From the right: Virginia LG Isn’t Getting Kavanaughed

As Christine Rosen at Commentary reminds us, if we learned anything from the left’s defense of Christine Blasey Ford and her uncorroborated sexual-assault accusation against Brett Kavanaugh, it’s that “we are supposed to #BelieveAllWomen” and that any calls for caution or a thorough investigation constitutes “blaming the victim.” Yet now another California professor, Vanessa Tyson, has leveled an allegation of sexual assault 15 years ago against Virginia’s Democratic Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, and the response is “not quite as sanctimonious or unanimous.” In fact, it’s been “surprisingly muted” — and no one is calling Tyson “a hero.” When the accused is on your side, apparently, zero tolerance “is far more difficult, and far less politically convenient, to maintain.”

Conservative: Green New Deal’s Pitch Is ‘We’re Nuts!’

Homeowners who renovate their houses “quickly discover that what they lightheartedly imagined to be a few minor upgrades are in fact massive expenses,” observes The Washington Post’s Megan McArdle. But that doesn’t concern Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose Green New Deal calls for making every building in the US “state-of-the-art energy efficient” within a decade. And that’s one of the least bizarre of her proposals. Granted, this isn’t meant to be a practical document, on the theory that you “ask for the stars and you’ll get the moon.” But progressives forget that you “can also lose out by being over-aggressive.” And as a blueprint for the immediate future, the Green New Deal “is lunatic.”

Economist: Does Work Still Matter to Democrats?

Should work “continue to be the fundamental marker of a person’s worth,” asks Bloomberg’s Noah Smith, “or is that idea outdated?” Even Marxism, he notes, never questioned that “human labor was of the utmost importance,” while FDR’s New Deal “placed work at the center” of its economic-recovery programs. Yet some on the left would have government “value people not on how hard they work, but on the fact that they simply exist.” Examples: Medicare-for-all and a Universal Basic Income, which the Green New Deal seeks even for those “unwilling to work.” Such proposals “tend to be very expensive” and could give rise to ennui, as “people lose the sense of personal value that work once conveyed,: and resentment, as some suspect “others aren’t as worthy as they are,” Technology may change, “but human nature probably hasn’t.”

Sports desk: Memories of One of Baseball’s Giants

Frank Robinson, who died Thursday at 83, had “one of baseball’s truly monumental careers,” recalls Dan McLaughlin at National Review. Though “overshadowed by more glamorous contemporaries,” he “left an indelible stamp on the National Pastime and how it is played and run.” Despite lacking the “glamor of a Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle,” and though (unlike Hank Aaron) he “never broke a single headline record,” Robinson’s staggering career numbers speak to “one of the game’s greatest, matching talent with consistency and durability.” Ironically, while a civil-rights pioneer within the game as its first African-American manager in both leagues, he “resisted being drawn into politics” and “once criticized Jackie Robinson for calling on ballplayers to take public stands.” But “few men left their mark on the game of baseball in more ways than Frank Robinson.”

Urban critic: San Fran Has Become the Slum by the Bay

San Francisco, which has given the world “music, technology and elegant architecture,” is now becoming better known for its “filthy homeless encampments,” complains Fox News’ John Stossel, adding that the city looks “very similar” to slums in Haiti and India. Besides the filth, there’s also “lots of mental illness” — but officials “mostly leave the mentally ill to fend for themselves on the street.” Even “other vagrants complain about them.” Moreover, “people are rarely arrested for vagrancy, aggressive panhandling or going to the bathroom in front of people’s homes.” Drug use is “generally ignored,” while the city offers street people “food stamps, free shelter, train tickets and $70 a month in cash.” All of which only serves as a magnet for more homeless people to come to San Francisco.

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann