December 2012

Dysfunctional, the much used adjective to describe our political class, generally taken to mean deviating from norms of behavior, is a poorly chosen adjective. The president and the Congress have shown no sign of deviating at all from some norm—this is their norm. Economists have taken to using the…

Hillary Clinton's doctors released the following statement saying that she has a blood clot in her head, "in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear."

BuzzFeed reports:

A senior Republican Senate aide passes along the tax terms of the deal being worked out by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill and the White House to avert the "fiscal cliff." These terms are "locked," says the source, between Senate Republicans and the White House:

President Barack Obama hit Congress for not getting together to offer him a bigger deal during a speech today at the White House.

President Barack Obama tipped his hand today during a speech at the White House ... about how he plans to spend this New Year's Eve.

President Barack Obama began his afternoon remarks at the White House by saying, "I realize that the last thing you want to hear on New Year's Eve is another speech from me."

President Barack Obama was so impressed with Anne Hathaway's performance as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises that he described her as "spectacular… the best thing in it." Hathaway was "leather-clad" in the movie, according to the Telegraph, which reports on the nugget:

A Democratic member of Congress is moving to block President Barack Obama's congressional pay increase. The move, led by John Barrow of Georgia, is to prevent the pay increase that Obama issued through an executive order from going into effect.

I'm as thrilled as every other red-blooded Washington-area resident by the Redskins' victory yesterday. Yes, I did "predict" a Cowboys victory on Fox News Sunday. But that was, as I said on the show, a prediction contrary to my hopes, and of course was really made in order to avert the evil eye…

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, perhaps the most famous current female political figure, has fallen ill. "In the course of a follow-up exam today, Secretary Clinton's doctors discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago. She is being treated…

Senator Tom Coburn said Sunday that he would not vote for Chuck Hagel to be the next secretary of defense:

When Senator Barack Obama was running for president back in 2008, he accused the Bush administration, his opponent Senator John McCain, and their supporters of taking their eyes off the ball by fighting a war in Iraq and ignoring the “necessary war”—the war in Afghanistan. Well, four short years…

As we mark the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, the publication of Allen Guelzo’s magisterial new account of that conflict is most timely. But given the fact that, by even the most conservative estimates, some 60,000 books and pamphlets have been written about what was once called the War of the…

Instead of disparaging all popular culture as a “vast wasteland” of cultural and moral decay, conservative critics should tease out those elements that reinforce conservative values in the arts. Russell Kirk used to lament the falling-off in depictions of normative behavior; but whereas Kirk…

Jonathan V. Last penned a paean to the Batman earlier this year in The Weekly Standard, making the case for understanding the Caped Crusader as the hero of the modern liberal order against illiberal threats, including and especially those that emerge from within modernity itself (“A One-Man…

Since the horrific mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the media have been braying about the need for a national conversation on gun control. Putting aside our suspicion that the left’s idea of a “national conversation” is telling people it disagrees with to shut up, The Scrapbook is very much…

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in the national spotlight since her husband ran for president in 1992, has broken the Gallup Poll record books, becoming the most admired woman in history, topping their list for the 17th time, far ahead of first lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Queen…

The Scrapbook did not expect that the New York Times would express much joy at the appointment of Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina to the Senate seat vacated by Jim DeMint. Mr. DeMint is a conservative Republican, Mr. Scott is a conservative Republican, and the governor who anointed Scott, Nikki…

The word “epicurean” has come to describe those who are fond of luxury, sensual pleasure, and gourmet food. At some point, its definition evolved away from that of capital-E “Epicurean,” which refers to a follower of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Members of both groups advocate the…

Memoirs by performers are the cotton candy of autobiography—insubstantial, undemanding, and alluring, but when you’re done you can’t remember why you wasted the calories getting yourself nothing but sticky.

An explosion in southern Lebanon last week destroyed what is believed to have been a Hezbollah weapons depot. This latest in a series of mysterious “accidents” in Hezbollah-controlled precincts proved, as one Israeli official wryly remarked, that those who “sleep with rockets and amass large…

The owner of an Italian restaurant in Baltimore was going to talk to me about how his business was preparing for Obamacare, now that it is going to be the law of the land. But seeing the backlash faced by other businessmen who dared to suggest the law might have a less than salubrious impact on…

"There were giants in the earth in those days.” The death on December 19 of Robert Bork—superb legal scholar, preeminent constitutional thinker, principled public servant—calls to mind the other giants of American conservatism who have left us in the last decade: Bill Buckley and Irving Kristol,…

Everyone still remembers T. E. Lawrence, if only because of David Lean’s magnificent movieLawrence of Arabia and Lawrence’s own literary masterpiece,Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Yet far fewer remember Lawrence’s distant cousin, the British Army officer Orde Wingate, who was in many ways his World War…

Philippe Reines, deputy assistant secretary of state, released the following statement regarding Hillary Clinton's health:

Senator Lindsey Graham said on Fox today that Chuck Hagel has "very little Republican support" to be the next secretary of defense:

Harry Reid, on the Senate floor, said that he just spoke with President Barack Obama, but that they do not have a "counteroffer to make" to Republicans:

NBC host David Gregory asked President Barack Obama this morning, "Is this your Lincoln moment?"

President Barack Obama blamed the terror attack three months ago in Benghazi, Libya on "sloppiness," and said "we have some very good leads" after the long investigation:

Berlin

This is the time that tries economists’ models. It has become the fashion at this time of year for forecasters to opine on the growth of GDP, the level of unemployment, the inflation rate next year—to at least one decimal place. I respect those who consult their models and intuition to come up with…

Give the Arab Spring a chance.

On the first day of the next Congress, January 3, Democrats in the House of Representatives plan to introduce a bill to ban high-capacity gun magazines.

Here's a fact sheet circulating Capitol Hill, and in high level Democratic circles, which rounds up how people and organizations are reacting to the rumors that Chuck Hagel will be nominated as the next secretary of defense: 

Ed Koch, a prominent backer of President Barack Obama, blasts Tom Friedman for endorsing Chuck Hagel as the next secretary of state:

President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise. One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden.

It’s symbolically appropriate that one of President Obama’s preferred forms of “green energy” crony capitalism has the effect of killing off the national bird. The federal wind production tax credit (PTC) is mercifully set to expire on New Year’s Eve.  The PTC provides a financial boon, at great…

Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy reports:

The death of Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf recalls a moment in history that now seems far more distant than the actual twenty-one years. The defeat of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army was absolute and almost flawlessly accomplished in a 100-hour campaign on the ground that followed six weeks of…

Meet Brian Schatz, the new senator from Hawaii.

The largest pro-Israel group in the nation, Christians United for Israel, says that "More than 17,000 people have responded to a Christians United for Israel (CUFI) action alert launched yesterday asking individuals to email their Senators in opposition to the potential nomination of former Senator…

As we survey the political wreckage of 2012, it’s worth highlighting once again that Republicans lost the presidential election for two main reasons:  They failed to get their best candidates to run, and their eventual nominee failed to make the case to voters.  The result was a relatively lopsided…

The surprising thing about the slew of supposedly "pro-Hagel" pieces—articles that at first blush would seem to say that Chuck Hagel should be the next secretary of defense—is that none actually make the case for Hagel.

Two days after reports that hotels in Washington are not filling up ahead of Barack Obama's second inauguration, the president emailed supporters to encourage them to come to the festivities scheduled for next month in Washington, D.C. 

Edward Glaeser says “the number that sums up the year’s doldrums is the 1.27 million increase in the number of disabled Americans without jobs from November 2011 to November 2012. This statistic reflects not only the sluggish recovery but also a drifting nation, badly in need of tough medicine.”

The New York Times reports:

From CNN:

Log Cabin Republicans has taken out a full page ad in the New York Times to oppose the nomination of Chuck Hagel as the next secretary of defense:

Rosa Brooks on why Michèle Flournoy should be the next secretary of defense:

At 12:54 a.m., on Saturday December 22, President Barack Obama and his family arrived at Kailua, a Hawaiian town on the island of Oahu. Almost five days later, Obama, leaving his wife and kids behind, departed the island to return to Washington, D.C. Obama’s vacation lasted a brief 118 hours,…

Virginia, emerging blue state.

CNN host and British national Piers Morgan ginned up controversy earlier this month when he criticized American gun laws and berated a gun rights advocate in an on-air rant following the shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. Since last Friday, nearly 75,000 Americans have signed an online…

Evidently, not a lot of people were persuaded by those television ads that suggested giving a luxury car for Christmas. According to the AP:

On December 15, the day after the day after the shooting at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, State Department officials notified the press that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had fallen ill. "While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a…

The Treasury Department is telling its staff not to worry about the "fiscal cliff," an internal memorandum sent to all employees reveals. The memo, which is signed by the deputy secretary of the treasury, Neal S. Wolin, states that "there is no reason why both sides should not be able to come…

President Obama, who is vacationing with his family in Hawaii, visited the Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay to wish everyone there a merry Christmas.

In an odd column in Wednesday's New York Times, Tom Friedman praises Chuck Hagel. Friedman doesn't actually praise anything Hagel has ever said or done. He never quotes Hagel nor cites any of Hagel's votes. Indeed, Friedman acknowledges Hagel is "out of the mainstream" on national security issues…

A petition on the White House's website calls for charges to be filed against David Gregory for breaking Washington, D.C.'s gun laws. "Press charges against David Gregory for possession of a 30-round, high capacity assault rifle magazine in Washington D.C," reads the title of the petition:

Iran is paying Russian women working at a nuclear plant to cover their bodies, so as to comply with sharia dress codes, an Iranian member of parliament told the outlet ISNA.

Actor Jackie Chan has committed to visiting the rogue Iranian regime, according to a report from the Iranian outlet ISNA. The story is headlined, "Jackie Chan: I will definitely come to Iran."

Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war veteran and the CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, explains that Chuck Hagel is the "wrong pick at the wrong time" to lead the Defense Department:

Spending will increase 55 percent over the next decade, if President Barack Obama's budget plan goes into effect. The finding comes from the Republican-side of the Senate Budget Committee, which notes that Obama's "Proposal Would Spend $880 Billion Over Already Projected Increases."

In Newsweek's final print edition, Michael Isikoff writes about when the magazine decided to hold the story of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. "The decision was final: Newsweek would hold the story," Isikoff writes, saying that "the brass wanted more work" done on the story before going…

Tom Cotton, the war veteran and congressman elect from Arkansas's Fourth Congressional District, explained on Fox News that Chuck Hagel is the wrong man for the defense secretary job:

According to a statement from the South African government, Nelson Mandela will "spend Christmas Day in [a] hospital."

As the tax debate continues, Republicans have a good opportunity to contrast their own support for small businesses with the Democrats' support for big business. As Kimberley Strassel writes in Friday's Wall Street Journal, big business is backing President Obama's refusal to stop the looming tax…

Kirsten Powers revealed on Fox News that Chuck Hagel is "not popular with Democrats":

Joe Lieberman said on CNN yesterday that, if Chuck Hagel is nominated as the next secretary of defense, "will be a very tough confirmation process":

During the course of his 14-year rule, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has dismantled all barriers to the absolute centralization of power around his own person. Now with Chávez in Havana recovering from his fourth surgery on his metastasized cancer—though he has refused to disclose what kind of…

What actually happened in Egypt and Libya on September 11, 2012? The story from the U.S. government has changed many times in an effort to craft a narrative that causes as little damage as possible to the Obama administration. Now the administration seems to have settled on something approaching a…

It’s possible to be underrated though employed by the New Yorker. Peter de Vries was. Another sufferer from this affliction was the cartoonist, born 100 years ago this year, for whom de Vries wrote more than a few captions: Charles Addams (1912-1988). Both men committed the not-always-extenuated…

Geneva

He won more votes than any other candidate in Finland’s 2011 parliamentary election, and the maverick party he leads is a profound embarrassment to the current eurozone regime, but there’s something refreshingly down-to-earth about Timo Soini, the leader of the euroskeptic Perussuomalaiset (PS),…

Ann Wagner will be sworn in next month to her first elected office. But the congresswoman-elect from Missouri, who won Todd Akin’s suburban St. Louis district in November, is hardly a newcomer to national politics. “I’m pretty reflective of the district,” she demurs. “It’s a lot of suburban women…

In this freshly extended era of Barack Obama, conservatives and Republicans are evaluating, re-evaluating, pondering, questioning, tossing out, and shoring up basic principles and ideas. What does the Republican party stand for? What should, or shouldn’t, be part of the GOP’s agenda? What’s the…

Last week the Iranian judiciary issued indictments for a handful of former and current U.S. civilian and military officials. According to Fars News Agency, a semi-official regime organ, the indicted include Bush administration policymakers like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, charged with…

Someday, when the shareholders of the Washington Post Company pause to ask themselves where it all went wrong, one of the exhibits that might be brought to their attention is a front-page essay in the December 12 Style section by Paul Farhi entitled “A Star They Could Not See: Mainstream media’s…

If there are two things The Scrapbook has learned during the past two years, it’s that when the privileges of labor unions are addressed by democratically elected legislatures—usually during harsh economic times—you can be sure that the unions will descend on state capitals with marches, epithets,…

For years, liberal pundits and Senate Democrats have talked about altering the filibuster, the procedural rule that requires a 60-vote supermajority to end debate in the U.S. Senate. The device has been a burden for majority leaders for generations, and it dogged Majority Leader Harry Reid and…

The Third Reich hovers over German history.   

It is important to understand that the fiscal cliff is a charade. There are, to be sure, many conscientious debt reformers working to avert our proclaimed year-end epic fall​—​along with many cynics who are using the occasion to advance pet projects that will make the debt problem worse. But all…

Idaho senator Mike Crapo, a Republican, was arrested last night after running a red light for allegedly driving under the influence. Crapo's arrest took place just outside Washington, D.C., in Alexandria, Virginia. 

David Gregory mocked the NRA's Wayne LaPierre for proposing that armed guards be at every school in America. But the NBC host seems to have no problem with armed guards protecting his kids everyday where they attend school in Washington, D.C.

Andrea Mitchell said on NBC this morning that there are "serious problems" with Chuck Hagel, who is rumored to be nominated as secretary of defense:

New York senator Chuck Hagel would not commit to supporting Chuck Hagel, if President Obama nominates him to be the next secretary of defense:

President Barack Obama is in Hawaii for Christmas. Right now, he's golfing with White House chef Sam Kass, staffer Marvin Nicholson, and friends Mike Ramos and Bobby Titcomb, according to the White House pool report.

