Category Archives: Viva!

The Constitutional System Is Not Built to Resist Trump’s Defiance of Congress

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Jeffrey Toobin writes about Donald Trump’s blockade of all congressional oversight and its threat to the constitutional system.

The Guardian view on a Green New Deal: we need it now | Editorial

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Policymakers ought not wait for economic theory to catch up with the environmental crisis

The Green New Deal is probably the most fashionable policy in the English-speaking world. In Britain it is advocated by both Tory MPs and Jeremy Corbyn; while a non-partisan Canadian coalition of nearly 70 groups are backing such a scheme. However, it has been made flesh by US Democrats, in particular the political phenomenon in the US House of Representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ms Ocasio-Cortez has spelled out what a Green New Deal involves in a House resolution: rejecting economic orthodoxy to confront climate change. She ought to be congratulated twice over.

At present the thinking is for governments to tackle global warming by including the social cost of carbon in the prices people pay, either through a carbon tax or a system of tradable carbon-emission permits. Such ideas have a role to play in changing the way societies consume and produce energy, but they are only moving us incrementally – if at all – towards sustainability. Global emissions of carbon dioxide are higher than they have ever been, almost three decades after the first global conference aimed at reducing them. The situation is becoming dangerous for human life. The latest figures show there is little more than a decade to save ourselves and the other creatures with whom we share the planet. To do so we must decouple economic activity from carbon emissions and ecological destruction.

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2,400+ MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) Getting Started in April: Enroll Today

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FYI. 2,400+ MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are getting underway in April, giving you the chance to take free courses from top flight universities. With the help of Class Central, we’ve pulled together a complete list of April MOOCS. And below we’ve highlighted several courses that piqued our interest. The trailer above comes from the University of Edinburgh’s Introduction to Philosophy.

Here’s one tip to keep in mind: If you want to take a course for free, select the “Full Course, No Certificate” or “Audit” option when you enroll. If you would like an official certificate documenting that you have successfully completed the course, you will need to pay a fee.

You can browse through the complete list of April MOOCs here.

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2,400+ MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) Getting Started in April: Enroll Today is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don’t miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooksFree Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

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There are many reasons not to impeach Trump. The House should do it anyway | Robert Reich

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It’s important to uphold the constitution through impeachment – even if it goes nowhere, even if it’s unpopular with many voters, even if it’s politically risky

It’s a constitutional crisis all right. So what happens now? An impeachment inquiry in the House won’t send Trump packing before election day 2020 because Senate Republicans won’t convict him of impeachment.

So the practical political question is whether a House impeachment inquiry helps send him packing after election day.

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