Schumer’s Abortion Meltdown

About Harvard and Zucman

‘Undiagnosed Sociopath’

As we abandon moral language for clinical language, we run into technical difficulties. Writing in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman describes...

Better Late Than Never!

We are supposed to be scandalized that Moscow is trying to help Bernie Sanders politically. I say, it’s about time Moscow returned the favor —...

Bernie Sanders Is a Moral Monster

Bernie Sanders complains that some criticism of the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is “unfair.” The Castro government lined up political...

Attention Junkie Overdoses

Those of you who are familiar with the flat-Earth cultists will not be entirely surprised by this: One of their number, Michael Hughes, is dead after...

The Bernie Bros have turned dangerous in their terrifying witch hunts

Sen. Bernie Sanders says he wants “a political revolution.” His most ardent supporters say they want “blacklists” — their word, not mine....

RIP Bloomberg 2020

I thought that Bloomberg’s confused half-defense of stop-and-frisk was going to be his low point. Well. His torturous response on his lawsuits and...

Sanders and Health Care

Never mind those Communist regimes, David, Senator Sanders might have had a hard time of it with his health problems in Ireland, where patients who...

Michael Milken and Insider Trading

Reis Thebault, writing in the Washington Post , identifies Michael Milken as “the ‘junk bond king’ who was charged with insider trading…”...

Bloomberg: Not a Vanity Campaign, But Vanity-Plus

Tom Scocca writes in Slate : The morning after President’s Day, a new poll found that Michael Bloomberg had captured enough public support to claim...

I’m with Andy McCarthy . . . Mostly

I agree with my friend Andy McCarthy that it is impossible to maintain an effective system of justice without punishing lying under oath, that Roger...

Sanders and Socialism (and Krugman)

Paul Krugman writes: Bernie Sanders isn’t actually a socialist in any normal sense of the term. He doesn’t want to nationalize our major...

The Left and the Theocrats

Kim Ghattas, a correspondent for the BBC, gave a remarkably frank interview to her home network about her new book, Black Wave, an account of the...

Roger Stone Deserves a Severe Punishment

Roger Stone belongs in prison for a very long time. The seven felonies of which he stands convicted are at heart crimes of political corruption —...

Alternatively, Pig-Wrestling?

I disagree with every word of Charlie Szold’s delightfully written apology for the Iowa caucuses, including the headline’s insistence that...

‘Inappropriate’

In response to ‘Mitt Romney. Not One of Us.’ Jay says the word of the day, for the GOP at least, is “inappropriate.”Isn’t it always?

Pelosi Should Have Nixed SOTU

Rich’s earlier observation about the State of the Union (“You, Sir, Are Such a Dire Threat to the Republic That You Shouldn’t Be Permitted to...

Who Cares about Limits on Executive Power?

One of the most amusing parts of the Trump impeachment has been watching Democrats rediscover the Constitution, limited government, checks and...

Cher, God, Whoever

NPR’s Hidden Brain has aired an hourlong show that is mostly about imaginary friends. It is an interesting episode, and one that contains what I...

Architectural Styles and Lifestyles

Michael, I read your architecture essay this morning after driving through the West Campus neighborhood in Austin, where I lived as a student. When I...

Wishful Thinking among Texas Democrats

The Democrats were sure that they were going to pull off a big one in Texas last night, that their victory in a special election in the Houston...

The Romance of Communism

As The Cut reports , Vivian Gornick’s 1977 The Romance of American Communism is experiencing a second life, much to the author’s puzzlement. If,...

When Complexity Isn’t a Subsidy

“Are You Good Enough at Paperwork to Be a Poor American?” asks the New York Times . The essay is an interesting and valuable read. Most programs...

À chacun son goût

Jay, about those foreign phrases: For the very reason you mention (instantaneous translation of unfamiliar phrases made available by the Internet) I...

‘The Mob Has the Final Edit’

George Packer of The Atlantic has been awarded the Hitchens prize, which is given to reward “willingness to pursue the truth without regard to...

Virginians Have Been Wrong Before

Dahlia Lithwick is beside herself over the Second Amendment rally in Virginia and insists, as though it were dispositive, that the anti-gun measures...

