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AuthorSpencer Chen

Europe has to stand against Russia [Noah Smith, Noahpinion]

By Spencer Chen
In Noah Smith [Noahpinion]
February 12, 2023
244 views
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• Russia has regained the initiative in the war in Ukraine, with a shift in tactics to infantry and artillery barrages, and a mobilization of 300,000 troops.
• Russia’s imperialistic ambitions are clear, with a desire to regain control over former USSR republics, former Warsaw Pact countries, and even parts of Germany.
• Ukraine needs sustained outside help to prevail against Russia’s larger population and resources.
• The U.S. is an unreliable partner against Russia, with support for Ukraine becoming a culture-war wedge issue, and private contractors not always seeing eye to eye with the U.S. government.
• Europe must unite and prepare itself to prevail in a long stand-off with the aggressive empire next door.
• The U.S. is increasingly focusing its attention on Asia, not Europe, and this could weaken its ability to defend Europe from Russia.
• Europe is more powerful than Russia in terms of population, manufacturing output, and economic dependence.
• Europe has already adapted to the cutoffs of Russian gas and oil, and can continue to do so.
• Europe must increase its defense spending, put aside internal squabbles, and recognize that it is on the side of the “good guys” in order to defend itself against Russia.
• The U.S. stabilized Europe in the 20th century, but now Europe must prove that it can defend its own freedom.

Published February 12, 2023
Visit Noahpinion to read Noah Smith’s original post Europe has to stand against Russia

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Why America Needs Football. Even Its Brutality. [Ethan Strauss, The Free Press]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Free Press]
February 12, 2023
256 views
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• Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills suffered a near-fatal hit on January 2.
• The draw of football is so powerful that its participants consider it a bargain, even if it means experiencing lifelong pain.
• Malcolm Gladwell predicted football’s imminent obsolescence, but in 2022, 82 of the top 100 TV shows in America were NFL games.
• The violence of football is an eternal violence, and players accept their fate, painful though it may be.
• Football returns us to a sense of the sacred, with its drama and bonds that come with it.

Published February 12, 2023
Visit The Free Press to read Ethan Strauss’s original post Why America Needs Football. Even Its Brutality.

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February 11, 2023 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American]

By Spencer Chen
In Heather Cox Richardson [Letters from an American]
February 12, 2023
268 views
F

• President Biden’s statement during the State of the Union address that some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years was true.
• This statement was based on Florida senator Rick Scott’s 11-point plan, which promised that all federal legislation would sunset in 5 years.
• Republicans have a long history of calling for cuts to Social Security, including Trump, Mike Pence, Ron Johnson, and the Republican Study Committee.
• Biden’s statement comes from the “reality-based community,” which was famously dubbed in 2002 by a senior advisor to George W. Bush.
• Trump’s campaign hired a consulting firm to try to prove that the election had been stolen, but the firm could not find anything that would have changed the outcome.
• Representative George Santos and Anna Paulina Luna have both been accused of fabricating their biographies.
• Political decisions that are not based on reality rob us of our right to make informed decisions about our government and what it will do.
• Social Security and Medicare can be stabilized by cutting benefits, raising taxes, rearranging government funding, or by some combination of the three.
• Voters need fact-based information to elect people who will enact the policies a majority of us want.

Published February 12, 2023
Visit Letters from an American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post February 11, 2023

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The Super Bowl Is an Economic Indicator [Derek Thompson, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 12, 2023
247 views
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• The Super Bowl is a useful measure of which firms and sectors believe themselves to be the future of the economy, and can be used to detect bubbles.
• In 2000, 14 dot-com companies bought ad time in the Super Bowl, but the dot-com bubble had popped the next year.
• Last year, a cluster of crypto companies ran ads during the Super Bowl, but since then, crypto-asset values have crashed and several crypto firms have gone bankrupt.
• This year’s Super Bowl is going to feel a lot like 2019 or 2020, with Anheuser-Busch leading all firms with three minutes of airtime and other alcohol brands, M&M’s, Doritos, movie studios, and automakers also in.
• The yo-yo nature of the pandemic economy has caused many economic activities to go up and down, including gas prices, shipping costs, durable goods, savings rates, housing investment, and tech employment.
• The crypto bubble reflected in last year’s Super Bowl is a microcosm of the U.S. economy, and although the 2023 Super Bowl clearly represents a return to the old normal, the bursting of the crypto bubbles may presage the rise of a new digital economy.

