December 2010

As readers of these piece already know, I possess neither a sophisticated model of the U.S. economy such as the ones available to the bright sparks whose mis-measurement of risk almost brought down the financial system, nor a crystal ball. All I can offer with any confidence is the observation that…

As legend has it, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillian was once asked what he most feared, to which he responded, "Events, dear boy, events."  That, essentially, is the point that the enigmatic but always insightful "Karl," who regularly blogs at HotAir's GreenRoom, made in response to my item…

For what it's worth: When I saw Colman McCarthy's anti-ROTC Washington Post op-ed online Wednesday evening, I e-mailed it to a few friends with the subject line, "it's helpful to have opponents like this." Allahpundit had a similar thought, and has developed it with characteristic wit and verve:

Who knew?

Bad Rachel on the president's support of Michael Vick.

Elections have consequences, and in Alabama the consequences have come quickly and decisively.

The silly outrage in New Jersey is continuing to grow. Here's what happened: It snowed while New Jersey Republican governor Chris Christie is in Disney World, lieutenant governor Kim Guadagno is on "vacation" in Mexico, and state Senate president, Democrat Stephen Sweeney, has been acting-governor.

James Cole, recess appointed this week by President Obama to serve as deputy attorney general, famously wrote an op-ed on September 9, 2002, criticizing then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Cole argued:

Jen Rubin makes the sensible case that, because all the potential GOP presidential candidates have weaknesses, a newcomer could have a real opening in the 2012 presidential election. Among others, Rubin suggests that Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, and Mike Pence might have a chance.

The Telegraph reports on China's changing rhetoric. Whereas the growing Communist nation used to say "it is planning a 'peaceful rise,'" China now says, "In the coming five years, our military will push forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction."

In a written statement, former Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell and her campaign manager Matt Moran respond to the AP's report that O'Donnell is being investigated by the FBI for allegedly spending campaign funds improperly (emphasis added):

Little did Director of National Intelligence James Clapper know that when he and two of his Obama administration colleagues sat down to discuss the terror threat with ABC’s Diane Sawyer earlier this month that his appearance would be the source of controversy. As has been widely reported, Clapper…

The AP reports: 

The Republican National Committee will meet in January to choose a new chairman, and the reporters at Hotline's On Call blog have been keeping a running total of how many votes each candidate has been able to announce publicly.  Michael Steele has publicly secured 15 delegates (85 are needed for…

From the if-this-were-on-Fox-News file, Chris Matthews a couple days ago pleaded to see President Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate:

As America’s premier First Amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams is a force to be reckoned with. The force is on display at full power in today’s Wall Street Journal, where he takes up the subject of WikiLeaks and offers a very dim view of the activities of Julian Assange. Among other things, Mr. Abrams…

For those of us who have been arguing against cutting the U.S. defense budget and, indeed, arguing instead that it’s too low as is, we’re used to our critics saying that we never have met a defense expenditure we don’t like, that we have no ideas for how defense monies can be better utilized, or…

Across the health care debate, supporters of Obamacare have tried to inflate the number of uninsured, and too often they have gotten away with it. Yesterday, for instance, a Huffington Post banner headline read, “Number of Uninsured Americans Soars to Over 50 Million.” But this claim cannot…

The latest Rasmussen poll of likely voters shows that 66 percent of independents support the repeal of Obamacare, while only 30 percent oppose it. Since the Democrats, of course, are the party that passed Obamacare -- without a single Republican vote -- it's amazing that independents are even more…

Obama praises Eagles for giving Michael Vick a second chance.

Republican governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is on vacation -- he's with his family in Disney World. And, it turns out, his lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, is also on vacation, somewhere outside of New Jersey. So who's in charge of New Jersey? Senate president Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat. 

Fouad Ajami writes in the Wall Street Journal:

According to an editorial in the New York Sun, the 112 Congress will begin with a reading of the Constitution. As the editorial says, "It will be a fitting capstone to an election in which the cry of constitutional conservatism was heard throughout the land." The Sun urges members of Congress to…

The Wall Street Journal editors write:

David Boaz, at the Cato Institute, objected to my calling former Republican senator Chuck Hagel an “anti-Republican Republican,” last night on Fox.

Amy Goldstein's lead front-page piece in today's print edition of the Washington Post isn't featured on the Post's website. This is unusual—featured pieces in the print edition are most often featured online as well. It’s unfortunate that Goldstein's fine reporting has almost disappeared from the…

Matt Labash, at the Daily Caller, answers questions:

Wall Street Journal: "Emails Show City Backing Of Mosque."

Our friend Wesley J. Smith writes:

WikiLeaks founder and accused sex offender Julian Assange has been rewarded with a book deal, expected to be worth $1.7 million. The New York Times reports:

Bill Kristol, on Fox News Sunday, made his prediction of whether Sarah Palin will run for president in 2012:

During a press conference on December 22, President Obama was asked about the difficulties his administration has encountered in trying to close Guantanamo. The president explained (emphasis added):

At the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby makes the case for expanding the size of the House of Representatives:

251,287. That’s the number of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks claims to have obtained. 1,897. That’s the number of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that, according to WikiLeaks’s own count, have thus far been published on its website: not even 1 percent of the reported total.…

Mark Helprin writes in the Wall Street Journal: 

The New York Times reports:

In his recent Wall Street Journal column, Jay McInerney returned to the wines of Bordeaux. They might not be trendy but they are still very drinkable (such as a $28 bottle of Chateau Jean Faux, Bordeaux Superieur, 2007). Of course it's also hard to beat the Grand Cru's and First Growths he samples…

American Narcissus (cont.)

Chaos & Classicism

London

Voodoo Histories

Black Swan

La Vita Nuova

"So many young men get their likes and dislikes from Mencken,” wrote Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises. Go ahead. Go to your nearest campus and find a single English major who’s heard of the Sage of Baltimore. You will sooner find a virgin who hates vampires. They might even be the same person.

