Under fire for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump, his campaign and his party are moving to lay blame for the 80,000 U.S. dead at the feet of the Communist Party of China and, by extension, its longtime General Secretary, President Xi Jinping.
The U.S. economy is at last moving into the recovery stage from the coronavirus, at least in most states.
One definite pattern has emerged: Republican states are reopening much more swiftly than Democratic states. A most notable case in point is the revival strategies of the four largest states. California and New York are closed for weeks to come; Florida and Texas are getting back in business now.
Did Joe Biden finger-rape Tara Reade in the Capitol in 1993? No one knows but the two of them. (Given the former vice president's obviously fragile mental state, he might not remember.)
"In the great debate of the past two decades over freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong." So write Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods, law professors at Harvard and the University of Arizona, respectively, in The Atlantic.
After Pearl Harbor, FDR declared that his role of "Dr. New Deal" had been superseded, replaced by his new role, "Dr. Win the War."
Tuesday, President Donald Trump signaled that, in the war on the coronavirus pandemic, he, too, is executing a strategic pivot.
Vulnerable incumbents get a boost in the midst of crisis.
— Many state governors have received high marks for their handling of coronavirus.
— Three of them on the ballot this November get a boost in our gubernatorial ratings this week.
— As of now, the open seat in Montana seems to be the seat likeliest to change hands on the relatively sparse presidential-year gubernatorial map.
Schools remain shuttered across the country, 30 million Americans are out of work, and food banks are running low, but the edutech sector is booming. Silicon Valley companies are feasting on an exploding client base of quarantined students held hostage to "online learning." Big Google is leading the way -- and that is not OK.
Recently, many politicians were in such a hurry to ban plastic bags.
California and Hawaii banned them, then New York. Then Oregon, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont passed laws against them. More than 400 cities did, too.
Battle lines are getting drawn up between the two parties on the next round of "stimulus" for the economy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are demanding as much as $1 trillion more in federal money to bail out state budgets. The blue states of California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are lining up to be first at the trough. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said there should be "no blue state bailout," and he is right.
Where Barack Obama achieved notoriety for "leading from behind," Joe Biden, these last two months, has been leading from the basement.
And, one must add, doing so quite successfully.
We can save the economy.
We have to throw the landlords under the bus to do it.
Time for reopening? Let's reframe the question. Time for what to reopen? With what precautions? In which states and counties and communities? Mandatory reopening or voluntary?
And who really decides? Governors, mayors, the president? Business owners or consumers? Does anyone really expect what economist Arnold Kling calls "patterns of sustainable specialization and trade" to snap back into pre-COVID-19 shape?
As of April 30, the coronavirus pandemic has killed 61,500 Americans in two months and induced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
And if history is our guide, the economic crisis, which has produced 30 million unemployed Americans in six weeks, may prove more enduring, ruinous and historic than the still-rising and tragic death toll.
There is a widespread consensus that, in the battle for the Senate, there are four races that may effectively decide the majority.
Dubbed the “core four” by one operative, the races in Republican-held Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina are the ones that the Democrats seem to have the best chance of flipping. (For sports fans, the “core four” term may ring a bell: It describes the four players at the heart of the New York Yankees’ dynasty of the late 1990s and early 2000s.)
The Great Toilet Paper Scare of 2020 has come to end, but don't breathe a sigh of relief just yet. The Spring Meat Stampede is here.
We need new drugs to fight COVID-19 and other diseases. But our government's approval process makes that too hard.
This year's pandemic got regulators to say they'll speed the approval process. The FDA adopted Emergency Use Authorization to speed up approval of some tests, medical equipment and ventilators.
We've known for years that China lies and cheats and steals when it comes to international trade. Now we've learned that it also spread the deadly disease COVID-19. Donald Trump ran for president five years ago as the ultimate China hawk on trade, and he was way ahead of the curve for protecting against China's devious behavior. He saved countless lives here in the United States by shutting down travel from China back in February.
Is America, in lockdown, with 26 million unemployed and entering a new depression, up for a confrontation and Cold War with China?
For that appears to be where the GOP wishes to lead us.
In the clashing commentary about whether lockdowns and stay-at-home orders should continue, or whether businesses and stores should be reopened, one senses a yearning for consensus. Why can't everybody just agree?
"War is the health of the state," wrote the progressive Randolph Bourne during the First World War, after which he succumbed to the Spanish flu.
America's war on the coronavirus pandemic promises to be no exception to the axiom. However long this war requires, the gargantuan state will almost surely emerge triumphant.
