Fast Takes: DSA out to ax the justice system, court packing looms and more

Criminologist: DSA Out To Ax the Justice System

“Motivated by ignorance” and “a hatred of American institutions,” the DSA aims “to dismantle the American criminal-justice system” as an instrument of “class warfare” now supplemented by a “racial or ethnic overlay,” marvels Barry Latzer at City Journal. Yet the socialists “overlook the poverty” of most crime victims, as well as the “disproportionate” percentage of black and Latino victims. And leftists’ favored “restorative justice” solutions may work for minor infractions or as a “supplement to incarceration,” but not serious crimes. Socialists also oppose “e-carceration” such as ankle monitoring, “though they don’t say why.” In reality, the left “doesn’t really care about such reforms,” because its real goal is “to destroy the system — and not just the criminal justice system.”

Libertarian: Court Packing Looms

“President Joe Biden faced enormous pressure from progressive activists” wanting him “to expand the U.S. Supreme Court by packing it with a supermajority” of liberals, but “Biden consistently resisted such pressure” throughout his term, notes Reason’s Damon Root, siding with liberals such as Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg feared and Stephen Breyer who thought court-packing would destroy the high court’s credibility. Absent principled justices, like Ginsburg and Breyer, “who would be willing to speak out against,” what happens when next “Democrats regain control of Congress and the White House?” While “court packing 2.0 may not be inevitable,” a “fundamental distrust of the Supreme Court only seems to be gaining steam” on the left.

Security beat: Stop the Cable-Cutters

Undersea fiber-optic cables carry almost 95% of the world’s data, a “vulnerability most Americans do not consider,” warns Jason Hsu at The Hill. Beijing keeps damaging cables linking Taiwan and its islands to the world as a form of “China’s continued gray-zone warfare” aiming to “undercut Taiwanese sovereignty”; Russia is accused of similar crimes in the Baltic Sea. With US allies looking -10 to see if our leaders will match their “rhetoric about ‘critical infrastructure,’ ” Congress must pass the Strategic Subsea Cables Act to punish those looking to “harm international communications.” Plus, as a “linchpin of a shared defense” America can lead its allies in “hardening this infrastructure and speeding up repairs.” It’s only a matter of time before bad guys cut the next cable; “the only question is whether the United States will make them pay a price for it.”

Conservative: France’s Antisemitism Crisis

Barbara Butch, a French Jewish artist, “was forced to abandon her performance during a music festival” as “100 pro-Palestine activists hurled abuse” at her Saturday, grumbles Gavin Mortimer at The Spectator. This, because Butch signed onto a call “to address the rise in France of ‘renewed forms of anti-Semitism.’” The protestors’ aim was to “subject artists” to the agenda of the far left La France Insoumise party; recent polls show 92% “of French Jews believed LFI had played a role in the recent rise of anti-Semitism.” Charles Kushner, the US ambassador to France, has accused President Emmanuel Macron of turning a blind eye to the rampant anti-Semitism” as “not a day passes without Jews assaulted in the streets.” Mortimer adds: “No Jew is safe in Emmanuel Macron’s France.”

China desk: Trump’s Test on Jimmy Lai

“Donald Trump put his reputation as a negotiator on the line with China last week” when he opted “not to renew an emergency order he issued in 2020 that imposed sanctions on nine officials from Hong Kong and the mainland,” contends The Wall Street Journal’s Bill McGurn. And “it isn’t clear Mr. Trump got anything in return” for this “huge concession to China.” Meanwhile, newspaperman Jimmy Lai, the “world’s most famous political prisoner,” remains imprisoned, despite Trump’s 2024 election-eve vow that he could easily get him freed. “Clearly that’s proving more difficult than Mr. Trump anticipated. So the question now isn’t only what happens to Jimmy Lai if he remains in prison. It’s also about the consequences for Mr. Trump.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board