War beat: What Iranians Are Saying
“Everyone is worrying about what comes next,” reports David Patrikarakos at The Free Press of what people in Iran are telling him. He talked to “a friend in Tehran I will call Reza. ‘The bombing is heavy,’ he told me. ‘And it’s frightening. But we have been frightened and terrorized for almost 50 years.’ ” No one sees any “signs of mass uprising — it’s just too dangerous” as “gangs of Basij enforcers, often heavily armed, roam the streets, threatening civilians and forcing them indoors.” Indeed, “the entire regime is now on a war footing,” but: “The state is in disarray. Senior officials are scattered and confused” and “an internal power struggle appears to be under way.” He concludes: “Despite the Islamic Republic’s best efforts, the battle for Iran — by both external powers and Iranians inside the country — is far from over. It may take time, but I am convinced this regime will fall.”
Military desk: Time To Restock US Munitions
“U.S. arsenals aren’t primed for a protracted military campaign,” warns Kate B. Odell at The Wall Street Journal, but “the world’s most dynamic economy can” surely boost its “weapons stores and missile defenses.” Indeed, if the Iran war “spurs a U.S. rearmament, that itself would be a win.” But “tens of billions” in funding are needed — and “long overdue, given the threats the U.S. faces.” Joe Biden “bears heavy blame for leaving the U.S. under-armed,” though “Barack Obama may have been the worst offender” with his across-the-board military spending cuts. Yet with the public now aware of the shortage, President Trump “can make the case for putting U.S. weapons on a wartime footing.” The goal: to build “more than enough to deter the next war.”
Campus watch: Making Grades Meaningless
American universities increasing use “alternative grading models” such as “grading contracts,” where “the teacher distributes marks based on a student’s effort, not the outcome of his or her work,” fumes Neetu Arnold at City Journal. Some academics, chasing “social justice and antiracist goals,” favor “labor-based grading” that “awards value based on quantity of effort.” And students tend to give their “teachers who adopt contract grading . . . high ratings,” which “creates incentives” for “professors to grade leniently.” These schemes “make a joke out of meritocracy” by “punishing students who try.” Ultimately, “grade inflation is a problem of incentives,” and schools “should not waste time” on “approaches that dilute rigor.”
Free speech patrol: Musk vs EU Censorship
By challenging the $138 million fine against his platform “in X vs European Commission,” Elon Musk is “taking a stand in defence of free speech,” cheers Paul Coleman at Spiked. “This landmark case will determine whether the EU can use” its Digital Services Act “to control speech on the world’s largest online platform.” As a true free-speech platform, X attracts “many users worldwide, and so many detractors in Brussels.” The case is on “the frontline of a global struggle over whether people can speak freely in the digital public square without fear.” The court has the opportunity to “reaffirm that free speech does not belong to bureaucrats in Brussels, but to the people.”
Conservative: Palestinians’ Sick ‘Supporters’
News that NYC’s first lady, Rama Duwaji, “liked” posts cheering the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks and “also appeared to support the celebratory rally thrown together immediately after the attacks by left-wing group” — “a rally so grotesque even Mamdani distanced himself from it” — is bad enough, marvels Commentary’s Seth Mandel. Worse still is how The New York Times reported on these as “posts supportive of the Palestinian cause.” Asks Mandel: Is “the Palestinian cause” truly “what Hamas and hundreds of other Gazans did on October 7? Not many people “would support the ‘Palestinian cause’ as the Times describes it: unfiltered bloodletting.” Yet “the Palestinians’ so-called supporters in the West say it is the cause in its purest expression.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
This story originally appeared on NYPost
