Conservative: Dems Are Mainstreaming Anti-Semitism

In saying he’s willing to meet with Nation of Islam leader and notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) reminded the country “that Democrats are wholly unserious about tackling anti-Semitism as a form of ethnic hatred,” warns Erielle Davidson at The Federalist. Farrakhan is infamous for his “list of grotesque absurdities,” including “blaming Jews for 9/11 and for referring to them as ‘termites,’ ” along with “anti-white and homophobic” comments. Asked directly about Farrakhan’s prejudice against Jews, Booker boldly “took the opportunity to normalize” such radical beliefs “as if they were a matter of philosophical debate.” New Jersey’s Jewish population is “three times the national level,” so Booker should “consider that his constituents are the repeated targets of Farrakhan’s gross rhetoric.” Instead, he’s shown how Democrats now accept anti-Semitism as “an unconventional yet viable political stance.”

Libertarian: National Debt Is Swallowing the US

A Congressional Budget Office report released Tuesday predicts an “unprecedented” rise in national debt that will reach “nearly one-and-a-half times the size of the entire US economy by 2019,” which Reason’s Eric Boehm argues is a “major crisis.” The prediction is “optimistic,” since it assumes that tax cuts will expire and planned spending cuts will actually happen; otherwise, “the national debt will soar to 219 percent of the GDP by 2049.” Yet Republicans “seemingly stopped caring about the size of the national debt” when President Trump took office, and “a whole slew of Democrats are now seeking the White House while promising to spend billions or trillions more.” A soaring debt means higher yearly budget deficits and rising interest rates, making it “increasingly obvious that America has more debt than it can afford.” It’s no longer tomorrow’s problem, Boehm warns: “The debt crisis is already here.”

Urban critic: The Dark Side of a Beloved City Space

Washington Square Park can seem like an “urbanist fantasy come true,” but some parts more closely resemble scenes from “Panic in Needle Park,” reports City Journal’s Seth Barron after hours of recent observation. Pot-smoking is “ubiquitous”; “overt use of crack cocaine is becoming hard to miss” — and it’s taking place “a beer can’s throw from a playground and other, more salubrious park recreations.” Passersby “stroll past the passed-out addicts and watchful dealers,” in areas where “they wouldn’t stop to picnic or let their children play.” The park is “a tolerant, open space,” notes Barron, “and New Yorkers surely want to keep it that way.” But “the city has come too far to allow its parks to become swamps of depravity.”

Energy beat: Cuomo Is Fueling More Carbon Emissions

At the Empire Center’s NY Torch, Ken Girardin points out how Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s bid to curb greenhouse-gas emissions by blocking new natural-gas pipelines is instead increasing them, “by boosting reliance on fuel oil.” A new report by Manhattan Institute energy expert Robert Bryce shows how Tean Cuomo stretched its legal authority to nix pipeline projects, bringing “constraints on natural gas supplies” and “more pollution and higher carbon-dioxide emissions from burning oil” — in a state with 1.8 million oil-burning households. Those constraints, says Girardin, have “frustrated” what was “a market-driven effort that had the pleasant side effect of cutting emissions.” Given Cuomo’s “much-touted” fight against climate change, his resistance to new pipelines “makes zero sense.”

Supermarket observer: America’s Angriest Store

He loves “the products Whole Foods sells,” but Nils Parker rants at Medium.com that his fellow “regular customers . . . are, across the board, across the country, useless, ignorant, and miserable” — indeed, “a sneering, disdainful horde of hipster Zombies and entitled 1%ers.” They refuse to make way for other shoppers and act out when confronted with the chain’s notoriously long checkout lines, he notes. Somehow, Whole Foods’ approach has “brought out the worst in the people who are attracted to that idea. Or perhaps more accurately, their idea attracts the worst kind of people.” There’s not much to do, he sighs, “when your core demographic happens to be a living, breathing hashtag: #firstworldproblems.”

— compiled by The Post Editorial Board