The Left That Makes Choices vs Performative Outrage; GOP Promotes Russian Propaganda; Kids Dying as Schoolbuses Disappear; and Biden Cancels $136 Billion in Student Debt
Roundup #7
The Left That Makes Choices - versus the Left in the Moral Fantasy Land of Performative Outrage
Elie Mystal of The Nation is often a scorched earth critic of the establishment, but he also has little patience for those planning to sit out the general election on the excuse that Biden has not stopped Israel’s mass murder in Gaza. As Mystal tweeted, noting the far worse Gaza policy Trump promises:
Ultimately, the left divides into those who act on actual choices we have- and this left includes AOC, Bernie, Elie Mystal & most substantive activists - versus those operating in a moral fantasy land where they are the only decent people because they refuse to make any hard choices.
I recently saw a slew of folks online attacking Bernie, one of the strongest advocates for Palestinian rights in the US Senate, all because he expressed any nuance on whether to use the word “genocide.” This kind of click-bait attack on a staunch ally says to me a lot of folks are engaged in performative leftism, not actually giving a shit about Palestinian lives.
It’s notable that even the ICJ has not found that "genocide" as defined by the UN has been committed in Gaza - although clearly genocidal intent by some Israeli leaders. But why the outrage at Bernie not calling something genocide in that case? Again, performative outrage.
Why Isn’t GOP Promoting Russian Propaganda a Bigger Story?
This week, the REPUBLICAN special counsel investigation Hunter Biden, filed charges against the key source of allegations that Hunter Biden and his Dad were involved in illegal bribery kickback schemes in Ukraine. Not only did he find that the FBI informaant had fabricated the claims against Pres. Biden and Hunter Biden, he found that the source of those fabrications were Russian intelligence officials.
From reporting by CBS’s Scott MacFarlane
For 3 years, the top story pushed by GOP & Fox News has been Hunter Biden and allegations of Biden's associated corruption. How is the complete discrediting of that story based on Russia disinformation not THE TOP STORY IN EVERY MEDIA? Where are the seven leading NYT stories?
And yet the special counsel indictment - and any questioning of the GOP making fake Russian disinfo the center of an impeachment - was NOWHERE on the front page of the NY Times website the day after the indictment.
GOP officials should resign in disgrace for acting as conduits for lies by foreign intelligence services. Either they were collaborators or fools, which disqualifies them from office either way.
But it remains perplexing that given how constant the Hunter Biden allegations have been for years that the media has treated their complete discrediting - and evidence that it’s one more example of Russian interference in our elections - as nothing more than a one-day story.
Especially in the week that Alexei Navalny was apparently killed in Russia’s prisons, fitting the Hunter Biden allegations and their discrediting into the puzzle of Putin’s political maneuvering should have been a natural part of the story.
As School Buses Disappear, More Kids are Being Killed by Cars on the Way to School
This week, the Washington Post noted we have hit a new milestone. For the first time in history, most students in the U.S. arrive at school in a car, rather than walking or taking a school bus. Back in 1969, under 17% arrived by car but now it’s the majority.
The result is 25,000 children are injured and more than 100 killed annually while walking to school, all as a result of cars in school zones. And teen motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death for U.S. teens.
A society that actually cared about kids' lives would ban most cars anywhere near our schools.
Defying Supreme Court Obstruction, Biden Has Canceled $138 Billion in Student Debt
It was announced this week that Biden had canceled an additional $1.2 Billion in student debt to 150,000 borrowers, bringing the list to 3.9 million former students who have had their debt canceled.
When the Supreme Court’s six Republican Justices struck down the administration's student loan forgiveness program in Biden v. Nebraska, a lot of folks despaired that this was killing another Biden campaign promise.
I’ll take a small bit of credit that even before the decision came down, I highlighted a year ago that Biden already had a plan in place to do an endrun around the anticipated court decision- which he has largely implemented.
Biden has not reached the full $400 billion in student debt relief that was part of his original plan, but step-by-step he is moving in that direction. And $138 billion is a pretty big down payment on that promise.
The Return of College Standardized Tests?
I've been generally skeptical of the move to test-optional admissions for this reason: lots of ways for the elite to buy the badges of "excellence" with greater school resources but the tests were the one thing that put them on the same footing as everyone else.
The rise of the college consultant making big bucks helping elite students structure their extracurriculars into attention-getting results and write essays that break through in the “softer” world of fewer standardized tests.
While tutoring no doubt gives an advantage on standardized tests, there are strong arguments that they create more of an even playing field than a world without them.