Published February 12, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Derek Thompson’s original post The Super Bowl Is an Economic Indicator

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Can Giorgia Meloni Govern Italy? [Rachel Donadio, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 12, 2023
251 views
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• Giorgia Meloni is the first far-right leader in Italy since World War II and the first woman to lead the country.
• She has been a professional politician since she was a teenager and has built her politics around appeals to traditional national identity.
• Her government has tried to impede humanitarian ships’ ability to dock at the closest Italian ports after rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean.
• Meloni has a conspiratorial bent and rails against globalization, political correctness, and cancel culture.
• She has positioned herself as the voice of a middle class that feels left behind by elites and has pushed symbolic issues such as using fewer English and French terms.
• She draws inspiration from the French thinker Renaud Camus’s “Great Replacement” theory, which posits that nonwhite and non-Christian immigrants will eventually supersede white Europeans.
• Meloni’s rise to power was enabled by Silvio Berlusconi, who gave mainstream respectability to conservatives like her.
• Her party, Brothers of Italy, is rooted in postwar incarnations of the fascist movement and has a flame representing the spirit of fascism in its symbol.
• Giorgia Meloni is an Italian neo-nationalist politician who has been gaining popularity in recent years.
• She is the leader of the Brothers of Italy party and is the current president of the European Conservatives and Reformists.
• Meloni is known for her hardline stance on immigration and her opposition to the “citizens’ income”, a monthly subsidy for unemployed people.
• She has drawn inspiration from fantasy fiction, such as The Neverending Story and The Lord of the Rings, to find new heroes for a conservative cultural identity.
• Meloni has been criticized for her close ties to far-right European parties, such as Poland’s Law and Justice party and Spain’s Vox party.
• Despite her harsh rhetoric, Meloni’s party is to the left of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in its support for a welfare state.
• Meloni is currently managing her two junior coalition partners, Berlusconi and Salvini, who both crave the spotlight and envy Meloni.
• Meloni has been criticized for her dismissive terms towards her political opponents, and for appointing archconservative and anti-abortion/anti-gay-marriage figures to prominent positions.
• Meloni’s program is largely defensive, and she has proposed harsh prison terms for people who organize illegal raves, and has adamantly pursued defamation suits against journalists.
• Critics fear that Meloni’s leadership could lead to an “illiberal democracy” and the shrinking of public space for adversaries.
• Meloni has requested more support from the EU to share the burden of contending with migrants, but her greatest obstacle may be the inertia of Rome’s bureaucracy.

Published February 12, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Rachel Donadio’s original post Can Giorgia Meloni Govern Italy?

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America Has Gone Too Far in Legalizing Vice [Matthew Loftus, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 11, 2023
249 views
A

• The National Council on Problem Gambling has taken the stance that gambling addiction is the fault of the individual, allowing state lawmakers to ignore arguments that more access to gambling might make it easier for people to lose control.
• Since the Supreme Court struck down previous restrictions on sports betting in 2018, 36 states have legalized it, and new ballot initiatives are proposed every year.
• When arguments are made for loosening the government’s restrictions on vice, proponents usually emphasize how the responsible use of the vice might alleviate pain or address the worst excesses of the War on Drugs.
• This way of seeing the world overlooks the fact that our hearts and minds are shaped not only by reason but also by our experiences, affections, and habits, which are just as often inexplicably self-destructive as they are reasonable.
• Electronic slot machines are designed to get players addicted, and sports-betting companies have enticed colleges and universities to allow them to promote their products on campus.
• Marijuana legalization has contributed to a rise in opioid-related deaths, and higher-potency products are more dangerous.
• The industries that profit off addiction want to frame the question of access around “responsible use” and occasionally suggest that some people might have a genetic predisposition to addiction.
• We should make it as difficult as possible to access things that impair our ability to make good decisions, and policy plays a role in shaping the environment so that we can develop our virtues.
• Some judicious restrictions are better for everyone: Gambling should take place in casinos, not on smartphones, and marijuana should

