February 2011

In September 1787, the Constitution was submitted to the states for ratification. The Pennsylvania Assembly met to pass legislation creating a convention that would decide if the state should sign on to the newly reconceived United States. But something was missing: a quorum. Several…

A rumor's beginning to spread that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's jet was flown to Minsk, Belarus:

Is the Tea Party racist? Mychal Massie, speaking today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., says  “no.”

Ah yes, a classic case of being intolerant of supposed intolerance:

The Washington Post is up and running with this story on a report about GOP budget cuts, which lost me in paragraph three:

A group of faculty members at Columbia and Barnard have issued a statement opposing ROTC's return to campus. The statement isn't terribly noteworthy in itself—except that one of the signatories taking issue with the potential "militarization" of the university is Rashid Khalidi, activist Middle…

Perhaps it was inevitable. After ten years of contentious wrangling and with tens of billions of dollars going to the winner of the competition to build the U.S. Air Force's next fleet of tankers, no matter who won there would be recriminations and charges that the fix was in. If the European…

There's a good front page story in the Washington Post today about how political debates over unions are evolving. For one thing, a lot of people that are inclined to defend private sector unions don't feel obliged to protect public sector unions:

Following the boss's lead, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems to be stepping it up. The New York Times reports:

Two memorable events in Washington, D.C. yesterday afternoon: a recital at the Kennedy Center by the spectacular Peruvian tenor, Juan Diego Florez; and a book party at a home in Northwest D.C. for the spectacular American author, our own Andrew Ferguson.

Duke Snider is gone, slipping away at age 84. Most fans today never saw him play. How could they? He retired all the way back in 1964, and even that was after a pair of lost final seasons: first with the Mets, which was a joke, and then with the Giants, which, for a Dodger, is almost a sacrilege.…

Looking toward the crucial 2012 presidential race, three things are becoming increasingly clear:

How our Marines are "destroying the Taliban"

I’ve been told 2010 was a great year for movies—everything from The King’s Speech to The Social Network to Inception. Not that I would know. As a parent of two toddlers, I get to a movie theater at most once or twice a year.

Final Verdict

The unemployment rate is 9 percent and hasn’t been below that level since April 2009. The deficit, meanwhile, is projected to rise to $1.6 trillion this year. It hasn’t been below $1 trillion since 2008. More than $3 trillion has been added to the federal debt since President Obama took office on…

President Obama’s apparent frustration that he and his senior policymakers were taken by surprise with recent events in Tunisia and Egypt, reminds us of Yogi Berra’s famous line, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” Some momentous event occurs on the world scene—whether it’s the Soviets putting…

Jackie as Editor

 “Sputnik” was not the only nostalgic moment in the State of the Union address. When President Obama called on Congress to “invest” in “clean energy breakthroughs” that would “translate into clean energy jobs,” he echoed every president since Nixon. In fact, President Obama himself made the same…

Back when he was running for president, Barack Obama cited his relationship with Senator Richard Lugar so often that Lugar came to be known in the political press as “Obama’s favorite Republican.” Photos of Lugar even appeared in campaign ads that helped Obama (narrowly) carry Indiana.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is forgotten but not gone. It’s housed, quietly and temporarily, in the Treasury Department as it prepares to become an official, stand-alone federal agency on July 21. The CFPB is hiring. It already has an acting director, an enforcement chief, and a…

"They are suckers,” one senior Democratic congressional aide told Politico.

On February 11, the day that Hosni Mubarak resigned as president of Egypt, the Obama administration released its report to Congress on reforming America’s housing finance market. The report most notably proposes phasing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two large government-sponsored enterprises…

A New Shoah

The Eagle

In this week's New York Times magazine, Matt Bai has a 6500-word profile on New Jersey Governor Christie.

The New York Times has an interesting story today on how budget negotiations have been affected by the lack of congressional earmarks:

Why a U.S. government shutdown is worth it

The Washington Post  has a review up of the new book by Andrew Ferguson, Senior Editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The new book, Crazy U, tells the story of Ferguson's struggles getting his son through the college admissions process.

Following in the boss’s footsteps, Jeffrey Anderson argues at Pajamas Media that, with respect to the 2012 race, “It’s Time to Put the Varsity on the Field.” He seems to think the varsity includes Paul Ryan, Chris Christie and maybe Mike Pence—who have all said they won't run for president—and not…

In his posthumous collection of essays, The Neoconservative Persuasion, Irving Kristol offers reflections into political and social issues that still hound us today. Take this passage, from his 1974 essay "Republican Virtue versus Servile Institutions," which, with a few changes in the specifics,…

Andrew Ferguson's forthcoming book, Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College, is reviewed in Sunday's Washington Post. "In 'Crazy U,' Ferguson invites you to join him on the dream-mare that he and his son endured," reviewer Steven Levingston writes. "The book is both a…

Steven Levingston reviews Andrew Ferguson's Crazy U for the Washington Post today:

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is busy scaremongering about the prospect of a government shutdown if the Democrats don't agree to Republican budget cuts:

Despite high unemployment, the Obama administration has been slow to come up with an effective trade policy. It’s seemingly been trying with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, but its lack of success is startling.

The Foreign Policy Initiative has authored a letter to President Obama recommending his administration act with America's NATO allies on ending the violence and the "murderous regime" in Libya. The letter was signed by 41 former U.S. government officials, human rights and democracy advocates, and…

Two scathing must reads today on the Libya situation are out today from two eminent journalists. Here's Christopher Hitchens:

The newly released Kaiser Health Tracking Poll shows that, by a margin of 27 percentage points (59 to 32 percent), seniors have an “unfavorable,” rather than a “favorable,” opinion of Obamacare.  The same poll also shows that, by a margin of 5 points (48 to 43 percent), Americans as a whole have an…

At last Wednesday’s White House briefing, CNN’s Ed Henry asked new flack Jay Carney why it had taken President Obama so long to speak out about the violence in Libya.

It got lost amid the remarkable dispatches from Egypt and the broader Middle East, but last week Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela revealed some big news about Hugo Chávez and Iran. Speaking to a House subcommittee on February 15, he said the U.S. government is investigating whether…

Via Real Clear Politics, here's video from a recent speech by Rep. Paul Ryan, D-Wis. He makes a pretty powerful point about Democratic legislators fleeing their states and the lack of respepect for the rule of law:

The phone rang just now at home, where I was (and am) writing this week's editorial on Libya. The voice at the other end said, "Bill, this is John Boehner." We've been so swamped with automated fund-raising calls recently that I started to hang up—but fortunately I realized that automated callers…

In the Wall Street Journal, Elliott Abrams explains Muammar Qaddafi – and our dealings with “mad dog”:

In wake of Obama’s decision to punt on the budget, his lack of sure-footedness in dealing with Egypt, and his mystifying refusal to give voice to American ideals in Libya, the number of Americans who think the president is a “poor” leader now doubles the number who think he is an “excellent” one,…

Paul Ryan talks about Democratic senators fleeing his home state of Wisconsin and America "getting its mojo back":

"Charles and David Koch are not going to be silenced. They are principled men and we have a principled company.”

On Wednesday, Nate Silver – in a piece playfully entitled “Is Mississippi The New New Hampshire?” – presented an interesting analysis of Gallup’s recent data dump on statewide changes in President Obama’s job approval. Silver rightly notes that the president’s job approval – measured against his…

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker told THE WEEKLY STANDARD this evening that it is indeed possible for Senate Republicans to vote on the collective bargaining portion of his budget repair bill with a simple majority of senators present. "You could technically do it,” Walker told me, but he said he's…

How not to use quotation marks.

It is not surprising to see Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi use any and all means, including the most savage violence, to hold onto power. Qaddafi is, after all, a terrorist.

Emergency Committee for Israel executive director Noah Pollak has written a letter to Ambassador Dennis Ross, urging him to use his upcoming address to the liberal lobbying group J Street “to explain why the Jewish State is not just one of our closest allies, but a country that fully deserves the…

The Bradley Manning Support Network announced today that PayPal has closed the account of a group, Courage to Resist, that the network is working with to raise funds for the U.S. Army soldier alleged to have delivered classified cables and other secret government documents to WikiLeaks. The website…

According to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, the top lobbying group in Wisconsin for the 2009-2010 session of the legislature was the Wisconsin Education Assocation, which as of August 20, 2010 had spent 10,462 hours and $2,143,588 lobbying state lawmakers.

