From the right: The Navy Adrift
“Is the US Navy ready for war?” wonders The Wall Street Journal’s Kate Bachelder Odell. A new report by retired officers prepared for Congress “paints a portrait of the Navy as an institution adrift,” detailing “a culture of bureaucracy and risk-aversion that is corroding readiness.” Worse, the report “concludes that the surface Navy is not focused on preparing for war and is weathering a crisis in leadership and culture.” One recently retired senior leader lamented, “I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training,” but “I can’t say the same of their ship-handling training.”
Justice desk: What Partisanship?
The left believes the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has become “a rubber stamp” for Republicans, yet its most recent term “paints a more nuanced portrait,” writes law prof Tom Ginsburg at Persuasion: Of its 67 decisions, 29 were unanimous. The justices refused to intervene in Team Trump lawsuits that questioned the 2020 election or in various other “culture-war issues” animating the GOP. They also declined to overturn ObamaCare yet again and “avoided a challenge to dues collection by public-sector unions.” And the justices have formed “coalitions that defy partisan expectations,” as when Clarence Thomas sided with three of the court’s liberals” in a case involving standing. “If the trend continues,” it will show that “in at least one American institution, polarization has its limits.”
Conservative: CRT’s Threat to Dems
“Critical race theory and education in the United States as a whole are shaping up to be a huge campaign issue for 2022 and 2024,” which polls reveal may be “terrible news for Democrats,” warns The Hill’s Joe Concha. Parents are no longer willing to let schools “teach children as young as 5 years old to see others through a racial prism,” while the United States lags “behind the rest of the world in the key areas of reading, math and science.” Coupled with “rising inflation, skyrocketing violent crime and a border that is anything but secure,” it will be difficult for Democrats to come up with any positives for their campaigns in 2022 and, eventually, in 2024. “From a political perspective, Democrats should be horrified.” CRT may be “coming to a school near you,” with “the full backing of the Biden administration,” but “the disconnect with parents is profoundly stunning — and politically suicidal.”
Space beat: In Praise of the Billionaires’ Race
Sneer at Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos as you like, but “the race between some of the world’s richest men to get into orbit is also a demonstration of what free-market capitalism does best,” argues Matthew Lynn at Spectator World. That “the world’s billionaires have . . . committed themselves to space exploration” is a win for us all. “It sets up a competition,” just as the US-Soviet rivalry brought “the last great achievements in space.” More, they have “the commercial awareness,” and “to explore space properly, it will have to be commercially viable, as well as intellectually interesting.” It “will require ambition, vision, endurance and innovation,” which entrepreneurs have in droves. For humanity to expand into space, “we will need big egos, and great entrepreneurs to get us there.”
Union watch: The NEA’s Disappeared Agenda
“The left has scrambled to defend its extreme, wildly unpopular ideology,” critical race theory, with the “big guns” of teachers unions, reports Jessica Anderson at National Review. At its most recent convention, the National Education Association announced a plan to combat CRT critics in the public square, including the Heritage Foundation (where Anderson works). The only problem: The very fact of this explicitly announced agenda puts the lie to the lefty claim that there’s no concerted push to promote CRT. The union’s response after its “woke allies noticed”? “Soon after the NEA convention concluded on July 3, it removed every business item from its site, including all items mentioning CRT.” Don’t snicker.
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board