President Barack Obama used the funeral for Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye to talk about himself. In the short 1,600 word speech, Obama used the word "my" 21 times, "me" 12 times, and "I" 30 times.

From yesterday's Washington Post:

The end does not appear to be nigh as the Mayans would have it. And what a relief. But Tim Tebow's career (if it could be called that) with the New York Jets is evidently over. After the Jets starting quarterback, Mark Sanchez, played miserably Monday night in a loss that eliminated any hope the…

This is a good time to see where we have come during the year now coming to a close. Some things haven’t changed very much, or so it might seem. When the year began, households reported that 142 million Americans held jobs; right now, 143 million are in work. The labor force participation rate—the…

Yesterday, I criticized a dubious report that Mother Jones did on gun violence. You can read the Mother Jones article here, but at issue was Mother Jones's bold conclusion:

The first dog, Bo, is headed to Hawaii--along with President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their two daughters. Bo's riding Air Force One, with the Obamas.

After delivering remarks on the "fiscal cliff" negotiations, the White House notified the press that President Barack Obama is skipping town for Christmas. The first family leaves tonight for Hawaii.

President Barack Obama said this evening in a statement to the press that "the American people are a lot more sensible and a lot more thoughtful and much more willing to compromise and give and sacrifice and act responsibly than their elected representatives are. And that's a problem. There's a…

U.N. ambassador Susan Rice praises President Obama's selection of John Kerry to be the next secretary of state in a statement to the press:

Josh Rogin reports:

President Barack Obama sang John Kerry's praise today, as he nominated the former presidential candidate to be the next secretary of state. But after the president spoke, Kerry did not. 

John Kerry, who will be nominated later today to be the next secretary of state, is the richest member of the U.S. Senate. His estimated net worth is, at minimum, $198.65 million, according to disclosure forms.

John Kerry, who is expected to be nominated as secretary of state later this afternoon, has made frequent visits to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Texas senator John Cornyn would oppose the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be the next secretary of defense. The Washington Post reports:

MSNBC reports that President Barack Obama's originally wanted to name his entire national security team today. Instead, he's just announcing his pick for secretary of state, John Kerry.

CNN reports that John Kerry is being nominated alone today by President Obama to avoid being associated with more controversial nominations:

In 1997, Chuck Hagel had effusive praise for Strom Thurmond. Here's the video and transcript, via the Washington Free Beacon:

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said that there is not "anybody that’s defended the Second Amendment as much as I have." He made the comments in a radio interview.

Bloomberg reports:

Two episodes ago at judges' table, Danyele McPherson confessed that this reality-based cooking competition isn't for everyone. Her admission could've cost her (instead it was Eliza Gavin who got sent packing). But in the following episode, Danyele did get sent home for a less than flavorful chicken…

Tom Cotton, the congressman-elect from Arkansas's Fourth Congressional District, writes in today's Wall Street Journal that President Barack Obamam should not pick Chuck Hagel to be the next secretary of defense:

The Huffington Post interview with Newt Gingrich.

In response to last week's massacre in Connecticut, Mother Jones has put together a "study" on mass shootings that makes a pretty bold claim:

In an interview with an Indianapolis radio station, Senator Dan Coats blasted Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama's rumored choice to be the next secretary of defense.

Pennsylvania senator Pat Toomey released the following statement Thursday afternoon expressing "deep concerns" about the potential nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. Read the statement below:

The group Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors "expressed grave concerns about reports that President Obama is preparing to nominate former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense," according to a statement released by the group today.

The Human Rights Campaign says that Senator Chuck Hagel's expressed views on gay issues is "unacceptable." The LGBT rights organization is referring to Hagel's 1998 opposition to an ambassadorial nominee for being "openly aggressively gay."  

Senate Democrats are trying to gain Republican support for the legislation meant to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy by offering kickbacks, a senior Senate aide tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. As proof, the Senate aide sends along a marked up piece of the Sandy legislation, showing that Democrats…

Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, made his "fiscal cliff" position clear in a press conference today. "We are not going to do anything," said Reid.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that Marco Rubio might put a "hold" on Chuck Hagel, if President Obama nominates him to be the next secretary of defense:

Lawrence Haas, a former communications director to Al Gore, explains that if Barack Obama chooses Chuck Hagel to be his secretary of defense, it would show a certain comfort with his views:

At a press conference in the Capitol on Wednesday, House Democrats lashed out at opponents of new gun control measures. 

Forbes’s recently released list of “The Best States for Businesses and Careers” provides further evidence of the Democratic party’s striking erosion as a party of economic growth and prosperity.  Based on their votes in the most recent presidential election, all but three of Forbes’s top-10 states…

The Accountability Review Board’s investigation into the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi says much about the deteriorating security situation surrounding the U.S. consulate beforehand. The report also documents the State Department’s mishandling of that increasingly perilous…

It has become increasingly clear that the Obama-era Democrats view every major societal event as a new invitation to spend money, centralize power, or both.  The horrendous shootings in Connecticut have the Democrats lobbying not only for new legislation, but new federal legislation — and hence…

The New York Times has finally discovered that fiscal cliffs aren’t the only thing that menace the modern nation-state. There’s a demographic cliff, too. A couple weeks ago, the Times’s Ross Douthat wrote a column about America’s bleak demographic future and suggested that the reason we aren’t…

Adam White on Robert Bork: He won.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid has adjourned the Senate to allow for a viewing of the Hollywood film Lincoln.

Adam Kredo reports on an opportunity Chuck Hagel passed on to condemn ant-Semitism:

Jon Kyl, the Republican senator from Arizona, delivered his farewell address to the Senate Wednesday afternoon. Kyl is retiring at the end of this term after 18 years in the Senate and 8 years in the House of Representatives. Read his speech below:

In a new ad, the Emergency Committee for Israel tells President Obama that "Chuck Hagel is not a responsible option" for secretary of defense:

President Barack Obama announced today that he's "asked the Vice President to lead an effort that includes members of my Cabinet and outside organizations to come up with a set of concrete proposals no later than January -- proposals that I then intend to push without delay."

NBC’s Middle East correspondent Richard Engel was released yesterday after being held for five days in Syria. When his kidnappers came to a rebel checkpoint, they were engaged in a firefight with a Free Syrian Army unit that allowed Engel and his colleagues to go free. NBC’s statement said he was…

Or, maybe it is.  In which case you should really cheer up.  Getting all sulky and down in the dumps isn't going to starting adding days, weeks, months, and years to the Mayan calendar which runs out of tomorrows on the day after tomorrow (December 21, in case you are counting).  

When responding to a question about the "fiscal cliff" and House speaker John Boehner, President Barack Obama invoked the shooting at Sandy Hook school in Connecticut.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham:

In 2008, Joe Biden tried to temper fears that Barack Obama was in favor of gun control, by saying, "I guarantee you Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don’t buy that malarkey. Don’t buy that malarkey. They’re going to start peddling that to you."

Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential cadidate, released this statement on the passing of Robert Bork:

Park Geun-hye has been elected South Korea's first female leader. The Korea Herald reports:

The New York Times has greeted the appointment of South Carolina congressman Tim Scott to succeed fellow Republican Jim DeMint in the Senate with an op-ed decrying the selection--and Scott himself--as "token."

