Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks at the Presidential Gun Sense Forum in Des Moines, Iowa, August 10, 2019. (Gage Skidmore) The Vox founder wishes Elizabeth Warren were in charge. Why? Alternate history is fascinating to many. The often seemingly arbitrary procession of events that leads up to the present offers endless possibilities for wondering about “if

Social distancing decals on the floor of Ralphs Kroger grocery store in Los Angeles after California issued a stay-at-home order in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, March 30, 2020. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters) Much as I did Tuesday, I’d like to pop in with a quick word about the Institute for Health Metrics

People wearing protective face masks reflected on a screen displaying stock prices outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, March 17, 2020. (Issei Kato/Reuters) Japan will devote more than $2.2 billion of its coronavirus economic stimulus package to incentivize its manufacturers to move their production out of China as relations fray between the neighboring countries in

A worker piles up a shipment containing personal protective equipment (PPE) as the spread of the coronavirus continues in Bari, Italy, April 7, 2020. (Alessandro Garofalo/Reuters) The Department of Health and Human Services revealed Wednesday that the nation’s federal stockpile was deploying nearly all of its remaining personal protective equipment (PPE), confirming a Congressional report

Sen. Bernie Sanders looks on during a press conference at his campaign office in Burlington, Vt., March 4, 2020. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters) Former president Barack Obama reportedly spoke with Bernie Sanders several times over the last few weeks as Sanders determined the next steps for his 2020 presidential campaign, which he suspended on Wednesday. The Vermont

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders announces that he is suspending his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in a livestream broadcast from his home in Burlington, Vt., April 8, 2020. (Bernie Sanders 2020 Campaign/Reuters) As he bows out of what will presumably be his final White House run, the Democratic Party appears to be

Judge Stephen Reinhardt 2005—A split Ninth Circuit panel, in an opinion by notorious activist judge Stephen Reinhardt, rules in a habeas case (Musladin v. Lamarque) that under clearly established Supreme Court law a defendant on trial for murder was deprived of his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury when the trial judge

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference on the coronavirus in Geneva, Switzerland, February 24, 2020. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters) Since its inception 112 years ago almost to the day, the World Health Organization (WHO)  has been credited with the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of other devastating illnesses, including leprosy

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot (Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters) Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot issued an executive order Tuesday to ensure that illegal immigrants and refugees in the city are able to access the city’s coronavirus relief benefits. “This order is more than just an official decree, it is a statement of our values as a city and as

(Pixabay) I suppose that for the rest of my life my name will be invoked every time The Atlantic publishes something controversial, as any good magazine does from time to time, or something dopey, as even the best magazines occasionally do, despite the efforts of their editors. And so it has been with the case

(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) The U.S. Supreme Court tonight issued an order setting the rules for tomorrow’s elections in Wisconsin. There is absolutely no justification for holding an election right now in the midst of a pandemic, but I will leave aside for the moment the allocation of blame for that feckless decision among Wisconsin’s Democratic governor

Boris Johnson, leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, leaves a private reception in central London, England, July 23, 2019. (Toby Melville/Reuters) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who announced ten days ago that he tested positive for the coronavirus, was moved Monday to the intensive care unit of a London hospital after his symptoms worsened. The prime

Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about the coronavirus pandemic at an event in Wilmington, Del., March 12, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) Former vice president Joe Biden suggested on Sunday that the Democratic National Committee may need to hold a virtual presidential convention later this year, saying “we may not be able

A paramilitary policeman stands guard at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, in 2013. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters) The Chinese Communist Party’s Long March through the Institutions has been proceeding right under our noses, and it’s high time we applied serious and penetrating scrutiny to the Party’s practices as they relate to our own institutions. A case in

There has been a lot of talk about FISA reform, but what should that look like? In the latest episode of The McCarthy Report podcast, Rich and I broached that subject (as I did with more elaboration in my column this weekend). The future of the U.S. foreign counterintelligence mission is crucial. The latest hair-raising

Boxes of N95 protective masks for use by medical field personnel in New Rochelle, New York, March 17, 2020. (Mike Segar/Reuters) A federal agency reportedly shipped face masks overseas from a Miami warehouse even as a nearby Veterans Affairs hospital was rationing them due to the coronavirus outbreak. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks at an indoor training center at the USTA Billie Jean King United States Tennis Center, which will be partially converted into temporary hospital during the coronavirus outbreak in New York City, March 31, 2020. (Stefan Jeremiah/Reuters) New York mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday said the city

MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell, a self-made former crack addict, is going to transform 75 percent of his manufacturing capacity to make 10,000 cotton face masks per day by the end of the week, ramping up production to 50,000 a day in a month. That sounds like a patriotic act to me, especially given that Lindell

The crest for the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigations at the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, D.C. (Leah Millis/Reuters) The latest inspector-general report is another black eye for the FBI, but the FISA court is the elephant in the room. Imagine the game gets underway. The first pitch is a little

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) talks to reporters following a classified national security briefing at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., January 8, 2020. (Tom Brenner/Reuters) He never said China intentionally released the coronavirus, and his suggestion that the disease originated in a Wuhan laboratory looks increasingly plausible. One of the biggest issues people have with

Rich, the United States is the world’s No. 3 exporter of pharmaceuticals, behind Germany and Switzerland. It seems to me that shortages in our emergency supplies of critical drugs are a planning problem, not a trade problem. I am not sure what “We are going to need to make more of our own stuff” would

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a meeting at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2017. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters) The great-power competition has begun in earnest. What started as a catastrophe for China is shaping up to be a moment of strategic opportunity, a rare turning point in the flow of history. Suddenly, the

MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell, a self-made former crack addict, is going to transform 75 percent of his manufacturing capacity to make 10,000 cotton face masks per day by the end of the week, ramping up production to 50,000 a day in a month. That sounds like a patriotic act to me, especially given that Lindell

Attorney General Jeff Sessions listens as President Donald Trump addresses members of his cabinet during a meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., August 16, 2018. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) The Trump reelection campaign on Tuesday sent a letter to former attorney general Jeff Sessions warning him not to portray the president as an ally in

Shackles used to bind slaves on display at the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, La., in 2015. (Edmund Fountain/Reuters) The New York Times’s 1619 Project and some of its critics fall prey to the same error in seeking to explain our nation’s history. When did America begin? Well, the United States became a county in 1776

Chevrolet Camaros at a car dealership in Los Angeles, Calif., in 2014. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters) The Trump administration has revised automobile emissions rules, lowering fuel-economy standards from what they would have been under Obama-era regulations. That this change has been met with hysteria goes without saying. The administration argues that the changes will save consumers money

They never learn, do they? Democrats and their pundit class have a long habit of promoting standards for others that their own side can’t abide living under. Somehow, they make arguments year in and year out that come back to bite them, and they never pick up on the slightest clue that this will, predictably,

President Donald Trump at the daily coronavirus response briefing at the White House, March 27, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Impeachment can’t take sole blame for the government’s early missteps in addressing the pandemic, but it undeniably played a part in them. Mitch McConnell told Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday that in the early days of the global

MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell waits to be introduced by President Donald Trump to address the daily coronavirus response briefing at the White House, March 30, 2020. (Tom Brenner/Reuters) Why is a grandstanding journalist seen as more virtuous than a self-sacrificing business owner? MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell, a self-made former crack addict, is going to transform

Airplane flies above the Boeing Everett Factory during the coronavirus outbreak, in Everett, Washington, March 23, 2020. (David Ryder/Reuters) I am baffled by the continuation of air travel between New York City and the rest of the country. At the moment, the greater New York area is at the center of the coronavirus crisis in