Libertarian: Blame Voters for 2024 Trainwreck

“Americans see the next presidential election shaping up as a national trainwreck,” grouses Reason’s J.D. Tuccille, but they “deserve a share of blame for this mess.” A recent poll found “a solid two-thirds calling a [Joe] Biden win bad for the country,” while 56% see a Donald Trump triumph also hurting. Another poll “put opposition to a Biden run at 76 percent and to a Trump run at 64 percent.” People “tell pollsters that they want other options on the ballot,” but “when offered candidates who aren’t Democrats or Republicans, voters rarely take advantage.” So: “The country may face disaster, but it’s self-inflicted.”

Crime desk: A Question for Windy City Mayor

“Mayor Johnson, would you let your daughter ride unaccompanied on the CTA?” wonders John Kass at his website. After all, “violent men know that women and girls are soft targets” and prey on the “thousands of poor women and girls” riding the Chicago Transit Authority “every day and night.” The solution? “Get the offenders off the CTA and off the street [and] have them stand trial before a judge. If they’re found guilty, lock them up.” But “broken Chicago corporate media” avoid the subject “for political reasons,” and Brandon Johnson makes “excuses lest the violent youth are themselves demonized.” “Urban suicide takes time,” but: “Time for the great cities” — not just Chicago – “is running out.” If you don’t have a “safe public transportation system, you don’t really have a city, do you?”

From the right: Legalized Weed Isn’t Working

The George Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance “has been instrumental in legalizing marijuana in 11 states and Washington, D.C.,” warn the Washington Examiner’s editors, yet the promised benefits “have failed to materialize, leaving hundreds of communities with more addiction, death, and chaos.” Marijuana is “linked to schizophrenia and permanent brain damage” and “has become more addictive and more damaging.” Legalization results in “more addicts, more brain damage, and more ruined families.” Its so-called benefits have not reduced crime, increased tax revenues or resulted in “fewer people taking opioids and fentanyl.” Regulations and heavy taxes have spawned “a vast illicit market that easily undercuts the legal market.” Citizens must fight the lies “when the Drug Policy Alliance starts trying to legalize marijuana in their state.”

Eye on NYC: The Left’s Neely Hypocrisy

“Are chokehold cases to be judged” by ”the racial and socioeconomic identity groups of those involved?” asks Hannah E. Meyers at The Wall Street Journal. “The Jan. 23 chokehold death in New York of Corde Scott” — “allegedly killed by his stepfather, Tyresse Minter,” who wasn’t “arrested or arraigned for months” — reveals a “glaring difference” from the left’s response to Jordan Neely’s death on a subway. Where was AOC’s “outrage when Corde Scott was killed in his Bronx home” in “her congressional district, and his alleged killer walked free?” “Why no outcry that the educational, family and mental-health services failed him — because his killer was a black ex-con and not a white ex-Marine?” “If there is not a single sign reading ‘Justice for Corde’ then maybe we’re doing something wrong.”

Conservative: Council’s Teen-Pregnancy Push

“The New York City Council has added another misguided new progressive policy” that will “make life worse for the poor,” argues Howard Husock at City Journal: ending “the requirement that families entering city housing shelters — almost all single mothers with children — wait 90 days” for a housing voucher. That means “a young woman considering out-of-wedlock pregnancy would know that doing so comes with the prospect of a quickly obtained city subsidy for an apartment of her own.” The council “is sending a signal, and it’s a bad one.” “Mayor Adams is right to push back against this law, for more than budget reasons. He should follow through with his veto — and hope that, somehow, common sense takes hold of enough council members to sustain it.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board