Liberal: It’s Seven Grandkids, Joe
The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd slams President Biden’s refusal to acknowledge Hunter’s out-of-wedlock daughter, Navy Roberts. White House aides are under orders to say the prez has only six (not seven) grandkids, and “Jill Biden dedicated her 2020 children’s book to the six grandchildren.” Wow: “Callously scarring Navy’s life, just as it gets started,” shows “how dated and inauthentic the 80-year-old president’s view of family is.” Sorry: The prez “can’t defend Hunter on all his other messes and draw the line at accepting one little girl. You can’t punish her for something she had no choice about.” Indeed, his “cold shoulder — and heart — is counter to every message he has sent for decades.”
Foreign desk: Behind Europe’s Gang Violence
“A specter is haunting Europe,” warns Jonathan Miller at The Spectator. “In France, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and even Switzerland, the rule of law is being challenged by the rule of gangs. Disaffected young people cut off from society feel nothing but nihilistic contempt for it.” Driving the violence is immigration: “Europe has shown itself incapable or unwilling to control the influx of migrants, some of them genuine asylum seekers, others simply opportunists. Nor have European politicians succeeded in dealing with the problems created by immigration, despite spending billions on social projects.” Now “integration failures are coming to a head.” It’s a crisis raging across Europe, “the result of decades of wishful thinking about how migration-related problems will resolve themselves.”
Libertarian: Dem Gov Nixes Own School Vouchers
To solve a state budget impasse, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) announced “he’d veto the very ‘Lifeline Scholarships’ school voucher program he had been championing,” gripes Reason’s Eric Boehm. So now Pennsylvania families “won’t get to take advantage of” the “$100 million scholarship program aimed at kids in the state’s 382 lowest-performing schools.” It would’ve offered grants for private-school tuition to elementary- and middle-school students ($5,000), high schoolers ($10,000) and special-needs students at any grade level ($15,000). This turnaround may end the gov’s “political honeymoon”: “In the first big fight of his administration,” Shapiro left the court without even taking one shot.” The final budget “contains a $1 billion increase in spending on public schools,” so “failing schools will get more money,” while “the students trapped there won’t get a way out.”
Read Related Also: Hunter Biden put then-VP dad Joe on the phone with business associates at least 2 dozen times, ex-partner Devon Archer to testify
Gadfly: Elon’s Socialism Schizophrenia
Of Elon Musk’s pledge “to the Chinese government that he and his companies will enhance ‘core socialist values,’” National Review’s Jim Geraghty asks: “How can you denounce a ‘woke mind virus’ one day and then turn around and pledge to the Chinese government that you will uphold ‘core socialist values’?” “There’s always been a contradiction or tension between Musk’s rhetoric regarding free speech on social media and his warm-and-fuzzy relationship with the Chinese government.” Indeed, “you don’t find that many socialists who encourage people to vote for Republicans, chat with Fox News hosts, and help launch Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign.” It “appears that the interests of Tesla and the interests of Twitter are diverging to an absurd extent.”
Eye on NY: Pension Fund’s Risky Restart
After announcing the New York Common Retirement Fund’s worst performance since 2009, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli insisted, “The state pension fund is well positioned to weather these storms.” Huh? “Last year’s negative return, a whopping 10 percent below the fund’s assumed annual gain for the year, will likely lead to an increase in taxpayer-funded [New York State and Local Retirement System] employer contributions starting in 2024,” groans the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon. In past decades, “volatility in asset returns historically has been “smoothed” over five-year periods,” but in 2022 “DiNapoli approved two crucial actuarial changes.” He rightly reduced the fund’s assumed rate of return and approved a “restart” in pension calculations based on the “all-time record gain of 33.55 percent in fiscal 2021,” which let him announce a cut in taxpayer-funded pension contributions. But since the fund’s returns have since have averaged barely 5%, those contributions will “almost certainly” have to rise sharply now.
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