The New York Times reports on a Saudi Arabian man in Texas who "has been arrested by federal agents, who charged him with planning to build bombs for terror attacks inside the United States, the Justice Department announced on Thursday." The alleged plotter is named Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari. He…

From The Cable:

Madison, Wisc.

At a breakfast meeting this morning with reporters, President Obama's top economic adviser Austan Goolsbee maintained that the president's budget proposal is "sustainable." Goolsbee was asked by THE WEEKLY STANDARD about Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner's testimony last week to the Senate Budget…

The Obama administration’s taxpayer-funded, pro-Obamacare TV ads directed toward seniors don’t seem to be working. The new Kaiser Health Tracking Poll shows that, by a margin of 27 percentage points, seniors have an unfavorable, rather than a favorable, view of Obamacare. That’s the highest margin…

At Right Turn, Jen Rubin documents the outrage that the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) expressed over her post yesterday on the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study on public employee unions. Rubin pointed out two studies that debunked the EPI's claims that public…

From the Halls of the West Wing

Accused rapist Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, is supposed to be extradited to Sweden to face charges of rape. The Guardian reports:

The Washington Post has a hard-hitting editorial today, taking the president to task for being the "last to speak up on Libya." "Once again, an Arab dictator is employing criminal violence in a desperate effort to remain in power - and once again, the Obama administration has been slow to find its…

President Obama has now decided that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional. Thus, the Obama administration says that it will no longer defend that federal law in court. On the campaign trail, President Obama repeatedly…

From the Columbia Spectator, an amusing story about ROTC opponents who are feeling unduly chastised by the media storm over the treatment of Iraq veteran Anthony Maschek at a student forum. Members of the Coalition Against ROTC whine that the student forums "do not provide a safe space” and they…

Obama is sitting out the union fights.

When campaigning for the presidency, Barack Obama often appealed to "what Dr. King called 'the fierce urgency of now.'" And, he would continue, "I believe that there’s such a thing as being too late, and that hour is almost upon us."

Madison, Wisc.

Because he's apparently unaware there's an election next year, Obama abandons the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Associated Press reports that one of Muammar Qaddafi's former ministers claims the Libyan dictator himself ordered the Lockerbie bomber attack:

Jerry Brito, director of the technology policy program at the Mercatus Center, notes that the unrest in Libya could have an effect on the rest of the world, too -- at least that part of it that participates in social networking. Writing at time.com, Brito notes that Twitter's default URL shortening…

Here's White House press secretary Jay Carney explaining why the president hasn't given a satisfactory response to the situation in Libya:

New Jersey governor Chris Christie appeared this morning on NBC's "Today Show" to discuss his budget and state employees:

John Thune's announcement that he would not be running for president in 2012 has overshadowed another bit of news on the GOP primary front: current U.S. ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, has apparently taken a further step toward running for president, presumably as a Republican, with the launch…

Jen Rubin reports on the Center for Union Facts's analysis of the Economic Policy Institute's conclusion that Wisconsin's public workers are underpaid. Rubin writes:

Fred Barnes writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Politico's Simmi Aujla reports:

New Jersey governor Chris Christie presented his budget for fiscal year 2012, challenging the state legislature to adopt his proposed $29.4 billion plan that would feature business tax cuts, property tax relief, pension reform, and a slight bump in education spending.

Press TV, Iran’s state-owned English-language news network, is reporting that amid all the turmoil now unfolding in Libya the famous Lebanese cleric and founder of the Amal movement, Moussa Sadr, may be alive.

Who’s pulling the strings on Wisconsin governor Scott Walker? Well it’s got to be someone – since obviously no Republican would act out of principle.

A liberal blogger from the Buffalo Beast called up Scott Walker yesterday posing as wealthy businessman and Republican donor David Koch, a bogeyman who occupies the space in the left's imagination that is held by George Soros in the right's imagination. Walker's spokesman Cullen Werwie confirms…

Not so long ago, the acronym 'R2P' was all the rage in foreign policy circles. It stood for the 'responsibility to protect': Sovereign nations, the UN declared in 2005, have a responsibility to protect their populations "from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing."…

Madison, Wisc.

First the liberal Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board ripped the 14 state senate Democrats who fled the state for throwing a "temper tantrum." Then the Wisconsin State Journal called the Democrats "irresponsible." Now the Racine Journal Times calls on the senators to get back to work and…

Andrew Sullivan caught a give-and-take between me and Juan Williams on Fox News on Monday night and raises a fair objection.

If you type “Obamacare” into a search engine — whether Google, Bing, or Ask — you’ll find that the first site that appears at the top of the page is healthcare.gov.  That site will tell you everything you want to know — or, rather, everything the Obama administration wants you to know (and nothing…

Most of the focus on public employee unions emphasizes the fact that states are going bankrupt and that states can’t continue to give these unions the almost obscene perks they have gotten in the past. But that misses the more fundamental point.

Rahm wins Chicago mayoral race -- handily.

Defense secretary Robert Gates says the United States has not had discussions with its NATO partners about how to handle the unfolding crisis in Libya, and he believes that the United States could not quickly enforce a no-fly zone in the country to keep military jets from shooting on the citizens…

Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's former chief of staff, is projected to become the next mayor of Chicago. The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

In a joint statement, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who are currently in Amman, Jordan, issued a press weigh in on the recent events in Libya. “We are appalled by what appear to be crimes against humanity occurring in Libya,” McCain and Lieberman say. “The Qaddafi regime's ongoing…

Even decades later, the classic BBC shows Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister remain illuminating and biting commentaries on modern politics. All of the discussion regarding the lackluster U.S. response to the crisis in Libya reminds me of this great bit from Yes, Prime Minister, which goes a…

Madison, Wisc.

Not again: Indiana Republicans pursue right-to-work legislation, and pro-union Dems flee the state.

Madison, Wisc.

The latest Rasmussen poll of likely voters shows that, by a margin of 16 percentage points (56 to 40 percent), Americans support the repeal of Obamacare. Independents support repeal by a margin of 22 points (59 to 37 percent).

A small group of us had an interesting meeting this afternoon at the Pentagon with Defense secretary Bob Gates (unfortunately the most interesting parts were off the record; Steve Hayes will write up the other, still somewhat interesting, parts when we get a transcript). Then I came back to the…

Could House Republicans and Senate Democrats be at a stalemate on the federal budget? With Senate majority leader Harry Reid's announcement today that Senate Democrats would introduce a "short-term" continuing resolution to fund the federal government for the next 30 days, it looks possible. From…

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker will take to the airwaves in a couple of hours to deliver a statewide address his office is billing as a "fireside chat." Here are some brief excerpts from the address just released by his office:

While official news coming out of Libya is scarce right now, we thought we’d bring to your attention to the sharpest political travelogues from the country in the last few years.

Bill Kristol, writing in the Washington Post, urges President Obama to seize the moment – and to act:

President Obama’s tally in the Presidential Approval Index has declined by 14 points in the past month, according to Rasmussen’s poll of likely voters.  Obama now faces a deficit of 20 points: only 21 percent strongly approve of his performance, while 41 percent strongly disapprove. The…

Retired General Jack Keane has just returned from Afghanistan and is optimistic about the progress there:

David Bellavia, a highly decorated Iraq war veteran, just sent out a note announcing his intention to run for the seat in New York's 26th Congressional District. In case you'd forgotten, this is the district vacated by Republican Chris Lee, who recently resigned after it was revealed that the…

I had to double-check to make sure the author of this Washington Post op-ed was, in fact, the Richard Cohen and not someone with the same name who works at the Heritage Foundation. It is indeed the proud liberal who is fed up with those fat-cat pensions at taxpayers' expense.

John Thune has announced on his Facebook page that he is passing on a run for the presidency.

Statement on the website of Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.:

After almost a week of escalating violent reprisals against protestors and soldiers who have joined the anti-regime forces, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and his sons have yet to quell the uprisings—and the White House has yet to take a public stand. Last night, Secretary Clinton released a statement,…

CNBC's Maria Bartiromo has an interview in USA Today with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, a Democrat and Obama administration friend. Dimon has a few problems with new regulations in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, including the so-called Durbin amendment, which prevents banks from charging…

Washington Post:

Matt Continetti reviews Jonathan Alter's new book, The Promise, in the most recent issue of Claremont Review of Books: 

In today's Wall Street Journal, Steve Hayes writes: 

“This is a place,” says Columbia University president Lee Bollinger of his Ivy League institution,

There are a few interesting nuggets in the Chris Rock Esquire interview. But this little exchange between magazine contributor Scott Raab and the actor-comedian makes them sound, well, let's just say a bit insular.

