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from Defense News
A summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin is in the works for this summer in a third country to get the tense relationship “on a more stable, predictable path,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday. Sullivan said at the Aspen Security Forum that he held a call with his Russian counterpart Friday morning and that the two sides were actively looking for a venue. He added that Biden is looking forward to personally engaging Putin. The comments come days after Russia’s defense minister ordered troops back to their permanent bases following massive drills amid tensions with Ukraine, but said they should leave their weapons behind in western Russia for another exercise later this year. Sullivan reiterated U.S. backing for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization
This week, the Idaho legislature passed a bill preventing critical race theory from being taught in the state’s public schools and universities. But while this may seem like a move in the right direction, we need to be careful. When we give governments the power to dictate classroom content, there’s no guarantee they’ll use it the way we want them to. No matter how good our intentions are, government involvement in education is bound to create political struggles and choose winners and losers.
The nation is gripped with a public health crisis, but apparently, the bureaucrats over at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) think what we really ought to be focusing on right now is banning menthol-flavored cigarettes. Their justification? “Banning menthol—the last allowable flavor—in cigarettes and banning all flavors in cigars will help save lives, particularly among those disproportionately affected by these deadly products,” Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said. “With these actions, the FDA will help significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers, and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ+ individuals, all of whom are far more likely to use these tobacco products.” There are a few major problems with this ban and the paternalistic thinking that underlies it. 1. Adults Should Be Able to Make Consumption Choices for Themselves; 2. Banning Popular Products Will Create Dangerous Black Markets; 3. More Bans Mean More Law Enforcement Crackdowns and Over-Policing of Black Neighborhoods.
As much as Biden seems to draw on FDR’s legacy, his knowledge of his positions seems to have one glaring omission. FDR was opposed to public sector unions. Public sector unions are having a moment in the spotlight, and not in a good way. Their actions over the past year have incurred ire from all political directions. Many Americans have become aware of the role police unions play in protecting bad apples, blocking popular criminal justice reforms, and preventing transparency as extrajudicial killings and the resulting protests have demanded attention on our justice system. And across the nation, millions of families have been harmed by teachers’ unions who in many states played a significant role in keeping schools locked down—often for overtly political reasons.
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from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California
The History Of Killing
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from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California
The History Of Killing
During the week in which this column was drafted, renewed fighting, replete with atrocities, spread in Darfur; in Mozambique, Islamist fanatics continued to kill fellow Muslims; in Chad, the ethno-religious conflict worsened; the Chinese government continued to torture Uighurs; the Taliban welcomed the prospect of an American withdrawal with fresh attacks; and deadly eruptions pocked the Middle East. In other words, humanity continues to be human. Our inability to confront brutal realities with even a hint of honesty immediately summons the all-American myth that religious conflicts have nothing to do with religion and ethnic violence can be quelled forever through progress and reason. In other words, history has nothing to teach us: We know better.
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from HumanProgress.org
Education Website
Our twenty-seventh Center of Progress is Hong Kong during its rapid free-market transformation in the 1960s. After a lengthy struggle with poverty, war and disease, the city managed to rise to prosperity through classical liberal policies.
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from Modern War Institute
Educational Research Center
In the opening days of the Iraq invasion in 2003, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld infamously quipped, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” The offhand remark ignited indignation, but the United States had the Army it wanted. This Army won in the opening days of the Iraq War and excelled in the preferred American way of war—high-intensity combat underpinned by cutting-edge technology. But this style of warfare is infrequent and brief. Despite the US military’s institutional preference on preparing for conventional conflict, irregular warfare (IW) remains the most prevalent form of warfare since 1945. This trend shows no signs of change in the twenty-first century. The United States cannot opt out of these messy wars, and must be ready for irregular warfare in the conflicts of the future. Unfortunately, the United States’ primary force for irregular warfare, the US Army, is anything but prepared.
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How should the Church respond to race?
Last week the Archbishops’ Anti-Racism Taskforce published its report ‘From Lament to Action’ proposing a suite of changes to begin bringing about a change of culture in the life of the Church of England. A draft version of the report came to the Archbishops’ Council, so we knew the main proposals it would include. It is well produced, and offers a sense of urgent call to action, but not all have welcomed its approach, including minority ethnic members of the Church of England. The sense of urgency was reinforced by a Panorama programme last Monday, featuring members of the group who produced the report.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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