What Happened Today: March 11, 2022
Gas prices to the moon; Facebook cool with death threats; Israel’s battle with Russia
The Big Story
The consumer price index (CPI), a broad measurement of the cost of products and services, has hit the highest level in 40 years, while the average nationwide cost of gasoline reached $4.25 a gallon, an all-time record that breaks the previous high of $4.10 in 2008, on the eve of the Great Recession. With the CPI soaring and inflation continuing to tick up, economists have begun to raise the specter of a new recession. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tried to temper the pessimists in an interview this morning with CNBC, pointing to the strength of the job market as to why she believes that while “inflation is a problem, and it’s one that we need to address,” a recession isn’t something to fear, though she did caution inflation would be “uncomfortably high” for the next 12 months.
Recession or not, gas prices are poised to only go up for the time being, with some anticipating a national average of $5 a gallon as prices in places like California, where gas taxes are high, reach eight bucks a gallon at the pumps. During his visit earlier this week to Texas, President Biden was honest when he said “can’t do much right now” to questions about gas prices, though less accurate when he added “Russia is responsible.” Indeed, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has accelerated existing problems that led to the price spike, with Western sanctions stoking worldwide export costs on oil and gas, but just like the runaway CPI, the cause is a perfect storm of pandemic supply chain woes, labor shortages and, now, with new price spikes because of the war, more kindling for the inflationary fire. White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters today, as if in possession of a magic wand, that high consumer prices are just “temporary, and not long-lasting”—not exactly comforting words for lower-income households who have to spend more of their money to cover basic expenses.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/us-inflation-consumer-price-index-february-2022-11646857681
In the Back Pages, The Weekend Read: When Israel Went to War Against Russia
The Rest
→ BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh gives some more detail on Russia’s effort this week to discredit reports of its bombing of a children and women’s maternity hospital in the port city of Mariupol. In this Twitter thread, he breaks down the Russian embassy in the UK’s dissemination of propaganda about how the victims appearing in videos and images at the hospital were Ukraine crisis actors. Ukraine officials said this afternoon that the death toll was 1,582 civilians in Mariupol alone, with heavy bombing from Russian forces continuing and no viable escape routes for residents trying to flee. Despite the ongoing shelling, city workers and residents have managed to bury some of the victims in mass graves on the city outskirts.
→ One of the pregnant mothers accused of being a crisis actor in the photos of the maternity ward bombing has given birth to a baby girl, the Associated Press reported today.
→ Though the overwhelming majority of American Jews responded to a Ruderman Family Foundation survey in 2020 that they identified as “pro-Israel”—8 in 10, to be precise—along with two-thirds who said they felt emotionally attached or very attached to Israel, the USA director of Amnesty International told a conference group on Wednesday that the feelings and beliefs of the poll respondents didn’t jive with his conception of what it means to be Jewish. “I actually don’t believe that to be true,” Paul O’Brien said about the survey, explaining that for the Jews who’ve failed to properly understand their own existence, or for those who didn’t agree with his view that Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state,” he was optimistic they’d come around. “I think they can be convinced over time that the key to sustainability is to adhere to what I see as core Jewish values, which are to be principled and fair and just in creating [a safe Jewish] space.” The thing we misguided ethnics need to understand, explained Mr. O’Brien helpfully, is that Israel just needs to be less like Israel and not so Jewish. It’s really very simple.
→ The already high-stakes midterm elections are looking a little more difficult for Democrats since the Democratic Socialists of America came out with its controversial statement at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling for the United States “to withdraw from NATO and to end the imperialist expansion that set the stage for this conflict.” Rebuked at the time by a wide swath of the Democratic Party who saw the statement as unsupportive of the Ukrainian position, moderate Democratic candidates have turned the anti-NATO screed into a political cudgel, with past DSA endorsements now becoming a liability for progressive Democratic candidates. In a New York Times request to discuss the DSA statement, nine New York City Democrats with DSA endorsements declined to participate. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the DSA-endorsed congressman from New York’s 16th district, has distanced himself from the DSA’s position. “I support NATO and will continue to do so during this crisis,” he wrote recently in a statement, hoping to diffuse the attack coming from his primary opponents.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/nyregion/dsa-nato-ukraine-russia.html
→ Have you heard the one about what happened to the teenager who went off to college? It goes something like this: They come in as kids and they leave as maladaptive adults who weren’t taught to think critically or communicate clearly and now suffer from a lack of curiosity. That, at least, is the conclusion of a new 10-year, 400-page study of postsecondary education in the United States written by two Harvard researchers. Based on more than 2000 interviews—half with students from a range of academic institutions and the rest with alums, faculty, administrators, and parents—the report found that while colleges are successfully imparting the importance of finding a job, students are not being encouraged to become thoughtful or analytic. They’re also not required to read; the authors found that, when asked to name a book they’d recommend, many students could not do so, and most of those who did recommended texts typically read in high school, such as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye.