The American taxpayers stand to lose billions as General Motors today announced a plan to buy back 40 percent of the company owned by the federal government.

Robert H. Bork, a superb legal scholar, principled public servant, fine judge, and important social critic—withal, a great American—died early this morning from heart complications. He was 84.

An historian friend of TWS reacts to the Dana Milbank screed in the Washington Post against critics of Chuck Hagel:

Japan's presumptive prime minister, Shinzo Abe, "told business chiefs he had been speaking to "President Bush" after a phone call from Barack Obama," according to the Japan Times.

Matt Lee of the AP reports that a review panel has found the State Department provided inadequate security in Benghazi:

Pressure mounting for a female Defense secretary?

Senate Democrats are questioning a statement made by former Republican senator Chuck Hagel that the “Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people” in Washington. The comment has resurfaced now that Hagel is rumored to be Barack Obama’s top choice to head the Pentagon. He used the term in a 2008…

Senate Republicans signaled Tuesday afternoon that they may put up a fight if Barack Obama nominates former Nebraska Republican senator Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense.

In a statement released to the press, the National Rifle Association says it's shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown." The organization plans to hold a news conference on Friday to address the gun-related issues.

White House spokesman said he doesn't "know" whether former chief of staff Rahm Emanual told Attorney General Eric Holder to "Shut the f--- up" about guns, as has been widely reported:

There have been a lot of ill considered articles following the heinous grade school shooting in Connecticut, and I'm afraid this article in the Huffington Post is no exception. The headline, "The Gun Lobby: Why The NRA Is The Baddest Force In Politics," more or less sets the tone. Here's how the…

With the fiscal cliff looming, readers and lawmakers (and the readers who happen to be lawmakers) can get a better grip on the crisis by checking out Government Policies and the Delayed Economic Recovery, edited by Lee Ohanian, John Taylor, and Ian Wright (Hoover Institution Press). At a recent…

A "National Prayer Service" has been announced for the day after President Barack Obama's second inauguration, according to the Presidential Inaugural Committee. The service, which will be attended by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, will be held at the National Cathedral, in Washington, D.C.

In the wake of the Newtown school massacre, many Democrats want to bring back the "assault weapons ban," which was in effect from 1994 to 2004. But Harry Reid, the leader of the Senate Democrats, voted against renewing the ban in 2004, along with six other Democratic senators, including Wisconsin's…

Abe Foxman, the head of the ADL, explained his opposition to Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense with this statement to the Washington Post:

New Jersey governor Chris Christie has accepted the endorsement of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA), according to an announcement from the Republican's reelection campaign. The organization "is one of the largest unions in the state, representing over 20,000 laborers across…

In response to a report that classified information had been leaked to the makers of the Hollywood movie Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, Congressman Peter King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, says he's concerned.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid is rejecting House speaker John Boehner's plan to extend income tax rates for Americans earning less than $1 million. "Speaker Boehner’s ‘plan B’ is the farthest thing from a balanced approach. It will not protect middle class families because it cannot pass both…

CNN reports, "US President Barack Obama offered to back away from his position that tax hikes should begin at $250,000 in annual income, delivering a fresh concession to congressional Republicans as talks to avert the fiscal cliff intensified in Washington."

At a press conference this morning, Speaker John Boehner announced a "backup plan" to avert the "fiscal cliff." Bohener said that negotiations are deadlocked because the president is insisting on $1.3 trillion in new tax revenue for $850 billion in spending cuts.

In the week before the Newtown shootings, much attention was paid to the case of a man who pushed a subway rider onto the tracks in New York. The victim was killed by an oncoming train, and the whole horrific episode was captured on film by a New York Post photographer. Two days later, a…

In December 1972, Eugene Cernan took a long climb up a short ladder on the lunar surface and became the last human being to set foot on another world. It was forty years ago this week that Apollo 17 completed its quarter million mile journey home, marking the last time to date humans have traveled…

Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago and former White House chief of staff, was pushed this morning on why Barack Obama has not worried about guns since becoming president--until now, after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook school in Connecticut: 

Media malpractice: firearms edition.

The son of mogul Ted Turner, Teddy Turner, announced his intention this evening to run for the House seat being vacated by Tim Scott, who today was appointed to fill the remainder of Jim DeMint's Senate term. The House seat represents part of South Carolina. 

Senator Daniel Inouye, the Hawaii Democrat and the president pro tempore of the Senate, has died. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post reports:

After writing some impassioned pleas in favor of gun control after the Aurora shooting this summer, Adam Gopnik weighs in on the topic again in the New Yorker. There may be reasons to argue in favor of gun control, but a big problem for those in favor of curbing gun rights is that they often…

This morning, the State Department designated former Lebanese parliament member, and longtime ally of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Michel Samaha as a specially designated global terrorist. Treasury also designated Samaha for “undermining Lebanon’s democratic processes or institutions,…

Tim Scott received a call from Governor Nikki Haley Sunday night. “Do you want to be a U.S. senator?” Haley asked.

Since Washington and the mainstream press corps are pretending that our deficit woes are the result of a roughly equal blend of excessive federal spending and insufficient federal taxation, let’s review the evidence.  According to official government figures published by the Congressional Budget…

Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat from Alaska, is "pleased" to include more than $200 million in pork spending in the Sandy legislation, a bill meant to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy.

According to bestplacestowork.org, the worst large federal agency to work at is the Department of Homeland Security. The second worst large federal agency to work at is the Department of Veteran Affairs, while the Department of Labor is the third worst.

The State Department released a statement today expressing deep concern for Syrian airstrikes targeting Palestinians.

A "Green Inaugural Ball" has been scheduled to celebrate President Barack Obama's second inauguration, according to an invitation of the event. The ball will be held January 20, the day of Obama's second inauguration, at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, D.C.

Tim Scott will be the next U.S. Senator from South Carolina. The first-term Republican congressman from Charleston, who was just elected to a second term, was appointed to the seat being vacated by fellow Republican Jim DeMint. South Carolina governor Nikki Haley made the announcement in Columbia…

During the tail-end of the presidential campaign, Valerie Jarrett, a close aide to Barack Obama, was pushed away from the president. The news of the conflict is reported in a new Politico e-book, which came out today.

In the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, John Fund at National Review Online provides some facts about mass shootings:

ABC’s White House correspondent, Jake Tapper, is known in some circles as a contentious or even difficult reporter. In others, he’s hailed as perhaps the most objective journalist covering the president, more willing than most of his colleagues to push Obama and his aides with questions that are…

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley will appoint Republican congressman Tim Scott to the U.S. Senate, the New York Times reports. Haley, the first-term Republican governor, is expected to make an announcement about her selection around noon in Columbia. CNN is also reporting that Scott has been…

The legislation to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy has been turned into something of a mini auto bailout, according to those familiar with the Obama administration's request. The request includes millions of dollars worth of cars, to be paid for by the federal government.

Michael Dukakis, the former Democratic presidential nominee, could be appointed to fill John Kerry's Senate seat as a "placeholder," reports indicate. Kerry is expected to be named secretary of state by President Barack Obama. 

Iranian state press, Press TV, is praising President Barack Obama's likely defense nominee as "anti-Israel," according to a piece published on the propaganda outlet's website. The piece is titled, "Obama expected to nominate anti-Israel Hagel as secretary of defense."

My quest for Symons—A. J. A. Symons, that is—began when, many years ago, I first read that strange novel Hadrian the Seventh (1904). Written by the so-called Baron Corvo, and admired by D. H. Lawrence, among others, the book opens with a magnificent description of a hack writer suffering from…

What is strategy, after all? The public talks about war as if it were a game of chess or Risk or Sid Meier’s Civilization. But the real meaning of strategy, as opposed to tactics, is the capacity to determine what to do in a world without guidelines, not how to optimize resources toward…

Former New York City mayor Ed Koch says that if Chuck Hagel is nominated to be secretary of defense, it "would be a terrible appointment." Koch made the remarks about Hagel, who tops Obama's list to fill the defense secretary slot, in an interview with the Algemeiner.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will "work from home next week" after becoming dehydrated and fainting, State Department deputy assistant secretary Philippe Reines says in a statement.

The White House revealed yesterday that there "approximately 166 detainees at Guantanamo Bay" right now. The news was in Obama's "war powers resolution" letter, which is meant "to keep the Congress informed about deployments of U.S. Armed Forces equipped for combat."

Two members of Congress sent a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson over her use of the alias "Richard Windsor." The congressmen, Fred Upton and Cliff Stearns, want Jackson to explain her actions.

The fiscal cliff is a diversion, designed by politicians to conceal their inability to come to grips with the fact that they continue to spend too much, and refuse to reform a tax structure that reduces the competitiveness of American companies in world markets. No matter what deal is cut, whether…

Gun control advocates held a candlelight vigil outside the White House this evening, following the mass shooting at a school in Connecticut:

After the mass shooting Connecticut today, Rep. Dennis Kucinich reiterated his support for a "Department of Peace."

Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York is saying that "now ... is that time to have a serious about gun control," in response to the shooting today in Connecticut.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained a fact sheet circulating widely on Capitol Hill. It details the record on a number of issues of former GOP senator Chuck Hagel, a leading candidate to be nominated by President Obama as the next secretary of defense:

Marine Lance Corporal Christian Brown is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, who lost both of his legs and a part of a Marine Lance Corporal Christian Brown is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, who lost both of his legs and a part of a finger after stepping on an explosive device in the…

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said "We need immediate action" on gun laws in a statement released immediately following the mass shooting in Connecticut.

A speaker at a protest against Michigan's right-to-work legislation said that Republican governor Rick Snyder will "get no rest" from pro-union activists if Snyder signs the bill into law.

President Barack Obama cried while delivering remarks on the horrific shooting today in Connecticut:

“I find it really sad. I love Washington, and I just don’t like what has happened at this point. It’s just very unpleasant and sad and something that a very, very good public servant doesn’t deserve or nobody deserves, frankly.” One reads Madeleine Albright's reaction to Susan Rice's withdrawal…

Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:

In the bill to cover expenses related to the devastation from Hurricane Sandy, the Obama administration is requesting $13 billion to cover storms to be named later.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham:

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, widely believed to be a potential Republican candidate for president in 2016, has an op-ed in Friday's Wall Street Journal encouraging the government to permit the sale of oral contraceptives without a prescription. Here's an excerpt:

A day after complaining that the "fiscal cliff" negotiations are "getting boring," Nancy Pelosi was spotted yesterday afternoon skipping town.

Barack Obama's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, blamed Susan Rice for withdrawing her name from consideration to be the next secretary of state, not Obama. She made the comments this morning on national television:

The federal government is now spending $110 billion on "all food assistance" per year, according to new analysis by the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee. The federal dollars spent on these programs has risen by nearly $70 billion in just ten years. 

On November 29, Albania was the sole Muslim-majority country in the United Nations to be counted among the 41 abstainers from the proposal to admit Palestine as a non-member observer. Certain Islamists were displeased, to say the least. In particular, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,…

Gary Schmitt writes that Nobel Peace Prize committee snubbed NATO:

Earlier this week, the State Department designated the al Nusrah Front in Syria as an “alias” for al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The head of AQI, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi al Husseini al Qurshi (a.k.a. Abu Du'a), “is in control of both AQI and al Nusrah.” The designation says a lot about our knowledge, or lack…

Susan Rice went on NBC this evening to explain why she told President Barack Obama that she no longer wants to be considered for the secretary of the state job.

President Barack Obama said that he stands by the medical device tax in Obamacare, despite growing bipartisan opposition:

Chuck Hagel worked for a bank under investigation for violating Iran embargo.

President Barack Obama will meet Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, tomorrow afternoon in the Oval Office.

In response to reports that Barack Obama is likely to choose Chuck Hagel to be the next secretary of defense, a top Republican Senate aide emails, "Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite."

It was believed that Ambassador Susan Rice, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, would either get the nod for secretary of state or, as a consolation prize, national security adviser. Regardless, the conventional wisdom held, Rice would be promoted in Obama's second term

Twenty-nine years ago yesterday, December 12, 1983, Hezbollah and operatives of the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite group Da’wa carried out a series of seven coordinated bombings in Kuwait, killing six people and wounding nearly ninety more. The targets included the American and French embassies, the…

 President Barack Obama just released a statement praising Susan Rice's service and saying he accepts "her decision to remove her name from consideration for Secretary of State." Obama also lamented "the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks."

Denmark has long been regarded as one of the world's most attractive nations, for citizens and tourists alike. My own visits there, years ago as a student, were delightful. And the Danes have a wonderful history of civic virtue, not least during the Holocaust. As the United States Holocaust…

Have you heard about the great conservative “purge” of 2012? Last week, outrage erupted among some activists on the right when a few Republican congressmen—Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, Justin Amash of Michigan, and Dave Schweikert of Arizona—lost their committee assignments. According to National…

Here's how Top Chef head judge Tom Colicchio described the side of carrots prepared by contestant Eliza Gavin: "They were a mystery to me. I just don’t know how a person could possibly try to make them the way she did," he wrote on his blog. "They were dry, cooked through yet somehow still hard, as…

The United States announced today that it “cannot sign” a proposed treaty that would cede some control of the Internet to the United Nations. The details of the treaty have been the subject of more than a weeklong conference in Dubai.

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley tweeted lyrics to an Adele song today. Here's the tweet:

President Barack Obama won't touch the eligibility age for Medicare, Senator Dick Durbin told reporters. The AP reports:

The FDA is raising hackles over the equivalent of an espresso shot in a bottle: the popular 5-Hour Energy drink that has billions of dollars in sales over the past decade.

Retiring Virginia senator Jim Webb explains why he decided not to seek reelection and leave the Senate in an exit interview with public radio.

Here's video of the North Korean rocket launch, which played on state-run TV:

The NBA franchise in New Orleans is, long overdue, considering a name change. This is a good thing—even though the proposed nickname Pelicans has been the target of an unfair amount of derision since being floated. To be sure, it’s not slick. It’s not modern. And it is not hip, like the singular…

"President Obama's 'Plan' Adds $8.6 Trillion to the Debt," the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee contends. Here's a chart put together by the Republicans on the committee to explain how Obama's plan adds to the debt:

Most everyone remembers what happened when Argentina invaded the British Falkland Islands in 1982. Far fewer people remember what preceded—and in many ways provoked—the Argentine invasion.

