Bogus ‘beer test’ is back, China set to weaponize biotech and other commentary

From the left: Bogus ‘Beer Test’ Is Back

Covering Dan Osborn’s independent Senate run in Nebraska, The New York Times just revived the “massively overused campaign reporting clichéd” beer test — is this “a guy you’d like to have a beer with”?, smirks Racket News’ Matt Taibbi. “From Bush-Gore through the 2016 cycle it was nearly impossible to escape ‘beer test’ coverage,” as it was “a way for campaign reporters to flex” as “they were usually the chief arbiters of which candidate was beer-i-er than the next.” But the test “mainly vanished” once beer became “a stand-in for unredeeming deplorable values”: Donald Trump was the clear “beer” guy in 2016. But now it’s back “thanks to an odd edge case in which Democrats can root for an Independent without endorsing heteronormative leisure tendencies.” Oy: “Man is this country weird sometimes.”

Health beat: China Set To Weaponize Biotech

More than 40% “of the key building blocks for American medicines are sourced solely in China,” warns Bethany McLean at The Free Press. And the People’s Republic “now has almost as large a pipeline of experimental treatments as the U.S.,” per a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The “scariest prospect”: “a Chinese takeover of the biotech industry so pervasive that it’s not inconceivable” Americans could become “dependent on China for their medicine,” with “catastrophic” consequences, as some in the industry insist it’s only a matter of time before China weaponizes biotech. Yes, “any action the U.S. takes will require some pain,” whether for patients or Big Pharma profits. But “doing nothing” will only appear to cost nothing — “until it doesn’t.”

Faith beat: The Left’s Forever War on Nuns

New York state is “locked in a legal fight” with the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, whose Rosary Hill Home provides “free medical care to poor people with terminal cancer,” sighs John J. Miller at The Wall Street Journal. For two years, the state Department of Health has threatened “fines, loss of their operating license and even imprisonment” if they “keep males out of the ladies’ room or separate bedrooms by biological sex,” or refuse to “recognize a ‘right to consensual sexual relations,’ including sex outside marriage.” And now New York is demanding four orders of nuns “assist patients who wish to commit suicide.” Argh! “The left’s forever war on nuns” dates at least to Obama administration bid to make the Little Sisters of the Poor fund “birth control and abortion drugs, in violation of their Catholic faith,” a “never-say-die crusade” that New York’s attorney general still pursues.

Conservative: Progs’ Global Unseriousness

Challenged “to offer a better path to peace than the one Israel took” after the Oct. 7 attacks, “galactically unserious” Rep. Ro Khanna claimed that “Israel could have negotiated a non-Hamas Gaza” if it “negotiated with Hamas,” marvels Commentary’s Seth Mandel, again proving that the left has “absolutely nothing to say” about avoiding wars because they’ve “put zero thought” in into it.” Similarly, DSA co-chair Megan Romer argues” “We should be sending huge teams of diplomats . . . to get Russia off Ukraine’s back,” as if “double-super-negotiation” and “airdropping more pinstriped suits” would’ve convinced Russia to withdraw. Progressives treat global affairs as a “joke” and regions in conflict “as a sandbox to play around in” on the way to scoring political points.

Energy watch: Nixing ‘Green Propaganda’

India and Indonesia, “comprising more than one-fifth of the world’s population,” are “dismissing the apocalyptic fantasy of the climate industrial complex” as they recognize that “hydrocarbons are still the future of energy,” cheers Vijay Jayaraj in The Hill. After recent major blackouts, “Indonesia is rejecting green propaganda” and “India finds itself in the same boat,” as nearly 80% of its electricity is coal-generated. They’re planning “a massive expansion of energy trade,” including India’s “request for more Indonesian coal to feed a ravenous power grid.” Safe to say, “no amount of U.N.-inspired fearmongering will deter the mission to secure affordable energy for the Indian populace.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board