From the right: A Win for Free Speech
In 2019, writes John Hinderaker at Power Line, Michigan’s Democratic attorney general launched a “campaign of surveillance and potential criminal prosecution” against groups targeted by the “far-left” Southern Poverty Law Center — one of “America’s pre-eminent hate groups.” But the American Freedom Law Center, one of the organizations the SPLC “smeared,” fought back and sued. Now, federal Judge Paul Maloney has denied Michigan’s motion to dismiss the case. That allows it to proceed to discovery, where “any communications between the Michigan officials and the SPLC” will come to light — which should frighten both the prosecutors and the group. “Kudos to the American Freedom Law Center,” cheers Hinderaker, “for taking the fight to the far Left.”
Eye on 2020: A Contested Convention Is Possible
At FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver runs the numbers to gauge whether Democrats will have a candidate by convention time. Don’t “assume there will be a contested convention just because things look a little chaotic,” he warns, but don’t “dismiss the possibility out of hand just because there hasn’t been one recently.” He puts the odds of no Democrat winning a majority of pledged delegates at 15%, “roughly as likely as the Tennessee Titans beating the Baltimore Ravens earlier this month.” And, he warns, the odds will increase if the party still has three or four candidates in serious contention after Super Tuesday, March 3. Bottom line: “A brokered convention is not a likely occurrence, exactly. But it’s not unlikely, either.”
Impeachment watch: A Challenge To Stay Awake
“The Senate impeachment trial of a sitting president, just the third such event” in US history, has turned out to be a “soporific rather than stimulant,” snarks Daniel J. Flynn at The American Spectator. So boring is it that Sen. Richard Burr handed out fidget spinners to help his colleagues stay alert. The chaplain prayed “to prevent fatigue,” but a New York Times sketch artist caught Sen. Jim Risch asleep. It’s no better for those watching at home. For all Democrats’ hopes to “conjure up a case” for the president’s removal, “a strong desire cannot alone will fantasy into reality.” And if their “political theater” fails to entertain, “and the audience knows the ending before the beginning, the public expectedly starts hurling rotten eggs — or nodding off.”
Labor beat: Gov’t Unions Face Sharp Shrinkage
The continuing plunge in government-union membership — now at 7.1 million, the lowest level in 20 years — is an “ominous” sign for the movement, reports City Journal’s Steven Malanga. From 2009 to 2018, New York alone lost 1230,000 public-sector union members. This year’s nationwide drop of 100,000 came even though states and municipalities have started hiring again. One reason: the 2018 Supreme Court ruling in the Janus case, which lets government workers avoid joining unions and paying union fees. Another: Public-pension costs “have been crowding out other spending,” which has slowed hiring. Now union leaders face the prospect of the “inevitable” next economic downturn, which will likely set off “new waves” of membership losses. “Under any circumstances, the future does not look bright for government unions.”
Foreign desk: A Chance for a Mideast ‘NATO’
“No modern American president has ever been able to put a sustainable Middle East collective security framework in place,” James Jay Carafano notes at Fox News, “but Trump just might be the first.” The president hasn’t “figured out how” to “marry his instincts — to eschew endless wars, regime change and nation-building and to make allies carry their share of the load with a long-term framework for safeguarding America’s interests in the Middle East.” Early in his presidency he did propose a NATO-like Middle East Strategic Alliance to deal with Iran and “transnational Islamist terrorism,” but progress “was sidelined.” If Trump wants “a credible common security framework, it will take American leadership to make it happen.” And “there may never be a better time than now to go for it.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board