Reporter: Conservative Women Standing by Kavanaugh
The sentiment is “overwhelming” among conservative women leaders interviewed by The Atlantic’s Emma Green: They are “infuriated” with the way the Brett Kavanaugh allegations have been handled and “believe this scandal will ultimately hurt the cause of women who have been sexually assaulted.” More critically, “these women, and the women they know, are ready to lash out against Democrats” in the midterms and insist “their convictions — and their disgust — go beyond their partisan commitments.” They don’t “downplay the seriousness of sexual assault” (at least one was herself sexually assaulted). But a key source of this anger is their belief that Kavanaugh “was convicted in the court of public opinion before he ever had a chance to defend himself” and that Democrats are using this “for their own political ends.”
Academic: Little Help for Teachers Assaulted by Students
Faced with threats from the Obama Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, schools instituted new disciplinary procedures aimed at drastically reducing the number of black students who are suspended or expelled. But Walter Williams at Greensboro.com says student assaults on teachers remain widespread. In Oklahoma City, where suspensions declined by 42.5 percent, “students are yelling, cursing, hitting and screaming at teachers, and nothing is being done, but teachers are being told to teach and ignore the behavior.” The St. Paul NAACP found it “very disturbing” that a black teacher faced retaliation “for simply voicing the concern that when black students are not held accountable for misbehaving, they are set up for failure in life.” Is there any reason, asks Williams, “for adults to tolerate this kind of behavior?”
Conservative: Dems’ Short Memory on Gorsuch Hearings
Some Democrats are claiming that because they didn’t strenuously object to Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation, their opposition to Brett Kavanaugh clearly is an act of pure conscience. But as Commentary’s Noah Rothman notes, the first claim is “brazen revisionist history” and the second is “an outright fabrication.” Gorsuch was “accused of anti-female bias” and said to have “encouraged sexist hiring practices.” He was also accused of “having suspect racial views” and of being “a disaster for women,” even forced — in a precursor of Kavanaugh — to defend his college fraternity. Gorsuch may have faced “less of a torturous ordeal” than Kavanaugh, but what he went through “isn’t exactly ‘sailing’ through the confirmation process.”
Foreign desk: Jeff Bezos Isn’t as Generous as You Think
Amazon’s decision this week to raise its minimum hourly pay to $15 is limited to workers in the US and the UK. Which, as Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky notes, is bizarre — since employees in its other big markets “have been far more vocal in demanding better pay and conditions.” So Bershidsky’s urging CEO Jeff Bezos to offer his workers “a global, company-wide deal pegging minimum pay to a multiple of the national poverty level of the countries in which it operates,” as well as an end to “high-pressure” working conditions, especially in Europe, where workers are more organized, but have been less successful against the union-averse company. Unfortunately, “all Amazon is promising is to check into the situation.”
Health desk: A Remedy for Exorbitant Hospital Bills?
It’s long been recognized that “the cost of hospital treatment is responsible for many of the shortcomings of American health care,” says Chris Pope at Economics21. A recent Yale study suggests that “ambushing price-insensitive emergency patients with surprise out-of-network bills has become a core strategy for some providers to force insurers to raise their payment rates.” The “underlying problem” is that “hospitals have the power and incentive to price-gouge patients admitted in emergency situations.” But while “comprehensive price regulation arrangements would serve to truncate quality and access to care,” capping prices for a subset of emergency care also “would protect patients and limit the moral hazard that public assistance for emergency care has generated.” Bottom line: “The rules under which hospitals and insurers currently negotiate payment are unlikely to be sustainable for much longer.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann