Conservative: Opportunism or an Awakening?
“Billionaires are trying to heal San Francisco by returning it to the old normality” before it turned into a “West-Coast Detroit,” observes Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness: the rich “rallying to undo the damage wrought by the very officials whom they and the majority of the city voted into office.”
In “doom-loop cities” around the nation, “progressive reformers” are “trying to undo the very policies of those they elected.”
“A similar confessional and re-examination among the left is occurring over the border catastrophe.” Yes, this is “opportunistic because it is an election year.”
But the left may be “waking up from a collective madness” and “trying to undo what it created” — albeit “without explaining why and what they did to us and themselves as well.”
Centrists: Americans Want Neither Joe nor Don
“The only major political question the majority of Americans seem to agree on is” having zero appetite for Biden-Trump presidential race, warn Douglas E. Schoen & Saul Mangel at The Hill.
“Majorities of Americans say they would be ‘very’ or ‘somewhat dissatisfied’ with both Trump (58 percent) and Biden (56 percent) as the nominees,” per a new poll.
Neither man “is capable of effectively talking to voters, aside from their most loyal base,” but “Biden’s struggles with perceptions of his mental and physical decline” will likely “be more damaging than Trump’s flaws.”
Americans will have to choose “between two inherently unelectable candidates.”
Eye on NY: The Bribe-Hollywood Boondoggle
Unlike similar incentives in other states, the “fully refundable” Empire State Film Production Tax Credit — now budgeted at $700 million a year — functions “more like an outright grant than a tax break,” grumbles the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon.
A new cost-benefit analysis by the Philadelphia-based PFM Group found that “the film production credit is at best a break-even proposition and more likely a net cost” for the state.
The study shows that the New York industry “underperformed both the national economy and the national industry” making it a “negative” contributor in the state.
By contrast, the review estimated that the state’s Excelsior credits (for job creation, R&D and other general business spending) generate “$4.25 in direct and indirect tax revenues after repaying each dollar of state revenue ‘invested’ in the program.”
That is, “Excelsior has ignited much larger and more enduring economic gains than the Film Production Credit — at a fraction of its cost.”
From the right: Special Counsel’s Gift to Trump
“Special counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Biden’s handling of classified documents was a devastating evaluation of the president’s mental fitness,” but also “may be a legal gift for Donald Trump,” surmise The Washington Times’ Alex Swoyer & Jeff Mordock.
In concluding “Biden ‘willfully’ mishandled secret information but didn’t deserve to be prosecuted,” Hur created “a clear path” for Trump to argue “he is facing selective prosecution.”
Ex-federal prosecutor Elie Honig notes Trump would have to show Biden did “essentially the same thing” but, unlike him, wasn’t prosecuted.
“Now, Donald Trump has a basis to make that motion.” There is one key difference in the cases, though, observe Swoyer & Mordock: Hur “doesn’t have the same zealous reputation as” Trump prosecutor Jack Smith.
Liberal: The Un-Great Non-Communicator
President Biden’s “job approval has worsened even as public perception of the economy is on the rise,” notes Josh Kraushaar at The Liberal Patriot, likely “in part because the president himself isn’t effectively making the case to Americans that the economy is turning the corner” — another sign of how his “advanced age and declining mental acuity are preventing him from doing the normal salesmanship expected of any president, especially one seeking re-election.”
Fact is, Biden “has shown he’s utterly incapable of driving home his administration’s message” — “a major warning to Democrats who think that Biden’s fortunes will automatically be turned around by an improving economy or Trump’s own legal problems.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
This story originally appeared on NYPost
