From the left: Journalism’s Not About ‘Unity’
“ ‘Building consensus’ may be a politician’s job, but it’s not mine,” thundered Racket News’ Matt Taibbi in congressional testimony this week. He took aim at John Kerry, quoting the former climate envoy’s speech before the World Economic Forum, when he complained that “‘it’s really hard to govern’ because ‘people self-select where they go for their news.’ ” “What’s next”? Letting people “make up their own minds?” “Many Americans are in an uproar now because they learned about over $400 million going to an organization called Internews,” whose leader has spoken about journalism’s aim to build unity around a set of ideas like the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine. But “the press doesn’t exist to promote ‘unity’ or political goals.” “That’s propaganda, not journalism.”
Culture critic: Porn’s Total Takeover
A Super Bowl ad for breast-cancer awareness featuring “up-close parade of gleamy-creamy jiggling breasts” proves that “the total pornification of culture is complete,” frets Valerie Stivers at UnHerd. “Porn is unstoppable.” Female readers are obsessed with Romantasy, a genre that slips into graphic descriptions of penetrations and orgasms every few chapters. For young men, there’s “rap music” in which “everything is sexualized, and none of it means a thing.” “The logical endgame of the sexual revolution has been to turn sex into a recreational activity,” which has ultimately resulted in “porn’s tropes” being exported “into the mainstream.” The consequences? “A loneliness epidemic,” a “generation of oversexualized teens” who are “having less sex” and “an increasing prevalence of porn-addiction and erectile dysfunction” in young men.
Foreign desk: Starmer’s a Danger to the US
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plan to hand Mauritius control of the Chagos Islands “would pose great strategic threats to the U.S.,” warns Dominic Green at The Wall Street Journal. Chagos hosts a joint UK-US air and naval base so crucial is it called the “Footprint of Freedom.” And “Mauritius is friendly with China,” which could well use the opportunity to militarize the Chagos with surveillance tech and anti-aircraft weaponry. Starmer and the Labour Party “are waving a white flag on America’s behalf” — “this is not how a friendly government behaves.” The deal was a Joe Biden brainchild; it’s also part of a “decolonization” plan foisted on the UK by an international court. President Trump should outright oppose it, and remind “Labour where Britain’s interests lie.”
From the right: A Maestro of Corruption
National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar grumbles that the recent conviction of Mike Madigan, once America’s “longest-serving state legislative leader,” comes “far too late for the people of Illinois who suffered under him for 40 years.” “He was nominally just a humble legislator on a pittance of an official salary” — total “codswallop,” since he “was also the name partner at his own private law firm, Madigan & Getzendanner, which just so happened to offer expensive tax-policy advice and ‘lobbying’ to clients.” “For 40 years, Mike Madigan practically was Illinois politics — the man everything had to be run through”; “the nexus for bribery, fraud, and extortion is obvious.” No, he didn’t turn the “state of Illinois into one enormous pay-to-play Democratic governance scheme.” But he “brought it to its apotheosis.”
Ed beat: Our Schools Have Failed
“When William graduated high school in 2024 in Clarksville, Tennessee, he couldn’t read the words on his diploma,” reports The Free Press’ Frannie Block. “That’s why William sued his school district.” Now “a federal appeals court sided” with him. “William’s teachers were aware of the problem, but they did nothing to solve it,” and he got “high marks on his classwork throughout his entire four years of high school, even though teachers knew he was illiterate.” Small wonder that “national standardized tests show that American kids’ proficiency in reading and math is at the lowest level in thirty years” thanks to grade inflation. And good on this kid: His “lawsuit exposes how this phenomenon impacts some of our country’s most vulnerable students.
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
