U.S. Chamber of Commerce building in Washington, D.C. (tupungato/Getty Images) Welcome to the Capital Note, a newsletter about business, finance, and economics. On the menu today: the Chamber of Commerce’s hedge, pruned, Coinbase, crytoptimists, combining the essence of two old crises to make a new one, and inflation. To sign up for the Capital Note, follow

A healthcare worker administers a shot of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination site operated by SOMOS Community Care in Manhattan, N.Y., January 29, 2021. (Mike Segar/Reuters) Some good news on vaccinations: 80 percent of people over the age of 65 who live in the United States have now received at least one dose

Dr. Anthony Fauci attends a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to examine the COVID-19 response on Capitol Hill, March 18, 2021. (Anna Moneymaker/Pool via Reuters) There is, if you’re looking for it, an abundance of good news in our fight against COVID-19. As John mentioned, 80 percent of people over the age of

(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) The bill doesn’t have the votes to pass Congress now, but will Democrats successfully pressure the Supreme Court to avoid rulings that enrage progressives? In October 2020, shortly before the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, a Siena/New York Times survey asked likely voters: “If Amy Coney Barrett

U.S. Marines with Task Force Southwest in Bost Kalay, Afghanistan, March 17, 2018. (Sergeant Sean J. Berry/USMC) Well, well, well. Just hours after Joe Biden finally announced his big decision on Afghanistan, and minutes before sanctions on Russia were updated, news outlets are reporting that U.S. intel has low confidence in the story that Russia

President Biden speaks at the White House, Washington, D.C., April 14, 2021. (Andrew Harnik/Reuters) In a slap in the face to the minority voters who were crucial to his election, the president has held fast to the failed, punitive drug policies of the past. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE S cience fiction and comedy work in similar

Kim Potter, a 26-year veteran who resigned from the Brooklyn Center police force, poses for a booking photograph at Hennepin County Jail for fatally shooting Daunte Wright in Minneapolis, Minn., April 14, 2021. (Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office/Handout via Reuters ) Kim Potter, the officer who killed Daunte Wright by shooting him with a firearm when

(Sviatlana Lazarenka/Getty Images) The recently released Consumer Price Index numbers should be seen as a harbinger of what’s to come. On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of March. Prices increased by 0.6 percent since February, the largest monthly increase since August 2012. On a year-over-year

Vanita Gupta speaks during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability in Washington, DC, June 10, 2020. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via Reuters) Five Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — Senators Cornyn, Grassley, Tillis, Cruz, and Hawley — sent a letter today to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Acting SEC

President Joe Biden announces executive actions on gun violence prevention in the Rose Garden at the White House, April 8, 2021. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) The misguided campaign to clamp down on homemade firearms presents a slippery slope. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE S ince before the United States existed as an independent nation, Americans have been making firearms

(Kritchanut/Getty Images) For the last eleven years or so, I’ve been writing that monetary policy is too tight. During this period, it has sometimes been a little too tight, sometimes a lot. I’ve been skeptical of claims of impending inflationary doom, and my skepticism continues to this day. So I’m on board with the starting

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and his defense attorney Eric Nelson rise to greet jury members in Minneapolis, Minn., April 13, 2021 in this courtroom sketch. (Jane Rosenberg/Reuters) So far, the Chauvin defense case is doing more to shore up the prosecution’s evidence than knock it down. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE T he presentation of

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) speaks in a news conference to discuss the House Judiciary Committee’s oversight agenda following the Mueller Hearing in Washington, D.C. July 26, 2019. (Erin Scott/Reuters) It’s a terrible idea that in no way could be fair, sensible, or practical. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE T he House Judiciary Committee will vote today

President Franklin Roosevelt delivers a fireside chat from the White House, 1933 (National Archives) FDR’s Court-packing scheme, wrote the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee in 1937, “is a measure which should be so emphatically rejected that its parallel will never again be presented to the free representatives of the free people of America.” Today, modern progressives,

[embedded content] China is a nation with 1.3 billion people, an economy projected to become bigger than the United States’ in just a few years, and a rapidly growing military. Hong Kong has already fallen under its authority. Meanwhile, Taiwan looms in the distance — with a population of almost 24 million, it’s a technology

A U.S Army soldier walks behind an Afghan policeman during a joint patrol with Afghan police and Canadian soldiers west of Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2007. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters) Two decades of the conflict have shown us what American foreign-policy failure looks like. What success looks like remains unclear. Joe Biden has announced that the last U.S.

