Conservative: Getting Immigration Right

“American immigration policy should serve the interests of America and Americans,” argues National Review’s Dan McLaughlin, a point that should “be the starting point rather than the end of debates.” That’s why two contentious immigration programs, “asylum and refugee law and Temporary Protected Status,” must be “reformed or abolished,” as they have “no limiting principle” and stir “resentment of immigrants.” The asylum “system is a farce” because immigration lawyers and advocacy groups “advise people to game the system.” Crucially (and setting “aside what to do with people already here”), how do these policies serve American interests? We can welcome “more legal immigrants” if we’re “selecting whom we accept” — that is, “if we make American interests and values our compass.”

Iconoclast: Academia Is Bankrupt and in Denial

“Word does not yet seem to have reached the faculty lounge,” observes The Washington Post’s Megan McArdle, that the “public” is no longer expected to “cater to” academia, where the “political agenda,” “cost” and the “perception that degrees no longer prepare graduates for the workforce” have cratered the credibility of the institution. But many academics are “clueless” about the problem, and even those who sense that “something is seriously amiss” fail to “understand what it will take to fix the problem.” Their only solution is to “imperiously inform Americans they are wrong” that academia “has let politics inform its work” or that any “reform” is necessary. Academics are “reputationally bankrupt” and failure to adapt will lead many of them to “eventually be financially bankrupt as well.”

Media Watch: The ‘Credibility Gap’ Is Growing

Gallup data show plummeting public confidence in the news media, and The Hill’s Becket Adams points to “decades of sloppy, one-sided reporting and a near-total disregard for audience feedback” as eh reason. Just look at National Public Radio, MS Now and PBS News’ “current crisis of credibility” to explain trust of just 14% to 17 %. Note how CNN cited a tweet from Republican Rep. Jack Kimble — a “satirical Twitter account” — in reporting on hospitalized Sen. Mitch McConnell. The press takes this “credibility gap,” it’ll be “serving our purpose of keeping the public well-informed.” If not, news media will eventually “collapse into a small subculture with a limited audience interested only in the affirmation of increasingly niche political pieties.”

Persian Gulf: It’s a New Kind of Warfare

Islamic Revolutionary Guard chief Ahmad Vahidi attacked shipping and a US airbase partly to send “a message,” asserts Michael Doran at The Free Press: that he’s the one “calling the shots” in Iran. President Trump responded with “calibrated escalation” to force Vahidi to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but it’s “unlikely to eliminate the drone threat” that drives “insurers from the market” and ensures “disruption.” Indeed, massive US and Israeli forces “have failed to fully neutralize Iran’s ability to disrupt” the Strait — revealing “how profoundly warfare has changed”: “The era in which U.S. airpower could rapidly neutralize a regional adversary at acceptable cost” is “being replaced by a more contested, attritional environment in which weaker states can buy time and impose significant costs.”

Tech beat: Lawsuits Make Terrible Policy

Whether it’s four states “seeking a combined $1.4 trillion in penalties” from Meta using from “calculations under their consumer-protection laws” or 1,200-plus school districts suing under “a far more elastic theory — public nuisance,” grumbles Cory L. Andrews at The Wall Street Journal, “a courtroom is the worst imaginable place to settle” the debate over harms from teen addiction to social media. The science here is “far from settled,” and “whether social media should be limited, age-gated or redesigned are questions for Congress,” not “two sets of paid experts giving speeches to 12 laymen, the edge going to whichever side’s client is more sympathetic.” Broad court-imposed fixes are not judging, but “governing,” and “by someone no one authorized to govern, on a question the evidence hasn’t yet answered.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board