Let’s stipulate that President Obama is one smart dude. Everyone says so. “Obama is one of the most articulate and intelligent men ever to have been president,” historian Alan Brinkley wrote recently in Democracy. Soon-to-be House speaker John Boehner agrees. “I think he’s engaging,” Boehner said…

In October 2009, at one of her weekly press conferences, Nancy Pelosi was asked by a reporter “where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Pelosi shook her head and replied: “Are you serious?” When her spokesman Nadeam…

When President Obama announced his Afghanistan policy a year ago, some conservatives had understandable reservations. Was the president sending enough troops? General Stanley McChrystal had asked, in essence, for 40,000 more troops, but Obama sent only 30,000 or so. Was Obama really committed to…

The machine was virtually new. I’d run a mere two tanks of gas through it and now the wretched thing wouldn’t start. I’d pulled the starter cord 30 times, or more, and the best response so far was a forlorn cough that sounded terminal. Could I have neglected to premix the gas last time I filled the…

I happened to walk past the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington the other day, and tried to picture how the block had once been configured. Where there is now an open plaza and grand monument there was once a traffic island—dividing Pennsylvania Avenue where it intersected with…

Palo Alto

’Twas the week before Christmas, and all through

You know conservatives are winning when the most dogmatic and obdurate liberals (inadvertently) throw in the towel.

From Afghanistan, some surprising news: U.S. and coalition forces have arrested a member of Iran’s notorious Qods Force who was simultaneously serving as a Taliban commander. But sophisticated foreign policy observers have said for years that the Taliban and Iran were adversaries, even enemies –…

As we look back on the year that is limping to an end, there is little—not nothing, just little—to cheer about. The year opened with the headline unemployment rate at 9.7 percent, and the rate including workers too discouraged to look for work or involuntarily on short-time (the U-6 rate, in the…

There's a lot of overblown talk right now about how President Obama has righted his political ship since the midterm election by helping to force through an abundance of mostly liberal legislation in the lame duck congressional session. A Rasmussen poll released yesterday presents a very different…

A Republican memo being circulated on Capitol Hill looks at the bright side of the New START agreement:  

The New York Post editors write:

Not satisfied with the colossal amounts of power that she would acquire under Obamacare if it isn't repealed, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sebelius has issued a 136-page "rule" that will now give her (and her subordinates) largely unchecked power to pass judgment on the prices…

In last weekend's Washington Post, Robert Rigney tells us about his recent tour of Berlin below the surface. It's not exactly something the Office of Tourism likes to promote, but underground tours will give visitors and history buffs alike a view of the city rarely seen—from its tunnels to its…

Two weeks before taking over control of the House of Representatives, Republicans have already succeeded in starting to defund Obamacare. As Ezra Klein, a zealous Obamacare supporter, writes in the Washington Post, "The Senate passed the Continuing Resolution [by a vote of] 79-16.... Another way of…

Politico reports:

There’s been some hyperventilating among conservatives about the effects on the military of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It’s going to be amazingly difficult to implement, some say. It could well be the end of the U.S. military as a feared fighting force. It’s just another step in the decline…

With the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, elite colleges now have a chance to make good on their promises and bring the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) back to campus.

President Obama, Democrats, and the reliably complaisant media have declared the lame duck session of Congress a triumph for the beleaguered president. Yes, he did better than expected. But mainly he was just plain lucky.

Both the most active (since the 1960s) and most unpopular Congress!

Jon Stewart and other liberals have long accused Republicans of waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 for political gain. "There's only three things he can mention in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11," said Joe Biden in his memorable attack on Rudy Giuliani.

"There's only three things he can mention in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11." That was Joe Biden's attack on Rudy Giuliani

Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenko is often called "Europe's last dictator." He has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for most of the past two decades, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, hiding under the protective wing of Moscow and living off its gifts of subsidized fuel. Over the past…

Liberals seem to be pretty gosh darned unhappy with the state of the political alignment these days. They were miserable during the Bush years, and they have grown quite ornery with the Obama administration, despite the fact that the 44th president delivered Obamacare. It's been a long time in the…

President Obama says in an interview with The Advocate that his "strong sense" is that implementation of Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal will be "a matter of months...absolutely not years—and that we will get this done in a timely fashion, and the chiefs are confident that it will get done in a timely…

A source on the Hill tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that ABC's Diane Sawyer is trying to line up freshmen Republican congressmen for a segment the night before the new Congress begins its new session. This is the email from ABC producers to the freshmen Republicans:

James Stewart, the star of It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Rear Window, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and The Spirit of St. Louis, to list just a few of his classic films, was truly an American hero, embodying the ideal of the self-reliant, decent, community-focused,…

At the height of the Iraqi insurgency, Dr. Thamer al-Assafi, a former Iraqi commando combat veteran of the Iran-Iraq war who later served as a cleric and a faculty member at Al-Anbar University,turned against “foreign Arabs” who attempted to control the local mosques. The power grab by outsiders…

Jerry Bowyer on 'the coming college education bubble' in Forbes:

Tim Carney: Arlen Specter's farewell address was an angry, petty, mean, self-serving screed that betrayed a total lack of self-awareness.

The New START agreement moved forward in the Senate today on a 67-28 cloture vote. The New York Times reports:

James C. Capretta, on "Priorities for a New Congress," in National Affairs:

The latest CNN/Opinion Research poll of national adults finds Barack Obama's job approval split -- 48 percent approve and 48 percent disapprove. This is up substantially from September, when the poll found 42 percent of adults approving and 54 percent disapproving  The shift was enough to prompt a…

In response to Andrew Ferguson's cover story in this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour just issued this statement:

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told reporters on a year-end conference call, regarding Obamacare: "I think it's important that folks understand that there is no going back." But the vast majority of American voters disagree with her.

The isolated and often-derided country of Albania, with a Muslim majority amounting to 70 percent of its three million citizens, has lately illustrated that small nations may often have great ideas, or, at least, may act responsibly in the face of major challenges that cause bigger powers to…

The new census numbers are out, and they show the GOP will make a substantial net gain of congressional seats/electoral votes.

This morning's Huffington Post main page:

From Public Policy Polling: 

Nearly two years have passed since his inauguration, and President Obama has yet to unveil a major policy initiative for Latin America. Regional officials are hoping that Obama ends this neglect in 2011 and increases U.S. engagement. Here are seven ways in which his administration could demonstrate…

The New York Times reports that incoming House majority leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) and legislative leaders in 12 states are backing a repeal amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The proposed amendment, launched by Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett, would empower two-thirds of the states,…

New START expected to pass.

Earlier this month, Al Jazeera broadcast a lengthy interview with Walid Muhammad Hajj, who was detained at Guantanamo for several years until he was transferred to his native Sudan in 2008. (MEMRI has provided an excerpt of the interview here.)

