Publication: Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal

At best, mass mail voting is a roll of the dice, calculated against the grim reality of the pandemic. If the country is lucky, the 2020 election, whoever wins, won’t be decided by a whisker. Then as the coronavirus is tamed, the temporary measures should end. For ballot security and democratic legitimacy, it’s hard to beat going to the polls on Election Day.

Wall Street Journal

Another 2.4 million Americans filed for jobless benefits last week…The good news is that as states let businesses reopen, many of these folks should be able to get back to work. But most may have little incentive to, according to a new economic working paper that finds two-thirds are making more unemployed.

Wall Street Journal

The organization should return to its roots and focus on preventing and countering outbreaks of infectious diseases. If reform fails, there’s no reason for Washington to continue funding the agency at current levels.

Wall Street Journal

The Justice Department dropped its case against Michael Flynn on Thursday, “with prejudice,” in a legal filing that should echo far beyond this tragedy of justice delayed.

Wall Street Journal

Representatives can’t do our jobs when we’re stuck at home. So the speaker is writing the laws herself.

Wall Street Journal

Congress could push it back a few weeks, but the Constitution sets the end of the term on Jan. 20.

Wall Street Journal

Ordinary Americans protesting to reopen the economy face only contempt from elites…Though it is common to portray the protesters as putting profits over public health, these are hardly wealthy investors worried about their portfolios.

Wall Street Journal

Despite the economic cost and emotional toll, Americans have heeded orders and practiced social distancing to ensure hospitals aren’t overwhelmed. But the public’s patience won’t last forever, and it is most likely to fray when officials impose arbitrary restrictions that defy common sense.

Wall Street Journal

European politicians understand their economies have been in lockdown for months already and the economic and social costs aren’t sustainable. No one thinks a big-bang reopening is feasible, but making it past the peak disaster in hospitals or avoiding excessive stress on health-care systems allows for a phased return to whatever the post-virus normal will be.

Wall Street Journal

At long last our political leaders are considering how they can reopen the American economy they put into a destructive coma.

Wall Street Journal

The belief that it is worth sacrificing anything and everything at the altar of flattening the coronavirus curve is foolish. But many leaders are behaving that way. We need a clearer picture of all that is at stake before those at the helm burn down the village to save it.

Wall Street Journal

The sessions have become a boring show of President vs. the press.

Wall Street Journal

Pennsylvania shuts down liquor stores. Panic buying ensues… Many residents are now driving to neighboring states to buy alcohol, potentially bringing the virus with them. 

Wall Street Journal

Arguments to the contrary spurn or wildly distort statistics and cherry-pick anecdotal examples.

Wall Street Journal

The panic over Mr. Barr and the supposed political corruption of his Justice Department is partisan nonsense. The rule of law is doing fine. Critics can denounce Mr. Trump if he pardons Mr. Stone, as he probably will, but the verdict on that should be in the November election.

Wall Street Journal

The presidential action recognizes that the Milken prosecution of the late 1980s-early 1990s was an example of prosecutorial excess in an era like our own when political gales were raging about “the greed decade.”…In the long run of history, Mike Milken has done more good for more people with his financial innovations and philanthropy than all the scribes of envy politics ever will.

Wall Street Journal

Voters chose Donald Trump as an antidote to the growing inflammation caused by the prosperity-crushing, speech-inhibiting, nanny state-building, carbon-obsessing, patriarchy-bashing, implicit bias-accusing, tokey-wokey, globalist, swamp-creature governing class— embodied by the Democrats’ 2016 nominee. On taking office, Trump created a diversion (tweets, border walls, tariffs) as a smokescreen to let them implement an agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and originalist judges.

Wall Street Journal

His vote against witnesses was rooted in constitutional wisdom.

Wall Street Journal

Karl Rove: His dealings with foreign officials and Congress look as suspect as Trump’s.

Wall Street Journal

The ‘unitary executive’ implies both a strong presidency and clear limits on presidential powers.

Wall Street Journal

Why not amend the Constitution so that any president who is impeached and acquitted is permitted to serve a third term? That would allow him to make up for the time lost advancing the agenda that voters elected him to enact. It would preserve impeachment for genuine offenses but discourage its use for disputed ones and for mere politics.

Wall Street Journal

His son Hunter and Donald Trump aren’t dragging him down. He’s doing it himself.

Wall Street Journal

Bobby Jindal: Lots of voters dislike the president but will be convinced to vote for him by seeing his opponents.

Wall Street Journal

What did the House Intel Committee chairman know and when did he know it?