Flori-duh history course? Who killed Spirit Air? Cognitive Decline?

Well, the Iran War is finally over, but probably not. I guess we'll see. As one pundit put it, we’re 9 weeks into a 4-week war we won 8 weeks ago. Gas prices are through the roof, and here are a few stories that may have escaped your attention this week.

Dumb history

Florida has created a more conservative U.S. history course as an alternative to Advanced Placement U.S. History. The course, part of the new Florida Advanced Courses and Tests (FACT) program, which advances a conservative interpretation of American history, will launch as a pilot this fall, with full implementation expected in the 2027–2028 academic year.

This reimagining of U.S. history will reportedly focus on the founders' Protestant faith and the Protestant Reformation's influence on American democracy. It is said to argue that the U.S. Constitution is an antislavery document, a view contested by mainstream historians who see it as a compromise that protected the practice of slavery.

Land of Hope by Wilfred M. McClay is the recommended textbook. McClay is a historian at conservative Hillsdale College, which emphasizes patriotism and frames racial injustices as departures from America's actual ideals. Emphasis on Western and English constitutional roots, with limited coverage of Indigenous history before European contact, is another theme.

While AP credits are accepted for college credit nationwide, FACT course credits are currently valid only at Florida public colleges. I suspect they'll soon be accepted in such bastions of academia as Alabama and Mississippi in no time. 

Greed Kills

When no-frills budget airline Spirit Air suddenly shuttered operations due to financial insolvency, most rational people assumed it was because of the skyrocketing cost of jet fuel caused by President Trump's unprovoked attack on Iran and the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Of course, the administration quickly pivoted to blame a different president: Joe Biden.

While the Biden FTC did squash a proposed merger with JetBlue, it was Spirit shareholders who voted to accept that airline’s higher offer price, despite the corporation’s board of directors warning that it was unlikely to pass the FTC's and the DOJ's muster, instead of a merger with Frontier that was far more likely to get approved.

Spirit and JetBlue shared many routes, which would have reduced flight options and price competition at those airports. JetBlue also wanted to remove a bunch of seats from each Spirit jet and raise the per-seat price, while Frontier, which has a business plan more similar to Spirit’s, had far less route overlap, meaning far fewer route reductions or price increases for consumers.

In fact, industry analysts noted that JetBlue’s acquisition of Spirit would have been highly leveraged, making it unlikely to have survived the current crisis caused by Trump’s war had the merger been approved. You may have heard that the Trump administration had been considering a federal bailout; however, that idea was shelved after the larger carriers lobbied relentlessly against it.

Why? Because low-cost carriers like Spirit force them to offer more competitive options. When Spirit started flying at any given airport, ticket prices typically went down 5-10% across the board. Check out this breakdown by Matthew Stoller, a consumer advocate and author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.

Is it a lion, a bear, an alligator, or a squirrel?

There is increasing evidence that President Trump is in serious cognitive decline, but the most striking as of late has been his propensity to speak ad nauseam about the many cognitive tests he’s aced, featuring questions such as “Is this a picture of a lion, a bear, an alligator, or a squirrel?” I’m not joking. Check out the hilarious reel from The Daily Show below, which also includes Trump's Oval Office visit with a group of children he horrified, in what might be the second-most striking recent example of his current mental state.