Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

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Dec. 23

The Washington Post on President Biden's commutation of death sentences

President Joe Biden’s Monday announcement that he would commute the death sentences of 37 federal inmates should not be seen as an act of mercy for people convicted of awful crimes. It was a substantial move to align the United States with the rest of the democratic world, which has largely abandoned the practice of killing people as an instrument of justice.

In other words, Mr. Biden’s use of his commutation power was extraordinary — and insufficient. Three men will remain on federal death row, and more people could be put there in future years. Meanwhile, many states continue to execute people.

We say this while acknowledging the horrors these people committed; the three men Mr. Biden left on death row were convicted of mass shootings or terrorist attacks. We also acknowledge that a majority of Americans still favors the death penalty, despite a downward trend in recent years. Mr. Biden’s attempt to split the difference, leaving what he considered the worst of the worst on death row, is therefore understandable.

Yet the death penalty is expensive, impractical and too often unjustly applied. And, even if the death penalty posed none of these problems, the government should not purposely take lives outside of war or similar conflict. The state should be better — far better — than those who unnecessarily and premeditatedly extinguish human life.

Our view has seen substantial wins in recent years. Executions have plummeted as public support for the practice has moderated. But 2024 offered multiple signs that the momentum may be ebbing. President-elect Donald Trump promised during his campaign to expand the death penalty. And the Death Penalty Information Center, in its annual end-of-year report, shows that the number of executions nationwide, though still far below their heights at the turn of the century, have been ticking upward in recent years. Twenty-five people were executed in the United States in 2024, slightly up from the previous year and more than twice the three-decade low reached in 2021.

That’s largely the result of efforts by officials in Republican-run states to reactivate the death penalty. Three states this year — Utah, South Carolina and Indiana — carried out their first executions in more than a decade. Alabama also experimented with a new way to kill its inmates: asphyxiating them with nitrogen gas. The first person subjected to this method, Kenneth Smith, convulsed and gasped for air for four minutes. Following the execution, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall encouraged other states to adopt the method. “Alabama has done it, and now so can you,” he said. Increasingly, states are carrying out these executions behind a veil of secrecy. Just last week, Indiana, citing state law, executed Joseph Corcoran with no media witnesses.

This year also saw an increase in the number of people sentenced to death, from 21 in 2023 to 26. About a third of those sentences were imposed by nonunanimous juries, thanks to laws in Florida and Alabama that allow jurors to recommend the death sentence even if they don’t reach consensus. In fact, Florida in 2023 enacted legislation allowing death sentences to be imposed if just 8 out of 12 jurors vote in favor.

Of course, as Mr. Biden acknowledged in his Monday announcement, most people with death sentences in the United States committed heinous crimes and deserve little sympathy. But one can condemn such acts while also maintaining that executing criminals cannot bring back victims of those crimes or make whole those who lost loved ones.

Also, mistakes happen, even in an advanced criminal justice system such as that of the United States. In July, Larry Roberts became the 200th person sentenced to death to be exonerated of his alleged crime since the DPIC starting tracking wrongful convictions in 1973. No one should be comfortable with that number. Since 1976, when the Supreme Court ended its four-year moratorium on the death penalty, more than 1,600 people have been executed in the United States. How many of them were likewise innocent?

ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/23/death-penalty-trump-criminal-justice/

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Dec. 24

The New York Times on the teen mental health crisis

Rates of anxiety and depression in adolescents have been rising for years. Millions of Americans with mental health problems are not getting the treatment they need for myriad reasons. Many families can’t afford it. And many young people also don’t know where to turn for help.

The UJA-Federation of New York, an organization created in 1917 to provide Jewish New Yorkers with economic and social support, is trying to fill the coverage gap for young adults of all backgrounds. The organization helps them get care from its network of mental health professionals through educational outreach at schools, community centers and even coffee shops. This kind of localized approach has long been recommended by experts because it has been shown to reach people who might not otherwise seek treatment or support.

