Fast Taxes
Security expert: The Full Danger of N. Korea WMDs
Don’t be misled by North Korea’s failed ballistic-missile test, warns former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz at National Review: Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs still pose “serious and growing threats” because it is “developing and testing increasingly advanced WMDs based on poor engineering and badly inadequate R&D.” Which is what happens “when a brutal totalitarian regime tries to pursue a complex weapons program using borrowed and stolen technology and relies on third-rate scientists.” This only “increases the chances of a catastrophic accident, possibly when an ICBM test goes off-course and strikes a neighboring country.” Moreover, underground tests “could accidentally release large amounts of radioactive gases,” threatening nearby countries.
Libertarian: Trump Should Flee Paris Climate Treaty
Trump administration officials are debating whether to withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty, which commits the US to significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. “Run, don’t walk, away,” advises Joseph Bast at The Federalist. The treaty, he argues, is “based on political science, not climate science”; its “arbitrary” goal is “based on climate activists’ demands for a number, no matter how dubious or fake, to use in their fundraising letters.” It would also require Washington to “pay billions of dollars in ‘climate reparations’ to Third World dictators, while requiring no emission cuts from developing countries, including India and China.” Finally, remaining in “would mean increasing electricity prices and compromising the reliability of our electrical grid, which would drive manufacturing out of Midwestern states” to nations “where coal and natural gas are still allowed.”
Culture critic: Huma Cashing in on Hubby’s Foul-ups
“Stop pitying Huma Abedin,” says Naomi Schaefer Riley at Acculturated. Standing by sexting husband Anthony Weiner and maintaining a near-total public silence won her praise. But it turns out Huma was only “holding out for the right price” — she’s reportedly pitching a tell-all memoir and “hoping for around $2 million.” Predictably, “publishers are salivating at the chance to bid on the juicy tale,” which likely will include behind-the-scenes details from Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign. So much, says Riley, for Abedin’s “last saving grace” of “not putting herself out there” and subjecting us to “every last gory detail.” Her 4year-old son might find it hard “to escape the shadow of his father’s misdeeds,” but “his mother might at least” have given him “a fighting chance.”
Conservative: Finger-Pointing Won’t Get Trains Running
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is involved “in a spitting match” with Amtrak over “who’s responsible for the cruddy service” provided to train commuters, notes Paul Mulshine at the Star-Ledger. The answer: “Both of them. And a whole lot more people,” including Christie’s counterpart across the river. Indeed, the blame goes all the way back to mistakes by former Govs. Jon Corzine and George Pataki. But as one NJ legislative leader puts it: Everyone “should step up and fix what they need to fix.” Christie and Sen. Cory Booker have called on President Trump “to pay half the $24 billion bill for [the Gateway project],” which would build two new Hudson River rail tunnels, “as previously agreed by President Obama.” But thanks to the federal deficit, Trump “doesn’t have a dollar to spare.”
From the right: Newseum Honors Abettor of Censorship
The Newseum, Washington’s journalism-history museum, this week gave its annual “free speech award” to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Matthew Continetti at the Washington Free Beacon says, “I can’t be the only one who found this ironic.” After all, “it was only a few months ago that Apple removed the New York Times app from the Chinese version of the App Store.” Nor was that “the first time Apple had accommodated the communist dictatorship in its quest to deny Chinese readers an independent media.” Asks Continetti: “What connection does Tim Cook have to the cause of a free press other than in suppressing it for profit?” All of which only “illustrates just how perverse an institution the Newseum is.”