'Stop treating the Europeans as helpless little children'

'The case for the U.S. to stop babying Europe on national security'

Daniel R. DePetris at National Review

Since World War II, the U.S. "defense guarantee" has allowed European allies to focus largely on domestic matters, says Daniel R. DePetris. But America doesn't have "unlimited resources," and today's Europe "isn't the Europe of 1945: It is far wealthier and technologically advanced" than its main adversary, Russia. "The most effective way to fix Europe's dependency problem is for the U.S. to stop treating the Europeans as helpless little children incapable of fending for themselves."

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'Let's thank the Alabama Supreme Court'

Linda Greenhouse in The New York Times

The Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that frozen embryos are children "awakened the American public, finally, to the peril of the theocratic future toward which the country has been hurtling," says Linda Greenhouse. The U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade's abortion protections projected "a religious view of fetal life" many people missed. But the shock over the all-Republican state court's Bible-thumping is forcing Republicans to pay for their long cost-free "rhetoric about the 'sanctity of unborn life.'"

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'The Supreme Court just gave Trump exactly what he wanted'

Mark Joseph Stern in Slate

Former President Donald Trump has "good reason to hope that he can evade accountability for Jan. 6," says Mark Joseph Stern. The Supreme Court agreed to consider his claim of "absolute immunity" for his actions in office, including efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss. It's "hard to overstate the frivolousness of Trump's legal argument." But the delay "all but guarantees" he won't face trial before November. If elected, he'll have his Justice Department dissolve the case altogether.

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'Congress is leaving small Pacific allies vulnerable to China's pull'

Josh Rogin in The Washington Post

Congress' dithering on foreign security aid isn't just putting Ukraine and Israel at risk, says Josh Rogin. Lawmakers have yet to appropriate the $2 billion needed to renew the economic and defense deal that has kept three tiny but strategically important islands in the North Pacific — the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau — allied with the United States for decades. "U.S. neglect could be a push into China's waiting arms," further expanding Beijing's influence in the Pacific.

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