For decades, one of the Pentagon's fundamental strategic doctrines has been sustaining a military that could successfully prosecute two wars simultaneously. But after the last Quadrennial Defense Review, a Pentagon force shaping study, Defense department planners largely backed off the combat…

Chuck Schumer, not content with the liberal trope that conservatives want to 'turn the clock back' to the 1950s, says that some "hard right people" in America "seem to be wanting to move us back to the 19th century." 

Tomorrow's Census Bureau report on House district apportionment is set to be good news for the Republican Party:

A return to the medieval era is on the horizon for those living in our nation's capital—at least based on this headline in Sunday's Washington Post:

Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of giving Julian Assange all of those classified cables, is being held "under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture," according to lefty blogger Glenn Greenwald. Keith Olbermann, running with…

In one of the last interviews with Bob Feller before he died last week at the age of 92, the hall-of-famer said that, “trying to sneak a fastball by Ted Williams was like trying to sneak a sunbeam by a rooster.” The interview with Feller is part of the New York Times’s video feature “The Last…

60 Minutes, on the budget crisis that's hit many states:

Manuel Hinds writes in the Wall Street Journal: 

Arthur Herman writes in the New York Post:

For a White House that often appoints left-wing ideologues (think Van Jones) or activist bureaucrats (think Elizabeth Warren) to important posts, the Obama administration may have gotten the full package in Joseph A. Smith Jr., its nominee to direct the Federal Housing Finance Agency. But is Smith,…

Now that the 2022 World Cup has been given to Qatar, details of improprieties in the decision-making process of international soccer’s governing board, FIFA, are starting to trickle out. There are rumors that the small emirate in the Persian Gulf with the world’s third largest reserves of natural…

Grand Strategies

The Good Fight

The Southern Critics

The Climate Fix

The Obama administration consulted last month with outside policy experts and former officials about promoting democracy in Egypt. Given that Egypt rigged its November 28 legislative elections, it seems the president could use all the help he can get. The fraudulent elections are a rebuke to the…

It has been easy to snicker in recent weeks at the politicians who designed the euro, which appears on the verge of collapse after a decade as the common currency of a dozen countries in the European Union. Last May, the continent’s finance ministers put together a $145-billion package to bail out…

Imagine the following scenario. It’s January 2011. President Obama is on Capitol Hill, delivering his State of the Union address. Behind him is Speaker John Boehner of Ohio. Before him are 87 new Republican congressmen and 6 new Republican senators. In his speech, the president paints a grim…

Some people only dream of a white Christmas. I’m guaranteed one. It’s right there in the name of the place where I’m headed—the Great White North.

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese intellectual serving an 11-year jail sentence on subversion charges, has accomplished two great things.

Tiny Furniture

The day after the midterm elections in November, panelists at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy discussed the various factors that had contributed to the Democrats’ losses—most surprisingly, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. One speaker with excellent Democratic connections in…

It may be startling to imagine the American presidency as a train that “has run off the rails.” But that’s the metaphor Indiana Republican Mike Pence chose in a speech he gave at Hillsdale College on September 20 titled “The Presidency and the Constitution.” Elected last month to his sixth term in…

It’s no secret that America’s public health professionals lean left. As Sally Satel and Theodore R. Marmor reported in these pages in 2001, “The American Public Health Association .  .  . has taken up far-flung political causes. Campaign finance reform, affirmative action, and the war in Nicaragua…

When Wisconsin voters elected Scott Walker governor in November, they did so in no small measure because of his pledge to kill a stimulus-funded $810 million railroad connecting Milwaukee and Madison. Walker campaigned extensively on ending the project, which he deemed both unnecessary and…

Alas, Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is the latest politician to turn his attention to the Supreme Court. Leahy thinks the justices have more conflicts of interest than they acknowledge, and should recuse themselves more frequently than they do. He believes that…

President Obama has done more favors, more often, for organized labor than any other president, outpacing even FDR and Harry Truman in the lightning speed with which he has rushed to fulfill the union agenda. Calling Obama pro-union is putting it mildly.

The last section of Sasha Waltz and Guests’ triptych, Gezeiten, is an absurdist tour de force. For a half-hour, 16 dancers and the world they inhabit slowly, then quickly, fall apart. A man hammers his shoes onto a wall. A woman in a ball gown shimmies across the stage, drawing a smiley face in…

Ben Smith reports that schools that currently ban ROTC from campus are moving toward ending their discriminatory practice now that Congress has repealed the law banning openly gay people from serving in the military:

Now that the lame duck Democratic Congress has repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT), the new Congress will have to see to it that the Obama administration manages the implementation of repeal responsibly, and that the concerns of military leaders and troops are taken seriously. But over the next…

The Senate voted 63 to 33 today in favor of cloture on the bill to repeal the U.S. law banning openly gay people from serving in the military. Six Republicans voted for cloture: Scott Brown, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Lisa Murkowski, George Voinovich, and Mark Kirk.

As it turns out, calling a character actor a second banana is a bit unfair. As one of my favorite character actors, Stephen Tobolowsky, pointed out in the New York Times back in September, there are plusses:

The Chinese are playing grandmaster chess against an amateur America that can’t see beyond the second move. In a bipartisan display of geopolitical obtuseness, America continues its historic trade policy: It’s free trade, except occasional lapses into protectionism when a whinging constituent must…

Peter Suderman takes issue with Politifact's "lie of the year":

Florida judge signals opposition to Obamacare.

A blogger at the Center for American Progress is outraged (outraged!) over the $2 million cost of Republican governor-elect Rick Scott's inauguration ball:

The repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" seems like a done deal. As it has been clear since December 8, when Lisa Murkowski announced she'd vote for a repeal of DADT, all Reid had to do was call up a standalone repeal bill and it was almost certain to pass. Reid's done that, and the vote may come…

Last night's vote in the House of Representatives to extend the current tax rates marked an ironic end for the 111th House of Representatives. As unpopular as she has become, House speaker Nancy Pelosi did an extraordinary job of holding her caucus together for tough votes. However, last night the…

Former Republican National Committee chairman Mike Duncan has decided that he will not try to win his old job back. Duncan says in a statement:  

They are co-hosting the debate, the question is whether the Tea Party Express is an authentic "tea party" group: 

WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange has been released on bail from a British jail. He's currently staying put in Britain, waiting for an extradition trial to determine whether he will be sent to Sweden to face multiple charges of rape. The Daily Mail reports (my emphasis):

That's what NYU law professor and gay marriage supporter Kenji Yoshino called this Harvard Law and Public Policy paper by Robert George, Ryan T. Anderson, and Sherif Girgis. Yoshino argued that their argument still fails, and today George, Anderson, and Girgis have a rebuttal at The Public…

First, there was the creepy, nonfactual healthcare.gov video. Then HHS Secretary Sebelius announced, "we have a lot of reeducation to do" on the national health care law--and spent $3 million in taxpayer money on TV ads featuring Andy Griffith selling Obamacare. Now, they're taking over the…

The boss claims that this was slipped under his hotel room door in New York late last night:

Fred and Kim Kagan write in the Washington Post:

Per C-Span, by a vote of 277 to 148 the House just passed the tax cut deal to extend Bush tax rates for two years, cut the payroll tax, and extend unemployment benefits, etc. In 2001, the Bush tax cuts only received 230 votes. Progress, no?