“Since UJA was founded — and that’s now well over 100 years ago — we have focused on critical issues facing New Yorkers in need,” said Alex Roth-Kahn, a managing director at the organization. That mission has led to decades of supporting people with mental health challenges.

Just this year, Marcellus Williams was executed in Missouri for a 1998 murder, even though the prosecuting attorney in St. Louis County filed a motion to vacate his death sentence because DNA testing of the murder weapon ruled him out. And in Texas, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is fighting the death sentence of Robert Robertson, convicted in the death of his 2-year-old, who prosecutors said died of shaken baby syndrome — though Robertson’s lawyers have cited medical and forensic experts who concluded she likely died from undiagnosed pneumonia.

Mr. Biden’s intervention this week is a nod to the flaws of the death penalty, but also a need for a system that claims human dignity and equal application of the law as its driving values. State and federal lawmakers should finish the job by abolishing the practice.

ONLINE: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/24/opinion/communities-fund-uja-federation.html

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Dec. 23

The Wall Street Journal on rising life expectancy in the United States

Some good news as 2024 nears the end: Life expectancy in the U.S. last year made an unusually sharp increase as deaths from most major causes declined, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Americans can expect more longevity gains in the future—as long as Washington doesn’t introduce harmful policies.

Life expectancy in 2023 rose 0.9 years to 78.4 while the overall mortality rate adjusted for age declined 6%. Death rates among all age groups fell, and more sharply for middle-aged Americans and seniors. A typical 65-year-old can expect to live another 19.5 years, up from 18.9 years in 2022.

The large rebound in a single year owes largely to a decline in Covid deaths as the pandemic receded into the past. Covid deaths last year were roughly the same as those from the flu during a bad flu season. Death rates from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and unintentional injuries (e.g., drug overdoses) also declined.

It’s true that U.S. life expectancy is still lower, and deaths from most causes somewhat higher, than before the pandemic when it reached an overall average of 78.8 years. But that’s because of an increase in chronic illnesses, which may have been exacerbated by the pandemic lockdowns. Forced to stay home, many Americans ate and drank more and used more drugs.

The Biden Administration claimed credit for the lifespan increase because drug overdoses declined slightly in 2023. Perhaps political attention to the fentanyl scourge is making a difference. But overdoses were still 50% higher last year than in 2019. The truth is that the Administration’s “harm reduction” policies—e.g., distributing sterile needles and opioid-overdose medicine naloxone to addicts—have failed to reduce addiction.

A common lament on the political left and right is that the U.S. has a lower life expectancy despite spending more on healthcare than most developed countries. But America also has more chronic disease and drug addiction, which aren’t from failings in private healthcare. Americans have access to more treatments than any country in the world.

This is why U.S. cancer survival rates are higher than in most developed countries and continue to improve. Personalized cancer vaccines and CAR T-cell therapies have shown potential to treat deadly cancers like pancreatic and glioblastoma. GLP-1 medicines like Ozempic could help extend lifespans by reducing obesity, diabetes and even drug addictions.

The policy risk is that government drug price controls will discourage innovation. Expanding government control over healthcare isn’t the way to make Americans healthier.

ONLINE: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/cdc-u-s-life-expectancy-rises-covid-mortality-chronic-illness-drugs-pharma-e2f03030?mod=editorials_article_pos3

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Dec. 24

The Boston Globe says Republicans taking directions from Elon Musk might want to reconsider

Until last week’s budget debacle, Elon Musk was a warm-up act for President-elect Donald Trump.

Like the many adulatory openers at Trump rallies and Republican gatherings, he amped up the crowd — but strictly in preparation for the main act. While Democrats like to flash star power at events — A-listers, movie stars, and pop icons — in today’s Republican Party, Trump is the star power.

But the rise of Musk as a political figure means that another successful, powerful businessman is potentially poised to eclipse Trump’s voice in the Republican Party, whether he intends to or not.

