Farmers fight back, don’t give up on Ukraine and other commentary

Green desk: Farmers Fight Back

“Europe’s farmers are rising up” from France to Germany to Poland to the Netherlands, and “the elites are terrified,” cheers Spiked’s Fraser Myers.

“There is a common root to their anger”: The EU’s green agenda sacrifices “their livelihoods at the altar of climate alarmism.”

“The elites tried to dismiss the protests,” calling “the farmers fascists, far right and pawns of online disinformation. But this propaganda campaign has flopped.”

“The establishment seems to think it can change our way of life and shred our living standards without a peep of discontent. This is bound to provoke an almighty backlash. And the farmers have shown us the way.”

So: “Long may the farmers’ revolt continue. And here’s hoping it inspires many more people to take a stand.”

From the right: Don’t Give Up on Ukraine

“The congressional faction that opposes Ukraine assistance shares a common talking point with the Kremlin — that Ukraine is losing the war with Russia anyway,” but there is “substantial evidence to the contrary,” reports Evelyn N. Farkas at The Hill.

“Russia has the benefit of greater manpower resources” and greater firepower than Ukraine.

Yet: “Over the last year Ukraine has systematically destroyed a significant portion of the Russian Black Sea Fleet” and “successfully destroyed or disabled about half a dozen Russian oil refineries.”

Plus “regular trade, at pre-February 2022 levels, has resumed,” and “Ukraine appears to be getting closer to receiving $330 billion [in] frozen assets.”

“Ukraine is winning. The only factor that would change this reality would be if the U.S. and Europe stopped providing assistance.”

Albany beat: NY’s Public-Health Defense Gap

“Four years after a devastating pandemic, the state has made no major investment to repair or improve its public health defenses,” laments the Empire Center’s Bill Hammond.

Funding for the critically important “Wadsworth Center for Laboratories and Research has been cut roughly in half since Covid.”

Budget allocations for the state health “department’s public health-related offices has been generally flat after substantial declines in the early 2000s.”

In “stark contrast” to the “relative lack of investment in public health,” state Medicaid spending “has spiked to” 38% above “its pre-pandemic size.”

After New York found itself “vulnerable to pandemics and poorly prepared to respond,” the failure to hike “investment in public health suggests that the state’s leaders are failing to learn the lessons of COVID-19.”

Conservative: Wise Artists Stay in Their Lanes

Despite singer Annie Lennox and director Jonathan Glazer using recent award-show appearances to bash Israel, “celebrities seem to have slowed down on their political endorsements and activism for the 2024 election compared to previous cycles,” notes Commentary’s Seth Mandel.

Why? “The comedian Nikki Glaser” says “she doesn’t like to do political bits in her standup because she cares too much about politics, which leads to worse comedy,” explaining: “I’m too angry to be funny and people can sense that.”

Mandel’s gloss: “She’s not afraid of politics, she’s afraid of being a terrible comedian.”

“Kevin Hart said the same thing for basically the same reason: ‘We all have lanes, and there’s nothing wrong with operating in the lane that’s best for you.’ ”

Border watch: AMLO’s Blackmailing Biden

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently issued a series of “blackmail demands” or outright “threats,” marvels Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness.

The influx of millions of illegal immigrants “will continue,” AMLO warned, unless America sends $20 billion to Latin American countries, grants amnesty to migrants here, lifts sanctions against Venezuela and ends its embargo of Cuba.

How to respond, asks Hanson, to AMLO’s clear contempt for “an enfeebled Joe Biden?”

Deport the 10 million illegal migrants who arrived these past three years, slap a 10% tax on the $60 billion in remittances to Mexico, declare drug cartels “terrorist” groups and deploy the US military to the border.

Do that, and AMLO will soon “begin praising the U.S. and ask” to cooperate again on securing the border.

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board