Get ready. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear former President Donald Trump’s presidential immunity claim that he is protected from prosecution for his role in the plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and has set its oral arguments for April. The Court’s term expires in June, so hearing arguments in April means a decision is very likely to be issued before the justices leave.
“The justices scheduled arguments for the week of April 22 and said court proceedings will remain frozen, handing at least a tentative victory to Trump,” he reported The New York Times. “His legal strategy in all the criminal cases against him has consisted, in large part, of trying to slow things down.”
If he doesn’t get immunity, a criminal trial will follow, probably during the summer, at the height of election season.
Earlier this month, the Court also heard a case on whether states like Colorado have the right to remove Trump from the polls, the 14th Amendment argument. A ruling is expected to be issued soon.
It will definitely be different this time: If Congress fails to pass appropriations bills to fund the government by midnight Friday, the federal government will enter a partial shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is proposing another stopgap bill to try to keep the government open, which would “extend funding for certain government agencies for one week, through March 8, and the rest for another two weeks, until March 22nd”, for The New York Times.
The caveat is that Congress would have to pass six of the 12 spending bills to fund the government for next year, while giving lawmakers a little more time to negotiate and pass the rest of the spending bills. Rather surprisingly, news broke last night that Johnson had managed to get a fair number of colleagues involved in the plan.
However, it’s a piecemeal solution that virtually no one likes. The far-right flank of House Republicans continues to pursue deep spending cuts that neither Johnson nor Kevin McCarthy before him failed to prioritize, as well as withdrawing Ukraine from US government aid. Continuing resolutions, or patchwork solutions that temporarily avoid government shutdowns but do not establish any kind of long-term budget, were passed in September, November and January. And Republicans only have a two-seat majority in the House, and more than a few of them are angered by the crisis at the southern border – which they continue to say needs to be secured so that other issues can be addressed – so there is little sign that Congress will reach an agreement soon.
Do South Koreans have enough sex? Statistics Korea recently released data showing that the fertility rate declined by 8% in 2023 compared to 2022. Normally, such a decline would not be welcomed as catastrophic, except that this comes at a time when many countries developed countries have fertility rates in free countries. autumn and South Korea Already they had the lowest fertility rate in the world. If current rates hold, the country’s population (currently 51 million) is expected to halve by 2100.
“The average number of children a South Korean woman is expected to give birth to over her lifetime fell to 0.72 from 0.78 in 2022, and previous projections estimate this decline will decline further, to 0.68 in 2024.” , he reported Al Jazeera. The replacement rate is 2.1 children. For comparison, the US fertility rate hovers around 1.7, with a small decline in 2020 that has since recovered.
This new data, along with a BBC article describing women across South Korea and their frustration with their plight, has led to heated debate among experts over whether Korea’s aggressive pro-natalist policies of the South were completely useless. (“Pro-natalist policies have a weak track record in every country where they have been tried,” he wrote Reason“South Korea has spent more than $200 billion to subsidize child care and parental leave over the past 16 years, President Yoon Suk Yeol said last fall. Yet the fertility rate has fallen from 1 .1 in 2006 to 0.81 in 2021.”)
Demographer Lyman Stone, meanwhile, called the BBC article “a crime of demographic reporting” and claimed that “South Korea spends less in public money per child than the OECD average” and that “much of the spending Korea claims never reaches families, but in reality it is a quagmire of local resources.” government subsidies, grants and other forms of intermediated spending.” When it actually reaches families, the fertility rate is positively affected, Stone argues.
But there are other factors too: the graying of South Korea’s population, for example, and the way funds spent on pensioners affect the saving ability of younger taxpayers, as well as cultural influences, such as one of Korea’s biggest exports, K-pop stars, are generally forced by their agencies to abstain from dating (don’t want to destroy the fantasy, I guess). There are also huge cultural expectation issues, such as the fact that most South Koreans – almost 80%! – sends their children to expensive private schools, so the cost of having a child is perceived as extremely high.
To find out more, watch Just ask questions with the Washington Examiner‘S Tim Carney (who will soon publish a new book on this very topic): “Why don’t people have more children?”
Scenes from New York:
This woman used OMNY to pay for the bus. After reaching 12 paid fares within a 7 day period, you get free rides. The cops got on the bus and forced the passengers to prove they paid, they didn’t know how to handle the situation, they threw her down and gave her a $100 bill. Is this city a joke or what? pic.twitter.com/tD1fAvSnwL
— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) February 28, 2024
Full article here, courtesy of Hell’s Gate.
QUICK SHOTS
- “Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the company’s Gemini controversy Tuesday evening, calling the AI app’s problematic responses about race unacceptable and vowing to make structural changes to fix the problem,” he reported Traffic lights. The Gemini image generator seemed to have a recurring problem with providing unrealistic and ahistorical interpretations of events: black Vikings, a lady pope, and non-white founding fathers, to name a few.
- California is so screwed:
California politics in a nutshell ???? pic.twitter.com/XE1XRzj7eh
— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) February 28, 2024
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Tirana, Albania, to ask for defense support from Balkan nations.
- “Bitcoin rallied above $60,000 on Wednesday, taking its bullish momentum to its highest levels since November 2021, as further signs emerge that the cryptocurrency ‘winter’ is over,” he reported Axios. For more on crypto winter, check out this article by me and Zach Weissmueller:
- “Americans’ satisfaction with personal life is near an all-time low,” Gallup reported.
- The family of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny is having difficulty finding undertakers and undertakers to give Navalny a proper burial. Since his death two weeks ago, more than 400 people have reportedly been arrested for laying flowers in his memory, the BBC reported.
- On the one hand, yes, this is an interesting and perhaps good version. On the other hand, I don’t think we should be committing any more elder abuse—working in government seems like the worst form of torture to me—and this man is 82 years old. Let him spend the rest of his days eating ice cream cones!
Huge loss. If Democrats hated Mitch McConnell as GOP leader, wait until you see who comes next.
As for Republicans, well, that’s only good news if you like how the GOP House works and want more of it. McConnell has been the GOP’s most effective congressional leader in decades. https://t.co/JpqPy8brjN
—Brian Riedl ???? ??????? (@Brian_Riedl) February 28, 2024
Richard Lewis and Larry David back in the day pic.twitter.com/lxKoB0Lzzc
— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) February 28, 2024