Weiss’ long list of misdeeds, Xi’s global-warming savvy and other commentary
Hunter files: Weiss’ Long List of Misdeeds
It might take a week of testimony for US Attorney David Weiss “to unwind his office’s growing list of Hunter special favors, not to mention its half-truths and outright dissembling,” snarks The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley A. Strassel. “The latest example”? “Gaping irregularities in what the press had insisted was a routine plea deal” — especially “a curious immunity clause that would appear to shield Hunter from additional charges tied to the conduct described in the plea agreement.” Then there’s the “claim of an ‘ongoing investigation’ ” that allows Justice to dodge “congressional questions.” DOJ “has been caught playing games — and has no good answers. That’s because it never expected to have to give any.” “All the more reason for House Republicans to double down on their own investigation.”
Media watch: See-No-(Biden-Corruption)-Evil
Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal “was never about [his] sordid sex life and history of drug abuse,” grumbles The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland. “It concerned Joe Biden’s abuse of power as vice president for financial gain.” Yet the press closed its eyes. Many of the Biden lies and scandals “flow from cover-up efforts to protect the Bidens.” In response to The Post’s story about Hunter’s laptop, “the legacy media either silenced it or framed it as Russian disinformation.” Two years later, “the corrupt press still refuses to cover the news fairly”; instead, it brands “the evidence as a conspiracy theory.” “The media’s refusal to seek and report the truth proves the most dire of all the scandals because without a free press checking government corruption, the corruption will only grow.”
Conservative: Dems Purging ‘Classic Liberals’
“If there’s one thing we learned” from recent House hearings, it’s that “certain, traditional Democratic voting blocs no longer have a home in today’s Democratic Party,” observes Fox News’ Jason Chaffetz. The efforts to “shut down ‘heretical’ Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.” showed a party “doing its level best to purge itself of classical liberals.” Ironically, Kennedy Democrats “will find more of a home with conservative and libertarian-leaning Republicans, creating a new dynamic in 2024.” And there are enough of them — who “support free speech, due process, military readiness, public safety, or fiscal restraint” — to swing an election “as ‘Reagan Democrats’ did in 1980 and 1984 [and] they can have an outsized influence on America’s future.”
Climate beat: Xi’s Global-Warming Savvy
President Xi Jinping didn’t “deign” to give US climate czar John Kerry an audience when he was in Beijing recently, proving Kerry has failed to persuade Xi “to see climate change as the Biden administration does,” argues Clifford D. May at The Washington Times. “This is catastrophic for the planet, right?” But Xi knows otherwise, if he’s “following the science”: Global warming is only set to increase another “1.5 degrees by the end of this century.” Meanwhile China is “building roughly two new coal-powered plants every week.” But it is also “the world leader in manufacturing hardware for wind and solar power” and has achieved “dominance” in the electric-vehicle-battery market.” Meaning “the energy transition the Biden administration is forcing . . . is likely to make America even more dependent on China.”
Libertarian: Our Looming Oceans of Red Ink
“If you’re a glutton for punishment, you might be a follower” of the Congressional Budget Office’s “depressing analyses of federal debt, based on tax and spending trends,” quips Reason’s J.D. Tuccille. “The term ‘unsustainable’ features frequently, though ‘fiscal crisis’ seems to have recently gained popularity.” A new analysis looks at scenarios for the future depending on different assumptions and options, but all “paths lead to a future of growing debt and a hobbled economy.” If government spends and collects taxes at the same rates as over the past 30 years, “debt held by the public would exceed 250 percent of GDP” by 2053. The consequences for “economic growth and American prosperity?” The CBO leaves it “to our imaginations.”
Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
