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

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks at the Javits Center, which will be partially converted into a temporary hospital during the coronavirus outbreak in New York City, March 27, 2020. (Jeenah Moon/Reuters) New York governor Andrew Cuomo pushed back on claims that state lockdowns were creating more harm than the COVID-19 pandemic, saying “how can

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, February 11, 2020. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday placed blame on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for delaying the passage of the small business relief bill, the fourth emergency coronavirus measure making its way through Congress. “Mitch McConnell likes to say

People wearing protective face masks wait in line outside NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health Morrisania neighborhood health center, one of New York City’s new walk-in COVID-19 testing centers, in Bronx, New York, April 20, 2020. (Mike Segar/Reuters) Massive purchase guarantees can ramp up production and create mask abundance. In the throes of an economic and

(Leah Millis/Reuters) Memo to Democrats: Want to remove him? That’s what elections are for. As the Democrats demand a lengthy enough general work stoppage to create such economic devastation that they may have a chance to get their somnambulant candidate to the White House, we should not forget some of their other derring-do in the

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Canada, as efforts continue to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, April 20, 2020. (Blair Gable/Reuters) Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced Tuesday that two planes sent to pick up medical supplies in China were forced to return

President Donald Trump speaks during the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, April 21, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) President Trump on Tuesday said an immigration ban he announced the previous day on Twitter would consist of a 60-day “pause,” to be instituted on Wednesday and renewed if the administration deemed it necessary. The

More than 20 years ago, the Dutch Supreme Court approved the assisted suicide of a woman in despair because her children had died. So we shouldn’t be surprised that it has now explicitly approved the forced euthanasia of patients with dementia if they asked to be killed before becoming incompetent. From Reuters: The Dutch Supreme

(Pixabay) In a piece on the NRO homepage yesterday, Fred Bauer offered some excellent thoughts on an anti-homeschooling article from the most recent issue of Harvard Magazine, which featured the arguments of Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Bartholet. His response was incredibly thorough, but I have a few additional thoughts on the subject that stem, at

People take advantage of minimal traffic on East Capitol Street as the coronavirus outbreak continues in Washington, D.C., April 6, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters) Thank God for the Bill of Rights. In this current crisis, the longest if not the first complete shutdown in U.S. history, the freedoms of American democracy are being tested in ways

A worker wearing a protective suit takes body temperature measurement of a man inside the Shanghai Stock Exchange at the Pudong financial district in Shanghai, China, February 28, 2020. (Aly Song/Reuters) The European bureau chief of China’s state-run publication China Daily has called President Trump a “racist a**hole” for claiming China “must have the most”

A police officer stands outside the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., January 22, 2020. (Sarah Silbiger/Reuters) The seemingly simple case generated five opinions but was correctly decided in the end. The Supreme Court has managed to transform a very straightforward issue into something quite complex. Don’t blame the current justices, though. On the issue

Attendees walk past a Facebook logo at the company’s developers conference in San Jose, Calif., April 30, 2019. (Stephen Lam/Reuters) Instead of stifling protests against lockdowns, Facebook should treat political content dispassionately and allow users to curate their own experiences. A scattering of protests aimed at state lockdowns erupted across the country last week, sparked

Former vice president Joe Biden speaks during the Democratic presidential debate in Washington, D.C., March 15, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) In a new article at Mother Jones — titled “Sexual Assault Advocates Are Grappling With the Allegations Against Joe Biden” (don’t let the phrasing trouble you; the individuals in question are not, in fact, advocates of sexual assault)

It is something of a cliché on the right to observe that the character of the environmental movement is generally religious rather than political or ecological — it has a deity, festivals, dietary laws (if you really cared about Gaia, you’d be a vegan!), an apocalypse narrative, etc. And it also has its sacraments of

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks during a news conference following a Senate vote on the coronavirus relief bill on Capitol Hill, March 26, 2020. (Tom Brenner/Reuters) They should be forced to tell Americans why racial and gender quotas are more important than saving employees from joblessness. Let’s not hear one more consonant from

President Donald Trump speaks at the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, April 18, 2020. (Al Drago/Reuters) The administration handled the potential shortage deftly.  At a coronavirus-task-force briefing at the beginning of April, White House adviser Jared Kushner explained the approach that would — as events proved — get the country through

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian attends a news conference in Beijing, China April 8, 2020. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters) Among other missteps, the taxpayer-funded broadcaster is now parroting Chinese propaganda. President Trump startled Washington last week by launching an attack on Voice of America, which for 80 years has been charged with presenting and explaining

My piece yesterday went through some of the evidence, but new information keeps flooding in: First, researchers at Stanford gave antibody tests — which detect whether someone had COVID in the past, not just whether they’re currently infected — to more than 3,000 people in Santa Clara County, Calif. (also … Read More

Supreme Court Justice William Douglas 1972—Dissenting from the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sierra Club v. Morton that the Sierra Club lacks standing to challenge federal actions regarding a ski development, Justice William O. Douglas proposes “the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation.” The question of standing “would be simplified

More on the continuing saga (see here, here, here and here) of the COVID-19 mortality rate — specifically, on why it is so hard to get accurate statistics, notwithstanding that these statistics are essential to decisions about reopening the economy. Those of us who have been watching the daily numbers closely … Read More

Almost every day, more studies, strange data, anecdotal reporting, and theories emerge about the virus, many of which could change existing conventional wisdom. In discussions about the nature of any existing sero-prevalence in California, and about how even apparently small percentages of those already infected in the population could radically alter rates of epidemic and

Two ampules of the Ebola drug Remdesivir at a news conference at the University Hospital Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany, April 8, 2020. (Ulrich Perrey/Pool via Reuters) While the antiviral remdesivir shows promise, leaked results from a new clinical trial don’t really tell us much about its efficacy. On Thursday, STAT News reported positive results from

President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., April 17, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters) He wants to invoke one archaic constitutional clause to trigger another one, but it won’t work. Even those who are not Trump devotees but would like to see the government function properly should

Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., November 30, 2018. (Jim Young/Reuters) 1990—Dissenting in Osborne v. Ohio, Justices Brennan, Marshall, and Stevens opine that possession of child pornography is protected by the First Amendment. Though unmoored from any plausible meaning of the First Amendment, their position is a

President Donald Trump, joined by members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, listens to a reporter’s question at a coronavirus briefing at the White House, March 22, 2020. (Tia Dufour/White House) Mingling legislative and executive functions is exactly what the Constitution is meant to prevent. I  hate to be a stick in the mud during

Medical technicians take a sample to test for the coronavirus at a drive-through testing site in Medford, Mass., April 4, 2020. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) My piece yesterday went through some of the evidence, but new information keeps flooding in: First, researchers at Stanford gave antibody tests — which detect whether someone had COVID in the past,

People wearing protective masks walk past closed shops on the the Coney Island boardwalk in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 11, 2020. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters) In the coming days and weeks this country will, God willing, see its COVID-19 epidemic begin to subside. Policymakers will have to decide how quickly to lift their social-distancing rules — and what

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks in front of stacks of medical protective supplies during a news conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, which will be partially converted into a temporary hospital during the coronavirus outbreak, March 24, 2020. (Mike Segar/Reuters) The ventilator shortages of which we were all

Virgnia Governor Ralph Northam speaks to reporters after attending a rally outside the Virginia State Capitol Building in Richmond, VA, July 9, 2019. (Michael A. McCoy/Reuters) Last weekend, Virginia’s governor enshrined progressive understandings of abortion and gender identity into state law. Like many people of faith, Virginia governor Ralph Northam spent last weekend bearing witness