From the right: Media’s Role in Immigration Deadlock
The illegal-immigration issue has always been fraught with politicking, contends Ben Shapiro at National Review, and the current saturation media coverage seems designed to “jar American sensibilities into solving this problem once and for all.” But rather than helping, he says, “it achieves precisely the opposite,” because that coverage “has always been shot through with emotionally manipulative falsehoods.” Fact is, this is “a longtime problem that has yet to be solved.” Indeed, same news media “pointed out the problems” during the Obama administration. And while Congress is about to take up the issue, Democrats probably won’t sign on — as they refused to act when they controlled both Congress and the White House — because they’re winning the PR war, and “better to let the problem fester for political gain than attempt to solve it.”
Ex-envoy: Why Iran Will Negotiate With Trump
Former UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad at The Washington Post predicts President Trump’s new policy on Iran, including withdrawing from the nuclear deal, “has a reasonable chance of succeeding.” That’s because the White House “has indicated a willingness to enter into negotiations, even as it escalates pressure against Iran through sanctions.” Which means a comprehensive agreement — including normalized relations — “is not out of the question.” Iran is looking to Europe to compensate for its economic losses. But while European leaders disagree with sanctions, “the US market is far more important” to them than Iran.” And those leaders would join in new sanctions if Tehran restarts its nuclear weapons program. Pressure “won’t bring Iran to its knees,” but it may well eventually lead to the negotiating table.
Political scribe: Andrew Cuomo’s Biggest Failure
Even spend-happy Democrats like Mayor de Blasio and California Gov. Jerry Brown understand that when the economy is booming, you need to fully fund a rainy-day account for when tax revenue goes down. But as Crain’s New York’s Greg David notes, Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature see no reason “to prepare for the future.” Their latest budget deal didn’t even increase the state’s budget fiscal reserves, “which are so low, they amount to less than 2 percent of what the state will spend this year.” Indeed, Cuomo’s “s budget is twice the size of the city’s,” yet “his reserve is less than a third as much.” Says David: “Someday this will be regarded as one of Cuomo’s biggest failures, if not the biggest.”
Foreign desk: Angela Merkel Isn’t Going Anywhere
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been given two weeks by her coalition partner to make a deal with other European Union leaders on reforming the EU’s dysfunctional asylum system. But Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky warns that President Trump “is wrong to suggest that the migration issue is about to take down Merkel’s government.” For one thing, contrary to his claims, crime — including the share committed by immigrants — is down in Germany. For another, unlike the peak of the immigration crisis, most current immigrants to Germany “aren’t really refugees. They come from countries where there is no war or turmoil.” And Merkel has “no problem limiting the growing influx of people who are migrating for economic reasons.” So Trump “shouldn’t expect to be rid of this inconvenient negotiation partner anytime soon.”
Watchdog: Why Has Dem IT Scandal Been Ignored?
It isn’t getting much attention, says Kendra Arnold at Fox News, but a Capitol Hill probe is still under way into “the nefarious actions of a former Democratic congressional IT aide indicted last year on bank fraud charges,” who was “being paid by a high-profile member of Congress, although he was barred from the House computer systems.” The details not only raise serious national security issues, they also suggest “a blatant cover-up on the part of the lawmakers involved.” It involves Imran Awan and his brother Abid, who “gained unauthorized access into the servers of 15 House members who did not employ them.” Yet they have “not been charged with a single crime related to illegally accessing and stealing congressional computer servers as part of a sophisticated criminal enterprise.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann
