Federal Reserve Board building on Constitution Avenue is pictured in Washington, U.S., March 19, 2019. (Leah Millis/Reuters) The U.S. Federal Reserve announced Tuesday that it would cut interest rates to mitigate the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus, the first emergency cut since the 2008 financial crisis and a move clamored for by President Trump.

PROTECT THIS LUNATIC AT ALL COSTS! The prevailing wisdom of the past few months is that this hot mess of a Democratic primary would finally start to clear up a lot after Super Tuesday. With Bernie Sanders stealing almost all of the thunder for weeks as votes finally began to be cast, it looks like

(Pixabay) O tempora, o mores! And while you’re at it, get off my lawn Most of us, by the time we turn 30, have seen the world change. One of the hardest things to accept about middle age is not change — it’s that change itself doesn’t stop changing. There’s been a good deal of

I was prepared to monitor the news about the coronavirus, but not stress over it. I’d seen too many supposed doomsday viral and bacterial threats come and go before. Not that there wasn’t death and suffering attached to those outbreaks—specifically Ebola, SARS, etc., but they never quite materialized into the type of global pandemics the

Signs at the March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., in 2017. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters) Orthodox teaching on the practice is more complex than some media suggest. People magazine recently published its pro-abortion issue, “Women’s Choices, Women’s Voices.” In it you’ll find the misleading story of an Orthodox Jewish mother and wife in the suburbs

UNC Chapel Hill (Wikimedia Commons ) People talk a lot about rising tuition charges at colleges and universities, but there is another aspect of the cost of attending that people forget about — mandatory fees. That’s the subject of today’s Martin Center article. Will Rierson, a recent graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, writes about the high

There is a tradition within Judaism that all actions in the world can be viewed through the lens of the Torah reading of the week. Based upon that premise, these columns can help us understand the politics of the world through a biblical lens. Bernie Sanders is causing a stir in the Jewish world. As

The Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (Al Drago/Reuters) 1954—The Senate, by voice vote, confirms President Eisenhower’s nomination of former California governor Earl Warren to serve as Chief Justice. Warren was already serving as Chief Justice pursuant to a recess appointment by Eisenhower in October 1953. Years later, Eisenhower will call his appointment of Warren “the

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) attend a House Democrats news conference to reintroduce the H.R.7 “Paycheck Fairness Act” on Capitol Hill, January 30, 2019. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) House Republicans are urging that any coronavirus funding bill be kept separate from FISA reform after hearing rumblings that House Speaker Nancy

Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) arrives for a briefing on the corona virus outbreak in China on Capitol Hill, January 24, 2020. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Earlier this week, 42 Senate Democrats and two Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would ban most abortions after the fifth month of pregnancy, when infants are old enough to feel pain

(Shutterstock) 1892—“It is a familiar rule that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute because not within its spirit nor within the intention of its makers.” A unanimous Supreme Court declares this spirit-of-the-law canon of nontextualism in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, as

Sen. Bernie Sanders with supporters in Columbia, S.C., February 28, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Coronavirus looks pretty serious. The government of Hokkaido, Japan, the second-largest island of Japan, just declared a state of emergency and told all 5 million residents to stay indoors. Health researchers think Iran is drastically underestimating the number of cases in the

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) questions Gordon Sondland, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, during a House Intelligence Committee impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill, November 20, 2019. (Samuel Corum/Pool via Reuters) President Trump on Friday announced via Twitter his nomination of Representative John Ratcliffe for Director of National Intelligence. I am pleased

One overarching truth emerged from the cacophonous Democratic debate this week: The Democrats haven’t got game. They’re floundering. They’re lost. And they’re coming up short. Everyone on that stage except maybe the clueless Michael Bloomberg recognized that Sen. Bernie Sanders is the dominant front-runner, so they trained their sights on him, which is hardly a

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary debate in Charleston, S.C., February 25, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) On the menu today: The end is in sight for Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, David Brooks desperately tries to wave Democrats away from a critical error, and the mainstream media finally finds the coronavirus scary in

The left has spent decades infiltrating American institutions for the specific purpose of changing the fabric of this nation into some kind of socialist patchwork that is coming apart at the seams. And they’ve nearly gotten away with it. It is not enough to win elections because there are institutions all around us that don’t

Sen. Dick Durbin speaks to the media after Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s classified briefing on President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey in Washington, D.C., May 18, 2017. (Mary F. Calvert/Reuters) Media inaccuracy and bias provide cover for lawmakers to oppose commonsense pro-life legislation. Earlier this week, 41 Democratic senators successfully

Good for Mike Bloomberg. During his first debate, he slammed Bernie Sanders by saying: “We’re not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that. Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn’t work!” Exactly right. It’s safe to say Bloomberg is not a communist. I wonder if that means there’s still

(Unsplash) It could free us from insurance domination of health care. Austin — “the live music capital of the world” — is a lovably “weird” city and home to many musicians and artists. Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Townes Van Zandt, and Janis Joplin all called it home at one time or another. Great venues

A Quick Update Welcome my friends from CPAC 2020 and apologies for the truncated Briefing today. Yesterday was a looooong travel day and, while I endeavor to bring you the best in political commentary, I do occasionally get slowed down by irksome mortality. I’m here at CPAC, which is the largest annual gathering of conservatives.

President Donald Trump gives a news conference on the coronavirus outbreak at the White House in Washington, D.C., February 26, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) Today’s Morning Jolt is all about the coronavirus. A fact that doesn’t help anyone score any partisan points, and thus will be largely ignored, disregarded, or forgotten: The U.S. Centers for Disease

After Richard Nixon’s landslide 1972 victory over Democratic opponent George McGovern, New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael gave a speech in which she said: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in

Catholics line up to receive a cross of ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday at a church in Abuja, Nigeria, February 26, 2020. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters) 1. How can I reconcile the good and evil of Jean Vanier? Some of my own thoughts on the same here. 2. Maureen Ferguson takes a little tour of D.C.

I should probably just make a habit of writing every day about something dumb someone at the NY Times says. Oh, I would probably get bored with it but on the other hand, it would probably be a public service. So, anyway, here’s an entry from 24 February. The underlying story is a nice example

Outside of Germany’s Constitutional Court headquarters in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2016. (Ralph Orlowski/Reuters) The logic of euthanasia/assisted suicide has always pointed towards a right to death-on-demand. Assisted-suicide activists deny it for reasons of expediency. But the logic is irrefutable. If there is a “right to die,” how can it be limited to restricting categories? Well,

It’s Just Painful to Watch Now The Joe Biden Traveling Gaffe Extravaganza rolled into South Carolina on Tuesday and — to the surprise of many — became even more cringe-tastic. Hot off of beginning the week by telling a crowd at a campaign stop that he is running for the Senate, Crazy Joe the Wonder

It’s been evident for a long time that the intellectual climate on many of our college campuses is hostile to those (students, faculty, administrators) who are not “progressive” in their opinions. Unless you’re gung-ho for redistribution of wealth, radical environmental policy, diversity, and other leftist crusades, you’ll suffer many slings and arrows. But that’s a

As we head into the final months of the campaign that will decide our future president, an assessment of President Trump’s performance on immigration policy and border security—which most Republicans and conservatives consider the “ballgame’ issue—is in order. Why ballgame? If you have to ask, you don’t understand how sovereign nations, not to mention political

He who follows Freedom, let him leave his homeland, and risk his life. — Adam Mickiewicz, Polish poet, 1832 Last week my wife Hope and I traveled to Boca Chica, Texas, to meet with Elon Musk. While we talked inside the SpaceX onsite headquarters, a mariachi band played outside, providing entertainment for … Read More

In the hours and days after Gregory Timm reportedly plowed his vehicle into a tent of Republican Party volunteers registering voters in the Kernan Village Shopping Center parking lot in Jacksonville, Florida, national coverage of the event has been alarmingly lacking. Local news channel WJXT reported days later on the arrest report, which showed Timm