Vice President Kamala Harris holds a roundtable on Black maternal health at the White House in Washington, D.C., April 13, 2021. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday said Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old black man who was fatally shot by Minnesota police during a traffic stop, “should be alive today” and said people “will

The headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Md. (Jason Reed/Reuters) News broke this morning that the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the Centers for Disease Control, are calling for a halt in the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after six individuals experienced severe blood clotting

President Joe Biden delivers remarks from the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., April 6, 2021. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Joe Biden, speaking in Kenosha, Wisconsin, September 3: “If I get elected president, I promise you there will be a national commission on policing out of the White House where I’ll bring everyone

A family of migrants cross the Rio Bravo River to turn themselves in to U.S Border Patrol agents to request asylum in El Paso, Texas, seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, March 30, 2021. (Edgard Garrido/Reuters) There seems to be disagreement about the nature of the problem at our southern border. Much of the commentary has

Then-President Donald Trump talks with reporters next to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Roy Blunt as he arrives for a closed Senate Republican policy lunch on Capitol Hill, March 26, 2019. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters) When Donald Trump unloaded on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over the weekend, it harkened back to the glory days

Voters at a polling place at John Jay College in New York, November 6, 2012. (Chip East/Reuters) Democrats have internalized the results of years of push-polling that shows an overwhelming majority of Americans sharing their vision for the future. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE L iberal writers spend an inordinate amount of time convincing themselves that the

A demonstrator holds up a “Black Lives Matter” sign in Rochester, N.Y., September 6, 2020. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters) The demonstrations may reduce police violence — while leading to an even greater increase in murders overall. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE L ast week, Vox spotlighted some results from an important new study by Travis Campbell. The study looks

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks at a coronavirus vaccination site in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., March 22, 2021. (Seth Wenig/Reuters) He’s a power-mad sleaze bucket, but he has kept his state from becoming another California. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE N ew York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, is a weakened political animal. And, as a conservative, I have

Repudiating the need to set priorities for international human-rights policy, he does a grave disservice to millions who are persecuted for their faith. Secretary of State Antony Blinken aims to make his mark on international human-rights policy by downplaying the importance of religious freedom. He is bowing to trends in domestic partisan political fashions, not

Hunter Biden attends his father Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th President of the United States on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., January 20, 2021. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool/Reuters) Censoring content about these controversies only fuels the public’s increasing distrust of the media and Big Tech. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE E ric Hoffer,

(Zolnierek/Getty Images) Where the recent legal focus on equity came from, what it means — and why it’s bad for America. Some states have attempted to allocate COVID relief funds on the basis of race. Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola have announced that they will penalize law firms that don’t use race to decide

Yale University’s Sterling Library, with Maya Lin’s Women’s Table fountain in the foreground. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) Yale has a chance to lead the way in developing true diversity, with an upcoming trustee election. Yale’s having an election, and this one won’t be rigged. For the first time since 1965, there’s an independent candidate running for the

Former president Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Fla., February 28, 2021. (Octavio Jones/Reuters) Former President Donald Trump on Saturday took aim at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Anthony Fauci, and former Vice President Mike Pence in an expletive-laced, off-script speech at a major Republican National Committee donor gathering.

Unaccompanied minors from Central America line up to be transported by U.S. Customs Border Protection officials after crossing the Rio Grande river on rafts in Penitas, Texas, March 26, 2021. (Adrees Latif/Reuters) The Biden administration is considering cash transfers to Northern Triangle countries in a bid to ease migration from those nations to the U.S.,