‘As a pro-life conservative, I’m being richly rewarded for voting for Trump’

on ‘walking the walk’

“As a pro-life social conservative, I received my fair share of criticism for supporting Donald Trump for president,” says CNN’s political commentator Alice Stewart. Looking past the “mean tweets and online insults”, she instead focused on who Trump appointed to the Supreme Court. Some, says Stewart, accused her of “making a deal with the devil” by supporting Trump. “But I held my ground, and now my patience is being richly rewarded: we have a Supreme Court with a majority-judicial philosophy that reflects my views on Roe v. Wade.” Stewart says that Trump “said and did a lot of things I didn’t agree with, but I voted for him to be my president, not my pastor.” Stewart is “unapologetic about supporting a pro-life candidate who talked the talk, and walked the walk”. The forthcoming Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade “underscores the wisdom of that decision”.

on similarities in stardom

Since Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe’s dress to the Met Gala ball on Monday night, “there has been an angry wave of (mostly) female outrage”, says Jordan Tyldesley at i news. “Why not just be honest?” she says. “Like me, you’re all positively green with envy that you weren’t chosen to wear it.” Kardashian looked “fabulous”. She and Monroe “are similar in that they both ooze femininity and raw sexuality”. The gown “isn’t all that special aesthetically speaking”, but Monroe wore it while giving “a breathy performance of ‘Happy Birthday’” to US President John F. Kennedy in 1962. “She looked otherworldly” but also “vulnerable and desperate”. After all, we loved Monroe best “at her most tragic”. And “perhaps that’s the problem. Kardashian just isn’t unhappy enough for us,” says Tyldesley. Being a “successful and savvy business woman” is “a deadly combination for envious onlookers”. 

on a track record

The Conservatives will have been in power for 12 years this month, and today “we have a chance to pass judgment on their record”, says George Monbiot in The Guardian. “It is genuinely hard to think of government policies that, in this period, have improved life for people other than the richest and most privileged.” Yes, “there are a handful”, but “weighed against these benefits is an astounding litany of harm”. During the Tory Party’s tenure, “the social fabric of the nation has been torn apart”, with “devastating losses to local services” and “further massive cuts” expected next year – “so much for levelling up”, says Monbiot. “I could go on,” he says, “discussing the truncation of civil liberties; the deliberate stoking of division through culture wars; the gross mishandling of the pandemic” and more. “This is the record on which we should be voting” in today’s elections, he says. “What else do you need to know?”

on financial education

Claer Barrett asks: “What if I told you, valued reader, that I had a crypto investment opportunity that could rapidly double your money?” She hopes that her Financial Times readers “would immediately conclude” that someone else must have written the article. “Sadly, it’s much easier for impersonation scams to proliferate on social media platforms.” The “latest twist” is that popular UK finance content creators “are being deliberately targeted by fraudsters who clone their accounts and attempt to scam their followers”. It’s “frighteningly easy” for scammers to do so, and to “target young (and often financially naive) followers with scam investments”. Banking executives will “gnash their teeth about being fully on the hook” for compensating fraud victims, while thinking social media companies could do more to stop it in the first place. Barrett says: “Like it or not, social media is where young people turn to for their financial education.” Unfortunately, “some are learning lessons about fraud the hard way”.

on the cost of convenience

“Like many people across Britain, the pandemic was not kind to my waistline,” writes Eva Simpson in The Mirror. A combination of “comfort eating” and “much less exercise” left her “struggling to fit into my regular clothes. Not even PE with Joe Wicks could help.” She also began using food delivery apps like Deliveroo and Just Eat “more and more”. “At first it was fun to be able to order not just fast food, but even faster food”, and “not having to prepare meals” was a plus too. “It seems I’m not the only one who fell for the ease and convenience of meal delivery apps,” she says. The World Health Organization has warned these services are contributing to Britain’s risk of “becoming the fattest country in Europe within a decade”. “We need to be reminded of the importance of cooking for ourselves” instead of ordering online, says Simpson. “Otherwise we risk being number one in Europe for entirely the wrong reason.”