From the right: The US Military Won’t Stop the Caravan
If you’re hoping the 800 soldiers President Trump is sending to turn back the thousands of Honduran migrants, “prepare to be disappointed.” So advises Matthew Continetti at The Washington Free Beacon. The soldiers aren’t going to “stop the caravan. They’re going to assist” agencies on the ground “as they take in the newcomers.” Indeed, he warns, “there is little government can do to turn back the tide.” Why? Because current law “incentivizes and protects” these immigrants. Fact is, only Congress can “close the loopholes through which the most recent illegal migration has passed.” America’s “desire to help strangers unintentionally contributed to a mounting crisis.” And while sending soldiers to agencies that need help is “fine,” what the military ultimately needs “is congressional action.”
Poll analyst: Republican Boost From ‘Burly Men’
“Will ‘burly men’ stop the Democrats’ blue wave?” Michael Barone at The Washington Examiner wonders, after a Washington Post poll in 69 key congressional districts showed white noncollege-graduate men favor the GOP, 58 to 38 percent. The poll also found white college-graduate women back Dems, 62 to 35 percent. Why the split? Barone recalls that President Barack Obama “heavily tilted” his stimulus package toward college women after a women’s group complained it didn’t want him “to just create jobs for burly men.” Yet the economy and its beneficiaries seem different today. Indeed, “the biggest gains” in the newly “robust” economy are in blue-collar jobs. How much of a boost this will give Republicans isn’t clear, but polls suggest “what looked like a Whole Foods blue wave now looks more like a narrow Democratic — or maybe even Republican — House majority.”
Albany beat: The Fallout If Dems Win the State Senate
Based on electoral trends, observes City Journal’s Seth Barron, it’s likely Democrats will win the [state] Senate and “achieve long-sought legislative control” over New York, and that has “enormous” policy implications. Democrats’ possible legislative goals include universal health care, expanded rent control, making higher ed more affordable for illegal immigrants, the end of bail, pot legalization, limiting charter-school growth and another millionaires’ tax. Still, Dems would face a big “wild card”: Gov. Cuomo. Assuming New York goes all blue, says Barron, “predicting where the Assembly and Senate will want to go is easy,” but “determining how Cuomo will react is a guessing game.”
Culture critic: Behind the ‘Outrage’ Over Kelly’s Ouster
At The Federalist, John Daniel Davidson points out that Megyn Kelly got fired by NBC “for questioning whether a blackface Halloween costume is necessarily racist,” but Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon actually performed in blackface and apparently no one cared. Fallon, he reminds, sought to impersonate Chris Rock on “Saturday Night Live,” while Kimmel played hoop star Karl Malone on “The Man Show.” Thing is, Davidson argues, donning blackface to play a character or do an impersonation “is much different than doing it to mock or denigrate a race.” Maybe NBC is using Kelly’s comments “as an excuse to cancel her unpopular show.” But since no one’s calling for Fallon or Kimmel’s firing, it seems “the networks and many of the people who claim to be offended” aren’t really offended. “The next time they start howling about Halloween costumes,” Davidson suggests, “they should be ignored.”
Tort-bar watch: America’s steep price for lawsuits
Legal judgments and settlements in 2016 topped $429 billion, a report commissioned by the US Chamber Institute for Legal Reform found. That’s “the highest ever,” notes ILR President Lisa A. Rickard at The Hill. She cites a 2013 study showing that, as a percentage of the economy, the US legal system is the world’s costliest, with payouts 150 percent more than the Eurozone average. Yet despite the cost, the system fails to provide much “value to those who seek justice”: Of every dollar paid, only 57 cents went to plaintiffs; the rest, to lawyers, insurance and administrative costs. In class-action cases, only 4 percent of class-members collect “often-miniscule shares of the total.” Lawyers do well, but for everyone else, Rickard argues, “it’s a premium investment for a below average return.”
— Compiled by Adam Brodsky
