#The undying Pulse Nightclub lie and other commentary

Leftist: The Undying Pulse Nightclub Lie

Five years after the massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, the American establishment continues to perpetuate “an absolute falsehood: namely, that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was motivated by anti-LGBT animus,” sighs Glenn Greenwald at his Substack. Fact is, “Mateen, like so many others who committed similar acts of violence, was motivated by rage over President [Barack] Obama’s bombing campaigns in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and chose Pulse at random, without even knowing it was a gay club.” Yet liberal political and media figures hold fast to the lie. “In the immediate aftermath,” it “may have been reasonable for the public to speculate that Mateen, given his professed support for ISIS, chose Pulse because it was a gay club,” which “neatly played into a liberal ­political agenda of highlighting anti-LGBT hate crimes.” But “journalism is supposed to function on evidence, not speculation, and there never was any evidence that supported the storyline.”

From the right: The Feckless G-7

President Biden made very “modest progress” at the G-7 summit “in his effort to rally a united front against China’s violations of global norms,” concludes The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Multilateralism’s weakness is that it “requires unity of purpose that can be defeated by the lowest common-denominator participant,” and Europeans won’t risk their money-making ­exports to China. In a statement of “gauzy, hopeful rhetoric,” summit leaders ask “the same WHO that failed in its first COVID-19 origin study to do another one — this time with . . . feeling?” Please: “China won’t be moved by feckless G-7 pleas for better behavior.”

Conservative: Shutdowns Killed Small Biz

“COVID shutdowns championed by” governors and bureaucrats ­destroyed nearly 40 percent of small businesses — “for little to no damned good reason,” fumes Victoria Taft at PJ Media. Bureaucrats let big-box stores like Walmart and Costco remain open, giving them ­“essential” status. But studies reveal “shutdown orders made little to no difference in COVID’s impact,” proving “small businesses could have operated the entire time, exactly like big-box stores, had it not been for tyrants in statehouses and mayor’s offices around the country.” Small businesses, “responsible for 62 percent of all US jobs,” are “the backbone of job creation.” Their “entrepreneurial spirit” was destroyed by the “insatiable desire by governors to micromanage the affairs of men.”

Iconoclast: NYC Previews Dems’ Future

New York’s mayoral primary is “a preview of the future of the Democratic Party,” declares Zaid Jilani at Persuasion. Leading candidates Eric Adams and Andrew Yang “reflect the country’s growing ethnic diversity,” and estimates say just 36 percent of primary voters will be white. And like “many of the party’s minority voters,” Adams and Yang are “ideologically moderate,” rejecting the far-left agenda, especially on criminal justice. “Surely a progressive city like New York isn’t crying out to get tough on crime,” some might say, but polling shows it’s “the single most important issue for a plurality of voters.” Shootings are “skyrocketing,” and those “in predominantly minority neighborhoods often bear the brunt” of violent crime, with blacks making up 74 percent of Gotham’s 2020 shooting victims. The Democratic Party’s “cultural diversity leads to ideological diversity, helping moderate it in” New York and beyond.

Libertarian: Feds’ Lumber Follies

“In the midst of soaring prices and short supply of lumber in the United States, the federal government is doing everything in its power to choke off other sources of the stuff that might fulfill demand and help to bring down costs,” grumbles Reason’s J.D. Tuccille. With prices up 300 percent over a year ago thanks to “public-health mandates that shuttered or restricted many sawmills,” and not enough labor to run those open at full capacity (“with expanded unemployment benefits shouldering much of the blame”), the Biden administration still “proposes to hike tariffs once again” on Canadian lumber “to over 18 percent for many firms.” In all, “if you deliberately set out to hurt Americans through this one sector of the economy, you couldn’t be more effective.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board