Why are some leaders so reluctant to admit that in the early days of the coronavirus crisis, they were slow to realize the seriousness of the threat? That's the charge leveled against President Trump daily. Just look at the number of times various critics have said he has "blood on his hands." Trump has denied responsibility, and has argued…

It's reasonable to assume that the vast majority of Americans process news and data, and calculate that self-quarantining, wearing masks and social distancing make sense for themselves, their families and the country. Free people act out of self-preservation, but they shouldn't be coerced to act through the authoritarian whims of the state. Yet this…

George Orwell sardonically noted the ease with which some preach pacifism from behind the protective curtain of the Royal Navy.  To wit, a sense of security cultivates a lazy inclination toward empty virtue-signaling.  So it was for years and even decades as opportunistic politicians and pundits spanning a disturbingly broad stretch of the…

We are a few days away from a rendezvous with some tough conclusions about COVID-19. A number of concurrent developments are coming to a head. Most will bring light where so far there was only heat. Greater information about the virus might cause as much acrimony as conciliation. Some experts will be discredited, others reaffirmed. Antibody testing…

Thursday's unemployment update confirms that over the last three weeks, nearly 17 million Americans have been laid off because of the shutdown. That's one-tenth of the nation's workforce. It's not just an economic fact. It's a public health disaster. If the shutdown is dragged on, as many public health experts recommend, it is almost certain to kill…

I'm sorry, but you have no constitutional "right" to vote by mail. You have no constitutional "right" to vote six days after an election is over. Nor do you have any "right" to censor information related to an election. Not even during a pandemic. This week, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal court was not empowered…

Marshal Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto commanded the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II until he was killed in April 1943. Despite the dialogue from the 1970 WWII film "Tora! Tora! Tora!" Yamamoto probably did not say in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a…

President Donald Trump is hinting at a second task force responsible for getting Americans back to work. Appoint it now, Mr. President. Don't wait until the virus peaks. This second task force should prepare the country to reopen, with new tools to fight the virus. The president's top epidemiologist, the esteemed Anthony Fauci, insists "the best…

The polls show Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the presidential race. Looking at the last 10 surveys in the RealClearPolitics average of polls matching Trump vs. Biden, Biden is leading in every one of them – by anywhere from 3 to 10 points. Biden's average lead, in those 10 polls, is 5.5 points. The results echo polls from this point…

A current global myth alleges that America under the Trump administration is not leading the world fight against the coronavirus in its accustomed role as the postwar global leader. Yet the U.S. was the first major nation to issue a travel ban on flights from China, with Donald Trump making that announcement on Jan. 31. That was a bold act. It likely…

How nervous are some Democrats about Joe Biden's chances against President Trump this November? Nervous enough to entertain the notion that another Democrat – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo – might swoop in and save the day. Cuomo, who has been governor for nearly a decade and has one of the most famous names in Democratic politics, found…

If I followed all my doctor's instructions to the letter, life would be excruciating. It would be tantamount to having Michael Bloomberg make my life choices, which is to say my life wouldn't be worth living. Human beings have never been as risk-averse as experts want them to be. We instinctively calculate the costs and benefits of engaging in activities…

Imagine if the coronavirus pandemic had hit us in 2009, or any year between 2009 and 2017.  The economic repercussions, and the federal policy response, would’ve been far worse.  A pandemic of this magnitude is a tragedy and societally difficult under any circumstance.  That said, America entered this emergency with the strongest…

The ancient Greeks believed that true leadership in crisis came down to what they called pronoia – the Greek word for "strategic foresight." Some statesman, such as Pericles and Themistocles, had it. Most others, such as the often brilliant and charismatic but impulsive Alcibiades, usually did not. "Foresight" in crisis…

Give Joe Biden some credit. On Jan. 27, he published an op-ed in USA Today recognizing that the coronavirus outbreak could become a big problem. But he devoted nearly the entire piece to bashing President Trump — who was then fighting off impeachment from Biden's old Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill — and nearly none of it…

The World Health Organization and other sensitive souls have instructed us to stop referring to the new strain of coronavirus as the "Wuhan" or "Chinese" flu because of the racist connotations. I'm disinclined to curb my speech to placate Chinese propagandists, and it seems to me the aversion to those terms is less about racism…

Of the innumerable broadsides that Joe Biden earned throughout his five-decade public career, perhaps the most damning came from sober-minded former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.  Hardly a partisan bomb-thrower, Gates served under both Republican (George W. Bush) and Democrat (Barack Obama) presidents.  And when it came to assessing Biden…

For most of early 2019, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden – the declared custodian of liberalism who would continue the Obama glory years – seemed unstoppable. He led all other rivals for months. Biden seemed above the fray. Many Democrats saw the pre-debate and pre-election race for the nomination as more of a Biden…

It's an indisputable fact that the Democratic Party has moved left in recent years. Now, the party is about to choose a standard bearer in the person of former Vice President Joe Biden, and what has become clear is that Biden has not only shifted left with his party over the years, he has taken significant leftward steps in recent weeks. Three examples…

On the day Chuck Schumer was threatening Supreme Court justices in front of pack of a cheering partisans, Representative Ayanna Pressley told the same crowd: "We have two alleged sexual predators on the bench of the highest court of the land, with the power to determine our reproductive freedoms. I still believe Anita Hill. And I still believe…

Joe Biden was sworn into the United States Senate on Jan. 3, 1973. He remained in the Senate until Jan. 15, 2009 – a span of 36 years. If history is any guide, that alone is a disqualifier in Biden's quest for the White House. What does 36 years in the Senate say about a politician? It says he is a senator – not a president.…

"If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices," argued Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78. If we ever needed a pristine example of why justices are bestowed…

Yes, Democrats are divided over Bernie Sanders' revolution versus Joe Biden's restoration of status quo Obama. Yes, they are divided over what that means in terms of policy, like Sanders' Medicare for All versus Biden's tweaked Obamacare. But there is a deeper cultural gap behind the Bernie-Biden battle. And it will not be resolved by the primary…

Pundits have recently argued that younger voters, especially those under 30, are less inclined to be bothered when they hear the word "socialism," since they have no firsthand memory of the Cold War. To some extent, this must be true. Those who weren't alive during socialism's cruelest catastrophes – or even its many banal failures…

With terror escalating among mainstream Democrats, Bernie Sanders has captured a sudden lead in the 2020 Democratic primary race that may prove insurmountable.  Even excluding Sanders, this cycle’s Democratic candidates have collectively driven their party to unprecedented leftist extremes.  Yet it speaks volumes that even they malign…

Donald Trump has at least five strong historical arguments for his re-election. One, he is an incumbent. Incumbent presidents have won 14 of 19 re-election bids since 1900. The few who lost did not enjoy positive approval ratings. In a Gallup poll from earlier this month, Trump enjoyed his highest approval rating since his inauguration, squeezing…

Recently the intelligence community made clear it will be a player in the 2020 presidential election. No one should be surprised. On February 13, the House Intelligence Committee held a meeting at which intel officials briefed lawmakers on foreign efforts to influence U.S. elections. By several accounts, the officials told the committee that Russia…

The Chinese communist government increasingly poses an existential threat not just to its own 1.4 billion citizens but to the world at large. China is currently in a dangerously chaotic state. And why not, when a premodern authoritarian society leaps wildly into the brave new world of high-tech science in a single generation? The Chinese technological…

Attorney General William Barr is looking into the murky origins of the politically charged Justice Department investigations that have roiled American public life for the last three years. Just how did the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation into the 2016 Trump presidential campaign get started? What led the FBI to look into whether…

All political parties and candidates have bad days. But the new progressive Democratic Party had four of its worst days in recent memory in a single week in February. On Feb. 3, the Iowa Caucuses imploded for the first time in their history. The new app-driven counting melted down, discrediting the very idea of caucusing in general. The winner …