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chlochette-sunde · 6 months ago

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So, the French government just got revoked.

What happened in the previous episodes?

French presidential elections are held in two rounds. Any candidate supported by at least 500 mayors can participate in the first round. The two candidates with the most votes then face off in a second round.

Twice, President Macron has been elected thanks to votes cast against his opponent in the second round: far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Both times, Macron promised centrist policies (neither left nor right) but ultimately implemented very liberal policies benefiting primarily the wealthiest in the country. He also used far-right tactics to “pacify” strikes and social movements, like the Yellow Vests protests and the controversial pension reform.

Last June, European elections were held to elect new Members of the European Parliament, using a single-round voting system. In France, over 70% of voters participated in the 2022 presidential elections, but only around 50% turned out for the 2024 European elections.

And the result? A political earthquake.

For the first time, the far-right party came in first, securing 30% of the votes.

Following this shocking result, President Macron decided to dissolve the National Assembly. This is within the French President's powers, but no one understood why he did it—it seemed like political suicide. With the far-right's surge in the European elections, it was reasonable to expect them to gain ground in the legislative elections as well.

Yet Macron went ahead, and legislative elections were scheduled with less than three weeks’ notice.

Surprisingly, the left-wing parties managed to unite under one banner: the New Popular Front (NFP). This was no small feat, as these parties often clash over priorities—ranging from left-wing liberals and ecologists to communists and the “insubordinates”.

Since October 2023, the latter group had been outspoken in their defense of Palestine, which led to accusations of antisemitism and then earned the NFP labels like “far-left extremists” from the far-right, the media, and even the government.

It seemed hopeless. Everything appeared stacked against the left, and many feared the country would fall into the far-right's hands.

The results

More than 70% of the eligible voters participated, a high turnout compared to the 2022 legislative elections (54%) and the 2024 European elections, especially considering the short notice and timing just before the summer holidays.

In the end, the far-right gained 142 seats (an increase of 53). However, the NFP surprised everyone by winning 193 seats (42 more than before) and emerging as the election's victors.

The new National Assembly looked like this:

193 seats for the left-wing (NFP)

166 seats for Macron's party

142 seats for the far-right

47 seats for the traditional right-wing party

This distribution left no single party with an absolute majority.

Under these circumstances, Macron was expected to appoint a Prime Minister capable of building a government that could pass laws in the National Assembly. Traditionally, the Prime Minister is aligned with the majority party in the Assembly.

Instead, Macron refused to name a left-wing Prime Minister, fearing such a government would be unstable due to the lack of an absolute majority. He delayed the decision until after the Olympic Games, and in early September, he appointed a Prime Minister from the traditional right-wing party—which holds a minority in the Assembly.

The first major test for this government was the 2025 budget. While the government initially proposed a strict austerity budget, the NFP successfully amended it to reflect their priorities. The government, having abstained from participating in the discussions, ultimately voted against the amended version, sending the budget back for further debate.

Then, rather than resubmitting a revised budget to the Assembly, the government decided to impose it unilaterally, as allowed by the Constitution. However, this move automatically led the government to engage its responsibility. Two days later (today), the opposition in the National Assembly responded by holding a “no confidence” vote, ultimately revoking the government and canceling the budget. (If no 2025 budget is passed, the 2024 budget will roll over by default.)

How is the far-right doing?

When the new government was formed in September, the far-right party chose not to immediately revoke it. Their strategy was to pressure the government into proposing laws aligned with far-right ideas. While initially successful, this approach backfired: the far-right quickly came to be seen as part of the establishment, losing their “outsider” status, which hurt their image.

Meanwhile, the far-right party is embroiled in a major legal scandal. They are accused of misusing public funds intended for hiring parliamentary assistants, instead diverting the money to party-related expenses (like bodyguards and so on). A verdict is expected in March 2025, and their leader, Marine Le Pen, faces the possibility of a 5-year ineligibility.

What happens next?

President Macron must now appoint a new Prime Minister to form a government. However, given his unpredictability, it’s possible he might try to keep the current government in place until he’s legally allowed to dissolve the Assembly again—one year after the last dissolution.

The left-wing is calling for Macron to resign, which would trigger new presidential elections. Due to their actual troubles with justice, anticipated presidential elections could also be an opportunity for the far-right party. While the National Assembly has the power to vote for the President’s resignation, the conditions to do so are difficult to meet.

And that’s the current state of French politics.

#what a year...#instability everywhere #politics #french politics

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notaplaceofhonour · 9 months ago

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I’m going to lose my mind, I am so fucking done.

Literally everything is going wrong all at once again and again and again and no matter what I do or how much outside help I get it keeps snowballing.

like, I just got out of homelessness a few months ago—homelessness I was only in because my home state suddenly decided I shouldn’t exist—only for the rental company to never notify me renewing wouldn’t an option until the last minute, forcing me to scramble to find a new place, all while packing up a life I just unpacked, and still having to work a full time job.

—a full time job I hadn’t been able to do for months prior because my license was suspended for unpaid tolls

—tolls that only went unpaid because I never received the notices—because I had been homeless for months—but that I resolved as soon as I could.

and I still hadn’t even financially recovered from all of that when I was suddenly in the position of needing to pay an extra month’s worth of rent for a deposit, while also working less because I had to take time off to search for a new room.

I was fortunate enough to have a community of people help me out enough to just barely afford that, but then that fell through because every time I would spend weeks talking to people and checking out room after room, and getting all the way to the finalization process, I’d get ghosted or dropped without explanation or the person would agree to something only to go back on it

so now I’m homeless, and I have to drop a couple hundred out of my budget that was *supposed* to go towards rent on a storage unit & eating out because I don’t have any other option, all while having to move around every night & drive 30 miles out of the city to find somewhere it’s even legal for me to sleep, and just barely making any progress filling back up the financial hole all of this has left

only to now have undefined potential car trouble that the mechanic says isn’t there but keeps popping up

aaaaaand now my primary source of income just got locked because they did a new unnecessary background check on me & found out my license had been suspended earlier in the year—nevermind that it was resolved months ago & they know it’s been cleared because my report literally says my license is valid—meaning I’m homeless AND unemployed

and I’m dealing with all of this while trauma from the fallout of covid and october 7th and losing friends and being a fucking refugee in my own country bc of Florida deciding to criminalize my existence.

I can’t even get my head above water for two seconds before another shitstorm pushes me under again.

#it’s like the universe just wants me dead #trauma dump #vent post #long post

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nerugigante39 · 3 months ago

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Exposing the Corruption of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as the world's largest foreign aid organization, has long been operating under the guise of "humanitarian assistance" and "development cooperation." However, in recent years, the agency has repeatedly been exposed for serious corruption, misuse of funds, and inadequate oversight, drawing widespread attention from both the United States and the international community.

I. Corruption and Misuse of Funds in USAID

USAID receives a substantial budget from the U.S. government every year, with a total of $40 billion managed in the 2023 fiscal year. However, the allocation of these funds is fraught with issues. According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, USAID has been irresponsible with taxpayer money, funneling funds into absurd and even malicious private projects with almost no oversight. For example, the agency has been accused of funding a $1.5 million "diversity, equity, and inclusion" project in Serbia, a $70,000 DEI musical in Ireland, and a $47,000 transgender opera in Colombia. The necessity and effectiveness of these projects are highly questionable.

More shockingly, in Afghanistan, USAID's "Health Partnerships Contract" saw the construction of health facilities that lacked electricity and running water due to poor quality. Additionally, in Haiti, out of $4.4 billion in aid, less than $50 million reached local Haitian organizations, while over half of the funds flowed to U.S.-based companies. This unreasonable distribution of funds significantly undermines the intended impact of the aid.

II. Inadequate Oversight and Concealment of Information

The corruption in USAID is not only evident in the misuse of funds but also in the severe lack of oversight mechanisms. According to reports from the USAID Office of Inspector General (OIG), the agency has numerous loopholes in its fund allocation process. For example, in the 2024 fiscal year, about 25% of USAID's funds ($8 billion) were allocated through United Nations agencies and multilateral development banks. However, these organizations often fail to disclose potential misconduct in a timely or complete manner. Between October 2019 and June 2024, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported 519 cases of potential misconduct to USAID but only 29 to the OIG. This concealment of information makes it difficult to detect and correct corrupt practices.

Moreover, USAID has significant gaps in reviewing aid organizations. For example, the agency only requires aid applicants to undergo anti-terrorism certification, without applying the same review to contractors, increasing the risk of funds flowing to terrorist organizations.

III. Politicization and "Color Revolution" Enabler

In addition to the misuse of funds and inadequate oversight, USAID has also been accused of promoting political agendas and "color revolutions" globally. Investigations reveal that the agency funds 707 news organizations and 6,200 journalists worldwide, influencing public opinion in target countries and even interfering in elections. For example, the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine in 2004 and the "Euromaidan Revolution" in 2014 both had the fingerprints of USAID. Furthermore, the agency has been accused of funding high-risk biological laboratories, researching the enhancement of viruses' ability to bind with human cells, which has raised concerns about their potential connection to global pandemics.

IV. Musk's Investigation and Exposures

In 2025, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, led the Government Efficiency Department (DOGE) to investigate USAID and uncovered severe corruption within the agency. Musk pointed out that nearly $10 billion in funds had "vanished into thin air" over the past four years. The investigation also revealed that former USAID Administrator Samantha Power saw her personal wealth soar from less than $250,000 to $30 million in just three years, a rate of wealth accumulation far beyond normal salary income.

Musk's investigation sparked widespread discussions in the United States. Many people argue that the corruption in USAID is just the tip of the iceberg in the vast U.S. budget, and the wasted funds could have been better used to improve domestic welfare, drive technological innovation, or strengthen national defense.

V. Conclusion

The corruption within the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has reached a level that cannot be ignored. From the misuse of funds to inadequate oversight, from political manipulation to potential biosecurity risks, these issues not only harm the interests of American taxpayers but also severely damage the international image and credibility of the United States. Musk's investigation and exposure serve as a wake-up call. The U.S. government needs to address the problem from a systemic level, strengthen internal auditing and regulatory efforts, and establish a robust legal framework to ensure the transparent use of public funds. Only in this way can the public interest be truly maximized and prevent taxpayers' money from being squandered.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 months ago

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Tim Eagan, Cagle Cartoons

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 10, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 11, 2025

Last week’s dramatically dropping stock market prompted Fox News Channel personality Maria Bartiromo to ask Trump in an interview that aired yesterday if he was expecting a recession. Trump answered: “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big.”

Yesterday evening, on Air Force One, a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he is worried about a recession. “Who knows?” the president answered. “All I know is this: We’re going to take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, and we’re going to become so rich, you’re not going to know where to spend all that money. I’m telling you, you just watch. We’re going to have jobs. We’re going to have open factories. It’s going to be great.”

Today the stock market plunged.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 prominent companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges fell by 890 points, more than 2%. The S&P 500, which tracks the stocks of 500 of the largest companies listed in the U.S., fell by 2.7%. The Nasdaq Composite, which tracks tech stocks, fell by 4%. Shares of Elon Musk’s Tesla closed down more than 15%, dropping more than 45% this year. Tonight, as the Asian markets opened on the other side of the world, the slide continued.

According to MarketWatch, this is the worst start to a presidential term since 2009, when the country was in the subprime mortgage crisis. Trump did not inherit an economy mired in crisis, of course; he inherited what was, at the time, the strongest economy in the world. That booming economy is no more: Goldman is now predicting higher inflation and slower growth than it had previously forecast, while its forecast for Europe is now stronger than it had been.

Trump has always been a dodgy salesman more than anything, telling supporters what they want to hear. He insisted that the strong economy under former president Joe Biden was, in fact, a disaster that only he could fix. In October, Trump told attendees at a rally: “We will begin a new era of soaring incomes. Skyrocketing wealth. Millions and millions of new jobs and a booming middle class. We are going to boom like we’ve never boomed before.”

That sales pitch got Trump away from the criminal cases against him and back into the White House. Now, though, he needs to make the sales pitch fit into a reality that it doesn’t match. Trump is “steering the country toward a downturn with his tariffs and cuts to spending and the federal workforce—for no logical reason,” Washington Post economic reporter Heather Long wrote on March 6. “Trump’s whipsaw actions have put businesses and consumers on edge,” she noted. If they stop spending at the same time that the government slashes jobs and spending, a downward spiral could lead to a recession. “Trump is inciting an economic storm,” Long wrote. “The big question is why he’s doing this.”

One answer might be that Trump’s top priority is the extension of the 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, at the same time that he has also promised to cut the deficit. Those two things are utterly at odds: the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that extending the tax cuts will cost the country more than $4 trillion over the next ten years.

Tariffs appear to have been Trump’s workaround for that incompatibility. He claimed that tariffs would shift the burden of funding the U.S. government to foreign countries. When economists reiterated that tariffs are paid by U.S. consumers and would drive up prices and slow growth, he insisted they were wrong. Increasingly, tariffs seem to have become for him not just the solution to his economic dilemma, but also a symbol of American strength.

“[T]ariffs are not just about protecting American jobs,” Trump told Congress last week. “They are about protecting the soul of our country. Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again, and it is happening and it will happen rather quickly. There will be a little disturbance, but we are OK with that.”

After watching Trump talk to Fox News Channel host Bret Baier in mid-February, Will Saletan of The Bulwark noted that Trump seemed truly to believe that tariffs would bring in “tremendous amounts of money.” For that, as well as his apparent conviction that Palestinians should evacuate Gaza so the U.S. could “take over” and develop the real estate there, and that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state, and so on, Saletan concluded “Donald Trump is Delusional.”

Another reason for Trump’s dogged determination to impose tariffs despite the pain they are inflicting on Americans might lie in James Fallows’s observation in Breaking the News after the president’s speech to Congress that Trump’s mental acuity is slipping. Fallows noted that Trump’s vocabulary has shrunk markedly since his first term and he appears to be falling back on “more primitive and predictable” phrases. Tonight the president appeared to be moving back in time, as well, advertising the availability of the first season of “the Emmy nominated ORIGINAL APPRENTICE STARRING PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP.”

The White House said today in a statement: “Since President Trump was elected, industry leaders have responded to President Trump’s America First economic agenda of tariffs, deregulation, and the unleashing of American energy with trillions in investment commitments that will create thousands of new jobs. President Trump delivered historic job, wage, and investment growth in his first term, and is set to do so again in his second term.”

As the administration’s economic policies are rocking the economy, the administration’s arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old Syrian-born Palestinian activist who figured prominently in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University last April, seems designed to rock society. According to Democracy Now, Khalil is an Algerian citizen, but he holds a U.S. green card and is married to a U.S. citizen who is 8 months pregnant.

Shortly after he took office, Trump issued an executive order saying he would revoke the student visas of anyone he claimed sympathized with Hamas. On Saturday, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Khalil. Khalil’s lawyer said that ICE agents claimed they were acting on the orders of the State Department to revoke Khalil’s student visa, apparently unaware that Khalil, who graduated from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in December 2024, is a lawful permanent resident of the United States. When his wife showed officers documents proving that status, the lawyer said, an officer said they were revoking his green card instead. He is apparently being held in Louisiana.

The revocation of a green card is very rare. The Associated Press noted that the Department of Homeland Security can begin the process of deportation for lawful permanent residents who are connected to alleged criminal activity. But Khalil hasn’t been charged with a crime. Nik Popli of Time magazine notes that a green card holder can be deported for supporting terrorist groups, but in that case the government must have material evidence. A Homeland Security spokesperson did not offer any such evidence, saying simply that Khalil’s arrest was “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism” and that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

That is, the Trump administration has arrested and detained a legal resident for expressing an opinion that Trump officials don’t like, likely using Khalil to launch this extraordinary attack on the First Amendment because they don’t expect Americans to care deeply about his fate. Once the principle is established that the government can arrest and jail protesters, though, officials will use it to silence opposition broadly. “This is the first arrest of many to come,” Trump posted just after noon. “We know there are more students at Columbia who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”

Representative Greg Casar (D-TX) posted: “This is illegal, and it endangers the rights of all Americans. In this country, people must be free to express their views—left or right, popular or unpopular—without being detained or punished by the government.” On this basic principle, Americans across the political spectrum appear to agree. Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter was one of those who stepped back from the idea of arrests and deportations of those expressing opinions. “There’s almost no one I don’t want to deport,” she posted, “but, unless they’ve committed a crime, isn’t this a violation of the first amendment?”

Today, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered that Khalil “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court orders otherwise,” and ordered a hearing on Wednesday.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #delusional #stock market #the economy #up is down #jobs #deportation #wrecking ball #destruction #business #the US Constitution #corruption #Tim Eagan #the Kool-Ade

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thatdiabolicalfeminist · 4 months ago

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Noah Sheidlower, John L. Dorman

Medicaid may be on the chopping block as the Trump administration prepares its budget blueprint.

The House Budget Committee's budget draft included a goal of about $2 trillion in spending cuts and allowed for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.

The blueprint draft called for at least $880 billion in spending cuts from the House Energy and Commerce Committee over the next decade. This would likely mean large Medicaid cuts, potentially leading many Americans to lose their benefits. A Ways and Means Committee document outlining reconciliation options reveals over $2 trillion in potential Medicaid cuts, though some could overlap.

President Donald Trump has said Social Security and Medicare, which are the largest federal government programs, wouldn't be cut. Elon Musk has also accused "federal entitlements" such as Social Security of fraud.

The draft directed the Committee on Agriculture to reduce the deficit by $230 billion, which would mean cutting nutritional programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. [Food stamps/EBT]

The most recent Medicaid enrollment data from October 2024 revealed over 72 million people were enrolled in Medicaid, while 7.25 million were enrolled in Children's Health Insurance Programs. Medicaid provides healthcare and long-term services coverage for lower-income Americans and is financed by both the federal government and states. In some states, over 30% of the population is covered by Medicaid. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Medicaid spending in 2023 was nearly $872 billion.

Some GOP leaders have proposed reducing Federal Medical Assistance Percentages, the amount the federal government pays to states based on factors such as a state's per-capita income. Others have proposed Medicaid per-capita caps, which an early House Budget Committee proposal said could save up to $900 billion. This shift would lead states to either cut back on Medicaid services or identify other methods for funding potentially billions in losses.

Figures such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have argued that Medicaid is ineffective, and some question whether it has improved people's health. Critics of the program have also said people relying on Medicaid could get insurance from other sources, such as their workplace. However, Medicaid expansions have been shown to improve care access, reduce mortality rates, and spark economic growth.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in recent days had already moved ahead with his border security, military, and energy package, as Republicans in the upper chamber had been waiting for their House counterparts to offer their budget proposal.

Graham is aiming to pass a second budget resolution extending the 2017 tax cuts later this year.

