The exact number of casualties from the Iraq War was never established, but it’s in the hundreds of thousands and, by one account, roughly a million. A recent study of post-9/11 wars, including Bush’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, estimates total deaths at around 4.5 million.

Some Democratic insiders didn’t love the Cheney play nor the ecumenical strategy. As Rolling Stone reports, a handful of them “begged” the Harris campaign not to do it, lest they alienate their base and fail to recruit converts from the other side. They were correct.

It’s something worse than ironic that the strategy not only contributed to the Harris’s loss but underscored the Democrat’s embrace of figures and policies that exacerbated and entrenched the economic woes of the working class, fueling anti-elite, anti-system backlash. In doing so, they helped cement the conditions for Trump’s ongoing success.

https://jacobin.com/2025/01/biden-trump-democrats-dealignment-bush/

Joe Biden was not picked in 2020 because he was the only person that could beat Trump. He was picked because he was the only person that could beat Bernie Sanders, rightly or wrongly. … That conclusion was made, okay? “Oh my gosh, coming out of Nevada, Bernie Sanders is going to be the nominee!” And people, just like they are now, said, “Ahhh, I don’t think that’s going to work,” so they were looking for an alternative.

Smith had made a similar point to CNN two days earlier. “The president did not run a great primary campaign,” he told the network. “Bernie Sanders looked like the presumptive nominee, and this exact same group of people the president is now deriding as elites . . . decided they didn’t want Bernie Sanders to be the nominee.”

Former congressman Harold Ford, former chair of the Democratic Leadership Council and banking executive, made a similar point on Fox. “I was an elite that supported you in 2020,” Ford said. “And said that we should do everything we possibly could do to advantage you against Bernie Sanders, because I thought Bernie Sanders’ politics were detrimental to the party and to the country.”

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/joe-biden-bernie-sanders-democrats-2020-primary-trump/

Il report “State Trafficking” (“Tratta di Stato”) denuncia che questi “crimini di Stato” si sono sviluppati anche come conseguenza del supporto di Italia e Unione europea ai due Paesi nordafricani.

“Finanziando e collaborando con regimi come quelli libici e tunisini, l’Europa ha scelto di esternalizzare i propri confini, chiudendo un occhio su pratiche orribili come la vendita di esseri umani, che non possono più essere ignorate”, ha dichiarato Ilaria Salis, europarlamentare del gruppo della Sinistra (The Left), durante la conferenza stampa presso il Parlamento europeo a Bruxelles lo scorso 29 gennaio, in occasione della pubblicazione del rapporto.

https://altreconomia.it/un-nuovo-report-documenta-le-espulsioni-e-la-vendita-dei-migranti-dalla-tunisia-alla-libia/

The article compares Italy's labor market across three key years: 2007 (pre-crisis), 2014 (post-crisis), and 2024. While Italy's labor market has shown positive trends, particularly in employment rates, challenges persist. Real wages remain stagnant, and the number of unfilled jobs is increasing. The article also highlights issues such as the slow response in wage growth compared to inflation and the reliance on labor rather than productivity gains.

https://lavoce.info/archives/106820/check-up-del-mercato-del-lavoro-italiano-tre-anni-a-confronto/

In conclusione, l’Ires premiale è solo un bonus una tantum, circoscritto, limitato e poco efficace per la patrimonializzazione delle imprese. L’opposto dell’Aiuto alla crescita economica (Ace) abolita dal 2024. Quest’ultima, infatti: a) riguardava l’universo delle imprese; b) era un elemento strutturale del sistema e garantiva un risparmio di imposta a regime di ben 2,7 miliardi di euro all’anno; c) stava contribuendo positivamente al rafforzamento patrimoniale delle società.

https://lavoce.info/archives/106833/i-capricci-dellires-premiale/

The bottom line is that, for 20 years or more, including the months prior to the election, voter perception was more reflective of reality than the incumbent statistics. Our research revealed that the data collected by the various agencies is largely accurate. Moreover, the people staffing those agencies are talented and well-intentioned. But the filters used to compute the headline statistics are flawed. As a result, they paint a much rosier picture of reality than bears out on the ground.

Take, as a particularly egregious example, what is perhaps the most widely reported economic indicator: unemployment. Known to experts as the U-3, the number misleads in several ways. First, it counts as employed the millions of people who are unwillingly under-employed — that is, people who, for example, work only a few hours each week while searching for a full-time job. Second, it does not take into account many Americans who have been so discouraged that they are no longer trying to get a job. Finally, the prevailing statistic does not account for the meagerness of any individual’s income. Thus you could be homeless on the streets, making an intermittent income and functionally incapable of keeping your family fed, and the government would still count you as “employed.”

I don’t believe those who went into this past election taking pride in the unemployment numbers understood that the near-record low unemployment figures — the figure was a mere 4.2 percent in November — counted homeless people doing occasional work as “employed.” But the implications are powerful. If you filter the statistic to include as unemployed people who can’t find anything but part-time work or who make a poverty wage (roughly $25,000), the percentage is actually 23.7 percent. In other words, nearly one of every four workers is functionally unemployed in America today — hardly something to celebrate.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-tricked-strong-economy-00203464

- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.” This is a reference invoking the Biblical story of the total destruction of the Amalek by the Israelites, which Biblical passage reads in the relevant part: “Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses.”
- President Isaac Herzog: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone.”

Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant:
- Israel is “imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
- “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week. It will take weeks or even months, we will reach all places.”

- Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir: “[t]o be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed.”

- Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Israel Katz: “All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.”

- Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich: “We need to deal a blow that hasn’t been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza.”

- Minister of Amihai Eliyahu: “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes … We must talk about the day after. In my mind, we will hand over lots to all those who fought for Gaza over the years and to those evicted from Gush Katif” [a former Israeli settlement]. “There is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza.”

- Minister of Agriculture Avi Dichter: “We are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” [This term, “Nakba,” is a reference to the forced expulsion of around 750,000 Palestinians during the war that established Israel as an independent state. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe refers to it as The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.]

- Knesset Deputy Speaker and Foreign Affairs and Security Committee Member Nissim Vaturi: “Now we all have one common goal — erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”

- Israeli Reservist Major General and adviser to the Defense Minister Giora Eiland:
- "The people should be told that they have two choices; to stay and to starve, or to leave. If Egypt and other countries prefer that these people will perish in Gaza, this is their choice.”
- “Israel has no interest in the Gaza Strip being rehabilitated and this is an important point that needs to be made clear to the Americans.”
- “The State of Israel has no choice but to make Gaza a place that is temporarily, or permanently, impossible to live in.”
- “Who are the ‘poor’ women of Gaza? They are all the mothers, sisters or wives of Hamas murderers. . . . The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer . . . It is precisely its civil collapse that will bring the end of the war closer. When senior Israeli figures say in the media ‘It’s either us or them’ we should clarify the question of who is ‘them’. ‘They’ are not only Hamas fighters with weapons, but also all the ‘civilian’ officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population who enthusiastically supported Hamas and cheered on its atrocities on October 7th.”

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2024/01/israel-has-no-defense

Kim Lane Scheppele argues that Trump is following Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian model, consolidating power in the executive branch, bypassing checks and balances, and attacking democratic institutions. She highlights Trump’s ties to Orbán, including through Project 2025, which was influenced by Hungarian think tanks. Orbán has used similar tactics in Europe, strengthening far-right movements and undermining democratic norms. Trump’s rapid executive actions aim to reshape government before opposition can respond, mirroring Orbán’s strategy of breaking institutions before courts or political resistance can intervene.

https://truthout.org/video/trump-embraces-authoritarian-playbook-of-hungarian-dictator-viktor-orban/

Dall’inizio del XX secolo fino al 2008, l’aumento del Pil pro capite è stato più o meno lo stesso per gli Stati uniti e l’Eurozona. Da allora, tuttavia, il divario è aumentato in modo significativo. È avvenuto quando le economie dell’eurozona hanno scelto di attuare dure politiche di austerità, con un conseguente forte calo relativo. Anche in questo caso, dopo la pandemia da Covid 19, le politiche espansive in Europa sono state meno incisive che negli Stati uniti, il che ha determinato un’altra divergenza. Se l’Europa si sta allontanando dagli Stati uniti in termini di Pil pro capite, non è perché ci stiamo muovendo verso nuovi indicatori di ricchezza o nuove ambizioni ecologiche. È semplicemente perché siamo meno coerenti dal punto di vista della gestione macroeconomica. Riconoscere questo problema, come fa il rapporto di Draghi, è un passo importante. Identifica la necessità di maggiori spese e investimenti. Tuttavia, quando si entra nei dettagli di ciò che il rapporto propone, dubito che si possa arrivare a esiti positivi. Per esempio, sostiene che l’Europa manca di competitività, ma non è così. In realtà, l’Europa è molto competitiva: nel complesso, ha un’eccedenza commerciale. Quindi, nel confronto con gli Stati uniti, il problema dell’Europa non è che ha bisogno di una maggiore competitività, ma piuttosto di una maggiore produttività, che non è la stessa cosa. Questo è legato alle politiche di innovazione e allo sviluppo delle imprese. È molto importante sottolineare questa differenza.

Un’altra questione fondamentale è che molti paesi europei hanno adottato standard neoliberali più rigidi rispetto agli Stati uniti, soprattutto in materia di politica fiscale. In Germania c’è il «freno al debito», che fa parte della Costituzione e che blocca un approccio fiscale più attivo. Ciò contribuisce alla mancanza di dinamismo dell’economia tedesca. Anche la politica europea della concorrenza rappresenta un ostacolo a qualsiasi tipo di solida politica industriale. Sebbene ci siano stati alcuni cambiamenti a livello di discorso pubblico, ci vorrà tempo per abbandonare il paradigma che si è instaurato nel corso dei decenni. La relazione di Draghi non affronta gli aspetti legati al quadro dell’integrazione europea e non si intravede un percorso chiaro verso la trasformazione di tale quadro, il che è molto preoccupante.

Draghi osserva come l’Europa abbia mancato la trasformazione digitale. Non solo negli Stati uniti, ma anche in Cina e persino in Russia, ci sono forti imprese tecnologiche nazionali che forniscono servizi di tipo nuovo. In Europa non ci sono aziende che forniscono questi servizi, il che significa che gli Stati, le aziende e i cittadini europei sono sottomessi a interessi aziendali di difficile regolamentazione perché hanno sede all’estero. L’approccio adottato finora dall’Ue, incentrato sulla protezione dei dati a livello individuale, non è all’altezza di questa sfida, che richiede un ambizioso progetto pubblico per fornire servizi digitali di base a livello locale e proteggere la sovranità degli Stati europei. A un livello più fondamentale, le politiche economiche su entrambe le sponde dell’Atlantico non dovrebbero puntare ad accelerare la spirale produttivista-consumistica, ma promuovere una trasformazione degli stili di vita, con servizi pubblici più forti e garantendo una rete di sicurezza per la popolazione e un riequilibrio del nostro rapporto con la natura.

https://jacobinitalia.it/che-ce-dopo-il-neoliberismo/