Offering asides, recommended links, blogworthy quotations, and more, In Brief is the Northwest Progressive Institute's microblog of world, national, and local politics.
“Scientists studying one of Greenland’s largest glaciers say it is melting far faster than expected in its most vulnerable region, a worrying sign that glaciers perched in the ocean could contribute to sea level rise more quickly than currently forecast,” The Washington Post’s Chris Mooney reports.
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“The Coast Guard is the first line of defense against a massive tsunami. Will it also be an early victim?” Freelance writer Eric Scigliano attempted to answer that question for Politico.
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Via The Washington Post: “The [right wing] Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based think tank and lobbying group, drafted state legislation to strip child workplace protections, emails show.”
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“Book bans, gassed up by state legislation pushed by conservative officials and groups, are stacking up at an alarming rate,” The Los Angeles Times reports.
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“Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse is a function of the Fed rate spike, and will surely trigger calls for its well-heeled tech and venture capital clients to get a bailout,” David Dayen writes.
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A must-read from Politico: “A first-ever oral history of how top U.S. and Western officials saw the warning signs of a European land war, their frantic attempts to stop it — and the moment Putin actually crossed the border.”
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“It has been widely forgotten, but soon after taking office Ronald Reagan proposed major cuts to Social Security. But he backed down in the face of a political backlash, leading analysts at the Cato Institute to call for a ‘Leninist’ strategy — their word — creating a coalition ready to exploit a future crisis if and when one arrived,” Paul Krugman writes.
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“When it comes to keeping kids from reading much, if at all, DeSantis’ policy is a smashing success,” writes Amanda Marcotte. “He’s established the idea that no student should ever be allowed to just grab a book and read on their own.”
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“We don’t deserve to be shoved back into poorly ventilated workplaces while our politicians and press assure us that only crazy people would demand to breathe clean air,” writes Julia Doubleday.
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“After the chaos of the first week of the 118th Congress, many Americans wondered: If it took them 15 ballots just to choose a speaker, how could Republicans possibly govern? Now we know. They are going to govern by fantasy and legislate on the basis of fiction,” Dana Milbank writes.
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Izzie Ramirez of Vox on how the cult of consumerism ushered in an era of badly made products.
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Recently elected Republicans are ready to fire up the base with anger over billions spent to protect allies overseas.
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“As Corporate America prepares for a possible recession in 2023, companies big and small are axing thousands of positions amid the holidays,” Taylor Telford reports.
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“Has the worst of the pandemic-induced inflation already passed? The latest economic data released this week suggest so. That leaves Republicans in a quandary,” Jennifer Rubin writes.
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“Committee Chairman Representative Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, expects the panel to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, he told reporters Tuesday.”
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“Experts say their dominance in the party poses a threat to the country’s democratic principles and jeopardizes the integrity of future votes,” Amy Gardner reports for The Washington Post.
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“In phone calls to friends and relatives at home, Russian soldiers gave damning insider accounts of battlefield failures and civilian executions, excoriating their leaders just weeks into the campaign to take Kyiv.,” The New York Times reports.
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“Atlanta Vintage Books is one of hundreds of independent bookstores across the country that have celebrated the freedom to read this week at a time when schools, universities and public libraries face what experts say are unprecedented attempts to ban or restrict reading materials,” NPR reports.
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Robert Cruickshank of Washington’s Paramount Duty argues that the Legislature’s response to the McCleary education funding lawsuit fell far short of providing the ample funding for public schools that the Washington State Constitution requires.
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“Migrants in the group said they’d agreed to fly to Massachusetts on the promise of jobs and assistance but didn’t realize they were bound for Martha’s Vineyard. No one on the island knew they were coming and, according to their attorneys, they’d been given falsified U.S. addresses by immigration officials, perhaps ensuring that they’d be deemed in the country illegally,” Miami Herald Political Reporter Bianca Padró Ocasio reports.
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Eastside For All’s Debbie Lacy, Complete Streets Bellevue’s Chris Randels, and the Housing Development Consortium’s Patience Malaba joined NPI’s Andrew Villeneuve on Monday, September 12th to unveil the initial findings of the August 2022 Bellevue housing poll commissioned by NPI and the Bellevue Housing Research Coalition.
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