◼ The man who allegedly murdered Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was arrested in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., having been spotted by a local who was in for his morning coffee. On his person, the suspect had multiple fake IDs, a handgun with a suppressor, and a short manifesto in which he railed against the health-insurance industry. Responding to the news, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) spoke for the crazy faction within American politics by insisting that “violence is never the answer, but people can only be pushed so far.” Speaking for everyone else, Senator John Fetterman (D., Pa.) observed that the killer was “the asshole that’s going to die in prison,” that social media is a “sewer,” that the legacy media had been irresponsible in its coverage, and that the victim had “two children that are going to grow up without their father.” “If you’ve gunned someone down that you don’t happen to agree with their views or the business that they’re in, hey, you know, I’m next, they’re next, he’s next, she’s next,” Fetterman said. However smart or insightful someone might believe himself to be, he has no license to opt out of the social contract and begin murdering those who he believes are beyond the pale.

◼ The good old American jury system, a quarter of a millennium after the Revolution, continues to serve as the best means of administering justice known to man. Last year, a man named Daniel Penny intervened on a subway train in New York City after a passenger who had been behaving erratically threatened to kill at least one of the passengers. In the ensuing fight, the offender died—which, disgracefully, prompted Manhattan’s errant district attorney, Alvin Bragg, to charge Penny with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. The trial, which gained national attention, eventually ended in chaos: After the jury deadlocked on the manslaughter accusation, the judge took the extraordinary step of dismissing that charge with prejudice and instructing the twelve members to move on to criminally negligent homicide. This the jury did, swiftly finding Penny “not guilty.” Thanks to the principle of double jeopardy, Penny cannot be retried on either count. That is a victory for common sense and justice, but it is a lesser victory than would have been achieved had the prosecution not been brought in the first instance. Clearly, while Alvin Bragg remains in office, Manhattan’s priorities will remain upside-down, with only the good guys having to fear the prospect of punishment for their deeds.

◼ At the start of last week, the nomination of Pete Hegseth to be the next secretary of defense appeared to be on shaky ground. The Wall Street Journal reported that President-elect Trump and his team were looking at other options to run the Pentagon. Puck News wrote that “Trump’s cabinet nominees are falling like dominoes” under a picture of Hegseth. Except Hegseth didn’t fall, and a slew of Trump allies began a concerted pressure campaign on Senator Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), who had sounded less than enthusiastic. Then Trump allies including Steve Bannon and Steve Deace launched an intense pressure campaign, complete with threats of a primary challenge to Ernst in 2026 if she opposed Hegseth. By Monday, Ernst’s tone had changed considerably: She called her conversations with the nominee “encouraging” and concluded, “As I support Pete through this process, I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources.” The short-lived nomination of Matt Gaetz demonstrates that Republican senators won’t sign off on every nominee sent up to Capitol Hill for confirmation. But the improving outlook for Hegseth illuminates that Trump has his own forms of leverage as well.

◼ Trump—elected, but not yet in office—has clearly been enjoying his post–November 5 honeymoon, meeting with a queue of world leaders at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida while the rest of America anxiously waits for a vanished Joe Biden to technically cross the finish line. The meetings are typically conducted with the expected amount of Trump hospitality and charm, often with a photograph after the event and a kind word on his Truth Social account. That was, until Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau made his pilgrimage to West Palm Beach. Trump saluted him on his account afterward with the sort of comic brutality one rarely sees from a president: “It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada. I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and trade.” Fine, we guess, but we draw the line at Quebec.

◼ Presidents have intervened only eight times to block corporate acquisitions under the aegis of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Never has this extraordinary power been invoked for steel or against a company from Japan. But Joe Biden might before he leaves office, and Trump has said he will when he enters, block the acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel. There are no national-security reasons to block the sale, as Japan is one of America’s closest allies, Japan is already the No. 1 source of foreign direct investment in the U.S., and Japanese companies currently employ nearly 1 million Americans. The United Steelworkers and the politicians who want to curry their favor oppose the sale, as does Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs, which could get the government to undo the results of the bidding process it lost to Nippon Steel. If the federal government wants to say anything at all about this deal, a simple “thank you” for the billions of dollars in investment would suffice. But ideally it would be silent, as it is for most mid-cap acquisitions, presuming that shareholders know best what to do with the companies they own.

