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The collection is tender, with midnight dance parties and football tosses and the sweetest sentence a child has ever uttered (“I couldn’t sleep because I just needed to love my mommy.”) Even the airport-gate stroller rodeo that Eugene Robinson describes is a hassle in service of something beautiful.
Perhaps the most representative entry comes from Elizabeth Nolan Brown of Reason magazine. She writes that kids mean “More laughter. More laundry. More wonder. More worry. More perspective.” More, in short, of everything.
And as for Patti, she says the best bit is “this overwhelming unconditional infinite love that nothing can change.” Right back atcha, Mom.
Chaser: A Tennessee school librarian planned an LGBTQ-inclusive Mother’s Day lesson. Greg Sargent reports that it didn’t take long for the MAGA rage to build.
Natsec and nat debt
If you’re not already worried about the menu of potential debt-default consequences, might I suggest the national security implications?
Columnist Catherine Rampell has already made plain the economic effects of failing to raise the debt ceiling. Her latest piece argues that failure could threaten U.S. alliance-building and global power-wielding, too.
Consider sanctions. “The main reason U.S. sanctions have teeth,” Catherine writes, “is that people want to do business with the United States, and with U.S. dollars or dollar-denominated assets.” If people don’t want dollars — because we don’t pay our bills — sanctions don’t work. Negotiators direly need an off-ramp.
One person who isn’t going to help find one, however, is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Contributing columnist Hugh Hewitt’s reaction? “Good for him.”
Hugh says, “It is a treat to have a party leader who actually believes in the party,” and wants to, say, keep focus on “Biden’s paralysis” rather than help him resolve the debt impasse. See also: McConnell’s steadfastness on one of his favorite hobbyhorses — the judiciary.
Chaser: What are the national security implications of the U.S.-Taiwan spat over microchips? Columnist Jason Willick explores.
From columnist Dana Milbank’s roundup of craziness on the Hill. For those not keeping score at home, the serially lying Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) now faces his own indictment on unemployment fraud charges, among others. (They’re felonies, alas; the former drag performer could have made a killing post-Congress under the new name Miss. Demeanor.)
Santos was arraigned Wednesday, and voted through the unemployment fraud bill Thursday. He thanked Republican leaders for “being patient” while he tangled with the justice system. Dana notes they had no choice; they needed his vote and were willing to swallow whatever hypocrisy necessary to get it.
It was a theme this week, apparently. Dana’s column also explores Republicans’ crusade against “environmental, social and governance,” or ESG, investing. He quotes one Democrat who “pointed out the absurdity ‘of me defending the free market against a Republican legislature.’”
Chaser: Eugene Robinson writes that while Republicans ought to tend to Santos’s wrongdoing, they can’t kick their Hunter Biden obsession.
Less politics
If there were any justice in the world, you’d be reading this email on a beach somewhere, well into your three-day weekend.
That’s probably what Mark Mullen’s employees are doing. He’s the chief executive of Atom, a U.K.-based bank, and he switched his 470-person company over to a four-day workweek in late 2021, with no reduction in pay.
He writes that since then, recruitment costs, staff attrition and sick absences are down; “we’ve also seen higher employee productivity, higher profitability and higher customer satisfaction.”
Mullen argues it’s time to ditch “a working paradigm that turned out to be well past its sell-by date.” And just think how easy it’d be to dart to the supermarket for a new one with your Friday off.
Chaser: Columnist Christine Emba wrote in 2021 that we’re thinking about the four-day workweek too narrowly. Life isn’t all about productivity.
Smartest, fastest
- Columnist George Will assesses Sen. Joe Manchin III’s potential challenge to “today’s stagnant party duopoly.”
- Surveying the globe, columnist Fareed Zakaria writes that there’s no mystery about why the United States has so many gun deaths.
- Jonathan Capehart sat down with Chasten Buttigieg to talk about coming out as a young person. You can listen to their conversation.
- Britain’s Conservatives look to get pummeled in the next election, journalist Matthew d’Ancona writes — and not learn a thing from it.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Four haiku a week
Seem more than plenty, no? Now —
Where’d my beach chair go?
Plus! A Friday bye-ku (Fri-ku!) from reader Mike D.:
Anything for ratings?
The liar riffs for the rubes!
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Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. Have a great weekend — and call your mother!