Bolsonaro vs. Greenwald

People who write about controversial things should, I think, make peace with the fact that they are in the controversy business, and in a world full...

As If They Were Working To Prove My Point . . .

Baytya Ungar-Sargon, the opinion editor at Forward, writes: I missed the @NRO piece that let someone call Jews locusts, and then claimed hassidic men...

Making It Up

I’d like to thank Ramesh for his post below, because it cannot be said often enough: Roe v. Wade and the rest of our abortion jurisprudence is the...

‘Can a Woman Win?’

If you’ve ever covered a presidential primary, then you know that there are two things you can always find at the Iowa State Fair: a pork chop on a...

Our Stupid Times, Etc.

I don’t think most people who read the news are too stupid to understand the news. I think they are too dishonest. I am frankly embarrassed that...

Kyle Smith Has Never Been This Wrong

I come not to praise my friend Kyle Smith but to bury him. Kyle argues that the late Neil Peart might be considered the greatest drummer in the...

‘Montana Glaciers 1, Climate Hysterics 0’? Check the Score

In response to Montana Glaciers 1, Climate Hysterics 0 John, the sign-makers up in Montana should be careful with their words. So should we. If the...

The Non-Absurdity of Declaring War

In response to Re: Soleimani Was a Political Killing  Rich Lowry writes: “Iranian-supported forces have been killing and maiming U.S. troops for...

Soleimani Was a Political Killing, Not a Military One

On the homepage, Rich writes that the Allied operation against Admiral Yamamoto presages the killing of Qasem Soleimani, but concedes that the cases...

De Blasio’s Domino’s outrage sums up why businesses are fleeing NYC

Mayor de Blasio’s batty attention has for the moment lighted upon Domino’s Pizza , which sold pies to New Year’s Eve revelers in Times Square...

Tehran’s Unpredictability

In response to Iran Is Not Iraq Something to think about: David Harsanyi writes that we don’t know what to expect from Iran because, as he puts it,...

Nobody Believes What Henry Olsen Says Libertarians Believe

Henry Olsen has an essay in the Washington Post about Tyler Cowen and the place of libertarian thought on the right. Minor point: Olsen writes:...

One of These Is Not Like the Others . . .

I am not much of an admirer of Julián Castro’s, but it is remarkable to me that a Latino man who was mayor of a major American city (at 1.5 million...

Jonathan Chait Is Intellectually Dishonest: A (Lengthy) Series

Yesterday, Jonathan Chait offered a lamebrained criticism of my column on shallow celebrity climate activists, essentially: “Why do you refuse to...

The Watchmen and Consequentialist Christianity

I enjoyed the HBO series Watchmen and the earlier film based on the same comic book (which I have not read; my nerdery goes only so far.) But one of...

Jonathan Chait Is Intellectually Dishonest: A Series

About my criticism of celebrity climate activism, Jonathan Chait writes: “Conservatives who don’t want to actively defend their parties [sic]...

Why AOC is wrong to demand a presidential ‘purity test’

When she isn’t dispensing makeup tips on Instagram, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dispenses sophomoric political maxims, most recently in her...

Buttigieg’s Mandate Makes Sense

Why Democrats will come to regret impeaching President Trump 

Like the effort to impeach Donald Trump, which was underway before he even was sworn into office, the effort to block Robert Bork’s nomination to...

Conservatives Are Having the Same Old Arguments over Trump

Steve Schmidt, George Conway, Rick Wilson, and John Weaver have jointly authored a New York Times column in which they lay out their plan to defeat...

‘Dangerous Threat’ Is . . . Dangerous, Apparently

Garrett Graff of CNN insists that Fox News is a “dangerous threat to the national security of the United States.” Not only a threat, but a...

Smart Countries Are Reducing Tariffs

Switzerland is the world’s second-most-prosperous country in gross terms, with a GDP/capita of $82,950 in 2018 — about 30 percent higher than U.S....

Some Facts about Money and Politics

Jane Fonda (really) writes in the New York Times: Let’s be clear: Over decades the fossil fuel industry has hijacked our political system, and we...