a> — 133 — who’ll serve as lawmakers. Many of these new members are groundbreaking: <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23448463/midterm-elections-results-2022-frost-gen-z-congress-healey-huckabee-sanders">Rep. Maxwell Frost is the first Gen Z and Afro-Cuban</a> member of Congress, Rep. Becca Balint is the first woman and openly LGBTQ person elected from Vermont, and Rep. Summer Lee is the first Black woman elected from Pennsylvania.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jt2NfI">
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Congress has long been overwhelmingly white and male, and each of these gains helps bring it one step closer to being more representative of the US as a whole. Additionally, although most of the increases in representation remain concentrated among Democrats, Republicans have seen slight improvements, including an uptick in both Latina and Black lawmakers this term.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GxQ9eD">
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Overall, however, these changes are still far from enough. Currently, 25 percent of Congress are people of color, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-census-data-shows-the-nation-is-diversifying-even-faster-than-predicted/">compared to 40 percent of the US</a>. Similarly, 28 percent of lawmakers are women, <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/LFE046221">while 51 percent of the population is</a>. Although Congress has made big strides in recent years, it’s still woefully unrepresentative of a country that’s continuing to diversify at a rapid pace.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4FrfZ2">
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Because of how Congressional control is currently divided, there’s also a bit of a paradox, explains New America senior advisor Theodore Johnson. Although this Congress is the most diverse ever, ambitious policies to help expand civil rights and protections for underrepresented groups aren’t likely to advance while Republicans run the House. “A more diverse Congress should create better policy, it should create laws that are more inclusive, and that account for more people’s experiences in America,” says Johnson, a former White House fellow who <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/the-misleading-makeup-of-the-new-congress/">recently wrote</a> about this dynamic for The Bulwark. Republican control, he notes, is likely to prevent that from happening.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZXpmLs">
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Spending cuts that many GOP members are demanding, for example, could curb investments in social programs that “hit conservative hot buttons on race or sexual identity,” Andrew Biggs, an American Enterprise Institute fellow, <a href="https://slate.com/business/2023/01/house-republicans-congress-debt-ceiling-crisis-unlikely.html">told Slate</a>. And GOP attacks on subjects like critical race theory and trans rights hint at how the party plans to continue promoting positions hostile to LGBTQ people and racial equity in a bid to rally its base.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gPZnkU">
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Additionally, women and minority lawmakers who’ve been elected span the ideological spectrum, meaning more representation doesn’t guarantee alignment on policies that address civil rights issues.
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</p>
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<h3 id="xpRvXq">
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The impact of more representation in Congress
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WCizwY">
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Though it may sound obvious, a Congress that’s more representative of America helps ensure that more people feel like they have a voice in government, and pushes the legislature to consider issues that may have otherwise been ignored.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SvzbwP">
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<a href="https://genderpolicyreport.umn.edu/working-class-diversity-in-congress/">Studies have shown</a> that such representation is important because it can help build voter trust, because it ensures that more viewpoints are included in policy and because <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2019/01/09/having-the-most-diverse-congress-ever-will-affect-more-than-just-legislation/?noredirect=on">lawmakers are more likely to advocate for constituents</a> that share aspects of their identity. “This is about direct impact, but it is also about long-term understanding of what the real needs of our community are,” Annise Parker, president of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/27/nation/next-congress-will-be-most-racially-diverse-ever-an-evolving-republican-party-gets-some-credit/">told The Boston Globe</a>. “It is absolutely critical that we have those conversations. That’s something that the best and most supportive ally cannot do.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6Cr3KQ">
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And while the burden to advance policies that help address inequality should not fall on members of underrepresented groups, many have played a key role in championing substantive bills in the past. Johnson points to the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in the 2000s, the passage of federal sentencing reform in 2018, increased funding for HBCUs, and the approval of an anti-lynching bill in 2022 as policies that would not have come to fruition had Black lawmakers not advocated for them.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="elrATO">
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Such pressure has even resulted in success across party lines. Take, for example, the First Step Act, sentencing reforms that passed under President Donald Trump in 2018. “Diversity, frankly, in Congress allowed that bill to pass,” Johnson told Vox. Other examples include the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s vocal lobbying for immigration reforms <a href="https://chc.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/chc-letter-to-administration-officials-calling-for-an-end-to-title-42">like the end of Title 42</a>, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus’s support for legislation to combat anti-Asian hate crimes.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CaXSOB">
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Past research from Georgetown political scientist Michele Swers has also found that women lawmakers have been more likely to sponsor bills focused on women’s health, and more involved in policy debates addressing gender equity. While examining policies in the mid-1990s, for example, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/27/12266378/electing-women-congress-hillary-clinton">Swers found that liberal women</a> legislators sponsored an average of 10.6 bills related to women’s health, roughly 5.3 more than liberal men did.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ngtX0P">
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“I found that generally, the more something is directly connected to policy consequences for women, so when we think of things like women’s rights issues, that the women in Congress were more engaged, they were more involved,” <a href="https://www.aei.org/podcast/what-differences-do-women-make-in-congress-with-michele-swers/">Swers has said in an interview</a> with the American Enterprise Institute. Women have been at the forefront of pushing policies focused on paid family leave, sexual misconduct in the military, paycheck fairness, abortion rights, and maternal mortality. <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/history-made-more-lgbtq-people-elected-to-congress-than-ever-before">LGBTQ members</a>, who’ve seen their ranks grow in Congress, have also been integral in the passage of bills like the Respect for Marriage Act, which codifies federal protections for same-sex marriage.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pXYNj9">
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Whether more inclusive legislation comes to fruition could depend on party control.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="efYVA4">
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In both this term and other recent ones, there have been limitations on exactly what policies a more diverse Congress can achieve given the numbers that Democrats have.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wN3w6Y">
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A Republican House majority could well stymie efforts to pass bills that address issues including discrimination against LGBTQ people, immigration reform, and police reform. And previously, Democrats’ narrow Senate majority similarly led to the failure of bills to shield abortion rights, to establish universal childcare, and to strengthen voting rights. The Democratic House also passed legislation like the Equality Act, which barred discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, as well as the Dream Act, which would give undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children a pathway to citizenship, but neither made it through the Senate.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UBkhqF">
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Currently, there’s more diverse representation among Democrats, though Republicans are seeing some increases, too. This year, Republicans elected three new Latina lawmakers to Congress, as well as the highest number of Black Republicans — 5 — in decades. The contrast between the two parties remains stark, though. All told, about 40 percent of Democratic lawmakers are people of color, while 10 percent of Republican lawmakers are. Similarly, 41 percent of Democratic lawmakers are women, while 15 percent of Republicans are.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RokXjq">
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And of the record number of <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/news-media/press-releases/new-records-women-us-congress-and-house">19 Latina women</a>, <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/news-media/press-releases/new-records-women-us-congress-and-house">27 Black women</a>, and <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/27/nation/next-congress-will-be-most-racially-diverse-ever-an-evolving-republican-party-gets-some-credit/">13 LGBTQ candidates</a> who were elected this cycle, most were Democrats.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UUp3Mb">
