Foreign desk: Sweden’s Telling Crime Surge
“Are we allowed to talk about Sweden yet?” quips Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill. It’s now asking its army to “help cops with a surge in gangland killings” after the country’s “massive intake of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa” — a move met with “an uncritical, borderline smug attitude” from Euro elites: “We’re doing a good thing and anyone who says otherwise is a far-right loon.” Now Sweden has “so many grenade attacks” that it’s “the only country outside of Mexico” that tracks them. “The situation in Sweden, more than any other nation, speaks to how lethal the complacency of the technocrats has become.” Maybe now the Swedes “will be roused from their Scandi-naïveté.”
Libertarian: ‘Alarmists’ Miss Real Gov’t Crisis
“Those sounding the loudest alarms” about a government shutdown “are rarely outraged” by funds that are allocated but poorly spent, rages Veronique de Rugy at Reason. Or by how pols pass “spending bills they don’t have the first cent to pay for” — knowing “they won’t be around to pay the costs.” Most Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending “is on autopilot,” so lawmakers can ignore how it’s driving up debt and even argue to boost benefits more. Yet “shutdown alarmists” aren’t infuriated at all by such “fiscal madness,” nor do they demand reforms. How many write “panicky commentaries” railing that inaction means mandatory “across-the-board” cuts to these programs in 10 years? For them, the “real ‘crisis’ ” is when someone tries “to slam the brakes — not that there’s a fiscal wall looming ahead.”
Conservative: Eric Adams’ Rezoning Wisdom
City Journal’s Howard Husock cheers the way Mayor Adams’ citywide rezoning plan emphasizes a “key element of a healthy housing market”: “more types of housing.” The plan moves toward letting “builders provide a wide array of housing options” — with a “shared living” proposal that will “allow ‘more smaller-sized apartments’ ” and boost tenants’ ability to “choose between lower rents and privacy.” It recognizes that “lower-cost arrangements create natural affordability” and “more units on the same real estate.” It also OKs construction of “small residential buildings atop commercial enterprises” and a path to legalization for “illegal basement apartments.” Adams’ housing policy “goes beyond government subsidies.” “Now if only the mayor would rethink rent regulation and public housing!”
Liberal: Dems Share Blame for Speaker’s Fall
The blame for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster rests “with both parties’ leaders” for “failing to reach across the aisle to save the country from this mess,” argues Michael R. Bloomberg at Bloomberg. “I have strongly supported Democratic efforts to win the House,” and “I disagree with McCarthy on virtually every issue” — but “he was willing to stand up to his party’s right-wing extremists and take the heat.” Minority Leader Hakeem “Jeffries should’ve been willing to take the same risk” to “save McCarthy’s job.” His failure to do so “allowed Democrats to feel good in the moment” but raised “the prospect of a speaker who will likely be to McCarthy’s right” and “draw from his political demise the worst possible lesson: that the extremists must be heeded.”
Climate beat: Green-Energy ‘Catastrophe’ Looms
“Americans could face catastrophe if the Biden administration continues phasing out existing fossil fuel plants and replacing them with intermittent renewable sources of ‘green’ energy,” warns Craig Rucker at The Hill. The nation will soon lack “most of the coal, gas or even nuclear power stations that have served it well for decades,” with “shortsighted policy decisions” closing them “far more rapidly than even unreliable wind and solar can theoretically replace them.” “The ability to handle extreme events is fundamental to any electricity system, and a grid adapted to expand renewables will be much more vulnerable.” Without “sufficient fossil-fuel plants to come to the rescue” when “solar and wind are napping, the whole grid will come crashing down.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
