War beat: If We Stop Funding Ukraine . . .

“Congress should swiftly approve additional military and economic aid to Ukraine at a critical time when the country is on the offensive,” warns Daniel F. Runde at Newsweek. “Failing to pass assistance would ‘pull the plug’ on the offensive, destabilize Ukraine’s weak economy, and it would send a terrible message to our allies and opponents.” It “would only embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin at a moment when he’s on his back foot, and it could potentially have disastrous consequences for Taiwan as China is closely watching our actions.” And “remember that Ukraine has not asked for American soldiers to fight and die for Ukraine. Ukrainians are only asking for the weapons and financial support to be able to fight effectively.”

Libertarian: Pols’ ‘Shutdown’ Political Theater

“No matter how D.C. disputes” about the possible government shutdown end, “the federal government will certainly continue spending entirely too much and, no matter what the headlines say, will never have really shut down,” gripes Reason’s J. D. Tuccille. If it does shutter, “the brief hiatus” in spending “is reserved for anything that inconveniences the public and plucks at heart strings. The stuff that government officials actually care about continues,” such as the work of the ATF, FBI and DEA. “Does anybody really think that government officials will voluntarily stop doing to us what they’ve been empowered to do, just because direct deposits are briefly interrupted? Of course not! This is political theater.”

Campus report: A New ‘Red Scare’

“It is most commonly estimated that around 100 college professors were fired for real or imagined communist sympathies” during the 1947-’57 Red Scare, notes Greg Lukianoff at the Washington Examiner, yet “it’s worse today, much worse, across multiple important metrics.” The last 9½ years have seen “more than 1,000 campaigns to get professors punished for their free speech or academic freedom. Of those, about two-thirds succeeded in getting the professor punished, and almost 200 of them, nearly twice the number estimated for the Red Scare, ended up with the professor getting fired.” And “about 1 in 6 professors report having been disciplined or threatened with discipline for their speech, and a whopping 1 in 3 reported having been pressured by colleagues to avoid researching controversial topics.”

Media watch: Fetterman’s Press Protectors

“Why does our free press exist, if not to ask inconvenient and uncomfortable questions of the powerful?” grumbles Becket Adams at The Hill. When it comes to Sen. John Fetterman, “our vaunted Fourth Estate simply is not up to the task.” The announcement that “the sergeant-at-arms would no longer enforce the chamber’s dress code on the Senate floor” has his name all over it. After his hospitalization for clinical depression, “Fetterman has ‘unapologetically’ worn shorts and hoodies around the Senate building.” To vote, “he rarely if ever enters the chamber itself,” just “shouts his responses to the chair” from the Democratic cloakroom doorway. “Is John Fetterman okay?” is a question “so many journalists appear afraid to ask.” Yet: “If anything falls under the header of ‘public interest,’ it is surely the overall health and wellbeing of elected officials.”

Iconoclast: Hilariously Damning Details

Hell Gate’s Max Rivlin-Nadler revels in the “Hell yes, New Jersey, you’ve done it again” lowlights of the Bob Menendez indictment. Not just the “$480,000 in cash stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, including jackets bearing Menendez’s name” and the gold bars, but that “Menendez, after receiving the gold bars, actually went and GOOGLED how much a gold bar was worth. (Incognito mode, people! It’s not just for paywalls!)” And “the senator allegedly interfered with prosecutors pursuing state charges against a friend of one of the New Jersey businessmen being prosecuted for insurance fraud . . . in exchange for a new car for Nadine. ‘All is GREAT! I’m so excited to get a car next week. !!’ Nadine texted one of the businessmen, after Menendez made a few calls.”— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board