That’s a problem for Trump, who isn’t exactly used to sharing the limelight. The MAGA movement, as Trump allies describe it, is built around the idea that politicians of all stripes are too blinded by corruption, political complications, and self-interest to serve the needs of the American people. Such a movement necessitates an audacious leader who isn’t afraid to break with the pack and stand out — someone exactly like Trump. His no-holds-barred style of leadership has allowed him to quickly overhaul the Republican Party, elevating loyalists and his favored policies with little regard for pushback from liberals or traditional Republicans.

Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, owner of X (formerly Twitter), and the world’s richest man, has been one of Trump’s most important allies in spreading that message. His endorsement, his campaigning efforts, his nearly quarter of a billion dollar America PAC, his energizing rally appearances, and even his transformation of X into a “town square” have been vital to spreading Republican messaging. Musk has been a dutiful “First Buddy.”

But he could become more than that, as he revealed last week. Starting early Wednesday morning, a mere series of X posts from Musk helped to derail a bipartisan congressional deal to fund the government and avert a shutdown. That Musk had concerns about a 1,500-page budget bill isn’t the issue here; it’s safe to assume that any impenetrable packet of government spending contains eyebrow-raising allocations.

What is of concern is how Musk seemingly single-handedly hijacked the process — and how Republicans let him. On X, Musk and his sidekick Vivek Ramaswamy praised Republicans who bowed to his opposition of the bill and put on notice those who didn’t. “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Musk posted early Wednesday afternoon, generating more than 47 million views.

He beat Trump to the punch — or, maybe, pushed the president-elect into action. Twelve hours after Musk’s first post opposing the bill, JD Vance and Trump released a statement condemning the bill. And that evening, Trump posted on Truth Social that “Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be primaried.”

So Republican leaders dutifully withdrew the bill and replaced it with a slimmed-down alternative that met Musk and Trump’s demands. That bill failed on Thursday. So on Friday, rather than allow the government to shut down, the House voted on and passed a third bill — which looked suspiciously like the initial version with some face-saving changes to placate Musk and Trump — with Democratic votes.

That Musk is using his platform to share his views isn’t an issue. As he often points out, he has made X a public square for many different viewpoints — including many of his own detractors. The problem is that Republicans have allowed Musk to disproportionately sway their leadership.

That’s not necessarily a problem when Musk is advocating for budget cuts and bureaucratic overhaul in his self-conceived Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE will be an extragovernmental advisory board that might have the potential to help trim some federal fat. In this advisory role, an innovator like Musk, along with his cochair Ramaswamy, have the potential to make helpful recommendations unburdened by the political pressures of being in the federal government.

But advisers advise, they don’t direct. Will it be a problem when the new ascendant voice on the right wants to, say, protect his business interests with American adversaries like China? He has many potential conflicts of interest in dictating how the American government should spend and not spend its money. His companies Tesla and SpaceX, for example, have had over $15 billion in government contracts over the past decade.

Musk is doing more than swaying policy. He’s also creating a new line of attack for Democrats who are more than pleased to point out that Republicans’ reimagined “working people’s party” is being led by a billionaire puppeteered by a far richer billionaire. On X, Democrats lined up to highlight “President Musk’s” pull, with Senator Chris Murphy posting about the Trump administration’s “Billionaire First” agenda.

Trump is no stranger to criticisms from the left, nor is he particularly stringent about consistency in his policy positions. Like any good populist, Trump has shown himself willing to adapt to his supporters’ whims.

He might bristle, however, at the prospect of being relegated to an opening act, a mere figurehead for a party driven by someone younger, richer, and more influential. The bristling may have already started. Trump’s transition spokesperson immediately went on the defense: “President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop,” Karoline Leavitt said.

And maybe some resistance from Team Trump is for the best. Even if Trump agrees with Musk, an unelected billionaire with a long list of conflicts of interest should not have such a direct line of influence over our government. Trump was elected, he should be making the decisions — not waiting for his rich friend to endorse them before Trump himself has even weighed in.

Republicans are going to have to answer plenty of tough questions about Musk’s influence on their party over the next four years. None might be as difficult as this: Is Trump willing to let Musk steal his show?

ONLINE: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/24/opinion/elon-musk-trump-congress/?event=event12

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Dec. 24

The Philadelphia Inquirer says RFK Jr. cannot be taken seriously as HHS Secretary

America’s public health could be at risk if the incoming administration doesn’t correct some of the campaign rhetoric that may have helped Donald Trump win an election but has no merit now that voting is over.

For example, inaccurate comments about water fluoridation that prospective U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not taken back.

“ Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease,” Kennedy said in a November social media post in which he also claimed the president-elect would advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.

As is typical with Trump, he has neither embraced nor denied Kennedy’s assertions, preferring to instead suggest support of ideas that he may later reject by nebulously saying of Kennedy: “I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on medicines.”

Please, don’t.

America doesn’t need anyone “wild” in charge of public health. Kennedy can’t be taken seriously when he makes misleading comments about water fluoridation that may have a veneer of truth but don’t hold up when someone takes the time to review the facts.

Fluoride is not an industrial waste product. It is a mineral found in rocks and soil that leaches naturally into streams and other water supplies. Its effectiveness in preventing tooth decay was discovered in the 1920s when it was observed that Colorado Springs, Colo., residents whose teeth were stained by excessive fluoride in their water sources had fewer than normal cavities.

Kennedy is wrong to suggest the subsequent fluoridation of community water supplies across America occurred hastily and without due investigation of potential dangers. The National Institutes of Health began investigating how fluoride affects the human body in the 1930s, but the first major trial of fluoridation of a community’s water supply didn’t occur until 1945 in Grand Rapids, Mich.

President Harry S. Truman signed an act creating the National Institute of Dental Research in 1948 in large part because 20% of young men being drafted for military service were rejected because their teeth were so bad. Meanwhile, 10 years after the Michigan study began, the cavity rate among Grand Rapids children was reduced by more than 60%.

Subsequent research shows drinking fluoridated water not only reduces cavities and associated dental pain but correspondingly cuts missed school and work days. Such results prompted cities and towns across America — including Philadelphia — to begin fluoridating their water, so much so that by 2010 the tap water of more than 200 million Americans was flowing from fluoridated systems.

There have been virtually zero instances in which putting fluoride in a water system has been blamed for a public health issue since the fluoridation of most of America’s water supplies began. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ranked water fluoridation as one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.

Kennedy is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t seem to exist.

The National Institutes of Health did complete a study that concluded there might be a connection between the lower IQs of children after long-term exposure to more than twice the federal government’s recommended level of fluoride in drinking water. But why would any town knowingly exceed the government’s fluoridation guidelines by such a large margin? There’s no incentive for local officials to risk their children’s or adults’ health.

Kennedy also says fluoridating water systems is no longer necessary. “ Fluoride made sense in the 1940s when they put it in, but now we have fluoride in toothpaste,” he said. That’s true, fluoride today is in toothpaste, mouthwashes, and other oral hygiene products, but that’s why the recommended level of fluoride in water supplies was reduced from 1.0 parts per million to 0.7 parts per million in 2011. Future research may lead to more reductions in recommended fluoride levels, but there’s no basis for Kennedy’s call for a ban now.

Trump’s choice to plot the course of public health agencies that make life-and-death decisions based on scientific evidence is a bad one. Kennedy comes across as someone who loves basking in the limelight too often afforded contrarians who pay little attention to facts. In that same vein, Kennedy has criticized vaccines that have long protected millions of Americans from crippling and deadly diseases. Surely the president-elect can do better with his nominations.

ONLINE: https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/health-water-fluoride-robert-kennedy-20241224.html

News from © The Associated Press, 2024