Foreign desk: Trump’s Tough Balancing Act
President Trump is walking a “tightrope” as he weighs “the need to reduce deaths from COVID-19 against the need to forestall the human cost of an economy in open-ended limbo,” writes Dominic Green at Spectator USA. Meanwhile, “the public mood has turned against China,” with growing evidence that its “official” explanation for the pandemic’s origins is “false.” Yet the president “cannot afford to be equally hostile” to Beijing, given the importance of US-China trade. “The urgent need to revive the domestic economy makes keeping the diplomatic peace abroad essential.” This, notes Green, will be “a delicate balance” — but one that, in the next months, must be “maintained amid the competing data sets of hospital deaths and the recovery of a flatlined economy.”
Eye on the media: Steele-Dossier Double Standard
Establishment media provided “comprehensive coverage” of ex-British spy Christopher Steele’s now-debunked “opposition research dossier” during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation — yet, National Review’s Tobias Hoonhout observes, many of those same outlets “have yet to cover newly declassified information” showing it was the dossier itself that contained “Russian disinformation” and that, as Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) put it, the “ties between Russian intelligence and a presidential campaign” were actually between “the Clinton campaign, not Trump’s.” The new info, declassified Apr. 10, notes that “the FBI received reports in 2017 ‘indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele’s election reporting.’ ” Yet outlets like CNN, The Washington Post and Politico, which portrayed Steele’s information as credible, have “ignored the new information.”
Budget watch: Cuomo Puts SALT on the Table
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has put “SALT on his wish list” of pandemic-bailout goals, reviving his gripes about the federal cap on state and local tax deductions, reports the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon. But his argument “verges on preposterous.” The gov has described the cap “in apocalyptic terms,” yet it was part of an overhaul that actually meant “lower federal taxes for the vast majority of New Yorkers, including middle-class families who had previously claimed itemized SALT deductions.” Lifting the cap wouldn’t “help most New Yorkers who have lost their jobs or have seen their incomes dwindle due to the pandemic” but “the highest-earning 1 percent of New Yorkers.” What Cuomo really wants is “to soften the blow” of likely post-pandemic state tax hikes that may send millionaires fleeing.
Libertarian: Easter Is as ‘Essential’ as Beer
A federal ruling “gives hope to those of us who worry that politicians are too quick to sacrifice civil liberties on the altar of public health,” cheers Creators Syndicate’s Jacob Sullum. “In an encouraging sign that the Constitution still means something in these extraordinary times,” US District Judge Justin Walker last week “issued a temporary restraining order against Louisville, Ky., Mayor Greg Fischer, who had unilaterally banned drive-in Easter services, even when they complied with social-distancing rules.” Walker noted the city “allows ‘drive-through restaurants and liquor stores,’ and it has not imposed any general restrictions on cars in parking lots.” Yet the mayor “criminalized the communal celebration” of Christianity’s most important holiday. As the judge wryly wrote, “If beer is ‘essential,’ so is Easter”
Tech beat: Telehealth to the Rescue
The expansion of telehealth — online health care — means patients can be treated without leaving home and exposing themselves and others to COVID-19, notes Consumer Technology Association President Gary Shapiro at The Washington Examiner. Patients connect to health-care services via videoconferencing, remote monitoring and wireless communications.” But with the expected “exponential influx of patients in the coming months,” the nation will need greater “collaboration among technology industry leaders, health-care companies, medical personnel and government officials.” “Innovations” can make communities “more resilient” and help medical professionals “diagnose and treat patients.” This pandemic “is proof there’s no time to lose.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