Published February 11, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Matthew Loftus’s original post America Has Gone Too Far in Legalizing Vice

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The Maryland Politician Who Is Arguing for a Four-Day Workweek [Caroline Mimbs Nyce, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 11, 2023
282 views
T

• Maryland State Capitol building is the only state capitol to have served as the nation’s capital.
• Maryland lawmaker Vaughn Stewart has proposed a four-day workweek bill to create a five-year experiment with $750,000 in tax credits for Maryland businesses.
• Stewart believes that the four-day workweek is the future and is connected to the original American dream of increased productivity and less work.
• The bill is supported by 92% of Americans and has attracted more attention than any of Stewart’s other bills.
• The bill is not without criticism, with some libertarians arguing that the state should not meddle in private businesses.
• Stewart believes that the bill is necessary to improve the quality of life for Marylanders and that it is not a large expense in the grand scheme of the state budget.

Published February 11, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Caroline Mimbs Nyce’s original post The Maryland Politician Who Is Arguing for a Four-Day Workweek

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The Quiet Desperation of Tom Brady [Mark Leibovich, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 11, 2023
263 views
T

• Tom Brady recently retired from the NFL after 23 years of playing.
• Scott Stossel reflects on a conversation he had with Brady a few years ago, where he asked if Brady ever worried that too much of his life was consumed by football.
• Brady’s father, Tom Brady Sr., worries about how his son will cope without the structure, mission, and intensity of football.
• Brady’s extreme commitment to football obscured the desperation behind his decision to keep playing.
• The physical and psychological aftermath of football is well-documented, and many players have suffered after retirement.
• Brady’s retirement announcement video was praised as gracious and heartfelt, but Stossel was struck by the waterless and overcast tableau of the video.

Published February 11, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Mark Leibovich’s original post The Quiet Desperation of Tom Brady

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February 10, 2023 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American]

By Spencer Chen
In Heather Cox Richardson [Letters from an American]
February 11, 2023
276 views
F

• The article discusses the current struggle between democracy and strongman governments, and how this struggle is playing out in Turkey, Syria, Russia, Moldova, and Brazil.
• In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been criticized for his government’s slow response to the devastating earthquake that occurred on Monday, and for his attempts to shut down media coverage of the crisis.
• In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has blocked western aid to areas controlled by his opposition, and the US has issued a six-month sanctions exemption for relief in Syria.
• In Russia, Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has spoken openly of attacking Poland after conquering Ukraine.
• In Moldova, the government has resigned and the new prime minister intends to continue orienting the country toward Europe.
• In Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met with President Joe Biden at the White House and emphasized democracy, rejecting political violence and putting great value in our democratic institutions.
• Elon Musk’s SpaceX has blocked the ability of Ukrainian troops to use the Starlink satellite system to advance against Russia.

Published February 11, 2023
Visit Letters from an American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post February 10, 2023

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Society Tells Me to Celebrate My Disability. What If I Don’t Want To? [Emil Sands, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 11, 2023
233 views
S

• Emil Sands has a form of cerebral palsy called hemiplegia, which affects one side of the body.
• As a child, Emil had a noticeable limp and needed help in class. He had a personal classroom assistant, Yulia, who massaged his foot each morning to relax his muscles.
• At age 12, Emil was called a “disabled cunt” by his lifelong best friend.
• Emil had an operation on his Achilles tendon to mitigate his limp.
• In secondary school, Emil had to do a twice-daily therapy program of swimming, stretching, and working with weights.
• In the changing room, Emil longed for a different body, as puberty had made him fat and his “Bad Side” remained a perpetual disappointment.
• He was envious of the other swimmers’ bodies and felt like he could never measure up.
• He stopped swimming and developed psychosomatic symptoms, which he believes were connected to the pool.
• He swapped his swims for more time in the gym and more stretching.
• He also began to spend his lunchtimes in the art studios, where he created a portfolio and was inspired by his art teacher.
• He now goes to the gym every day, but is wary of people noticing his disability.
• He is still grappling with the ways he has been made to feel that his body does not belong.

Published February 11, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Emil Sands’s original post Society Tells Me to Celebrate My Disability. What If I Don’t Want To?

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