Political scribe: Dems Fear Overreach on Guns
House Democrats are stuck on the horns of a dilemma when it comes to gun control, reports The Hill’s Mike Lillis: Their party “is galvanized behind the idea that Congress should take action on gun control,” but also faces warnings from some members that “reaching too far could drive away voters in the swing districts they’ll need” to retake the House. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is with the activists, signing on to a proposed ban on military-style weapons, an unusual step for her. But the Dems’ campaign arm “is shying away from the notion that the party will adopt any national message on gun reform, citing regional and cultural differences across the country.”
Security writer: Trump Won’t Escalate Russia Cyber War
Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reports that Democrats are furious at National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers’ disclosure that President Trump has “not instructed his cyber generals to hit back” against Russian election meddling. But like all things Russia-related, “it’s a bit more complicated.” Rogers was asked about retaliation “at the point of origin,” meaning massive offensive cyber operations in which “the rules of escalation and engagement are still not clear.” There’s also a risk, already realized, of causing “broader damage to the digital infrastructure of allies or countries that were not the target of the attack.” But the biggest risk is “the very real prospect of escalation.” In short, “cyber warfare is complicated. There are honest reasons the Trump administration would want to proceed carefully.”
Biographer: Obama Faces a Community Uprising
It’s what Barack Obama biographer Edward McClelland at Politico calls “the ultimate irony”: The world’s “most famous ex-community organizer is facing a minor uprising from the community where his presidential center is supposed to be built — the same community, in fact, where he got his start in politics.” Seems Chicago’s South Side doesn’t like the idea of Obama building his presidential library there without a “community benefits agreement” requiring investments and hiring in the neighborhood. Ironically, the ex-president finds himself “on the receiving end of the same demands his younger self once made to crusty Chicago politicians he derided as ‘ward heelers.’ ” For local organizers, though, “Obama has gone from sticking it to the man to . . . being the man.”
Conservative: Jews Deserve Better Than the ADL
Anti-Semitism is “a serious,” but “relatively small, problem in American life,” contends The Federalist’s David Harsanyi. So it’s a shame that the Anti-Defamation League is “in the business of exaggerating threats when it serves [its] partisan interests and underplaying threats when they do not.” The ADL’s most recent study claims the highest record of anti-Jewish incidents in two decades. But, says Harsanyi, “anti-Semitism isn’t ‘soaring’ in America and the ADL knows it.” The spike in reports of anti-Semitism was driven in part “by a surge in self-reporting rather than a surge in incidents.” Moreover, “every single one of the bomb threats in the ADL survey [was] made by a single deranged self-hating Jewish teenager who was arrested in Israel.” And the notion that “white supremacy,” rather than leftist anti-Israel groups, is the leading cause of campus anti-Semitism is “utter delusion.”
Transit expert: Fix the Pensions, Fix the Tunnels
President Trump’s infrastructure plan acknowledges what experts have long known: Money alone “isn’t sufficient to solve our infrastructure woes,” says Nicole Gelinas at National Review. Because “states often take federal money without knowing where the rest of the funding for a project will come from, saddling their own taxpayers with debt and higher taxes and fares.” One way around this: “Offer states credit, in the form of more federal infrastructure money, if they pare back their pension and health-care obligations to future retirees.” Indeed, “if states were to pare back their pension and health-care liabilities” by just 25 percent collectively, “and if the federal government were to match the savings by half,” the US “would have another nearly $200 billion for such projects over a decade.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann