Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New York’s newspapers:
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The Daily News on closing Rikers Island
March 25
Monday, the Department of City Planning is expected to formally kick off the land-use review process for building four new borough jails to replace Rikers Island. So excited are card-carrying progressives about shuttering the miserable, out-of-the-way complex, they’ve made a host of unforced errors that are rapidly piling up.
First, what happened to Mayor de Blasio’s initial idea that each borough would house its own pretrial prisoners to keep them close to home and courts? Staten Island got off scot-free.
The Bronx, meanwhile, gets hurt due to a plan de Blasio glommed onto with little to no community consultation (oh, that). Unlike Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn jails, whose proximity to courthouses make for easy transport of defendants, lawyers and family, 320 Concord Ave. in Mott Haven, currently a NYPD tow pound, sits in a residential area fully two miles from the Bronx justice center.
Worse, the jail would swallow up a site long-promised for hundreds of affordable units for the Diego Beekman Mutual Housing Association. Diego Beekman has a proven track record restoring the struggling area; residents have clawed back against what was rampant drug and gang activity.
Dropping into this neighborhood a 26-story jail risks introducing a destabilizing force at the worst time.
So why was it picked last summer, when there were far better options? Probably because back then, it seemed to present the path of least political resistance.
No more. The neighborhood feels stepped on by a big boot, and who can blame them?
Online: https://bit.ly/2Tsyvit
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The Times Union on the Mueller report
March 25
The Justice Department’s special counsel finishes his work and delivers a report.
Its public release is essential not just to the presidency, but to democracy.
Attorney General William Barr has finally answered the two biggest questions that have dominated U.S. politics for more than two years: Did President Donald Trump and his campaign conspire with Russia to influence the 2016 election, and did the president try to obstruct a probe into that very question? Mr. Barr’s answers: No, and no.
It ought to come as good news to Americans, regardless of their feelings about Mr. Trump, that Mr. Barr and the Justice Department’s special counsel, Robert Mueller, agree that the president was not in cahoots with a hostile foreign power.
However, the many questions about the president, and about our electoral system, are by no means resolved. It’s essential now that Mr. Barr provide Congress and the public the full report, for two key reasons.
First, Americans must see the facts underlying those conclusions. It’s important to know how and why Mr. Mueller decided there was no cooperation or coordination with Russia, and perhaps even more vital to see the evidence, and lack of it, on the question of obstruction of justice.
President Trump’s bombastic claim of “complete and total exoneration” is, of course, false; Mr. Mueller’s report offered no such thing, stating, according to Mr. Barr, that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Rather, Mr. Barr, a recent appointee of Mr. Trump’s who has a broad view of presidential authority and immunity, concluded the evidence does not meet the high legal standard for prosecution.
The standard is quite different in the court of public opinion - in which Mr. Trump’s political fate may ultimately be decided - and in Congress, where the many questions about his official, political and private business behavior are being investigated.
The second reason to release the full report is to help Congress figure out what changes in law could lessen the likelihood of a repeat of the foreign interference in U.S. elections. The Mueller report affirms what the U.S. intelligence community has found: that the Russian government used disinformation and social media operations to sow social discord, and hacked and then leaked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Democratic Party organizations, all to influence the presidential race.
It falls on Congress to consider what vulnerabilities and weaknesses exist in the realms of politics, elections, cybersecurity and the internet that might be dealt with through legislation or regulation. To say that our democracy hinges on this is no overstatement.
It’s hard, of course, to imagine a law that could immunize Americans from propaganda and other forms of disinformation, especially in a republic that so fiercely protects free speech. That, in the end, requires an informed citizenry. The release of Mr. Mueller’s report - unfiltered by either Mr. Trump and his allies or by his critics - would be an excellent step toward that goal.
Online: https://bit.ly/2HGxJg7
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The Rome Sentinel on Alzheimer’s disease
March 23
The mysteries of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative afflictions have been notoriously difficult to solve. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars worth of research, little progress has been made in finding a treatment for these diseases, which Harvard researchers predict will affect as many as 1 in 5 Americans by 2030.
But recently, two research teams, one from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and the other from the Salk Institute in San Diego, published findings that have opened a window for advancements in treating these horrific diseases.
The team from Cedars-Sinai found that “transplanting the bone marrow of young laboratory mice into old mice prevented cognitive decline in the old mice, preserving their memory and learning abilities.” According to the report, the research supports “an emerging model that attributes cognitive decline, in part, to aging of blood cells, which are produced in bone marrow.”
At the Salk Institute, meanwhile, researchers found that the Californian herb Yerba santa produces a natural compound, sterubin, that has “neuroprotective” qualities. Like the bone marrow transplant procedure, sterubin was tested on mice, and it was found that the mice’s nerve cells, a vulnerable target of neurodegenerative illness, were protected from damage.
There are reasons to be skeptical of the findings. Perhaps the most significant hang-up is that mice are, of course, not human. And oftentimes treatments that work on mice in the lab do not translate to humans. So there is a long way to go before either of these discoveries can be seen as a bonafide treatment for neurodegenerative disease.
But the progress on finding any treatments for these devastating afflictions has been so slow that any step forward should be applauded. It remains to be seen if the findings from Cedars-Sinai and the Salk Institute will help humans stem the tide of neurodegeneration, but one thing is for sure: We will never find the key to treating these diseases unless researchers remain persistent, working to help humanity and tackle our most vexing challenges.
Online: https://bit.ly/2Ubm3rz
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The Auburn Citizen on vaccinations in New York state
March 21
Legislation that would mandate vaccinations for New York schoolchildren is a commonsense idea that should become law this year.
State law currently requires measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations along with immunizations for diptheria, hepatitis B and poliomyelitis, but students don’t need to be vaccinated if their parents ask for a religious exemption.
We certainly support religious freedom in New York and beyond, but students spend so much time together in close quarters that it just isn’t safe to allow any potentially contagious children into the mix, and a re-emergence of measles and mumps cases is a perfect illustration of why a strong public school vaccinate policy is so important.
Another problem is that some parents are choosing to skip vaccinations for their children after reading false claims that immunizations can cause conditions such as autism.
Measles, mumps and other diseases are more than a nuisance, they can cause death and debilitating conditions that can last a lifetime. And even children who have been immunized can bring a virus home from school and infect an infant too young to have yet been immunized.
Pursuing a higher rate of vaccinations is the best way to prevent outbreaks of preventable diseases. And because vaccines for students have the potential to save lives and prevent suffering, New York would be foolish to fail to make it mandatory.
Online: https://bit.ly/2FutCjL
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The Wall Street Journal on Russian military in Venezuela
March 25
The stakes for American interests keep rising in Venezuela, as Vladimir Putin is now moving his little green men to keep dictator Nicolás Maduro in power. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called his Russian counterpart Monday after Russian air force planes carrying about 100 troops arrived in Caracas Saturday.
“The continued insertion of Russian military personnel” risks “prolonging the suffering of the Venezuelan people who overwhelmingly support” interim President Juan Guaidó, the State Department said in a statement. It added that Mr. Pompeo called on Russia to “cease its unconstructive behavior and join other nations” that want a better future for Venezuela.
This isn’t Ukraine next to Russia, or Syria in the Middle East. This Russian military provocation is in America’s backyard, and the Trump Administration will have to do more in response than issue statements or phone calls of disapproval. The Maduro regime’s fortress socialism is spreading millions of refugees and havoc throughout the region. President Trump needs to decide if he is going to let Mr. Putin get away with it.
Online: https://on.wsj.com/2WlQOaL
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