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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Opinion: Donald Trump’s luxury | |
Opinion by Richard Galant, CNN | |
Updated: | |
9:58 AM EDT, Sun May 5, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
“A safe pair of hands is of paramount importance,” William John | |
Abbott Davies in his 1933 book, “How to Play Rugby Football.” | |
Davies had reason to know. He has been one of the greatest rugby | |
players of all time and was acclaimed for captaining England’s team | |
to victory. The term “safe pair of hands” was coined to describe | |
people skilled at cricket before it was applied to other sports, and | |
then to politics. | |
Four years ago, many Americans saw Joe Biden as the ultimate “safe | |
pair of hands,” whose decades of experience in government would help | |
end the pandemic-induced chaos of then-President Donald Trump’s final | |
year in office. That image of competence has been tested by a string of | |
events since Biden moved into the White House: soaring inflation, | |
surging migration across the southern border, a botched withdrawal from | |
Afghanistan, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Hamas’ attack | |
on Israel and the subsequent protests on US college campuses. | |
No president gets to choose the crises they’ll face, but each has | |
wide leeway in how to respond. And since Trump is out of office, he has | |
the luxury of criticizing Biden’s handling of the crises. | |
“After weeks of silence,” wrote Julian Zelizer, “President Joe� | |
Biden finally weighed in on the pro-Palestinian protests that have | |
spread across college campuses nationwide. In his remarks on Thursday, | |
Biden tried to walk a tightrope, mollifying two key campus | |
constituencies: student protesters who are demanding that their | |
universities divest from companies profiting from the Israel-Hamas war, | |
and students who have been sounding the alarm of antisemitism on campus | |
and the occupation of university property.” | |
“ and unhappy with US support for Israel in its ongoing war against | |
Hamas.” Polls show that Biden, who won 60% of voters between the | |
ages of 18 and 29 four years ago, is trailing Trump by 11 points in the | |
18-34 age group. | |
Last week, Biden’s administration began the process of reclassifying | |
marijuana as a less dangerous drug. He has also stressed the issue of | |
abortion rights and moved to forgive about $160 billion in student loan | |
debt. | |
“Certainly, Biden’s policy moves can have an effect, as polls | |
show that young voters are more concerned about bread-and-butter | |
issues like affordable housing and health care than they are about the | |
Middle East,” Zelizer observed. | |
Yet Republicans moved swiftly last week to reap political gains from | |
the campus protests. | |
“College quads have been turned into tent cities,” wrote Patrick T. | |
Brown, “university buildings have been taken over by groups of | |
students unfurling banners supporting intifada, and campus protests | |
are pockmarked with calls for violence and antisemitism across the | |
country. This gives Republicans an easy argument to make about why | |
voters shouldn’t place Democrats in charge of our key civic | |
institutions. ” | |
Jeremi Suri, a historian at the University of Texas at Austin, argued | |
that the GOP’s attack on campus politics isn’t new — there’s a | |
throughline reaching back to George W. Bush’s presidency. | |
“— the expertise on subjects like climate change, the values around | |
diversity and inclusion and even the commitment to teach a full history | |
of our country…” | |
“The time has come to end what has been a long political war on | |
universities. It no longer benefits anyone, except those who truly want | |
to destroy higher education and build their careers by repressing the | |
free speech of young, talented citizens.” | |
For more: | |
David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele: | |
Peniel E. Joseph: | |
David A. Andelman: | |
Hussein Ibish: | |
Nostalgia for Trump? | |
Six months from now, Americans will cast their ballots, rendering a | |
judgment on how Biden has done — as well as how his candidacy | |
compares to that of Trump and of third-party rivals like Robert F. | |
Kennedy Jr. | |
As Scott Jennings pointed out, “The 2024 presidential election offers | |
voters an unusual experience — not only is it a referendum on the | |
incumbent, Americans will also be faced with the choice between two | |
chief executives they know well: the current Oval Office occupant and | |
his immediate predecessor.” | |
“And in comparison polling thus far, something fascinating is | |
happening,” noted Jennings. “When presented with a polling choice, | |
Americans seem to be yearning for the recent past, when they felt they | |
were getting ahead instead of being sucked under by runaway inflation. | |
.” | |
Trade expert Stephen Craven noted that “US food prices have exploded | |
since before the Covid-19 pandemic; they went up 25% between 2019 and | |
2023. The cost of going out to eat shot up even faster. So even as� | |
wage growth outpaces inflation, Americans at Kroger or Wendy’s are | |
still feeling sticker shock.” | |
“Americans want relief. ” | |
“Trump’s proposed tariffs will do immediate damage. He has called | |
