April 2013

Lindsey Graham responds to President Obama.

A lot of Americans are about to get blindsided by the Affordable Care Act.  It seems, according to Sarah Kliff, writing in the Washington Post, that:

Furloughed federal employees who like to play golf are in luck. There's a deal waiting for them, courtesy of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority.

Contributing editor Yuval Levin wins the Bradley Prize, announces the Ethics and Public Policy center:

The reaction of most Americans to the tragedy in Boston was typical: We came together as a nation, mourned our fallen, and applauded our newest heroes.  The sight of first-responders running to the sound of danger within mere seconds of the explosions, not away from disaster as human instinct might…

Over the past fifteen years, Pakistan has demonstrated how nuclear weapons can allow a country to engage in limited hostilities without triggering all out war. It has also shown that once a nuclear-armed state initiates hostilities, the international response will focus on restoring stability, with…

Willie Nelson turns 80 today.  As Kelly Phillips Erb writes in Forbes, it has been an interesting, prolific, and unusual career:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with William Kristol on the Boston marathon bombing, Benghazi, and Jason Collins, the NBA's first openly gay player.

President Barack Obama talked about Gitmo prisoners today and said, "I don't want these individuals to die."

When asked about second term failures, President Barack Obama responded by saying, "Maybe I should just pack up and go home. Golly."

President Barack Obama said today at a press conference that he's "not familiar" with reports that Benghazi whistleblowers are being threatened:

It must be one of those inversions of this age of the media that the issues raised by the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia have faded into the background, while the main attention has been drawn to the screening of this story by the liberal media. But even more curious has been screening…

According to Virginia-based trade publication Politico: "The Weekly Standard, the flagship publication for national security conservatives, has obsessively promoted [Congressman Tom] Cotton’s speeches and campaign activities." (Which might only be considered obsessive if one didn't compare our…

President Obama will make a rare appearance in the White House press briefing room today where he'll do something even more unusual: take questions from the press.

The Boston Herald reports:

Judy Clarke, a "prominent death penalty lawyer," in the words of the Associated Press, will represent the alleged Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

President Barack Obama called Jason Collins today to congratulate the NBA player for announcing that he's gay. The Huffington Post reports:

A new investigative video shows a Washington, D.C.-based abortion doctor admitting that if a baby is born alive in his clinic after a failed abortion attempt he would let the baby suffocate on fluid in the child's throat or lungs.

Mark Steyn on the collapsing of the American skull.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Fred Barnes, hosted by Michael Graham. 

A new investigative video shows a Washington, D.C.-based abortion doctor admitting that if a baby is born alive in his clinic after a failed abortion attempt he would let the baby choke to death on fluid in the child's lungs. 

The mayors of America have blessed the Marketplace Fairness Act, as Tom Cochran, CEO & executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, writes in Real Clear Politics. This, of course, is the legislation that allows states, cities, towns, villages, and wide spots in the road (about 9,600…

The Newsweek/Daily Beast owner, Barry Diller, shared his regrets today on Bloomberg TV:

President Obama thanked the the National Academy of Sciences and said if it weren't for them, "I would not be here." He was referring to the work they did to help the Union in the Civil War. 

Syrian brigadier general Zaher al-Saket revealed on Al-Arabiya TV that he had been given orders to use chemical weapons against rebels:

The editors of National Review write:

As Conor Orr reports in the Star-Ledger:

Mike Tyson weighed in on taxes and Obamacare this morning on Fox News:

The Washington Free Beacon has put together this video, showing President Obama's shifting rhetoric on Syria:

If Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016, New York governor Andrew Cuomo will not. At least, that's what is being reported today by the New York Post.

NBC reports that Russia is telling American authorities that it overheard a wiretapped conversation between the suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother about jihad: 

The Associated Press reports:

And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? They were, those people, a kind of solution. How many times in the last century have these concluding lines of C. P. Cavafy’s famous 1898 poem, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” been quoted? How many modern intellectuals have pondered the…

What does it mean to say a movie is an “epic”? An epic uses its characters and plot to illuminate a place, an era, an entire society. We are constantly being reminded, through camera work and art direction, that what we’re watching is something larger and more socially significant than its plot.…

More and more of our political activity seems to be about making people feel good, so why should gun regulation be any exception? We were looking at the myriad regulations in Connecticut’s new gun law, for instance, and noticed its prohibition on loading more than 10 rounds into a large capacity…

David Ferry’s latest poems look at the tantalizing possibility of life after death and the existence of God. But it’s a God that the poet doesn’t know and whose name escapes him. What he does know is that he feels a presence, and poems both hide and connect him to that presence. Or, as the…

My handwriting is execrable. I routinely desecrate the elegant, engraved stationery that my husband gave me as a birthday present with cramped, misshapen, and only partly legible scrawls. This despite the years I spent in parochial school being drilled by the nuns in the Palmer method, the loopy…

Every discussion of gay marriage should begin with a recognition of its historical radicalness, its exceptionality. Heterosexual marriage has been the fundamental unit of human sociability for thousands of years, a common thread running through otherwise disjunctive cultures and wide-ranging ethnic…

After Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953, it was no surprise that the adoptive parents of their two sons chose to send the orphaned brothers to the Little Red School House, a New York private school. In the McCarthy era, Little Red and its high school, Elisabeth Irwin, were havens for…

Earlier this month, President Obama released his fiscal year 2014 budget, which calls for $1.1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade, cuts of $400 billion from Medicare and Medicaid, and alterations to Social Security’s benefit rate worth about $130 billion. 

Americans were surprised—well, shocked, really—to see the public manifestations of hatred in England when Margaret Thatcher died. There were images of people celebrating in the streets, tweets and blog posts gleefully predicting damnation, even the Rt. Hon. Glenda Jackson, M.P., on a verbal rampage…

Not long ago, New York City stopped a Walmart store from being built in its downtrodden East New York neighborhood, another defeat in the giant discounter/grocer’s six-year effort to enter the five boroughs. Small retailers and unions, in prevailing, embraced a century-old tradition of political…

Drawing all eyes willing or not, like a reeling beggar on a subway platform, the Olympics have become such a familiar spectacle that we rarely stop to think about their oddness. But our Olympics are, in fact, a bizarre piece of Victorian historical reenactment, a recreation, after 1,500 years of…

NBC chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd reported this morning that the White House regrets publicly setting a red line with regard to Syrian use of chemical weapons:

Democratic senator Joe Manchin said he'd "absolutely" bring the gun control measures that failed in the Senate back for another vote:

Matthew Kaminski on Donald Kagan, in the Wall Street Journal:

A Mississippi taekwondo instructor has been arrested in connection with ricin-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and Senator Roger Wicker. It's not yet clear what role authorities suspect this man played.

Tonight is the occasion of the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, which Ron Fournier deplores:

On Sunday, the leading experts on terrorism finance in the Middle East and North Africa will convene for a five-day conference. The Financial Action Task Force is essentially the United Nations for combating terror finance, and MENAFATF ranks among its most important regional bodies. So why is the…

The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the first quarter, well ahead of the paltry 0.4 percent in the final quarter of 2012. Consumer spending led the way, increasing at a rate of 3.2 percent. But leave the champagne on ice for now. Consumer outlays were boosted by involuntary…

Noonan on the turn of the presidential wheel.

As Pete Kasperowicz reports in The Hill, some Democratic lawmakers have found the solution.  Solution to what, you ask.  Well, to unfairness, which is big this week, what with the effort to make internet businesses collect sales taxes and deal with the rules and interpretations of some 9,000…

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:

An interesting moment from today's quick Oval Office press availability with President Obama:

President Obama said today that "weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations" would be, in his words, "a game changer." Via the pool report:

Paternalism is having a good run these days.

The first television ad from Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli features his wife, Teiro. In the ad, Mrs. Cuccinelli focuses on the softer side of the Republican attorney general's political career.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with William Kristol on the the Boston bombing, Obama's disappearing "red line" in Syria, and immigration reform.

President Obama said that those who oppose abortion want to return to the 1950s:

President Obama ended his address to the largest abortion provider in the U.S., Planned Parenthood, by saying, "God bless you."

Legislators who voted in favor of Obamacare in 2010 appear to be getting jumpy as implementation of the law and their campaigns for reelection draw ever closer.  First, Max Baucus says he fears a "train wreck," when the bill begins to go into effect.  Then, he announced he will not run for…

Jeff Bauman, a survivor from the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, tells a Boston radio show his killer is dead--and he's still alive. "He's dead and I'm still here," said Bauman, who helped identify the suspects to authorities from his hospital bed.

Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal were predicting that we would learn, this morning, that Gross Domestic Product had grown by 3.2 percent in the last quarter. Sorry about that; the economy said as the number came in at 2.5 percent.  

The Obama administration now believes that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad may have used chemical weapons. Today the White House released a letter explaining that the American “intelligence community does assess with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on…

The fight for the Senate will happen in working-class states.

The directors of the Foreign Policy Initiative, Eric Edelman, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, and Dan Senor, released the following statement on Syria crossing a "red line" in regards to the use of the chemical weapons:

Barack Obama is attending a memorial service for the victims of a massive fertilizer plant in West, Texas. But the president didn't visit the damage from the ground; instead, he opted only for a flyover.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on the new revelations about the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime.

Lee Smith writes:

Law enforcement officials are carefully reexamining any possible role that Katherine Russell Tsarnaeva, the wife of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, played in the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, according to three federal officials with knowledge of the investigation. The intense scrutiny comes as a result…

Former President Jimmy Carter praised former President George W. Bush today at the Bush Library opening in Dallas Texas:

George W. Bush broke down at the end of his speech today at the opening of his presidential library in Dallas, Texas: 

President Barack Obama used a part of his speech at the George W. Bush Libary opening today to push immigration reform:

President Barack Obama's remarks at the George W. Bush Presidential Library opening in Dallas, Texas:

Former President Bill Clinton's remarks at the George W. Bush Presidential Library opening in Dallas, Texas:

In response to reports that congressional leaders from both parties are seeking exemptions from Obamacare, Speaker John Boehner's spokesman released the following statement.

If immigration reform passes Congress, the law will almost certainly have a way to allow those in the country illegally to eventually become citizens. But the bill, as it is written, contains a number of enforcement and border security benchmarks that must be met before the path to citizenship is…

Congress is reportedly trying to exempt itself from Obamacare. "Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks" to figure out how to do this, Politico reports.

Congress is looking at ways to escape the coils of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) by making itself and its employees exempt from the provisions of the act.  This show of confidence in its own handiwork – the major legislative accomplishment of the Obama administration – is pretty much what the…

Congress is preparing to take action on a bipartisan proposal to raise taxes on flu vaccines. This is not a tax on the wealthy, but rather on a broad swath of Americans, or at least those who choose to be immunized against the flu.

After being read Miranda rights, the Boston bombing suspect in custody, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has stopped talking to authorities, officials tell the Associated Press.

Dallas, Texas

Yuval Levin on liberalism's radical individualism.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, killed during the Boston rampage last week, and his surviving brother Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, who is charged by federal authorities in the series of abominable crimes, are doubtless the first Chechens many Americans will ever have heard of. And the news coverage of the last…

Congressman Tom Cotton took to the House floor "to express grave doubts about the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism policies and programs":

A Louisiana high school is in "chaos" after 57 teachers skipped school to protest the governor in Baton Rouge. The problem is that there were not enough substitute teachers to replace those who decided to protest the Republican governor, Bobby Jindal.

The economy can't quite seem to gets its feet under it.  As soon as it shows signs of steadying itself and begins to move forward, its legs go wobbly and we get things like this, from Lorraine Woellert at Bloomberg:

Vice President Joe Biden made a joke today at the memorial service for slain MIT police officer Sean Collier:

Vice President Joe Biden called the Boston bombers "two twisted, perverted, cowardly, knock-off jihadis" in remarks at a funeral service in Massachusetts for Sean Collier, the slain MIT police officer:

President Obama revealed this morning on the Today Show how he's discouraging his daughters from getting tattoos:

Fred Barnes, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

An important story from the Boston Globe:

Reuters reports:

Secretary of State John Kerry announced today in Brussels, Belgium that the Boston bomber was radicalized in Russia, Chechnya. "[H]e learned something where he went and he came back with a willingness to kill people," Kerry said in response to a question from the press.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on welfare, sponsored by tax payers. Tsarnaev, now dead, is suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon last week. 

Family Research Council (FRC) officials released video of federal investigators questioning convicted domestic terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins II, who explained that he attacked the group’s headquarters because the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identified them as a “hate group” due to their…

A new congressional report released today highlights the Obama administration's mistake-filled response to the 9/11 Benghazi terror attacks, which left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Katherine Russell, the wife of the dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, claims to be shocked by the "reports of involvement by her husband and brother-in-law" in the Boston Marathon bombings last week.

The satirical website The Onion just tweeted that President Obama has been injured from two White House explosions:

First Lady Michelle Obama praised federal workers in remarks today, calling them an "invisible face." Her remarks were delivered at the Department of Interior.

Mitt Romney will join forces with a former top adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod, this summer.

Last night on a New Jersey radio station, Chris Christie delivered an ode to mediocre rocker Bruce Springsteen:

Times have been tough, but even as the rest of the country struggled, Washington seemed to be doing fine. Government and the fish that swim in its wake are always going to be okay as budgets increase (whether or not they are actually written), the tax revenues keep rolling in, the Chinese keep…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Thomas Joscelyn on the Boston marathon bombing and the alleged bombers' international connections.

A new report by the Regulatory Studies Center at the George Washington University finds that the cost of regulatory rules in 2012 exceeded the cost of all rules in "the entire first terms of Presidents Bush and Clinton, combined."

