The Week - USA (2021-02-26)

16 NEWS Talking points

AP,

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QThe federal government’s

total debt is expected to

exceed $21 trillion this

year and eclipse the size

of the U.S. economy,

according to the Congres-

sional Budget Office.

Pandemic rescues and

stimulus have ballooned

annual deficits to $3.2 tril-

lion in 2020 and at least

$2.3 trillion in 2021.

Axios.com

QThe Biden adminis-

tration has launched a

review of the U.S. military

prison at Guantánamo

Bay in Cuba, where 40

terrorist suspects are still

housed—about two dozen

without ever having been

charged. At one time,

roughly 800 prisoners

were incarcerated at the

facility.

Reuters.com

QJared Kushner

and Ivanka Trump

had at least

$172 million

and as much as

$640 million

in outside

income

during their

four years in the Trump

administration, according

to a study by Citizens for

Responsibility and Ethics

in Washington. Ivanka

Trump made more than

$13 million alone from

her stake in the Trump

International Hotel in

D.C., which the watchdog

group called “the locus of

influence peddling in the

Trump administration.”

HuffPost.com

QWhile Americans drove

15 percent fewer miles

last year during the

pandemic, the number of

people who died in high-

way crashes from Jan. 1,

2020 through Novem-

ber rose to 38,370—an

increase of 7 percent

over 2019. Experts said

less- congested roads led

to more speeding and ag-

gressive driving.

The Washington Post

The border: Biden’s immigration dilemma

President Biden is facing a

“new border crisis,” said

Miriam Jordan and Max

Rivlin-Nadler in The New

York Times. Spurred by

promises that his administra-

tion would relax draconian

restrictions imposed by

former President Trump,

thousands of migrant families

are arriving each day. Activ-

ists report that Customs and

Border Protection (CBP) has

already released at least 1,

migrants into Texas, as well as hundreds more

into San Diego in a renewal of the practice known

as “catch and release.” Across the border from

Brownsville, Texas, a new boomtown of migrants

is arising. “This is the busiest we have been in a

long time,” said Kate Clark, whose social service

agency provides food and personal- hygiene items

to migrants. The new arrivals are joining 25,

asylum seekers whom the Trump administration

turned back at the border under a policy known

as “Remain in Mexico,” said Nicole Narea in

Vox.com. At the rate of 300 a day, the earlier asy-

lum seekers will now be tested for Covid-19 and

then released into the U.S. pending a court date—

usually under the supervision of a social worker.

Biden should have seen this mess coming, said

David Ray in TheHill.com. During the campaign

and since taking office, he’s

talked up a pro- immigration

agenda and ordered a com-

plete review of the Trump

administration’s asylum

policies. The new president

shouldn’t be surprised when

thousands of people take

his words to heart and start

coming sooner rather than

later. The flood has just

begun, said Mark Morgan

in WashingtonTimes.com.

Now that Biden has taken

“a wrecking ball” to border security— including

halting construction of President Trump’s border

wall—CBP reported 78,000 arrests in January, a

10-year high for that month.

Biden is walking a “tightrope,” said Ted Hesson

and Steve Holland in Reuters.com. The Demo-

crats’ progressive base is demanding a rapid

overhaul of Trump’s harsh border policies. But

the president faces a flood of illegal immigration

if he moves too quickly. So far, he’s taken “a wary

approach,” ordering “a dizzying array of reviews

and reports” before new policies are established.

As Biden well knows, a major surge in illegal

immigration “could give ammunition to Repub-

licans in the 2022 congressional elections.” That

could cost Democrats their control of Congress—

and severely constrain the Biden presidency.

Noted

The forced resignation of a veteran New York

Times reporter over allegations of racial insensi-

tivity has “unraveled the Times newsroom,” said

Joe Pompeo in VanityFair.com. Donald McNeil

Jr., a 45-year employee who’s led the paper’s pan-

demic coverage, departed amid an uproar over

his use of the N-word on a Times-sponsored trip

to Peru for high school students in 2019. McNeil

was reprimanded after students complained that

he used the slur in a discussion of racist language,

and scoffed at the concepts of systemic racism

and white privilege. But after TheDailyBeast

.com wrote about the incident last month, more

than 150 staffers signed a letter expressing anger

and “pain” over McNeil’s light punishment and

alleged he’d previously displayed “bias against

people of color.” McNeil soon resigned, amid

furious internal debate over whether he was “the

latest victim of cancel culture run amok.”

The debacle is “deeply symbolic of the way woke-

ness has corrupted a major American institution,”

said Rod Dreher in TheAmerican Conservative

.com. Last year the “woke mob” demanded

and got the head of editorial page editor James

Bennet after he dared to publish a column by

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton calling for troops

to be deployed against the George Floyd protests.

Now McNeil and his “irreplaceable” expertise

are gone, too—with the Times saying his intent in

using the word was irrelevant. The drama is “a

snapshot of a bigger culture feud,” said Kaylee

McGhee White in WashingtonExaminer.com. It

illustrates how Millennials “educated in the safe

spaces of left-wing universities” are now forcing

a “hypersensitive social justice ideology” on their

employers, social media, and everyone.

The controversy is “a sign that The Times’ unique

position in American news may not be tenable,”

said Ben Smith in The New York Times. Its

agenda-setting role for “American news, culture,

and politics” has “intensified its status as a cul-

tural lightning rod,” even as a boom in digital

subscriptions has made the paper “more beholden

to the views of left-leaning subscribers.” The Peru

incident, pitting idealistic high schoolers against

a famously grumpy reporter, was “a collision

between the old Times and the next generation of

its core audience, the educated, globally minded

elite.” Does The Times want to be the voice of

the Left or to “hold what seems to be a disap-

pearing center in a deeply divided country?” The

question “won’t be easily resolved.”

New York Times: Now run by a ‘woke mob’?

A migrant turns herself in to border agent.