Conservative: ‘Warmonger’ Idiocy
“Lawmakers — Republicans! — believe that if you send arms to US allies, you’re somehow hungry for war to start,” gripes National Review’s Jim Geraghty. “The fact that the likes of [Utah Sen. Mike] Lee are labeling aid to Taiwan as part of the ‘warmonger wishlist’ tells us” that “a whole bunch of people who claim to be ‘tough on China’ are strangely reticent about actually taking action that will hinder future Chinese aggression.” “The Taiwanese are telling the US not to abandon Ukraine, because they know Xi Jinping is watching the Ukraine war closely for signs that American resolve is short-lived.” “We’re sending arms to US allies because we want to win the wars that have started and deter the war that is on the horizon.”
Education watch: Bring Back School Discipline
The latest social-media outrage involves “teenage boys creating deepfake nude pictures of their female classmates and sharing them with friends,” fumes Michael J. Petrilli at The Hill. In some cases, “accused minors have been arrested,” and, at least, one Beverly Hills student was “expelled from school.” These actions differ from “most school discipline today” where “equity” has “created permissive environments” telling kids that “there are no consequences for their actions.” Addressing root causes and restorative justice “will not stop disruptive and even criminal behavior in schools,” whereas real “consequences” will. “Maybe outrage over these despicable actions will lead some equity advocates to rethink things and return to zero tolerance for other forms of serious misbehavior.”
From the right: GOP’s Perilous Isolationist Fringe
“The US — and the Republican Party — dodged a geopolitical disaster on Saturday with the House passage of military aid to allies in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific,” but “fourteen Republicans voted against all four bills on the House floor, including the one that would force a sale of TikTok from Chinese ownership,” chides The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. “The unavoidable meaning of the votes is that these Members don’t believe the US should support allies threatened by authoritarians.” Indeed, “like Republicans in the 1930s who slept while Hitler and Tojo advanced, these Republicans apparently think America can sit out these fights in splendid isolation. But history suggests that if they prevail, American sons and daughters would eventually have to fight.” “The isolationist caucus lost this round, but this GOP tendency is dangerous.”
Libertarian: Bragg’s Senseless Case v. Trump
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against ex-prez Donald Trump features a huge “disconnect between the counts that Trump faces, all of which allege falsification of business records, and the essence of his crime as Bragg sees it, which is hiding negative information from voters,” notes Reason’s Jacob Sullum. The “glaring chronological problem”: “The criminal conduct that Bragg alleges all happened after the 2016 election.” So “it is not true that the allegedly phony records ‘conceal[ed] damaging information’ ” from voters in 2016, nor “that the ‘falsification of business records’ was aimed at ‘keeping information away from the electorate,’ thereby helping Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.”
Protest beat: The US of Charlottesville
“You cannot understand the pro-Hamas protest movement without recognizing that their entire guiding philosophy is the one strain of blood-and-soil nationalism that survived the 20th century unscathed,” argues Commentary’s Seth Mandel. “At the progressive campus rallies and beyond, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab’ has made quite the comeback” — and “ ‘Palestine is Arab’ is even more openly violent than ‘Jews will not replace us,’ ” the chant infamously recited at the 2017 Charlottesville, Va., white-nationalist rally. It means that “ethnic cleansing of the Jews would be the goal in a one-state solution as well.” And “the ideological fuel for the violence” is “being pumped from the colleges themselves,” thanks to a campus “culture cultivated purposely and with great enthusiasm over the course of decades.” Students’ “sick and violent beliefs earned them good grades at these same schools.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board