Democrat Max Baucus, the senior senator from Montana, will not seek reelection to his seat in 2014. The Washington Post reports:

CNN’s headline this morning reads, “Boston suspect: It was just us.” The headline links to an article that begins by explaining that the “surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told investigators that his older brother, not any international terrorist group, masterminded the deadly…

During the 14-year reign of Hugo Chávez, Venezuelans became drearily accustomed to hearing so-called cadenas interrupt the regular programming on their radios and television sets. These are “chained” broadcasts (the word cadena means “chain”) that all stations must carry. They originated long…

Chemical weapons have been used by the Assad regime in Syria, according to an Israeli official. The Associated Press reports:

Senator Lindsey Graham made the case yesterday that the Boston bombing suspect should've been held as an enemy combatant:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, fake tough guy.

A lawyer writes in:

Anthony Weiner, who resigned as a member of Congress after getting caught sending lewd pictures of himself on Twitter, is back ... on Twitter:

In a statement marking Earth Day, Secretary of State John Kerry pledges to deal "responsibly with the clear and present danger of climate change." The former presidential candidate also notes the "fragile planet we share with the rest of humanity and which we must protect for future generations."

"Embrace the slime!" That was how my "oyster mentor" taught me to appreciate those fine bivalves. "Swish it around, taste the brine." Prior to our dinner at the Oceanaire Seafood Room, I tended to gulp down oysters doused in shrimp cocktail sauce, which was not the ideal way to eat something that…

President Obama will attend a memorial in West, Texas for those killed in the explosion there last week, the press secretary announced today. Obama will be in Texas anyway for a Democratic fundraiser and the opening of President George W. Bush's library.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with William Kristol on the Boston Marathon bombing, the government's response, and policy choices for the future.

Israel is facing numerous security threats, and yet the country’s most recent round of elections in January focused not on security but on the need to reform a dysfunctional economy and liberate the enterprising spirit of a nation that boasts more startups than Europe. Paradoxically, it was the…

The White House announced today that President Obama will be observing a moment of silence today for Boston bombings last week. The event is "closed press."

During President Obama’s trip to Israel last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to apologize for the “operational mistakes” that in May 2010 led to the deaths of nine Turks who attacked Israeli commandoes after they boarded the…

Leon Kass shared with the Wall Street Journal his thoughts on the Kermit Gosnell trial:

New York

Nick Turse wants us to know that the killing of civilians during the war in Vietnam was “widespread, routine, and directly attributable to U.S. command policies,” that “gang rapes were a .  .  . common occurrence,” that the running-over of civilians by American vehicle drivers was “commonplace,”…

In February, North Korea conducted its third nuclear weapons test since 2006. The test, performed in defiance of scores of United Nations sanctions, outraged the international community. Within weeks, the U.N. had leveled more sanctions on the rogue regime, beefing up inspections of North Korean…

In recent weeks, Emporia State University became the first team ever to win both the Cross Examination Debate Association national tournament and the National Debate Tournament—the two biggest prizes in collegiate debate. But it turns out that Emporia won the National Debate Tournament in a rather…

There are plenty of ways that the New York Times could have chosen to refer to South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, whom Ethan Epstein profiled in these pages a few months back (“Democracy, Gangnam-Style,” December 17, 2012). In fact, The Scrapbook would probably have chosen just that:…

This is the latest in the “edible series” of books put out by Reaktion Books, each of which explores the history and cultural associations of a particular food or drink. Written by Lorna Piatti-Farnell of the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, Beef is number 33 in the series, its…

After several minutes of badgering from Sen. John McCain at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on April 9, Admiral Samuel Locklear admitted that the combination of regularly scheduled defense budget cuts and the “sequestration” provision of the current budget law meant that “in the near term…

Trance has to be judged one of the great disappointments in recent cinema, given that it is only the second movie Danny Boyle has made since Slumdog Millionaire. That Oscar-winning worldwide smash may have been the best film of the past decade. Not so Trance, which is very much like one of those…

If it is true that people’s political assumptions reflect the battles that were being waged when they were 18, then my assumptions are probably unreasonable. The first political leader to whom I paid serious attention wound up the most successful Western leader since the Second World War. I spent…

The 2012 national election continues to be a puzzle. Barack Obama won reelection with a solid 51 percent of the vote, and Democrats picked up 2 Senate seats, expanding their majority to 55-45. Yet the House of Representatives remained in Republican control, 234-201, yielding the divided government…

I cannot claim to have been an intimate of Margaret Thatcher’s. But I can claim to have known her on several levels—as a prime minister from whom I learned to put the “political” back into “political economy,” as a woman who fancied both her whisky and her sweet desserts, and as one who made it…

Oh, for ten years, that I may overwhelm / Myself in poesy.

The Scrapbook had the melancholy pleasure last week of attending a memorial service, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, for Robert Bork, who died a few days before Christmas. Judge Bork was properly eulogized at the time, but his death has rekindled a new interest in and appreciation of his…

In 2005, Steve Sailer wrote a cover story for the American Conservative theorizing that the divide between red and blue states was driven in large part by the cost of family formation. Sailer dubbed this the “Dirt Gap” (referring to the price of homes with yards), and his general thesis was that…

With President Obama, there’s always a catch. In the 2014 budget he announced last week, Obama proposed a more accurate way of calculating the inflation rate for annual cost-of-living increases in Social Security. It’s a technical change in pursuit of honesty and good government. And if adopted, it…

I was at a reception at the British embassy here in Washington in the early 1990s, I believe, when I was introduced to Margaret Thatcher by John O’Sullivan, her friend and former “Special Adviser.” Gertrude Himmelfarb, he told her, had recently delivered the Margaret Thatcher Lecture in Tel Aviv on…

There is still much we don’t know about the Boston Marathon bombers. It will take time to piece together a more complete picture of their backgrounds. But the investigation has taken an important turn since late last week, as U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials are delving into their…

Rahm Emanuel's brother, Zeke Emanuel, told NBC's David Gregory that Obamacare uncertainty is driving up the cost of health care insurance premiums:

“In this age of instant reporting and tweets and blogs, there's a temptation to latch on to any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions,” said President Obama, in the late evening of April 19, after Dzokhar Tsarnaev was captured alive in Watertown, Mass. “But when a tragedy like this…

In a joint statement, four lawmakers urge President Obama to treat the Boston bombing suspect picked up last night in Watertown, Mass. as an “enemy combatant.” Here’s the joint statement, signed by Rep. Peter King, Senators Kelly Ayotte, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham:

The police chief of the Watertown police department shares amazing new details of the chase for the Boston bombings suspects from Thursday night into Friday evening:

They come, they meet, they confer, they dash from television studio to television studio. Whether all of this to-do at the meetings here of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank signify anything very much in the world outside of policymakers’ conference rooms is unclear. The IMF did…

NBC reports:

In a statement meant to update the press on how the president is dealing with the situtation in Boston, the White House reveals that two officers were killed there last night:

A website that places a "value" on Twitter accounts has increased the estimated value of suspected Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's from $37 to more than $37,000 as of late Friday afternoon due to the tens of thousands of new curious followers.  Multiple news organizations reported the existence…

The delusional aunt of the suspects in the Boston bombings accused the feds of setting-up her nephews:

The suspect still on the run in the Boston bomings case appears to have used Twitter, under the account @J_tsar. On Wednesday, a couple days after he allegedly murdered innocent Americans, the suspect appears to have tweeted, "I'm a stress free kind of guy."