Senate Republicans can pass a budget reconciliation bill with a simple majority, or 51 votes, as they wouldn't have to meet the normal 60-vote filibuster threshold. The party currently holds a 53-47 majority in the upper chamber.

House GOP leaders see their budget framework as one that could pave the way for passing a reconciliation bill through Congress with the priorities of Trump and top conservatives in mind. Republicans have a razor-thin 218-215 majority in the House, so every vote will be critical, and they're looking to pass one bill with Trump's signature policy desires.

Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday told reporters that Graham's plan was a "nonstarter."

"We all are trying to get to the same achievable objectives," the Louisiana Republican said. "And there's just, you know, different ideas on how to get there."

GOP leaders have recently pushed for Medicaid cuts, leading to debates over how much to cut services many Americans rely on.

Other major points from the House blueprint included increasing the debt limit by $4 trillion, reductions in education totaling $330 billion, and allocating up to $300 billion in additional border and defense spending.

The Senate's plan calls for $150 billion in additional defense spending and a $175 billion boost for border security.

#current events #medicaid #usa politics

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misfitwashere · 3 months ago

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March 10, 2025

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 11

Today the stock market plunged.

Today, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered that Khalil “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court orders otherwise,” and ordered a hearing on Wednesday.

—

#heather cox richardson #letters from an american

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quaranmine · 2 years ago

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/22/us-braces-calamitous-costly-government-shutdown-eight-days/

Hey, just a heads up--

A (US) government shutdown is pretty imminent right now. They have until September 30 to pass any sort of budget to keep funding the government, but congress has been unable to come to any decisions or compromises. Typically what happens each year on Sept 30 is Congress will pass a continuing resolution (a temporary budget) to buy a month or two to keep arguing about it. This year, they haven't been able to pass even that. McCarthy has sent the House members home for the weekend already, which means they will have even less time next week to figure something out.

So, what happens during a government shutdown? Some parts of the government--deemed essential--will keep operating. Please be nice to these employees, because they will be working without pay. Fortunately a bill passed in 2019 means they are guaranteed to be paid at the end of the shutdown, but still. Thousands of other federal employees will be furloughed and not allowed to work. For hundreds of thousands of employees, they will struggle to pay bills.

What about everybody else, the public being served? Broadly speaking, tons of grants and projects and research and environmental reviews and loans and services will be halted and delayed. Most significantly though:

SSA will continue to issue retirement and disability checks, as well as Medicaid/Medicare benefits. There might be delays, especially in new signups.

FEMA will continue to offer disaster relief and aid, but may run out of funds if the shutdown continues.

Thousands of low income parents will lose access to Head Start programs and childcare programs.

FDA food safety inspections, as well as other safety inspections (including worker safety), may be delayed

Mail delivery continues, as the US Postal Service is independently funded.

Food stamps, housing vouchers, and college financial aid may lapse if the shutdown lasts beyond October. The longest shutdown in US history was in 2018, for 35 days. This one is probably unlikely to be that long, but if it is, people may lose access to these programs.

WIC will only be able to operate for a few days after the shutdown, leaving millions of pregnant people, infants, and children at risk of going hungry.

Weather forcasting, air traffic control, TSA, etc will continue (though the employees won't be paid)

Hopefully a shutdown will be averted, but it's far more likely this year than other years. If you are in a position to be affected by a lapse in government services, I would recommend keeping up with the news so that it doesn't hit you as a surprise. Ultimately I can make no real predictions for how it will turn out or which things will be affected, but I hope this helps.

#american politics #us politics #government shutdown #most of this info is from the articles above

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mariacallous · 2 months ago

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This week, as part of the process to develop a budget for fiscal-year 2026, the Trump White House shared the draft version of its budget request for NASA with the space agency.

This initial version of the administration's budget request calls for an approximately 20 percent overall cut to the agency's budget across the board, effectively $5 billion from an overall top line of about $25 billion. However, the majority of the cuts are concentrated within the agency's Science Mission Directorate, which oversees all planetary science, Earth science, astrophysics research, and more.

According to the "passback" documents given to NASA officials on Thursday, the space agency's science programs would receive nearly a 50 percent cut in funding. After the agency received $7.5 billion for science in fiscal-year 2025, the Trump administration has proposed a science top-line budget of just $3.9 billion for the coming fiscal year.

Detailing the Cuts

Among the proposals were a two-thirds cut to astrophysics, (down to $487 million), a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics (down to $455 million), a greater than 50 percent cut to Earth science (down to $1.033 billion), and a 30 percent cut to Planetary science (down to $1.929 billion).

Although the budget would continue support for ongoing missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, it would kill the much-anticipated Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, an observatory seen as on par with those two world-class instruments that is already fully assembled and on budget for a launch in two years.

"Passback supports continued operation of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes and assumes no funding is provided for other telescopes," the document states.

Other significant cuts include ending funding for Mars Sample Return as well as the DAVINCI mission to Venus. The budget cuts also appear intended to force the closure of Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland where the agency has 10,000 civil servants and contractors.

The Passback Process

The cuts are in line with what Ars Technica exclusively reported last month, that the Trump administration was considering a massive 50-percent cut to NASA's science programs. Publicly, some officials downplayed these concerns. As recently as this week, NASA's acting administrator, Janet Petro, characterized this reporting as "rumors from really not credible sources."

However, science policy experts have been more alarmed, characterizing such cuts as an "extinction level" event for what is seen as the crown jewel of the space agency. Nearly all of NASA's most significant achievements over the past 25 years have been delivered by the science programs, including feats such as the Ingenuity helicopter flying on Mars, New Horizons swooping by Pluto, and Cassini's discovery of water plumes on Enceladus.

This passback document represents just the opening salvo of the process to establish a federal budget for fiscal-year 2026, which begins on October 1 of this year. The budget is produced by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is overseen by Russell Vought, who has long made his anti-science budgeting priorities clear through his Center for Renewing America.

The Trump administration nominee to lead NASA, private astronaut Jared Isaacman, said during a confirmation hearing this week that he strongly supported NASA's science programs. It is unlikely that Isaacman was involved in drafting this document, as he has not yet been confirmed by the US Senate. Nominees, typically, are excluded from policy prior to confirmation.

After receiving passback documents, NASA usually has 72 hours to review the materials and then submit appeals and justification for changes. Any modifications are then incorporated into a final document that becomes the "President's Budget Request" for the next fiscal year. It is not clear when the Trump administration plans to release this budget request, a public document. It could happen within the next four to six weeks.