Oh no: "Christchurch earthquake: 'Dead bodies lying around.'"

Madison, Wisc.

As Ben Smith reports, “here's a situation pretty much without precedent: The Libyan Ambassador to the U.S. just called on the United States to denounce his country's leaders -- and his employers -- more forcefully.”

Is the White House trying to distance itself from the Wisconsin protests? If so, they're doing a conspicuously bad job.

An important op-ed today by Nathaniel Fick and John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security on how the COIN strategy in Afghanistan is paying off:

The Wall Street Journal editorializes:

Madison, Wisc.

Ben Farmer of The Daily Telegraph (UK) reports that Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s peace council is going to send a delegation to Guantanamo. The council is requesting the release of about 20 Taliban commanders and leaders held there. There is no official indication, as of yet, that the Obama…

Today, the Columbia Spectator stated its support for renewing the university’s ROTC program and urged students to vote “yes” in the university Senate’s ongoing survey.

It's not exactly a secret that The Weekly Standard has many friends at Fox News. So we were a bit surprised to see the following story on Foxnews.com, 'Dishing Woes Don't Wash Away' by Mary Quinn O'Connor:

As we celebrate Washington’s Birthday — the name of the holiday is not “Presidents’ Day,” which would be no more appropriate (less, actually, in a republic) than “Congress Day” — it is worth recalling what the father of our country had to say about deficit spending:

Frank Cannon, in the Los Angeles Times, on conservatism:

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker explains his argument to the Heritage Foundation:

The Wall Street Journal reports: 

In a national poll, Rasmussen asks likely voters: "In the dispute between the governor and the union workers, do you agree more with the governor or the union for teachers and other state employees?"

Over at Reason, Tim Cavanaugh has a lengthy piece in the current issue on California's struggles to rein in public unions. Even though it must have been written well in advance of the current foofaraw in Wisconsin, the timing couldn't be better. Cavanaugh makes the oft-overlooked point public…

The Washington Post recently reported on the successful Palestinian drive to achieve statehood recognition from South American countries. Over the past few months, several countries—including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay—have endorsed the existence…

The Heritage Foundation reports from Wisconsin and talks with union members protesting in Madison:

Another day, another possibly mentally disturbed congressman emailing his staff photos of himself in a fuzzy tiger suit. Wait, what?!

On Sunday, Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Educational Association Council, instructed the teachers in her union to return to the classroom after many of them skipped school for three days last week. The unexpected move energized Republicans in Wisconsin, who took it as a sign that negative…

Now begins the great business for which the voters recalled the Republican party to power in Washington: reestablishing the habits of limited government. Starting with the debate on the 2011 continuing resolution—last year’s Democratic majorities having failed to fund the government for the full…

Freshman Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, one of the most promising of the new wave of Tea Party-allied Republican legislators, was chosen to give the Republican radio address, delivered just after President Obama’s weekly radio offering, on Saturday, January 29. This was a notable assignment for a…

Literature and the

In the grand old days before the Irish real estate boom collapsed, the ruling Fianna Fáil party used to campaign the fun way. Infamously, the party held blowout fundraisers every year in a tent at the Galway races. Bankers and property magnates would show up, caked in bling, surrounded by…

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, is more than a radical network, comparable to al Qaeda; more than an ideological phenomenon, like the followers of Khomeini in the 1979 Iranian Revolution; and more than a political insurgency, similar to Pakistani jihadism. It is an…

A few weeks back I was coming out of a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden when I happened to glance up and see a massive, brightly lit billboard promoting a TV show about pawnbrokers. The pawnbrokers were really scary-looking, so scary-looking that the friend I was with didn’t even want to look…

So I had a rare Saturday night to myself and decided at the last minute to go to the movies—and owing to scheduling, found myself with four possibilities. There was Rabbit Hole, for which Nicole Kidman has received an Oscar nomination. There was Blue Valentine, for which Michelle Williams was…

On an August night 15 years ago, I drove to Coney Island to play basketball. Arriving just after dinner, I set up camp at a court on the corner of Mermaid and 25th Street, nestled beside a large public housing project. I ran games late into the night with a small group, including a hulking…

Ray LaHood: Unsafe at Any Speed

Marcel Duchamp

An unrelentingly severe critic of the fallen Tunisian dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, my longtime Tunisian taxi driver Moussa, who has lived in Brussels for 20 years, sounded an optimistic note last week. “[The army] may not screw us. The officers know that Tunisia has fundamentally changed. I…

The Bush administration trilogy was supposed to arrive in this order: President Bush’s book first, then Vice President Cheney’s, and finally Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s. But Cheney, because of heart trouble, couldn’t finish on time. So Rumsfeld stepped forward last week with Known and…

Israelis have always lamented that Moses led the ancient Israelites to the one patch of land in the Middle East bereft of energy resources. It turns out the sea offered more promise. At the end of December, a huge natural gas discovery was confirmed in the Eastern Mediterranean inside Israel’s…

Why has the Obama administration been so tepid in its support for the biggest popular revolution in the modern Arab world? The short answer is Washington’s fear that a vacuum left by President Mubarak’s departure will be filled by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. “Revolutions have overthrown…

In Chicago elections one’s antipathies are always nicely divided. The division is usually between idealistic incompetence and corrupt quasi-competence. Corrupt quasi-competence, the way of the Daley dynasty, père et fils, for better and worse generally wins the day. The result has been that the…

Tea Partying House Republicans recently went into revolt over the largest cuts in government spending in decades. Why? Despite their size, the cuts in spending that Rep. Paul Ryan proposed for the rest of fiscal year 2011 didn’t appear to meet the Republican campaign pledge to shave $100 billion…

If Amy Chua didn’t get exactly the daughters she wanted, she certainly got her wish as a writer: to have a bestselling book and her name on everyone’s lips. The cause of her cause célèbre is her parenting memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Penguin, 256 pp., $25.95), which chronicles her…

The Net Delusion

A shocking story in the New York Post today. At a hearing about whether ROTC should return to Columbia University now that Don't Ask Don't Tell has been repealed, students openly mocked a disabled Iraq war veteran arguing in favor of the program:

Congressional Democrats engaged in more saber rattling today over concerns House Republicans will shutdown the government if Democrats don't agree to some pretty significant budget cuts. The continuing resolution funding the federal government expires on March 4:

If you want to know just how unruly the union protests are at the state capitol in Madison, check out this eye-opening account from a Wisconsin political insider over at a Milwaukee radio station:

In my post yesterday on the optics of the Wisconsin union battle, I noted in passing that FDR was quite vocally opposed to the creation of public sector unions. Roosevelt was an ardent supporter of unionism generally, but even he thought the idea of using collective bargaining against taxpayers was…

Read Paul Gigot's interview with Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan in today's Wall Street Journal. Watch Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's press conference from yesterday afternoon. Then get to work on that Ryan-Walker ticket in 2012.

As expected, Borders Books has filed for bankruptcy and is taking drastic action, closing 200 of its remaining 642 stores (the chain once had more than 1,300 locations) as part of its "restructuring" and "repositioning" effort. Earlier this week, customers received a carefully worded email from…

No need to do a careful analysis of the budget President Obama dropped on the desks of the Congress last week – a few broad brushstrokes paint the picture. Debt triples from 2008 levels by 2021; debt as a percent of GDP goes from 41 percent to 77 percent. Not a word about how to reform Medicare,…

One talking point from opponents of Scott Walker's budget and unions bill is that the $137 million budget shortfall for Wisconsin's current fiscal year is the result of spending on health savings accounts and business tax cuts Walker pushed through during a special legislative session last month.…

Jennifer Rubin: Mitch Daniels's problems not limited to "social truce."

In a written statement, the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) blasts the U.N. Security Council's attack on Israel. "As Arab governments are violently suppressing peaceful protests, the United Nations Security Council has, predictably, nothing to say," ECI says. The statement goes on to note the…

Former-secretary Mike Leavitt, Kathleen Sebelius’s predecessor as secretary of Health and Human Services (and my former boss), writes in today’s Washington Post:

A small town 

While the Democratic National Committee has decided to throw its support behind the pro-public sector union protesters in Wisconsin, the Republican National Committee is doing its part to get Democratic senators back to work.