In the middle of the night at a U.N. conference in Dubai, the presiding chairman of the International Telecommunication Union conference surveyed the assembled countries to see whether there was interest in having greater involvement in the U.N. governing the Internet. A majority of countries gave…

The State Department announced today that it had increased aid to help with humanitarian situation in Syria. Today's announcement stated that an additional $14 million of aid would be given, pushing the grand total of aid to Syria to $210 million.

No, unions don't have to represent non-union employees.

Yoko Ono, the wife of the late John Lennon, and Sean Lennon, the son of Yoko and the famed member of the Beatles, teamed up to send a message to New York governor Andrew Cuomo: "Imagine There's No Fracking..."

The Washington Post reports:

The State Department announced the release of an "innovative video game" today called, "Trace Effects." The game is hosted online, on the State Department's website.

Julian Assange is planning a senate run in Australia as a member of the "WikiLeaks Party," he recently revealed in an interview.

Democratic congressman Jim Moran's son, Patrick Moran, has pleaded guilty to beating his girlfriend. The assualt outside a nightclub left Moran's girlfriend with bloody nose and a fractured skull.

The New York Times reports that Syria has fired scud missiles at rebel fighters:

Glenn Hubbard, appearing live on CNBC Wednesday morning, was struck by a falling piece of the set. Hubbard, who was the chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and an economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, was discussing the need for Congress…

Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan, encouraged folks to "keep fighting!" after her side lost the labor dispute that will now give union members the right-to-work.

In response to North Korea successfully launching a rocket earlier today, the Iranian regime sends its congratulations.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, blasted President Barack Obama for not leaving anything on the "fiscal cliff" negotiating table this morning in remarks on the Senate floor.

Senator Jeff Sessions continues to argue against the secrecy of the ongoing "fiscal cliff" negotiations with an op-ed this morning in today's Wall Street Journal. Sessions argues that the secrecy is inherently anti-Democratic, and similar to the "Russian Duma, where officials meet behind closed…

Journalist Bob Woodward explained this morning on CBS that "there's a civil war in the Democratic party":

When asked whether he favored legalizing marijuana, former president Jimmy Carter made clear that he did.

In response to North Korea's rocket launch, the White House released the following statement, calling the action "highly provocative." 

Reuters reports:

Another House GOP counter-offer?

Leon Kass, on Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:

A union protest of a Michigan right-to-work law turned violent today when one union activist punched Steven Crowder, a conservative comedian and Fox News contributor, in the face. Watch the video here: 

Jim Manzi recently delivered this talk on science, knowledge, and freedom at Harvard University, which features interesting colloquy with Harvey Mansfield:

The White House wouldn't answer a question on why President Barack Obama reversed his decision to allow corporate donations for the inaugural today at the daily press conference:

There is a lot of talk about whether Republicans should "give in" on raising taxes on the top 2 percent of income-earners.  But the question isn't whether Republicans should "give in," but how they should react to a situation in which tax rates on that portion of Americans are going to rise whether…

At a candlelight vigil for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in Bolivia, actor Sean Penn offered great praise for the sick strongman:

Speaker John Boehner took to the House floor to address the "fiscal cliff" talks.

Watch the live conference here:

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell blasted President Barack Obama from the Senate floor this morning for not offering any specifics on spending cuts.

Elliott Abrams writes about the recently announced retirements of Republicans Jim DeMint and Jo Ann Emerson from Congress:

Seventy-five percent of the new revenue pulled in by President Barack Obama's "fiscal cliff" plan would go toward new spending, not toward deficit reduction, the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee contends. Here's a chart, detailing how money from the new tax hikes would be distributed:

From Sam Baker's report in the Hill, one learns that:

Over at Huffington Post, Dan Froomkin has an interview with Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein titled, "How the Mainstream Press Bungled the Single Biggest Story of the 2012 Campaign." It turns out, the single biggest story the media ignored is the fact that Republicans lying liars, to paraphrase the…

Peter Wehner, writing for Commentary:

Maryland governor Martin O'Malley aligned himself with Hillary Clinton, in response to a question about the retiring secretary of state and possible 2016 Democratic presidential candidate in an interview.

The chairman of the President Barack Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE, praised China this morning on CBS: 

The Republican National Committee announced the formation of a committee set to examine what the party did wrong in the last election.

President Barack Obama made his position on tax rates clear today in remarks at the Daimler Detroit Diesel Plant in Redford Michigan.

4 major Al Qaeda leaders dead in Pakistan.

President Barack Obama has nominated journalist Mark Halperin's dad to an administration post. Via the White House:

Harry Reid, speaking earlier on the Senate floor about Nebraska senator Ben Nelson's hair:

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, will appoint a new senator to take the seat of GOP senator Jim DeMint, who was reelected in 2010 and will be resigning early next year to become president of the Heritage Foundation. Sources in South Carolina say Haley will pick Charleston-area…

If Republicans want to be the party of Main Street and let Democrats continue to be the party of big government and its natural ally, big business, there's one tax they should embrace. As Christine Gregoire and Sally Jewell write in today's Wall Street Journal, government tax policies discriminate…

Barack Obama's reelection campaign sent an email today asking supporters to call Congress to help gather support for the president's "fiscal cliff" proposal. Then, the campaign asks supporters to donate--even though the election ended over a month ago.

In response to news that China-based investor Wanxiang Group Corp would be investing in the federally back A123 battery company, Senator John Thune said, “President Obama's energy policy has been a win-win for China and a lose-lose for the American taxpayer.”

There is an increasing feeling that if President Obama’s insistence on my way or the highway produces “a plunge over the fiscal cliff,” catastrophes will follow, not least being a downgrading of our credit rating. Perhaps. But consider the possibility that a deadlock might be a non-event. What we…

One problem with the unearned income Medicare contribution tax is the name Congress chose for it, which is a triple misnomer. The income that will be subject to the tax isn’t unearned -- it is earned by savers who receive market rewards for delaying consumption and providing funds to finance…

A new poll conducted by Politico/GWU/Battleground finds that 76 percent of Americans favor "Cutting government spending across the board."

The White House misspelled Santa Claus twice, according to a recent transcript of President Barack Obama's remarks at the national Christmas tree lighting ceremony. 

Ross Douthat, writing in the New York Times:

Almost everything about Lincoln is good—and, in many aspects, far better than good—save its most notable element. Steven Spielberg is the most successful, wealthiest, and most garlanded motion-picture director in the history of cinema, and he can make any film he wants. Only Spielberg could have…

The Open Door begins with Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” and zooms from there, highlighting 100 years of modern poetry, including that of Louise Bogan, Hart Crane, e. e. cummings, H. D., T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and…

The Scrapbook has always believed that larger lessons can sometimes be gleaned from smaller, even seemingly inconsequential, events. Consider, for example, this week’s misinterpretation of a recent post on the Onion​—​the treasured website that features satirical “news stories” and hilarious videos…

If you’re headed to the airport for the holidays, here are some tips to keep you off the Transportation Security Administration’s “naughty list”: Holiday puddings (even the figgy kind) are considered “gel-like” substances and must be carried in clear plastic containers of no more than 3.4 ounces.…

Our contributing editor and former colleague Joseph Bottum, now resident in his native Black Hills of South Dakota, has (we think unexpectedly) added Christmas Laureate to his distinguished résumé. His Kindle Single The Christmas Plains was a big hit last season, and is now published in…

"I don’t know [Susan] Rice at all, so I have no opinion on her fitness for the job, but I think the contrived flap over her Libya comments certainly shouldn’t disqualify her. That said, my own nominee for secretary of state would be the current education secretary, Arne Duncan. Yes, yes, I know.…

Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, portraying the president’s battle to abolish slavery at the end of the Civil War, illustrates one of the fundamental paradoxes inherent in constitutional democracy: that sometimes high principle can be vindicated only through low politicking. In the last week, myriad…

Despite the outcome, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney did many things right during the course of this year’s campaign. Perhaps most notably, polls suggest that he was able to convince a plurality of Americans that the GOP’s plan for smaller government was better for promoting long-term…

Many states are wisely signaling that they aren’t interested in doing the Obama administration’s bidding on Obamacare. As a result, many if not most of Obamacare’s insurance exchanges — the heart of the beast — will have to be set up and run by the Obama administration at the federal level.

