July 2013

Wednesday, Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, wrote on the White House blog about revisions to economic statistics by the Bureau of Economic Analysis going all the way back to 1929.  Krueger largely interpreted the news as good, noting that the revisions…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the de-fund vs. delay Obamacare debate, the so-called 'phony' scandals that aren't going away, and the Chris Christie/Rand Paul schoolyard brawl.

The AP reports:

A strange story today via a Portland, Oregon police press release:  NBA Houston Rockets player Terrence Alexander Jones was arrested early this morning after allegedly stomping on a homeless man's leg:

John Kerry says he can get an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement within nine months that would lead to an independent Palestinian state. That’s ambitious to be sure, but Kerry’s optimism raises a key question: With Syria torn by civil war, Egypt in the midst of a meltdown that may lead to another…

Edward Snowden, one of many thousands of people holding very high security clearances, stole the family jewels in what was, arguably, the greatest security breach in American history.  And the reaction of the agency that he violated?  The usual Washington shrug.  Stuff, you know, happens.…

Have you heard the news? Janet Yellen is positively clairvoyant!

John King reported this morning that a reporter from CNN was able to interview a lead suspect in the Benghazi terror attack for two hours:

As implementation of Obamacare draws closer, nerves among a certain constituency are increasingly frayed.  As Robert Pear of the New York Times writes:

In a blog post published this morning, the White House explains why historic economic data has been updated. "The comprehensive revision to the national accounts, which is the first since July 2009, includes additional source data received by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, as well as…

Even if you're Warren Buffett--billionaire investor, founder of Berkshire Hathaway, and Democratic donor--it helps to have friends in high places. Through his holding company MidAmerican Energy, Buffett is currently atttempting to purchase NV Energy, a Nevada-based energy firm, and he's getting…

Seems the Transportation Security Administration has a problem.  In short, many of the people who frisk you, paw through your luggage, and herd you like cattle through the lines at the airport are stealing on the job.  Among other derelictions.  And the problem, as CNN reports, is growing:  

CNBC reports:

After getting over the shock of the Obama administration’s unilateral decision to delay the employer mandate for a year, supporters of the law have taken to downplaying the significance of the step. Jonathan Chait and Ezra Klein, among others, have said it is just not that big of a deal to delay a…

Paul Ryan knocks Obama's corporate tax plan.

Secretary of State John Kerry added to the already ample fanfare surrounding the launch of talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators by holding a press conference yesterday to introduce his new special envoy to the peace process, Martin Indyk.

More than ten months after the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, Ansar al Sharia is even more entrenched in Libyan society. Members of Ansar al Sharia in Benghazi were reportedly part of the al Qaeda-linked jihadist coalition that killed four Americans, including a U.S.…

Republican Andy Vidak, the newly elected California state senator from Fresno, won a heavily Democratic and Hispanic district in last week's special election. The Washington Times reports that Vidak succeeded because he and other local Republicans showed up:

Fox News’s now infamous interview with Reza Aslan last week has rallied much of the media to the Iranian-born and now Hollywood-based academic’s defense, and catapulted his recently published Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth to number one on Amazon. Fox's Lauren Green grilled the…

“What Republicans don’t often do well is focus on, ‘How do we win?’” said Texas senator Ted Cruz, speaking to bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington Tuesday afternoon.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie, asked on Tuesday to respond to an ongoing back and forth between himself and fellow Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, said he was "asked a question" about national security and answered it.

The New York Times reports that President Obama is reviving an old proposal to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent (and 25 percent for manufacturers). Obama's push to lower the corporate tax rate to 28 percent comes less than a year after he raised the top individual income…

In a press release today, Georgia insurance commissioner Ralph T. Hudgens warns that, because of Obamacare, "Georgia insurance companies are demanding massive rate increases up to 198 percent for some individuals." Hudgens claims this runs contrary to President Obama's promise to "Americans that…

While furloughs of civilian employees of the Defense Department have not lived up to the pre-sequester billing, the Pentagon is doing what it can to ease the pain for those who will be taking involuntary time off.  The American Forces Press Service is reporting that the director of the Pentagon's…

They say bad news comes in threes and today there was another jailbreak in the dangerous part of the world.  As Zahir Shah Sherazi reports on CNN:

In his latest email to supporters, President Obama bemoans his lack of political power. The email, sent today, is signed by Obama and sent to the list of Organizing for Action, his former reelection campaign group.

Consumer confidence fell, last month, from 82.1to 80.3.  

Now for some news that is absolutely essential to your getting through the rest of this day. 

When Congress was debating implementation of the sequester, the Pentagon released a report saying that if the cuts were to kick in, civilian personnel could be furloughed for 22 days -- nearly a month's worth of work. But now that the sequester has kicked in, those furlough days appear to have been…

Palestinians and Israelis are meeting in Washington to talk about a peace plan with Secretary of State John Kerry. But the Palestinians leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is in Egypt where he's revealed his thinking on the issue.

There has been a fair amount of discussion in recent days about whether Republicans should try to defund Obamacare. The instinct to do something about Obamacare is right. But Republicans can learn something from the American people. As polls have consistently shown, Americans like the idea of…

On Obamacare, Paul Krugman ought to know better.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on President Obama's second term plans and how the GOP should respond.

When the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, one provision that kicked in immediately was a Small Business Health Care Tax Credit.  The IRS explains how the fairly generous credit works:

National Journal reports:

The White House released this photo of Hillary Clinton lunching with President Barack Obama:

White House spokesman Josh Earnest says he hasn't heard President Barack Obama express an opinion of Anthony Weiner's run for mayor of New York City:

ABC reports that the Bradley Manning verdict will be announced tomorrow:

President Obama has released a statement calling for Israeli-Palestinians "talks in good faith and with sustained focus and determination."

In a sharp memo sent this morning to fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill, Senator Jeff Sessions argues that the GOP elite view on immigration--shared by President Barack Obama and Senator Chuck Schumer--is "nonsense." Instead, Sessions, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, advises his…

Secretary of State John Kerry will host "an Iftar dinner for Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni," according to a copy of his schedule released by the State Department. The dinner will also be attended by "Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat."

In the fifth year of "recovery," the rule seems to be that the only jobs that are available (to those who are still looking) are not full-time positions. According to a recent Gallup poll:

At Frontpage, Peter Collier has an excellent brief account of the life of Medal of Honor recipient Colonel George "Bud" Day, who died over the weekend at the age 88. I had the honor of meeting him a few times, and was struck by his modesty and affability. But many men are modest and affable. How…

The bankrupt city of Detroit may have found a way out of its health care woes for its retired city workers: shifting the costs to taxpayers nationwide via Obamacare. If Detroit and other struggling municipalities follow through, the result could be a "huge cost" to taxpayers.  The New York…

Adam Kredo reports that Secretary of State John Kerry has an "enormous" carbon "footprint."

The trial of George Zimmerman over the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was actually two trials in one.

Concern over surges of immigration by unfamiliar groups is a hardy perennial of American history: Scotch-Irish (1763-1775), Irish and Germans (1846-55), Ellis Island arrivals from Eastern and Southern Europe (1892-1914), Mexicans and other Latinos (1982-2007). That’s the list from Michael Barone,…

After five years of war, the battered cities and towns of Great Britain, frayed but unbroken, took on a dingy sameness. They smelled of coal smoke and infrequent bathing, while “privation lay on the land like another odor.” Shortages of food and the simplest tools of everyday life, from shoelaces…

Much has been written about the origins and earliest years of baseball, and much, much more has been written about the period after the founding of the American League and the introduction of the rule to make foul balls strikes in 1901, from which point most people date the modern game. 

For years now, I have been showing the gorgeous four volumes of Audubon’s Birds of America to visitors and students at Indiana University’s Lilly Library. Each time, I take pleasure in the sumptuous colors of Audubon’s plates, still luminous after almost two centuries, and the dramatic stories of…

Vienna

In The Semi-Sovereign People, political scientist E. E. Schattschneider asked the question: Of all the potential political conflicts within society, why do only a few become active? His answer has to do with the power to set the agenda. He wrote, “Political conflict is not like an intercollegiate…

Faithful readers of The Scrapbook may remember the small scuffle that ensued when the Census Bureau briefly proposed removing a question about “number of times married” from its annual American Community Survey. The question is our best tool for understanding patterns of marriage and divorce, and…

Houston detective Roland March is in many ways a typical police procedural protagonist. 

With this month’s passage of a farm bill that doles out tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to agribusiness interests, the Republican-controlled House has signaled that the class of 2010 dream of a genuinely “small government” majority is well and truly dead.

You may have read about the rise in the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation, making you think that we are on our way to becoming as irreligious as Europe. You may have read how religion is growing fast in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, leaving you to think religion is on the…

In light of the ongoing, slow-motion collapse of the mainstream media, at least one major journalism school has decided to reassess its priorities. Last week, Inside Higher Ed reported that the prestigious Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California is revamping its…

In the beginning, there was the Harvard Lampoon. And it was good. And the Harvard Lampoon begat the National Lampoon. And the National Lampoon begat the live stage show Lemmings. And Lemmings begat Saturday Night Live. And Saturday Night Live begat the movie Animal House and Spy magazine and The…

Benjamin Franklin is a biographer’s dream. Successful, long-lived, articulate, witty, and saucy, he wrote about nearly all his activities and left a well-marked documentary trail. He made such a vivid impression on his American, French, and British contemporaries that dozens of them wrote about…

It is not often that a president announces his decision not to enforce a law as written, the House of Representatives responds by offering to restore the rule of law by amending that law to permit the delay the president wishes .  .  . and then the president threatens to veto that legislation if it…

Visitors guided to Jane Austen’s handsome burial marker in Winchester Cathedral, as I was one June day some years ago, may gaze with surprise, as I did, at the elaborate inscription. It pays tribute to “the goodness of her heart .  .  . [and] the extraordinary endowments of her mind,” but makes no…

It's a thankless job, being a political aide. Your every prerogative and responsibility derives like planetary light from the combustion of your supernova, the Great Man or Woman who has brought you into his (or her!) orbit and whose gravitational field guides and sustains you. The connection isn’t…

Putting the best possible light on the Obama presidency has been a challenge for journalists, and most have risen to the challenge, with obvious enthusiasm. Ingenuity, too: Not only was the president declared a Great President before he was sworn into office, but close analysis has found his…

It’s surprising when a candidate for office tells you exactly what he’ll do if elected. It’s even more surprising when that candidate is Eliot Spitzer. The former Democratic governor of New York resigned in 2008 after being exposed as a client of a high-priced prostitution ring, but as the New York…

A few years ago, I found the scorecard my grandfather had kept of a September 16, 1904, doubleheader he attended at Boston’s Huntington Grounds. He saw Cy Young pitch in the opener for the Boston Americans (now Red Sox) and Jack Chesbro pitch in the second game for the New York Highlanders (now…

On Sunday, Nevada’s Democratic senator Harry Reid said that taking away the Senate minority’s right to filibuster would be outrageous, and even criminal. “That contempt for the rule of law and the law of rules,” Reid said, “will set a new precedent—an illegal precedent—that will always remain on…

"Something terrible has happened to the soul of the Republican Party. We’ve gone beyond bad economic doctrine. We’ve even gone beyond selfishness and special interests. At this point we’re talking about a state of mind that takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already…

It’s hard to believe that National Affairs, the successor quarterly to the Public Interest, is already on its sixteenth issue. But that issue just arrived on The Scrapbook’s desk, and we see that editor Yuval Levin has put out another smorgasbord of must-read articles. We particularly enjoyed…

I woke this morning to the gentle coo of a mourning dove on my windowsill. The gentle coo, the mellifluous murmur. You know that sound—mourning doves are everywhere in this country, over three hundred million of them across North America, calling out their woo-OO-oo-oo-oo in wistful sorrow at…

The Scrapbook takes no official position on whether the Koch brothers should buy the newspapers owned by the Tribune Company. It’s an open question whether the Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and a half-dozen other papers are national treasures which must be saved from…

House Republicans don’t get no respect. Has there been in recent times a more derided, mocked, and pitied bunch? Establishment types think the backbenchers are Neanderthals, grassroots activists denounce the leadership as a bunch of squishes, and the media can’t find enough bad things to say about…

If one thing distinguishes all of Conrad Black’s books, from his brilliant biographies of Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon to his impassioned 2011 apologia, A Matter of Principle, it is exuberance. The onetime press magnate takes up nothing that he does not enliven, and by offering readers a…

It will probably never be known how many people died because they were betrayed by Kim Philby to the NKVD, or its successor, the KGB. Konstantin Volkov, a KGB agent working under diplomatic cover as a consular officer in Istanbul in 1945, is just one standout example. For the sum of £5,000, Volkov…

The headline on this Chicago Sun-Times story is arresting, to say the least:

David Axelrod, a former top political adviser to Barack Obama, says it's "time for" Anthony Weiner "to go away":

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew refused to say on national TV this morning whether the politically appointed counsel of the IRS, William Wilkins, has been asked about his participation in the federal agency's scandal:

Are we watching the demise of al Qaeda or its rebirth?

The city of Detroit is unable to light or police its streets but it can provide circuses on ice for its (mostly unemployed) citizens.  While the city may have declared bankruptcy just the other day, as Chris Isidore of CNN reports:

Another presidential “pivot.” Having “pivoted” from Europe to Asia, Barack Obama’s White House has announced another pivot. This one, according to Politico, “to re-focus his oft-meandering message back on the economy.” It seems that voters are less interested in Obama’s drive for gun control (he…

Matthew Continetti: Obama's speech wasn't about the economy, it was about politics.

The White House press secretary announced that the Obama administration will be sending two Gitmo inmates to Algeria.

As the sequester sinks in and starts to hit the U.S. military, many have focused on the impact of unpaid furlough days for civilians, air shows grounded, and fireworks foregone.  

The administration has plans to spend $700 million persuading citizens to sign up for Obamacare.  Early signs are that it will be a tough sell.  As Joel Gehrke reports in the Washington Examiner:

Wendy Davis, the abortion cheerleader from Texas who's considering a run for governor, held a fundraiser yesterday at a popular restaurant across from the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Perhaps the highest-profile attendee was former speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was caught on video leaving the event:

On Thursday, Republican senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Democratic senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri joined with several female veterans of the armed forces to speak out against a proposal that would create a new justice system for serious military prosecutions, independent of military…

Charlie LeDuff, writing in the New York Times:

Speaker John Boehner defended the House's repeated efforts to disrupt Obamacare yesterday at the Capitol:

Hard to imagine a finer example of conspicuous consumption than this ... and in Moscow:

NBC reports on a "love letter" from American father to his son written on Hitler's stationery:

Vice President Joe Biden surprised a man in Singapore when he sat next to him today. It was a surprise because the guy didn't recognize Biden.'

Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker: Obamacare isn't working.

Throughout his time as president, Barack Obama has often been the subject of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum for not engaging enough with Congress, Republicans in particular, to solve problems and work through legislative issues.  However, during a press gaggle today aboard Air…

Speaking at the United Nations in New York City, John Kerry flatly said, "There is no military solution to Syria." He was standing next to Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon when he made the remarks.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to mark "World Toilet Day." The day will be celebrated November 19.

A new Fox News poll says that independents support the repeal of Obamacare by a whopping 40-point margin (65 to 25 percent).  That’s more than twice the margin by which Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale, or Franklin Roosevelt beat Herbert Hoover.

Portland is nothing if not tolerant. The picturesque city in the Pacific Northwest has, in recent years, endured one mayor who admitted to a gay affair with an underage intern, a different mayor who claimed residency in Washington state (where there is no income tax) yet voted in Oregon, not to…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with staff writer Jay Cost on President Obama's plunging poll numbers. 

If you are a U.S. senator and have a cool idea about taxes but are worried to speak it aloud for fear some of your constituents will peel your hide off in small strips ... well, there is hope.  A couple of your colleagues have come up with a plan.

The momentum to restrict Iranian oil exports has stalled, and it is time for Congress to eschew a more gradualist approach and mandate zero oil exports with zero waivers. This, along with more concrete military pressure, could increase the otherwise slim chances for success in expected new talks…

Via the Washington Free Beacon, Arkansas congressman Tom Cotton defended the NSA tool on the House floor this evening:

Health insurers fleeing markets because of Obamacare.

The national limit on late-term abortion passed by the House of Representatives in June is a losing issue for pro-life Republicans, according to the conventional wisdom in the press and the Republican donor class. But there are two compelling reasons why the conventional wisdom is wrong.

Al Qaeda’s jailbreaks have been an all too common occurrence in the post-9/11 world. And they have directly fueled the fight. Chances are the massive jailbreak in Iraq this week will cause significant problems for the U.S. and its allies down the road. History tells us as much. There are numerous…

The idea of building a $40 billion canal in Nicaragua, Central America’s poorest nation, seems highly improbable. Yet Chinese businessman Wang Jing insists he is serious about constructing such a waterway, and Nicaraguan lawmakers have given his Hong Kong–based company, HKND Group, a green light to…

“As a country, we’re older and we’re wiser,” President Obama declared in a speech today in Galesburg, Illinois.  He’s certainly older.  But on the basis of this speech bristling with tired ideas he’s trotted out time and time again, Obama himself is anything but wiser.    

In President Obama's campaign-style speech on the economy, he mentioned some non-economic priorities: 

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll says that Obamacare is now more unpopular than at any time since the Democrats passed it into law (without a single Republican vote) more than three years ago.  The poll shows that, by a margin of 13 percentage points (47 to 34 percent), Americans  think…

In an economic speech today, President Obama will say that "We’ve come a long way since I first took office.  As a country, we’re older and we’re wiser." But more work remains. 

Eliot Spitzer, the former New York governor and New York City comptroller candidate, says he has not visited a prostitute since 2008, when it was revealed the Democrat was a client for a high-price prostitution ring. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, the five-term Republican from Kentucky, has drawn a primary challenge for his reelection effort next year from businessman Matt Bevin. Bevin, who will likely self-finance part of his campaign, is out with his first ad Wednesday. The 30-second spot purports to…

David Perdue, a Georgia businessman and cousin of former governor Sonny Perdue, has announced he will run for the Senate as a Republican. The Associated Press has the story:

You'd think the editors of elegant women's fashion magazines would learn.  But they seem unable to profit from experience, much like Huma Abedin, wife of Anthony Weiner, about whom we all know a lot more than we would like, while Abedin, herself, seems to know and have learned ... nothing.

According to political reporter Salena Zito, today's economic speeches by Barack Obama represent the 19th "pivot" for the president:

Reuters is reporting:

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking today at the Bombay stock exchange, claimed Indian relatives. 

Last weekend was a big one for nerds.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a war veteran, gave an optimistic speech about Afghanistan yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives: 

If Barack Obama had an SUV, would it look like the one that George Zimmerman helped pull people out of?  ABC News reports:

Did Mitch McConnell's campaign "try to threaten" primary opponent?

The national limit on late-term abortion passed by the House of Representatives in June in response to the Gosnell murders is a sure loser for pro-life Republicans, according to the conventional wisdom in the press. But there are two compelling reasons why the conventional wisdom may be wrong:…

Huma Abedin, the wife of Anthony Weiner, gave remarks at a press conference for Anthony Weiner today in New York City:

The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll indicates that the only group of Americans who remain strongly supportive of Obamacare are self-described “liberal Democrats.”  Even “moderate or conservative” Democrats have started to jump ship en masse — as they’re now more likely to oppose Obamacare than…

Anthony Weiner, the former congressman and Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, has a statement on allegations he sent racy messages on social media sites to a woman who was not his wife:

Roh (pronounced “No”) Moo-hyun, the startlingly left-wing president of South Korea from 2003 to 2008, offered a remarkable concession to the late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il at a summit in Pyongyang in 2007. According to partial transcripts of the meeting, which were released for the first…

Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York who resigned in 2008 after it was revealed he was a client of a prostitution ring, has a new campaign ad for his run for New York City comptroller in which Spitzer admits he "failed. Big time." The 60-second ad, which features one news anchor saying…

Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, will run for the Senate next year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

The vice president's wife, Jill Biden, spent time with "slum dwellers" in India, according to the pool report.

Roberta Rampton of Reuters reports:

Barack Obama knows how much time he has left as president of the United States. He said so last night at an Organizing For Action event in Washington, D.C.

The president, as Justin Sink of The Hill writes, will be giving some speeches in which he intends:

For Anglophiles and royalists inclined to celebrate the birth of the youngest pretender (was the removal of James II really justifiable on monarchical principles?) to the British throne, here's a link to a performance of Handel's fantastic coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, with its stirring…

It’s hard to believe that National Affairs, the successor quarterly to the Public Interest, is already on its sixteenth issue. But that issue just arrived on The Scrapbook’s desk, and we see that editor Yuval Levin has put out another smorgasbord of must-read articles. We particularly enjoyed…

In remarks delivered this evening in Washington, D.C. to a group from Organizing For Action (the president's former campaign group), Barack Obama said that his speech later this week Galesburg, Illinois "will be a pretty good speech." Via the pool report:

Obama gives senators just one day before vote on NLRB nominees.

In a statement to the press, President Barack Obama and his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, marked the birth of the "young prince" in the UK.

Reuters reports:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on Secretary of State John Kerry's peace tour, Egypt, Syria, and Iran.

Ben Sasse writes:

Mollie Adatto, writing in the Jerusalem Post:

The election of new Iranian president Hassan Rohani, a subordinate-level cleric, has led to much conjecture in Western media about his possible moderation in domestic, foreign and especially nuclear policy. But news of heavy prison sentences against seven spiritual Sufi webmasters and lawyers, held…

Washington D.C. is big on tradition, and one of those traditions involves official portraits of top government officials.  The Defense Department just awarded a $31,200 contract (frame included) to Portraits, Inc. for an official portrait of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta:

About the economy. As CNN is reporting:

Charles Gibson, a former anchor with ABC News, is narrating a new online video touting the benefits of Obamacare and instructing viewers how the law will affect them. The video, sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation and running nearly seven minutes, informs Americans that they will fall under…

H. R. McMaster, writing for the New York Times:

In 2012, the Department of Defense spent a total of $651 billion, including the costs of fighting in Afghanistan. According to the budget plan submitted by the White House a few months ago, projected 2014 spending will be $547 billion. If, as seems nearly inevitable, the “sequestration” provision…

How do you succeed in wooing Hispanics without really trying? Rick Perry may have the answer. In 2010, running for his third full term, the Republican governor won the support of more than 400,000 Hispanic voters in Texas, his best performance to date. Perry didn’t need to win that many—Texas is…

Last week, in remarks about further increasing efficiency in government after having “made huge swaths of your government more efficient and more transparent, and more accountable than ever before,” President Barack Obama said:

It will draw howls of protest from politicians and the punditocracy, but the time has come to allow Internet access in jails and prisons. It would open a world of new opportunities for prisoners and improve the fraught process of reintegrating them into society, all at nearly no cost to taxpayers.

By now, it no longer matters that the new version of The Lone Ranger is a remarkably entertaining, amusing, and exhilarating romp—not to mention eye-poppingly beautiful. In contrast to every other big-ticket film of the past five years, The Lone Ranger doesn’t exhaust you by the time the final…

In just a few years, Washington Post wunderkind Ezra Klein has made himself the go-to journalist whenever the NPR-totebag set wants to understand a complicated policy issue. In particular, he’s established himself as arguably the leading health care pundit, thanks to his tireless efforts blogging…

Arguably the most important case the Supreme Court handed down this past term was United States v. Windsor, in which Justice Kennedy, writing for a five-justice majority, declared unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage for federal purposes. Largely neglected in…

In assessing Egyptian defense minister Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi’s decision to remove President Mohamed Morsi from office July 3, there are two key points to keep in mind. The first concerns the army, and the second concerns what is now, given the escalation of violence over the last two weeks, its…

Fifty or so yards from the apartment building in which I live a new restaurant has recently opened called Found Kitchen and Social House. It’s doing land-office business: Lines of people awaiting tables gather in the foyer, its bar stools are perpetually filled, hustling valet car-parkers are kept…

In some locales, wrote Albert Camus in The Plague, beautiful days are only experienced in the winter. But this is easily belied by the magnificent Edward Hopper exhibition on display at the Whitney Museum this summer. Beyond a showcase of artistic beauty, it is a much-deserved homage to an American…

When it comes to the recent Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco International Airport, there’s good news and bad news, according to South Korean news anchor Yoon Kyung-min. The bad news: Two people died and scores were injured when a Boeing 777 arriving from Seoul slammed into a runway and…

Who was Helen of Troy? Why do we even recognize her name in 2013? She had an extraordinary start: Her mother was a mortal who was seduced by Zeus when he came to her in the form of a swan; Leda gave birth to two eggs—one hatched the twins Castor and Pollux, the other brought forth Helen. Known as…

When most people think of a first lady named Roosevelt, it is Eleanor they have in mind. The life and work of the first member of the family to hold that position has received much less attention. That is, in part, because Edith Roosevelt was a private person, and she lived in a time when media…

Can you name the attorney general of your state? I’m betting most folks can’t. There’s a reason. Campaigns for attorney general get scant media attention, causing voters to ignore down-ballot races. This is unfortunate, especially if you reside in a red state. Because in the past few years…

There’s something in the new papal encyclical Lumen Fidei to disappoint everyone who longs for direct political action from the Vatican.

A Historian, burrowing in the National Archives, recently found a short reel of film which seems not only to have remained hidden since it was shot nearly 70 years ago, but has proved to be one of a kind. It shows President Franklin D. Roosevelt on board the USS Baltimore at Pearl Harbor in July…

While not exactly a national monument, the north entrance to the Dupont Circle Metro stop in downtown Washington, D.C., is a pretty impressive edifice. A large circular granite wall is inscribed with a portion of Walt Whitman’s poem “The Wound-Dresser,” which you can ponder as you slowly descend…

Since 1914, the United States Army has published and periodically updated a Law of War Manual. Its purpose is to provide authoritative guidance to military personnel on the customary and treaty law of war.

It is no news that the age of political correctness and revisionist history is upon us, and nowhere is it more apparent than in the subject of slavery and the American Civil War. In the past half-dozen years, literature has appeared condemning the Southern general Robert E. Lee as a traitor,…

William Alexander Percy (1885-1942), of Greenville, Mississippi, was the cousin and adoptive father of the Southern Catholic novelist Walker Percy. He was himself a lawyer and man of letters, a poet, literary mentor, scion of a great family, friend of William Faulkner, and author of a bestselling…

In Sioux City, Iowa, a local pastor is asking for the removal of a newly appointed member of the city's human rights commission. The city council appointed Scott Raasch to the commission, which adjudicates discrimination complaints, on July 8. However, the Rev. Cary Gordon, executive pastor of…

Detroit mayor Dave Bing tells ABC's George Stephanopoulos that there's no bailout "yet":

Ted Cruz went to Iowa, where he sat down with ABC's Jonathan Karl:

We all scream for ice cream.

To first place.  In baseball, that is.

An attack two weeks ago that destroyed an advanced Russian missile shipment delivered to Syria’s Assad regime should also serve as a warning to Iran – and to those complacent Western diplomats who have (dangerously in my view) reconciled themselves to the idea of allowing Iran to go nuclear and…

John Kerry tried to get the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to buck-up and smile. But he wasn't successful as he tries to broker peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Data-driven, legacy-driven. Keep those two descriptives in mind and you will know a good deal about the prospects for a dialing back of asset purchases—“tapering”—by Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke. After some confusing, market-roiling signals in the past two weeks, Bernanke has made it…

Louisville businessman Matt Bevin will launch a primary campaign against Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell next week, a GOP source with knowledge of Bevin's intentions tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

During hearings yesterday to reconfirm Gen. Martin Dempsey as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sen. John McCain pushed Dempsey to find out where he stands on Syria. McCain noted that Dempsey supported arming the Syrian rebels in February and then changed his mind in April. "How do we account…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on President Obama's impromptu speech to the White House press corps on the Zimmerman trial, the IRS oversight hearings investigating the scandal, and the House's votes to delay Obamacare.

