Editor-in-chief: David Suissa
May 3, 2022
A leaked draft of a majority decision from the Supreme Court reveals that the Court will almost certainly overturn Roe v Wade-the legal precedent which guarantees the right to abortion-next month. More at Axios.
The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.
The draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., was obtained by Politico Monday night in an unprecedented leak from the nation’s highest court, elevating a cultural issue that has long carried heavy emotional and personal weight to the forefront of Americans’ minds.
A reversal of Roe would leave abortion policy up to individual states and would likely produce a patchwork system where the procedure would remain largely available in Democratic-led states, while Republican-led states would pass extreme limits or outright bans on it.
President Biden has announced that he will soon make a decision on whether to move forward with a plan to forgive student debt. More at NBC.
…millions of borrowers can’t or don’t want to repay their loans, so President Biden says he may cancel their debt. The taxpayers who repaid their loans or didn’t go to college will pay instead.
…it makes economic sense: Relief from student debt would help young people buy homes, build wealth and otherwise grow our economy.
…perhaps the most important limit on forgiving federal loans is our evolving political culture, which has become split between those who want more from their government at no expense vs. those who want less and want to rely on themselves as responsible adults.
Russian diplomat Sergey Levrov was asked how it is possible that Russia wants to “de-Nazify” Ukraine when Ukraine’s leader is Jewish. Lavrov responded saying that Hitler was Jewish too. More at BBC.
There is no historical proof of Hitler’s supposed Jewish heritage, but conspiracy theories that emerged before World War II have occasionally resurfaced this century. These theories generally arise from the fact that Hitler’s father was born out of wedlock and we do not know who his paternal grandfather was.
If nothing else, it signals how desperate Russia has been to explain its invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign nation it has partly occupied since 2014.
While neither an apology from Lavrov nor a dramatic turnabout in the Israeli-Russian relations are expected, all eyes are on Russia to acknowledge Israel’s request for clarity and apologize.
In a controversial editorial, the Harvard Crimson-the student newspaper of Harvard University-has endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement against Israel.
It is a reflection not of a few members of the editorial board of this prestigious student-run newspaper, but rather a growing sentiment among young people in America and beyond.
Calling for a BDS campaign to be unleashed against Israel demands that, among the many and various calamitous examples of human strife and suffering occurring around the world, Harvard should focus on and commit to denouncing only one: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The problem is that the editorial board does not seem to have a clue what “Palestinian liberation” or BDS really mean. If they did, it is hard to believe they would really support it, because both Palestinian liberation and BDS really mean only one thing: no Jewish state.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in response to Disney’s criticism of his “don’t say gay” policies for Florida schools, has revoked Disney’s special tax status, which granted the amusement park a degree of autonomy in the state. Here are three takes on the political meaning of this showdown:
…right-wing antipathy to just about every American establishment that doesn’t employ cops, priests, or soldiers is real and growing. That’s how you wind up with DeSantis, a pro-business conservative, beating up on Disney, the largest business in his state. He is acting out the anti-institutional impulses of his base.
The grateful support and loud blowback are both predictable. Fatigue runs high among Americans who have absorbed years of stories featuring corporate executives deciding to line up with social justice warriors, caring not a whit about the resulting alienation of millions of customers.
…what does this tell us about a possible GOP future? Well, on multiple fronts, the Republican Party is growing much more inclined to use state power to fight the culture wars, well beyond just DeSantis.
At the Met Gala, Hollywood’s richest and most famous display their high fashion for the world to see. At a time of political strife and income inequality, is this display of wealth “tone deaf?”
the met gala is happening again already, and this years theme is straight flexing. it’s gilded glamour. at a time when wealth inequality has passed gilded age levels, they’ve gone fully mask off lmao.
Just looking at the #MetGala pics from last night and while some of the outfits are glorious and it’s nice to see big events back, I can’t also help feeling that procession of enormous wealth, and the “Gilded Era” theme, is just horribly jarring and cloth-eared at the moment.
Don’t have strong feelings on the Met Gala but everyone I know who scoffs about how it’s a distraction from the important issues pays less attention to those issues than the people I know who livetweet it