COVID desk: Harvard’s Pandemic Lies
“The Harvard motto is Veritas, Latin for truth. But, as I discovered, truth can get you fired,” quips former Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorf at City Journal. Kulldorf backed the “Swedish approach” to COVID — no school closures and a focus on the elderly. Sweden saw the lowest excess mortality from COVID in Europe. He argued that people with prior natural infections (and kids) didn’t need vaccines, since “Covid-acquired immunity is superior to vaccine-acquired immunity.” For his views, National Institutes of Health big Francis Collins called him a “fringe” scientist and “asked his colleagues to orchestrate a ‘devastating published takedown.’ ” Kulldorf “faced a choice between science or my academic career” and “chose the former” — though “my hope is that someday, Harvard will find its way back to academic freedom and independence.”
From the right: Biden’s Bridge to Nowhere
In 2020, President Biden said he viewed himself “as a bridge, not as anything else”; the Washington Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti warns: “If something doesn’t change for Biden soon, he will be the bridge from one Trump term to another.” Why? “Biden’s bridge doesn’t connect to a healthier politics” or “carry us to a safer world.”
“Under Biden, America has behaved ambivalently as the Middle East descended into regional war and watched China, North Korea and now Haiti with worried eyes,” while “millions of illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border, including individuals on the FBI terror watch list and hardened criminals.” “Americans doubt his capacities and say his policies have hurt not helped them,” and “if they do sense improvement in their lives, do not credit Biden for it.”
Israel-Hamas war: De-Hamasifying Gaza
In their “Day After” proposal, “Israeli leaders recognized that the key to long-term stability lies not just with demilitarizing Gaza, but with deradicalizing it into the future,” report Gadi Ezra & Aviva Klompas at The Hill.
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Israel would “maintain security control” while addressing the culture of hate in Gaza institutions, plus closing “the United Nations Relief Works Administration, which has close ties to Hamas.” Post-war, Israel “must work with international partners to marginalize the forces that foster, fund, and incite hate.” This requires “overhauling Palestinian education systems and curricula so that they do not dehumanize Jews or call for Israel’s destruction.” Bottom line: Israel “must demilitarize and deradicalize.”
Libertarian: Toothless Sunshine Laws
“If you want a transparent, responsive government, one place to start is by demanding the creation of independent offices to resolve public records disputes outside of costly courtroom battles,” argues Reason’s C.J. Ciaramella, as an AP survey find “that fewer than a third of states have offices to handle Freedom of Information appeals and force agencies to comply with the law.” So “two Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers claimed earlier this month that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office blocked the release of DeSantis’ publicly-funded travel records.”
And “in Virginia, a former Richmond government employee filed a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit earlier this month alleging that city officials told her to intentionally delay and stonewall Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.” Officials can keep flouting legit requests as “there is no one to hold them accountable and few consequences in the rare instances that they are scolded.”
Ex-FDIC chief: Beware Banking Concentration
Big banks “are already too dominant,” cautions Sheila Bair at the Financial Times. “We should try to avoid making them bigger.” Federal law requires the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to sell failed banks to the highest bidder, and large ones have “inherent advantages in the bidding process.” But the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency should consider the impact on competition before approving a bank to bid. “With growing distress in commercial real estate markets, more banks are likely to fail over the next few years.” Leaving regional banks “vulnerable” while letting mega-banks “gobble up failed ones” will leave the system “more concentrated than ever.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
Source link: https://nypost.com/2024/03/12/opinion/harvards-pandemic-lies-bidens-bridge-to-nowhere-and-other-commentary/