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◼ For 13 years, the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s monstrous regime in Syria appeared impossible. Then, in the space of a single week, it fell. First, a Turkish-backed Islamist group burst from its stronghold in Idlib to sack Aleppo, then Hama, then Homs. U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in the west followed suit, taking Deir ez-Zor. In the south, opposition forces seized Daraa—the “cradle of the revolution” that began in 2011. The multiaxial advance zeroed in on Damascus, where it met little resistance. The Assad regime was a spent force, and its anti-American sponsors, Iran and Russia, knew it. They cut their losses rather than spread their dwindling resources still thinner. The West should allow itself a moment to celebrate the implosion of the last Arab Socialist Baath Party regime in the Middle East—but only a moment. Securing and eliminating the regime’s chemical weapons, neutralizing the terrorist outposts that Assad and Moscow built, and ensuring that ISIS makes no comeback are paramount. So, too, is ensuring that the successor regime doesn’t succumb to Islamism. But the victors in Damascus are making pluralistic noises and engaging in efforts to attract foreign direct investment from the West. While they are still designated terrorist groups and should remain so for the time being, the U.S. and its partners should be open to the prospect of unforeseen positive developments in a region where Iran’s influence is rapidly withering.

◼ Trying to dismantle the overbearing state responsible for nearly a century of Argentinian economic decline takes intelligence, determination, and a certain deviation from psychological norms. Last year, Argentines, facing the prospect of hyperinflation, picked as their president an outsider, Javier Milei, El Loco, an eccentric and charismatic libertarian economist. Milei took office on December 10, 2023. So far, the results have been remarkable. Hyperinflation has been averted. Monthly inflation was a still-daunting 2.4 percent in November, but is falling. The man with a chain saw has deregulated where he can (ending rent control was one striking success) and hacked away at government. Incredibly, an Argentine government is running a fiscal surplus. This has come at a cost. Poverty levels, already high, have soared. GDP fell. Argentina has a long, long way to go, but, with luck, the worst may be over.

◼ For 66 years, they have been doing this: torturing people to death. The latest victim is Manuel de Jesús Guillén, who was 29. He was arrested during the protests throughout Cuba in July 2021. For the last three and a half years, he has been tortured, periodically—such is the lot of political prisoners in Cuba, and many other countries. Finally, it was too much. The Castros’ regime has been in power since January 1, 1959. Its demise will be a boon for humanity.

◼ Today, Mississippi is a one-party state, pretty much: Republican. It was a one-party state before: Democratic. Clarke Reed built the Mississippi GOP practically from scratch. He was a businessman, civic leader, and overall force—a shaper of the “New South.” He was a conservative, who read and admired Burke and Kirk and the rest. He was also a “racial liberal,” to use an old term. Reed was not interested in politics primarily but in the ideas that undergird politics. Among his multitudes of friends was WFB, who often hitched a ride on a Reed plane. “I am traveling via the Clarke Reed Air Force,” WFB would say. In 1976, Reed earned the enmity of Reaganites by tilting the Mississippi delegation toward President Ford at the Kansas City convention. This was after Reagan had designated Richard Schweiker, a moderate senator from Pennsylvania, as his running mate. But few could stay mad at Reed for long. He was charming, wise, and noble—and fun. Clarke Reed has died at 96. R.I.P.

◼ There were giants in those days. The founders of the modern conservative movement were human. But you’d hardly know it from their accomplishments. This is why names such as William F. Buckley Jr., Russell Kirk, Frank Meyer, M. Stanton Evans have endured long after their earthly demise. On Thursday, Lee Edwards, one of the last remaining figures of comparable stature from that era, joined their ranks. Born in 1932, Edwards devoted his career to the conservative movement in a way that defies quick summary. He was a signatory of the Sharon Statement and helped found Young Americans for Freedom. He worked on the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign in 1964. He was the author or or co-editor of more than two dozen books, including biographies of Buckley, Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. An inveterate anti-communist, Edwards was the founding chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. He also had deep ties to National Review, to which he first contributed in 1958. He wrote his final article for us last year, and plenty in between. He also served on the Advisory Committee of National Review Institute’s Buckley Legacy Project. This last role was especially fitting for him. Apart from Buckley’s many professional accomplishments, he was, Edwards was keen to stress, extraordinarily kind. Count this as one of many things that Buckley and Edwards had in common. Dead at 92. R.I.P.