Israeli soldiers testify about the savagery they've seen, and committed, during their occupation of Palestine. I won't long-story-short this one, because you should read it. One hopes it might turn the tide of American public opinion decisively against the Netanyahu Administration -- which isn't as hard as it sounds, since American politicians are far more pro-Israel than the public -- but the "liberal" media would have to be outraged first, and they tend only to be outraged when our government doesn't cut Medicare benefits fast enough.
David Frum sees lessons for American right-wingers in the victory of David Cameron and the Conservative Party in British elections last week. Sadly, a lot of these lessons (the Tories have sort-of made peace with universal health care and practice tolerance toward women and gays) are lessons right-wingers in America will never adopt, while others (the Tories have privatized the post office, cut corporate taxes, and stand ready to eliminate estate taxes) are lessons most Americans aren't particularly eager to learn. And I can't help but think Mr. Frum doesn't include France as one of America's "closest allies" not because France opposed the Iraq War, but because it would blow his theory apart. France, of course, sent its nominally conservative President packing in favor of a Socialist in 2012, which suggests that conservatives aren't "ascending" in these nations so much as voters are continuing to punish the parties in charge during the 2008 financial services meltdown and subsequent recession.
Speaking of "lessons from Great Britain," FAIR finds too many American "liberal" media outlets telling Britain's Labour Party that they should move to the right to remain relevant. Which is to laugh, if you remember Margaret Thatcher's early praise for Tony Blair or Gordon Brown's lecture about how outsourced foreign labor helps guarantee lower prices at home, let alone the Miliband-led Labour platform promoting balanced budgets and cuts in corporate taxes and social benefits. And I'm no great expert on British politics, but I noticed that the very liberal Scottish National Party ate 40 Labour seats on election night, and that Mr. Cameron's promise of a vote on Britain's continued participation in the European Union (which Labour didn't match, of course!) took the wind out of UKIP's sails.
We haven't visited Paul Krugman in a while; what's he talking about today? Why, "Wall Street Vampires," of course! But mainly Mr. Krugman writes about how well Dodd-Frank is actually working, which it is, on some levels: the CFPB's zeal has had a "chilling effect on abusive lending practices," while corporations that had been trying to become banksters are trying to become corporations again. He even deploys the word "chimera" very cleverly in paragraph 7; try getting that out of your average cable news talking head.
Rick Cohen at Non-Profit Quarterly asks, "What Exactly Are Charter Schools Accomplishing for the Educational System?" Long story short: they're not accomplishing new-and-better ideas, nor are they accomplishing better results, individual success stories aside (remember, folks: anecdotes aren't arguments, even when they're uplifting). I'd be less generous than Mr. Cohen and say they're "accomplishing" the siphoning off of taxpayer money (i.e., our money) to schools that can cook their success figures more easily than public schools can.
Finally, Ezra Klein theorizes that the lack of exciting, riveting news lately is driving cable news ratings downward. I'd prefer to believe it's because people are finally sick of the gluttonous, venal morons who spew forth endless streams of fecal matter on cable news networks, or even that folks who can afford broadband can more easily bypass cable news these days, but Mr. Klein's analysis does have explanatory power, and it's enough to make a man hope These Interesting Times become a lot more dull.
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