Twenty years ago an editor for the Chicago Sun-Times told Neil Steinberg—at the time a young reporter for the paper—that he might someday become the next Sydney J. Harris, and Steinberg, for reasons unclear, did not punch him in the kneecaps. Harris was dead by then, but from the 1950s to the 1980s…

The Wall Street Journal editors are unhappy about the present correlation of political forces. Who isn't? They're also, I gather, unhappy about "Beltway sages" who, facing the fact that the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year, have suggested Republicans accept a modest increase in tax…

James Carville, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, told George Stephanopoulos, also a former adviser to Clinton, that 90 percent of Democrats want Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016.

From a left-wing bumper sticker seeking to make its point with an absurdity: "It'll be a great day when the schools have all the money they need and the Pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."

New York Times reporter Helene Cooper explained on Meet the Press that the White House is now "cockier":

Last week, North Korea announced that it would launch a satellite into space later this month. Today, the North Koreans are suggesting that launch might be delayed "for some reasons."

In this week's Republican address, Florida senator Marco Rubio suggests there are much bigger problems than marginal tax hikes, which President Obama strongly supports.

Late last night, the former Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, announced on Twitter that he had officially joined the Democratic Party:

The Egyptian government has nabbed a major terrorist tied to the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, according to the Wall Street Journal. And that terrorist has direct, longstanding ties to al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.

Krauthammer: The fiscal cliff is Obama's power play.

President Obama declares Hanukkah "an opportunity for people of all faiths to recognize the common aspirations we share."

The Pakistani Taliban is now recruiting new hires on Facebook. "The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan have created a Facebook page to recruit persons to write for a planned quarterly magazine and to work on tasks like video editing and translation," the Times of India reports.

In remarks at a diner in Arlington, Virginia, Vice President Joe Biden said that the "upside" of going down the so-called fiscal cliff "is even bigger than the downside." Biden attributed these thoughts to "business leaders."

Politico reports that "President Barack Obama will accept unlimited corporate donations for his Inauguration in January." Last go around, for the 2009 inauguration, Obama banned these very donations.

The Senate Republican Conference has released this video, showing that Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, was against filibuster reform before being for it:

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:

The amount of money spent on welfare programs equals, when converted to cash payments, about "$168 per day for every household in poverty," the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee finds. Here's a chart detailing the committee's findings:

The guy was a political science major, he knows about politics, he’s clever, he’s smart, he’s funny. It’s what people talk about at dinner parties, it’s what people talk about in the office, and it has united Washington in a way that I have never seen before. This according to Sally Quinn who knows…

Much reporting on Burma reflects the mistaken impression that things have changed dramatically and for good.  Yet last Saturday, three activists were arrested in connection with a rally outside the Chinese embassy in Rangoon against a Chinese-sponsored copper mine.  

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the job numbers this morning:

John Podhoretz, writing in the New York Post:

As Al Capone explained in The Untouchables, "A man stands alone at the plate. This is the time for what? For individual achievement. There he stands alone. But in the field, what? Part of a team. Teamwork... Looks, throws, catches, hustles. Part of one big team. Bats himself the live-long day, Babe…

Illinois Republican senator Mark Kirk will return to the Senate, after suffering a stroke almost a year ago. The Chicago Tribune reports:

The Wall Street Journal editors write:

Stephen Dinan reports that "Because next year's inauguration falls on a Sunday, President Obama will hold only a small, private swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20, and will hold a big public redo the next day. The Inaugural Committee announced Thursday that activities will last three days: a day of…

President Barack Obama today pledged only to sign a "fiscal cliff" deal that includes tax hikes on the 2 percent.

A Republican staffer in the House of Representatives has been fired for writing an unpopular memo. The crime? The memo suggested more lenient punishments for copyright offense.

Chris Christie is the latest governor to refuse to set up an Obamacare exchange in his state. Here's his press release announcing his veto today: 

A reporter today asked the White House why folks in New Jersey and New York still don't have power "weeks" after Hurricane Sandy:

Soon after 9/11, Michael Totten abandoned a profitable career as a technical writer and started a blog that took him throughout the Middle East, including Iraq which he visited seven times from 2006 to 2009. He also lived in Lebanon in parts of 2005 and 2006 in the middle of the Cedar Revolution,…

With Republican Jim DeMint’s resignation from the Senate, Republicans now have a chance to take a bold and politically beneficial step by making Congressman Tim Scott the new senator from South Carolina.

We hear, over and over, that there is too much money in politics and maybe so. But the money keeps rolling in.

Jim DeMint, South Carolina's junior Republican senator and a stalwart conservative, will resign his Senate seat next month to become the president of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative Washington-based think tank. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Tirana, Albania

Ross Douthat has gotten himself in trouble for writing about demographics and the latest Pew report on the decline of America’s birth rate. Douthat has the temerity to suggest that having babies is important for public welfare, that Americans aren’t having enough of them, and that the root cause of…

California teachers union keeps it classy.

President Barack Obama spoke to the White House Tribal Nations Conference of Native American groups at the Interior Department Wednesday. The chairman of the conference, Brian Cladoosby of the Swinomish Nation, reportedly suggested that Obama is the first "American Indian" president.

Politico reports:

Senate majority leader Harry Reid is denying the Senate the chance to vote on President Barack Obama's proposal. Reid calls Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's request to vote on the plan a "stunt."

Robert Laszewski wonders how much health care will cost next year:

According to Twitter, the official White House Twitter feed is similar to those belonging to the Washington Post, blogger Andrew Sullivan, liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, NBC, and Chris Cuomo (the brother of New York Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo).

A newly released study by Transparency International finds the United States less corrupt now than it was in 2011. According to the survey's rankings, the U.S. is the 19th least corrupt country in the world this year; in 2011, the U.S. ranked 24th.

ABC reports: 

The Spirit of America announces the launch of the 68,000 Remember campaign:

Germany appeared over the past several months to have finally fallen in line behind European Union efforts to stiffen economic sanctions against Iran. But in late October a group of German parliamentarians dealt a blow to the campaign to isolate Iran’s rulers. Bundestag Members Bijan Djir-Sarai of…

President Barack Obama wants to raise the debt limit "without drama or delay," a White House official tells Reuters. 

