On July 21st Matt Roan, chair of the Cumberland County Democratic Committee, hosted a meeting with volunteers. The event took a turn when Mr Roan stopped to read a statement from Joe Biden announcing his departure from the presidential race. “There was this sort of sense of sadness—and then immediate hope,” Mr Roan recalls in his office, which overlooks the Pennsylvania state capitol. The activist speaks highly of Mr Biden but acknowledged that “things were not looking good” at the time. The rise of Kamala Harris attracted a surge of volunteers to a county that favoured Donald Trump by around 18 points in 2016 but only 11 points in 2020. If such improvements hold there and in other areas like it, Ms Harris would probably win the state and the presidency.

Both campaigns see Pennsylvania as a fulcrum of the 2024 election, and for good reason. The Economist’s forecast model suggests that the state—with its 19 electoral-college votes, the most of any swing state—is the tipping-point in 27% of the model’s updated simulations, meaning it decides the election more often than any other state. Mr Trump wins only 7% of the time when he loses the Keystone State. Indeed, he narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2016, and then he lost by 80,000 votes out of nearly 7m cast in his unsuccessful re-election bid four years later.

No state has drawn more money. Of the $839.5m that the Harris campaign and allied organisations already have spent or committed to advertising, $164.1m has gone to this state of 13m people. The less well-heeled Trump operation has directed $135.7m of $458.8m to Pennsylvania. Turn on the television, watch a YouTube video or listen to the radio inside Pennsylvania and it won’t be long before spots for Ms Harris or Mr Trump begin to play.

Read it all.

The battle for Pennsylvania is on.

For all the money both presidential candidates are pouring into the swing state, the race remains extremely close https://t.co/Su2xduW2Pr 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) September 20, 2024

US military aid packages for Ukraine have been smaller in recent months, as the stockpiles of weapons and equipment that the Pentagon is willing to send Kyiv from its own inventory have dwindled. The shift comes amid concerns about US military readiness being impacted as US arms manufacturers play catchup to the huge demand created by the war against Russia.

The shortage means the Biden administration still has $6 billion in funds available to arm and equip Ukraine, but the Pentagon lacks the inventory it is willing to deliver more than two years into the war, two US officials told CNN.

“It’s about the stockpiles we have on our shelves, what [the Ukrainians] are asking for, and whether we can meet those requests with what we currently have” without impacting readiness, one of the officials said.

The Pentagon has asked Congress for more time to spend that money before it expires at the end of September, according to Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary. It’s a stark reversal from last winter, when the administration was pleading with lawmakers for additional funding to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

Read it all.

New: US military aid packages for Ukraine have been smaller as stockpiles of weapons DoD is willing to send from its own inventory have dwindled. It's resulted in a new problem for the admin: Too much money for Ukraine and not enough time to spend it. https://t.co/Fpxse6f4yq

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) September 17, 2024

The FBI said on Wednesday that it had disrupted a Chinese hacking group nicknamed “Flax Typhoon”  that targeted critical infrastructure in the United States.

The Flax Typhoon hackers installed malicious software on thousands of computers and other internet-connected devices including cameras, video recorders and routers.

This created a botnet — a massive network of infected computers.

Universities, government agencies, telecommunications providers, media organizations and NGOs were among the targets, the FBI said.

“Flax Typhoon’s actions caused real harm to its victims, who had to devote precious time to clean up the mess when they discovered the malware,” said FBI director Chris Wray.

Read it all.

A hacker group known as Flax Typhoon was able to infect hundreds of thousands of devices around the world, authorities said. China has denied any involvement in the malicious botnet.https://t.co/FoeAA9IPMg

— DW News (@dwnews) September 19, 2024

It’s 1 a.m. and Thomas Wu is riding his bike on the empty streets of Shanghai. The 43-year-old insurance executive has had another meltdown.

Wu’s pay has been slashed by 20% in a nationwide push to lower salaries at state-owned finance companies. He frets about layoffs and wonders how he’ll find 600,000 yuan ($84,500) to keep his two children in international school — a hallmark of upper-middle-class life in China. His six-year-old is behind in math.

“What’s the point of driving our kids nuts studying so hard?” Wu said. “The top-tier graduates can’t find a job, those who come back from overseas can’t find a job.” Pay increases, he says, are no longer tied to effort. “My work is meaningless.”

Read it all.

China created a new class of highly paid white-collar worker. Now their dreams are being crushed. https://t.co/FtWSrjgm8J #TheBigTake

— Kristine Servando (@tinssoldier) September 19, 2024

Ricki Mudd was born in 1993 in China during the one-child policy era. She remembers her early childhood only in fragments, but has been told she had spent some of it hidden in a bag.

At age 5, she was adopted from a Chinese orphanage, one of the more than 150,000 children China sent overseas. Most were girls. In the West, they were one of the most visible consequences of the one-child policy, which ended in 2016. This month, Beijing put an end to foreign adoptions. 

China is grappling with a demographic crisis, with dropping birthrates and a rapidly aging population. The policies to control the population have given way to new ones in the opposite direction. But a legacy of the one-child policy is a dearth of women of childbearing age.

Because of a government decree that led to forced abortions and sterilizations, millions of girls were never born or were hidden from authorities. In the process, China’s gender ratio became increasingly skewed, with 117 boys born for every 100 girls in 2004, compared with 106 in 1980, United Nations data showed. 

Read it all.

The Missing Girls: How China’s One-Child Policy Tore Families Apart—A now-ended adoption program created the perception Chinese girls weren’t valued. One adoptee, once hidden in a grocery bag, found more to her own story.@QiLiyan https://t.co/hA715EWpXPhttps://t.co/hA715EWpXP

— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) September 18, 2024

The scholarship of the author shines through the pages of the book as he ponders deeply on what he believes “the duty of man” to entail and what the main thing is that makes for the good life during our sojourn here on earth. It is, he tells us, Avodat Hashem: service (or worship) of the Name, honouring God in everything.

That will mean, as he summarises it in the final text of his letter to his children, in the last ten pages of the book, after much rich reflection: grasping the truth of being made in the image of God, male and female; valuing family, neighbours, toil, and friendship; exhibiting patience, humility, hope, and forgiveness in the face of suffering; finding joy, especially in the recognition of our exhaustive grasp by God’s love; and living within the Church’s time as well as our own. All this we are called to do while acknowledging that God can be “a question, an encounter, a discovery, a struggle, sometimes (too often, perhaps) even a loss and a cry”.

This leaves out much of what is nowadays generally thought to be Christian political duty, which I found something of a relief: it is a modest manifesto powerfully articulated, which I found deeply attractive. Crucially, as the title implies, the book is offered as a vision of the good life lived in the light of mortality….

Read it all.

Mortal Goods
Reimagining Christian Political Duty

Ephraim Radner

This book by one of today’s leading theologians examines how Christians might more faithfully and realistically imagine their political vocation.

Ephraim Radner explains that our Christian calling is to limit our… pic.twitter.com/FuAJeBEoxH

— Theology Books (@theology_books) April 14, 2024

How messy will it get? There are three possible outcomes. Start with the extremely unlikely one, which is a vote so close that Kamala Harris and Mr Trump tie in the electoral college. Were this to happen, the next president would be picked by the House of Representatives, with each state wielding one vote. Even if Ms Harris won the popular vote on November 5th, Mr Trump would almost certainly become president. That would be fair in the sense that it would follow the rules, but Democrats would be furious.

The second outcome is a Trump win. Democrats could bring legal challenges in close states where Ms Harris lost. Some of these might end up at the Supreme Court, where three justices appointed by Mr Trump would have to adjudicate their merits. Three of the conservative justices worked on George W. Bush’s legal team back in 2000 on Bush v Gore. That would make it hard to persuade Ms Harris’s supporters that decisions favouring the Trump campaign were impartial. After the court’s rulings on abortion and presidential immunity, Democrats have come to view the justices as Republican politicians in robes. Nevertheless, most elected Democrats would probably accept the rulings, if more grudgingly than in 2000.

However, if enough Democratic lawmakers were really convinced the courts had acted unfairly, they could try to block certification of the result in Congress, following the precedent set by Republicans in 2021. Then, 139 House members and eight senators (all Republicans) voted to reject the results. A reform of the Electoral Count Act, passed two years ago, raises the threshold, so that 20 senators and 87 members of the House would have to object. In the unlikely scenario that those preliminary votes passed, Democrats would probably lose the subsequent full votes of both chambers. All this is possible, but the most probable outcome, if Mr Trump were to win the election, is that Ms Harris would concede, taking the wind out of any Democratic challenge to the result.