131 members of the House, including 114 Democrats--a majority of the conference in the House--and 17 Republicans, have signed a letter to Barack Obama asking the president to engage with the newly elected president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani. Read the text of the letter below:

President Obama weighed in on Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman today at the White House press briefing:

Vice President Joe Biden met with law enforcement officials and delivered a statement on immigration. Via the pool report:

President Barack Obama slighted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in recorded remarks for the opening of the Maccabiah games in Israel. (Obama's remarks begin at 2:27:24 in the video below.) 

As Obamacare was being pushed through Congress in 2010, the Obama administration and its allies were unequivocal in two claims: If you like your doctor and you like your current health care plan, you can keep them both.  HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius and then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi backed the…

Obamacare will be costly for Hoosiers who already have health insurance, according to a report from Indystar.com.

Liz Cheney's decision to challenge a three-term incumbent Republican senator has caused a certain amount of soul-searching within the GOP. The Republican dilemma—support for a dynamic candidate versus loyalty to a good soldier—is a real one.

118 House members, including 15 Republicans, urge Obama to engage with Iran.

The CBS News headline from last October:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on today's investigative hearings on the IRS scandal.

Since forcing Egypt’s first elected president from office two weeks ago, Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has become a folk hero. Popular songs praising the 58-year-old head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces fill the airwaves, while hagiographic portraits of the man who saved the…

Jack Hunter, a top aide to Kentucky senator Rand Paul who is known by the moniker "Southern Avenger," asked a former editor to delete "dozens" of his columns, according to a blog post by that editor.

House Republicans don’t get no respect. Has there been in recent times a more derided, mocked, and pitied bunch? Establishment types think the backbenchers are Neanderthals, grassroots activists denounce the leadership as a bunch of squishes, and the media can’t find enough bad things to say about…

As witnesses have testified to the House Ways and Means Committee, the chief counsel for the Internal Revenue Service may have played a role in the IRS’s practice of reserving special scrutiny for Tea Party and other conservative political groups. William Wilkins, chief counsel and one of two…

Christopher Caldwell, writing for the American Enterprise Institute:

On Tuesday night, a small bipartisan group of senators met at the White House to discuss plans to fix the interest rates on student loans. The exact details of the plan are still being drafted, but a formal release is expected soon. 

Senator John McCain gave backhanded praise to opponents of the immigration bill yesterday. 

Congressman Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia, said today on the House floor that survivors of the Benghazi terror attack have been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements:

KSAT in San Antonio reports that a local businessman faces a $1 million Obamacare bill:

Critics of Obamacare point to the way in which it disconnects risk from price. As, for instance, with guaranteed issue. You can't be turned down if you are already ill or, even, be charged higher premiums that reflect your condition. This is ordinarily the hard reality of insurance.  Higher risk;…

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

Iraq war veteran and former congressman Allen West spoke out Wednesday against an amendment that would create a new independent system of military prosecutors to handle the prosecution of many serious crimes. "I think think this is reprehensible. I think it's a slap in the face to those who have…

Secretary of State John Kerry is currently in Jordan for talks with area leaders and a meeting of the Arab Peace Initiative Follow-Up Committee.  After a meeting with Jordanian foreign minister Nasser Judeh, Kerry made some rather sweeping remarks about the role the Palestinian-Israeli conflict…

Did Mike Enzi open his reelection campaign by making something up?

National Review editorializes:

As Jonathan V. Last observed earlier today, the George Zimmerman trial illustrates the immense power and discretion afforded to state and federal prosecutors.

Career IRS employees have testified on Capitol Hill that the federal agency's chief counsel played a part in the scandal of targeting conseratives, the House Ways and Means Committee announced today in a press release. As a result, House Ways and Means Committee chair Dave Camp, House Oversight and…

Say you are a company that builds and operates large retail stores, selling consumer goods at desirable prices and that you have been successful across the land.  Let's call you ... oh, Walmart.

We're way past overload on Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman commentary, but there is a tiny tributary of the story that has been largely overlooked. And it's worth a moment because it points to a larger problem regarding both the state and the public.

Remember the Keystone pipeline  Well, if you had forgotten about it, no matter. There has still been no decision on whether or not to go ahead with construction. This, in spite of the fact that:

Vice President Biden spent only about 20 hours in Trinidad and Tobago on his recent six day trip through South America and the Caribbean, but the hotel bill for the vice president, his entourage and the advance team came in at about $245,000 for an estimated 1,134 room nights.  As is typically the…

This week the EU took a stance that it heralded as pro-peace, pro-"peace process," and anti-settlement. Henceforth, new guidelines require all 28 member nations to refuse any grants, scholarships, prizes, or funding to entities in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Or any part of Jerusalem that…

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or Fatca, is forcing millions of Americans living abroad to reconsider their U.S. citizenship, a lawyer, Colleen Graffy, writes in the Wall Street Journal.

In retrospect, it was only a matter of time. Forced from power, the once almighty leader had been removed from his palace and imprisoned in a former merchant’s home. There he and his family were stripped of many of their luxuries and subjected to insults of his captors. Revolutionaries seldom are…

Asiana Airlines released a statement this morning saying it in fact will not sue TV station KTVU for falling for a prank and announcing the wrong names of captains of plane that crashed in San Francisco. The airline had previously said it intended to sue.

