US left envies French horrors, teachers unions vs. kids and other commentary

From the right: US Left Envies French Horrors

“France is once again supplying footage of burning vehicles, smashed businesses, and streets full of tear gas,” as rioters “wave Algerian and Palestinian flags,” as a “symptom of a much larger, unspoken failure,” notes Jens Heycke at Guerre and Shalom. The combo of “barriers to hiring, immigration without a serious demand for assimilation, and a government expected to pay for nearly everything” has led to high unemployment, economic stagnation and massive social division. Beware: The “American progressive left” holds these same policies as the “crown jewels” of its agenda, favoring “doubling the minimum wage,” no “immigration restrictions” and “bigger government.” In short, “the progressive left would love nothing more than for the U.S. to become France.”

Schools beat: Teachers Unions vs. Kids

Nikole Hannah-Jones’s essay on NYC “public schools’ decadelong failures to educate her daughter drew a telling response” from union head Randi Weingarten, who lamented that “we must learn what went wrong.” Hah! roars Joel Klein at the Wall Street Journal: Weingarten should look in the mirror, as her union is the “primary reason New York’s public schools fail so many children, especially poor black children.” “Hannah-Jones chronicles a wide range of unprofessional practices at Najya’s school” that could “persist only in the absence of accountability.” Legendary teachers union chief Al Shanker believed “that unless there is accountability, we will never get the right system.” Indeed: Without it, the union plays a “power game” it “can’t lose and the kids can’t win.”

Terrorism expert: The Missed Oct. 7 Signals

On Aug. 31, 2023, ex-Israeli counterterror adviser Yigal Carmon “published a warning on the website of his think tank, the Middle East Media Research Institute,” headlined: “Signs of Possible War in September-October” — but it failed to “cause alarm in Jerusalem or Washington.” reports Jay Solomon at The Free Press. Carmon is mpw “expanding on his warnings” in a new report, laying out more of the evidence that suggested an imminent war, such as a large Hamas military drill in Gaza in September. Carmon now believes Benjamin Netanyahu and his government thought “Qatari-supplied cash” would buy peace because Hamas was focused on “economic growth.” “I was alone,” he says of MEMRI’s warnings three years ago. “Our government was living in its dreams.”

AI watch: The ‘Conscious’ Tech Trap

Is AI conscious? “The folks at Anthropic, the AI company behind the large language model Claude, certainly seem to think it is,” marvels Vox’s Cameron Peters. But Pope Leo XIV — whose “‘Magnifica Humanitas’ encyclical earlier this year argued that AI will never be able to replace humanity” — isn’t buying it. Beware treating it as human, warns “UNC Chapel Hill professor Anne Maheux, who explained that ‘middle school students using AI for emotional intimacy and companionship developed greater loneliness over time.’” The “highly agreeable” nature of chatbots — as Maheux puts it — are “fundamentally at odds with a normal human relationship.” In short, people “still matter, no matter how much the AI companies want us to build our lives around machines instead.”

Eye on trade: US Wins With Jones Act Waived

Without Jones Act restrictions on foreign-flagged shipping moving cargo between US ports, its fans claim, “Chinese vessels would take over U.S. shipping lanes,” notes Jonathan Helton at The Hill. Yet “recent events strongly indicate” the reverse: “The law has been suspended for shipments of fuel and fertilizer since March 17.” “As of Sept. 17, 200 ships have used the waiver to complete 259 voyages delivering gas, oil and other commodities within the U.S.” —and just seven of those trips “were made by ships owned by a Chinese company,” while US-based firms that don’t meet Jones Act rules did about 25%. This record proves that “U.S. companies would buy more domestic products if Jones Act supply restrictions weren’t in the way.” Quit using “China as an excuse to preserve a harmful status quo.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board