Border watch: A Biden-Made Disaster

The Border Patrol encountered 1 million illegal border crossers in the first half of fiscal year 2022; even before peak migration months, agents are “overwhelmed,” reports the Washington Examiner’s Byron York. And it’s about to get much worse. President Biden is lifting Title 42, “a Trump-era measure that allowed the US to turn back illegal border crossers on grounds of protecting the country against the coronavirus pandemic.” This “will create a rush of illegal crossers at the border, a prediction even the White House does not dispute.” In other words, it’s coming. Not a natural disaster, but “a man-made disaster, with the man, in this case, being Biden.”

Gadfly: Corporate America’s Double Standard

While “the way corporate America has rushed to cut ties with its operations in Russia” is “heartening,” argues National Review’s Jim Geraghty, it offers “a strange contrast” to how the same companies have “rarely if ever uttered a critical word about the government of China despite its ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs, its human-rights abuses, its oppression of Hong Kong,” etc. Indeed, it’s “groveled to Beijing.” But then “Russia is a much smaller and less important market . . . than China.” Thus, “Disney gave the Chinese government de facto veto power over its creators for decades, but paused all business operations in Russia on March 10.” Fact is, “Vladimir Putin is giving corporate America an easy win, and one that helps it sweep its corrupting relationship with China under the rug.”

Crime desk: Business Wakes Up

“The decriminalization of retail theft in cities across the country has taken place amid a long-term nationwide increase in shoplifting. The US Chamber of Commerce now is calling for help from the federal government” — “but its plea is misdirected,” observes Tom Hogan at City Journal. “It’s not Congress, or federal prosecutors’ offices — designed to handle major crimes, such as terrorism, corruption and drug cartels — but local prosecutors to whom the Chamber should be appealing.” Indeed, if the business community, which has sometimes had “a reformist position on criminal justice,” wants to see “criminals held to account, it should put its money where its mouth is. George Soros made a series of effective investments that helped get progressive prosecutors elected in big cities.” Those wanting to see the law enforced “should donate money to promoting law-enforcing prosecutors.”

From the right: Big Labor’s Defeat

“The tide is turning politically on Capitol Hill, and the latest evidence is the surprising defeat of David Weil to run the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division,” cheers The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, with three Senate Democrats opposing “the union favorite.” Weil “sought to destroy the franchise business model and gig economy as Americans know them” when he held the job in the Obama years. “More workers have embraced freelancing during the pandemic. So why would” President Biden “nominate someone to a top Labor job who wants to kill their jobs?” Because he expected Weil to “impose via regulation much of Big Labor’s Pro Act that has failed to pass the Senate.” The “embarrassing defeat is a sign” Biden’s “radical nominees” are “getting more scrutiny” as “progressives turn to executive action to impose what they can’t pass in Congress.”

Libertarian: Colleges, End Mask Mandates

“Across the country, government-mandated masking is mostly over,” notes Reason’s Robby Soave. But “many college campuses still have mask mandates in place, even though their student populations are almost entirely vaccinated.” George Washington University, for one, “still has a universal indoor mask mandate in place,” with no plans to end it — though it “requires students to be vaccinated and boosted, and tests them every other week.” And GWU is “hardly alone”: NYU, UCLA and the University of Michigan still require masks. Sigh. “Every college that still clings, desperately, to mask mandates must ask itself one simple question: If not now, when?” — Compiled by The Post Editorial Board