If Ms Harris wins, Mr Trump will not be so gracious. In that third scenario, the complexity of America’s voting system collides with the MAGA conspiracy machine.

Read it all.

How ugly will it get?
America’s election is mired in conflict
Donald Trump’s conspiracy machine is already gearing up for election night https://t.co/wBPTd73SzQ

— Pablo Secada (@psecadae) September 12, 2024

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

While there were unsuccessful assassination attempts, incidents or plots targeting George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama during or after their terms, Mr. Trump was the first current or former president wounded in an act of violence since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 by a would-be assassin trying to impress a Hollywood actress (NYT).

Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, said: “For the first time ever, the number of those affirming versus swearing an oath has come close to reflecting the beliefs of the population as a whole. We’ve known for a while that the UK is one of the least religious countries in the world. We now have one of the least religious national parliaments in the world, too.”

About 53 per cent of people in Britain say they belong to no religion, and 42 per cent do not believe in a god.

Chine McDonald, director of the Theos religion think tank, said: “What we see reflected here is a falling away of cultural, nostalgic Christianity and a rise in the number of options available in an increasingly diverse and multi-religious society. It’s no surprise that a younger and less conservative group of parliamentarians might be less wedded to cultural Christianity, yet there are still a good number with a vibrant and active faith.”

Read it all (requires subscription).

Record number of MPs chose to take non-religious affirmation rather than swear on a Bible or other holy text this week

Up to 40% from 24% in 2019:https://t.co/3jlvKWTYpz

— Kaya Burgess (@kayaburgess) July 12, 2024

• Labour wins control of Parliament with at least 412 seats as Tories suffer losses
• Keir Starmer becomes prime minister, will appoint cabinet
• Liberal Democrats, Greens make gains
• Former PM Liz Truss loses seat, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage wins his

Read it all.

#UPDATE | Rishi Sunak has stood down as leader of the Conservatives after Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party swept to power, all but wiping out the ruling Tories. https://t.co/3qXPqIAmVU

— The Age (@theage) July 5, 2024

By the article establishing the executive department it is made the duty of the President “to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Read it all.

Wishing everyone a fun, safe, and celebratory Independence Day today! We’re 248 years young and I’m confident we’ll have many great #July4th celebrations in the future. Happy #FourthofJuly !!! pic.twitter.com/q7UCt0Mza2

— Dr. Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) July 4, 2024

 Vice President Kamala Harris is the top alternative to replace U.S. President Joe Biden if he decides not to continue his reelection campaign, according to seven senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee with knowledge of current discussions on the topic.

Biden’s fumbling, sometimes-incoherent and widely-panned first-debate performance against Republican rival Donald Trump last week set off a wave of panic within the Democratic party over concerns that he may not be fit enough to serve a second term, and prompted calls for top aides to resign.

Read it all.

Kamala Harris is the #1 choice to replace Biden if he steps aside in the presidential race, seven sources with knowledge of discussions on the subject tell ⁦@nanditab1⁩ https://t.co/cBexGqAkRo

— Heather Timmons (@HeathaT) July 3, 2024

the united states has never seen day after debate headlines like this pic.twitter.com/o7qIW3c4FX

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) June 28, 2024

NYT top #politics #presidentialdebate #usa pic.twitter.com/EgdyR6aSp0

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 28, 2024

Washington Post top #politics #usa #presidentialdebate #culturewatch #21stc pic.twitter.com/2vESy01m9g

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 28, 2024

The breathtaking events unfolding in France expose all the old deformities of the half-finished euro project. They revive the poisonous internal politics that have long bedeviled monetary union, pitting Teutonic creditors against Latin debtors with conflicting morality tales.

The ECB’s untested Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI) allows the governing council to buy distressed bonds on its own authority, but only for countries that pursue (a) “sound fiscal and macroeconomic policies”; (b) are not “subject to an excessive deficit procedure”; (c) do not have “severe macroeconomic imbalances”; (d) where the “trajectory of public debt is sustainable”; and (e) where stress is “not warranted by country-specific fundamentals”.

France fails on most counts, and is on course to fail on every single one under any of the scenarios likely to emerge on July 7, including the pre-insurrectional chaos of a state with no functioning government at all.

Read it all.

Macron has killed fiscal union stone dead, and without fiscal union the euro cannot work over the long run. It will lurch from crisis to crisis until Germany finally loses patiencehttps://t.co/PgRl8XRzb0

— Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (@EvansAmbro84839) June 25, 2024

The Group of 7 countries might have set a record when they met in Italy last week. Has there ever been a less popular assemblage of leaders of the free world? Approval ratings ranged from Giorgia Meloni of Italy’s about 40 percent to Emmanuel Macron of France’s 21 percent to Fumio Kishida of Japan’s 13 percent. Last year the Edelman Trust Barometer found that only 20 percent of people in the G7 countries thought that they and their families would be better off in five years. Another Edelman survey, from 2020, uncovered a broad distrust of capitalism in countries across the world, “driven by a growing sense of inequity and unfairness in the system.”

Why the broad dissatisfaction with an economic system that is supposed to offer unsurpassed prosperity? Ruchir Sharma, the chairman of Rockefeller International and a Financial Times columnist, has an answer that boils down to two words: easy money. In an eye-opening new book, “What Went Wrong With Capitalism,” he makes a convincing case.

“When the price of borrowing money is zero,” Sharma told me this week, “the price of everything else goes bonkers.” To take just one example: In 2010, as the era of ultralow and even negative interest rates was getting started, the median sale price for a house in the United States hovered around $220,000. By the start of this year, it was more than $420,000.

Nowhere has inflation (in the broad sense of the term) been more evident than in global financial markets. In 1980 they were worth a total of $12 trillion — equal to the size of the global economy at the time. After the pandemic, Sharma noted, those markets were worth $390 trillion, or around four times the world’s total gross domestic product.

Read it all.

How Capitalism Went Off the Rails

By Bret Stephens, Opinion Columnist @nytimes

"The social consequence of this is rage; the political consequence is populism."
https://t.co/yD7bmUnqDw

— Stefan Michaelsen (@stefanmichaelse) June 19, 2024

The composer and choral director John Rutter has been appointed a Knight Bachelor in the King’s Birthday Honours list, published late on Friday evening.

Sir John, who is 78, has composed hundreds of choral anthems, carols, and extended compositions, including opera and orchestral pieces. He has conducted orchestras around the world (Interview, 9 September 2005).

He is a vice-president of the Joyful Company of Singers, president of the Bach Choir, and president of the Association of British Choral Directors (ABCD).

Sir John was educated at Highgate School, where he was a chorister. He read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was also a choir member, and as an undergraduate had his first compositions published. He served as director of music at Clare from 1975 to 1979. In 1981, he founded the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts, and with whom he has made several recordings of sacred choral repertoire, including his own works.

Read it all.

The composer and choral director John Rutter has been appointed a Knight Bachelor in the King’s Birthday Honours list, published late on Friday evening https://t.co/hID4df2HsL

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 14, 2024

For the first time, researchers have detected a significant dip in atmospheric levels of hydrochlorofluorocarbons — harmful gases that deplete the ozone layer and warm the planet.

Almost 30 years after nations first agreed to phase out these chemicals, which were widely used for air conditioning and refrigeration, scientists say global concentrations peaked in 2021. Since then, the ozone-depleting potential of HCFCs in the atmosphere has fallen by about three-quarters of a percentage point, according to findings published Tuesday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Though small, that decline comes sooner than expected, scientists say — and it represents a significant milestone for the international effort to preserve the layer of Earth’s stratosphere that blocks dangerous ultraviolet sunlight.

The world agreed to ban this dangerous pollutant — and it’s working – The Washington Post https://t.co/Qfa9bSUAii

— Steve Berkowitz (@steveberkowitz) June 12, 2024

Nigeria is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with skyrocketing inflation, a national currency in free-fall and millions of people struggling to buy food. Only two years ago Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria is projected to drop to fourth place this year.

The pain is widespread. Unions strike to protest salaries of around $20 a month. People die in stampedes, desperate for free sacks of rice. Hospitals are overrun with women wracked by spasms from calcium deficiencies.

The crisis is largely believed to be rooted in two major changes implemented by a president elected 15 months ago: the partial removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the currency, which together have caused major price rises.

A nation of entrepreneurs, Nigeria’s more than 200 million citizens are skilled at managing in tough circumstances, without the services states usually provide. They generate their own electricity and source their own water. They take up arms and defend their communities when the armed forces cannot. They negotiate with kidnappers when family members are abducted.

Nigeria Confronts Its Worst Economic Crisis in a Generation , with skyrocketing inflation, a national currency in free-fall and millions of people struggling to buy food https://t.co/umLRRrmPTv

— Xavier Delcourt (@x_delcourt) June 12, 2024

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

Read it all (audio link also available).

6th June 1944

The U.S. Airborne assaults by the 101st Airborne Division – the 'Screaming Eagles' in Operation Albany – and the 82nd Airborne Division – the 'All American' in. A thick bank of fog meant that many missed their drop zones. #DDay #DDay80 #WW2 #OTD #history pic.twitter.com/OTOZUezVvP

— World War II Today #OTD #WW2 (@WW2Today) June 6, 2024

“My Fellow Americans:

“Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

“And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

“Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
“They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest — until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

“For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

“Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

“And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them — help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

“Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

“Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

“And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

“And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment — let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

“With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

“Thy will be done, Almighty God.

“Amen.”

You can listen to the actual audio if you want here and today of all days is the day to do that. Also, there is more on background and another audio link there.–KSH.

Take a moment, and remember you don't need to face this at 6am tomorrow, but they did… on the longest day #dday80 #dday #rememberandhonor pic.twitter.com/5lZc4ufFWk

— Tom Rogers (@RogersHistory) June 5, 2024

Israel and Hezbollah are moving closer to a full-scale war after months of escalating hostilities with the Lebanese militant group, adding pressure on Israel’s government to secure its northern border.

Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization closely aligned with Iran, opened a battle front with Israel on Oct. 8, a day after the deadly Hamas-led raid inside Israel sparked the current war in Gaza.

Hezbollah says that its attacks are in support of the Palestinians and that it won’t stop until Israel ceases its war in Gaza. Reluctant to open a second front, Israel initially responded to Hezbollah with tit-for-tat attacks, trying to calibrate its actions to avoid sparking a full-scale war.

But in recent weeks, both sides say there has been a sharp rise in hostilities. Hezbollah has increased its drone and rocket attacks, hitting important Israeli military installations. Israel, too, has stepped up attacks, targeting Hezbollah sites deep into southern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley as well as senior military officials in the group.

BREAKING

Risk of War Between Israel and Hezbollah Builds up as Clashes Escalate. pic.twitter.com/CcXRcPdqQ7

— World Affairs Eye (@WorldAffairsEye) June 5, 2024

Coastal areas up and down the East Coast are sinking at the same time sea levels are rising. Parts of Beaufort, Colleton and Charleston counties sank more than 2 inches since 2007, and some areas on St. Helena Island sank more than 3 inches, The Post and Courier previously reported.

Sinking land — a problem also called subsidence and settlement — can make flooding worse, cause septic tanks to fail, damage underground infrastructure, and cause buildings and bridges to crack.

So can we slow it down? Here’s what we found out.

Parts of South Carolina are sinking, and quickly. Can we slow it down? https://t.co/xVQX3VRcFk

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) June 3, 2024

[Henry] Sacheverell’s analysis was clear: the Church had taken into its bosom, or — worse — given positions of power to, people who were totally inimical to the worship, doctrine, and position of the Church of England itself. It had got into bed with a governing class that, in fact, hated it and sought its destruction. A misplaced attempt to broaden the Church’s appeal meant giving place and precedence to those who in their practice were antithetical to how the Church had always acted.

They were now calling the shots, and were dismantling from the inside all that had, “in living memory” — a reference to the horrors of the Civil War — been fought for so painfully. She had taken “into her bowels” those who “neither believe her faith, own her mission, submit to her discipline, or comply with her liturgy”. As he put it, “if the Church can’t be pulled down, it may be blown up.”

What Sacheverell found particularly repugnant was the dishonesty of those who sought to do this. While there was a certain grim integrity to Roman Catholic or Presbyterian attempts to do down the Church of England, Sacheverell viewed the “religious Trojan Horse” that he discerned at the heart of early-18th-century Anglicanism as wicked first and foremost because of its dishonesty: “What they could not do by open violence, they will not fail by secret treachery to accomplish.” Nobody could accuse him of not being plain-speaking, and it was the verbal dissembling of the powers that were which so riled him.

I wrote a piece about the most important celebrity Vicar you’ve never heard of, who died 300 years ago this week. https://t.co/diESz7aRS2

— Fergus Butler-Gallie (@_F_B_G_) May 31, 2024

For more than a year, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray has warned about a wave of election interference that could make 2016 look cute. No respectable foreign adversary needs an army of human trolls in 2024. AI can belch out literally billions of pieces of realistic-looking and sounding misinformation about when, where and how to vote. It can just as easily customize political propaganda for any individual target. In 2016, Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s digital campaign director, spent endless hours customizing tiny thumbnail campaign ads for groups of 20 to 50 people on Facebook. It was miserable work but an incredibly effective way to make people feel seen by a campaign. In 2024, Brad Parscale is software, available to any chaos agent for pennies. There are more legal restrictions on ads, but AI can create fake social profiles and aim squarely for your individual feed. Deepfakes of candidates have been here for months, and the AI companies keep releasing tools that make all of this material faster and more convincing.

Almost 80 percent of Americans think some form of AI abuse is likely to affect the outcome of November’s presidential election. Wray has staffed each of the FBI’s 56 field offices with at least two election-crime coordinators. He has urged people to be more discerning with their media sources. In public, he’s the face of chill. “Americans can and should have confidence in our election system,” he said at the International Conference on Cyber Security in January. Privately, an elected official familiar with Wray’s thinking told me the director is in a middle manager’s paradox: loads of responsibility, limited authority. “[Wray] keeps highlighting the issue, but he won’t play politics, and he doesn’t make policy,” that official said. “The FBI enforces laws. The director is like, ‘Please ask Congress where the laws are.’”

Gift Article
Why this year’s election interference could make 2016 look cute
The first big AI crisis isn’t some hypothetical far off in the future. It’s coming on Election Day.
Opinion By Josh @Tyrangiel
May 30, 2024 at 7:30 a.m. EDT https://t.co/tVtkR6qJMe

— K_Conner (@kvconner) May 30, 2024

As birth rates plunge, many politicians want to pour money into policies that might lead women to have more babies. Donald Trump has vowed to dish out bonuses if he returns to the White House. In France, where the state already spends 3.5-4% of gdp on family policies each year, Emmanuel Macron wants to “demographically rearm” his country. South Korea is contemplating handouts worth a staggering $70,000 for each baby. Yet all these attempts are likely to fail, because they are built on a misapprehension.

Governments’ concern is understandable. Fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere and the rich world faces a severe shortage of babies. At prevailing birth rates, the average woman in a high-income country today will have just 1.6 children over her lifetime. Every rich country except Israel has a fertility rate beneath the replacement level of 2.1, at which a population is stable without immigration. The decline over the past decade has been faster than demographers expected.

Doomsayers such as Elon Musk warn that these shifts threaten civilisation itself. That is ridiculous, but they will bring profound social and economic changes. A fertility rate of 1.6 means that, without immigration, each generation will be a quarter smaller than the one before it. In 2000 rich countries had 26 over-65-year-olds for every 100 people aged 25-64. By 2050 that is likely to have doubled. The worst-affected places will see even more dramatic change. In South Korea, where the fertility rate is 0.7, the population is projected to fall by 60% by the end of the century.

Paying women to have more babies is a costly and socially retrograde mistake. Governments should focus on adapting economies to baby busts instead https://t.co/KFHKaaY3oz pic.twitter.com/m6x2QApSdg

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 23, 2024

Sudan’s army said it’s poised to get weapons from Russia in return for letting Moscow establish a military fueling station on the Red Sea coast, a blow for the US as its opponents gain influence in the African country torn apart by civil war.

A military delegation will travel to Russia within a few days to conclude the deal, assistant commander-in-chief Yasser Al-Atta told the Gulf-based Al-Hadath TV channel on Saturday. Authorities will get “vital weapons and munitions,” he said, describing the planned Russian outpost as “not exactly a military base.”

Moscow has long coveted a foothold on Sudan’s 530-mile (853 kilometer) coastline, and a final agreement would stoke Western concerns over the country’s growing influence in Africa.

The announcement comes as Sudan’s army strives to regain swathes of territory lost to the Rapid Support Forces militia in a war that erupted in April 2023 and may have killed as many as 150,000 people.

Sudan’s army said it’s poised to get weapons from Russia in return for letting Moscow establish a military fueling station on the Red Sea coast, a blow for the US as its opponents gain influence in the African country torn apart by civil war. https://t.co/7XhPQwcD5G

— Simon Marks (@MarksSimon) May 26, 2024

The November presidential election has filled many Americans with dread, and the prospect of violence, foreign interference and misinformation surrounding the contest is a big reason why.

The latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found that half of battleground-state voters are worried about violent clashes once the results are in. The shares of Republicans and Democrats who harbor worries about violence are roughly equal, and independents are even more concerned about the election devolving into harmful chaos.

The presidential contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump has filled many Americans with dread, and the prospect of violence, foreign interference and misinformation surrounding the contest is a big reason why https://t.co/mjbSsZlUxQ

— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) May 22, 2024

The new tariffs President Biden announced last week aren’t economically significant. Symbolically, they are huge.

The U.S. buys almost no electric vehicles, steel or semiconductors—all targets of the tariffs—from China. But, by adding to, rather than rescinding, tariffs imposed in 2018 by former President Donald Trump, it signals that the decoupling of the Chinese and U.S. economies is becoming irreversible.

More important, the tariffs are the final piece of an economic strategy for competing with China.

This strategy is a three-legged stool. The first consists of subsidies to build a viable technology manufacturing sector, from clean energy to semiconductors. The second is tariffs on Chinese imports that threaten those efforts. The third is restrictions on access to money, technology and know-how that could help China compete. A fourth leg, a unified economic front with allies, remains unrealized.

Read it all.

Biden's new tariffs round out a three-legged strategy for competing with China. Leg 1: subsidies to build a viable technology manufacturing sector, from clean energy to semiconductors. 2: tariffs on Chinese imports that threaten those efforts. 3: restrictions on access to money,…

— Greg Ip (@greg_ip) May 20, 2024

The problem of being a poor paymaster is equally evident in the case of Ukraine. For reasons that future historians will struggle to understand, the US suspended its aid to Ukraine in late 2023. Europeans did not fill the gap, with the result that Ukraine’s military capacity was diminished and Russia’s hopes of victory revived. According to the latest Ukraine Support Tracker published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, between the beginning of the war and this March, the European Union plus its individual members together allocated a total of €89.9 billion in military, humanitarian and financial aid to Ukraine. The US pledged less, €67 billion.

The result is that Kyiv listens much less to Washington than it did in 2022 and 2023 — hence the recent spate of deep drone strikes aimed at Russia’s energy infrastructure, operations that cannot possibly have been approved by Team Biden, which it seems will (to quote John F. Kennedy) “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship … to assure the survival and success of liberty” — except for higher gasoline prices in an election year.

This has been a horrible failure of American policy. Turning off aid to Ukraine has unquestionably encouraged Putin to believe that victory can be achieved in a relatively short time frame. Thanks to Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko, we know now that, when their invasion was going badly in early 2022, the Russians were ready to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine. The compromise would have ruled out North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership for Kyiv but provided it with multilateral security guarantees to protect its neutrality, and paved the way to EU membership.

Read it all.

The Biden administration wants other countries to do its fighting in Cold War II, but that approach is economically crippling and rarely achieves victory https://t.co/ogeTcnGAkk via @opinion

— Robert Burgess (@BobOnMarkets) May 20, 2024

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wields ultimate decision-making authority in Iran, but Raisi still holds significant power within the regime. Raisi is the deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts, a regime entity constitutionally responsible for monitoring the supreme leader and selecting his successor.[8] Iranians re-elected Raisi to serve as a representative of South Khorasan Province in the Assembly of Experts during the recent March 2024 Assembly of Experts elections.[9] Raisi also holds numerous ex officio positions. He is a member of the Expediency Discernment Council and the chairman of the Supreme National Security Council, Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, and Supreme Cyber Space Council.

Raisi’s death would have serious implications for supreme leader succession. Raisi is considered one of the top contenders—along with Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei—to succeed Khamenei as supreme leader. Khamenei appointed Raisi to the position of judiciary chief in 2019 and endorsed Raisi during the August 2021 presidential elections.[10] The next several days have the potential to reshape the immediate and long-term dynamics of the regime, including supreme leader succession. Raisi’s death would ultimately not change the regime’s current trajectory toward more hardline and conservative domestic policies and more aggressive regional policies, however.

Read it all.

With the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, becomes acting president.

Here’s what to know about him. https://t.co/mlW89Mh2JD

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 20, 2024