Libertarian: Joe’s Goalpost Shifts on Schools
President Biden’s vow to reopen schools after 100 days had plenty of “wiggle room,” yet Reason’s Matt Welch wasn’t quite ready for the “tectonic” goalpost-shifting since then. The president now says teachers can’t return without massive new funding. And, as Sen. Mitch McConnell notes, “the goalpost-moving doesn’t stop with money.” Unions sought to “elbow toward the front of the line for vaccinations — only to turn around and say, Thanks for those vaccines, but don’t think these will necessarily get our folks back in the classroom anytime soon.” Meanwhile, an Associated Press headline this week warns, “Schools Plan for Potential of Remote Learning Into the Fall.” Welch warns: “Millions of us parents who want no such thing are making other plans of our own.”
From the right: The Illiberal Liberals
With “the institutions that are supposed to be the most committed to liberalism rapidly becoming the institutions that are the least committed to liberalism,” we’re losing “practices that have built, sustained and improved our remarkable society for generations,” argues National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke. “Why did The New York Times become an unbearable workplace for someone as moderate and open-minded as Bari Weiss?” Because its “haranguing” staff “put pressure on their bosses and all but took over the joint.” That’s the same reason Twitter banned ex-President Donald Trump and Amazon ejected Parler. “Behavior breeds behavior,” and each time, “our hard-won customs are damaged a little more.”
GOP consultant: Biden Passes on Unity
President Biden is passing on the chance to work with Senate Republicans on the next relief bill, Adam Goodman laments at The Hill. Yet the GOP’s $618 billion proposal differs “in detail but not intent” from Biden’s $1.9 trillion package. Both sides “agreed that fast relief to cash-starved individuals and job-threatened businesses was imperative,” and “both provide a major shot of economic adrenalin for tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of businesses.” But Democrats are digging in their heels on $1,400 checks to individuals (vs. Republicans’ $1,000) and other outlays. This refusal to find middle ground is “a bloody shame, given what this could have been and would have meant to Americans wearied by nearly a year of COVID and decades of political stubbornness.”
NGO watch: Beware ‘Civil Society’
The activist nonprofits known as nongovernmental organizations clamor for “privileged access to decision-makers” — without merit, warns Roslyn Fuller at Spiked Online. In reality, “small, member-driven, self-funded NGOs are relatively rare”; most are tools for “a wealthy few.” Take eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar, whose philanthropic influence spreads across a vast network, from anti-Trump outfits like Defending Democracy Together to journalistic fellowships and foundations at elite universities. These, in turn, fund a constellation of other groups supposedly committed, for example, to fighting “disinformation.” This assumes that “their information is the correct information, while “other information . . . must be tightly patrolled.” The maze of outfits promotes “intellectual dishonesty aimed at making it appear that one centralized opinion is coming from many different sources” that are really “little more than the sock-puppets these very organizations complain about so much.”
Conservative: Exposing the Lincoln Project
At The Washington Times, Tim Young wonders how the Lincoln Project still exists, when “merely scratching the surface of the organization’s spending and the characters involved would make anyone — even the most ardent Trump hater — turn and run.” It funneled more than $52 million through its founders’ firms, and even “when they’re not pocketing cash, they’re busy being some of the most blatant hypocrites in American politics.” They know that “a successful grift” must move on “to the next big bogeymen in order to keep the money flowing in,” so Lincoln shifted to “canceling businesses and corporations who support Senate Republicans.” That isn’t working well yet, but “a business competitor of one of the targeted corporations” may “drop a few extra dollars into their pockets to try to score some points in the market.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
