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Good morning, Roca Nation. Here are today’s four need-to-know stories:
Trump threatened to sue the BBC over the broadcaster's editing of a speech he gave
The Senate passed legislation to end the shutdown in the US
Explosions in India and Pakistan’s capital cities killed at least 20 people (free)
NASA and Lockheed Martin's X-59 supersonic jet completed its inaugural flight (free)
By Max Towey
To pre-empt accusations of bias, allow me to begin by saying that we will publish a sequel to this piece that defends the Department of Education. Indeed, one of the main functions of this newsletter is to “cut through the noise” of politically divisive issues and “steelman” the argument for each side of a major debate. This contrasts with legacy media’s attempts to strawman arguments, i.e., give the weakest version to portray an issue as black and white.
What do I mean by that?
Look at the Department of Education: CNN pretends there isn’t a serious argument for getting rid of it, despite its coming into existence in 1979. CNN’s coverage leaves you with the sense that a vote against the Department of Education is a vote against education itself.
Fox News, on the other hand, will fearmonger about isolated cases of classrooms accommodating furries or schoolteachers teaching gender fluidity.
The consequence is a confused and irate public: The Left thinks the Right hates education, while the Right thinks the Left hates kids. Neither, of course, is true.
Uneducated on this topic ourselves, we interviewed two people: Rick Hess, one of the foremost conservative education policy experts, and Peter Granville, a fellow at The Century Foundation and vocal critic of the Trump Administration’s cuts to the department.
Today, we run our interview with Hess. Tomorrow, we run one with Granville.
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Editor’s Note
Tomorrow, Max T asks his interviewee exactly that question. Make sure to read the story so you don’t miss out.
Thank you for reading. Tomorrow, we’ll solicit your feedback to see who you think wins this debate.
And if you haven’t read our latest stories, find our past five articles below:
Stay tuned for more tomorrow.
—Max and Max
