Biden’s missing second term plans, get real on Houthi threat and other commentary
President "Biden needs to make it clear to voters what he is hoping to accomplish with another four years in office," argues The Liberal Patriot's John Halpin. GIUSEPPE LAMI/EPA-EFE/Shuttersto
Mideast watch: Get Real on Houthi Threat
“The requirement for a cheaper way to defend against Houthi attacks on warships is very real,” warns Dov Zakheim at The Hill. “Iran has long supported the Houthis,” and “what is little more than a collection of tribal rebels has been able to keep the world’s greatest superpower at bay for the better part of a year, with no end in sight.” While “American and British aircraft have responded to the attacks on multiple occasions with air strikes against Houthi installations,” Houthi “capabilities remain sufficient to harass all ships that transit the Red Sea.” Countering the Houthis had already cost Uncle Sam $1 billion in May. “Time for the US military to look at “acquiring the maritime version of the Iron Dome,” and so “reduce the currently huge cost disparity between incoming threats and defensive systems.”
Crime beat: Philly’s Comeback
For a decade, Philadelphia has been “marked by violent crime, open air drug markets, and feckless leadership,” but a new mayor and chief of police have “decided that enough is enough,” thunders Thomas Hogan at City Journal. New Mayor Cherelle Parker and Police Chief Kevin Bethel “immediately cracked down on the packs of illegal ATV and dirt-bike riders that terrorized all neighborhoods.” In the Kensington neighborhood (“ground zero for the city’s broken crime policies,” where drug dealers “operated with impunity”), “they cleaned out the massive encampments of squatters.” And they just “assigned the entire graduating class of the Philadelphia Police Academy — 75 new police officers — to patrol in Kensington, stopping the open-air drug dealing and rampant drug use that drives violence.” “Crime rates have been declining” though it’s unclear if progressive DA Larry Krasner will get with the program.
Liberal: Biden’s Missing Second Term Plans
President “Biden needs to make it clear to voters what he is hoping to accomplish with another four years in office,” argues The Liberal Patriot’s John Halpin. Yet “the official website of the Biden for President campaign” has “literally nothing about his own plans for a second term. Likewise, there’s nothing on the economy, inflation, or immigration — the most important issues to voters according to every single poll.” “It’s just an empty shell of a campaign.” “In contrast,” Donald Trump’s web site offers “a smorgasbord of ideas”: They may not “speak to all voters. But it surely speaks to some, especially when the incumbent isn’t offering anything to compete with it.” “So far in the 2024 campaign, Trump has a plan and Biden does not.”
Culture critic: ‘Inhuman’ Attack on the Alitos
Left-wing activist Lauren Windsor, pretending to be a conservative Christian, “goaded and baited” Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, hoping to get them to say “stupid things” she’d later disseminate, frowns The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan. “Mrs. Alito” did say “spirited things,” but, as The Post noted, her husband “seemed like someone gently trying to shake off a political obsessive.” The Alitos didn’t “say anything wrong. But there is something quite inhuman” in Windsor’s gambit, treating them as a “means to her end.” “That the content she produced was disseminated by honest grown-up journalists is to their discredit.” Her act recalls Stalinism, when “neighbor spied on neighbor.” And “what does it even get you?” Attention. “You’ll always be the person who got attention that way.”
Conservative: No Web Welfare!
“The impossible has happened: A welfare program ended,” chortles National Review’s Dominic Pino, namely a COVID-era handout for “up to $30 per month to qualifying households for broadband-internet service.” And “fearmongering” about “millions of people losing internet access” with the Affordable Connectivity Program’s demise is proving false. Happily, “All Congress has to do to keep this program unfunded is nothing.” But debate over the ACP “is getting in the way of Congress’s other telecommunications policies” and “there’s plenty more from the pandemic era that the federal government needs to roll back.” So “Congress should keep the ACP unfunded and move on to other more pressing policy priorities.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board