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Ethan Epstein

eepstein@washingtontimes.com

Ethan Epstein was the editorial page editor of The Washington Times.

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Articles by Ethan Epstein

President Donald Trump speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, Sunday, April 5, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Coronavirus and the decline of the conservative sensibility

Donald Trump's presidency has brought its fair share of partisan and ideological inversions: The Democrats are now the party of Russia-hawkishness, free trade, and, rhetorically at least, fiscal probity. Republicans, meanwhile, now back conditions-free confabs with Stalinist dictators like Kim Jong-un and pass federal budgets whose deficits top $1 trillion -- and this was before the coronavirus crisis brought the economy to its knees.

April 5, 2020
President Donald Trump speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, Saturday, March 21, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Donald Trump never actually banned flights from China or Europe. Why?

On Saturday, Italy announced that 793 people had died that day from COVID-19, the coronavirus that originated in China that has rapidly spread across the world. That was up from 627 deaths that had occurred on Friday and 427 on Thursday. The death toll is now well over 5,000 in that country alone.

March 22, 2020
Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington, Monday, March 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Elon Musk still downplaying the coronavirus, claims it is a ‘specific form of the common cold’

When the coronavirus was in its nascent stages, at least in the U.S., some people who should know better came out to assure Americans that the fear is worse than the disease. Erstwhile presidential candidate Andrew Yang, law professor and Obama administration official Cass Sunstein, and titan of industry Elon Musk all uttered versions of the ultimately content-free phrase.

March 19, 2020
Medical personnel say the best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to the coronavirus, which spreads through close contact, coughing and sneezing.people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP) (Associated Press photographs)

The coming coronavirus carnage

"Lisbon is no more, but they dance in Paris," Voltaire wrote after an earthquake in 1755 killed tens of thousands in the Portuguese city.

March 15, 2020
People walk by a departures monitor at the Rome Leonardo da Vinci international airport, Thursday, March 12, 2020. Italians woke up to yet further virus-containment restrictions after Premier Giuseppe Conte ordered restaurants, cafes and retail shops closed after imposing a nationwide lockdown on personal movement. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

If you can, stay home

COVID-19 is firmly established in the United States, and Wednesday night's announcement of extremely limited travel restrictions between Europe and the United States - it doesn't apply to Americans whatsoever, nor to the United Kingdom and Ireland - was akin to announcing a bold new plan to bolt the barn doors now that the horses are out.

March 12, 2020
From left, Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former Vice President Joe Biden, participate in a Democratic presidential primary debate at the Gaillard Center, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020, in Charleston, S.C., co-hosted by CBS News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) ** FILE **

Joe Biden: The man who wasn’t there

In the event, it was the man who wasn't there who won a smashing victory on Super Tuesday. In the 15 contests, former Vice President Joe Biden took not only states where he was at least somewhat favored ahead of time -- Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina -- but also long shots like Massachusetts, Texas and Minnesota.

March 4, 2020
A masked shopper walks in the Chinatown district of San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020. As China grapples with the growing coronavirus outbreak, Chinese people in California are encountering a cultural disconnect as they brace for a possible spread of the virus in their adopted homeland. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

America has become complacent when it comes to coronavirus

Americans have done so much screaming at each other to avoid panic over the novel coronavirus that they've arguably grown complacent. Last week's ferocious Wall Street sell-off aside, there are few signs of the panic we keep being exhorted against. At this point, shrieks of "don't panic" are a bit like a morbidly obese man being told you to "eat something, you look skinny!"

March 1, 2020
Workers wearing protective suits spray disinfectant as a precaution against the coronavirus at a market in Bupyeong, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. South Korea reported another large jump in new virus cases Monday a day after the the president called for "unprecedented, powerful" steps to combat the outbreak that is increasingly confounding attempts to stop the spread. (Lee Jong-chul/Newsis via AP)

What effect will coronavirus have on the campaign?

Baseball games played to empty stands -- and not just at Marlins Park. Airlines largely grounded. Restaurants empty -- though Grubhub deliveries are booming as hungry people fear leaving their homes. This is the summer that quite possibly awaits the United States should the coronavirus continue its seemingly inexorable march across the globe.

February 24, 2020
Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg greets supporters after speaking at a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Money, electability talks: Michael Bloomberg rises in popularity

Democratic primary voters are obsessed with electability, determined to choose the candidate most likely to defeat President Trump in November. And so to prove it, they've gone about systematically eliminating all the most conventionally electable candidates.

February 16, 2020
In this Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, file photo, a doctor attends to a patient in an isolation ward at a hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province. Foreign evacuees from China's worst-hit region returned home to medical observation and even isolation. (Chinatopix via AP, File)

Coronavirus is deadly serious

The Chinese government's response to the coronavirus demonstrates the vast powers accorded to it under its authoritarian structure. Tens of millions of Chinese citizens -- an astonishing number of people -- in and around the central city of Wuhan are under physical quarantine, barred from leaving.

January 31, 2020
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont is one of the front-runners for the 2020 nomination. (Associated Press)

Bernie Sanders goes to the movies

The campaign has been going on for months and on a cold night in early February, the winner will finally be selected. There is great discontent with the leading contenders -- some deemed too left-wing, some too right-wing, and worst of all in an increasingly ethnically diverse country, all of them far too white. But finally, this overdetermined event that has been pored over, reported on, argued about and even wagered on, is finally almost here.

January 26, 2020
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. acknowledge the audience at a campaign stop at the University Of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Why is Hillary Clinton attacking Bernie Sanders now?

Today's edition of this never-ending saga involves Hillary Clinton attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders, her old primary rival and one of the leading candidates to take on Donald Trump later this year. The shots appeared in the pages of the Hollywood Reporter.

January 21, 2020
People watch a TV screen showing the live broadcast of South Korean President Moon Jae-in's New Year's speech at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020. Moon said he hopes to see North Korean leader Kim Jong-un fulfill a promise to visit the South this year as he called for the rival Koreas to end a prolonged freeze in bilateral relations. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

South Korea’s opposition sounds a warning

South Korea's very normalcy is a triumph. The country is rich, democratic and stable -- and became that way in record time. Yet under the leadership of President Moon Jae-in, the most left-wing leader in the history of South Korea, those achievements are in peril, says Rep. Lee Ju-young, the deputy speaker of the South Korean National Assembly and a member of the opposition Liberty Korea Party.

January 7, 2020