Libertarian: When ‘Disinfo’ Specialists Lie
Reason’s Robby Soave just caught The Global Disinformation Index, a British nonprofit that gets US taxpayer funds, pushing disinfo itself.
He asked journalist Anne Applebaum — “listed on the GDI’s website as one of its principle journalistic advisors” — about the group’s “misguided approach to the lab leak theory” (which it long termed disinfo), since she’d likened talk of the theory to “Soviet progaganda.”
She replied, “Until a few days ago I was not aware that I was listed as an advisor on the GDI website” and has asked to be removed.
Notes Soave: “Time and time again, so-called disinformation watchdogs fail their own tests, but this is a particularly galling example.”
Eye on NY: Kill the Darn Film Tax Credit
Gov. Hochul proposes giving larger handouts to Hollywood to “boost the local economy.”
But, the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin snarks, “Albany should be yelling ‘cut’ — not ordering a sequel.”
The state began the subsidy of film and TV productions with a refundable tax credit totaling $25 million a year; competition from other states led New York in 2008 to hike “the pool of credits available in a year to $420 million.”
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo trimmed the credit from 35% to 25% of costs “to ‘enhance the effectiveness and sustainability’ of the program.”
Fact is, New York loses money on these programs — the return in tax receipts is “21 cents for every dollar in credits.”
The state should “use its size to establish an interstate compact to end film credits nationally.”
From the right: Gray Lady’s DeSantis Frustration
“Recent articles in The New York Times show just how annoyed the national media is getting” at failing to find faults in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, quips The Federalist’s Eddie Scarry.
“Why hasn’t he called Donald Trump a fathead on Twitter yet?! Where are all the women who want to accuse him of being a rapist?!”
The Times’ Jennifer Szalai, for one, mainly found DeSantis’ new book boring and “slightly beside the point.”
Columnist David Brooks faulted the gov for not making his view on Ukraine sufficiently “clear” — though as a governor, Scarry notes, DeSantis’ opinion on foreign affairs right now is “meaningless.”
It’s all surely “frustrating” for Times staffers. Maybe they “should just stick to what they know.”
Republican: Reagan the ‘RINO’
“There’s nothing many Republicans fear more than being labeled a RINO” (Republican In Name Only), as many now paint “any GOP member who dares to work with the other side as a traitor,” grumbles The Hill’s Joe Concha.
Yet President Ronald Reagan worked with Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill in the 1980s: “When disagreements got heated,” they’d “meet in a sign of respect with an eye toward (relative) civility,” even share an “adult beverage privately after work to see where compromise could be found.”
Imagine, in this era “of cable news and social media, leaders of each party working together to address the myriad crises impacting this country.”
Now Republicans who “even speak in a civil tone” about their opponents look “unelectable on a national level,” though they’re “mimicking the iconic Ronald Reagan: The very first RINO.”
Foreign desk: China’s Ukraine Move vs. US
“If China is indeed on the verge of getting more involved” in the Ukraine war, argues Hal Brands at Bloomberg, “the strategic shocks” seen so far “are only beginning” due to “a growing Chinese appetite for confrontation with the democratic world.”
“A Russia that has been battered so badly that it hardly qualifies as a great power” worries China “because it allows the US to concentrate on Beijing”; “greater Chinese aid could materially improve Russia’s fortunes as the conflict drags on” or “allow Putin to protract a war that consumes US resources and attention.”
So “a China that is arming Russia against Ukraine is a China that has chosen to accept sharp, sustained tensions with the US.”
“Say goodbye to any hope of a stable relationship with Washington.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board