President Donald Trump reacts to a question from a reporter during the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, March 20, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Today’s crop of journalists don’t bother to hide their partisanship. Almost the entire country is relieved that the president has shortened his daily press briefings and reduced his own

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell leaves after attending a meeting about the coronavirus in Washington, D.C., March 20, 2020. (Mary F. Calvert/Reuters) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) told Republican Senators that he would not support President Trump’s proposal for an infrastructure overhaul as part of any further coronavirus economic relief, according to multiple

Paul Krugman of the New York Times writes that he has not “heard any Republican complaints about Trump’s huge bailouts for farmers, whose distress is largely the result of his own policies.” Perhaps it is the case that Professor Krugman has not heard such complaints. Is he listening? From Politico, “The president’s $12 billion farm bailout

Phlebotomists stand outside a triage testing area for the coronavirus at Roseland Community Hospital in Chicago, Ill., April 22, 2020. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) America has never undertaken its like — a high-risk, high-cost endeavor launched amid uncertainty, panic, and pessimism. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE W hatever we eventually call it, there is a coronavirus “project.” Chemotherapy It’s

An empty restaurant during the spread of the coronavirus in Budapest, Hungary, March 16, 2020 (Bernadett Szabo/Reuters) COVID-19 is a short-, medium-, and long-term threat to an industry whose profit margins are razor thin in the best of times. On one recent grocery-store trip, I was met with the unsettling sight of an entirely empty

A pigeon flies down a shuttered and empty Mulberry Street in New York City, April 27, 2020. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Not every place in the U.S.A. is the same. In the coronavirus debate, the word “patchwork” tends to be a pejorative. The Guardian warned, “U.S. states’ moves to ease coronavirus lockdowns risk dangerous patchwork.” Colorado Public

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio speaks to the media during a press conference in a temporary hospital located at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y., April 10, 2020. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters) His stubborn refusal to take the coronavirus seriously may have caused thousands of deaths. America’s COVID-19 devastation is

The Twitter app loads on an iPhone. (Mike Blake/Reuters) The NLRB process has proven itself here to be both humorlessly literal-minded and easily abused. Can a politically unaccountable government agency sanction you for a joke on Twitter that annoyed a total stranger? If you’re Ben Domenech of The Federalist and the agency is the National

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, with his wife Chirlane McCray, speaks at a news conference in New York, September 20, 2019. (Jefferson Siegel/Reuters) New York mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday announced that he would appoint First Lady Chirlane McCray as co-chair of a task force on coronavirus racial inequality. De Blasio will

A “closed” sign hangs in a local park in Exchange Place, N.J., with Lower Manhattan in New York City visible in the distance, April 25, 2020. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters) Americans were more resilient, less vulnerable to groupthink, and committed to going to work and washing their hands. We’re not just living through an earthshaking pandemic. We’re

Illinois State Capitol in Springfield (Library of Congress) This contagion has nothing to do with coronavirus. Bailing out the Illinois state pension system is the worst idea from a week in which we were discussing the health benefits of mainlining Lysol. (Please do not mainline Lysol. It will kill you.) Irresponsible state and local governments

Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey 1987—In an unspeakably brutal crime, Donald Middlebrooks (a 24-year-old white male) and two accomplices kidnap Kerrick Majors, a 14-year-old black youth, decide to “have some fun” with him, tie his hands, and take him into the woods. There, according to Middlebrooks’s videotaped confession, one accomplice, Roger Brewington, beats Majors with brass

A man walks by an illuminated flag of The United States as the coronavirus outbreak continues in Manhattan, New York City, March 13, 2020. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters) While there’s been plenty to criticize and lament in our nation’s response to this pandemic, such a sweeping charge is unsupportable. We’re living through a global pandemic and staring

A worker cleans an empty hall in Industry City, N.Y., where the shops have been closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, March 26, 2020. (Stephen Yang/Reuters) The University of Michigan released its Consumer Sentiment Index measurements today. Thanks to the sledgehammer lockdown of the U.S. economy, the index took its biggest one-month plunge ever recorded.

1906—William J. Brennan, Jr., is born in Newark, New Jersey. In his 34 years on the Court, Brennan will deploy his impressive backroom political skills in the service of liberal judicial activism. It is doubtful that anyone has done more to misshape the Supreme Court’s understanding of the Constitution. 1938—In his famous footnote 4 in

Sen. Josh Hawley during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., December 11, 2019. (Erin Scott/Reuters) Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) has reiterated his calls to “overhaul the FTC” in the wake of fresh allegations that Amazon steals independent-seller data to inform its business decisions, in violation of its own published

The Washington Post reports: Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller told White House supporters in a private call this week that the president’s new executive order curbing immigration will usher in the kind of broader long-term changes to American society he has advocated for years, even though the 60-day measures were publicly characterized as a “pause” during the

President Donald Trump points at a reporter during the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, April 23, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) President Trump should not spit-ball on live television, especially on topics that are outside his ken. How depressing is the erosion of the principle that when the president of the United States

Comedian Louis C.K. at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2016 (Danny Moloshok/Reuters) The Biden presidential campaign announced on Wednesday that it would refund a $2,800 donation comedian Louis C.K., who has been accused of multiple instances of sexual misconduct. The donation was made on March 4, according to Federal Election

A police car drives past an address which has been linked by local media to former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Britain, January 12, 2016. (Peter Nicholls/Reuters) Christopher Steele admitted under oath in March that he had no records of his conversations with the primary sub-source for his infamous dossier, contradicting public claims made by

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., February 12, 2020. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Thursday announced he was considering creating a federal lending program for oil companies currently facing numerous challenges during the coronavirus pandemic. “One of the components we’re looking at is

A woman walks past a portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping as the country is hit by the coronavirus, Shanghai, China, March 12, 2020. (Aly Song/Reuters) Unfortunately, it is very unlikely to succeed. The attorney general of Missouri, Eric Schmitt, has filed a civil lawsuit blaming China for the coronavirus and seeking restitution. Schmitt has

Houses in a suburb of Denver, Colo. (Rick Wilking/Reuters) Applicants should be required to provide at least basic documentation for their claim that COVID-19 has affected them. The government response to the COVID crisis will be subjected to analysis and critique for years to come. Even in the present, as governmental actions play out in

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questions Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan as he testifies before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, July 18, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the $484 billion coronavirus relief package to replenish the depleted small business loan program, with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) being the only Democrat

Governor Gretchen Whitmer announces her Democratic running mate in Lansing, Mich., August 20, 2018. (Jeff Kowalsky/Reuters) Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer passed the blame for her administration hiring a data company known for working with Democratic campaigns to track contact information about residents as part of the state’s efforts to trace coronavirus cases. At a press

Job seekers at a job fair in Uniondale, N.Y., in 2014 (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) The results are predictable. “Bitter Taste For Coffee Shop Owner, As New $600 Jobless Benefit Drove Her To Close,” reads the headline at NPR. “Restaurants’ bailout problem: Unemployment pays more,” reads the headline at Politico. Not only were the consequences predictable, they

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang takes a question from a journalist in Beijing, China, March 18, 2020. (Thomas Peter/Reuters) China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday criticized a lawsuit by the state of Missouri that seeks damages from China over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. “This so-called lawsuit is very absurd and has no factual

Artist Kong Ning, following the coronavirus outbreak, prepares for a portrait in a wearable art piece she made to mark Earth Day, Beijing, China, April 22, 2020. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters) Don’t cheer the pandemic for giving the earth a ‘rest.’ For most Americans, it’s just another day of anxiety-producing quarantine as the unemployment rates continue

Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) speaks during a House Rules Committee hearing on the impeachment of President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill, December 17, 2019. (Patrick Semansky/Pool via Reuters) A spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi confirmed that the House Speaker would not withdraw her nomination of Representative Donna Shalala (D., Fla.) to serve on an oversight commission

A pharmacy worker shows pills of hydroxychloroquine used to treat the coronavirus at the CHR Centre Hospitalier Regional de la Citadelle Hospital in Liege, Belgium, April 22, 2020. (Yves Herman/Reuters) A doctor who was removed from his role overseeing a federal agency tasked with helping develop the coronavirus vaccine said that he was forced out