Commentary on Times’ Hypocrisy During Lockdown and Sheldon’s Bold Use of ‘Dark Money’
Conservative: Times Lockdown Hypocrisy
“Only a right-wing nutcase, according to the Times, would imagine that policymakers and their media boosters would overreact to the latest round of Covid infections,” scoffs City Journal’s Heather Mac Donald. But “hypocrisy, thy name is the New York Times!” The paper “never objected to school shutdowns, instead criticizing public officials who opened up schools”; it piled “weeks of opprobrium” on governors who opened their states. Yet “we are supposed to believe that Covid policies never had a political component, even though the Times constantly tried to show that Republican officials were killing off their constituents through lax lockdowns.” If the paper wanted to “calm people’s fears about future Covid lockdowns” it must “acknowledge that almost all the policies” it advocated “were useless or destructive.”
Foreign desk: Iran Deal a ‘Slap in the Face”
Foes call President Biden’s erosion of Iran sanctions with his $6 billion hostage deal a “slap in the face,” fumes The New York Sun’s Benny Avni. Besides the “ransom” payment, Washington freed five Iranians jailed for sanctions violations, “including attempts to furnish illicit components for the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.” Yet “at least two imprisoned Americans were not included” in the release deal, and Biden’s also begun unfreezing other Iranian funds, bringing sanctions relief to a total of $16 billion, and: “Lax enforcement of America’s ban on Iranian oil exports enriches Tehran coffers by tens of billions of dollars more.” As one dissident rages, it’s a “betrayal” of the American people when the government bows to “killers” and “legitimizes hostage diplomacy.”
From the right: Sheldon’s ‘Dark Money’ Chutzpah
For all his railing about “dark money,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) “has for many years benefited from the influence of dark money and held certain ties to dark money groups,” reports the Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky. The senator’s gotten at least $192,500 from one “dark money environmentalist advocacy group” over the last decade, and has brought in “a whole swath of people who have worked on behalf of dark money groups” to testify before his Budget Committee. In reality, says Hayden Ludwig, of the conservative advocacy group Restoration of America, “ ‘Dark money’ has always been a political term meant to scare Americans into destroying their First Amendment free speech protections.”
Libertarian: Wenner’s Libel Delusion
Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner “is still defending an infamously inaccurate article” that “claimed that a University of Virginia student named ‘Jackie’ had been viciously raped by a group of male students at a fraternity party as some kind of initiation ritual,” a tale that proved totally false, marvels Reason’s Robby Soave. Wenner recently claimed, “Other than this one key fact that the rape described actually was a fabrication of this woman, the rest of the story was bulletproof.” Says Soave: He’s “essentially saying, Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” “Had Rolling Stone followed standard journalistic protocols, Jackie’s fraud would have been exposed prior to publication, but fact-checkers at the magazine never pressed [author Sabrina] Erdely to contact either Jackie’s friends or the alleged perpetrator.”
Labor beat: UAW’s ‘Greed’ Confusion
UAW boss Shawn Fain “keeps citing corporate ‘greed’ like a mantra,” smirk The Wall Street Journal’s editors, yet won’t “discuss the union’s impact on future job creation” by addressing how high union-labor costs encourage automakers to shift production to right-to-work states. “Detroit auto makers scrapped defined-benefit pensions and retiree medical care for new workers in 2007 as they lurched toward insolvency. But Mr. Fain wants to restore these benefits for all workers, which would create enormous new unfunded liabilities and obligations.” When it comes to a car’s cost, “labor is one of the few variables auto makers can control,” hence “why Tesla and foreign auto makers have tried to avoid unionization by expanding in U.S. right-to-work states” — and the UAW’s demands are “vindicating their decision.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