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There is an open question of whether greater diversity in the Republican caucus will translate to a new approach to policymaking. GOP lawmakers including Sens. Tim Scott and Marco Rubio have worked on criminal justice reform and immigration in the past, for instance, though Johnson notes that Republican lawmakers may face pressure to shy away from issues related to race, due to the party’s aversion to identity politics. Additionally, many members of the GOP aren’t just actively opposing certain policies focused on civil rights, they’re advancing rhetoric that is harmful to particular communities — including anti-trans statements and the elevation of ideas like the <a href="https://www.vox.com/23076952/replacement-theory-white-supremacist-violence">“great replacement theory.” </a>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hHgcJT">
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It’s also worth noting that more diversity in Congress doesn’t mean a monolithic approach to politics given the significant ideological differences among women and minority lawmakers. While Democrats, and some moderate Republican women, are supportive of codifying <em>Roe</em>, for example, newly elected Sen. Katie Britt, the first woman elected to the Senate from Alabama, <a href="https://twitter.com/katiebrittforal/status/1540343075750420482">previously cheered</a> the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the precedent.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jFER7d">
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“Demographic representation does not always equate representation on particular policy issues because all Latinos, all women, all LGBTQ folks do not agree on a policy agenda,” says Kelly Dittmar, a political scientist at Rutgers and the scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics. “We don’t just elect women, and XYZ policy passes.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="N29ogq">
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There’s still much further Congress has to go
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sTGcK5">
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Despite the inroads that have been made on representation, there continue to be major gaps both at the lawmaker and staffer levels. <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/10/06/top-house-staffers-still-overwhelmingly-white-study-finds/">An October study</a> from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that 18 percent of senior House staffers are people of color, which falls notably short of the 40 percent of the population that are also nonwhite.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QsqkZl">
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“While the 118th Congress is the most racially diverse, its staff makeup is breaking records for a lack of diversity,” Dr. LaShonda Brenson, a senior researcher at the Joint Center, told Vox. “People of color staffers now make up about 25 percent of the House’s workforce, according to LegiStorm <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.legistorm.com_pro-5Fnews_3018_house-2Dkicks-2Doff-2D118th-2Dcongress-2Dwith-2Dits-2Dwhitest-2Dstaff-2Dforce-2Din-2Dyears.html-3Futm-5Fsource-3DRegistered-2BLegiStorm-2BUsers-26utm-5Fcampaign-3D4a4a91714b-2DWkly-5F01-5F03-5F2023-5Fnon-5Fhill-5Fpro-5Fannual-26utm-5Fmedium-3Demail-26utm-5Fterm-3D0-5Faa20686cb5-2D4a4a91714b-2D85646455&d=DwMFaQ&c=7MSjEE-cVgLCRHxk1P5PWg&r=iG-lIlvmv9VF1ZrPTUjM9w&m=wch9KutI82IV2pJA6-cHxnHJ3Q0d9ruhkiiheDSgb-ZId-fD7Nas5eKD3tV3NH-o&s=fYjhhgTSX2ZDIcY6IlT-6AtvNRdhPLw5i2Oeig5XmyM&e=">data</a>. That’s lower than it’s been since the 115th Congress (2017-2019).”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OyYwqW">
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Low salaries in Congress, unpredictable working hours, and hostile conditions have been among the factors that have limited who is able to take on staffer jobs. An increase to pay minimums in the House, as well as a concurrent unionizing effort, are intended to make Congress a more inclusive and supportive place to work.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZeZrh9">
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Such gaps can also impact which policies are prioritized, given the pivotal role that staffers play in crafting and shaping legislation. Addressing racial and gender disparities are central to developing any major policy — from funding for infrastructure projects to the distribution of pandemic business loans.
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</p>
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“Policies are not neutral. Different groups experience them differently, and you have to have a staff that has that type of knowledge and perspective,” says University of Minnesota political scientist Michael Minta, who’s studied the importance of diversity in Congress.
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</p>
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>Coming soon: Beef, coffee, and chocolate, without a side of environmental destruction</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/k28MNuup53bqKlauRce8rH1KGjo=/305x0:3588x2462/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71847407/GettyImages_1237510731__1_.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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An aerial view of cattle in Para state, Brazil, on October 6, 2021. Cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. | Jonne Roriz/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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A new law in Europe could help prevent our favorite foods from flattening forests.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qMFlQp">
|
|||
|
|
Many popular grocery store items, from beef to coffee, have a dark side. They’re often grown on land where forests were cut down.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0OL1q8">
|
|||
|
|
That means that when you shop, you might be inadvertently contributing to the ongoing destruction of nature. And much of it is happening in the Amazon rainforest and Congo Basin — two of the most important ecosystems on Earth.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ez99W1">
|
|||
|
|
That’s the bad news.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zue3vS">
|
|||
|
|
But thankfully, there’s good news, too. In December, the European Union <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_7444">agreed on a landmark law</a> to prevent companies from selling beef, coffee, and a handful of other commodities in the EU if they’re grown on land where forests were recently cleared.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oEjRp4">
|
|||
|
|
This legislation — which has yet to be formally approved — is a really big deal. Europe is a major consumer of foreign goods, so it could help clean up the supply chains of multinational companies. The new legislation could also inspire anti-deforestation regulations in other large economies, such as China, and push the US to pass a similar law it’s had in the works for years.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ApJxbw">
|
|||
|
|
Some environmental advocates argue that the law doesn’t go far enough and, at worst, will just encourage companies to reroute their dirty products elsewhere. But what’s clear is that it sends a loud signal that markets are changing: Products that drive forest loss are no longer acceptable, and voluntary corporate pledges to eliminate deforestation are no longer enough.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c5ytIf">
|
|||
|
|
“This law indicates that the market for products linked to environmental devastation is quickly closing,” said Hannah Mowat, a campaigns coordinator at the European environmental advocacy organization Fern. “It’s the beginning of the new market norms.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="VXvuZH">
|
|||
|
|
The EU’s new law could be a game changer for forests
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QqVoAK">
|
|||
|
|
The system that produces the world’s food also destroys its forests. In the tropics — home to much of the world’s biodiversity — agriculture causes <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/044009/pdf">nearly two-thirds</a> of all deforestation.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eqcGGt">
|
|||
|
|
Most forests are slashed to make space for a handful of commodities, such as cattle, soybeans, and palm oil. Many of those products then enter global supply chains that end on grocery shelves. Today, it’s difficult for consumers to know where, exactly, their groceries come from, and whether they’re linked to environmental harm.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/u270qTRgXfL4VgkyMFF3XpO2_5I=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24346573/GettyImages_1241295519.jpg"/> <cite>Alfredo Zuniga/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
A coffee plantation in the Gorongosa mountains in Mozambique, viewed from above, on May 20.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GVOJrm">
|
|||
|
|
While Europe isn’t the largest consumer of most forest-flattening commodities, it’s still a big buyer — and it sources plenty of them from unsustainable farms. The EU is responsible for more than a third of the deforestation linked to crops and animal products traded internationally between 1990 and 2008, <a href="https://environment.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/SWD_2021_326_1_EN_impact_assessment_part1_v4.pdf">according to</a> the European Commission.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mS5vW7">
|
|||
|
|
That’s why this regulation is so important, said Nathalie Walker, a supply chain expert at the National Wildlife Federation. Europe has a big environmental footprint. What’s more, the status quo isn’t working. For years now, food companies have promised to eliminate deforestation in their supply chains voluntarily, but these pledges <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/climate/companies-net-zero-deforestation.html">haven’t worked</a> (in part because companies often don’t know where their products come from).
