McArdle: Maybe Democrats learned a lesson about shutdowns
Despite their attempt to frame this as the "Trump shutdown," Democrats didn't win the first news cycle. Nor did things get better on Sunday.
All Stories
McArdle: What will happen when Trump’s babysitters go home?
As the current crop of advisers turns over, who will step forward to take up their unenviable burdens? No one has so far walked out of the Trump West Wing...
McArdle: The #MeToo movement has had its intended effect
We got a hashtag, #MeToo; we got people proclaiming confidently that we were seeing the dawn of a new era. And then, scant months into the revolution, we got a...
McArdle: What makes bitcoin an implausible currency
Is bitcoin money, or a payment system? If it's good at both those jobs, then it's probably got a bright future. If it's good at neither of them 鈥� well,...
McArdle: Stop squeezing prisoners’ families for cash
Get caught committing a felony, and the government is apt to do terrible things to you. Stick you in a cage. Control what you eat, when you sleep, what you...
McArdle: Our broken politics only encourages deficit busting
Republicans have given up even pretending to care about the deficit. Having witnessed the success of this strategy, Democrats will likely follow suit the next time they鈥檙e in power.
McArdle: Keep churches’ tax break, with strings attached
The best arrangement is probably the status quo, in which we forbid churches from politicking, and then don't enforce it too tightly.
McArdle: What to ask when decades-old harassment surfaces
As the accusations of sexual harassment snowball, how ready are we for the consequences of rewriting the sexual rulebook so drastically, all at once?
McArdle: Yes, the census is worth more than a Big Mac
Unless Congress forks over adequate funding, there's a risk that we'll have a badly done census that will distort policies in countless ways for more than a decade to come.
McArdle: We live in fear of the online mobs
Early on, Twitter was a tool for building social bonds. These days, it is a tool for social coercion. It's like the world's biggest small town.