From the right: How Team Biden Fuels Inflation
Even as “President Biden says he feels your pain regarding inflation,” his Commerce Department is raising tariffs, doubling the average fee on Canadian softwood lumber to 18.9 percent from 8.99 percent, lament The Wall Street Journal’s editors. That’ll “raise building costs in an already strained housing market” and at a time prices stand at 75 percent above their pre-pandemic level. “The Biden administration’s tariff resumes the US-Canada lumber war where President [Donald] Trump left off,” but it’s “an escalation that will do more harm to American home builders and home buyers.” And Biden campaigned against Trump’s tariffs, though he’s been nearly as “protectionist.” Meanwhile, “cutting these border taxes would be a fast and easy way to reduce inflationary cost pressure.”
Libertarian: Teen Jobs May Vanish Again
Labor shortages have sparked job opportunities for teens who’d been priced out of the market by high minimum-wage laws — yet that, warns Reason’s J.D. Tuccille, may change if and when adults return to work. “Inexperienced workers” had been “rendered uncompetitive” by rising minimum wages; teen jobs had become scarce. Yet pandemic-era economic conditions led adults to drop out of the market: “The civilian labor participation rate is down from 63.3 percent before the pandemic to 61.3 percent”; employers now take anyone they can get. The question, though, is what happens when those conditions change back, and “teens find themselves competing, once again, with workers who have more skill and experience.” At that point, youngsters will be “uncompetitive at wages artificially hiked by law.”
Space watch: US Satellites Are Under Attack
“The United States and its adversaries are battling in space every day,” The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin flags. “While Washington officials and experts warn of the risks of an arms race in space, the United States’ adversaries are constantly conducting operations against US satellites that skirt the line between intelligence operations and acts of war.” Both China and Russia regularly attack US satellites “with non-kinetic means, including lasers, radio frequency jammers and cyber-attacks” every single day. What’s more, “China could overtake the United States to become the number one power in space by the end of the decade.” China is quickly “weaponizing space” while the arms race heats up. “The United States risks losing it if it doesn’t recognize this reality.”
Culture critic: Hunting for Hunter
“I can’t think of many other art shows that have been more heavily discussed than seen,” remarks James Panero at Spectator World after viewing Hunter Biden’s solo exhibit. The first son’s SoHo show is “invitation only,” and invitations haven’t “been abundant.” Neither will you find it listed on the gallery Web site. “After a vandal painted ‘Daddy’ on the gallery walls in hairspray, it’s been a soft launch and soft close for the hard-living show.” Biden’s art is “a sweep of style and techniques,” none “with any sense of direction.” Yet that hasn’t kept critics from cooing. After reading one assessment, “my first thought was” the reviewer “must be the Zodiac Killer. I can’t imagine anyone writing such words who is not also looking for a presidential pardon.”
Foreign desk: Iran’s Unfolding Enviro Nightmare
Mass protests are breaking out in Iran again, and, as usual, the mullahs are targeting the public, this time in Isfahan, where people “have the temerity to demand clean drinking water,” reports Victoria Coates at National Review. The regime fears having folks expose one of its “key failings”: the “systematic degradation of Iran’s environment.” Indeed, it’s now so bad that roughly 97 percent of Iranians are without sufficient drinking water. And the protests are becoming large enough for “the regime to deploy its Chinese-imported oppression apparatus to crush it.” Meanwhile, the Biden administration, “which claims to put human rights, not to mention climate issues, at the core of its foreign policy, has remained silent as this atrocity has unfolded.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board