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kOnsRD">
|
|||
|
|
The new regulation, meanwhile, isn’t optional. It will require corporations to prove that most products they sell in (or expert from) the EU made with cattle, coffee, chocolate, soy, palm oil, wood, or rubber are produced without destroying or severely damaging forests, from 2021 onward. That includes both illegal and legal<em> </em>deforestation — companies can’t clear trees, even if local laws permit it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JOtanX">
|
|||
|
|
The EU law will also provide a degree of clarity into corporate supply chains, Mowat said. Before selling into EU markets, companies will have to reveal the location of farms where each of their commodities has been produced; they’ll have to trace, say, boxes of chocolate back to a specific grove of cacao trees.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YFICLr">
|
|||
|
|
The EU is likely to formally approve the legislation this spring, Walker said, and it will enter into force soon after. Larger corporations will then have a year and a half to comply; smaller companies will have two years. And the regulation includes a range of potential penalties for companies that don’t comply, from fines to sanctions.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="EV2ucI">
|
|||
|
|
The US is weighing a similar law with huge potential
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tewjUz">
|
|||
|
|
The EU law is, for now, one of a kind. No other countries prohibit the sale of several different products linked to deforestation, according to Walker. (Many countries, including the US and Australia, do prevent companies from importing timber tied to illegal forest loss.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SRorL1">
|
|||
|
|
Governments in a handful of other countries, however, have proposed similar policies. In the fall of 2021, for example, a group of mostly Democratic lawmakers in the US introduced a bill known as the FOREST Act, which seeks to bar companies from importing certain products associated with recent deforestation. Those include the same products covered by the EU regulation, such as cattle and coffee.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IcysDkU7rp-it-5eg83dCiWA_dE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24346583/GettyImages_1244871950.jpg"/> <cite>Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
A view inside a cocoa processing plant in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on November 17.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a6IZjX">
|
|||
|
|
Like the EU law, the FOREST Act — short for the Fostering Overseas Rule of law and Environmentally Sound Trade Act — could be transformative. The US is <a href="https://www.agdaily.com/livestock/why-beef-imports-are-so-important/">one of the largest</a> beef importers in the world, and some of its supply comes from the Brazilian Amazon, where cattle ranches <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2022/10/19/23403330/amazon-rainforest-deforestation-cattle-laundering">are replacing forests</a>. The United States also imports <a href="https://oec.world/en/profile/hs/coffee">more coffee</a> than any other and is a major buyer of palm oil, chocolate, and other commodities grown in the tropics.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ulK0zu">
|
|||
|
|
“It would be a game changer,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii who introduced the bill to the Senate, because the US influences the global supply chain. “We can make markets and we can break markets,” he said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<aside id="AslT36">
|
|||
|
|
<div>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</aside>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mnPX0V">
|
|||
|
|
There are a handful of differences between the two laws. While the EU legislation applies to all deforestation<em>, </em>for example,<em> </em>the FOREST Act only applies to illegal deforestation. That distinction is not a huge concern, however, because <a href="https://www.forest-trends.org/publications/illicit-harvest-complicit-goods/">most</a> tropical deforestation related to agriculture is illegal.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sflQn1">
|
|||
|
|
The key question now, of course, is whether the bill can pass. Congress didn’t vote on the FOREST Act in 2021 or ’22, and lawmakers now face a Republican majority in the House. Plus, the legislation doesn’t have any Republican cosponsors in the Senate, Schatz said; conservative lawmakers tend to oppose regulations that companies view as burdensome.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vZUwRx">
|
|||
|
|
Sen. Schatz plans to reintroduce the bill in the first half of 2023 after making an appeal to Senate Republicans to try and secure a cosponsor, he told Vox. There’s “plenty of room for bipartisanship” around the regulation, he said, especially now that the EU bill has been agreed on. “The EU action puts wind in our sails,” Schatz said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A91DDC">
|
|||
|
|
Many of the companies that stock shelves in the EU also deliver goods to the US. So they’ll have to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains regardless of what happens in the US. Agriculture companies have opposed the FOREST Act, Schatz said, but now they may see it as a losing battle. “We’re feeling pretty optimistic going forward.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="Q5hsgI">
|
|||
|
|
The limits of these anti-deforestation laws
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="js0OeU">
|
|||
|
|
Environmental advocates tend to agree that the EU law will be good for forests, but it has left many developing nations — tropical countries, mostly, that produce goods for the EU — frustrated. During the drafting process, ambassadors of more than a dozen countries <a href="https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/G/AG/GEN213.pdf&Open=True">complained</a> that the EU did not sufficiently consult producer nations, even though it will impact their economies.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KslZ5J">
|
|||
|
|
“It’s essential that the EU find ways to build effective partnerships with the most important producer countries,” said Tina Schneider, a forest expert at the World Resources Institute, a DC-based research organization.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UHvRt56aNFxY50-yCpQlEpef26w=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24346592/GettyImages_91565235.jpg"/> <cite>Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Smoke from fires that burned through logged rainforests in Aceh, Indonesia, on June 11, 2009.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IjPpti">
|
|||
|
|
Some environmental experts also argue that the EU law will do little to curtail ongoing environmental destruction. “Sadly, it’s a missed opportunity,” said Matthew Spencer, global director of landscapes at the sustainable trade organization IDH.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="InbeV7">
|
|||
|
|
One issue is that the EU law only applies to forests but not other ecosystems with sparser assemblages of trees (known in the regulation as “other wooded lands”). For example, in a tropical savanna in Brazil called the Cerrado, which is rich in biodiversity, soybean farms are spreading, yet much of it will likely remain unprotected by the regulation. (EU policymakers will review the law within a year after it goes into force to determine whether it should also apply to other wooded lands; the US law does<em> </em>apply to other wooded lands.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eM6g9k">
|
|||
|
|
Spencer also points out that the EU is a relatively small market for most commodities associated with deforestation, other than cocoa<strong> </strong>(the EU accounts for <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pt/ip_21_193#:~:text=The%20European%20Union%20is%20the,their%20respective%20Economic%20Partnership%20Agreements.">60 percent</a> of global imports).<strong> </strong>The law will just segregate the market, he said: Commodities that are already produced on land without deforestation will go to Europe and those linked to environmental destruction will continue flowing to places like China and India, where no such policies exist.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JrtEK7">
