Iconoclast: The Death of Journalism
“The liberal press seems surreally determined to undermine scrutiny of the Bidens,” thunders Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill.
“Liberal journalists” are “bristling at suggestions that the president is dodgy, rather than investigating them. They’re forming a forcefield around the First Son rather than asking questions about him. ‘Hunter Biden’s looming charges are relatively minor’ in comparison with the charges against Trump, says the Washington Post. From Watergate to whataboutery!”
Since at least the October 2020 suppression of The Post’s laptop scoops — “a scandalous assault on press freedom and democracy,” in which “liberal media” made “themselves complicit in its repression” — they’ve “signaled, loud and clear, that their priority would be to protect the Bidens from media inspection, and they’ve delivered on that promise.”
From the left: ’Fessing Up to ‘Two-Parent Privilege’
Liberals “have long had a blind spot” on child poverty, confesses The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof.
“We are often reluctant to acknowledge” one of its “significant drivers,” the “widespread breakdown of family” — fearing “that to do so would be patronizing or racist.”
When Daniel Patrick Moynihan decades ago warned the decline of marriage among blacks would worsen social problems, he “was denounced by liberals for racism.”
Yet “you can’t have a serious conversation about poverty” unless you “consider single-parent households.”
Kids simply “do better on average in school and typically earn more in adulthood if they have married parents,” especially boys.
However “uncomfortable to talk about,” such facts are part of the “apparatus of inequality.” It doesn’t help to “deny the existence of two-parent privilege.”
Libertarian: Public Schools’ Coming Reckoning
Three-plus years after COVID hit, “enrollment losses are still hampering public schools, who depend largely on student counts to sustain their budgets and pay their staff,” notes Reason’s Christian Barnard.
The new normal is expanded “school choice programs,” as prolonged school closures, mask mandates and learning loss led parents to seek and stick with “new learning settings.”
Yet rather than cut spending in the face of student losses, “some of the biggest enrollment losers, such as New York City Public Schools and Los Angeles Unified School District, have used their [federal] funds to stave off budget cuts altogether.”
But with extra federal dollars “drying up soon,” plus the reality of “school choice, and long-term population shifts, they will finally have to exercise some fiscal restraint.”
Neocon: No, Inquiry’s No Gift to Biden
“I want to let the American public see how thin or how nonexistent their case is,” James Carville said last week of the House impeachment inquiry, prompting Commentary’s Abe Greenwald to laugh: “If Carville still thinks the case against Biden is thin or nonexistent, he’s the one who’s out of touch with the American public.”
Polls show: “The sordid tale of Joe and Hunter Biden has, astoundingly, . . . broken through to the mainstream.”
From “whistleblowers claiming Justice Department malfeasance” and “Hunter’s ludicrous immunity deal to an uncovered tangle of Biden family shell companies to witnesses putting [Joe] Biden at meetings he had denied attending,”, “the House Oversight Committee’s record up to this point is impressive. If I were in the president’s corner, I wouldn’t be so sanguine about what comes next.”
Eye on NYC: A Disastrous Climate Law
At City Journal, John Ketcham & Jordan McGillis warn New Yorkers: The “harsh penalties” of the city’s Climate Mobilization Act (Local Law 97) begin to hit next year, further raising “costs in the world’s priciest housing market” as they “force middle-income New Yorkers to subsidize green industries, and — by discouraging newcomers and driving away existing residents — displace emissions to less carbon-efficient jurisdictions.”
Yet the law “will reduce global climate emissions by an infinitesimal amount,” so won’t “stave off” any supposed “climate catastrophe.” In any event, New Yorkers face “far more imminent threats” — such as from “unaffordability,” crime, migrant waves and more.
The law is “a bad deal for New York” — and even for the environment.
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
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