At an event in Washington, D.C. this evening, Paul Ryan asked Marco Rubio, "Know any good diners in Iowa or New Hampshire?" The reference, of course, is to the first state to hold a primary contest (the Iowa Caucus) and the first to in the nation to hold a primary election (New Hampshire).

A primer on next year's governor's race in Virginia.

Florida senator Marco Rubio was honored Tuesday night as the recipient of the Kemp Foundation's Leadership Award. While delivering a keynote address at the awards dinner, Paul Ryan, the 2011 recipient of the Kemp Foundation award, joked about meeting up with Rubio for a meal down the road in Iowa…

President Barack Obama met with several MSNBC hosts this afternoon at the White House to discuss tax rates, according to Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery. The reporter wondered if an "MSNBC love fest" was going on at the White House.

House Republican Tom Price of Georgia refused to say whether he would challenge Senator Saxby Chambliss in the 2014 GOP primary. In a Tuesday afternoon appearance on CNN, Price was asked by host Brooke Baldwin if he would "mount a primary challenge" against Chambliss. He at first dodged the…

In an interview with Bloomberg's Julianna Goldman, President Barack Obama stated, "I think America is poised to take off." The main obstacle, in Obama's mind, however, is political dysfunction.

Our contributing editor and former colleague Joseph Bottum, now resident in his native Black Hills of South Dakota, has (we think unexpectedly) added Christmas Laureate to his distinguished résumé. His Kindle Single The Christmas Plains was a big hit last season, and is now published in…

White House spokesman Jay Carney wouldn't say who won President Obama's round of golf over the weekend with former President Bill Clinton, Terry McAuliffe, and Ron Kirk. Instead, Carney rhetorically asked, "Doesn't the sitting President always win?"

In an email to supporters, Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign tries to raise the final funds needed to retire debt incurred from Clinton's failed presidential bid.

Elizabeth Warren, the newly elected Democratic senator from Massachusetts, will serve on the Senate Banking Committee, according to the Huffington Post:

Pete Townshend admits, during an interview with ABC's Jonathan Karl, that "I'm a bit of a neocon."

Iran is claiming to have successfully "hunted" an American drone, according to a piece in the regime organ Fars News Agency. The propaganda outlet claims that this is the first time Iran has shot down an American drone.

The GOP's white voter problem.

Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, is releasing a statement this evening that claims President Barack Obama's "secret" plan "increases spending by more than $1 trillion above the current baseline."

Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming believes President Barack Obama is "comfortable going off the [fiscal] cliff."

Via Twitter, President Barack Obama confirmed that he's asked DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to stay on another term:

In a letter to President Obama, House GOP leaders are urging the president to consider a fiscal plan proposed last year by Erskine Bowles, Bill Clinton's former chief of staff and the co-chair of Obama's deficit commission.

President Obama is enjoying a bit of a post-election honeymoon, but the same cannot be said for his signature legislation.

According to an Israeli newspaper, former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, the current mayor of Chicago, blasted Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for betting "on the wrong man" in the last presidential election. The allegation is that Netanyahu supported Mitt Romney in the…

The White House today honored "the 57th Anniversary of the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat" by tweeting a picture of President Barack Obama:

Samuel L. Jackson has faith in First Lady Michelle Obama.

It has been a little more than a month since Hurricane Sandy made landfall and pounded the Atlantic shores of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. Within hours, government big dogs, the president included, were on the scene promising speedy and comprehensive relief. When they left to attend to…

AEI's podcast with the boss, on Benghazi and his childhood:

MSNBC host Chuck Todd reported that a "very smart White House aide" told him that "with this Republican, with the way politics of Washington are today, there'd still be slavery." Watch here:

President Barack Obama will endorse Debbie Wasserman Schultz for a second term as Democratic National Committee chief, a Democratic official tells Politico.

Bill Kristol, with Mara Liasson, Ed Rollins, and Evan Bayh, yesterday on Fox News:

The day after Long Cai Bin was baptized, an earthquake destroyed his hometown. But it might have opened his country to his faith.

In his piece on the changing of the guard at the Washington Post last week (“Declining Kingdom, Waning Power”), Philip Terzian wrote, “If this .  .  . vacancy had occurred two decades ago, it would have been filled by such usual suspects as Gene Roberts, Geneva Overholser, or the late Michael…

His contemporaries called him “the Little Giant.” They recognized that although Stephen A. Douglas was physically a pipsqueak—standing only 5-foot-4, small even for his generation—he loomed over American political life through his intensity, intelligence, and energy. Unfortunately for his…

I have what might be called a philosophical attitude toward the defeat of Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts. Brown, it seems to me, played his part in history by delivering “Teddy Kennedy’s seat” (in the immortal phrase of David Gergen) to the Republicans for three years—a brief but pleasant…

The Scrapbook admits it has not paid too much attention to Twinkies in recent years. Our taste in—what shall we call them?—recreational foodstuffs tends to run in other directions; and to be honest, we were never all that enamored of Twinkies in the first place. 

Could Mozart write jingles? “Are you kidding,” responds the ad copy for a 1990s music marketing production house. “A Little Night Music had ‘beer commercial’ written all over it.”  

Against its better judgment, The Scrapbook recently found itself combing through the online archives of the Columbia Journalism Review. CJR has a feature where it awards “darts” and “laurels” to media outlets for bad and good coverage respectively. Despite being a feature in a magazine published by…

It’s been almost 25 years since Tom Wolfe issued a call for “the new social novel.” His 1989 manifesto, “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” argued that, since the end of the Second World War, American novelists had lost their way, having convinced themselves that the high calling of Art required…

There are some facts so obvious that only a liberal could deny them. One of them is that, from Benghazi to Be’er Sheva, the West is under attack.

When Donald E. Westlake died on New Year’s Eve 2008 at the age of 75, he was mourned as an expert and notably prolific writer of crime fiction under multiple bylines, and also as a comic novelist whose stature (in a different milieu) rivaled that of P. G. Wodehouse. To some, his position was even…

First, the problem. In 2010, Republicans failed to capture winnable Democratic Senate seats in Delaware, Nevada, and Colorado. The reason: bad candidates. In 2012, Republicans pulled a repeat, losing two, perhaps three, Democratic seats that were poised to switch parties. The reason: bad candidates.

If the truce announced in Cairo last Wednesday truly brings the Gaza war to a close, it is not too soon to assess who gained and who lost from this conflict.

On ABC's This Week Sunday, host George Stephanopoulos asked Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner about a report that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell "burst out laughing" when Geithner told McConnell the Obama adminstration's proposal to avert the fiscal cliff. Geithner avoided the question.

Sohrab Ahmari interviews Harvey Mansfield for the Wall Street Journal:

A top adviser to President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, was heckled at a speech yesterday to grassroots organizers by a "climate activist."

Hillary Clinton reportedly prefers that her replacement be Senator John Kerry, and not Susan Rice, the current ambassador to the United Nations. Both Kerry and Rice have been rumored to be next in line for the secretary of state job. Clinton intends to step down from the post "days" after President…

North Korea plans to launch a satellite into orbit later this month, the rogue state announced today. 

Markets move even when politicians don’t. Investors and consumers aren’t waiting for America’s politicians to decide whether and, if so, how to put our fiscal house in order. They are acting, now. Good thing, given the increasingly intransigent mood that has the president refusing to put spending…

Noonan on Obama's drawn-out crises.