Silence over COVID’s origins, GOP should unite for McCarthy, and other commentary – Vigour Times

Media watch: Silence Over COVID’s Origins 

“Our media were never really interested in accountability” on COVID, sighs Peter Laffin at the Washington Examiner, and refused “to entertain the possibility” that the bug might have leaked from a Wuhan lab, even after a “stunning report” from ProPublica and Vanity Fair “verified . . . the occurrence of a serious biocontainment incident” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology “days before the virus began to spread throughout the region” — an outbreak “serious enough that President Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, personally intervened.” Yet “rather than leap over one another’s shoulders” to cover “the story of the century,” our media hope “the public has ceased to care in order that they might let inconvenient perpetrators off the hook.” And that hope “may be correct.” 

Ex-Trump aide: GOP Should Unite for McCarthy 

It’s time for those “on the right who have doubted Kevin McCarthy” to “unite and back his leadership,” insists Steve Cortes at Newsweek, who has himself been critical of the House GOP leader. McCarthy has “earned” support by paving the way for his party to retake control of his chamber. He’s also moved to the right, pushing an “America First” agenda. Meanwhile, “avoiding a chaotic and possibly prolonged fight” over the speakership benefits Republicans and the nation. “Our fellow citizens badly need help” and quickly. Yet “no credible alternative candidate” besides McCarthy “exists.” And since House rules block any work until a speaker is chosen, it’s “imperative that the GOP unite behind McCarthy, and then hold him accountable every single day.” 

Gov’t watchdog: Putting Unions Before Climate 

In adopting their final “scoping plan,” members of New York’s Climate Action Council “showed they are more serious about taking care of one of the state’s most entrenched special interests” than about fighting climate change, huffs the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin at The Wall Street Journal. The plan, which lays out a path toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases in New York, calls for new “clean energy jobs” to be union jobs and for the state to “apply robust labor standards” across every project. Yet such steps will make climate-policy construction projects slower and more expensive. Global warming is supposedly “an urgent danger,” but the state doesn’t mind slowing and complicating “its response with lucrative labor handouts.” 

Albany desk: Mario Cuomo’s Lack of Gratitude 

“Speechwriter Peter Quinn toiled for days and churned through interminable drafts to help craft Gov. Mario M. Cuomo’s keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention,” particularly with his son, Andrew, concerned that early drafts “were not resonating with focus groups,” writes Paul Grondahl at The Times Union, citing Quinn’s memoir, “Cross Bronx: A Writing Life,” published in September. The final version of the keynote, “ ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ electrified convention attendees . . . vaulted Cuomo to national prominence, defined liberalism in soaring oratory and was hailed as one of the greatest political speeches in the modern era.” Yet the gov didn’t “thank Quinn” nor even do “anything to correct press accounts that claimed he wrote the speech himself.” “When the legend becomes fact,” concludes Quinn, “print the legend.” 

Libertarian: The Costs of ‘Free’ Transit 

“Fare-free public transit systems aren’t unheard of in America,” notes Reason’s Christian Britschgi, but “the country’s largest transit agencies” — in New York, DC and Los Angeles — “toying with the idea . . . is a new phenomenon.” Yes, the “post-pandemic public transit ridership slump has drastically reduced” revenue from fares and thus the cost of scrapping them. But no fares means less “money that could be spent providing more frequent reliable service.” Also, “if all transit money is coming from local politicians, a state legislature, or a far-off federal Congress . . . the incentives” driving the agencies “are different,” i.e., they’re wholly politicized. This would “sever the last link connecting the interests of transit riders and transit providers” and kill “any incentive to provide good service.” 

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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