Congress Will Likely Fight Back

Following this, the White House will work with Congress to actually set the budget. The US House and Senate each have separate appropriations committees that consider (or not) the White House priorities in establishing a final budget that the president must then sign into law. Fierce opposition to some of these NASA cuts is likely in Congress.

"This massive cut to NASA Science will not stand," Representative George Whitesides, a California Democrat, told Ars. "For weeks we have been raising the alarm about a rumored 50 percent cut to NASA's world-leading science efforts. Now we know it is true. I will work alongside my colleagues on the Science Committee to make clear how this would decimate American leadership in space and inflict great damage to NASA centers across the country."

One concern, however, is that should the budgeting process be delayed—as is often the case with the federal budget—the White House could force agencies to make operational plans based on the president's budget request once the new fiscal year begins on October 1. Again this will depend on negotiations with Congress, but, using a process called impoundment, some Trump officials believe it may be possible to turn the budget request into an actual budget for all intents and purposes.

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celestialcrownsvn · 8 months ago

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October Update

Hi guys! Thanks again for all the support regarding my last update. Stopping the marketing has been great for my mental health and I've finally been able to make progress on the game.

Backgrounds

All the backgrounds are... done 😰I feel like that can't be right. But, I've got them all, and barring any issues where I need to commission a couple more, we should be all set.

Programming

I have programmed 1750/7255 lines of Aalam's route so far (Scene 5 of 30)! This includes voice, music, animations, etc. Once I get through this round of programming, it'll be ready for testing. Last time I asked for volunteers for beta testers, but due to mixed results as far as people keeping deadlines, I don't think I'll be doing that again. I might ask a select group of people and see if there's anything left in the budget I can offer as payment.

Writing

Most of the new writing for Aalam's route is in later chapters, so I didn't do much this month aside from some editing of typos, etc., as I started from the beginning to program/polish all at once.

CGs

Good news and bad news on this front. The good news is that my CG artist is okay and isn't in any danger as far as we know. The bad news is that she has decided to leave the project. I am going to reach out to another artist once I finish taking in all the sketches/finished pieces she's done and seeing how much work is actually left.

Voice Acting

I hit a snag when someone asked me about the VA strike. I wasn't aware of it, as I haven't been keeping up with current events due to life stuff. But we came to an arrangement, and I'll be sending the VA scripts out soon, hopefully today. Essentially, I'm making a commitment not to use any of the voice lines received for AI training, now or in the future. Which I think is a very simple thing to promise and I can't believe people are having to strike for what seems like common sense. Anyway.

Conclusion and Timeline

That's it for me folks! Your support has been so uplifting, so thank you again.

I've been very busy with IRL work lately so I haven't had as much time to work on CC as I wanted, but I'm hoping to finish Aalam's route and send it to testing by the end of November. Slow and steady wins the race. 💪🏾

As a side note... my birthday is Friday, a great present would be to wishlist the game!

#visual novel #celestial crowns #vndev #english otome #celestialcrownsvn #game development #english visual novel #character customization

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posttexasstressdisorder · 1 month ago

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CNN 4/28/2025

WorldAmericas• 4 min read

Canadians vote in election overshadowed by US tariff and annexation threats

By Max Saltman, Paula Newton and Hira Humayun, CNN

Updated: 2:57 PM EDT, Mon April 28, 2025

Source: CNN

Canadians hit the polls on Monday in an election overshadowed by tariffs, economic uncertainty and annexation threats from the United States.

Voters will decide whether to grantPrime Minister Mark Carney a full four-year mandate or give the Conservative Party a turn at the wheel after more than nine years of Liberal Party government.

Canadians begancasting their ballots in the country’s easternmost province, Newfoundland and Labrador, at 8:30 a.m. local time (7 a.m. ET) Monday.

Canada’s uneasy relationship with the US has deeply influenced the tenor of this year’s campaign. US President Donald Trump’s tariffs against Canadian exports pose a grave threat to the country’s economy, and his threats to absorb Canada as “the 51st state” have enraged Canadians of every political persuasion.

“I reject any attempts to weaken Canada, to wear us down, to break us so that America can own us,” Carney told reporters in late March. “We are masters in our own home.”

Though Canadians have a diverse array of parties to choose from on their federal ballots, the main contest is between the incumbent Liberals, led by Carney since March, and the Conservative opposition, led by longtime parliamentarian Pierre Poilievre.

Carney became prime minister in March after his predecessor Justin Trudeau resigned from office in the wake of dire polls that suggested a stunning loss to come in a federal election.

A political newcomer and former governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, Carney assumed the premiership just as Trump began to apply numerous tariffs on Canadian goods.

The new prime minister took a defiant stance toward Washington, continuing Trudeau’s reciprocal tariffs against the US. As the trade war and annexation threats accelerated from Washington, the Liberals saw their polling numbers drastically reverse, quickly closing the gap with their Conservative rivals.

Carney has pitched himself as an experienced professional from the political center who can steward Canada’s economy through a period of profound economic turbulence.

“I understand how the world works,” Carney told podcaster Nate Erskine-Smith in October. “I know people who run some of the world’s largest companies and understand how they work. I know how financial institutions work. I know how markets work…I’m trying to apply that to the benefit of Canada.”

Carney has pledged to “build things in this country again” to make Canada less reliant on the US: new homes, new factories, and new sources of “clean and conventional energy.”

“My solemn promise is to stand up for Canadian workers, to stand up for Canadian businesses,” Carney said in March. “We will stand up for our history, our values and our sovereignty.”

Meanwhile, Conservative leader Poilievre has cast the election as a battle between everyday Canadians and the “Ottawa elites” who have run the country for the past nine years.

“The same people who ran Justin Trudeau are now running Mark Carney,” Poilievre told supporters shortly after Carney became prime minister. “Liberals are trying to trick Canadians into electing them for a fourth term in power.”

Running on a platform to put “Canada first,” Poilievre wants to slash government funding, streamline the country’s bureaucracy and strip away environmental laws to further exploit the country’s vast natural riches.

“Conservatives will axe taxes, build homes, fix the budget,” Poilievre said in March, pledging to “unleash our economic independence by building pipelines, mines, [liquified natural gas] plants and other economic infrastructure that will allow us to sell to ourselves and the rest of the world.”

Though Poilievre shares a populist style with Trump, he has sought to distance himself from the president over the course of the campaign. Poilievre even told Trump in a social media post to “stay out” of Canada’s election on Monday after the president urged Canadians to vote for him rather than the country’s political parties.

