The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Chinese Bat Soup Flu’ Update

  Hat-tip to Kurt Schlicter for giving this pandemic a memorable name. It’s going to get worse — perhaps a whole lot worse — before it gets better, but in the meantime, we can figure out what went wrong, and caution about what’s still going wrong. The first and most important thing President Trump needs […]

Finally: Encouraging News From Italy

The curve finally appears to be flattening: The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has risen by 651 to 5,476, officials said on Sunday, an increase of 13.5% but down on Saturday’s figure when some 793 people died. The total number of cases in Italy rose to 59,138 from a previous 53,578, […]

#Coronavirus: The Italian Catastrophe and the Pandemic Danger to America

  Everybody complaining about the economic impact of shutdowns, quarantines and “shelter-in-place” orders to deal with the Chinese coronavirus pandemic should take a hard look at Italy. As I have pointed out, Italy was particularly vulnerable to this disease because they had a large number of Chinese workers — 300,000 nationwide — mostly employed in […]

7 p.m. ET Tonight: The Other Podcast Surrenders to ‘Yellow Peril’ Hysteria

  For too long, my podcasting partner John Hoge and I have attempted to downplay the dangers of the Deadly Chinese Menace. We tried to be voices of prudent skepticism amid the hysterical outpouring of Fear and Loathing unleashed by the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. It seemed to us irresponsible — and perhaps even racist — […]

Coronavirus: Why Italy?

  It was reported yesterday that Italy now has more coronavirus deaths than China, and that there were zero new cases in Wuhan. Everyone immediately became skeptical: Is Beijing lying again? But there’s another important question: Why has this pandemic hit Italy so hard? Saturday, I suggested the likely answer: Almost no one in the […]

Stop Pretending We Don’t Know Exactly How and Where This Pandemic Started

  Two words you should add to your vocabulary — zoonosis and zoonotic: A zoonosis (plural zoonoses, or zoonotic diseases) is an infectious disease caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites that spread from non-human animals (usually vertebrates) to humans. Major modern diseases such as Ebola virus disease and salmonellosis are zoonoses. The Wuhan coronavirus is a […]

America Is Not Italy: Wuhan Coronavirus and the ‘Grisly Calculus’ of Pandemic Risk

Let’s start with the good news: My American Spectator colleague Jeffrey Lord just ended two weeks of self-quarantine, a precaution after being potentially exposed to Wuhan coronavirus at CPAC. My brother and I both attended CPAC, of course, and while we are not aware of any direct contact with the person from New Jersey who […]

Confirmed: You’ve Got the Racism Virus

  Years ago, when discussing amnesty for illegal aliens, I announced one exception to my universal opposition: “Don’t deport the hotties!” Send us your supermodels, your Maxim cover girls, your Miss Universe contestants, we lift our lamp beside the golden door. There is no such thing as too much beauty, and America’s immigration policy should […]

« go back — keep looking »