President Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Md., December 23, 2020. (Tom Brenner/Reuters) President Trump again called for the Senate to approve $2,000 stimulus checks for most Americans, saying Republicans against the measure had a “death wish.” The comments came after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.)

The Justice Department building in Washington, D.C., February 1, 2018 (Jim Bourg/Reuters) The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that it would not press charges against two Cleveland police officers involved in the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014. The announcement closes a case that has been frequently cited by supporters of the Black Lives

Senators Kelly Loeffler (R., Ga.) and David Perdue (R., Ga.), wave during a campaign event in Milton, Ga., December 21, 2020. (Al Drago/Reuters) Republican Georgia senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue on Tuesday came out in favor of sending $2,000 coronavirus stimulus checks to Americans, a full week after President Trump voiced his support for the proposal. “I

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., May 5, 2020. (Andrew Harnik/Reuters) Senator Marco Rubio called on Congress Tuesday to “quickly pass legislation” to increase stimulus checks to $2000 for Americans struggling economically due to the pandemic. “I agree with the President that millions of

BSA leader John Stemberger speaks during the national Scouting homosexuality controversy in Orlando, Florida March 23, 2013. (David Manning/Reuters) Lawyers for the Girl Scouts claimed in a court filing on Thursday that a recruitment drive by the Boy Scouts was “highly damaging” to the Girl Scouts. The Boy Scouts renamed itself Scouts BSA and removed

A health worker takes test tubes with plasma and blood samples after a separation process in a centrifuge during a coronavirus vaccination study at the Research Centers of America in Hollywood, Fla., September 24, 2020. (Marco Bello/Reuters) Over at the Washington Post, Megan McArdle looks at the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and their

President Donald Trump speaks during a coronavirus task force news briefing at the White House, July 30, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) The House secured enough votes to override President Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act on Monday, sending the legislation to the Senate for a vote scheduled for Tuesday. Lawmakers approved the legislation by

A barber shop in Encinitas, Calif., closed as new stay-at-home orders begin in Southern California during the coronavirus outbreak, December 7, 2020. (Mike Blake/Reuters) It just isn’t true that direct payments are the only help most at-risk Americans will get from the package. After President Trump’s demand that the new COVID-relief bill increase direct payments

After dragging his feet a bit — just long enough to muck up the unemployment boost — Trump has signed the COVID-relief bill. It’s open to interpretation what he thought he was accomplishing. There are some political benefits to all this theater. It probably distracted attention from his controversial pardons, for example, and made Americans

Debris litters the road near the site of an explosion in the area of Second and Commerce in Nashville, Tenn., December 25, 2020. (Andrew Nelles/Tennessean.com/USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters) On the menu today: I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. In the final week of this annus horribilis, we look at the Nashville bombing and

President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, April 7, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) President Trump signed the expansive $2.3 billion government funding and coronavirus relief bill Sunday night, averting a government shutdown that would have taken effect Tuesday and releasing $900 billion in aid meant to offset the damage

Workers construct a new house in Arvada, Colo., in 2016. (Rick Wilking/Reuters) The Washington Post has run a blatantly deceptive op-ed calling for the repeal of Virginia’s right-to-work (RTW) law. It was authored by one Sean Perryman, identified as a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia. Perryman claims that RTW laws “prohibit or severely limit

(megaflopp/Getty Images) The “Perspective” section in the New England Journal of  Medicine — probably the world’s foremost medical journal — isn’t technically an official editorial. But week after week the NEJM publishes advocacy pieces pushing the hard left-wing agendas (such as banning natural gas to combat global warming) favored by the editors and much of

Judge O’Scannlain at the Heritage Foundation in 2013 (image via C-SPAN) 2018—“What nonsense!” protests Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain in his withering critique of the Ninth Circuit panel decision in Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc. v. Chino Valley Unified School District. In ruling that a school board’s practice of allowing an invocation to be offered at its meetings violates the

Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) during a committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., June 11, 2020 (Carolyn Kaster/Reuters) In response to President Trump’s December 23 pardons of Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, Nebraska GOP senator Ben Sasse issued a one-sentence statement: “This is rotten to the core.” Although Sasse was one of the

The year 2020 will be remembered as the year when common sense, rationality, and the little that remained of fiscal responsibility and liberty were sacrificed once and for all by career politicians and the pundits that enable them. Public hysteria encouraged unrestrained abuse of the government’s regulatory, monetary, and fiscal powers. On this December 23,

Sen. Rand Paul, (R., Ky.) speaks during a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., September 24, 2020. (Tom Williams/Reuters) Senator Rand Paul on Tuesday released his annual report outlining of billions of dollars in “truly outlandish” government waste. This year’s “Festivus” waste report, a reference to the fictitious Seinfeld holiday’s “airing of grievances,” documented nearly $54,746,525,000

President-elect Joe Biden delivers a pre-Thanksgiving address at his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Del., November 25, 2020. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Surprise! Top advisers to president-elect Joe Biden said Monday they will not immediately roll back asylum restrictions at the Mexico border and other restrictive Trump administration policies, walking back some of Biden’s campaign promises for “Day

President Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md, December 12, 2020. (Tom Brenner/Reuters) President Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday, sending the legislation back to the House. The NDAA had been passed every year in some form for the past 59 years, and the current iteration

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort departs from U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., February 28, 2018. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) President Trump on Wednesday issued his second wave of pardons in two days, including clemency for his longtime friend Roger Stone, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.

Giving people freedom to buy it is one of the things that President Trump and HHS secretary Alex Azar got right. I wrote about it for Bloomberg Opinion: The Democrats’ leading public argument against the short-term plans is that they are “junk insurance.” In fact, they have very high satisfaction rates. And as the CBO projection

White House coronavirus coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., April 17, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters) Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus-pandemic coordinator, announced this week she will retire soon. She cited the recent reports about three generations of her family gathering at her vacation

Senator Rick Scott (R., Fla.) wears a face mask during a break in a Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., May 12, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) Congress on Monday night passed a $900 billion coronavirus relief package after months of political gridlock, with

For Vice, Amarens Eggeraat, drawing on the work of political scientist Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, laments that there exists no pro-choice “image powerful enough to match the foetus as an icon of the anti-abortion movement.” Apparently she doesn’t quite equate the symbolic power of the “pussyhat” with that of human life. Credit where it’s due. Advertisement

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after participating in a Thanksgiving video teleconference with members of the armed forces at the White House, November 26, 2020. (File photo: Erin Scott/Reuters) Just when it looked like a COVID relief (and catchall appropriations) package was sealed and delivered, President Trump gave a stark reminder that it’s not

President Donald Trump arrives for a presentation in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington,D.C., November 24, 2020. (Hannah McKay/Reuters) President Trump on Tuesday announced a wave of 20 pardons and commutations, including clemency for high-profile individuals convicted during the Mueller investigation, three former Republican congressmen, and four former U.S. service members convicted

Some reporters and pundits have speculated that Mitch McConnell might block some Biden executive-branch nominees from making it to the Senate floor, but the Senate majority leader says in an interview with Scott Jennings that they will each get an up-or-down confirmation vote from the full Senate: “They (Biden’s nominees) aren’t all going to pass on

Alex Padilla speaks in Los Angeles, California, September 24, 2020. (Mike Blake/Reuters) California Secretary of State Alex Padilla will fill Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s Senate seat, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday. “Through his tenacity, integrity, smarts and grit, California is gaining a tested fighter in their corner who will be a fierce ally in

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., September 5, 2018. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Google and Facebook pledged to help one another if they faced investigations into their alleged agreement to collaborate on online advertising, according to a draft lawsuit reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. Texas and

At Reason, Scott Shackford has more about our new cherry-pie freedoms: While the FDA has been granted the power by Congress to regulate frozen foods and fruits, including pies, it’s very important to explain that these regulations were only implemented for cherry pies. There are no other similar regulations for other types of fruit pies. And there