|
|||
|
|
“It’s more about making European consumers feel like they’re not part of the problem, rather than actually attacking the problem,” Spencer said. “It’s effectively just pulling up a drawbridge around Europe and saying, ‘Only clean products should come here.’”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tQO7uA">
|
|||
|
|
It would be more helpful for the EU to provide incentives for farmers and ranchers that are working toward eliminating deforestation, not just for companies that are already deforestation-free, he said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3lMNV3UV9VxgkS6cw-Apa3M5ff8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24346589/GettyImages_542633546.jpg"/> <cite>Paulo Fridman/Corbis via Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Large combines harvest soybeans in Mato Grosso, Brazil, on March 27, 2012.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TxSN8R">
|
|||
|
|
Still, the law will undoubtedly have far-reaching impacts, especially if it pushes legislators elsewhere to adopt a similar policy. “We believe that if China, India, the US, and Japan took the EU’s lead and emulated these key legal steps, then nearly 75 percent of the world’s imported deforestation could be eliminated within a few years,” Glenn Hurowitz, who leads the nonprofit advocacy group Mighty Earth, recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/05/eu-ban-on-deforestation-linked-goods-sets-benchmark-say-us-lawmakers">told the Guardian</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="edbAlf">
|
|||
|
|
It will likely be years before countries in Asia follow suit. But there’s already reason to expect global deforestation to slow. Indonesia, the world’s largest oil palm producer, has recently <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/2021-deforestation-in-indonesia-hits-record-low-but-experts-fear-a-rebound/">managed to keep its trees intact</a>. Brazil, meanwhile, just elected a president who, in the past, <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/10/31/23431867/lula-bolsonaro-brazil-election-amazon-rainforest">helped curtail</a> astronomical rates of environmental destruction.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xmPLMu">
|
|||
|
|
“We’re at a very important point,” Walker said, for tropical forests. “There’s hope.”
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>The all-but-certain debt ceiling crisis of 2023, explained</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A protester at the US Capitol building holds a hand-lettered sign over their head that reads “Stop the default.” " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XX3-3oItMnWqC8pBojclIcxt-ac=/309x143:3580x2596/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71847365/GettyImages_184774992a.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Protesters rally at the US Capitol in 2013, urging Congress to end the government shutdown and avert the debt limit crisis. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy got his job by promising GOP holdouts a fight on raising the debt ceiling again this year. | Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Joe Biden can use executive power to defuse the debt ceiling bomb, but that comes with risks of its own.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oGY6f0">
|
|||
|
|
2023 brings the United States a new Congress with a new Republican majority in the House, and (after <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/7/23543163/kevin-mccarthy-speaker-of-the-house-vote-elected">many many hours of voting</a>) a Republican speaker of the House, and you know what that means: There will be a massive fight over the debt ceiling.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y2VU4A">
|
|||
|
|
The ceiling, a legal limit on how much outstanding debt the federal government can hold, sparked standoffs between the Democratic White House and Senate and the GOP House in 2011, and again in 2013, and is now set to unfold yet again. The Republican House rebels who voted against Kevin McCarthy in the speaker election over a dozen times finally forced a <a href="https://twitter.com/susanferrechio/status/1611448016367394825">promise to never pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase</a> (that is, one without spending cuts attached) in exchange for their votes.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Za9hzs">
|
|||
|
|
Breaching the ceiling would be almost incomprehensibly bad: <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/articles/with-a-us-government-shutdown-there-will-be-blood">Beth Ann Bovino, chief US economist at Standard and Poor’s</a>, was hardly alone in 2017 when she predicted that “the impact of a default by the U.S. government on its debts would be worse than the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, devastating markets and the economy.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="og0rHN">
|
|||
|
|
And yet America keeps running this apocalyptic Groundhog Day. Luckily, there is a way out of the dilemma: ending the debt ceiling once and for all. The best way to do this is through legislation, but given the stranglehold of Republican hardliners in the House, that looks impossible. The administration couldn’t raise the debt ceiling on its own, but experts have floated a few options for the president to consider to avert a crisis. None of these are free from risk, and all would likely spark considerable litigation that could in turn cause market turmoil. But all would be preferable to defaulting on US debt.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="DTHUCY">
|
|||
|
|
How Biden can kill the debt ceiling
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GZ2kOA">
|
|||
|
|
There are at least four different ways a president could nullify the debt ceiling without Congress.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h4 id="ACnNH3">
|
|||
|
|
<ol type="1">
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Mint the coin
|
|||
|
|
</li></ol></h4>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YDv5Qu">
|
|||
|
|
It’s strange but true: As blogger <a href="https://www.vox.com/22711346/trillion-dollar-coin-mintthecoin-debt-ceiling-beowulf">Carlos Mucha</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100604051310/http://moslereconomics.com/2010/05/14/marshalls-latest/">pointed out</a> back in 2010, an existing law gives the US Treasury secretary the power to issue platinum coins of any value she wishes.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="skwOAH">
|
|||
|
|
The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/04/michael-castle-unsuspecting-godfather-of-the-1-trillion-coin-solution/">intention</a> of the original 1997 law was about making it easier to produce platinum coins for the international coin collector market, but in 2011 Much, <a href="https://www.pragcap.com/lets-end-this-debt-ceiling-debate-with-a-1-oz-1t-coin/">revived</a> the idea in the context of that year’s debt ceiling standoff. The Treasury secretary could issue, say, a platinum coin worth $2 trillion, deposit it into the Treasury’s account at the Fed, and use those funds to sustain the government until the debt ceiling is raised.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-float-left">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A visualization of what a $1 trillion coin could look like." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VV0GvY1wt2m6XO_kpO4LTrU_xeI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22881763/8349514053_afdd89e0b8_o.jpg"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/8349514053" target="_blank">DonkeyHotey via Flickr</a></cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
How beautiful a $1 trillion coin could be.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TYxIZB">
|
|||
|
|