From Mitch McConnell's office: 

Via Dave Weigel, a statement from Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.):

The New York Times doesn't come right out and say the surge is working--actually a Taliban commander tells the Times that the surge is working in Kandahar:

This is something that Republicans considering voting for the omnibus--I'm looking at you, Sens. Bennett, Bond, and Voinovich--just might want to consider:

Oklahoma's junior senator Tom Coburn has compiled a "working database" of every earmark in the omnibus appropriations bill in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. Here are some of the most expensive earmarks listed:

The theory of linkage holds that by resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict most other problems will be resolved. The end of the Arab-Israeli will contribute to the fight against terrorism as well as improve the prospects for Arab democracy and women’s rights. The conflict, linkage advocates argue, is…

Senator John McCain just delivered this lengthy speech on Mikhail Khordokovsky, Platon Lebedev, and U.S.-Russia relations:

Congressman John Murtha died on February 8, 2010. But, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports, the prolific earmarker might be getting one more:

Perhaps they can make Dede Scozzafava the face of the Democratic party?

CNN reports that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man who allegedly tried to blow up an airplane bound for Detroit last Christmas, has pleaded not guilty today to two new charges:

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is today going to introduce "a clean, one-page continuing resolution that keeps government funded through February 18th at current spending levels." This, however, is not a capitulation to the Democratic-led Senate -- it's a temporary hold, giving Congress…

Pete Mansoor and Max Boot write in the Los Angeles Times:

Germany’s journalists, human rights activists, and taxpayers are paying a painful price for its country’s woefully flawed “critical dialogue” policy with the Iranian regime.

Fred Barnes writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Over the last several years the old religious right reputedly has been melting down, with younger, more liberal evangelicals in the ascendency. But exit polling from the 2010 midterm election indicate no major political shift among evangelical or Protestant voters.

ABC's Jake Tapper reports:

Christie backs the tax deal. 

The creative geniuses at Goliath Games, out of Dreieich, Germany, have come up with a Spielzeug called Kackel Dackel, which in English could sort of be translated into "The Pooping Dachsund." At least one of the commercials by Goliath (the Germans pronounce it "Goaliyat") has gone viral. The…

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein and the New Republic's Jonathan Chait, two men who believe as an article of faith that government-run health care is the irresistible wave of the future, claim that they aren't fazed by this week's federal district court ruling declaring Obamacare's (in the words of…

Sixty-six senators voted this afternoon to begin debate tomorrow on the START arms treaty with Russia. The treaty needs 67 votes for ratification. The Wall Street Journal reports "START Passage Looks Dead for 2010."

The new numbers from Gallup on congressional job approval are simply stunning. The latest reading finds that just 13 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, with a whopping 83 percent disapproving. Almost all of the decline in the last month has been among self-identified…

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is angry that Senator Jim DeMint is going to require a Senate clerk to spend 12 whole hours reading the START arms deal aloud before senators vote on it. Says Obama's spokesman in a statement:

The latest poll from Rasmussen:

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, says that Wisconsin senator Herb Kohl would be in "a pretty solid position if he did decide to seek reelection" in 2012. But is it really that solid? He's under 50% in hypothetical match-ups with Paul Ryan and Tommy Thompson: 

Congressman Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Democratic House leadership team, has an op-ed in today's Washington Post, arguing for the implementation of the death tax. Van Hollen makes this point in the final paragraph of his piece:

The unthinkable has happened. A man has managed to rip off the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, getting away with more than $1.5 million in chips. Reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

I can't believe the Democratic Congress will be foolish and hubristic enough to go ahead and jam though the omnibus appropriations bill with its 6,488 earmarks totaling nearly $8.3 billion. But if they do: Shouldn't the Republican House leadership commit to making H.R. 1 in the next Congress a bill…

Douglas Murray writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Michael Moynihan: "Assange's Extremist Employees: Why is WikiLeaks employing a well-known Holocaust denier and his disgraced son?"

Harry Reid just unveiled a pork-laden $1.1 trillion and 2,000-page omnibus spending bill this afternoon, and Senator Jim DeMint (R, S.C.) has offered an audacious response: he's going to force the Senate to actually read the bill before voting on it. 

Three Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee voted in favor of the nomination of Joseph A. Smith, Jr., to direct the Federal Housing Finance Agency today. The remaining six Republicans on the committee voted against the nomination, and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire was not present.…

Starts and Stripes reports that Marine Corps Commandant General James F. Amos just dropped a rhetorical bomb on renewed efforts to repeal "don't ask, don't tell":

Roll Call reports Linda McMahon may be preparing to take on Joe Lieberman in 2012: 

The names of those involved are quite familiar: Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, Norm Coleman. But the tactics these conservative insiders are using are different. They are slowly trying to catch up to the left—by using its techniques as their own.

We've been here before. Back in mid-2007, the political world was swirling with talk of a third-party presidential run by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. And on this week's Meet the Press, the subject came up once again as David Gregory interviewed Mr. Will-He-Or-Won't-He:

For the last five years, Nick Sprayregen has been fighting for his property rights in New York City's Manhattanville. A small business owner in West Harlem, Sprayregen owns a local self-storage chain. In 2005, nearby Columbia University decided that it wanted to expand its campus, so it began…

We've been here before. Back in mid-2007, the political world was swirling with talk of a third-party presidential run by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. And on this week's Meet the Press, the subject came up once again as David Gregory interviewed Mr. Will-He-Or-Won't-He:

This past weekend Sweden became the latest country in Western Europe to suffer from radical Islamist terrorism. As reported by Swedish papers, Iraqi-born Taimur Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly, aged 28, who blew up a car and then himself in downtown Stockholm, had been granted Swedish citizenship in 1992. But…

The Washington Examiner's Emily Babay reports: 

I was going to put this in this week's newsletter, but ran out of space (speaking of the newsletter, sign up today!). In any case, the following quote ought to inspire modesty in all those who use present circumstances to make predictions about American politics:

Mitt Romney has joined Rush Limbaugh and five Republican senators in opposing the deal to extend current tax rates for another two years.

