A plague of safetyist hysteria, quit letting nonprofits boost terror and other commentary

Culture critic: A Plague of Safetyist Hysteria

“Americans have lost the ability to assess risk,” warns The Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim. In her new book, “Worth the Risk,” Allison Schrager argues that roots of the problem go back nearly a century, but over the years we’ve sought to avoid risk altogether. Yet risk-aversion creates its own problems. E.g., the Federal Reserve tries to avert downturns, but “recessions rid economies” of inefficiencies. Meanwhile, the “terrorized response” to the pandemic “normalized alarm”; we now go “from one moral panic to another. Yesterday, the Omicron variant; today, data centers and the AI apocalypse.” A new poll finds 46% of Americans see a moderate or significant risk “AI will destroy humanity”; another 17% think it’s near certain. “This is, to use a technical term, bananas.”

Centrists: Quit Letting Nonprofits Boost Terror

“Terrorist groups have a long and documented history of using nonprofit organizations to fundraise and spread their ideology abroad,” observe The Free Press’ editors, and new reporting shows that two nonprofits “taking advantage of the tax-exempt status afforded to charities and universities” are “seeking to advance the ideological mission of terrorist groups like Hamas.” The Malaysia-based, US-tax-exempt MyFundAction “has a track record of unabashed support for Hamas,” while the Islamic University of Minnesota has a close relationship with “a Turkey-based nonprofit” that’s “designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control.” In 2001, “American policymakers were caught flat-footed, allowing terrorists to disguise their fundraising via nonprofits.” A quarter-century later, “there is no excuse.”

Eye on Cali: Sacramento vs. Free Speech

California Democrats took aim at YouTuber Nick Shirley’s “anti-fraud crusade” with Assembly Bill 2624, a k a the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” fumes Reason’s Josh Pauzé, which “prohibits online disclosures of personal information” with the intent to “threaten an immigration support worker.” The worst section was “amended before passage,” but the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression warns “new version ‘could still chill lawful, constitutionally protected speech about immigrants and immigration service providers.’ ” It’s par for Sacramento’s course: “In 2025, California extended similar provisions for reproductive healthcare providers to gender-affirming healthcare providers and patients.” “Shirley’s commentary and style are certainly not for everyone,” but: “California’s laws seem to suppress free speech.”

Fraud watch: Cleaning Up Biden’s COVID Mess

In a post-DOGE era, the “deep desire among Americans to stop the government from throwing away their money,” remains, argues the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, hence “a new Trump administration effort, Vice President Vance’s White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.” During COVID, “an enormous amount of money” was stolen via the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, yet the Biden administration did nothing. Now Vance’s task force will both “prosecute individual cases of fraud” and “prevent those suspected of fraud from ever receiving government loans again.” By “undoing some of the damage that fraud did during COVID,” Vance is associating “himself with a good cause and a win-win proposition: The more he succeeds in fighting fraud, the better his case to the voters.”

Grooming survivor: Reality Checkfor UK Pols

Former Conservative MP Rory Stewart’s dismissive take on Britain’s “grooming gangs scandal” as “manageable” and “a thing of the past” infuriate Fiona Goddard at UnHerd: His “comments have caused outrage, particularly among victims such as me”; he “perpetuates a culture in which victims feel unheard and overlooked.” For decades, “the institutions supposed to protect them” instead compounded the “worst abuse imaginable” suffered by thousands. Rather than prioritize preventing child sexual abuse, concern for ‘ “community tensions’ . . . allowed criminal networks trafficking and abusing children to grow” And, contra Stewart, “Britain’s institutions are still failing” — seeming “more concerned with concealing their failures than preventing further abuse.” “The country needs a reckoning, and many politicians need a reality check.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board