The Chechen president has apparently released a statement that blames the suspects' American upbringing for their alleged terrorist activity. 

UMass Dartmouth claims the suspect is "a student registered" at that university.

And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?They were, those people, a kind of solution. How many times in the last century have these concluding lines of C. P. Cavafy’s famous 1898 poem, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” been quoted? How many modern intellectuals have pondered the…

Mass. governor Deval Patrick said today a "massive manhunt underway" to look for the bombing suspects in the Boston-area:

Suspect two in the Boston bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is currently on the loose, appears to have attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. He appears to have been awarded a city scholarship in 2011.

The AP reports:

Reuters appears to have prematurely published George Soros's obituary:

The FBI has released this video of suspects in the Boston marathon bombings:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with William Kristol on the failed Toomey-Manchin proposal and gun control.

Disappointing Western hopes that he would put North Korea on a more rational and humane path, Kim Jong-un relishes showing his regime as one of the most odious and dangerous on the planet.  Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, the young new leader is acting the part of a…

President Obama thanked Boston marathon volunteers earlier today:

Joe Biden says the president of the United States is preparing to take "executive actions" to deal with guns. 

In what may be just an eerie coincidence, the Defense Department posted a contract award notice today to Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts for research into "Methods for Explosive Detection at Standoff." Of particular concern are Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) that have become a…

Yesterday Syrian president Bashar al-Assad commemorated Syria’s independence day with a television interview where he described the Syrian civil war as a colonial plot. Western powers, said Assad, “never accepted the idea of other nations having their independence. They want those nations to submit…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Michael Warren on his piece, "On Gosnell, Pro-Choicers Blame Pro-Lifers." Hosted by Michael Graham.

The AP reports:

Steve Hayes, with Juan Williams and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

Japan, meanwhile, had gone from victory unto victory, its fleet defeating that of every nation it faced.  The Americans at Pearl Harbor, the Dutch in the Java Sea, the British Royal Navy off Singapore where it lost the Prince of Wales and the Repulse and, then, in the Indian Ocean off Ceylon (now…

MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell made the case this evening that the National Rifle Association is to blame for the slow investigation into the Boston bombings:

James Taranto on the need for a new abortion regime.

In remarks in the Rose Garden, President Obama scolded the Senate for blocking gun control measures:

Vice President Joe Biden appeared to wipe away tears after a father of a Newtown victim spoke in the Rose Garden, and just as President Obama took the podium to speak about the Democratic-controlled Senate not expanding today's gun votes:

As was expected, the Toomey-Manchin gun control amendment to expand background checks for gun purchases failed to get the required 60 votes in the Senate this afternoon. The measure failed 56-44, with four Republicans voting for it -- John McCain, R-Ariz.; Mark Kirk, R-Ill.;  Susan Collins,…

Here's video of Democratic senator Max Baucus saying Obamacare implementation is heading for a "huge train wreck":

After multiple media outlets (especially CNN) wrongly reported that an arrest had been made in Boston, the FBI is urging media to "exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting."

After reporting that a suspect in the Boston bombings had been arrested, CNN backed off:

White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked at today's press briefing, in the context of the Boston bombings, whether U.S. bombings in Afghanistan last month that killed civilians were "terrorism." Carney gave a long answer, but never says "no."

Support for Obamacare has always been less than overwhelming. But there were constituencies that were thought to be reliable. Now, that seems to be changing, as the Wall Street Journal reports:

In a statement to the press, Senator Carl Levin says he "received a suspicious-looking letter."

White House spokesman Jay Carney released this statement on the Venezuelan election:

The Senate has sent out a message to staff: A "suspicious package" is being investigated by Capitol Police in one of the Senate office buildings.

In addition to a letter reportedly containing ricin sent to Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Fox News is reporting that a "second suspicious letter was sent to President Obama."

New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte announces this morning that she will not support the Manchin-Toomey gun bill, which is supposed to be voted on today in the Senate. Instead, Ayotte says, she is supporting "the Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act."

Last month, I reported that Obamacare had stirred up serious buyers remorse among unions who were discovering the law was driving up insurance costs, wreaking havoc with contractual negotiations, and making union jobs less competitive. While Big Labor is lobbying for special Obamacare subsidies and…

Texas senator John Cornyn announced this morning that he's offering "National Conceal-Carry Reciprocity Legislation" in the Senate, according to a press release from his office.

President Obama was asked about the Kermit Gosnell trial in an interview that aired this morning:

President Obama said in an interview aired this morning on NBC that he "wasn't familiar" of Jay-Z and Beyoncé's Cuba trip ahead of time:

Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, says the gun bill will not pass the Democratic-controlled Senate today. NBC reports:

AIPAC applauds the passage of a Senate "resolution standing with Israel against Iranian nuclear threat":

Tomorrow's page 1 of the Boston Herald:

Marco Rubio was direct about the biggest challenge he has as his comprehensive immigration reform bill is released this week. “It’s going to require a lot of communication,” said Rubio on a conference call with reporters Tuesday evening. 

Republicans should remember: Tax cuts aren't everything.

Embattled New Jersey senator Bob Menendez struck these four statements from a Senate resolution honoring the late Margaret Thatcher:

Barack Obama's administration will not be sending any sitting American politicians to attend funeral services for the former U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The Guardian reports:

The effort to build a modern Palestinian state that will live in peace with Israel suffered a great setback last week when pressure from both Fatah and Hamas forced the resignation of the Palestinian Authority prime Minister, Salam Fayyad. 

In a statement to the press, the Department of Homeland Security says that it doesn't believe the Boston bombings are part of a "broader plot" and it "continues to keep in place enhanced security measures at transportation hubs."

The problem with Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist on trial for killing a mother and at least seven infants born alive after botched abortions, is that the government has too many anti-abortion regulations and not enough public funds for providing abortions to poor women. That’s…

Jeff Zients, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, recently wrote an op-ed that appeared in newspapers around the country, and was also reproduced on the White House blog.  Zients touts the 2014 budget belated released last week by President Obama:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Ethan Epstein on his piece, Dateline Pyongyang, and why the Associated Press bureau in North Korea is problematic.

President Barack Obama has campaigned for gun control legislation after lone gunmen killed innocent civilians last year in both Colorado and Connecticut. Yet, as Politico reported Tuesday morning, gun control legislation is in danger of not passing the Democratically-controlled Senate, let alone…

In explaining why President Obama didn't call the Boston bombings a "terrorist attack," former adviser David Axelrod said, "I'm sure what was going through the president's mind is -- we really don't know who did this -- it was tax day":

President Obama shared his thoughts on North Korea in an interview that aired this morning on NBC:

Barney Frank discussing the Boston marathon bombing on CNN this morning:

The Associated Press reports:

NBC reports: 

CNN now reports that an 8-year-old child was killed in today's Boston marathon bombings:

President Barack Obama addressed the Boston Marathon bombing just now from the White House:

Fox News reports and provides video from Boston: 

President Obama signed a bill that eliminates a financial disclosure requirement for some government employees, the White House announced. Here's the White House's statement:

The latest round of Pulitzer Prizes is set to be announced this afternoon, and two things can be said about the eventual winners: Some recipents will be more deserving than others, and there will be an excess of self-congratulation. So this is as good a time as any to point you toward WEEKLY…

Jay Carney says the White House won't comment on the Kermit Gosnell baby murderer trial:

Our pieces on Margaret Thatcher in this week's issue elicited many responses. Among the most eloquent and powerful was this email to the boss from a senior Hill staffer who deals with GOP members on national security issues, written, the staffer says, with "spontaneous passion while I was walking…

Hardly anything in this world of chaos and surprise is so reliable as that the latest figures on the economy will turn out to be "unexpected.  As, for instance, confidence among homebuilders as reported this morning on Bloomberg.

There may actually be some movement in the long struggle to change and improve the way children are educated in this country.  The forces of the status quo – especially the teachers' unions – have fiercely resisted just about every reform and they have considerable power.  Still, the occasional…

Secretary of State John Kerry tells CNN that foreign students are "scared" of guns in America:

Democratic senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut admitted this morning that "It took me a while to figure out" that belief in gun rights is based on a philosophy:

Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post writes:

A year or so ago, I took part in a conference in Mexico for which I, along with several other intellectuals, academics, and writers, was paid an excellent fee to talk for 10 minutes. The proceedings took place over three days. They were held in a movie-sized theater and were well attended. I was…

To many in our cultural elite, Woody Guthrie is an American saint. The legendary songwriter from Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, is introduced to every American child by way of his folk anthem “This Land Is Your Land.” But for gatekeepers of the arts, Guthrie is much more: All of his work—every song,…

In late March, he won at Bay Hill, Arnold Palmer’s course. Two weeks before that, he won at Doral, Donald Trump’s course. After these victories, Tiger Woods would take two weeks off before teeing it up for the Masters in mid-April, on Bobby Jones’s course at Augusta. A win there would be his fifth.…

On March 18, 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a speech on race in America at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center. Though many praised the president for addressing the thorny topic, it’s worth recalling Obama was essentially forced into giving the speech after refusing to distance…

The surprise of The Sapphires is how unpretentious and unportentous it is, considering that its plot hinges not only on racist Australian policy but also the Vietnam war. Based loosely on a true story, The Sapphires is about four aboriginal girls (ranging in age from 15 to mid-20s) who turn…

People have been outraged to learn that Kathy Boudin, imprisoned for her role in the 1981 Brinks armored car robbery and murders in New York and paroled a decade ago, now holds an adjunct professorship in the school of social work at Columbia University, where she has been lecturing since 2008.…

The economist Leonard E. Read once explained the effectiveness of free markets with the parable of the pencil: Pencils seem simple enough, just some wood with graphite inside and a bit of rubber at the end​—​but, he said, “no one in the world knows how to make a pencil.”

[img caption="Michael Ramirez" float="left" width="480" height="640" render="<%photoRenderType%>"]4965[/img]

Last August a 28-year-old gay-rights volunteer named Floyd Corkins entered the office lobby of the Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian traditional-values group headquartered in Washington that condemns homosexual conduct and opposes same-sex marriage. Corkins took a gun from his backpack and…

Hardly anyone who takes a close look at the network of federal and state laws mandating minimum prison sentences for myriad offenses can doubt that they waste billions of dollars, destroy lives, and do a disservice to justice. Reading the stories assembled by groups like Families Against Mandatory…

Richard is a literature professor writing a book about myths. He is madly in love with his new wife, who herself might be a myth. Here, in Amy Sackville’s second novel, the author stays just this side of the supernatural. But while our real, physics-bound world can mostly account for what occurs,…

When Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to President Obama, spoke at a Politico event last week, he was asked what would constitute success in 2013 for the White House. One of his answers was making headway to “rebalance our economy.” The goal, he said, is an economy that’s “not top down.”

Even though it’s only April, the New York Times may already have run the most embarrassing correction that will appear in any major newspaper in 2013. In their story on Pope Francis’s first Easter message, no less than the Times’s Vatican reporter informed readers, “Easter is the celebration of the…

The reputation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood has sometimes suffered for its ability to create beautiful surfaces. The paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite artists are replete with lush colors, velvet and gilded textures, flowing locks and tresses. (Nobody in a Pre-Raphaelite painting just has hair.)…

[img nocaption float="left" width="640" height="640" render="<%photoRenderType%>"]4962[/img]

Gin has been with us for over 400 years, praised by one generation, excoriated by another. But even the most knowledgeable drinkers remain largely unaware of how gin was transformed from a concoction bubbling in the flasks of medieval alchemists into a spirit beloved by martini lovers around the…

Thomas Mathew, who farmed on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, remembered the year 1675 as beginning with all manner of fearful portents: a blazing comet, an invasion of millions of carrier pigeons, and a biblical plague of locusts. But it was Mathew himself who helped bring on the calamity…

Immigration Wars has gotten a lot of attention because of its proposal to offer undocumented immigrants permanent legal resident status in lieu of citizenship—and because of Jeb Bush’s subsequent walking it back and expressing a willingness to support some kind of a path to citizenship for…

For your weekend reading, Politico has a long Maggie Haberman piece on political rehabilitation. Her subjects are Mark Sanford and Anthony Weiner about whom some cannot get enough. Others undoubtedly believe that we know far too much already about both of these characters.  Still, Haberman writes:

Secretary of State John Kerry told the press in Beijing that he discussed with Chinese government officials investing in America's infrastructure. Kerry called the security concerns "very, very few; very, very little."

Just weeks after going 2 for 22 on the basketball court, President Barack Obama went to shoot hoops again -- but this time there were no camers allowed. He was joined by his former aide Reggie Love, who played basketball for Duke.

Chuck Schumer would not comment this morning on former congressman Anthony Weiner's political rehabilitation:

For the third weekend in a row, President Obama is hitting the links. CBS's Mark Knoller reports on Twitter:

The world of golf (an admittedly precious domain) held its breath Friday night and Saturday morning, waiting to learn if Tiger Woods would be disqualified at the Masters for a rules violation. This, after the enforcers of the rules had assessed a one-shot penalty against a fourteen year-old for…

To understand the American economy, you have to answer four questions. How can it be that unemployment remains high at the same time the number of job vacancies is rising? Will consumers keep buying cars and houses at anything like the current pace despite the recent increase in payroll taxes? How…

Matthew Continetti on Obama's agenda for the elite.

Today is National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, and who among us cannot celebrate that?  Well, perhaps Mayor Bloomberg could find that the iconic sandwich contains too many calories, especially if it has been supercharged by the addition of some bacon.  For the rest of us, it is interesting to know…

Our own Jonathan Last recently released a top-notch book, What to Expect When No One's Expecting, about America's coming demographic disaster. The book has been well received by readers, among them the justices on the Texas supreme court. On the sixth page of the court's recent decision for…

"The Bidens contributed $7,190 to charity in 2012," the White House revealed today. A look at the Bidens joint filing reveals that $2,000 of that donation was in the form of "donated property" given to Goodwill in Wilmington, Delaware.

This year, Joe and Jill Biden increased their charitable donations from 1.5 percent of their income to 1.87 percent.

This week's presidential radio address will be delivered by the mother of a victim of the Newtown massacre, the AP reports.

The economy’s (and economists’) nemesis, Dr. Unexpectedly, strikes again, this time singling out retail sales strangling predictions for pleasing March numbers, as Alex Kowalski of Bloomberg reports:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with William Kristol on immigration reform, gun control, and a review of this week in Washington. 

Top U.S. intelligence officials revealed new details about the exploitation of Osama bin Laden’s extensive archive during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday. The officials revealed that at least several hundred intelligence reports have been generated based on an analysis of bin…

Tokyo

State Department employee Anne Smedinghoff was killed in Afghanistan last weekend. At first reports suggested the young diplomat was part of an armed convoy that was bombed, but new reports say that she was actually on foot. And that the group she was with got lost on its way to deliver books.

The day after his inauguration on December 1, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto joined with leaders of the country’s two main opposition parties to sign the “Pact for Mexico,” a joint pledge to pursue dozens of domestic reforms in areas such as education, telecommunications, and energy. At the…

The Republican party in Arkansas has released this good video showing Sen. Mark Pryor's inconsistent gun record:

Away from the eyes of the world, ideological Islamists pursue infiltration of the moderate Muslim communities in Kosovo and Albania. But in nearly all cases, they continue to be rejected.

John Kerry has arrived in South Korea, where he said that North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power and that "President Obama has ordered a number of unspecified exercises not to take place; says U.S. has tried to lower its rhetoric," according to Reuters.

Tulsi Gabbard, a congresswoman representing Hawaii's Second Congressional District, responds to President Obama's proposed budget by expressing concern over missile defense cuts. "It would also cut our missile defense budget, even as Hawai‘i and the rest of the country face direct and heightened…

Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, the Republican party's 2012 vice presidential nominee, delivered the following address at Thursday night's Susan B. Anthony List gala:

Senator Pat Toomey has finally posted the full text of "The Public Safety And Second Amendment Rights Protection Act," the so called gun Senate compromise bill, agreed upon by Toomey, Joe Manchin, and Chuck Schumer. Here's the text of 7,800 word bill:

Kirsten Powers on the media silence over Kermit Gosnell.

Ten years ago today, the day Baghdad fell to American troops, I wrote that with the downfall of Saddam Hussein, I finally felt free as a journalist to criticize the Iraqi regime under my own byline without fear of reprisal from Saddam’s henchmen in Beirut, where I then lived. The evening that I…

President Barack Obama talked about "climate change" with the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, today at the White House. Via the pool report:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Geoffrey Norman on the Senate's consideration of Harry Reid's gun control legislation.

Today NOW Lebanon publishes an article, with charts and graphics, explaining how the war in Syria pitting Sunni-majority rebels against Bashar al-Assad’s minority Alawite regime has spread to Lebanon, affecting the delicate sectarian balance there. The fighting in Lebanon so far has been contained…

David Corn, the Mother Jones writer who released the "secret tape" of a Mitch McConnell campaign meeting, might have broken the law by publishing information that appears to have been obtained illegally, according to sources.

A Louisville-area Democrat says two employees of Kentucky Progress, a left-wing activist group, are responsible for secretly recording a strategy session between Republican senator Mitch McConnell and his campaign staff. WFPL, the Louisville National Public Radio affiliate, has the scoop:

During the House Intelligence Committee hearing today on “Worldwide Threats,” Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper said that he has recently had conversations about releasing more of the documents captured in Osama bin Laden’s compound. More of the documents should be released,…

When President Obama released his first budget — entitled with no hint of irony, “A New Era of Responsibility” — he projected that deficit spending over the next five fiscal years (2010-14) would total $3.767 trillion.  Now, Obama has released his fifth budget (which doesn’t seem to have a name). …

Veteran Michigan congressman Dave Camp has all but ruled out running for an open Senate seat next year. The Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means committee told reporters Thursday morning at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor that he is focused on getting Congress to…

President Obama will be meeting today with people one of his predecessors might call "malefactors of great wealth."  According to Dawn Kopecki & Margaret Talev of Bloomberg, visitors to the White House will include:

Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz made a special request of the United States Capitol Police for her staff members to be treated well during sequester:

The House Intelligence Committee will be holding a hearing on “Worldwide Threats” today. The most senior U.S. intelligence officials are scheduled to testify.

In a speech that addressed youth violence in Chicago, First Lady Michelle Obama compared herself to Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old girl murdered soon after attending President Obama's Second Inauguration. "Hadiya Pendleton was me, and I was her," said the first lady.

Surprise: Democrats the only ones who like our tax system.

Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, the husband and wife team of former U.S. officials (he was with the CIA and she was with the State Department) who’ve made a second career out of advocacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, have just published a book. Going to Tehran: Why the United States…

Over at Real Clear Politics, Jean Yarbrough has a response to a New York Times op-ed defending Michael Bloomberg's soda ban. The Times piece was written by Sarah Conly, a Bowdoin College professor who seems to specialize in coercive paternalism.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Fred Barnes on President Obama's bloated budget.

Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Manchin announced a gun bill compromise to expand background checks earlier today. The legislation is in direct response to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December.

Standing in the wings of the auditorium at Howard University’s business school were three or four young volunteers who didn’t look like students. Each wore a small red sticker on his chest, which read, “Stand with Rand.” As Howard students filed into the room, the volunteers would gently push…

Abortionist Kermit Gosnell is on trial in Philadelphia for killing a female patient and using scissors to cut the spines of fetuses that were aborted alive. According to the grand jury report, he killed “hundreds” of living fetuses. It was his “standard business practice.” Mysteriously, Gosnell…

MSNBC has hired a new producer. This one comes directly from the Democratic party.

Republican senator Pat Toomey and Democratic senator Joe Manchin are introducing a gun "compromise" bill today called "The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act."

President Barack Obama introduced his budget today by saying "There's not a lot of smoke and mirrors in here":

Mark Knoller from CBS News reports this morning that President Obama, in a statement in the Rose Garden, “will stress his budget’s top objective is to boost the economy and create jobs.” To do that, he’ll have to contradict what he previously described as “the consensus among people who know the…

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour. In support of this initiative, the White House has blogged about it and published a "fact sheet," as well. Acting Secretary of Labor Seth Harris has even conducted a "minimum wage tour" to draw…

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius did not expect it to be this tough, according to the Hill's Justin Sink:

Mother Jones, the liberal magazine that somehow obtained audio of a private Mitch McConnell campaign meeting, now wonders whether the top Republican in the Senate is breaking the law. The direct accusation is that Senate staffers did work to help McConnell's reelection, which if done on official…

The pool report from Memphis night at the White House:

Sebelius did not anticipate opposition to Obamacare.

Al Qaeda’s presence inside Syria is now so significant that the terrorist organization has decided it is no longer worthwhile to pretend otherwise. Previously, al Qaeda operated under a thinly veiled alternative identity – the Al Nusrah Front.

The White House will furlough the assistant chef because of sequestration, the Associated Press reports.

Harry Reid announced today that there will likely be a gun vote on Thursday.

Last week, the U.S. embassy in Macedonia hosted a fashion show "with a goal of supporting Macedonia’s economic development, the fashion and textile sectors, and youth entrepreneurship."

President Obama has never been shy about hitting up those "millionaires and billionaires" for the cash he needs to bash them and "fundamentally transform" things.  Up to now, they have been generous but patience, it seems, is beginning to fray.  The donors would like to see some more action and…

The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, is asking the feds to investigate whether a closed campaign meeting was illegally wiretapped by his political opponents. The issue arises after the liberal outlet Mother Jones published "A recording of a private meeting between the Senate GOP…

While the talk among the political class is of guns and gay marriage, the concern out in the country is, doubtless, about jobs and economic growth. And the hope is that the recovery will show a little pride and act like a real recovery and that business will start expanding and hiring.  The…

A list of rappers and stars, including Russell Simmons, LL Cool J, Lil Wayne, Ludacris, Kim Kardashian, and many more, have written an open letter to President Obama to ask that he ease the nation's drug policy. They also ask that prison policy be changed, too. 

On Barack and Michelle Obama's schedule for today, this event is listed:

President Obama, speaking today in Connecticut, said that we should pass gun control measures for the folks who say "let's make it a little harder for our kids to get gunned down":

Margaret Thatcher and muscular feminism.

Maggie Haberman reports:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with William Kristol on the rise of Margaret Thatcher and the lessons for today's GOP. 

The White House announced two days of garden tours, but visitors will still be barred from entering the White House--a policy that's been blamed on sequestration. Here's the White House announcement:

The Treasury Department "fully licensed" Beyonce and Jay Z's trip to Cuba, according to Reuters.

Maryland governor Martin O'Malley, a possible Democratic candidate for president in 2016, just passed a very strict gun law, which includes a so-called assault weapons ban. But what's especially interesting is that before the December shooting at a school in Connecticut, Governor O'Malley had no…

For all the talk of "changing the culture in Washington," it appears to be business as usual ... only more so.  Things are done – when, and if, they are – by people who play a tough inside game with no spectators. Washington will soon be working on revisions to the tax laws – since, obviously, they…

The economy is not seamless and as all have known for some time now it is better to be where taxes are low and unions are scarce.  Consider this recent example, as reported by Michelle R. Smith of the AP:

As tension rises between North Korea and America, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Sung Kim, went on a family vacation. The ambassador today shared his experience in a lengthy blog post.

President Obama's statement on the passing of Baroness Margaret Thatcher:

The U.S. will be spending less, in the coming months and years, on defending itself from missile attacks.  As Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg reports:

And now the last of them is gone. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II—three who won the Cold War and, it isn't too much to say, saved the West (at least for a while!)—are no longer with us. Their examples remain.

The BBC reports that Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister of the UK from 1979 to 1990, has died:

This is a bad time to be a young American. As Ben Casselman writes in the Wall Street Journal:

President Obama came under fire last week after praising the looks of California's female attorney general, Kamala Harris. She "happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country," Obama said of her. 

Since the Shermans of General Patton's Third Army crossed the Rhine on March 22, 1945, there have been American tanks in Germany.  No more, as John Vandiver of Stars and Stripes reports.

In his weekly radio address, President Obama explained the budget he'll rollout next week, and said, "the truth is, our deficits are already shrinking."

Enough is enough. That isn’t a bad shorthand description of Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s new economic policy. Enough of lost decades, enough of deflation, enough of an over-valued yen, enough of wage stagnation, enough of the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) “timidity.” More printing of money, more…

Obama's Prague speech meets reality.

A restaurant where President Obama took winners of his 2012 campaign’s “Dinner with Barack” contest was forced to close this week because it was cited for failing to comply with Washington, D.C.’s health and sanitation regulations.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with William Kristol on the economy, North Korea, and Obamacare. Hosted by Michael Graham.

The Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee is breaking down President Obama's budget with this preliminary analysis:

White House spokesman Jay Carney said at today's press briefing that the president's proposed budget, which should be released next week, is not what Barack Obama would do if were king:

Mackenzie Eaglen, writing for Time:

Last week, a Planned Parenthood official testified before the Florida legislature in opposition to a bill that would require an abortion doctor to provide medical care to any infant who survives an attempted abortion.

Last week, a Planned Parenthood official testified before the Florida legislature in opposition to a bill that would require an abortion doctor to provide medical care to any infant who survives an attempted abortion.

When the monthly employment report came out Friday morning, Alan Krueger, Chairman of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, quickly commented on the White House blog.  He began with the observation that "more work remains to be done":

The New York Daily News reports: 

The White House appears sanguine about a jobs report that one of its former economic advisors has described as a "punch to the gut."

White House economist Alan Krueger said this morning on CNBC that today's jobs report doesn't change the president's economic policy:

Jim Cramer said this morning on CNBC that the new jobs report could signal a "permanent unemployed level":

Zero Hedge goes inside the 7.6 and 88,000 numbers, and reports:

Austan Goolsbee, a former economic adviser to President Obama, called this morning's jobs report "a punch to the gut":

The latest jobs numbers, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Matt Continetti, writing in the Washington Free Beacon:

At a Democratic National Committee fund raising event in Atherton, California Thursday morning, President Obama declared that the United States government still needs to get its fiscal house in order:

Why isn't Obama going after Hollywood for gun violence?

President Obama released the following statement on the passing of film critic Roger Ebert:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editorial assistant Ethan Epstein on North Korea's belligerence. Hosted by Michael Graham.

Anna Nix, a spokeswoman for Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, responds to news that Terry McAuliffe won't take a position on Cuccinelli's decision to prosecute a 47-year-old man who solicited teen girl:

John Kerry, who is worth an estimated $198.65 million, will donate $9,175 because of the so-called sequestration. 

Liberal blogs have been ridiculing Virginia attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli for prosecuting a 47-year-old man named William Scott MacDonald under Virginia’s anti-sodomy law. While the prosecution is an obvious sign to some in the press that Cuccinelli is backward and…

At a fundraiser last night in San Francisco, President Barack Obama said that the Newtown killer gunned down 20 children using a "fully automatic weapon." From the official transcript, provided by the White House:

Wednesday night, President Obama spoke at two Democratic party fundraising events in California. A common theme was the challenge he faces in working with Republicans in Congress. At the home of Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor, the president gave Republicans a rather backhanded compliment:

The Johns Hopkins University office of institutional equity has determined that pro-life students who want to conduct sidewalk counseling outside of a Baltimore abortion clinic are not engaging in harassment under university policies.

Disappointing first time claims numbers as Reuters reports:

The Obama administration is very much about bold visions and big promises, and it takes pride in "fundamentally transforming" this and that, doing things in "a new way," and so forth.  However, this turns out to be the easy part. Take Obamacare. The thing is a patchwork of waivers and carve…

The details of a stimulus grant awarded to Indiana University to study condom use have now been released on a government website. The study, titled "Barriers to Correct Condom Use," is now completed, according to the website, and the university received $423,500 of stimulus funds to perform the…

President Barack Obama raised campaign funds yesterday for the 2014 House elections. Visiting the homes of California billionaires, Obama touted Nancy Pelosi, as a primary reason for Democrats needing to win the next national election.

U.S. embassy in Cairo shuts down Twitter account.

President Bill Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law in 1996, is now set to be honored a gay lobbying group in Los Angeles.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that, if you like your gun, you can keep it under President Barack Obama's gun control plan. He made the comments today aboard Air Force One, en route to a speech on gun control in Colorado.

Senator Schumer is playing to his softer, more rural side, again.  First, he proposed subsidies to stimulate maple syrup production in upstate New York.  Now, he wants to reduce the taxes paid by producers of hard cider.  As reported by Ramsey Cox in the Hill, Schumer is arguing:

One of the most sinister characters on TV appears in AMC’s hit series The Walking Dead and is known as the Governor. Initially presented as a selfless leader, the Governor is soon exposed as a deranged tyrant who demands absolute loyalty from everyone around him and worships death to the point of…

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s address to the National Defense University today, hyped by the administration as a “strong message that the time has come for [the Department of Defense] to consider fundamental change in how it is organized and how it operates to better reflect 21st century…

The New York Times reports:

In 2003, the governments of North and South Korea agreed to establish the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a manufacturing zone located just over the North Korean border. The South Korean conglomerates Hyundai and the Korea Land Corporation run the facilities, where more than 100 other smaller South…

Michelle Jamrisko at Bloomberg reports:

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer was asked Wednesday morning to decribe what he considers President Obama’s "precepts" for getting things done in Washington. “There’s almost no characteristic more important than discipline,” Pfeiffer responded.

Rev. Michael Pfleger, the Catholic priest who sparked controversy for making racial remarks about Hillary Clinton at Barack Obama's Chicago church in 2008, will be honored at the Broadcasting Board of Governors "Diversity Day" program on May 14 in Washington, D.C. 

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel discusses the threat of North Korea with his Chinese counterpart yesterday evening, according to the Pentagon.

Peter Wehner writes in the Washington Post:

The Washington Post reports:

Actually, North Korea's pretty dangerous.

Next week Justin Timberlake, Al Green, Queen Latifah, and many others will perform at the White House in a "Memphis Soul" concert, the White House announced today.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol on the North Korea problem and the Obama Administration's missile defense policy failure. Hosted by Michael Graham.

JQWilson.org, a website devoted to James Q. Wilson, has gone live:

Republican congressman Bill Cassidy will run for Senate in Louisiana in 2014, the Associated Press reports. Cassidy will be the first major GOP candidate to enter the race to challenge sitting Democrat Mary Landrieu. The AP has more:

Last night at the Kennedy Center concert hall, Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese delivered the 2013 National Endowment for the Humanities Jefferson Lecture. He spoke of the importance of preserving film and lamented the studios' fixation with box office grosses. The end of celluloid saddened…

At a "workshop" for the film 42 in the State Dining Room of the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama told the assembled guests that "this is your house, too."

College basketball player Kevin Ware's compound fracture in Sunday's Elite Eight game has gained widespread media attention. And now a Kentucky group is trying to capitalize off the Louisville player's injury. 

At a speech this morning at the White House to outline a new science initiative, President Barack Obama named himself "Scientist-in-Chief."

The federal government will now allow companies that sell "nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products," such as Nicorette, not to put warning labels on their merchandise, the Food and Drug Administration announced. The change, the FDA now admits, is because the warnings, which were mandated for…

Senator Charles Schumer has discovered a new cash crop that requires taxpayer support.  As Pete Kasperowicz writes in the Hill:

As the sequester bore down on Washington, the dire warnings from the Obama administration gave the impression that wild horses couldn't drag another dime out of the treasury for a whole host of vital government services. Aircraft carrier refueling, the Head Start program, and White House tours were…

The social conservatives strike back.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on President Obama's bad sequester calculus. Hosted by Michael Graham.

Adam Kredo reports:

White House spokesman Jay Carney wouldn't comment on the controversial nature of Easter service attended by President Obama and his family: 

Via the pool report: 

The Sacramento Bee reports: 

Nick Gillespie reviews Jonathan V. Last's book, What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster:

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, will be nominated to be the next ambassador to Japan, the Washington Post reports.

At 8:00 a.m. on July 11, 1708, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, captain general of British forces, and de facto commander of the Dutch, Hanoverian, Prussian, Danish, and other forces of the Grand Alliance, ordered his 80,000 men across the River Scheldt at the village of Oudenaarde in Flanders.…

"The Declaration of Independence was signed by, among others, our ancestor Robert Livingston,” 10-year-old Alexandra lectures her younger cousin, as they tramp through snow to skate on a pond at Rokeby, the 450-acre estate on which they both live. Thus we enter Alexandra Aldrich’s childhood memoir,…

Dublin

With the Supreme Court decision upholding President Obama’s health care law last summer and his reelection in November, liberals are triumphant, convinced that Obamacare is here to stay. When pressed on this matter, they point to the political success of Medicare to show how quickly new…

[img caption="Michael Ramirez" float="left" width="485" height="640" render="<%photoRenderType%>"]4952[/img]

In academia, scholars trying to get ahead look for the Next Big Thing. In the field of American foreign relations, that just may be something called “public diplomacy,” a term that conjures a vision of diplomatic efforts aimed not simply at other diplomats but at large populations. Justin Hart,…

To the list of perennial press stories—the schoolgirl who refuses to pledge allegiance to the flag but is off to Harvard this fall, the old Vermont farmer who voted for Dewey but doesn’t much care for today’s Republican party—may be added the importunate celebrity invitation. 

Oral arguments on gay marriage take place before the Supreme Court the last week of March, and the pile of amicus briefs filed by interested parties long ago passed the point of redundancy. We prefer briefs filed by disinterested parties, such as the one put before the Court earlier in the month by…