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[BlackBartRoberts]

Harris’ boom might end with a bust, Kam and Tim are no moderates and other commentary​

By
Post Editorial Board
Published Aug. 11, 2024, 3:24 p.m. ET

Conservative: Harris’ Boom Might End With a Bust​

With polls showing “booming” support for Kamala Harris, “GOP strategists might take heart in what could be called the Harris boom-and-bust cycle,” notes the Washington Examiner’s Byron York.
In her 2020 presidential run, she briefly “shot up from back in the pack to close to the lead, only to disappear just as quickly.”
Her “brief boom came after a Democratic debate,” but “with increased exposure after the debate, voters got a closer look at her” and “didn’t really like what they saw.”
“A significant part of Harris’s rise appears due to new support from independent voters,” and “it is those voters who might become disillusioned with Harris.”
“So look for Democrats to keep Harris under wraps as long as possible.”

Liberal: Kam and Tim Are No Moderates​

Kamala Harris’ handlers “know the more voters view her as a moderate and close to the center of American politics, the better her chances of winning the election,” explains The Liberal Patriot’s Ruy Teixeira.
The “moving-to-the-center” strategy includes “disavowals,” avoiding “embarrassing questions” raised by her “policy reversals” and using Gov. Tim Walz to “help them reach the working class.”
Yet, in his 2022 governor’s race, Walz “lost white working-class voters in his state by 8 points.”
More, “An attempt to move to the center that does not involve actively embracing centrist, moderate positions” clearly “may fall short of its political goals.”
So “Donald Trump, with all his unattractive qualities and unforced political errors, is likely to remain competitive through November and, let’s face it, could easily win.”

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Eye on Africa: IMF Promotes Repression in Ethiopia​

It is incredibly “shocking that leaders of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) just approved a four-year, $3.4 billion relief package” for Ethiopia’s government led by Abiy Ahmed, contends Mesfin Tegenu at The Hill.
Activists working “for real democratic reforms in Ethiopia have been pleading with the world bankers to hold off on any bailout until the regime agrees to respect human rights.”
Instead, “the IMF extended a lifeline to the Abiy government after it agreed to a major monetary reform — floating its currency, the birr.”
The US government “is both a major source of funding for the IMF and the World Bank and those organizations’ chief influencer,” so Americans’ tax dollars “are now propping up the shaky rule of an African strongman who will use these funds to continue drone strikes against his own citizens, and boost a military-linked to brutal door-to-door massacres in villages” across Ethiopia.

From the right: Jews in Denial Over Kamala​

Playwright David Mamet notes at Unherd that “the Democrats have become the party of antisemitism.
“Obama and Biden’s policies have given money and arms to Iran, and withheld congressionally mandated military aid to Israel — and yet Jews vote Democratic.”
Why? A “concern with social justice” derived from “a warped understanding” of the Bible; the idea that the “murderous savagery” of groups like Hamas is “the result of misunderstanding,” not evil.
No: “Our problem is not public opinion — but denial.” Kamala Harris has all but “announced that, under her administration, the United States will abandon Israel,” yet “American Jews will support her.”
But “I believe that a Jew who votes for the Democrats is a damned fool.”

Wars watch: How Joe Prolongs Wars​

“Watching the recent developments in the defensive wars of our allies Ukraine and Israel, it’s hard not to wonder if both could have already achieved their goals,” observes Commentary’s Seth Mandel.
Kyiv’s invade-Russia gambit is aimed at “disrupting the shape of the war”; otherwise, “time is on Russia’s side.”
And Hamas may at last finalize a cease-fire deal because its “back is against the wall,” after Israel “obliterated” its leadership and “routed” its forces from “key battlegrounds” — over Team Biden objections.
“Our allies want to negotiate from a place of strength not weakness. Tying their hands only prevents that from happening. A lot less blood could have been spilled to get them to this point.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

 

[BlackBartRoberts]

Nuking NYC’s hotels & tourism for power and political profit
By The Post Editorial Board
Published Aug. 11, 2024, 9:46 p.m. ET

The City Council's controversial "Safe Hotels Act" would require hotels to directly employ most of their workers.

City Councilwoman Julie Menin is close to lining up a veto-proof majority for a bill to cripple Gotham’s hotel industry, and so slam tourism as New York still struggles to recover from the pandemic.

Her obvious motive: lining up the support of the powerful hotel unions for her coming bid to become council speaker.

Never mind that the “Safe Hotel Act” would drive up room rates and displace nonunion workers, mostly minority immigrant women.

It would require hotels to obtain operating licenses every year, ban them from contracting out critical services and require them to directly employ only unionized workers.

Vijay Dandapani, president of the Hotel Association of New York City, likens it to a “nuclear bomb” that “will destroy a major segment of the industry.”

This follows other HTC-inspired anti-tourism laws: banning nearly all AirBnB rentals in the city, for one.

And, two years ago, mandating special permits to build a new hotel.

Since then, no one’s filed a single application to do so: The union can count on preventing any new non-unionized hotels, and nobody’s interested in opening one that’ll be under the HTC’s thumb.

Now the drive is to outlaw any nonunion job at any hotel, which guarantees at least some closures and sets up the HTC to dictate to the entire industry, forever.

Menin pretends it’s an anti-crime measure, yet neither NYPD stats nor 911 complaints show any reason to fear hotel-centered crime.

Indeed, any hotel that wants to stay in business is vigilant on that front.

(And it’s not as if organized crime hadn’t been taking over US unions for decades — not that that’s the only way unions get corrupted.)

Yes, the Police Benevolent Association now backs the bill, but the obvious explanation is that the PBA and the HTC are both clients of the same lobbying shop, Pitta Bishop.

Billionaire hoteliers must be held accountable, Menin dog-whistles. But most hotel owners aren’t billionaires; these days they’re largely South Asian entrepreneurs investing in outerborough properties.

To be clear, the hotel industry is no angel: It was all-in on banning its own competition from AirBnB and other short-term rentals.

But the upshot of all this is that it’s getting prohibitively expensive for anyone but the rich (or those willing to stay on a friend’s couch) to visit the city for fun.

And that’s poison for Broadway, museums, restaurants and the rest of the hospitality industry; it’s even bad for non-high-end retailers.

The entire City Council is quickly becoming nothing but a way for ideologues and special interests to make this town less livable for ordinary folks.

And that Menin is pushing this particular toxic measure to vault herself into leading the council is just added proof of how fundamentally corrupt the city’s Legislature has grown.