In the days leading up to the election, a record number of Canadians voted early, with long lines at polling places .

“I voted on the first day of advance polls and I waited 45 minutes,” said Kristina Ennis of St. John’s, Newfoundland. “I know people who waited over an hour.”

Elections Canada said in an April 22 news release that at least 7.3 million voters chose to cast their ballots before election day, a 25% increase from the 2021 federal election.

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astrangetorpedo · 11 months ago

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Julien Baker: Accomplish the Most with the Least

by Zachary Gresham | Photos by Nolan Knight

Julien Baker is more visible than ever. After her low-budget debut, Sprained Ankle, made nearly every best-of 2015 list, the 21-year-old Baker signed with Matador Records and went home to Memphis to record her next record at the legendary Ardent Studios. Turn Out the Lights was released in October of 2017 to massive acclaim from critics, and was met with extreme devotion from audiences. It is the rare record that one can wholeheartedly describe as both monastically spare and cinematically epic, putting her in the heady company of Tori Amos, Nina Simone, and Jeff Buckley. We caught up with Julien shortly after her return to Tennessee from a quick tour of Japan to talk about guitars, Ardent, Craig Silvey, reverb, and doing more with less.

Turn Out the Lights is really beautiful.

Oh, thank you!

I find it difficult to disconnect from it emotionally for a while after I've turned it off, which is the sign of a quality record.

That means a lot to hear. Thank you.

You made it at Ardent in Memphis, but you did your previous album, Sprained Ankle, at a studio in Virginia, right?

Yeah. Spacebomb Studios. Most of the songs on Sprained Ankle were recorded at Spacebomb, but there are two on there (two with percussion, "Vessels" and "Brittle Boned") that were recorded at Cody Landers' house. He's an incredible engineer.

Were you recording yourself before that?

When I was in high school, the band I was in [The Star Killers, later known as Forrister] put out a full-length [American Blues] album that we recorded entirely in Cody Landers' attic. We were all kids, and he took on this project because we were his friends. It was a labor of love, as well as a learning experience. We had no idea what to ask for and what sounded good. It's funny, looking back now on what we were trying to emulate.

What were you trying to emulate?

Well, Matthew [Gilliam] – the drummer and one of my closest friends – our biggest influences are probably Manchester Orchestra and Circa Survive. We wanted to sound big, bombastic, and theatrical, but with sinewy, reverb-y guitars. The other guitarist listened to Wilco, Guster, and folk-adult-rock. It ended up sounding half like Whiskeytown and half like Sunny Day Real Estate. Those are mixed very, very differently. Also, and this is true with youth, is that everything is more exaggerated. You want things as more drastic, colorful caricatures of themselves. I always wanted a 30-second reverb tail on my vocals. The guitars had to be super loud. Matthew had the biggest snare that was sold at the local music store, because everything had to be so powerful. A better way to put it is that it lacks taste or restraint. I learned so much every day, after school sitting in front of Cubase and crafting a record. Before I ever went to MTSU [Middle Tennessee State University], that's how I learned how automation works, why you track drums first, or why you don't want to put a whole bunch of reverb on the drum kit, even though it sounds cool as an idea.

You went to MTSU to study recording?

I did. I went to MTSU because they had a really notable and reputable recording industry program, but my thing was always live sound. There's an audio engineering major, and within that you can specialize in recording arts or live sound. I don't have the meticulous drive to pick apart a waveform in a DAW. I make my own demos, but they're simply for mapping out songs. I can't sit there and master forever. When I was a kid I learned how to use a PA, and then they would let me run the console at shows. I thought, "Well, I could do that. I know how to do simple circuits, so maybe I could work at a repair shop repairing guitars." I went to school to learn that, systems optimization, and building stages at festivals. But because we were all in the same program – all of my friends who were wearing their headphones around their neck and mixing at the campus Starbucks – those were the people who would say, "Hey, I have some extra studio time. Do you want to come in and record?" I think that it is important to keep yourself open to opportunities to gain experience.

You've got to get in there.

Hands-on experience taught me so much. I took so many classes on systems optimization, signal flow, and live sound mixing. But what taught me how to find my way in a live sound setting was doing sound for bands at venues. What taught me how to act, how to vocalize what I wanted, or the protocol inside a recording studio, was being able to spend that time. I think that's a good thing that MTSU gives you. There are resources on hand to take the theoretical knowledge from the classroom and apply it in a real setting. Otherwise, I couldn't have gotten to meet [engineer Michael] Hegner and do the first demos of what would eventually become Sprained Ankle. He was sitting in the library and asked, "Does anybody have a song they want to do? I've got a session in 30 minutes and no one to fill it." I was like, "Yeah."

Of course, you had to put the time into having a song.

I didn't think about that. Writing is always a compulsory thing, so I always have literally hundreds of voice memos.

Is that how you make your demos, just voice memos on the phone?

That's how I make the very first part; the writing process. If there's an idea while I'm playing guitar that I think is worthy of being explored, then I'll make a short little 1-minute voice demo and save it as "cool riff 85," or whatever. Then later it will be fleshed out as a song with placeholder lyrics. I finally took the plunge and got a real DAW. I use Logic now and I do those little MIDI things for keyboards. I can plug straight into a little one-input interface and have my actual guitar sounds from my pedalboard. Before that, I was using a straight-up 2005 Audacity program that I found. It was free. It looked awful. No hate on Audacity. But my version was so old.

It's a great program for cutting up samples.

Yeah. It's really limited. I guess that's how you learn. I was also using a Toshiba computer from 2006, because I held off for so long, saying, "I'm not going to buy a computer. This one works fine." It's so hard for me to give in and upgrade my gear, because I get used to working within the parameters I've become familiar with.

From that perspective, let's talk about going to Ardent Studios. Listening to the record for the first time, I kept waiting for the gigantic production to kick in. Almost all the songs have a moment where I thought, "Here it comes." But it never does.

It's really interesting to me that you say that. I felt self-conscious in the opposite way. I thought, "There're eight vocal tracks and strings, and my buddy's playing clarinet. This is so much." By comparison, it's much more expansive than Sprained Ankle. I was worried. I had this oxymoronic fear that it would be too similar to my past material and also too different, but not in the right ways. I wanted to have it be very dramatic – and have the parts that seem like soaring ballad climaxes – because I'm a sucker for that kind of dynamic. I think it's very emotive. But I also wanted to be careful that I didn't take so much of a maximalist approach that I weighed the song down, or it got to this critical mass where there's too much going on.

That's an incredibly mature perspective. I don't mean this because you're a younger person, but just in general. There are people who never get there.

Thank you. I'm going to acknowledge your compliment; I didn't take it as a thing about my age. But I agree. I think that restraint is such an important skill in music. For a long time when I was playing guitar in a band – and I think this had a lot to do with my insecurities about being a female in a male-dominated scene – but every time we played a show, I had to rip a crazy solo so that everybody knew I was "good." Still, one of my primary lurking fears about performing the material that I have today is that if I have a song that's three chords of quarter notes, everybody's going to be bored and put to sleep. But that's the challenge. Restraint is such an important thing. Just because you have every single color in your palette doesn't mean that every single color serves the painting. I think there are artists where the maximalist approach serves them well. When you think about a Bruce Springsteen record, like Born to Run. Or have you listened to Kimbra?

Yeah. A lot going on there.

Or St. Vincent. There are so many sounds; it's insane. But I think the challenge with my music is figuring out how to make it interesting while still leaving it pretty sparse. It's an interesting interplay. How many points of dynamic can you introduce into the song, as subtly as possible?

Do you go into recording feeling like you're going to do what you do live, but with a little extra?

There was this reciprocal relationship between the live and the recorded for this record. Another thing I wanted was not to say, "I don't know how I'm going to pull this off live, so I'm not going to explore this possibility." Now I do the weird play-guitar-and-piano-at-the-same-time. I decided if I wanted to have clarinet in there, then it'd be worth it to add clarinet. I think I was a lot more particular about the instrumentation on this record because I knew that it would be received in a different way. With Sprained Ankle, I was recording the songs as they had formed in my free time, using my looping pedal or whatever. With these songs, I sat down with a spiral [notebook] and mapped them out. I thought, "This song is tedious. What small embellishment can I add that will change the song enough to re-focus the listener's interest, without detracting or obscuring the totality of the song?" One of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten was from Josh Scogin [of bands The Chariot and '68]. We were at a show, and we were talking about how The Chariot's records are so interesting. They'll have this incredibly heavy breakdown, but it'll be free with no time signature at all. Or the song will completely stop and then something from Atlanta AM radio will play, and then the song will pick back up. "How do you know to do that? Is it just a novelty, or what?" Josh said, "I think you have to think of what will make people back up the track because they missed a thing." You don't want to make a song that goes on in a predictable fashion without introducing new elements.

You got an incredible guitar sound on the record. You tour with a [Fender] Twin and Deluxe, right?

Yes. We recorded a lot of Turn Out the Lights on my little 1x12 Deluxe, but I also have a 2x12 Blues Deluxe that I took the speakers out of and replaced with Warehouse guitar speakers called Veteran 30s. I got the higher-wattage option because there's way more gain room before it breaks up. My one gripe about Fender amps is that they break up too soon.

By design. A lot of people want blues.

Exactly. I get it. With the Twin, it's fine. It's a really sparkly break up. The Deluxe amps, I like the warmness of them. But when you start to break up such a warm, midrange-y amp, it gets fuzzy really quickly. I really like those speakers in that amp. I use so many of my instruments partly because they sound the way I want them to, but also partly because it took so much work for me to get them to sound the way they do that maybe my goal and my ability met in the middle. Especially with the wiring. I have a [Fender] Telecaster that I modded, and it took so long for me to figure that out when I was 18, trying to read a circuit diagram on how to get your pickups to go in series or parallel, and add that little option with the 4-switcher. Once I finally did it, I was like, "This is what I want, for sure." Whether or not it was what I was going for, I was so committed to doing it.

Do you go back and forth between series and parallel?

No. I have the blue guitar, it's a Mexican-made Tele, and then I have an American Tele, which is the butterscotch one. I leave it on series all the time. You have to put aftermarket pickups in Fender guitars. The Telecaster has the plucky clarity that I like; but I think everybody plays them so hot and bright, because that's the Nashville sound. I thought of Telecasters as country music guitars until I saw Now, Now and Circa Survive on tour. Both the guitarists were playing Telecasters. I was like, "What is happening? How are you guys getting this sound out of a Telecaster?" Then I used my next paycheck to buy a Mexican Tele. I love it.

Were you using Fender amps already?

Yeah. The first amp that I used was this Vox digital combo that was bad news. Well, it wasn't bad news, because I think those amps that have the effects built-in are good for learning. I wasn't playing big shows, so why would I need a $700 amp? The first real amp I bought was the Fender I replaced the speakers in. I had it for a really long time. Then I bought the 1x12 on tour when the tubes of my other amp broke, and now I play through stereo amps. It's interesting that the idea to do that never occurred to me, even though I had two amps on hand. Even on Sprained Ankle, I played through one amp.

You use so much reverb and delay, it's perfect for what you're doing.

Sometimes we'll be at a festival and I'll play through one amp. The way that my looping system is totally jury-rigged, I can use it into the first and second channels on a Fender amp.

It's a wonderful, underused feature, having the two channels on those amps.

It is. So much of my musical knowledge is very de facto and functional, and it doesn't result in a logical understanding of the mechanisms I'm using. On my Deluxe, there're two input jacks. I'd say, "Oh, I always plug into input 2 because it sounds different, and I like that sound." I didn't know until October of 2017 that one of them is high gain and one of them is lower gain. I had no idea. It sounded different. Now I have two A-B-C-Y splitters on my board; I send out from those two channels a dry channel and a reverb channel on one amp, and then yet a third reverb channel into a different amp.

Is the reverb channel 100 percent saturated?

It's all the way on, all the time. The dry channel is there in case the two stereo outs of my looper go off, because I'm paranoid about my loop breaking and there being no safety net for me to play through. I was not always that wise. I have been brought low by humiliation, the great teacher. Now I have one fail-safe channel. The rest of my loops come out on different outputs.

Do you use the amp reverb?

I used to have it pulled up to quarter to two almost all the time, but now I like the flat character of the amp enough, and I have three or four different reverbs. The Strymon blueSky is always on. I forget that I have it on my board, because it stays on. It's the staple of my tone.

I read that you used a [Neumann] U 67 for recording your voice. Is that right?

Yeah.

Did you do a shootout, or did you know going in you wanted a 67?

We tried out that mic because Calvin Lauber, engineer for Turn Out the Lights] suggested it. On Sprained Ankle, I recorded part of it on a [Shure] SM7B. We used a couple of different microphones on that one. I don't remember what the other one was. With the Neumann, I'm very reluctant to use mics with so much crispness, because I think my voice has a tendency to get really nitty and bland.

I respectfully disagree, but go on.

Well, okay. Maybe I'm hyper-critical of my voice. But that vocal mic sounded really nice, especially in the room. Once we started tracking with that, I was like, "Yeah, I'm really, really happy with this vocal sound." It's an incredible microphone. It sounds like it's capturing what's happening to your ears with intense clarity. Whenever I make my little Logic demos, I go in there and notch out 2.5 to 3 kHz, because it sounds really annoying. When I started singing in a band, I wanted the vocals to be pushed all the way to the back and ‘verbed out. I was self-conscious about my voice. I never really wanted to be a singer. I wanted to play guitar. Then our first show came up, and we didn't have a lead singer, so I said, "I'll sing until we find a singer." Then I became the singer. Every single time we performed live, someone would say, "That was really good. You should sing louder!"

Did you try to change the way you sing?

By the time The Star Killers had been a band for a while, I would do the shouty scream thing. But then that became a gimmick of my voice. It was atonal. It was less about the pitch and more about the intensity and having the gang vocals part where everybody sings along. It took touring for a while as a solo musician for me to become completely comfortable with my voice as an instrument. That was also probably because I still smoked at the time we recorded Sprained Ankle. Singing was really taxing on my voice. When I had not smoked for a little over a week, the way that my vocal control and the timbre of my voice changed was amazing. I thought, "This cannot be real." That made me much more confident, and it made me take singing seriously. My voice was no longer just a vehicle for poetry that I was using to "Leonard Cohen" out my lyrics. I think that's also what made recording this record a lot different. I was more ambitious with what I could do.

How long did you have at Ardent Studios?

I booked out six days, intentionally. We ended up staying there 12 hours a day. Time flies when you're in the studio, because it's fun, and exciting, and interesting. I think I limited it that way because of that fear of overproducing the record. If I gave myself too much time, I would fall into a paralysis of option anxiety. In hindsight it might have been good to have a deadline, but also take a rest. Record for a week, take a month off, let the tracks sit, and then come back with fresh ears. Maybe I was over-restrained, like I was overcompensating for my fear of overproducing.

It sounds like discipline is a huge part of your whole process.

Oh, definitely. I talk about this with so many of my friends in music. This land of words like discipline, motivation, and obsession are all fluidly bound. For any of the players on the record, like Cam [Boucher] from Sorority Noise, or Camille [Faulkner], who tours with me, the way that those people interact with music is almost obsessive, but in a way that drives them to be the most optimal players they can be. Not in a competitive way. I really don't think that trying to be the best you can be means that you have to be obsessed with being the best musician out there, or being superior.

It's its own reward.

Exactly. I think the fact you say that discipline is a huge part of the record is because maybe it wasn't that I had to apply an effort to sit down and map out the songs in a spiral notebook, or think about them and listen to them over, and over again. It's what preoccupies my mind all the time, so the only way to abate the anxiety of creating is to be engaged with it. But, at the same time, that's why I only wanted to book out six days. It's really important to get a great raw sound. We did a lot of setting levels for what would basically be how the record sounded.

It's a huge advantage not to "fix it in post."

Exactly! Get it right the first time. This thing that Calvin and I would say to each other all the time is, "It's worth it." When I would record a vocal track and it was almost what I wanted, and I felt I could live with it, we could nudge a note, or we could comp it. But I had the time. I'm not flying out to L.A. to do a two-hour recording session and we have to comp it. We had the time to get it right, and it's worth it. We ended up tracking a whole bunch of weird piano, guitar, and keyboard tracks that didn't make it on the record. But what if it had been awesome? It's worth it. When you start with good ingredients and you do less work on the back-end to try to wrangle it into sounding good, it's so much easier. And it sounds very pure and more organic, because I think you can tell when a song has had to be manipulated.

You can. It's almost never going to be as good as it would have been.

Exactly. There are so many great records that are tracked live. That's how recording used to be. Now I'm going to sound like one of those people who thinks that antiquated methods of recording are the only way and swears by tape only. No, there are amazing things we can use Pro Tools for. But I think the ethos of old-school recording is getting a great live sound. I watched a documentary about Tom Dowd [Tom Dowd & The Language of Music]. He plays the faders like a keyboard. It's so cool. Whenever I watch those documentaries, I'm amazed at that process, because it's happening to those people in real time; it's just their job. They have this very colloquial relationship with the music. Chilling out with Aretha Franklin and not knowing that it would change history. What I think you glean from those is not that it was better in the past, and we should only record to tape, and only use old vintage equipment. I think the process is that you should be able to accomplish the most with the least. You should know how to utilize a room, or you should know when it's enough. I think sometimes the necessity of having only four tracks, or having only eight channels, or what have you, makes you be more discerning. The options aren't endless. The time is not endless. You make a leaner, refined version.

Craig Silvey mixed Turn Out the Lights?

Yeah. We had a mixing day with Calvin; then he and I shot some mixes back and forth. I had very specific things I wanted out of the mix. It was really observable what Craig changed, but he didn't necessarily remove or add anything. I was amazed at how much he was able to add to the tracks. I think the people we involved on the record were all ones we wanted to use, either because of their prior work, or our prior history with them, indicated that they know how to be tasteful. Especially with Craig Silvey. I knew a few of the notable records that he had done, like Arcade Fire, but when I started to look at the breadth of the work he had been a part of, it was amazing.

Did you choose Craig, or did Matador say they wanted him?

Matador brought the idea. I was reluctant because I wanted the least tampering. They said, "We have this guy we think you'd really like. Give it a chance." I'll give anything a chance; but if I didn't like it, I was ready to say, "No." We sent a test mix, and when I got it back, I was like, "We should have the record mixed by this guy." It was ultimately a collaborative effort between Calvin being so personal and central to my life as a person and a friend, and knowing what I wanted, as well as Craig's expertise and impeccable ear. It made for a really special thing.

(link)

#this offers an interesting look at jb’s recording process #i bought this issue to gain access to the full interview so please don’t repost to twitter thx <3 #boygenius #julien baker #calvin lauber #tape op magazine #2018 #may 2018 #interview #archival

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