A rush to cash-bathe ailing Intel, Jimmy Lais trial is absurd and other commentary

“President Joe Biden’s administration is hurrying to shovel as much cash out the door as possible” in his final weeks, including by preparing to grant Intel nearly $8 billion under the CHIPS and Science Act, fumes Reason’s Joe Lancaster.Problem is, Biden’s “making a big bet on a failing company.”“As of November 6, Intel was the year’s worst-performing tech stock on the S&P 500 index,” and “in October, the company revealed a $16.6 billion third-quarter loss, the largest in its history.”“The company’s struggles” have led the feds to slightly trim the expected grant, but they’re also “hurrying to finalize the terms of the deal so the next administration can’t take it away.”The trial of Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai is “absurd” as Hong Kong prosecutors try to paint him as the “mastermind” of a “national security threat to China,” seethes The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn.Lai was put in “chains” when arrested and kept in “solitary confinement” for most of four years in jail.Under questioning from defense attorneys, Lai testified that his interviews and articles were done without “any sense of hostility or intention to be seditious.”His staffers were even “forbidden to advocate for Hong Kong independence.”His testimony made clear that “all his activities were pro-freedom and pro-Hong Kong” and about “trying to hold China to its promises to honor the values and freedoms” that made Hong Kong “a global center for trade and finance.”Donald Trump won his election “with key support from blacks” and other minorities after he “made time to court votes in racially diverse communities,” cheers Jason L.

Riley at City Journal.It clearly made a difference: “Trump’s increased appeal to minority voters” helped give him “an edge in swing states.”This, running against “a woman of black and Asian heritage who made overt racial appeals.” The lesson for Republicans: “Stop cedin...