Author Bertrand Patenaude shared the story of a US famine relief mission to Bolshevik Russia in 1921 that saved millions of lives in his book, The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921.

George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, over at The Volokh Conspiracy, makes the point that May 1 should be a day to honor victims of Communism. I agree.

I recently suggested to a still-sprightly friend who worked in the Reagan White House that President Reagan’s address at Fudan University in Shanghai—delivered April 30, 1984—was a terrific speech that stands forgotten. My friend texted a pensive reply. “If not largely forgotten, then it’s at least overshadowed by subsequent oratory in a busy rhetorical era.”

We can never keep money out of politics. But there is a solution to the problem of hugely expensive campaigns: eliminate the spoils of office.