Education watch: Teachers Union’s Big Spending
America’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, continues to spend big on politics. At Dropout Nation, Rishawn Biddle sums up the news from the NEA’s 2015-16 financial disclosure. “NEA spent $138 million on lobbying and contributions to supposedly likeminded organizations” — a 5.3 percent jump over the year before. It sent $12.2 million to its pet super-PAC, which used the funds for things like an unsuccessful fight to keep Republicans from winning control of Kentucky’s Legislature. The union also richly rewards its execs: “NEA’s top three leaders collected $1.4 million in 2015-2016, a 17 percent increase.”
From the left: Give Trump’s Plan a Chance
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s criticism of Donald Trump’s plans for infrastructure spending is misplaced, writes Stony Brook professor Noah Smith at Bloomberg View. Yellen warns that spending too much on infrastructure could cause inflation and limit the federal government’s ability to use fiscal stimulus in a recession. Yet America’s aging infrastructure can’t wait, Smith notes, calling on Trump critics to give the president-elect a chance. Trump, he argues, would take advantage of low interest rates to cut blue-collar unemployment. Yet Trump’s plan to use tax credits and an infrastructure bank “wouldn’t be enough, on its own, to fulfill domestic spending needs”: Making America’s infrastructure great again will require substantial government spending.
TV critic: America 2016 Needs ‘This Is Us’
America needs feel-good after Election 2016 — and Slate’s David Canfield says the answer is “This Is Us.” The NBC hit stars Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia and Sterling K. Brown. The show’s trailer, Canfield says, “cannily tugged on the heartstrings and offered a touch of mystery, too. Its tagline alone was enough to well the eyes: ‘This is real. This is love. This Is Us.’ ” Since its September debut, the show has raked in nearly 10 million live viewers each weekAnd feeling manipulated never felt so good. Canfield calls it “the ideal escapist show for 2016”: For all of “the sappy monologues and quippy dialogue, the blatant manipulations and contrivances,” he says, “somehow it works.” Feeling manipulated never felt so good. The show provides a glimpse into “goodness and perseverance” — and who doesn’t want to watch that?
Terror chronicler: Ohio Attack Out of ISIS Playbook
The horrific stabbing-and-car attack by Abdul Razak Ali Artan at Ohio State University looks like a textbook ISIS plot — literally, observes Robin Wright at The New Yorker. Last month, special issue of ISIS’s official online magazine focused on knife attacks — possibly drawing on a September incident when another Somali immigrant stabbed 10 people at a Minnesota mall. And the Ohio State attack’s timing “echoed ISIS instructions. Artan struck on the first day of school after Thanksgiving — but not during the Michigan-Ohio State football game, two days earlier, which brought a hundred thousand people to a central venue in Columbus. When acting alone, ISIS advised, “the target should be a smaller crowd . . . as such attacks are proven to inflict terror.”
From the right: Yes, Voter Fraud Exists
The media is “incredulous” over Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud, notes John Lott at the Daily Caller, yet illegal votes have “mattered in plenty of elections” — and fraud still occurs today. Lott cites Lyndon Johnson’s 1948 election to the Senate, John Kennedy’s 1960 presidential win and Al Franken’s 2010 Senate victory as examples where voter fraud likely tilted the results. More recently, suspicious ballots have turned up in California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia and North Carolina in the past two months alone. Problems could’ve been avoided “if voters had to register in-person with a valid photo ID,” he argues. And, evidence has linked voter IDs to increased turnout, and none backs up lefty claims that they “disproportionately harmed minorities, the poor, or the elderly.” There’s a “cost to voter fraud,” observes Lott — and news reports saying there’s no evidence of it are “clearly false.”