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Eye on Europe: Dithering Over Putin’s Sabotage
“The European Union and NATO may not openly be at war with their eastern neighbor, but Putin’s regime is waging” deniable attacks, warns Reason’s J.D. Tuccille. If “Russia continues to send covert operatives or hire local criminals to burn, bomb, kill, or otherwise sabotage military and industrial targets in Europe as an extension of its war against Ukraine, the western allies are in a quandary”: How “to respond to attacks that are deliberately kept just below the threshold that would trigger an open response”? But “while Europe dithers, the Russians are constantly adjusting their perception of where that threshold lies.”
From the right: Dems’ Rx To Ice Alaska
“The Alaska Senate race is a toss-up this year, which is remarkable given how Democrats in Washington keep demonstrating their zeal to stop economic development in the state,” thunders the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. Despite the oil industry’s economic value, “progressives want Alaska to be a nature preserve for tourism and dog-sled races.” “Trump II has opened more development leases for bidding” than did the Biden team, yet companies are “wary of investing in projects that can be shut down by the next Democratic administration.” Alaska GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan’s bill “would have prevented leases in the coastal plain oil and gas leasing program from being canceled” regardless of a White House change, while his challenger, Mary Peltola, would vote “to put even more of Alaska’s vast energy resources in a deep political freeze.”
Foreign desk: Macron’s Palestine Pickle
“How do you un-recognize a state that never existed in the first place?” snarks Commentary’s Seth Mandel of French President Emmanuel Macron’s new pickle. Last year, when “France officially recognized ‘Palestine’,” Macron & Co. explicitly linked it to Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas’ promise of new elections — yet last weekend “Abbas once again pulled the football away at the last minute, leaving Macron flat on his back in the mud.” Hah! “Abbas is nearing 22 years into his four-year term, so the chances that he was going to pull a stunt like this” were close to 100%. How can France defend its honor? “Withhold funds from a criminal, kleptocratic government,” or limit imports from the PA or “wind down its equity investment in the Bank of Palestine” — that is, its options are “boycott, divestment, sanctions.”
Midterms beat: El-Sayed’s Damning Dodges
“Few things seem to infuriate Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed more than questions about the Iranian regime,” reports The Free Press’ Audrey Fahlberg. Last week, he grew irate and refused to say if he regrets not commenting on Ali Khamenei’s assassination because, he said, “a lot of people in Dearborn are sad today.” Fahlberg notes: “He insists that questions about Iran are a distraction,” yet regularly rails against Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Iran war. He also dodged on whether he stands against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, “the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism.” His “reticence to criticize Iran’s terroristic regime is one of the reasons” Michigan’s Jews — many lifelong Democrats — may back his Republican opponent, Rep. Mike Rogers.
Media watch: The Risks of Smearing SCOTUS
Media liberals fret over whether “the institutions that adjudicate electoral matters will ‘hold’ if the November midterms produce a crisis,” fumes The Hill’s Becket Adams, oblivious to “the damage their own industry has done by attempting to destroy the legitimacy of those institutions — above all the Supreme Court.” In these same outlets, SCOTUS is routinely “treated as illegitimate, described as severely right-wing and in the pocket of Republicans and their donors” though it regularly rules against the Trump administration and is “less often expanding executive power than reining in lower-court judges who had badly overstepped their authority.” These media figures blithely ignore “the long-term damage that their slanders cause to the institutions that will be counted on to hold our country together in any dispute over our laws and elections.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board