Not your run-of-the-mill political advice: "Call your spouse for conjugal visits."

In evaluating the battle over public sector unions in Wisconsin, it's worth considering for a moment the state of American unionism. It's not a pretty picture, as far as unions are concerned.

This isn't new--the video was shot before the Senate Democrats fled the state, and Steve Hayes noted the comments in his piece yesterday. But it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. And it's a good example of how Wisconsin Democrats have taken a decent to strong hand and squandered it by acting…

In New Mexico, where Republican governor Susana Martinez won her first term in November, incumbent Democratic senator Jeff Bingaman will announce today he won't seek another term in 2012. Chris Cillizza writes:

Government security forces in Bahrain fired on mourners today in Pearl Square. The New York Times reports:

The editorial in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has no kind words for the state's senate Democrats' actions in Wisconsin's debate over public sector unions:

"Georgia faces a stark choice between two mutually exclusive futures." That's how the Center for American Progress (CAP) kicked off a 70-plus page report on the divided former Soviet Union. Suffice to say, that sophomoric assessment is just the opening salvo in a report overflowing with…

While watching the video of Indiana governor Mitch Daniels' smooth CPAC speech, I had the same thought that I had when I heard him speak to a small group of reporters at the Heritage Foundation in June: He seems well-suited to do what the next president must do--reform entitlement programs.

The Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal is the author of The German Mujahid. The book addresses a unique theme for an Arab author: the Holocaust. Via the reflections of two young brothers in a Parisian banlieue, it tells the story of Hans Schiller: a German SS officer who immigrates to Algeria,…

Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ros-Lehtinen issued a strong rebuke to reports that the Obama administration would make "a major concession to enemies of the Jewish State and other free democracies."

I watched Wednesday night's episode of Jeopardy! with someone who's a three-day winner and Tournament of Champions player -- not to mention a staffer here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. A few of us switched it on in the office not to watch Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings, though he was a player that night,…

Shhh! Nobody tell Tom Friedman. Chinese high speed rail projects might be a colossal, expensive, unsafe failure.

As we all know, Mitch Daniels has advocated a “truce” on social issues. This edition of Morning Jay will offer a defense of that idea, arguing that, given the unique circumstances of next year's election, such a proposition could increase the chances of Republican victory in 2012.

"Paul Ryan said this morning that Madison is starting to look like Cairo, but as Larry Kudlow notes, at least the demonstrators in Tahrir Square were pro-democracy."

Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority claims that Iran has scrapped plans to send two warships through the Suez, but Tehran denies it and says those vessels are still on their way. Whether those ships make it to the Suez or not isn’t important right now, because it’s only a test, and not just for Egypt’s…

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has issued a statement in response to the Senate Democrats' departure from the state to avoid a vote on legislation that would require public union employees to pay more for their health insurance and pensions:

Mixed messaging from the Obama administration today on the budget: Spokesman Jay Carney called the president's budget "extraordinary," while Treasury secretary Tim Geithner said "it's unsustainable."

Take this with a grain of salt, of course. Polling a generic Republican is a very different beast than weighing the merits of a living, breathing, actual candidate. Nonetheless, Axelrod, Plouffe and the rest of Obama's reelect team have to be a bit nervous about this Gallup poll:

Yesterday, CIA director Leon Panetta said that Osama bin Laden, if he were captured by the U.S., would "probably" be sent to Gitmo. On that same day, Jay Carney, Obama's new press secretary, said that “The president remains committed to closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, because as our military…

Madison, Wisconsin has become quite the mob scene with protests by union members opposed to Republican governor Scott Walker's legislation that would require most public sector union employees, including teachers, to pay 12 percent of their health care premiums--up from the current average of 6…

When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker looked out the window of his office at the Capitol in Madison Wednesday he saw more than 10,000 people gathered to protest his decision to require public employees to contribute more to their pensions and health care. Walker says he’s not surprised that the…

The latest Rasmussen poll showsthat, by a margin of 19 percentage points (57 to 38 percent), likely voters support the repeal of Obamacare. Another recent Rasmussen poll shows that 72 percent of likely voters consider health care to be a “very important” issue, second only to the economy (83…

Gov. Chris Christie's office just sent out the transcript of his speech yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute (you can watch it here and see my short write-up here). Christie spoke yesterday without a prepared text but did have a few notes. Here's the transcript: 

The Bahrain military and police cracked down on protesters early this morning in Pearl Square. The New York Times reports:

One frequent criticism of the war in Iraq has been that it is impossible to impose democracy from above. The revolution in Egypt represents an attempt to achieve democracy from below, as it were. The jury is out on both nations--and on both paths. However, as many have noted, revolutions that…

Shortly after Argentine foreign minister Héctor Timerman accused the United States of operating torture schools, his government decided to trigger a genuine crisis in bilateral relations.

The tween fans of Justin Bieber might want most to know if the 16-year-old Canadian singing sensation is really -- and disappointingly -- dating an older woman, 18-year-old Disney star Selena Gomez. But Rolling Stone digs deep, as writer Vanessa Grigoriadis tries to discover what political…

Remember when Obama said, "Nobody has ever been able to point to statements that I made or positions that I’ve taken that are contrary to the long-term security interests in Israel and in any way diminish the special relationship we have with that country"? Yeah, about that...

The Wall Street Journal writes: 

"Logan was repeatedly sexually assaulted by thugs yelling, 'Jew! Jew!'"

Nir Rosen, as it turns out, had pro-Taliban inclinations for quite some time. And so it should not really come as a surprise that a person who’d be willing to defend the terrorist organization might mock a woman—in this case, CBS’s Lara Logan—for being sexually assaulted in Cairo.

Chris Christie came to Washington, D.C. today to deliver a message: Tackle entitlement reform now.

Well, it is pretty clear that more than two years after ordering Gitmo closed, the Obama administration still hasn't come up with a better solution for holding high-value detainees. How do we know? Because Obama’s CIA director, Leon Panetta, says that the U.S. would likely send Osama bin Laden or…

Republican Jason Chaffetz and Democrat Anthony Weiner make an excellent argument in the Wall Street Journal against taxpayer funding of the United States Institute of Peace:

"Georgia faces a stark choice between two mutually exclusive futures." That's how the Center for American Progress kicked off a 70+ page report on the divided former Soviet republic. That sophomoric dichtomy is fair enough way to launch the study - an inaccurate assertion is the opening salvo in a…

This afternoon at the American Enterprise Institute, New Jersey governor Chris Christie said he wants House Republicans to "put up or shut up" on entitlement reform and had a message for those candidates he campaigned for in 2010: "If the people who I campaigned for don’t stand up and do the right…

Washington Examiner columnist Barbara Hollingsworth digs up an interesting story today about Ingmar Guandique -- the 29-year-old illegal immigrant convicted of killing congressional staffer Chandra Levy. According to the U.S. Attorney's office, it seems that Guandique came to America after being…

Minnesota, like a lot of states, is facing a major budget shortfall. In order to close the state's $6.2 billion gap, the Wall Street Journal reports that the state's new Democratic governor is considering jacking up the state's taxes on high income earners to unprecedented levels:

McClatchy wonders how on earth the president can claim that he's not going to add to the deficit following his bloated budget proposal:

Teachers and students in Wisconsin are protesting Governor Scott Walker's budget bill. But it's not a mark of democracy: instead, teachers have been taking kids out of school to march on the Capitol in Madison. It's being called a "sickout" -- and it's illegal.

So says the New York Post, which reports that Education secretary Arne Duncan edited a speech so that he wouldn't be criticizing the controversial "last in, first out" employment in a speech to teachers' union members in Denver:

Here's video from the e21 and Manhattan Institute event titled, "States in Trouble: Bankruptcy, Bailout or Default?"

The independent-minded and always-interesting thinker John D. Mueller has a fascinating post over at The Gold Standard Now. In his study of history, Mueller has noticed that before major shifts in party alignment, large numbers of voters become "detached" from their previous affiliations and…

Florida governor Rick Scott has rejected federal funds for high-speed rail connecting Orlando and Tampa, a decision that could send up to $2.4 billion in stimulus money back to the federal government. In a statement, Scott says that the red ink in President Obama’s budget – and the higher taxes the…

The Berkeley city council was considering inviting over "one or two" Gitmo detainees for a stay. But, last night, the city council seems to have at least in part come to its senses: By a vote of 4-1, and with 4 members not voting, the city council decided not to bring the detainees to Cindy…

Stuxnet was a valiant effort, but it looks like Iran's nuclear program is back on track.

For all of its complexities, American politics is sometimes reducible to a single enduring conflict, symbolized by the historic battle between Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay in the election of 1832.

Talking Points Memo (and the rest of the left) are in a tizzy over John Boehner's comments yesterday about the effect of GOP budget cuts on federal workers:

Liberal Egyptian leader Ayman Nour: “In practice, the Camp David accords have come to an end.”

In an email today to subscribers, DailyKos campaign director Chris Bowers announced a petition to encourage Elizabeth Warren to run for the Senate in Massachusetts against Republican Scott Brown next year:

House Republican leadership is all in with Budget chairman Paul Ryan and has green-lighted the inclusion of entitlements in the budget he will produce later this spring. The move comes after a lengthy behind-the-scenes debate about the risks of going first on entitlements and against the advice of…

The last time Mother Jones served up some grade-A baloney about how an anti-abortion bill would "redefine" rape, the story ended up being repeated by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. So it's good to see that Mother Jones's latest masterpiece--"South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion…

Looks like they've been reading the WEEKLY STANDARD on Capitol Hill. This afternoon the Republican leadership and Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan released the following statement:

This week the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on COICA (the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeit Act). It sounds like harmless enough legislation, or at least it did to members of the committee who voted for it unanimously, 19-0, during the lame duck session last year. But…

CNN is currently running with this short report on former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, with a somewhat breathless headline. It seems that for the Baptist preacher turned pol, the "abortion issue trumps all":

As Matt Continetti notes, Yuval Levin writes at the Corner that "it’s important to remember that our federal government budgets itself year by year, and in making next year’s budget it is not bound by this year’s budget." Thus, the president's budget for this year means something; his projections…

Last week, we saw the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Yesterday, there were protests in Tehran directed toward the regime in Iran. And today, in Bahrain, "More than 10,000 people streamed into the capital’s central Pearl Square on Tuesday in the largest political protest to hit this Persian Gulf…

Yuval Levin raises an essential point:

Yesterday on Dan Patrick's radio show, actor and wildman Charlie Sheen recounted how he was recently asked to give a pep talk to UCLA's baseball team, which made it to last year's World Series, ultimately falling to South Carolina. Among other things, Sheen imparted: "Stay away from the crack,…

Despite being a YouTube sensation and garnering an increasing amount of attention from national media outlets, New Jersey governor Chris Christie remains unknown to large swaths of the public and the Republican electorate, according to a new Fox News poll. The poll shows that 37 percent of…

Congressman Dennis Cardoza, a moderate Democratic member of the House, found out what happens when one crosses former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Roll Call reports: 

The editors of the Washington Post are displeased with the president's proposed budget:

Sen. Jeff Sessions' (R, Ala.) budget committee staff has picked apart President Obama's budget proposal with a new paper and a few charts. Sessions' team is also highlighting this Washington Post story published just a few days before Obama took office in 2009: "Obama Pledges Entitlement Reform."

Dan Senor and Roman Martinez, who served in Iraq with the Department of Defense and the Coalition Provisional Authority, take to the pages of the Washington Post to correct Donald Rumsfeld. "According to Donald Rumsfeld's memoir, U.S. difficulties stemmed not from the Pentagon's failure to plan for…

Sol Stern: "The New York Times Revises the Peace Process."

The Defending Defense trio, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Foreign Policy Initiative, released this statement in response to President Obama's budget:

Senator Joe Lieberman delivered a speech today at an AIPAC event, speaking primarily about Egypt. Here are key excerpts (full text below):

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) was founded to the sound of many hosannas in 2007. The organization was the brainchild of Kurt Campbell, now the assistant secretary of state for East Asia, and Michele Flournoy, who is now deputy secretary of defense and often mentioned as a potential…

The New York Post is reporting that "Hugh Hefner's iconic bachelor pad is under investigation after more than 80 guests at a conference and party there became sick with a suspected strain of Legionnaires' disease."

Arizona GOP congressman Jeff Flake announced today that he will try to fill the seat of retiring senator Jon Kyl in 2012. Flake, a tea partier before there were tea partiers, has already won the endorsement of the Club for Growth, and he'll be a strong candidate in the GOP primary. But he's no sure…

Tomorrow, e21 and the Manhattan Institute are hosting a panel, titled "States in Trouble: Bankruptcy, Bailout or Default?" The event includes a couple contributors to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. It will be at the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C., from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., on Tuesday, February…

Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, has deemed President Obama's newly-released budget a "blueprint for losing the future" in a video response:

Following the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, protesters in Iran seem to be getting a second-wind:

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that public sector unions are redoubling efforts to push back against proposed cuts and freezes on both the state and federal level:

Debra Saunders, on how some in Berkeley, California want to bring Gitmo detainees to their city:

Max Boot, writing in the Los Angeles Times, has an important op-ed about the importance of Iraq -- and how we could still lose, if we forget about Iraq:

Republican congressman Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, yesterday on Fox News Sunday (via RealClearPolitics):

Unconfirmed reports are circulating that former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has fallen into a coma in Sharm al-Sheikh. The independent Egyptian daily Al Masry Al Youm's English-language website says that Mubarak fainted twice during his final speech Thursday night.  The report also seems to…

Let’s be candid about President Obama’s budget. It’s pathetic. The country faces a worsening debt crisis and Obama has not come to play. He kissed off the crisis in his State of the Union address last month. And now his plan for spending over the next 10 years doesn’t come close to dealing with the…

It might have been reasonable to hope, some time ago, that Hosni Mubarak could have overseen a democratic transition in Egypt. But that is no longer the case.

The Hemlock Cup Socrates, Athens, and the Search for the Good Life by Bettany Hughes Knopf, 528 pp., $35

After observing the administrative practices in the realm of Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman pasha of Egypt in the early 19th century, William Edward Lane, the great Arabic lexicographer, commented:

The Obama administration is taking the side of the Egyptian people against the Mubarak regime while continuing to engage Iran. In doing so, it risks creating the misleading impression throughout the Middle East that it is actually working to raise up the Islamic Republic over traditional American…

Modern Medicine Turning Points in the

Our friend Charles Krauthammer began his column last week by asking, “Who doesn’t love a democratic revolution? Who is not moved by the renunciation of fear and the reclamation of dignity in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria?”

The Neoconservative Persuasion

The amazing thing about the United Nations, it’s always seemed to The Scrapbook, is how corrupt every tiny corner of it is. It makes mischief around the world in a thousand small ways that receive almost no attention. A case in point: The Scrapbook’s Botswana correspondent sends a clipping from the…

Washington has finally found out what $1.3 billion in annual military aid means to Hosni Mubarak’s tottering regime: It is a bribe to make the Egyptians do what is already in their self-interest. It seems that the American aid package (close to another billion is designated for economic assistance)…

It’s a solution of apparent Alexandrian elegance and simplicity: Empower America’s cash-strapped states to slice cleanly through a strangling knot of debilitating debt and government union cronyism by letting them file for bankruptcy. Long-term liabilities could be restructured, unaffordable labor…

Liberals could not prove their argument that the Tucson shootings were caused by the violent words of conservatives. Liberals then changed their argument: The Tucson shootings were caused by the violent possessions of conservatives. That is, the shootings were caused by private ownership of…

The controlled public rage against corruption, oppression, and marginalization at the hands of tyrannical Arab regimes that has unfolded in recent weeks is unprecedented and probably unstoppable, but it caught most Western observers by surprise. While they accept the Arab revolt for what it is—a…

Don’t hit the panic button just yet. But keep it handy. Absent drastic, “and I mean drastic” spending cuts, and tax increases, and continued bond buying by the Federal Reserve Board to suppress interest rates on the federal debt, the U.S. will be unable to balance its budget. That’s the advice I…

Senator Dick Durbin on Obama and the president's critics: "He's working with the other party, he's addressing the most important issues. And a lot of critics have been silenced, because this president really has some basic talents that really served him well."

