By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2024-11-20 01:01:13 | Updated at 2024-11-23 10:14:15
3 days ago
Elex desk: Don’t Break Senate Confirmations
Donald Trump’s “demand that the Senate go into recess to allow his top appointees to take office without a confirmation vote would be a complete abdication of the chamber’s constitutional advice and consent responsibility,” thunders Max Stier at The Hill.
Yes, “the confirmation system is clearly broken, with the Senate routinely taking far too long to review and vote on presidential appointees.”
“In addition to discouraging qualified nominees from government service, the system does not work for the Senate itself.”
But abdication’s no answer. “Senators should reduce the number of positions subject to confirmation” and change rules so “a single senator cannot singlehandedly stall the confirmation process.”
“Fixing the current system will best serve the public interest — running roughshod over it will not.”
Foreign beat: EU May Need Trump’s ‘Tough Love’
“It’s been another tough year” for Europe, observes Walther Russell Mead at The Wall Street Journal.
Its “economies have stagnated,” and its security situation is “dire.” And Europe “will be the biggest loser from Donald Trump’s return to the White House.”
The “root cause” of its woes? It “failed to build an economy, tech industry, political system or security strategy” that’s “adequate to the demands of the 21st century.”
Indeed, “to much of the world, Europe seems less a model to emulate than an example of what not to do.”
Yet its “fragility is a significant factor in the developing world crisis.” Maybe America has been “too much of a helicopter parent,” fostering dependency.
If so, some “Trumpian tough love may be exactly what Europe needs.”
Liberal: SciAm’s Shameless Trans Coverage
Former Scientific American Editor in Chief Laura Helmuth, who resigned after posting a rant against Trump supporters on Bluesky, promoted a “political agenda” that “turned the once-respected magazine into a frequent laughingstock,” writes Jesse Singal at Reason.
Most notably, Scientific American “hermetically sealed itself and its readers inside a comforting, delusional cocoon” that claimed “youth gender medicine works” and “only bigots and ignoramuses suggest otherwise.”
Hard evidence on that is “scant,” but SciAm often simply took the activists’ word about treatments “and repeated it, basically verbatim, effectively laundering medical misinformation and providing it with the imprimatur of a highly regarded science magazine.”
“Scientific American can right the ship by simply hiring an editor who cares more about science than progressive political goals.”
Conservative: Make America Responsible Again
It’s “absurd” to claim “Americans’ genes have changed in the last half century in such a way as to make Americans gain weight,” sneers City Journal’s Heather Mac Donald.
Yet some argue “obesity is a genetic disorder” largely “outside the control of its victims.”
“To make America healthy again,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., if confirmed, “will have to take on this conceit.”
Alas, his “background in environmental litigation” will lead him to focus “obsessively on chemicals.”
A better idea? End “food-stamp subsidies for sodas and prepared food” — and offer “food itself.”
“Blaming corporate or social forces for bad decisions within an individual’s control is a left-wing impulse.”
If people take personal responsibility, “they can restore their bodies to their proper shape and function.”
Culture critic: Free Speech for Haters, Not Jews
“Less than a week after the pogrom in Amsterdam, UN celebrity Jew-baiter Francesca Albanese was scheduled to speak in London,” groans Commentary’s Seth Mandel.
“The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, a British organization, worked up plans to protest,” but security officials “picked up chatter on social media apps in which locals were very plainly making plans to attack the Jewish demonstrators,” so the group called it off.
Though “Jews nominally have the same rights as anyone, in practice that’s a joke.”
“The enforcement is not through permits, but violence. And that violence goes unprevented and unpunished by the authorities.”
For Jews, “your speech will always be regulated by other people’s violence. And the enlightened denizens of the free world find no fault in that system.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
