Bonjour! Here’s your PolicySphere morning briefing! If you were forwarded this, here’s more about who we are and what we’re doing and, of course, don’t forget to sign up.
ICYMI: Our interview with Jeremy Carl, author of The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart. We recommend the interview, which was thought-provoking, and the book. Regardless of what you think of Carl’s argument, we believe it to be important and worth engaging with.
As usual, today’s Briefing includes your policy links, followed by Friday Essays.
Policy Links
#Antisemitism – The House passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Some lawmakers on the right voted against it because they fear its definition of antisemitism contradicts the New Testament. Does it? Read our analysis here.
#Antisemitism – Prof Eric Kaufmann, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, asks an impolite but important question: Is anti-white prejudice fuelling anti-Zionist protests? Related: our interview with Jeremy Carl, author of The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart.
#TheEconomy – The Fed announced yesterday that it is keeping interest rates up. Meanwhile, job openings hit their lowest point since March 2021.
Available openings dropped to 8.49 million from February’s revised 8.81 million, per the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. (Via Morning Brew) Meanwhile, a new NBER paper finds that consumers’ preferred inflation rate is…0.2%
#Biotech – From Breakthrough Institute: “Yesterday the FDA released two guidance documents that clarify the agency’s approach to regulating gene-edited animals. FDA claims that their updates show the agency’s commitment to modernize its regulatory approach and make it more flexible, predictable, and efficient. Instead, they change very little, and existing problems and inefficiencies remain.”
#KtoKogo – Presented without comment: “President Biden: ‘Today, my Administration is approving $6.1 billion in student debt cancellation for 317,000 borrowers who attended the Art Institutes.'” (Link)
#ConsumerRights – Fun amendment from Senator Hawley to the FAA Reauthorization Act: giving passengers a right to a refund in case their flight is cancelled.
#Immigration – More important amendment, this time from Senator Lee, on the same bill, prohibiting airlines and TSA from allowing illegal aliens and parolees to board airplanes using the CBP-One app, a Notice to Appear (in immigration court), or a Notice to Report (to ICE). (Link)
#IndustrialPolicy – R Street President Eli Lehrer weighs in against industrial policy.
#ElectionIntegrity – WSJ op-ed by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on the importance of election integrity.
Friday Essays
Boston Globe: Erec Smith, “The Racism Embedded In DEI“
The New Atlantis‘ Spring 2024 issue is out! This issue has (among other things) a focus on IVF. Read Leah Libresco Sargent on “IVF Embryos as Schrödinger’s Persons,” Charlotte Collingwood on the misleading promises of IVF, and Emma Waters on the “Wild West” of IVF regulation and the needed changes.
Modern Age: Allen Mendenhall, “How Japan helped a Southerner discover his conservatism“
Public Discourse: John F. Doherty, “The Feminism of Edith Stein“
American Purpose: Michael Mandelbaum reviews the intertwined legacies of John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman.
First Things: “The Gardener,” a poem by Richard Tillinghast
Chart of the Day
Thread of damning evidence and charts showing that TikTok censors topics that are controversial to China, by the Substacker Cremieux; see, for example:
Meme of the Day
