In Case You Missed It (v87)

Miss anything last week? Here's a recap of your week in posts.

Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, was in the Face the Nation Sunday School classroom with Margaret Brennan. Here's part of that conversation, which focused on one of the differences between the US and our European friends.

Brennan noted there's a bit of debate here that the government bears some blame for inflation, including $6T in COVID stimulus, a third of which went out "on President Biden’s watch last spring when the economy was already recovering." Noting "Europe didn’t spend like this," she wondered if our path exacerbated inflation.

Lagarde said Europe put "half as much" as the US on stimulus; rather, the focus was "predominantly on keeping the jobs, not necessarily sending the checks." That's not the same as what's going on here.

And the current situation you have in the labor market here in the US is clearly contributing to possible strong inflation and second-round effect, where prices go up, wages go up, short supply of labor, wages continue to go up, and that feeds back into prices. That’s one of the differences between our two economies.

Brennan didn't ask who the Europeans were blaming for inflation there; would have been interesting to see whether that would be another difference between us and them.

I covered only one interview in your Extra Credit - the talk Dana Bash had with our only Ukrainian-born member of Congress, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) in the State of the Union classroom. Spartz was in Ukraine spending time with family over the Orthodox Easter holiday. 

Among the topics they touched on? US aid, and our diplomats. 

She said she was glad to see American officials coming to Ukraine, and said she had written Secretary of State Antony Blinken, asking if we could get some of our diplomats back to Lviv. Other countries are starting to return diplomats to Kyiv, and noted that 

 -- in any job, whether it's a political job or diplomatic job, you do take some risks. You need to be smart. But, also, that's a part of your job to do your service. And if you are not on the ground, it's very difficult to do your job. 

Blinken, who was in Ukraine over the weekend with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, announced that our diplomats will start making day trips, to Lviv.

When it came time for Wondering on Wednesday, I was ready. After the news broke that Twitter and Tesla had agreed to a deal for Elon Musk to take the company private, I had spent a bit of time on the platform checking the pulse of things. And let me tell you, if I was a cardiologist with patients who were Twitter users, I'd have ambulances on standby. Lots of ambulances. It was heart-attack city.

On the one hand, you had the people who had left the platform coming back in droves, now giddy with the thought of being able to spew their disinformation and hatred with reckless abandon, now that Musk had somehow restored their 1st Amendment rights. And on the other hand, you had the people who had flooded the platform after Trump was kicked off apoplectic at the thought of not being able to spew their disinformation and hatred with reckless abandon now that Musk is in charge. Which he's not, at least not until the deal goes through - and he could still screw it up. 

Here's just a bit of the wonderment.

And what about blue checkmark people? The checkmark, the symbol of 'authenticity' on Twitter, will lose its oomph when Musk takes over, if not sooner - more people could get it, under his current thinking. Will that make the authenticated folks mad, I wonder? 

I mean, they'll be losing some of their specialhood or something - and if I'm willing to subscribe to a paid Twitter, they'd be no different from me. Well, they'd still have lots more followers, but at least 99% of mine are real...

During the week, I circled back to the Extra Credit post, intrigued (boggled might be a better word) by a conversation Spartz had with an American on one of her trips home. The gentleman said 

You know, Victoria, these Ukrainians, they're actually more Americans than I thought. They really remind me of Americans, and they really inspire all of us.

I was inspired by that comment, or at least my sarcastic inner child was inspired, and that led to a Sidebar on how we would rise to the occasion of an honest-to-goodness existential threat like Ukraine's. 

• The Rs in states along the southern border would race directly into the Rio Grande to pull immigrants from the water. Unaccompanied minors and other children would be sent to temporary detainment facilities to sew MAGA flags and make other mission-critical supplies, while adults, including parents, rapists, murderers, drug dealers and the other 'not the best people' will be sent with their COVID and fentanyl to the trenches. Promises of speedy citizenship would be dangled, of course, with no intention of anyone ever making good on them.

• The Ds would do their best to ensure that no one got sent to battle unless the government first wiped out their student loans, and guaranteed that, no matter what, they can't be evicted from their home for the duration of their service, including any time served as a POW or in any other state of confinement.

Sure, it was dark, and silly, but in the end, I can't for the life of me understand what that guy was thinking. 

I closed out the week with my usual exercise - the TGIF 'good week/bad week' list-making. And it was a bit of a challenge. Here's one example.

I'm not sure whether this is indicative of a good week or a bad week, but four progressive Ds  (Reps. Cori Bush, AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib) and four conservative Rs (Reps. Lying Cawthorn, MTG, Thomas Massie and Chip Roy) voted against a symbolic bill that urges President Biden to seize and sell the assets of Russian oligarchs, and use the money to help Ukraine. This brought much joy, or chagrin, to the Twitterverse: having these folks on the same side of an issue is a rare treat, for sure.

 Grab yourself a rare treat, enjoy the day, and I'll see you later for Sunday School.