The Obama administration found the idea <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/12/treasury-we-wont-mint-a-platinum-coin-to-sidestep-the-debt-ceiling/">too unserious</a> there to use, but the legal case for minting the coin is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/08/former-head-of-u-s-mint-the-platinum-coin-option-would-work/?variant=116ae929826d1fd3">as solid as platinum</a>. Just ask debt-ceiling hardliner <a href="https://govtrackinsider.com/cancel-the-coin-act-would-prevent-the-treasury-from-creating-a-1-trillion-coin-or-even-a-28-3f6e67f70cb2">Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)</a>, who was sufficiently concerned about the option to introduce legislation to close the platinum coin loophole. The plain text of the 1997 law clearly allows the Treasury secretary to do this, and Jay Powell, the Fed chair who in a past career was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/19/politics/default-jerome-powell-history/index.html">an expert on the debt ceiling and its dangers</a>, is arguably <a href="http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/01/can-the-federal-reserve-really-refuse-to-accept-and-to-credit-a-platinum-coin-deposited-by-the-us-mint.html">legally required to accept the coin</a> as a deposit.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vILUnk">
|
|||
|
|
You can also imagine more serious variations on the concept. Progressive economist Mike Konczal once <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130113040123/https://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/should-president-obama-announce-no-prioritizing-payments-debt-ceiling-or-start-minting">proposed issuing a $20 billion coin every day</a> to keep the government running until Congress agrees to abolish the debt ceiling for good. And a $20 billion coin is, what, 1 percent as silly as a $2 trillion one?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h4 id="KJCBcs">
|
|||
|
|
<ol start="2" type="1">
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Invoke the 14th Amendment
|
|||
|
|
</li></ol></h4>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZWD1DQ">
|
|||
|
|
Some legal scholars have argued that Section 4 of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv">14th Amendment</a>, which specifies that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned,” renders the debt ceiling unconstitutional, as it threatens the validity of the US’s public debts by creating the possibility of default.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3eqd2W">
|
|||
|
|
This is hardly a consensus position among constitutional law experts, but if Biden were to declare he was ignoring the debt ceiling because it’s unconstitutional, it’s not clear that anyone would have <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/92884/supreme-court-obama-debt-ceiling">legal standing to sue Biden</a> and challenge the decision. That helped encourage a number of political actors, from then-House Minority Leader <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nancy-pelosi-14th-amendment-debt_n_3991148?utm_hp_ref=politics">Nancy Pelosi</a> to former President <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/07/20/138511612/bill-clinton-says-hed-raise-the-debt-ceiling-using-14th-amendment">Bill Clinton</a>, to urge Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment during his debt ceiling showdowns.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hrchGK">
|
|||
|
|
Obama declined repeatedly, <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/can-a-president-invoke-the-14th-amendment-to-raise-the-debt-ceiling">arguing</a> in 2013 that “if you start having a situation in which there’s legal controversy about the US Treasury’s authority to issue debt, the damage will have been done, even if that were constitutional, because people wouldn’t be sure.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h4 id="GkvcdO">
|
|||
|
|
<ol start="3" type="1">
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Declare ignoring the debt ceiling to be the “least unconstitutional” option
|
|||
|
|
</li></ol></h4>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PZrZic">
|
|||
|
|
University of Florida law professor Neil Buchanan and Cornell law professor Michael Dorf <a href="https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub/591/">have</a>, in a <a href="https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/945/">series</a> of <a href="https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/faculty_publications/323/">papers</a>, proposed a way out of the debt ceiling that’s related to but distinct from the 14th Amendment option.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LW3WQO">
|
|||
|
|
Buchanan and Dorf note that Congress, by setting spending and tax policy as well as a debt limit, has given the president three mandates: to spend the amount Congress authorizes, to tax the amount Congress authorizes, and to issue as much debt as Congress authorizes. When the debt ceiling is breached, it becomes impossible for the president to obey all three of these legal requirements.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RdBJMd">
|
|||
|
|
Prioritizing spending on certain activities and cutting it elsewhere usurps Congress’s spending power by cutting spending unilaterally. Raising taxes without congressional authority would usurp Congress’s taxing power. And ignoring the debt ceiling would usurp Congress’s power to set debt limits.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n2N2sG">
|
|||
|
|
The last option — respecting Congress’s taxing and spending powers while ignoring its debt limit — is the “least unconstitutional” option, Buchanan and Dorf argue. This judgment would no doubt be challenged in court, but it’s arguably less dramatic than the president unilaterally declaring the debt ceiling a violation of the 14th Amendment.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h4 id="LHyfKb">
|
|||
|
|
<ol start="4" type="1">
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">Issuing quasi-debt while the crisis plays out
|
|||
|
|
</li></ol></h4>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kgc8Lj">
|
|||
|
|
Steven Schwarcz, a professor at Duke Law and expert on capital markets, has proposed getting around the debt ceiling by having the Treasury Department <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/3228/">create a “special-purpose entity” to issue new securities</a>, distinct from traditional Treasury bonds, that can pay for government expenditures. Because they’re not Treasury bonds, these securities would not be subject to the debt limit.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cgc5ZE">
|
|||
|
|
This may seem bizarre, but Schwarcz got the idea from <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/2451/">state and municipal finance in the US</a>; many states raise most of their debt with special-purpose entities, rather than by directly issuing bonds, often so they can get around their own state debt limits.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="xkFq28">
|
|||
|
|
What a 2023 budget deal might look like
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aHvW0o">
|
|||
|
|
Ideally, Biden will use one of the above methods to evade the debt ceiling and prevent Kevin McCarthy and his caucus from using the threat of federal government default to extract policy concessions.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LA3O3p">
|
|||
|
|
But these are all relatively dramatic steps, and it’s possible that Biden will, like Obama before him, demure and ultimately accept that he needs to bargain with McCarthy and agree to spending cuts to get a debt ceiling increase passed. If that happens, it’s worth considering what such a spending cut deal will look like.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-image-grid">
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/R6c7e1ig1Uw2mrtWHXvfLrrSrjU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24347600/GettyImages_1454751557a.jpg"/> <cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Rep. Kevin McCarthy celebrates after being elected Speaker of the House on January 7.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lT_pvl3GjHlOnoHxtsRMJRYDysQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24347599/GettyImages_1246018579a.jpg"/> <cite>Drew Angerer/Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on January 5.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ldNW7S">
|
|||
|
|
The best guide here is the 2011 Budget Control Act, the result of that year’s debt ceiling standoff. The Obama White House took a firm line against any deal that cut Social Security or Medicare without increasing taxes. For a brief time, House Speaker John Boehner seemed to be playing ball, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/obama-vs-boehner-who-killed-the-debt-deal.html">agreeing to as much as $800 billion in revenue increases</a>, but it soon became clear that he could not get his caucus to support major tax increases. Without the tax hikes, the Social Security and Medicare cuts that Obama was open to — like <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2011-jul-07-la-na-debt-ceiling-20110708-story.html">slowing cost-of-living adjustments for the former</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2011/07/medicare-at-67-the-next-big-change-060141">raising the age for the latter to 67</a> — went off the table.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ch8n5R">
|
|||
|
|
And while Republicans have ideological reasons to want to cut Social Security and Medicare, their older-than-average voting base, combined with those programs’ <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2022/10/6/democrats-and-voters-support-expanding-social-security">overwhelming</a> <a href="https://press.aarp.org/2021-5-26-AARP-Survey-Overwhelming-Bipartisan-Majority-Oppose-Social-Security-and-Medicare-Cuts-to-Reduce-Deficit">popularity</a>, also give them reasons to avoid cuts in this area.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AWoUvS">
|
|||
|
|
So the ultimate 2011 deal kicked the can down the road. It included <a href="https://www.pgpf.org/analysis/peter-g-peterson-foundation-analysis-of-the-budget-control-act-of-2011">$917 billion in direct spending cuts</a>, mostly implemented by capping “discretionary” spending, which includes defense programs and everything else the government does that isn’t a mandatory entitlement program like Social Security, food stamps, or veterans’ benefits.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vtKARr">
|
|||
|
|
The bill then mandated another $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction to be determined through a congressional committee (colloquially called “the supercommittee”). If the supercommittee failed to put together a package slashing $1.2 trillion through tax hikes or spending cuts, indiscriminate spending cuts would ensue through forced decreases in the caps on defense and non-defense discretionary spending. Unless Congress passed spending bills with totals below these new, even lower caps, a “sequestration” process forcing across-the-board cuts to every affected program would ensue.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bLX1bZ">
|
|||
|
|
The across-the-board cuts included as a backup were never meant to take effect. They were an enforcement mechanism meant to pressure Congress into making a deal, the equivalent of paying a guy from Craigslist to punch you if you don’t get your work done on deadline.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="M3uxbN">
|
|||
|
|
But the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/debt-committee-failure-will-become-official-with-written-joint-statement/2011/11/21/gIQAfRmCiN_story.html">supercommittee failed</a>, forcing those spending cuts. Because the deal took cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and the beneficiary side of Medicare off the table, the toll on Americans was lighter than it could have been. (Medicare payments to providers were cut, though, which <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42568845">some</a> <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w16859/w16859.pdf">studies</a> have found reduces quality of care received.) Further, Congress agreed in another deal at the end of 2012 to delay the sequestration cuts for two months, so they began on March 1, 2013. But they took effect then, as planned.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="xI031A">
|
|||
|
|
The consequences of the 2013 sequestration
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8vssCz">
|
|||
|
|
The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/20/the-sequester-absolutely-everything-you-could-possibly-need-to-know-in-one-faq/">sequestration</a> led to 7.7 percent across-the-board cuts to defense and 5.1 percent across-the-board cuts to domestic discretionary spending. Military operations funding fell by $17.1 billion, the National Institutes of Health by $1.6 billion, nuclear weapons security by $903 million, border security and immigration enforcement by a combined $890 million, and on and on.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CTPaHG">
|
|||
|
|
Perhaps worse, agency heads had little to no flexibility in distributing these cuts; every “program, project, and activity” had to be cut equally, and “activity” was defined to include things <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/22/heres-how-you-run-a-sequester-scrape-five-percent-less-poop/">as small as a single buoy the government floated in the Chesapeake Bay</a>. That buoy, somehow, had to be cut by 5 percent (in practice, that meant scraping 5 percent less bird poop off the buoy).
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A pie chart illustrating the numerous categories of non-defense discretionary spending; no category comprises more than 18 percent of the spending." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SpkTjV2VpF83wASylDOXZ8-lZKw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24198845/3_25_21bud_f1.png"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/boosts-in-non-defense-appropriations-needed-due-to-decade-of-cuts-unmet" target="_blank">Center on Budget and Policy Priorities</a></cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
The composition of non-defense discretionary spending in 2021.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bu2xqj">
|
|||
|
|
These across-the-board cuts, though, only came because Congress approved spending bills totaling more than the caps they set for themselves (again, assuming the cuts wouldn’t actually take effect). After 2013, Congress knew it had to pass spending bills that did abide by the caps, after which no across-the-board cuts would ensue. It simply had to make decisions about what spending it wanted to prioritize, subject to those limits. It also could, and occasionally did, change the caps, as in the <a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/updated-summarizing-ryan-murray-deal">2013</a> and <a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/budget-deal-truly-offsets-only-half-its-cost">2015</a> budget deals, which raised defense and non-defense spending caps in the short term, partially offsetting that with lower spending later on. The <a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/bipartisan-budget-act-means-return-trillion-dollar-deficits">2018</a> and <a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/policymakers-added-22-trillion-debt-2019">2019</a> budget deals under Trump increased the caps still further and barely included any offsets, driven largely by a Republican desire to restore defense spending.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2krS7c">
|
|||
|
|
Taking all these changes together, the Committee on a Responsible Federal Budget’s Goldwein told me, the Budget Control Act of 2011, the fruit of the debt ceiling crisis, resulted in $1.2 trillion or so in overall deficit reduction. This was less than the $2.1 trillion originally promised (due to the repeated deals which raised the budget caps), but it was still a sizable hit. Overall spending was substantially lower from 2011 until the Covid-19 pandemic hit (and threw the federal budget into general chaos) than previously planned.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="duuKcY">
|
|||
|
|
So, what did this all mean for actual users of government services? For some, the impact was temporary. Head Start, the pre-K program for low-income children, <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/archive/blog/2013/08/numbers-are">kicked 57,000 kids off its rolls</a> when the sequestration hit, kids who permanently lost access to the program. But <a href="https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/policy/pi/acf-pi-hs-14-01">the next year</a>, funding was restored and stayed roughly on track for the rest of the decade. Some affected spending categories rose dramatically over this period, most notably health care for veterans, which members of Congress prioritized in appropriations bills.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A chart showing which categories of non-defense discretionary spending grew and fell between 2010 and 2021. An accessible table with the same data is available at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’s website." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/y3bTDc5xae8Y9wcSFX6of1_gOSk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24198849/3_25_21bud_f3.png"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/boosts-in-non-defense-appropriations-needed-due-to-decade-of-cuts-unmet" target="_blank">Center on Budget and Policy Priorities</a></cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Veterans’ health care funding grew dramatically, but every other category of non-defense discretionary spending fell after adjusting for inflation and population growth.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KJkkEA">
|
|||
|
|
So what did suffer? The <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/boosts-in-non-defense-appropriations-needed-due-to-decade-of-cuts-unmet">Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ David Reich</a> co-authored a category-by-category report and found that, between 2010 and 2021, every single category of non-defense discretionary spending besides veterans’ programs saw declines after adjusting for inflation and population growth. Economic security, health care, and scientific research programs were close to stagnant, falling by 4 percent or less. But funding for environmental protection and parks fell by 15 percent; general government operations by 26 percent; education and job training by 14 percent; diplomacy and foreign aid by 19 percent; agriculture, energy, and commerce by 19 percent.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="28K5VZ">
|
|||
|
|
Housing vouchers through the Section 8 program could not keep up with rents; the <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/budget-caps-not-rent-aid-forcing-hud-budget-cuts">Center estimated</a> that between 2010 and 2017, voucher funding fell by 9 percent after adjusting for rent inflation, resulting in “significant decreases in the number of families that were being served over that time,” Peggy Bailey, the Center’s vice president for housing and income security and a former senior adviser to HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, told me <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/11/16/23433281/congress-debt-ceiling-house-midterms-spending-cuts-lame-duck-session">last year</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XAwRnE">
|
|||
|
|
A <a href="https://www.aaas.org/news/budget-control-act-may-have-cost-over-200-billion-federal-rd">study from the American Association for the Advancement of Science</a> found that aggregate research and development spending from the federal government was $200 billion lower due to the Budget Control Act; health research from the National Institutes of Health and the VA fell by over $7 billion a year relative to previous historical trends, while the National Science Foundation got almost $2 billion a year less.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WxFmki">
|
|||
|
|
This was all bad news for people interacting with government programs. The two biggest social assistance agencies in the US are the Social Security Administration (which administers old-age and disability payments) and the Internal Revenue Service, which administers tax credits that are crucial for reducing poverty. Adjusted for inflation, funding for the agencies <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/boosts-in-non-defense-appropriations-needed-due-to-decade-of-cuts-unmet">fell by 13 and 19 percent</a> between 2010 and 2021, respectively.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BRgrKq">
|
|||
|
|
Perhaps the single worst category of cuts that took effect — given what followed — were to programs related to pandemic preparedness and effectiveness. As <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/boosts-in-non-defense-appropriations-needed-due-to-decade-of-cuts-unmet">Reich and Katie Windham note</a>, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s budget fell by 7 percent between 2010 and 2021, and its grants to state and local public health agencies fell by 20 percent. That <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30182-1/fulltext">almost certainly hampered</a> America’s ability to anticipate and respond to pandemics like Covid-19, and almost certainly cost lives.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="ETdqXA">
|
|||
|
|
How will this play out?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FOZkz3">
|
|||
|
|
In short: We don’t know.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Yy2I2G">
|
|||
|
|
For one thing, experts say there’s a huge amount of <a href="https://bipartisanpolicy.org/press-release/debt-limit-x-date-further-out-than-expected-but-still-looms-ahead/">uncertainty about when the ceiling will be hit this year</a>. July or August 2023 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/us/politics/speaker-election-debt-limit-republicans.html">has been thrown about</a> as a likely deadline, but the ceiling might not be hit until 2024 if tax revenues surpass expectations, allowing the government to pay its own way temporarily. While House Speaker Kevin McCarthy got his job by promising a fight on the debt ceiling, his majority is very narrow, meaning that six or more Republican defections could enable Democrats to pass a “clean” increase using a tool called a <a href="https://archives-democrats-rules.house.gov/archives/discharge_pet.htm">discharge petition</a>, through which a majority can force a floor vote in the House even if leadership doesn’t want one. (This is an important plot point in the 2003 classic <a href="https://time.com/5310427/discharge-petition-legally-blonde-screenwriter/"><em>Legally Blonde 2: Red White & Blonde</em></a>, our modern-day <em>Mr. Smith Goes to Washington</em>.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/TbPG_sqYsF_EYgK8Hgm23WC6_n0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24347618/AP23006696561452a.jpg"/> <cite>J. Scott Applewhite/AP</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, including, from left, Reps. Dan Bishop, Andy Ogles, Chip Roy, and Scott Perry, were among those who demanded concessions from Speaker Kevin McCarthy regarding the debt ceiling before agreeing to vote to hand him the gavel.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uurg2d">
|
|||
|
|
Personally, though, I’m steeling myself for a repeat of the 2011 budget deal, precisely because the dynamics that led to it narrowly focusing on a small sliver of the budget are still there. Republicans are if anything even more vehemently opposed to tax increases, and Democrats are equally vehemently opposed to tax hikes affecting all but the richest 1 percent or so of Americans. Social Security and Medicare are still hot potatoes, and while other “mandatory” programs like food stamps are less popular, Democrats have historically held firm against any cuts to them.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9Nu3US">
|
|||
|
|
That leaves discretionary programs, both defense and non-defense, covering everything from the FBI to medical research to US embassies abroad. Those programs took a severe battering during the 2010s under the Budget Control Act, and there’s every reason to expect them to take a battering in whatever deal emerges in 2023. The consequences are not straightforward, but could weaken important parts of the government that have already been underfunded for a decade. And the odds of a showdown actually addressing the drivers of the long-run budget deficit — inadequate tax revenue, an aging population with growing health and pension bills — are basically zero.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fL6iyp">
|
|||
|
|
The one thing debt ceiling fights never do is solve the debt issue.