The tax deal reached cloture in the Senate, 83 to 15. But the right-wing debate over the deal continues. Here are some more links for your edification.

Danny Ayalon writes in the Los Angeles Times:

Yesterday's ruling by a federal district judge, declaring that Obamacare's individual mandate is unconstitutional, is a noteworthy blow to the highly unpopular overhaul and its ultimate prospects for survival. The New York Times writes:

In case further proof was needed that the Organization of American States (OAS) has become embarrassingly incompetent, witness its pathetic response to Nicaragua’s invasion of Costa Rica. On November 13, the organization passed a resolution calling for Managua to withdraw its military forces from…

The final tally of today's tax vote in the Senate was 83 ayes to 15 nays. The only Republicans to vote nay: Coburn (Okla.), DeMint (S.C.), Ensign (Nev.), Voinovich (Ohio), and Sessions (Ala.). 

Well, this should make the RNC race more interesting: 

Mike Pence to fundraise in South Carolina with Nikki Haley.

Earlier today we noted a Fox News report that claimed Michael Steele will announce he is not running for a second term as RNC chairman, but Fox reports now that Steele is running. For those on the edge of their seats, we'll know for sure if Steele is or is not running following his 7:30 p.m.…

What do you know, bloggers and talk show hosts do not necessarily represent the American public. Pew runs the numbers and finds that a sizable majority backs the tax deal:

The Senate is still holding the tax deal cloture vote open to allow senators time to get back to Washington, but moments ago the bill got the 60 votes necessary to move forward. So far, only 6 senators, all Democrats, have voted against it: Bingaman (N.M), Feingold (Wisc.), Gillibrand (N.Y.), Leahy…

Eighteen countries, including China, chose not to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiabo last week in Oslo. Along with the Palestinians, those countries include: Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia,…

Z Street, the pro-Israel group that alleges the IRS has prevented it from gaining tax exempt status because its policy toward Israel is antithetical to the administration's, now says that the IRS is changing its tune. Instead, Z Street is being excluded because of a "a Terrorism Special Policy, and…

Via Politico, President Obama accidentally called the Senate Minority Leader "Mike" McConnell today:

It was reported over the weekend that Michael Steele, the current chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), will not be seeking another term. This is not a huge surprise. Steele had long been criticized for his role as the chairman of the RNC, and already several alternative candidates…

The Senate plans to hold a cloture vote today on the tax deal between President Obama and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. TWS supports the deal, for reasons explained in our editorial. Here are some more reasons to support the deal, from some of our favorite bloggers.

Germany’s Wau Holland Foundation is the principal fundraiser for WikiLeaks and indeed, on its own account, WikiLeaks’s de facto financial manager. In “Tax Deductible WikiLeaks,” I noted that donations to WikiLeaks via the foundation are even tax deductible for German contributors. This is because…

Ross Douthat writes on the general awesomeness of Dr. Tom Coburn (R, Okla): 

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson has ruled that Obamacare's mandate that citizens purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. Philip Klein reports on the suit, which was filed by Virginia's attorney general Ken Cuccinelli:  

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson has issued his ruling in the lawsuit filed by Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli. Fox News reports that Hudson did not call for an injunction of the whole law.

Fox News reports that Michael Steele isn't running for a second term: 

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin sings "Blueberry Hill," the popular 1940s American song:

The Dream Machine

Bill Kristol, with Juan Williams, Mara Liasson and Chris Stirewalt, on Fox News Sunday:

Although it’s way too soon to know how the WikiLeaks release of classified U.S. documents will play out historically, it is interesting to compare two cables brought to light by the document dump—one written by Bruce Laingen, the chargé d’affaires in Tehran at the time of the Iranian revolution in…

As the White House endeavors to secure Senate approval of the new START treaty, it is seeking to forge a grand bargain with Senator Jon Kyl: increased funding for the U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise—a long-standing priority of Kyl’s—in exchange for ratification. While this might sound like routine…

America’s Medicis

Hugh Trevor-Roper

Last week Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged that Iran’s uranium enrichment program had suffered a setback: “They were able to disable on a limited basis some of our centrifuges by software installed in electronic equipment,” the Iranian president told reporters. This was something of an…

Shanghai

Palo Alto

On December 1, Undersecretary of State William Burns appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to brief members of Congress on Iran. He touted the effectiveness of the latest round of sanctions and then listed some “wider actions of the Iranian leadership” that cause concern. He cited the…

Last year, a bluegrass musician took America by storm. A liberal Democrat by political persuasion, he’s had a storied career as a comedian, actor, and author/playwright. He also just might be the one person who can help bluegrass music reach greater heights and a wider audience. Who is it? Steve…

Few defense acquisition tales have been as sordid as that of the U.S. Air Force’s new refueling tanker, the KC-X. The tanker acquisition program first popped up on the national radar screen in 2001, when Senator John McCain called into question a no-bid contract that would have leased modified…

Did America hold an election last month? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Congress is back in town, and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are acting as though the shellacking of 2010 never happened. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, oblivious as usual, have stuffed this Christmas turkey of a…

From his interview with Arianna Huffington in today's Financial Times:

The name of Iranian ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi is little known outside his own country, which is unfortunate. Ayatollah Boroujerdi has been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since 2006.

“Is it an earthquake or simply a shock?” asked Cole Porter in lyrics made famous by Frank Sinatra. That’s what policy analysts are asking about the sudden increase in the interest rates investors in U.S. government bonds are demanding, an increase only partly reversed at week’s end. One would have…

Friday night news dump: Bill Clinton endorses the Obama-GOP tax compromise.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a socialist who caucuses with the Democrats, has been talking all day on the Senate floor about his opposition to tax cuts (along with his affinity for Arianna Huffington, among other things). A senior Republican leadership aide tells me that the Democratic…

Daniel Foster reports: 

As liberals this week publicly question whether some Democrat should primary President Obama, conservatives and Republicans should resist the temptation to become overconfident. If the 2012 presidential election were held today, President Obama would lose, but he wouldn't lose by much -- and more…

Rich Lowry: 

The last time Jaime Herrera of Washington state was on Capitol Hill, Republicans taught her a valuable lesson. 