Read more (paywall): https://www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/how-americas-broken-undergraduate-education-system-can-be-fixed
→ Calls for violence are out of bounds only if you’re hurling your threat at improper targets, says Meta Corporation, in a new clarification of its hate speech policy for Facebook and Instagram users that allows those on the platform to call for the death of Russian soldiers or public officials. The temporary policy change, which Reuters reported based on internal Meta emails, specifies that users cannot coordinate the deaths of Russian soldiers or leaders but can freely and publicly post ill wishes. People can also take to social media to praise Ukraine’s right-wing and neo-Nazi Azov Battalion—but “strictly in the context of defending Ukraine,” a company spokesperson clarified. These changes are reserved for users living in countries near Russia, and it is unclear whether they apply to Ukrainian nationals living overseas. After learning of Meta’s new rules, Russia sought to designate the company as an “extremist organisation.” This is not the first time Meta has temporarily redefined hate speech. This past summer, users were given a two-week window to post “Death to Khamenei” before that phrase was banned as hate speech once again.
→ Just as the crime is frequently overshadowed by the cover-up, the remarkable element of most scandals is what the scandalous managed to put into writing. See, for example, the latest batch of emails about college donations from wealthy parents of student applicants that have been revealed in a recent court filing from a Varsity Blues college-admissions fraud trial. Sent between University of Southern California fundraising staff and the top brass of the athletic department, the messages reveal in plain language the moral void and pure greed driving today’s college admissions. “Will be at least a $1 million ask if we get her in,” one USC fundraising staffer wrote to an athletic director in 2013, adding that “they’re like the Anheuser Busch family $$$$” about the parents of a prospective student athlete. “We shouldn’t get the student a job until we get a gift first,” the staffer wrote to the athletic director in a 2016 email about another student who had been admitted. In that exchange, the staffer was concerned the student’s wealthy family might “screw us on a gift.”
→ Check out The Tab, Tablet magazine’s new printable weekly digest. This week’s edition brings you Ukrainian aliyah, Afghan refugees in North Carolina, and Purim. Plus, a special bonus: Joan Nathan’s Chosen Hamantaschen recipe. Get your copy at tabletm.ag/tab.
→ In the wire report last night summarizing the sentencing in the tragic-lite case of Jussie Smollett, the semi-known actor who perpetrated an elaborate hate-crime hoax in 2019, the AP writer in Chicago pulled no punches: “A judge sentenced Jussie Smollett to 150 days in jail, branding the Black and gay actor a narcissistic charlatan for staging a hate crime against himself to grab the limelight while the nation struggled with wrenching issues of racial injustice. Smollett responded by defiantly maintaining his innocence and suggesting he could be killed in jail.” Along with serving the county jail time, Smollett must pay the maximum $25,000 fine and $120,106 in restitution to the city of Chicago, but as the judge told Smollett during the hearing, “The damage you’ve done to yourself is way beyond anything else than can happen to you from me.”
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/jussie-smollett-sentencing-live-updates-dca736b72447363711dbda548f13d79d
→ Stat of the day: In a new Upwork analysis of the American workforce, nearly 19 million Americans say they plan to move for remote work. Of those relocating to a more desirable destination, 28% are moving a distance that’s more than four hours away.
→ HBO is out with its new series Winning Time, a probably fine drama starring John C. Reilly, Adrien Brody, and Gaby Hoffman that documents the rise of the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s and the dynasty they built around Magic Johnson. Ushering in a new era of wealth and celebrity, Johnson battled for championships primarily against the Celtics and their star Larry Bird. Magic’s legacy as one of the greatest guards ever to run a fast break is secure, and Bird will go down as one of the top pure shooters in the modern era. Less often celebrated is Bird’s uncanny ability to pass the ball, which is on full display here:
When Israel Went to War Against Russia
The Russian jets burning on the desert sands illuminated a momentous fact: Israel had gone to war against Russia.
It was 1970, and Israeli leaders were worried. Soviet jets had begun patrolling the Suez Canal to discourage Israeli air strikes against Moscow’s Cold War ally Egypt. The events of that hot, violent summer should give pause to today’s Israeli government that’s forced to choose between supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression—and antagonizing a Russian government whose aircraft and missiles in Syria could threaten Israeli air operations.
In the drama of Middle Eastern conflict, the characters change, but the plot does not. Just 50 years ago, Israel’s mortal enemy wasn’t Iran, but Egypt. Humiliated by the disastrous defeat of the 1967 Six-Day War, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser chose to neither make peace nor risk engaging Israel in open battle. Instead, Egypt launched constant artillery barrages and commando raids on Israeli garrisons on the east bank of the Suez Canal, in an attempt to wear down Israeli morale without triggering full-scale war.
For Israel, the War of Attrition of 1967-70 was a death by a thousand cuts that the casualty-conscious Israeli public could not be expected to endure. But Israel had a weapon of its own: the elite Israeli Air Force (IAF) could strike deep inside Egypt without risking Israeli boots on the ground. Newly equipped with American F-4 Phantom and A-4 Skyhawk jets, Israel launched its own regular retaliation raids against Egyptian military and industrial targets.
And that’s how a local conflict brought Israel into direct combat with the Soviet Union.
Read the rest of the Weekend Read by Michael Peck here:
Could you sound less enthusiastic about war, as in article "When Israel Went to War Against Russia." Even our narratives about the heroic necessity of WWII promote war and are full of --it.. Please don't slip into cheering war on, for any reason. It's not a slippery slope, it's dangerous and i'm sure, false to your values.