#How Nancy Pelosi kowtows to lawyers and other commentary

Conservative: How Pelosi Kowtows to Lawyers

At The Washington Post, Marc A. Thiessen knows why Democrats have held up a COVID-19 relief bill: “to protect the ability of personal injury lawyers to cash in on the pandemic.” Republicans wanted temporary liability protection for small businesses and others, but Democrats opposed it. On Dec. 8, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave Dems a choice: Pass a bill that includes both liability reform and state and local aid, or one that sets both aside. So Democrats “threw state and local governments under the bus”: Speaker Nancy Pelosi is forgoing aid, because to get it, she’d “have to compromise on liability reform,” and the lawyers won’t allow it.” “In all my many years in Washington, I’ve never seen a constituency with such total dominance over a political party.”

Libertarian: Flight From the Cities

“The mirage of cities buffeted by white-collar jobs and supported by wealthy citizens willing to take on just one more tax increase is officially kaput,” declares Kristin Tate at The Hill. A “cascade of residents” fled “large cities in blue states” this year, with Gotham losing at least 300,000. “The pandemic brought nightlife and culture to a near halt” while popularizing telecommuting. “The safe cities inspired by Rudy Giuliani” are gone, with “surging poverty and violent crime.” That and “a plethora of new taxes and regulatory schemes that soak middle- and high-income earners” helped drive them out. Citizens of many social classes this year “decided it was no longer worth living in major metropolitan areas.”

Capitol beat: Swalwell Is GOP’s Exhibit A

Rep. Eric Swalwell’s ties with Chinese spy Christine Fang prove the Republicans’ charge that “Democrats don’t take threats from China seriously,” argues RealClearPolitics’ Philip Wegmann. Pelosi put Swalwell on the House Intelligence Committee despite his troubling history with Fang. Two Republicans on the committee insist they don’t want Swalwell anywhere near state secrets. Yet Pelosi says she has no “concerns” about the congressman. Meanwhile, counterintelligence experts warn that Fang’s relationship with Swalwell is the kind of game “China is so good at playing.” If Pelosi doesn’t boot him from the committee, Wegmann predicts, Republicans — who spent years listening to him “lambast” President Trump for his alleged collusion with Russia — will “make him a poster boy” for Democrats’ dangerously weak stance on China.

From the right: The Hunter-Corruption Deniers

Now that Hunter Biden has admitted he’s being probed by federal prosecutors, “a lot of powerful people have a lot to be embarrassed about,” snarks Tristan Justice at The Federalist. Start with Joe Biden, who denied having discussed his son’s business ties, in contradiction to what an e-mail on Hunter’s laptop suggests. Biden also falsely “accused [President] Trump of peddling Russian disinformation” and even “fat-shamed an Iowa voter” just for bringing up the scandal. Next to be ashamed: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose platforms suppressed the story, as well as CBS’s Lesley Stahl, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and Brian Stelter, NPR’s editors, The Washington Post’s Max Boot, MSNBC’s Ben Rhodes and several others who similarly pooh-poohed it. “The irony” here is “rich,” notes Justice, “considering the same media perpetuated a four-year conspiracy” indicting Trump as “a Kremlin agent.”

Foreign desk: Retaliate for Russia’s Attacks

President Trump should retaliate for “Russia’s latest cyberoffensive against the United States,” which gave the Kremlin “persistent access to information flows across thousands of American public and private entities,” urge the Washington Examiner’s editors. To ignore this would be to “encourage” new aggression by Russian President Vladimir Putin. If the US fails to act, it would be as if Moscow “looted a superstore with impunity and is now laughing at Washington’s complaints.” Mere “condemnation, attribution and the leveling of criminal charges” against Russian officers behind the attack are not enough. If Trump doesn’t make Russia believe the price of its attack wasn’t worth “the benefits accrued,” Putin “will only pursue more aggressive attacks in the future.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board