The last time Jaime Herrera of Washington state was on Capitol Hill, Republicans taught her a valuable lesson. 

President Barack Obama, on NPR this morning:

Via the Daily Caller, liberal writer Richard Wolffe mocked Sarah Palin on Hardball last night for saying she finds "divine inspiration" in the writings of C.S. Lewis."Divine inspiration from a series of kids books?," said Wolffe, apparently unaware that the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, a…

President Obama issued the following statement this morning on Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiabo:

Last weekend, PayPal announced that it was freezing the PayPal account used by WikiLeaks. In a statement, PayPal explained that WikiLeaks was in violation of the company’s acceptable use policy, which “states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote,…

Sarah Palin becomes the first potential GOP presidential candidate to endorse Paul Ryan's fiscal "road map":

Sarah Palin endorses Paul Ryan's roadmap. 

The Defense Authorization Act, which included a provision to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, has failed to gain cloture in the Senate, 57-40.  After signaling that she'd oppose the bill, Senator Susan Collins was the only Republican to vote in favor of cloture.

George Will writes:

The Hill's Roxana Tiron reports: 

While nuclear experts in Washington are wringing their hands over the fate of the New START agreement in the U.S. Senate, a formal U.S.-Russian civilian nuclear cooperative agreement came into force today with barely a whisper of public debate. In time, though, this deal which the White House…

In the middle of a February 28, 2008 State Department cable released by WikiLeaks, we find this sentence:

CNN reports: 

'Aha!' cry Media Matters and Jonathan Chait.

Tomorrow, the Nobel Peace Prize committee will give its award to jailed Chinese human rights advocate Liu Xiabo. How is China responding? In short, not well.

We recently uncovered a memo, circulated to Washington journalists after the 1994 election, which is again pertinent after November's midterm election. It was published in the Wall Street Journal under Andrew Ferguson's byline and, as the original piece disclaimed, "Any relation to any actual memo…

After years of ignoring North Korean aggression and provocations, the South Korean government has stated that any future attacks will result in war on the peninsula. In such a crisis as happening now on the Korean peninsula, one assumes the political and military leadership of the United States…

Last week, Congressional Republicans wrote a new chapter in government reform, convening a meeting in Washington with 16 newly elected GOP governors. To some, the confab looked like just another photo-op celebrating the party’s historic gains in last month’s midterm elections.

Christine O'Donnell: "Tragedy comes in threes. ... Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards's passing and Barack Obama's announcement of extending the tax cuts, which is good, but also extending the unemployment benefits." 

Via Jim Antle, I see that there's some doubt among the paleocons that former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson really endorsed the idea that the United States should intervene in a foreign country for the sole purpose of stopping a genocide. Here's what I posted on Monday from my interview with…

Foreign leaders, rivals and allies, often find it useful to take anti-American positions, but Turkish prime minister Recep Tayip Erdoğan has taken the rarest of steps in threatening to sue the U.S. State Department in both national and international courts for defamation. At issue is the…

House Republicans today selected committee chairmen for the 112th Congress. Here are the results:

Lisa Murkowski becomes the third member of the GOP Senate caucus, along with Susan Collins and Scott Brown, to endorse a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." The Alaska senator says in a statement: "my support for moving the Defense Authorization bill forward, which includes a repeal of the Don’t…

Debbie Stabenow should be worried: 

For me, the great political mystery of the last two years is not what makes Barack Obama tick, or where the Tea Party came from, but Hillary Clinton. Namely, why did she give up life tenure in a U.S. Senate seat from New York to join the Obama administration as secretary of state? I seem to be…

The Hill's Jordan Fabian reports:

A State Department spokesman said today that the Obama administration expected that many detainees released or transferred from Guantanamo Bay would return to jihad. The spokesman, P. J. Crowley, made the comments in response to questions about a new report from the Director of National…

In their aggressive push to ratify the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Obama administration has been wholly unimpressive in the messaging department. Calling the small, bilateral treaty the most pressing "national security issue" of our time, for example, is cause for head scratching.…

Liberals are not pleased with President Obama's tax deal with congressional Republicans. There have been multiple suggestions that he risks a liberal revolt, and that he could wind up like Jimmy Carter. Matt Bai of the New York Times writes:

On the recently announced soaring recidivism rate for Gitmo detainees returning to terror, State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said on Fox News that "we actually expected this to happen."

Republican senator George LeMieux said goodbye yesterday to the Senate, according to the Orlando Sentinel:

RiteAid has taken President Obama off the shelves.

Sometimes Redskins owner Daniel Snyder reminds me of Richard Pryor in Brewster's Millions (yes, I know it's a remake). The man cannot spend money fast enough on the most absurd things. Of course Brewster's actions were part of a condition—spending $30 million in 30 days but owning nothing—in order…

Gabriel Schoenfeld writes in today's Wall Street Journal:

Via Sam Stein at the Huffington Post (“Obama Administration Pushes Back On Report That Gitmo Recidivism Has ‘Soared’”), an anonymous Obama administration official has offered a reply (of sorts) to my piece on the DNI’s latest assessment of Guantanamo recidivism. It is odd that anyone in the Obama…

Michael Moynihan: Olbermann, Assange, and the Holocaust Denier.

The Kennedy Center Honors were held this past weekend, and once again Hollywood descended on the nation's capital. But Paul Farhi of the Washington Post wonders how and why the tributes come about the way they do.

Gitmo is staying open.

150 former Guantanamo detainees are either “confirmed or suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities,” according to a new intelligence assessment released by the Director of National Intelligence’s office on Tuesday. In total, 598 detainees have been transferred out of U.S. custody…

During a press conference moments ago, President Obama explained his decision to concede to Republican demands to extend the Bush tax cuts to those who make more than $250,000 by comparing congressional GOP to hostage-takers: "It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers, unless the hostage…

I was reminded yesterday of the single greatest public relations coup of the 20th century. Late last month, the Gallup poll asked Americans to evaluate how recent presidents handled their job in the White House. The big news for the political class was that 47 percent of respondents approved of…

A couple days ago, Ted Turner jumped on the one-child bandwagon at the Cancun climate change farce, lecturing the audience about the planetary virtues of sub-replacement fertility. Among the creepy untermensch solutions Turner proposed to solving the world’s population “problem” was the selling of…

No matter how much of a supposed "national security priority" ratifying the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is, the Obama administration hasn't been very impressive in the messaging department. They claim START needs to be ratified immediately, but have fallen short in explaining why.