for a baseline 10% tariff on all imported goods. Given that the | |
United States imports 15% of its food supply — including nearly | |
all of its coffee and cacao, 60% of fresh fruit and nearly 40% of� | |
fresh vegetables — a 10% tariff would amount to a cost increase� | |
on some of America’s most important imports.” | |
Broken work culture | |
Technostress is “a very real and pervasive problem,” wrote author | |
Brigid Schulte. “In an environment that has become increasingly | |
demanding, technology has enabled late-night emails from the boss, | |
texts and pings from co-workers at all hours, and made work | |
ever-present in our lives. That techno overload, invasion into our | |
personal time and constant connectivity leave the brain and body | |
unable to disconnect and rest.” The consequences for health, | |
relationships and family life can be profound. | |
“A work culture that implicitly expects all-hours work devotion, and | |
leaders who never take vacations or send late night and weekend | |
communication, even if they say not to respond, makes it difficult | |
for individuals to do anything other than conform. Otherwise, they | |
could risk being seen as not committed, passed over for promotion or | |
worse, let go.” | |
Legislators are taking note, looking for ways to shield people from | |
after-hours work. France passed the first “right to disconnect” law | |
in 2017 and other nations have followed suit. California is considering | |
a bill that would require companies to publish plans to clearly set out | |
working and non-working hours, but as Schulte noted, a study found that | |
the results of such laws are mixed. | |
Trump in contempt | |
The judge in Trump’s New York trial held him in contempt of court, | |
ruling that the former president violated a gag order that bars him | |
from making public statements about witnesses, jurors, court staff and | |
others. Justice Juan Merchan fined him the maximum $9,000 for nine | |
Truth social and campaign website posts, and ordered the removal of the | |
posts, which Trump did. As Norm Eisen noted, “the judge also warned | |
Trump that if he persists in violating the , he faces jail time.” | |
“Before the trial began, Trump essentially dared the judge to | |
incarcerate him, claiming jail time would make him a ‘modern-day | |
Nelson Mandela.’” | |
“ For Merchan to bring this to an end, he may have to give Trump a | |
night behind bars, following with longer stays in the ‘clink,’ in | |
Trump’s words, until he honors the judge’s order.” | |
Eisen is providing his take on the trial from inside the courtroom, | |
noting that and helped prosecutors by bolstering their case that Trump | |
falsified business records, hiding the reimbursement of hush money | |
payments in order the influence the election. (Trump’s lawyers argue | |
that he did not commit any crimes and that the charges never should | |
have been brought.) | |
The Weinstein factor | |
Jim Walden and Deanna Paul, two former prosecutors who practice law in | |
New York, wrote that Merchan was at risk of giving Trump the means to | |
swiftly toss out a potential conviction in the case. “Merchan agreed | |
to let prosecutors question Trump about his recent gag order violations | |
and courtroom loss to New York Attorney General Letitia James … They | |
also plan to ask him about a case he lost last year after writer E. | |
Jean Carroll successfully sued the former president for defamation and | |
sexual assault.” | |
“. Trump is not on trial for being a morally bankrupt person. He is | |
on trial for using false records to conceal election interference. | |
Other bad acts, even those he was found liable for, are beside the | |
point.” | |
“The prosecutors and the judge have put the former president in an | |
untenable position. The Constitution gives him the right to testify in | |
his own defense — or not to take the witness stand if he chooses. He | |
has said he wants to testify.” Walden and Paul argued that the issue | |
is the same one that led a New York appeals court to toss out Harvey | |
Weinstein’s sex crimes conviction. | |
In the Weinstein case, prosecutors introduced evidence of other alleged | |
victims to try to bolster their case, a response to a long history of | |
discounting the testimony of accusers, wrote law professor Deborah | |
Tuerkheimer. | |
“This reality may help explain the trajectory of Weinstein’s case. | |
When one woman first reported that Weinstein had sexually assaulted | |
her in 2015, her case went nowhere; when dozens of women ultimately | |
came forward, Weinstein became the stand-in for #MeToo abusers — and | |
he was prosecuted.” | |
Kristi Noem’s revelation | |
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem seems to have endangered any chance she | |
had of becoming Trump’s running mate by revealing in a new book that | |
she shot her 14-month puppy, Cricket, because the dog was | |
“untrainable.” | |
There were many theories about why Noem chose to share this | |
eyebrow-raising story years after it happened, with Dean Obeidallah | |
pointing out that Trump was the first president in 120 years not to | |
have a pet dog in the White House. But Obeidallah observed that a more | |
likely explanation is “that . If that was Noem’s calculation, she | |
might have made a grave miscalculation.” | |
A very different Census | |
Federal officials are crafting a major change in the way race and | |
ethnicity are viewed in America. CNN Opinion’s Cristian | |
Arroyo-Santiago reached out to a range of experts to assess the plan. | |
“If you’re a self-identified Hispanic or Latino, or a Middle | |
Eastern or North African (MENA) person in the US,” he wrote, | |
“chances are that every 10 years answering the Census gives you | |
pause.” | |
Until now, Latino respondents were only able to select their identity | |
as an ethnicity as opposed to a race. “According to 2020 Census | |
Bureau data, of the 54.6 million Americans who reported that they | |
identify as Hispanic or Latino, 43.6% either did not respond to the | |
race question or responded by selecting the ‘Some Other Race’ | |
option, a category that’s not federally recognized. As for the 3.5 | |
million MENA people in the country, they are classified as White — a | |
racial category many don’t see themselves represented by.” Going | |
forward, “the two most controversial changes are the introduction of | |
a combined question for race and ethnicity and the addition of two | |
categories — MENA and Hispanic or Latino — as possible� | |
answers to that single question.” | |
Robyn Autry, a sociologist at Wesleyan University, wrote, “There’s | |
no getting racial labels right, at least not in any technical or | |
biological sense. Instead, we try to get their political significance | |
right and to capture how these terms are actually used and lived. It | |
has never felt right to say that an Arab American is white, or that | |
some people must belong to racial and ethnic groups. .” | |
Arturo Vargas, CEO of the National Association of Latino Elected and | |
Appointed Officials, welcomed the change: “Although this approach | |
must be done correctly to fully account for our racial and ethnic | |
diversity, with this new path forward, .” | |
Scholars Nancy López and Alan Aja criticized the change, saying the | |
separate race and ethnicity options for Latinos provided crucial data | |
that will be obscured under the new standards: “Asking about | |
race/visual status and ethnicity/cultural heritage in the same question | |
results in statistical gaslighting, promoting the myth of a | |
post-racial America. How else will we know if we have eradicated the� | |
color line in social outcomes? .” | |
Journalists and freedom | |
“In a shaded wood outside Bayeux in Northern France,” wrote Jon | |
Williams, “a series of white memorial stones record the names of | |
more than 2,000 journalists who paid the ultimate price while reporting | |
on assignment since 1944. Among them are fathers and mothers, husbands | |
and wives, daughters and sons as well as friends who never came | |
home.” Williams, a former BBC and ABC foreign editor, is the | |
executive director of the Rory Peck Trust, which supports freelance | |
journalists and their families in crisis. | |
“All too often, the killers of journalists get away with murder. | |
For the corrupt and those abusing power, the ultimate form of | |
censorship is silencing reporters, such as British freelance | |
journalist, Dom Phillips (one of 40 names last year added to Bayeux’s | |
white stones),” wrote Williams. In 2022, Phillips and his guide | |
were shot dead while investigating allegations of illegal mining, | |
fishing and logging in Brazil. | |
World Press Freedom Day was observed Friday. Despite its rigors and | |
risks, journalism still appeals to young people around the world. As a | |
high school freshman, aspiring journalist Quinn Mitchell has already | |
stirred things up on the campaign trail in his state of New Hampshire. | |
The 16-year-old wrote that he was removed from two events held by GOP | |
presidential candidates. | |
“My experiences are just part of a disturbing trend. — | |
discouraging active participation from students and rousing fear of | |
litigation.” | |
“I plan to do my part by practicing amateur journalism anywhere I | |
can. I want to encourage my generation to participate in the process, | |
to take their seats and to ask the questions that politicians seem most | |
eager to avoid. It’s our legacy, right and responsibility.” | |
Don’t miss | |
Sara Stewart: | |
Robert M. Lee: | |
Denise Rucker Krepp: | |
Jill Filipovic: | |
AND… | |
Airline point deflation | |
Does it seem like your airline points are worth less now? Ganesh� | |
Sitaraman and William J. McGee looked at the evidence. | |
“To many flyers, point systems seem terrific, and their logic simple: | |
They are like the punch card at a cafe where your 11th coffee is | |
free. … ” | |
“How much are your points worth?” That’s a difficult question to | |
answer, partly because some airlines are no longer posting redemption | |
charts, according to Sitaraman and McGee. | |
“This lack of transparency means that airlines can change the value | |
of points anytime they want. And if an airline drops the value of the | |
points, that means that passengers effectively pay more in points for | |
flights. Indeed, a recent survey found that, since 2019, the prices | |
of airline rewards have increased faster than the rate of inflation, | |
even as the benefits of rewards have decreased.” | |
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