Political analyst: Fake News Didn’t Sway the Election
Probes into Russian meddling in the 2016 election are likely to look at the impact of bogus news stories, says T. Becket Adams in the Washington Examiner. But a new Stanford and New York University study shows that “fake news didn’t actually sway the election.” Social media “was an important but not dominant source of news,” the study found. “Even the most widely circulated fake news stories were seen by only a relatively small number of Americans,” most probably “rabid partisans.” For fake news to have changed the outcome, “they would probably need to have convinced about 0.7 percent of all Clinton supporters and non-voters who saw it.” That’s “equivalent to what theoretically happens when voters see 36 television campaign ads.”
Vote counter: It’s Not Really a Republican Congress
Following November’s election, House Speaker Paul Ryan welcomed a “unified Republican government.” But, as the failure of the GOP health-care bill shows, he “seemed to see a much bigger victory than the GOP had actually won,” says Russell Berman in The Atlantic. Truth is, Republicans don’t have enough seats in Congress, especially if they plan to exclude Democrats in legislation. When the House OK’d ObamaCare, Berman notes, it was “despite opposition from 34 Democrats. Republicans could have survived no more than 22 defections on the American Health Care Act,” and were 10 to 15 votes short. The GOP’s majority, Berman says, is “shakier than it once seemed.”
Social critic: Beware of College Administrators
College administrators — particularly at community colleges, staffed mainly by part-time instructors with limited job security — can do much damage, warns Jonathan Marks at Commentary. He cites the case of Nathaniel Bork, a part-time professor at Colorado’s Community College of Aurora, who questioned the school’s “Gateway to Success” initiative, meant to boost students’ pass rate. Bork said its requirements — less course content and shorter page maximums for papers — would harm students: “We’ll be graduating people who think they’ve received a college education, but in reality have only done high school work.” Bork was soon subjected to a class observation (the school says it was coincidental timing) and dismissed, without even a chance to improve. Asks Marks, “Who will hold administrators with bad ideas to account?
From the left: ‘Buy American’ Won’t Be So Easy
In one of his first tweets as president, Trump vowed to “BUY AMERICAN & HIRE AMERICAN!” Yet, notes ProPublica’s T. Christian Miller, US trade law has “opened the doors for firms from Mexico, El Salvador and other free-trade treaty countries to supply big-ticket items” for his signature project — the Mexican wall. And it’s “emblematic of the larger problems he will face” in trying to carry out his “America First” agenda. “The U.S. has made promises over the years in trade deals, and foreign countries and companies can seek to enforce them,” Miller says. Why make such deals? So that US companies will be able “to compete in bidding sponsored by other national governments.” Yes, Trump could simply ignore the deals. But that, says Miller, “would invite a trade war.”
Culture watch: TSA’s New Grounds for Fear of Flying
The Washington Post’s Petula Dvorak recounts two troubling encounters with TSA agents. In one, 65-year-old Evelyn Harris was subjected to “an experience that a court might consider a sexual assault” as she tried to board a flight while wearing a panty liner. Harris said a female agent yelled at her, grabbed her throat, “put her hands inside my bra and panties and groped my private parts.” When Harris filed a complaint, TSA stood by the agent. In a second case, a 13-year-old boy who’d forgotten to remove his laptop was patted down “with the intensity and precision that my dog reserves for a burger wrapper.” Dvorak asks if Americans are “sacrificing our freedoms by giving into our fears” but adds, “It’s not too late to turn back.”
— Compiled by Adam Brodsky