Confusion held by some Democrats about the proper role of government is coming to the fore in a recent push to get Republican House members who oppose Obamacare to eschew their federal health care benefits. Missouri Democratic Party chairman Craig Hosmer says the question is whether Missouri…

In this week's Parade magazine, "Walter Scott" asks actress/advocate/aerobics instructor Jane Fonda about life, love, and lessons learned. It starts off harmless enough, when WS wonders if Fonda still finds exercise to be fun. Says the workout guru, "I don’t wake up saying, 'Oh boy, I’m going to…

Julian Assange has been arrested by British authorities. The WikiLeaks founder, who is responsible for the release of nearly 250,000 secret State Department cables, was arrested on two sex-related charges.

Republicans have rightly pledged to pass legislation in the House to repeal Obamacare, but they are also considering trying to repeal Obamacare 'piece by piece' after the Democrats inevitably kill that full repeal legislation. It's understandable that Republicans, in their determination to repeal…

The findings of a new Washington Post poll of Afghans are rather striking, but they don't fit with the Post's headline, "Afghan poll shows falling confidence in U.S. efforts to secure country."

Huckabee wants some respect.

The Daily Caller's Jon Ward reports on a tentative tax deal between Obama and congressional Republicans: 

Mark this down as another win for capitalism – and Israel, too. Recently, on the Princeton University campus, a student-led referendum sought to urge “Dining Services to provide an alternative brand to Sabra hummus in retail locations on campus,” according to the Daily Princetonian. The measure…

When I finally accepted the fact that I was to be an unmarried man of 47, the first call that came offering to introduce me to a woman was from my then friend, Taki Theodoracopulos (politics has since parted us). I didn’t know that it was to be the only such call I would ever receive in more than…

Recently, Ed Kilgore took to the pages of the New Republic to say that Obama couldn't be successfully primaried. Writes Kilgore: 

As the House Appropriations Committee stands poised to make a former earmarker its chairman, incoming House speaker John Boehner throws his support to porkbuster Jeff Flake: 

Last week, veteran congressman Charlie Rangel was censured by his House colleagues. Today, Rangel's ethics problems continue:

Certainly an argument can be made that considering the movie Fair Game has already become an afterthought, having grossed a mere $7.4 million domestically, why bother giving it more attention? On the other hand, if the movie's hero, former diplomat Joe Wilson, is right, and "for people who have…

Last April, when I was in Sarajevo, the Bosnian metropolis, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt happened to make a quick tour of the country, coming by private plane from Venice, where Jolie was filming The Tourist, a mystery pic with Johnny Depp. The arrival of the superstar couple was itself somewhat…

Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor and a likely 2012 Republican presidential candidate, hasn’t been shy about his support for marijuana legalization or his personal use of the drug during his younger days. “I never exhaled,” he joked in a recent interview with The New Republic. But in an…

The New York Times reports on the apparent deal in the works between congressional Democrats and Republicans:

The key Republican in New START negotiations in the Senate, Jon Kyl, indicated yesterday that the treaty would likely not be ratified in the lame duck session. Politico reports:

Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri’s planned trip to Tehran Saturday, November 27, is perhaps best understood as a coda to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tour of Lebanon two months ago. With that visit, the Islamic Republic of Iran effectively declared that the tiny country of 4.1 million on the Eastern…

Foreign Bodies

The Invisible Harry Gold

The Ten Commandments

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead

King of the Lobby

Buzz

Get Capone

On Purpose

The Oxford Book of Parodies

Almost Christian

The November Criminals

The Noël Coward Reader

Is some food, in one of the leading cant phrases of our day, sexist? Food cannot of course take political positions, but some food, let us agree, has a greater masculine than feminine appeal, and probably always will. Try as I might, I cannot imagine the Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher…

What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13. Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, 29, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan, while leading his platoon on a combat…

Back in January 2010, Secretary of State Clinton gave a pay-any-price, bear-any-burden address calling for the liberation of the global Internet. The price Washington was willing to pay? It promised $50 million to groups developing “new tools that enable citizens to exercise their rights of free…

Why do the potential Republican presidential candidates (with one exception) seem so old, dull, and uninteresting? There are a few simple answers. Most of the candidates are a generation older than most of the new Republican luminaries, compared with whom they are indeed duller and less…

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke concedes that, while necessary, a new large purchase of government bonds by the Fed to help cover the deficit will not completely solve our problem of slow growth. Many in the markets and around the world express the same sentiment in a more negative way—saying this latest…

On November 12, North Korean scientists took Stanford professor Siegfried Hecker and two colleagues to the Yongbyon nuclear complex. The North Koreans led the Americans to a building that Hecker, former head of the Los Alamos nuclear laboratories, had visited in February 2008. The structure had…

Don't you love this time of year, when folks (let's be honest here, moms and their kids) get together over hot cocoa and construct those cute little gingerbread houses? Over at the Four Seasons in Georgetown, pastry chef Charles Froke has taken the concept to a whole other level: He's managed to…

If you want to know why this economic forecaster is turning grey before your very eyes, or your investment adviser is mumbling incoherently when you dial him up for advice, consider the three important reports that were issued at the end of this week. The jobs report attracted most of the…

Ron Paul: Leave Julian Assange alone!

I record with interest and, perhaps, a measure of surprise and sorrow a brief dispatch from the frontiers of culture—in this case, the hallowed precincts of the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Suffice it to say that the 92nd Street Y is the sort of place where Charlie Rose might…

A week ago, the New York Times had a piece on the effects of global warming on the coastal town of Norfolk, Virginia. “As sea levels rise, tidal flooding is increasingly disrupting life here and all along the East Coast, a development many climate scientists link to global warming,” the Times…

Politico's Shira Toeplitz reports:

Republican senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts said in a statement today that he now supports repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military: "I accept the findings of the report and support repeal based on [Secretary of Defense Robert Gates'] recommendations that repeal will…

The repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" is the hot-button issue attached to the defense authorization bill that's getting all the attention, but it's not the only issue that could keep the bill from passing. Douglas Johnson of the Nation Right to Life Committee says his group will oppose the defense…

Eli Lake reports in today's Washington Times: 

The president has made an unscheduled trip to Afghanistan, which the New York Times describes as an attempt to "to smooth over a troubled relationship with President Hamid Karzai and take stock of a nine-year-old American-led war that he hopes to begin winding down next summer."

Last night the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to censure Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY), 333-79. Only two Republicans (Peter King of New York and Don Young of Alaska) voted against the censure resolution, but Democrats were more evenly divided, with 170 supporting the…

At today's Senate hearing, three of the four service chiefs expressed opposition to repealing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy on gays in the military. "My recommendation is that we should not implement repeal at this time," said Marine Corps commandant General James F. Amos (watch his…

In the discussion of the relationship between ratification of the new START treaty and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget for maintaining our nuclear weapons stockpile, an oft heard war cry in favor of ratification is that the Obama administration’s budget is one that former…

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/02/game-over-five-members-of-deficit-commission-will-vote-no-on-final-plan/

Marine corps commandant General James Amos testified before the Senate this morning that Congress should not repeal its law regarding gays in the military. It's hard to find a stronger or more succinct defense of the current policy than the following letter from a "Marine lieutenant who was a…

Long before the Pentagon’s report on the expected effects of repealing the current law prohibiting open homosexuals from serving in the U.S. military was released, the conventional “narrative” had already been established thanks to leaks by anonymous individuals “familiar with the report’s…

Long before the Pentagon’s report on the expected effects of repealing the current law prohibiting open homosexuals from serving in the U.S. military was released, the conventional “narrative” had already been established thanks to leaks by anonymous individuals “familiar with the report’s…

In a short essay, New York Times editorialist Lincoln Caplan considers the increasingly popular conservative rallying cry, "constitutional conservatism." Caplan unsurprisingly tries to characterize the term as purely negative: "The phrase is used mainly in opposition," a response to perceived…

The German equivalent of Charles W. Freeman Jr. has surfaced in a WikiLeaks cable from the U.S. embassy in Berlin. His name is Christoph Heusgen and he is a senior adviser on the Mideast to German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Margery Eagan: "Sure, many unemployed people want and need their government checks — but yesterday I talked to a bunch who told me they support Sen. Scott Brown on his vote that may take away their own benefits Christmas Day. I was stunned."

In the middle of hard economic times and high unemployment rates, the House Democrats have voted to increase taxes. CNN reports:

The Hill's Michael O'Brien reports: 

In the latest issue of City Journal, Howard Husock writes about the successes of the Atlanta Housing Authority and profiles the head of the AHA, Renee Glover:

In the discussion of the relationship between ratification of the new START treaty and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget for maintaining our nuclear weapons stockpile, an oft heard war cry in favor of ratification is that the Obama Administration’s budget is one that former NNSA…

While many opponents of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) have argued against the military's policy on gays in the military by comparing it to racial segregation, an Obama administration official seemed to reject that comparison during his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee today.

While the Senate electoral field in 2012 is tilted heavily toward the Republicans (Democrats must defend 23 seats to the GOP's 10), there is at least one Republican who will have to mount a serious reelection campaign: Scott Brown of Massachusetts. PPP reports that he's in good shape, at least for…

America’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup has fallen short. But it wasn’t for lack of trying: Eric Holder has been in Zurich, advocating for the competition to be hosted by the U.S., and the attorney general was joined by Bill Clinton and actor Morgan Freeman.

While many opponents of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" have argued against the military's policy on gays in the military by comparing it to racial segregation, an Obama administration official rejected that comparison during his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee today. 

George Will on New START: 

David Brooks and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin had a great debate at AEI today over the proper size and scope of the federal government. The debate originated with a WSJ op-ed that Ryan and AEI's president, Arthur Brooks, wrote in September. Brooks responded to their argument in one of his NYT…

The legislation to repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy would only go into effect when the president, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and the defense secretary sign off on it. This morning, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…

Matt Labash offers fly fishing advice at the Daily Caller: 

The debt commission's report, to be voted upon tomorrow by the commission's members, is a provocative proposal that should help to jump-start serious discussions about paying off (or at least not continuing to add to) our $13.8 trillion debt. In truth, the commission's report is the best that one…

When Nikki Haley was 13, she balanced the books for her parents' small business. Now, as governor-elect, she faces a slightly more daunting task: plugging a billion-dollar hole in the state's budget. But Haley says she looks forward to the challenge. "I love the opportunity that brings" to bring…

Did the Pentagon choose not to take down WikiLeaks?

Oftentimes, the way to grow a business is by purchasing a similar business's mailing list. And so what started as a simple purchase from Crate and Barrel leads to a mailbox full of Williams & Sonoma, Restoration Hardware, and Pottery Barn catalogs—not to mention all the various subcategories such…

When Nikki Haley was 13, she balanced the books for her parents' small business. Now, as governor-elect, she faces a slightly more daunting task: plugging a billion-dollar hole in the state's budget. But Haley said during a meeting in THE WEEKLY STANDARD's offices this afternoon that she looks…

According to Senator Joe Lieberman, WikiLeaks's servers are no longer being hosted by amazon.com. Here's Lieberman's full statement:

The board members of the Emergency Committee for Israel, Bill Kristol, Gary Bauer and Rachel Abrams, have written the following letter to Senators Chuck Schumer and Carl Levin: 

Over at NRO, Michael Tanner runs down the big problem with a potential Mitt Romney candidacy:

On June 6th, 1944, 1st Lt Dick Winters parachuted behind German lines, assembled a small strike team, and neutralized four enemy artillery pieces that were wreaking havoc on nearby Utah Beach. The Brecourt Manor Assault, as it was later dubbed, represented one of the most brilliant examples of…

Gary Schmitt writes on AEI's blog: 

A State Department cable released by WikiLeaks earlier this week contains a stunning new detail about the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda. The Saudis have privately complained to the Obama administration that Iran harbors a dangerous network of al Qaeda operatives who are targeting the…

All 42 Senate Republicans have sent a letter to Senate majority leader Harry Reid, pledging to "not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all…

Politico reports:

If you read the press release for Neil Greenberg’s like a vase at the Dance Theatre Workshop here in New York, you will learn that the 60-minute dance “explores the tensions created by the seemingly inescapable human desire to make meaning.”

House Republicans are pushing full speed ahead for the repeal of Obamacare. Rather than trying to sift through the president's "comprehensive" overhaul and separate the morsels of wheat from the warehouses of chaff, the Republicans will wisely repeal the whole thing and start over. If there's…

Interpol on the lookout for Julian Assange.

If the Senate takes up the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in this lame duck session, there's a chance that some senators in both parties will cross the aisle. Here's the math: