This week, Justice Stephen G. Breyer is expected to announce his plan to retire from the Supreme Court at the end of its term this summer. Breyer’s signal comes after a year-long pressure campaign from the political left and others anxious to ensure that Democrats control who replaces the court’s most senior liberal justice.
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A few years back, a radio telescope in Australia picked up a radio signal that seemed to be coming from a nearby star. One possibility? Aliens! NPR science correspondent, Geoff Brumfiel, joins the show to talk about the signal and how a hunt for extra-terrestrial life unfolded.
Maggy Krell is a former California prosecutor who was on the team that took down the infamous sex trafficking site Blackpage back in 2018. Now, she's out with a new book about how they were able to get the website shuttered – and the challenges the team on the case now faces going forward. Reflecting on her time as a prosecutor, Krell told Morning Edition's Rachel Martin that this is the case she's proud of: "This was a case that shifted the national narrative and certainly sent a message to survivors that this shouldn't be normalized, that their experiences matter."
Today on the Gist, The former President of Estonia on Russia's aggression and German obstruction. And news that SCOTUS's Breyer will retire inspires a Spiel about domestic obstructionism.
We are joined once again by Nick Chavez, a Marxist mechanical engineer, to discuss the political economy of automation – providing the groundwork for a better understanding of how automation actually operates in the market, the workplace, the interests of capital, and the lives of labor. What happens when the living are dominated by the dead? What happens when you work too much or not work enough? What happens when the bottom keeps falling out of a stagnated service economy? What happens when capital controls the forces of automation? We need only look at the world to find the answer to these questions.
Some stuff we reference:
••• The Present and Future of Engineers | Nick Chavez | Brooklyn Rail https://brooklynrail.org/2021/10/field-notes/THINKING-ABOUT-COMMUNISM
••• Smart Machines and Service Work: Automation in an Age of Stagnation | Jason E. Smith http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781789143188
••• Automation and the Future of Work | Aaron Benanav https://www.versobooks.com/books/3717-automation-and-the-future-of-work
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Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)
What role does money play in child development? New research suggests it could affect brain activity. Reset digs into the study and discusses the implications for policies and programs in the U.S. with one of the co-authors of the report and a local researcher.
Two stories about people trying to overcome supply chain challenges. We follow a ship that is forced to get creative to bypass clogged ports, and we visit a warehouse that is running out of space. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
