Articles chosen with care. Comments welcomed. Linked articles in bold purple
◆ England’s third major terror attack in 10 weeks raises fundamental questions about how to prevent these assaults
Comment: Kudos to the London police for their immediate response. It was swift, sure, and effective. 8 minutes from first incident to squads arriving in force. Their swift action prevented countless additional casualties.
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The problem is how to prevent these attacks, both in the short run (surveillance, arrests, etc.) and long run (tougher restrictions on immigration and rethinking the obvious failure to integrate the communities into the liberal west).
All Europe is facing a high threat from Islamic extremists, many (like the Manchester bomber) born in the very Western countries they are terrorizing.
As ISIS is squeezed abroad, they will try to revive their organization by killing in Europe.
Ordinary Europeans will refuse to live in perpetual terror and demand answers from their failing political leaders.
◆ US media reported the London attack, wall-to-wall, but buried one aspect of the story. Any guesses? You are correct.
I explain the MSM’s fecklessness, and illustrate it concretely, in a separate post, here. I call it PC BS.
◆ In happier news, one of baseball’s all-time greats, Albert Pujols become the 9th player to hit 600 homers. (ESPN) The cherry on top: it was a grand slam. Another cherry: it comes in the post-steroid era. His head and arms actually look human.
◆ Japan holds evacuation drills as North Korea’s nuclear program advances (Reuters)
Comment: The Japanese navy is also conducting joint exercises with the US fleet.
My sense is that the Chinese are playing rope-a-dope, doing a little to slow down Pyongyang but not nearly enough. That is simply unsustainable for the US and Japan.
◆ Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell hopeful on tax cuts, less so on healthcare (Reuters)
Comment: Tax reform is essential, and the Republicans know it, not just for the economy but for their reelection.
On healthcare, the pressure in late autumn, when next year’s premium notices go out, will be enormous. Obamacare is melting down, and that means suffering. The Republicans will point at Obama and the D’s. But that won’t cut it. People elected the R’s to fix it.
◆ California progressives really, really want single-payer, and they want their state to provide it. (Fortune)
The state Senate, with a big Democratic majority, passed it easily. They skipped over the pesky problem of paying for it. (Honestly, they did absolutely nothing about funding it.)
How expensive would it be? $400 billion. That’s huge. More than twice as big as the entire state budget today.
No one knows if the State Assembly will pass it or if Gov. Jerry Brown will sign it.
Naturally, they would need to heft tax hikes to pay for it, but economic studies show there is still a big shortfall. (ABC News)
Comment: The leading Democratic contender for Governor, Gavin Newsom (former mayor of S.F.), put on his tin-foil hat and strongly backed the single-payer plan.
◆ Another “can you top this” in college crazies: Black students at Evergreen State U. in Olympia, WA, demand all white people leave the campus for a day. (Washington Post)
Their demands managed to close the entire school for a day.
For some reason, not everyone thought this white-leave-campus thing was a good idea.
One long-time progressive, Prof. Bret Weinstein, did not favor it. And he didn’t like the students’ demands that new academic hires deemphasize academic ability and focus on race/gender/undocumented/social justice/etc.
As you can imagine, those opposed to Weinstein were not looking for a debate.
The were looking for blood.
In fact, the other professors at Evergreen State also turned on Weinstein. (National Review Online)
It’s so nasty, so crazy that even the NYT’s Frank Bruni writes a column against it. Naturally, he begins by condemning the US, thus establishing his bona fides as a morally superior person, but he still doesn’t like the ideas out in Olympia. It’s a strong column–and one the NYT readership needed to see.
There are names for people like Frank Bruni. Fascist. Racist. Sexist. Columnist.
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♥ Hat Tip for helpful suggestions:
◆ Richard Siegler and Tom Wyckoff for the Frank Bruni column.
