Urban beat: De Blasio Failed To Prepare
Coronavirus spread threatens to overwhelm New York City hospitals, with shortages of even basic protective gear — though officials have been warning the public for years to be prepared. At City Journal, Seth Barron notes that it’s fair to ask why: “It isn’t as though Mayor de Blasio is unconcerned about emergencies — he talks obsessively about climate change and its ‘existential’ threat.” And city leaders have long been aware of the possibility of a pandemic. De Blasio “lavished money on anything that advanced his political agenda” but “clearly didn’t allocate enough money to buy the necessary staples of emergency preparedness.” And “now that the disaster has arrived at the city’s door, the mayor is blaming everyone but himself.”
From the right: Man with a Plan
President Trump was right “to extend social-distancing guidelines” for a month, but he “was also right to set a goal for a return to normalcy,” argues The Washington Post’s Marc Thiessen, since “the economic damage from the lockdown continues to grow,” with estimates of up to 6.5 million people unemployed. “Americans are willing to hunker down at home,” but “they need to see a light at the end of the tunnel.” By setting a (flexible) deadline, “Trump effectively challenged medical experts to show us the path out of the wilderness.” A team led by former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb now has a plan that “answers the key question on the mind of everyone whose livelihoods and businesses have been devastated: When and how does this nightmare start to end?” Their “sustainable strategy,” with a “transition from community to individual isolation,” would let some states return to near-normalcy in May “if we maintain social distancing guidelines through April 30 as Trump has ordered,” breaking “the chains of epidemic spread.”
Neocon: The FBI’s FISA Fiasco
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long insisted that concerns about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees the intel wiretaps of US citizens, are “overblown,” recalls Bloomberg Opinion’s Eli Lake. Oops: Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s new report flags 390 “errors of fact in the FBI’s applications for warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” — in just 42 applications. Since Horowitz slammed the Bureau’s FISA procedures in December, the only response has been “a series of administrative reforms,” Lake notes. Needed now is an “aggressive policy to prosecute FBI agents and lawyers who submit falsehoods to the surveillance court” — the only way to “prevent future violations” of Americans’ constitutional rights.
Media watch: Cheers for Mike Lindell!
For most people, MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell’s decision to “transform 75 percent of his manufacturing capacity to make 10,000 cotton face masks per day” seems a “patriotic act.” Not so, National Review’s David Harsanyi sighs, for the establishment media, which made fun of Lindell, presumably for claiming “the Lord Almighty had helped elect Donald Trump president” at Tuesday’s White House press conference — but “applauded” PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor, who tried to “bait the president” on the issue. “Lindell’s political and religious views do not diminish his patriotic act, just as Alcindor’s ability to make the president mad does not transform her into a hero.” If “where you stand on Trump is your guiding definition of patriotism and heroism, your moral compass might be broken.”
Foreign desk: Don’t Let China Shanghai Us
China’s rulers “helped to unleash COVID-19 on the world,” David Patrikarakos fumes at Spectator USA — and now, as “Beijing has begun to get the virus under control,” the regime has begun “muddying its crimes with state-sponsored lies.” Of course, China’s diplomacy is “bogus”: Most of the masks it sent are “faulty,” and its spokesmen are telling “flat-out lies.” Right now, the “world is angry” at China — but “will it stay that way?” After all, “we have ignored pretty much every crime” the Chinese Communists have committed before. If we ignore their role in the outbreak, he warns, “it will be an unequivocal admission that the West will not now or ever stand up to China.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
