Conservative: Hamas-ification of the Red Cross
“It’s no wonder . . . the Red Cross has been such a mammoth disappointment during” the Israel-Hamas conflict, “ignoring the Israeli hostages for long stretches and helping Hamas cover up its use of hospitals for war crimes,” groans Commentary’s Seth Mandel. “The Red Cross excitedly announced its new director will be Pierre Krahenbuhl,” who served as “commissioner of UNRWA,” the UN Palestinian-relief agency. “The revolving door between UNRWA and the Red Cross . . . isn’t limited to the top jobs,” as there are “other such connections lower on the totem pole.” “UNRWA is known for its rancid anti-Semitism, its self-sustaining system of funding patronage jobs by keeping Palestinians in refugee status, and its role as Hamas’s education ministry. That the Red Cross seems to be going down this same road is a genuine shame.”
Climate war: Carbon Tax = All Harm, No Help
The nation is likely “to see some form of the carbon tax pass this year,” predicts Mark P. Mills at City Journal, but it would be “antithetical” to Americans’ interests. “Given the central role of hydrocarbons in the economy, it strains credulity to think” demand would fall in response to a new 20% tax. Instead, the hike would just be a “regressive consumption tax to fatten government coffers.” A “sufficiently high tax would” lower demand, but only by triggering a “recession” or “depression” — and making life less “pleasant, convenient” and “enjoyable.” Fact is, for “the foreseeable future, a vibrant and growing society isn’t possible without continuing and even expanding the use of hydrocarbons.” Better to focus on “our ability to adapt to any challenge nature throws.”
Libertarian: Feds’ Insane Borrowing Spree
“The federal government has run up a $1 trillion tab” since football season began, sighs Reason’s Eric Boehm — years ahead of the pre-pandemic CBO projection that “the federal government wouldn’t be $34 trillion in debt until 2029.” Blame not only COVID spending, but also how “baseline federal spending has failed to return to pre-pandemic levels.” Now, “economists who spent the past decade downplaying concerns about the debt are now getting more worried because of how higher interest rates have made borrowing more expensive.” And though “it seemed like 2023 was the start of a political reckoning with the government’s addiction to borrowing,” Congress has yet to embrace a “sense of urgency when it comes to the country’s fiscal status.”
From the right: Another DOJ Coverup for Dems
Department of Justice lawyers just announced they won’t “continue prosecuting convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried of conspiring to fund millions of dollars in political donations to the Democratic Party and its candidates,” lament the Washington Examiner’s editors. Justice dropped those charges during extradition when the Bahamas objected; a separate trial was “to begin this March on the campaign finance charges,” but now won’t as Justice cites a “strong public interest in a prompt resolution of this matter.” That means the public won’t be “allowed to see who benefited from Bankman-Fried’s conspiracy.” The decision to drop the “campaign finance conspiracy charges looks like an effort to minimize prosecutions that would shame Democrats.”
Eye on Harvard: The Gay I Knew
On the American Enterprise Institute site, Frederick M. Hess recalls the Claudine Gay he knew as a fellow Harvard PhD candidate in the ’90s: “As much as Gay has been depicted as a DEI crusader, I don’t recall her being one” then. He was “frequently annoyed by the progressivism and pioneering critical race theory that held sway at Harvard. But I don’t recall Gay saying anything that stuck in my craw.” He suspects she, “like so many others,” embraced “DEI groupthink mostly as a means of personal advancement.” Notably, when charged with implementing a 2022 anti-racism initiative, “Gay sent an email to the faculty seeking ‘requests for denaming’ of campus buildings or programs. I wonder whether she just saw herself as an effective bureaucrat. Did she even appreciate how Orwellian it all sounded?”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
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