Craig Cheslog’s thoughts about politics, sports, and other stuff.
David Pell urges us to keep the central issue in mind even as we try to hold law enforcement accountable for its lies and failures in Uvalde.
This is not a story about doors. It’s not a story about cellphones in schools. It’s not a story about the evasive Uvalde police chief. This is a story about America placing a greater value on being able to buy machines designed to kill really fast than we do on the lives of our children. Don’t lose the plot.
Molly Jung-Fast writes about the need for Democrats to do something in the wake of the recent gun massacres.
In her Wait, What? newsletter, she quotes Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman making an essential observation:
“At a time when the other side has basically declared war on reality, and is willing to lie about something as fundamental as who won an election, it’s important that Democrats not only call out the BS, but take a stand and don’t back down from a fight. When the stakes are this high, we need more Democrats who are clear and confident about what we believe, refuse to apologize for it, and don’t run away scared every time Republicans call us names.”
I’d love it if Democrats started fighting. Results can’t be guaranteed, but it would be great if we could see some fight and passion from our elected leaders.
Tom Nichols explains in his Peacefield newsletter how the United States has lost so much of its nuclear weapon planning capacity since the end of the Cold War. This is a real challenge now that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has at least rhetorically put their use on the table during his Ukrainian invasion.
As Nichols explains:
The fall of the Soviet Union changed many things, but in nuclear matters it changed almost nothing. The missiles and their warheads remained where they were. They continue to wait in silent service. The crews in silos, submarines, and bombers now consist of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the people who built the first nuclear weapons and created the plans for their use. And yet for years we have conducted international politics as if we have somehow solved the problem of nuclear war.
Of course, we haven’t. If we ever see more peaceful times again, we shouldn’t again mistake ignoring these issues. Hopefully, we can survive the inevitable escalations or mistakes that a crisis such as the current one will create.
The Ukrainian Men’s National Soccer Team defeated Scotland 3-1 and advances to play Wales with the winner going to the 2022 World Cup.
In love Scotland, but this is another powerful moment for a country that needs all the support it can get.
David Pell makes a vital point in his NextDraft newsletter today when discussing the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre:
The delayed reaction by the police is part of the exact same problem that led to the shooting in the first place: The fact that anyone can walk into a gun store and acquire a ridiculous amount of firepower. If a gun is powerful enough paralyze armored cops with fear, it’s too powerful to be sold.
Don Moynihan examines how a fake news story became a viral conservative hit in his latest Can We Still Govern? substack.
A network of partisan conservative websites pushed a story that falsely claimed that a school district was going to require teachers to adjust their grading scales to account for the ethnicity of their students.
Moynihan examines how the story spread, the organizations behind that, and some of the famous people who spread the lie without checking its veracity. As Moynihan writes:
“When you give the benefit of the doubt to partisan fake news rather than professional educators, it is hard to take the whole “I’m here to defend education” bit too seriously.”