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fort Nelson, True Faith, Macron, Shamrock, Peyo and Knight In Hooves shine</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Iron Age, Freedom and Rasputin please</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Harry Brook, Ashleigh Gardner named ICC Players of the Month</strong> - Both scoop their awards following a global vote conducted among media representatives, ICC Hall of Famers, former international players, and fans</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>IND vs SL ODI series 2023 | India score 373/7 against Sri Lanka in first ODI</strong> - Virat Kohli’s centurry fires India to 373 for 7 against Sri Lanka in the ODI series</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Saina Nehwal, Srikanth make first round exits from Malaysia Open</strong> - It was also curtains for Akarshi Kashyap who was outplayed 10-21 8-21 by Wen Chi Hsu of Chinese Taipei in her women's singles opener.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Residents urge government to stop construction of carrot-washing machine in Udhagamandalam</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>HC relief to oustee farmer issued bind over notice by Akkannapet Tahsildar</strong> - Gouravelli Reservoir oustee demanding fair compensation for lands facing submergence gets interim stay from High Court</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hale Unduwadi project: MUDA to release ₹208.75 crore</strong> - The cost of the drinking water project that plans to pump 900 MLD of Cauvery water catering to Mysuru and nearby villages has been revised to ₹615 crore from ₹545 crore over budget escalation</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Basheer Award for Malayalam writer M. Mukundan</strong> - Award panel says his novel Nritham Cheyyunna Kudakal captures the essence of Mayyazhi, its local culture and unique dialect</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Eight marching contingents will be part of Army Day parade on Jan 15</strong> - Army Day is being conducted out of the national capital for the first time</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Russia controls most of pounded salt mine town, Soledar, says UK</strong> - There has been fighting near entrances to 200km-long tunnels, which could be used for infiltration.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Greek trial of 24 rescuers who saved migrants in Med begins</strong> - The 24 volunteers are accused of several misdemeanours in a trial that has prompted uproar.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Climate change: Europe and polar regions bear brunt of warming in 2022</strong> - Last year was the world’s fifth warmest year with Europe enduring its hottest summer on record</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two British men missing in Ukraine, say officials</strong> - A search is under way for British nationals Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry in Ukraine.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>NI Protocol: UK and EU reach agreement on trade data sharing</strong> - James Cleverley and Maros Šefčovič say the agreement gives a new basis for NI protocol talks.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The first orbital launch attempt from the UK ends in failure</strong> - This is likely to be a devastating launch failure for Virgin Orbit. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1908781">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pediatricians now recommend drugs and surgery for kids with obesity</strong> - Doctors step up fight against childhood obesity, say “watchful waiting” doesn’t work. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1908772">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>FAA giving airlines another year to fix altimeters that can’t handle 5G signals</strong> - About 1,000 planes have altimeters listening to signals in the wrong frequencies. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1908731">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Microsoft’s new AI can simulate anyone’s voice with 3 seconds of audio</strong> - Text-to-speech model can preserve speaker’s emotional tone and acoustic environment. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1908618">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>US acceptance of COVID vaccines rises, now like other Western democracies</strong> - Despite the controversy, the US’s vaccine acceptance looks very European. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1908714">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Call me a racist if you want, but south of the border is a sea of violence, corruption and stupidity I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Thank God I’m Canadian.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/vartha"> /u/vartha </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107lbo1/call_me_a_racist_if_you_want_but_south_of_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107lbo1/call_me_a_racist_if_you_want_but_south_of_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the difference between Brazil and the USA?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
About 1500 arrests within 48 hours of an attempted coup.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Musicferret"> /u/Musicferret </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107t0r5/whats_the_difference_between_brazil_and_the_usa/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107t0r5/whats_the_difference_between_brazil_and_the_usa/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>“Hi my name is Jeff and I’m an alcoholic.” “Sir, this is Triple A, not AA.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
“I know, I’m trying to explain why my car is in the lake.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/madazzahatter"> /u/madazzahatter </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107wqns/hi_my_name_is_jeff_and_im_an_alcoholic_sir_this/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107wqns/hi_my_name_is_jeff_and_im_an_alcoholic_sir_this/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A doctor goes out and buys the best car on the market, a brand new Ferrari GO. It is also the most expensive car in the world, and it costs him $500,000.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He takes it out for a spin and stops at a red light.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
An old man on a moped, looking about 100 years old, pulls up next to him.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The old man looks over at the sleek shiny car and asks, “What kind of car ya got there, sonny?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The doctor replies, “A Ferrari GTO. It cost half a million dollars!”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
“That’s a lot of money,” says the old man. “Why does it cost so much?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
“Because this car can do up to 250 miles an hour!” states the doctor proudly.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The moped driver asks, “Mind if I take a look inside?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
“No problem,” replies the doctor.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
So the old man pokes his head in the window and looks around.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Then, sitting back on his moped, the old man says, “That’s a pretty nice car, all right, but I’ll stick with my moped!”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Just then the light changes, so the doctor decides to show the old man just what his car can do.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He floors it, and within 30 seconds, the speedometer reads 150 mph.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Suddenly, he notices a dot in his rear view mirror - what it could be…and suddenly..
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
WHHHOOOOOOSSSSSHHH!
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Something whips by him going much faster!
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
“What on earth could be going faster than myFerrari?” the doctor asks himself.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He floors the accelerator and takes the Ferrari up to 175 mph.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Then, up ahead of him, he sees that it’s the old man on the moped!
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Amazed that the moped could pass his Ferrari, he gives it more gas and passes the moped at 210 mph.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
WHOOOOOOOSHHHHH!
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He’s feeling pretty good until he looks in his mirror and sees the old man gaining on him AGAIN!
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Astounded by the speed of his old guy, he floors the gas pedal and takes the Ferrari all the way to 250 mph.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Not ten seconds later, he sees the moped bearing down on him again!
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The Ferrari is flat out, and there’s nothing he can do!
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Suddenly, the moped plows into the back of his Ferrari, demolishing the rear end.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The doctor stops and jumps out and unbelievably, the old man is still alive.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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He runs up to the mangled old man and says, “Oh my gosh! Is there anything I can do for you?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The old man whispers, “Unhook my suspenders from your side mirror.”
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/CaptainBeans_"> /u/CaptainBeans_ </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107xtd6/a_doctor_goes_out_and_buys_the_best_car_on_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107xtd6/a_doctor_goes_out_and_buys_the_best_car_on_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s the difference between an Indian and an African elephant?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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One’s an elephant.
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/heyandy1"> /u/heyandy1 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107bb05/whats_the_difference_between_an_indian_and_an/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/107bb05/whats_the_difference_between_an_indian_and_an/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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</ul>
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