Hannah Arendt

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https://jamesbgreenberg.substack.com/p/ ... irect=true

Neoliberalism
https://substack.com/home/post/p-166954004

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from Washington Post:
"<< The Trump administration is preparing to test a 1974 budget law by refusing to spend congressionally mandated funds, senior federal officials say — an escalation that could change the balance of power between Congress and the White House.
In both internal communications and interviews, more than two dozen current and former employees across multiple agencies said the administration appears to be readying to push the boundaries of the law meant to prevent the president from unilaterally overturning spending decisions made by Congress.
Key White House aides have long argued that the law is an unconstitutional limit on presidential power and suggested they will seek court rulings to overturn it, which could allow the White House to determine which spending to carry out.
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has issued two rulings that funds have been illegally withheld already, and congressional Democrats have said a far wider scope of funding freezes has broken the budget law. Although the White House denies any funds have been “impounded" so far, officials at a half-dozen agencies expressed alarm to The Washington Post over how the disbursement of funds has slowed, stopped or been delayed — often, they say, with little clear legal justification. The scale of canceled or withheld funds remains opaque.
Deadlines in the coming weeks will clarify how much the administration wants to test the law, enacted in 1974 after President Richard M. Nixon’s Watergate scandal. White House officials are planning to “defer” roughly 200 separate accounts across the federal government, according to two people familiar with the matter, who like many others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. These delays, which would affect billions of dollars at a wide range of U.S. agencies, probably would be illegal if they prevent the funds from being spent before this fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, the people said.
Interviews with federal workers show that a wide spectrum of government spending has already been stalled. Major scientific research grants have already been terminated without public notice in recent weeks. At one federal agency, staff were told — via a directive that took effect on a Sunday — that almost all contracts over $250,000 no longer could be signed.
At the General Services Administration, which manages federal real estate, the Trump administration is trying to cut costs by rejecting many agencies’ requests for facilities repairs paid for by those agencies. In some instances, officials say it’s unclear whether the budget law has been violated already or is merely on track to be breached — but the rejections have provoked internal alarm about their legality either way.>>"

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I read her works. The insights are stinging today.

[just-jim]

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If you’ve never heard of - or read - Arendt…..she is worth checking out. Her seminal work ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’ is still read today - 70+ years after it was written.

PBS has a ‘special’ on her…on ‘American Masters’ at 9.00 pm this coming Friday. 90 minutes long.

Here is a blurb from KSPS listing on the program:

“Hannah Arendt's story, like so many, is the story of America, and the promise of American democracy. Forced to give up her successful academic career in Germany and flee Nazi Europe, Arendt made a home in New York City, after emigrating through Ellis Island in the spring of 1941. She worked as a housekeeper, an editor, a columnist, and an adjunct professor, all while writing her first major work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, the same year she received American citizenship. To mark the occasion as a new beginning, she legally changed her name from Johanna to Hannah. As a Jewish refugee, Arendt saw firsthand what happens when a nation-state collapses, when social order disintegrates, when fake news and big lies dominate politics. She experienced the horrors of prejudice, the melancholy of homelessness, and the terror of isolation in Nazi Europe. But in the United States she found a country not defined by ethnonationalism or totalitarian power. She found the promise of politics, the "freedom to be free," democracy in action, and the spirit of American revolution. Through resilience, courage, hard work, and luck, Hannah Arendt became the most influential and provocative political thinker of the 20th century. Today, her story and voice continue to shine a light on how to act as a private individual and public citizen in dark times. This film reveals the complex, controversial, flawed, and irrefutably courageous woman whose intelligence and fearless truth-telling led her to breathtaking insights into the human condition, and introduces Hannah Arendt's life and work to a diverse and contemporary audience.”
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