Selectively imparting information to the public, including misinformation, while ignoring information that contradicts a desired political outcome is the stuff of cults. It also leads to a further reduction in the credibility of government and “experts” in the eyes of people they most hope to influence.

To his credit, President Biden is stepping up to play bad cop. He has already told federal employees to get vaccinated or undergo weekly testing and wear masks at work. He is reported to be considering setting vaccination requirements beyond the federal payroll.

What can you say about star American athletes who had no medical reason to avoid the shots and knew that the authorities in Tokyo wouldn’t let them play if they were infected?

You can say they were knuckleheads. And if their refusal to protect themselves smashed their Olympic dreams, well, my eyes are dry.

The sheer numbers here are jaw dropping. Including the $1.9 trillion so-called COVID-19 relief bill from earlier this year, Biden wants to spend nearly $6 trillion in three measures passed within months of each other. In 2019, by point of comparison, the entire federal budget was $4.4 trillion (and at the time, President Trump wasn’t exactly tightening the country’s fiscal belt).

The safety of commercial tankers, freighters and barges matters a great deal. Ships transport natural resources, food and manufactured goods; all told, they move roughly 90% of the world’s annual trade in volume and value.

The need to teach our children well — media literacy and critical thinking, in particular — has never felt more urgent. Indeed, it is not too much to call it a matter of survival. After all, the insurrection crisis threatens our country, the COVID crisis threatens our health and the climate crisis threatens the only planet we’ve got. But the misinformation crisis either caused or exacerbated them all. So the obvious epitaph if we do not survive these challenges would be ignominious, but fair:

Too stupid to live.