It is, in a way, unsurprising that the president gave Bogota a brief nod during his State of the Union address. After all, In 2010 State of the Union address, the president claimed, “we will strengthen our trade relations in Asia and with key partners like South Korea and Panama and Colombia.” And,…

Over the past week, India's lively (and often wildly irresponsible) media has been flogging a sensational story about a tax raid on the monastery housing a prominent Tibetan lama who is presently exiled in India. The stories concern a 25-year-old Tibetan named Ogyen Trinley Dorje. He is also known…

After fundraising for Obama during the 2008 campaign, Cynthia Stroum was appointed ambassador to Luxembourg. On January 31, though, Stroum resigned from her position, citing family and business as her reasons for resigning. A recently released report from the State Department tells another story.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post has Bob Kagan's response to the recent events in Egypt: 

Next week, e21 and the Manhattan Institute are hosting a panel, titled "States in Trouble: Bankruptcy, Bailout or Default?" The event includes a couple contributors to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. It will be at the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C., from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., on Tuesday, February…

Though Egyptian state TV has announced Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, it is unclear what the mass revolt rocking Egypt has in store for that ancient nation’s future. But what is clear is that the momentous events in Cairo--and, indeed, the massive tsunami of people-power engulfing the entire…

Christian Rocca's must-read in the Wall Street Journal:

Bill Kristol went on MSNBC earlier this week to discuss the Neoconservative Persuasion, a new compilation of Irving Kristol's essays: 

The Hill rightly characterizes John Thune's talk about a 2012 bid as a "long-winded deflection." 

This item from Politico caught my eye:

A CNN poll released this week asked Americans whether they plan to vote for or against President Obama in 2012. The options were "probably vote for," "probably not vote for," "definitely vote for," and "definitely not vote for." The most popular answer was "definitely not vote for" – chosen by 35…

UPDATE: On Friday the Army made its decision. Mubarak was forced out. His Thursday speech was a disaster and it seems to have helped persuade the generals that they had, at last, to choose between Mubarak and the people. They made the right choice.

In times of economic and social dislocation, conspiracy theories abound. The sudden uncertainty of events drives ordinary people as well as pseudo-intellectuals, in countries all over the world, to seek explanations for newly revealed political and financial problems in “magical thinking,” blaming…

In the Sunday Washington Post, Chris Cillizza asked an interesting question:

Mitch Daniels: "If I were to decide to do this, we would have an unbelievable letterhead."

It's one thing that news organizations misread the situation in Egypt today, issuing conflicting reports throughout the day. (Hosni Mubarak will resign, no he won't, yes he will -- that's how today's events were reported, until finally Mubarak made his announcement.) But it's a little disheartening…

Herzliya, Israel

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who was last in the news when he filed – and later settled – a lawsuit against the House cafeteria, took to C-SPAN to argue that the “cost of an expanded military is a huge factor driving our deficit.” Kucinich is totally off base here.

Egyptian president-for-life Hosni Mubarak announced to the world that he was not going to relinquish his position. The Washington Post reports:

At National Review, Jim Capretta explains why the Ryan-Rivlin plan would reform entitlements and bend the health care cost-curve down, while Obamacare would do neither. Actually, Obamacare would do far worse than "neither." It would add an unsustainable new entitlement while also bending the…

This afternoon, Donald Rumsfeld hosted a handful of bloggers and new media wonks for a lunch discussion. Though purpose of the visit was to discuss Rumsfeld memoirs, Known and Unknown, he had no trouble diving into current events. When asked about the defense budget debate -a hot topic in Congress…

Testifying today before the House Budget Committee, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf confirmed that Obamacare is expected to reduce the number of jobs in the labor market by an estimated 800,000. Here are excerpts from the exchange:

RNC chair Reince Priebus just emailed me (and everyone else on the RNC's list) advice for what I should be doing this Valentine's Day: 

For Republicans, losing Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona is a bit like the Chicago Bulls when Michael Jordan retired. Not only is Kyl the MVP among Republican senators, but he also makes the other senators look good and perform better. I can’t think of a member of Congress who will be missed more than…

Jeffrey Dressler provides an interesting update from the invaluable Institute for the Study of War on the fight in Helmand in Afghanistan:

NBC reports:

Politico reports that Arizona senator Jon Kyl will retire, and not run for reelection in 2012:

The White House is accusing the Iranian regime of “hypocrisy” for placing a leading opposition figure under house arrest. Mehdi Karroubi, one of the leaders of Iran’s Green Movement after the rigged elections in June 2009, has been placed under house arrest in Tehran and is unable to meet with his…

Mississippi governor Haley Barbour spoke yesterday day at the Herzliya conference in Israel:

Years from now, your child may ask you, "Where were you during the nurse-in?" Were you sitting at home, reading the paper? Sleeping in? Or will you be able to tell your child you were there—at the Hirshhorn Museum with all the other mothers celebrating their God-given right to nurse in public? It's…

Sophomore Republican congressman Christopher Lee of New York has resigned today. According to the Hill, the married Lee sent a shirtless picture of himself to a woman he met on Craigslist, who eventually contacted celebrity gossip site Gawker.com:

58 percent of New Jersey voters "like" Chris Christie.

Gallup's party identification figures now show that a lower percentage of Americans consider themselves to be Democrats (28 percent) than at any point over the whole span (early 2004 to early 2011) for which Gallup shows results. Republicans are also only at 28 percent, but being tied with the…

When asked by Bill O'Reilly in his pre-Super Bowl interview why public opinion is so against Obamacare, President Obama replied: "Actually, I think it's pretty evenly – it's evenly divided, Bill." That's only true in the sense that the Obama-McCain presidential race, decided by 7 points, was also…

I note with regret Michelle Obama’s announcement this week that her husband the president, to her evident relief, has kicked his cigarette habit. No details were forthcoming—how he managed to stop smoking, just how serious his habit might have been, and so on—but in the present age, none were…

Despite concern from the left about the potential for Rep. Peter King's Homeland Security Committee hearings would unfairly "[single] out an entire community, such as Muslim Americans," this morning's hearing with Department of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano and Michael Leiter,…

A BBC cameraman was able to capture incredible footage of an exploding bomb in Kirkuk, Iraq:

“The Department of Defense is a government bureaucracy, cousin to the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the rest. That means it has the same Dawn of the Dead–zombie instincts.”

In a hearing, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke if he believes that one of the keys to short-term economic growth is a long-term plan to put America's fiscal policy in order. Bernanke replied, "Correct."

Herzliya, Israel

Ben Smith reports that Virginia senator Jim Webb won't seek reelection in 2012:

Two recent dispatches from Buenos Aires highlight the travails of Argentine president Cristina Kirchner, whose foolish populism and economic mismanagement have created serious headaches for her government.

The 50th Super Bowl approaches with the same amount of trepidation as Y2K. Why? Because none of us is quite sure if we will actually be witness to Super Bowl L. Yes, it's a tradition that dates back to the very first Super Bowl. But how many people will actually look at the logo and think "Super…

On October 31, Islamist extremists took hostage the congregation of Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church in Baghdad and slaughtered 58 men, women and children, wounding 78 others. Most of the slain were worshipers, and two were priests. The tragedy generated a weak response from the Obama…

1. Who's Extreme? For decades now, we have been told that the extremism of the conservative movement is so beyond the boundaries of rational political discourse that the Grand Old Party is set to fall into a pathetic, rump minority. Not coincidentally, these warnings have corresponded to the period…

Between the Covers: Bill Kristol on the Neoconservative Persuasion. 

Here are two different, though not necessarily contradictory, perspectives on the uprisings in Egypt over the last two weeks: In Foreign Affairs, Egypt specialist Joshua Stacher argues the military never lost control of the ground, and over at Just Journalism, Michael Weiss interviews Shiraz Maher,…

The Reagan Centennial having come and gone, we may detect certain trends in current Reaganology. One, exemplified by the new HBO documentary (Reagan) directed by Eugene Jarecki, is that Reagan was not conservative at all—a myth perpetrated by right-wingers, according to Jarecki, who have sought “to…

Jackson Diehl, of the Washington Post, writes about the ahead-of-the-curve Working Group on Egypt:

Many have been quick to jump on the president for a supposedly false statement he gave to Fox News host Bill O'Reilly in an interview before last Sunday's Super Bowl. Here, for instance, is an editorial in the Wall Street Journal:

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, today reiterated his commitment to hold hearings on Islamic radicalization, which are scheduled to be held next week. Last week, the ranking member of this committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, had asked King, in a letter, to focus…

At Commentary, Peter Wehner writes:

The Working Group on Egypt, led by Michele Dunne and Robert Kagan, yesterday sent letters to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging the administration “to press for an unmistakable and irreversible transition to democracy.”

In strong remarks on the Senate floor this morning, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell points out that President Obama’s spending “freeze” at current levels will result in a bigger deficit this year than last. Simply to put the budget “on cruise control,” as McConnell puts it, ensures ever…

There's a longstanding debate over the reasons for the Republican victory in last year's midterm elections. On one side are those who say the great shellacking was inevitable because of America's high unemployment rate. On the other are those who say that the Democratic policy agenda shouldn't be…

At the Munich Security Conference, Arizona senator John McCain delivered remarks on the protests in Egypt. “I believe the events in Egypt and elsewhere call for a new look at our approach to undemocratic governments everywhere, especially in the broader Middle East,” McCain said, clearly suggesting…

Republicans have announced their proposed spending cuts for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year, but the press corps is hardly painting the whole picture — or even reporting the actual dollar amounts that Republicans would cut.

Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, is suing City Paper for $2 million in addition to punitive damages and court costs. Why? Because an article in the paper by Dave McKenna was packed with lies. And it was anti-Semitic. And it was mean. Really, really mean. Except that others don't…

Max Boot: "At this point, the safest option may well be to make a clean break with Mubarak, inaugurate a transition government, lift the state of emergency, and allow the full blooming of democratic politics."

When it comes to homeland security, President Obama’s first year in office was a nightmare. In September, Nidal Malik Hasan, a radicalized Army major, murdered 13 defense department employees at Ft. Hood, Texas. Shortly thereafter, Najibullah Zazi was arrested before he and compatriots were able to…

The first poll I look to for presidential job approval is the Gallup poll. I don't know whether Gallup offers the best gauge of presidential support. Indeed, nobody can really know: the poll surveys support/opposition among all adults, and there is no independent arbiter to decide which pollster…

With the eyes of the world transfixed at the sight of more than a million protestors rising up against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, the brutal New Year's Day massacre of Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, where 23 Christians were killed and 79 injured, seems like ancient history. But the…

In a major development that has been largely ignored or misrepresented in the American media, the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has obtained access to the full stash of over 250,000 classified American diplomatic cables previously obtained by WikiLeaks. The paper has been posting a steady stream…

Edmund Morris, the author of that most unconventional presidential biography Dutch, takes on some of the more popular misperceptions of our 40th president in the Washington Post's "5 Myths About" series.

Here’s an idea: Let’s try reducing the supply of insurgency in Afghanistan rather than reducing the demand for it. This notion—potentially as important an insight as the Laffer curve—comes from a 41-year-old book by a retired RAND Corporation scholar now entering his ninth decade, Charles Wolf Jr.

One week after a federal district judge ruled in favor of 26 states and declared Obamacare to be unconstitutional, Rasmussen's poll of likely voters shows that Americans support its repeal by a margin of 21 percentage points (58 to 37 percent). Among independents, the margin in support of repeal is…

Max Boot writes at Contentions:

Harvey Mansfield's review of the new books Alexis de Tocqueville: Letters From America, edited and translated by Frederick Brown, and Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont in America, Olivier Zunz and Arthur Goldhammer, appeared over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal: 

Contributing editor Joseph Bottum has a piece in USA Today on the fate of Christianity in the Middle East:

Last week, a disturbing video surfaced, showing anti-Koch protesters in California. As we previously noted, "At a rally aimed at the conservative Koch brothers this past weekend in Palm Springs, progressives called for Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas to be sent 'back to the fields,' and they…

Bob Kagan on Egypt in the Washington Post:

Neither snow nor rain nor bird attack will keep the U.S. Postal carriers of Cape Cod from completing their rounds, and in recent days their fortitude has been put to the test as an exceptionally mean wild turkey has been stalking and attacking mail trucks in the area. On Thursday, February 3, Ethel…

Brian Wilson’s album is a new take on favorite Gersh-win songs, as arranged and sung by the great Beach Boys songwriter, and includes two brand-new songs that Wilson assembled from Gersh-win’s uncompleted manuscripts. Larry Starr teaches music history at the University of Washington, and George…

In Tunisia, a street vendor set himself on fire, antigovernment protests followed, and Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country. In Egypt, liberal opposition groups chanted “Freedom, Freedom” in rallies beginning January 25, and by week’s end Egypt’s authoritarian president Hosni…

Rabat, Morocco

So the much-anticipated pivot to the center in the State of the Union speech has happened. As pivots go, President Obama’s wasn’t the most elegant—there were no triple lutzes or extended camel spins—but he didn’t fall on his face either. It seems clear that, for the next two years at least,…

New Sharon, Maine

Not so long ago, I mentioned that I didn’t own a cell phone. “But don’t you have, like, a real job?” That’s what people always say. Yes is the answer; full-time employment as an editor and a writer seems real to me, at least.

Dead End Gene Pool

The King’s Speech is a winsome fantasy, as unreal in its way as Avatar. The science-fiction blockbuster succeeded in making an entirely animated world seem as though it actually existed. The King’s Speech, set in 1930s Britain and featuring famous personages, converts a stratified historical past…

The debate about Ronald Reagan has never shown any sign of ending, but it is less and less about whether his presidency was consequential. As has happened with a few other high-impact presidencies​—​see historian Merrill Peterson’s classic The Jeffersonian Image in the American Mind​—​the debate…

Dr. Gosnell was a little befuddled at his arraignment on January 20. Indicted for eight murders, the Philadelphia abortionist told the court that he understood the first count, a charge of third-degree murder for the death of a woman on whom he had operated. He didn’t understand, however, the seven…

“On the first nine levels, Reagan is the least interesting of men. But if you postulate a tenth level, then he’s suddenly fascinating.”

Natan Sharansky shared his memories of Ronald Reagan with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, after the former president died, in 2004:

Fox News is reporting that an assassination attempt has been made on newly named Egyptian vice president Omar Suleiman. Two of the longtime intelligence chief’s bodyguards, Fox says, were killed in the attack. Egyptian security officials, reports Al Arabiya, are denying the reports.

At the poker tables in the Bellagio hotel, Anthony Carleo, a junior at UNLV, was telling people he was "a made guy" from Denver. He was getting comped a room, food, and drink—understandable since he had apparently dropped over $100,000 during his stay. And yet it wasn't that money had become scarce…

If Barack Obama were looking for a further boost in his popularity from the new jobs data, he'd be disappointed. Yes, the unemployment rate dropped from 9.4 percent in December to 9.0 percent last month, in part due to a decline in the labor force participation rate to the lowest level since March…

Are Senate Democrats preparing for a government shutdown?

Ten and a half months after the Democrats passed Obamacare without a single Republican vote, the Economist writes, "Health-care reform, or at least the debate about it, could not be more alive." It is increasingly hard to dispute that statement.

Another setback for the Ground Zero mosque, the New York Times reports:

Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie is in Illinois today to try to convince businesses to leave that state for his. Christie’s argument is simple: Come to New Jersey for lower tax rates; stay in Illinois for higher taxes. 

Mike Lee, a former Supreme Court clerk for Justice Alito, is an experienced appellate litigator. (He’s the son of President Reagan's legendary solicitor general, Rex Lee, no less.) Lee also served the federal government as an assistant U.S. attorney, and the state government of Utah as Governor Jon…

After Susana Martinez signed an executive order empowering state police to inquire about the immigration status of criminals, while at the same time “protecting victims and witnesses of criminal acts,” New Mexico Democrats accused America’s first Latina governor of “[promoting] racial profiling”…

Today's New York Times reports that 41 percent of pregnancies in New York City (not counting miscarriages) are aborted. The Times writes, "Two of every five pregnancies in the city end in abortion, a statistic that has barely changed in more than a decade. At a news conference last month, Timothy…

U.S. frustration with German chancellor Angela Merkel and her foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, seems to have reached a breaking point this week. Germany’s recalcitrant position about shutting down Iran’s main financial conduit in Europe – the Hamburg-based European-Iranian Trade Bank (EIH) –…

Senator Marco Rubio argues that Obamacare is irreparable and should be repealed:

Sean Bielat, the Republican nominee in Massachusetts's Fourth Congressional District, on Barney Frank's decision to seek reelection in 2012:

1. Make no mistake: Obamacare is in trouble. For the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to go fully into effect, two things need to happen. First, the Democrats need to hold the presidency and the Senate in 2012. According to Keith Hennessey, Republicans can repeal most of Obamacare via…

What would Reagan do regarding Egypt?

Who better than the New York Times to capitalize on a lunatic murderer to push its own agenda? Check out this headline, gracing the paper's homepage now:

The New York Times reports that foreign journalists are among the targets of gangs in Cairo, resulting in some serious injuries and even jail sentences:

Gallup has found that unemployment ticked slightly up by the end of January, going up to 9.8 percent (up from 9.6 percent at the end of December 2010). That's the highest Gallup has measured unemployment since the average last October was at 10 percent even.

The nomination of a scoundrel like Julian Assange for the Nobel Peace Prize is not without precedent – in fact, there’s a good chance he could win it. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, would join the company of Palestinian terrorist-in-chief Yasser Arafat if he were to be awarded the prize.

Yesterday we noted that unconfirmed reports coming out of Cairo claim that Egypt's former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly has been detained. Presumably it was Adly, either on his own initiative or under orders from above, who last week released prisoners into the general population to add to the…

A new study out of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, “Muslim-American Terrorism Since 9/11: An Accounting,” appears to offer up some good news when it comes to Islamist-inspired terrorism originating in the United States. In 2009, nearly 50 individuals were identified as…

At a rally aimed at the conservative Koch brothers this past weekend in Palm Springs, progressives called for Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas to be sent “back to the fields,” and they offered that they  “string him up,” “hang him,” and “torture” him.

Here's a very graphic video of an Egyptian police truck running over anti-regime demonstrators. As the vehicle cruises past, without having stopped, you can hear demonstrators referring to the police as "infidels," "sons of bitches" and then starting a chant, "Hosni Mubarak is falling."

Over the last several years, our brother-in-blogging in Cairo, the Egyptian Sandmonkey, has made a name for himself as one of the Middle East’s most irreverent commentators. Anti-anti-Bush and anti-anti-Zionist, his free-wheeling blog, where he often responds to commenters—especially of the…

Jon Stewart is frequently funny. But sometimes his politics gets in the way of humor and the truth.

The latest video from Mary Katharine Ham, at the Daily Caller:

Earlier today, staffers on the House Budget Committee -Paul Ryan's shop- unveiled their plan to trim the federal budget. The big question was whether the defense budget, already the subject of self-inflicted cuts by the Obama administration, would take another hit. 

In the midst of all the unrest in Egypt, much hash has been made about supporting autocratic regimes. There are times, of course, when pragmatic realpolitik is necessary. Discerning the lesser of two evils, such as propping up Mubarak to avoid Israeli-Egyptian conflict or a fundamentalist Cairo…

Violence escalates in Cairo: 

Michael Lewis's Vanity Fair article on the housing and finance crash in Ireland is twice as long as it needs to be, but it's still worth a read. Lewis interviews the lone professor who predicted the crash, which has left Ireland as not much more than a third world country:

Sally Satel has an interesting piece in Policy Review on how the Obama administration, in league with the war-can-never-be-good crowd, has distorted post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD):

Thomas Carothers, writing at the New Republic, draws lessons from Indonesia to understand Egypt:

Fred Upton investigates Obamacare ads.

The Hill reports:

Many Democrats in the past year have accused their Republican opponents of not caring about rape victims.

Over the last twenty-four hours, we’ve seen Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak promise not to seek another term, quickly followed by a peek at what the next eight months might look like if he continues to cling on to power. Today, armed pro-Mubarak thugs attacked peaceful anti-regime protesters,…

Just last night I had encouraged an Egyptian friend, Raouf, living in the United States, who wanted to go back home to witness his country’s historic events. “I need to see this,” he told me excitedly. Now with fighting in the streets today I’m not so sure.

Politico reports on the varied responses from the GOP presidential field to the protests in Egypt.

Scrambling for a simple standard to measure events in Egypt and across the Arab world, the blogosphere and the airwaves have been full of references to 1979. That point of reference is probably more apt than imagined, for much more happened that year than just the Iranian revolution. It was also…

In a speech last November Buck McKeon, newly minted Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), said that a "defense budget in decline portends an America in decline." 

See Puppet Michael Steele's last performance on the Daily Show here. 

The Senate will likely vote today on a bill to repeal ObamaCare. The vote will come in the wake of Monday's ruling by United States District Court Judge Roger Vinson, in favor of 26 states, that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. It will also come in the wake of a recently released poll by McLaughlin…

Yesterday, pro-life activist Lila Rose released a video that showed the manager of Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey advising a man, posing as a sex trafficker, on how he should go about evading the law in order to get abortions and STD-testing for his 14-year-old prostitutes/sex slaves.

The Wall Street Journal has a symposium containing brief analyses of the developing situation in Egypt. Amr Bagisi, reporting from Cairo, writes that he sees two possible outcomes of the protests there and elsewhere in the country--neither of them positive:

Tough Without a Gun

The political future of Nebraska Democratic senator Ben Nelson, who's up for reelection in 2012, looks like it's on the line. Here's Democratic polling firm PPP on what Nelson is facing in the 2012 election:

Aiming for that master's degree in cinematic studies? How about a thesis on the politics of Clint Eastwood? (No doubt it's already been done.) But if you're trying to find a straight path from Dirty Harry to Letters From Iwo Jima, good luck. In last weekend's Wall Street Journal, Michael Judge…

The Washington Post reports: 

So, Representative Hal Wick of Sioux Falls has introduced into the state legislature a bill that would require every citizen of the state to own a gun. And can’t we say that, as a way of making a point about the individual mandate in the health-care bill, this is much funnier than the endlessly…

It was entirely predictable that, if United States District Court Judge Roger Vinson ruled that ObamaCare was unconstitutional, the Obama administration would accuse Judge Vinson of partisanship. What wasn’t so predictable was that the administration’s own response would so compellingly support…

Welcome to the return of Morning Jay! From a civic perspective, I have mixed feelings (at best) about the permanent campaign, but from a professional point of view, it's awesome! We're just three months off the last election, and already there is so much to discuss about the next one! For the time…

Obama delivers another speech on Egypt.

Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Daniel Inouye announced a two-year earmark moratorium:

George Allen, Virginia's former senator and governor who's running for another term for the U.S. Senate, expressed support this afternoon for "free and fair elections" in Egypt.

Today on Capitol Hill, Senators Claire McCaskill and Bob Corker introduced legislation, the Commitment to American Prosperity (CAP) Act, meant to cap federal spending. The bill would require spending as a percentage of GDP to decrease over the next decade to the 40-year average of 20.6 percent.

Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak has just announced in a speech that he will not stand for another term as Egyptian president during the upcoming September elections. He did make clear that he has no intention of fleeing the country. "I will die on [Egypt's] land," said Mubarak, according to the…

What do doctors think of Obamacare? One good gauge is the views of doctors serving in the House of Representatives.  Of the 16 doctors currently serving in the House -- perhaps an all-time high -- all but one voted for Obamacare's repeal.

If the House were composed solely of independents, it would pass the same conservative legislation as Republicans on Obamacare, the individual mandate, purchasing health insurance across state lines, spending, offshore oil drilling, and Social Security reform.

Marc Ambinder reports that Vice Admiral William McRaven will be promoted after a distinguished tenure as boss of Joint Special Operations Command. 

In the wake of yesterday's federal district court decision in favor of 26 states, which ruled that Obamacare is unconstitutional in addition to being unpopular, USA Today reports that all 47 Republican senators have now signed onto Sen. Jim DeMint's repeal bill. Senate minority leader Mitch…

Khairi Abaza and Jonathan Schanzer, writing at the New Republic, offer "the most obvious possibility" to dealing with a possible transition in Egypt: "a plan that has, in its broad contours, been around since the mid-1980s."

The governor of New York, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, pens an op-ed for today's New York Post on the state's dismal budget deficit:

On January 18, MTV premiered “Skins,” an egregiously semi-pornographic television show featuring underage kids engaging in drug deals, sex, and sex talk of every sort, while consistently outsmarting their enraged and clueless parents. The reaction on the right has been predictable: Parents…

The below photo appears on the first page of yesterday’s edition of the German daily Die Welt: