Lots of reaction to President Obama's proposal to tackle college affordability and accountability. The plan includes instituting federal college rankings that will take into account graduation rates, job placement rates, and student loan level rates.
Learn more about it here. Daniel Luzer, who's on the college education beat over at
The Washington Monthly, is excited about the prospect of a comprehensive movement to hold colleges more accountable. He gives his expert analysis on the issue:
Will this make college affordable, however? That’s hard to know. Because the Obama policy actually constitutes many different policy fixes, there are a lot of ways for this to go wrong. Colleges are likely to lobby pretty seriously against more oversight. Republicans might oppose it just because it’s an Obama policy, and because it introduces more regulations to a system many argue is already over regulated.
The real outcome will look a lot different from what Obama proposes and it’s possible some compromises will result in very different outcomes from those intended. Rewarding colleges for higher graduation rates but not also rewarding them for enrolling more Pell students would likely cause colleges just to enroll fewer poor students, who have more trouble getting through college. Enrolling all students in “pay as you earn” programs but not providing schools with more money through Pell grants could result in massive funding shortages, for instance. But there’s a lot to work with here, and the ideas are impressive.
We’ve allowed this situation to build up for far too long. It’s time to start having the serious conversation about how to really keep college costs down. The debt problem is only going to get worse otherwise.
Keith Wagstaff at
The Week:
Currently, federal student aid is distributed to colleges based on how many students they enroll. To get a bigger piece of the federal pie, schools like NYU just have to attract more students. They don't have to worry about the mountain of debt those students could leave with — in some cases, without even graduating.
Another factor that drives up costs? Colleges, much like hospitals, don't have to worry about losing "customers," [...] Obama's plan would, ideally, create an incentive for schools to bring down their tuition costs and for students to pick the school that will get them employed without a lot of debt.
Much more on the day's top stories below the fold.
On the topic of the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria, The New York Times urges investigation and accountability:
If the killings of an estimated 500 to 1,000 men, women and children outside of Damascus prove to be the work of President Bashar al-Assad’s cutthroat regime, as many suspect, the United States and other major powers will almost certainly have to respond much more aggressively than they have so far. [....] If a chemical attack is proved, it will be a moment of reckoning for the United States and the United Nations. Both the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, and María Cristina Perceval of Argentina, the Security Council president, have asserted that chemical weapons use violates international law; presumably that means the world body would have to do more than just wring its hands. Russia and China, veto-wielding council members, have long protected Mr. Assad, even from condemnatory resolutions.
President Obama’s credibility is also on the line. In several comments since last August, he called the use of chemical weapons “totally unacceptable” and, in an unwise move, drew a red line by warning that if Mr. Assad resorts to such weapons “there will be consequences.” We have supported Mr. Obama’s cautious approach to Syria, his unwillingness to embroil the United States in another Middle East war and his push for a negotiated solution, which Russia and Mr. Assad continue to thwart.
But chemical weapons would be a chilling escalation. The White House insisted again on Wednesday that those responsible for using them “must be held accountable.” At some point, those words have to mean something, whether the culprit is the Syrian government or the rebels.
The Los Angeles Times praises the President's cautious approach thus far but agrees that the President must enforce his "red line" in Syria and protect civilians:
The initial reaction of the United States has been to demand that U.N. weapons inspectors already in Syria be allowed to visit the scene of the alleged attack and gather information. The U.S. intelligence community is also looking into the allegations. Those are prudent first steps. But if the reports are confirmed by the U.N. inspectors or otherwise, this atrocity should be met with measured military action.
We say that even though we share Obama's aversion to military intervention in Syria, which would be a more complicated and dangerous proposition than the air campaign that led to the overthrow of Libya's Moammar Kadafi in 2011. The administration's caution has reflected not only an admirable reluctance to ensnare the United States in another foreign war but also a concern that the Syrian opposition remains too volatile and divided to be trusted.
The administration didn't abandon its essentially cautious policy even after it determined in June that the Assad government had used small amounts of the nerve agent sarin against its opponents. But if chemical weapons are now being used on a major scale against civilians, the U.S. must act — ideally in concert with other nations. On Thursday, France's foreign minister suggested that the international community should respond with "force" short of the deployment of troops if the allegations are confirmed. A no-fly zone coupled with airstrikes is an obvious option.
On to the sentencing of Bradley Manning.
USA Today says that the punishment can still fit the crime:
Bradley Manning's ardent supporters argue passionately that the 35-year prison sentence dealt Wednesday to the secret-leaking Army private is wildly disproportionate to his crime.
Manning, they say, acted out of patriotism — exposing war crimes and other vital information that the military was hiding from the public, not from the enemy. No previous leaker, military or civilian, has been sentenced to more than two years, they note, and soldiers who committed violent crimes in Iraq have received lesser punishment.
Those claims are accurate, and if Manning were to spend 35 years in prison, the critics would have a compelling case. But that is rarely how the criminal justice system works, either in the military or in civilian life. With rare exceptions — notably the death penalty and life without parole — a sentence's headline number is not the one that counts. Maximum sentences are paired with minimums, which can be further reduced for good behavior or other reasons. Manning's minimum is 10 years, of which he has already served three.
Don't forget to read up on Greg Mitchell's piece,
"Too Often Forgotten: An Amazingly Long List of What We Know Thanks to Private Manning.", as well as this piece by
Ali Vitali and Meredith Clark at MSNBC examining the gender identity aspect of Manning's incarceration.
Have you seen the video of James Kirchick calling out the Russian network RT and the Russian government on its anti-gay agenda? Here's the fascinating background on what went in to his protest that went viral:
Shortly thereafter, my audio was cut off, and I rose from the chair. The Swedish crew, who I feared might face repercussions for my tirade, gave me a standing ovation. Bidding them a hasty farewell, I ran to the waiting Mercedes to catch my flight to Estonia. A producer from Swedish TV called to ask where I was. Worried that the Russians were looking for me and fearing a rebuke for abusing the Swedes’ hospitality, I told her she had no business asking my location.
“Calm down,” she said. “We are a democratic country and were impressed by what you did.” (When I told her that RT was “evil,” she chuckled and replied, “They have a different system.”)
Twenty minutes later, after a brief phone conversation in Swedish, the driver explained to me in broken English that RT would no longer pay for the ride and that he would have to leave me on the side of the road. [...] Condemning Russian homophobia and supporting that country’s gay community were not my only purposes Wednesday. I also hoped to expose RT’s pernicious influence as an outlet that poses as a legitimate news organization, yet is anything but. For too long, journalists in democratic countries who take Western freedoms for granted have either accepted job offers or appeared on this network and others like it, lending these propaganda outlets undeserved credibility. They should instead treat RT with the contempt it merits.
Attorney general Eric Holder writes that the sequester is affecting the government's ability to preserve a defendant's right to counsel:
[D]raconian cuts have forced layoffs, furloughs (averaging 15 days per staff member) and personnel reductions through attrition. Across the country, these cuts threaten the integrity of our criminal justice system and impede the ability of our dedicated professionals to ensure due process, provide fair outcomes and guarantee the constitutionally protected rights of every criminal defendant.
I join with those judges, public defenders, legal scholars and countless other criminal justice professionals who have urged Congress to restore these resources, to provide needed funding for the federal public defender program and to fulfill the fundamental promise of our criminal justice system.