Introducing libertarian populism.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on race relations, Filibuster reform, and the House GOP.

The AP reports:

Edward Snowden's lawyer is a Putin crony, the AFP reports.

From the Marine Corps Times:

Purdue University in Indiana faces a $2.8 million Obamacare bill due to Obamacare, a local affiliate reports:

Local affiliate KSLA reports that Obamacare is likely to force the cost of health insurance premiums to rise:

Peter Baker of the New York Times writes that President Obama is doing things differently in his second term.  The president is operating behind the scenes and employing stealth rather than public persuasion in the:

The Obama administration has worked diligently to shrink, underfund, and demoralize the military. Now, Politico reports, two Republican senators, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, are joining an effort led by New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand that goes beyond where even the Obama administration is willing…

AFP reports:

Despite an admission by the Department of Transportation (DOT) that the Federal-aid Highway Programs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) are "susceptible to significant improper payments," the DOT Inspector General (IG) has terminated an audit initiated in April "due to other…

Local Ci Ci's pizza franchise owner Bob Westbrook had to sell off part of his business due to Obamacare:

Republicans forged ahead in their effort to transform North Carolina into a reliably red state, with Gov. Pat McCrory and top legislature leaders agreeing Monday on a tax cut plan to boost economic growth and job creation.

The problem with piecemeal immigration legislation.

Sean Trende writes:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial.

The Labor Department announced Monday the awarding of $64 million in grants to help unemployment insurance recipients find work more quickly.  The funds will be divided up between thirty-eight states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia. Acting Labor Secretary Seth Harris…

First Lady Michelle Obama and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel are teaming up to work on "youth empowerment," the White House announced today. They'll join together later this week in Chicago for an event on the issue.

The boss, speaking about the immigration bill, on Fox News Sunday:

Andrew Ferguson reviews Mark Leibovich's This Town in the Wall Street Journal:

Nine months after the terror attacks at a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, an audit of five "selected high threat level posts" of the State Department by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reveals cause for concern.  The report found that the facilities in question failed to comply…

If you’re concerned that the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism has been expanding its strategic footprint in the Western Hemisphere, the Obama administration has a reassuring message for you: “Iranian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean is waning.” That’s the conclusion of a State…

The Brookings Institution might have been a little harsh on Senator Elizabeth Warren's plan to reduce student loan interest rates:

President Obama will turn to four "Spanish-language outlets" to push the immigration bill, Mike Allen reports.

James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters Union has some ... ah, reservations about Obamacare and expresses them bluntly in a letter to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid:

The Human Rights Foundation has released a statement slamming pop star Jennifer Lopez for receiving "$10 million for serenading crooks and dictators from Eastern Europe and Russia." HRF is a human rights organization, which questions 5 recent performances by the singer.

The California inusrance commissioner, a Democrat, is warning that Obamacare could be disastorous. "We can have a real disaster on our hands," David Jones, the commissioner, tells the Associated Press.

President Barack Obama released a statement on Saturday's jury verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted on charges of murder and manslaughter of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Here's the statement:

Baseball has a way of distracting us, at least momentarily, from the routine stuff.  Both the boring and the distressing.  Santiago found it easier to bear all those fishless days by reading about the "Great DiMaggio" who, as all fans know, was famous for going so many days hitting safely.

The State Department announced today that it will be sending a deputy secretary to visit Egypt.

Harry Reid said this morning that "Obamacare has been wonderful for America."

Senate majority leader Harry Reid said the George Zimmerman trial "isn't over" and said he thinks "the Justice Department is going to take a look at this."

Rev. Al Sharpton blasted the jury's verdict in the George Zimmerman trial tonight on MSNBC:

In what appeared to be an open letter to Edward Snowden, MSNBC this morning pleaded for the leaker to turn himself in to American authorities, despite the alleged tens of thousands of "human rights violations" in prisons each year:

Former Montana governor and Democrat Brian Schweitzer will not run for the open Senate seat next year, Politico reports:

Eliot Spitzer went on television last night to discuss the errors of his past with Jay Leno.  It was all fated, you see. 

The top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Elijah Cummings, sent a letter to the top Republican on that committee, Darrell Issa, targeting the man who uncovered the IRS scandal, Inspector General Russell George. Cummings wants to bring George back to testify in…

Here’s a TTIP for you. No, that’s not a typo missed by our ever-vigilant editors. It stands for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, what British prime minister David Cameron calls a “once-in-a-generation prize” that can create two million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, and Sir…

President Obama talked with Russian chief Vladimir Putin on the phone today about Edward Snowden, according to the White House. But no further details about the conversation concerning Snowden have been released.

Wendy Davis, the pro-choice Todd Akin.

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:

TV station KTVU was apparently on the bad end of a prank earlier today, when it supposedly reported the names of the pilots on Asiana flight 214:

In a statement to the press, released this afternoon from Washington, D.C., Secretary of State John Kerry celebrates France's National Day.

Scott Johnson highlights three Megan McArdle posts worth reading:

Cover Oregon, the state of Oregon's health insurance exchange program required by Obamacare, began a $3.2 million ad campaign last week to inform Oregonians about the October 1 launch of the exchange. Included in that campaign is a minute-long TV ad featuring a song titled "Live Long in Oregon" and…

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama will release the following statement on the retirement of Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security secretary:

Reuters reports Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will resign today:

The day's trending theme (that would be a "meme" for those not in the know) seems to be that Republicans have become a tribe of nihilists who aim not to improve efficiency in government and make it better but to pour sand in its crankcase and jam its gears. Their goal, in short, is sabotage.  There…

According to a readout of Barack Obama's meeting with the co-chairs of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which was emailed to reporters, President Obama appears to have confronted the Chinese about the handling of Edward Snowden.

It is perhaps the best known of all of Mark Twain’s quotes – “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” It would be hard to find a better illustration of that line than the misuse of unemployment statistics in Twain’s home state of Missouri.

There's been a great debate over whether what happened in Egypt constitutes a "coup." The reason for the debate is clear: If it was in fact a "coup," then the U.S. must stop providing aid to that country -- because that's what U.S. law requires.

Danniel Henninger: The day big government died.

The Huffington Post reports:

Cory Booker, the Democratic mayor of Newark and a candidate in October's special election for Senate in New Jersey, has raised $4.6 million in campaign funds for the second quarter. USA Today has the story:

As the Department of Labor (DOL) celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act this year, the department is sponsoring a Smartphone app contest to help consumers identify businesses who treat "their workers fairly and lawfully."  The DOL requests [emphasis added] that contestants:

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards held a small rally outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday joined by Minnesota senator Al Franken, Connecticut congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and a crowd of 200 Planned Parenthood activists. Richards warned that new state and federal bills--including measures…

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards held a small rally outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday joined by Minnesota senator Al Franken, Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and a crowd of 200 Planned Parenthood activists. Richards warned that new legislation--including measures establishing…

The Imperial City has ruled that it doesn't need Walmart, the nation's most popular retailer, since Washington has attained a condition of sleek prosperity whereby, according to one member of its ruling council:

On Tuesday, Egypt’s interim government named a new prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, an economist who served briefly as the interim military government’s finance minister after former president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February 2011. Beblawi is a good choice, insofar as he seems to understand…

Rapper Jay-Z claims that he talks on the phone and exchanges text messages with President Barack Obama. He made the claim in an interview with Hot97.

In 2005, Harry Reid said, “I would never, ever consider breaking the rules to change the rules. I never suggested that at all. I say to my friend, I want to work something out. I repeat that for probably the fifth time here today, but in the process we cannot give up the basic rights this country…

Speaker of the House John Boehner said it was "unfair and indefensible" that Barack Obama hasn't delayed Obamacare's individual mandate for individuals and families:

Marco Rubio, speaking earlier today at an in event in Washington sponsored by Concerned Veterans for America and THE WEEKLY STANDARD:

The weekly news on initial claims – up 16,000 to a two-month high of 360,000 – is one part of the economic picture and may be a short term glitch.  Still, the overall employment picture is not reassuring.  Such jobs as are available tend to be part time.  Far too many people have simply dropped out…

WTHI reports that local Indiana schools will be able to keep employees because of the employer mandate delay:

The grocery store chain Wegmans is cutting health care benefits for part-time workers because of Obamacare, WHAM reports:

As yesterday's comments by President Obama's press secretary Jay Carney highlight, the Obama administration's lawlessness is matched only by its arrogance. In response to those who are calling attention to the administration's striking failure (more than three years and three months after the…

Tom Cotton, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

A live event this morning with Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz, and Governor Ed Rendell called, "The Need for Spending Reform: The $17 Trillion Debt Threat & America’s Spending Addiction." Panelists include Veronique De Rugy, Representative Adam Kinzinger, and Pete Hegseth.

House majority leader Eric Cantor appears to be following the boss's advice, as Robert Costa reports:

How community can save conservatism.

All 45 Senate Republicans are calling for the implementation of Obamacare to be permanently delayed. The senators make their request in a letter to President Obama.

Ross Douthat explains the Bill Kristol and Rich Lowry editorial to critics:

The Associated Press reports, "An Indiana college professor has found rare film footage showing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt being pushed in a wheelchair, depicting a secret not revealed to the public until after his death."

White House spokesman Jay Carney told a Fox News reporter to "read the Federal Register" in response to whether the president had the authority to change parts of the Obamacare law:

A new poll from Rasmussen Reports finds that 50 percent of Americans say they support the Senate's recently passed immigration reform bill, and when told that the Congressional Budget Office has figured that the plan would only cut illegal immigration by half, only 39 percent of those same…

The American left loves Western European democracies for their cultural sensibilities and for their policies on everything from crime to health care. One policy area where you won’t hear American liberals cite the European example, though, is abortion.

James Capretta is testifying today before the House Ways and Means Committee on the Obama administration's announcement of a delay in Obamacare's employer mandate. Capretta's testimony is an excellent and judicious summary of the implications of the Obama administration's decision, along with a…

Michael Barone thinks so:

The spirited debate over suspension of aid to Egypt has given rise to a good argument over how to encourage progress in Egypt toward stable, responsible, and democratic government. We know what we would, as Americans, like ideally to see there: respect for civil liberties such as freedom of speech…

Asked by Sean Hannity about running for the U.S. Senate, Sarah Palin gave him an evasive answer (more non-answer, really), which the AP turned into a news story:

After a year spent largely out of the limelight, Obamacare’s individual mandate is back — as the core symbol of Obamacare’s unprecedented threat to Americans’ liberty.  In truth, the mandate never really left; it simply faded a bit from public view. The means of its reemergence, however, is clear: …

Democratic senator Tom Harkin, who's retiring at the end of this term, had some blunt words for the Obama administration over the recent change to Obamacare. "This was the law. How can they change the law?"

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with National Review editor Rich Lowry on the joint editorial he and William Kristol wrote on why conservatives should scrap the current immigration reform bill.

Barbara Buono, the Democratic candidate for governor in New Jersey, released an ad today attacking Republican governor Chris Christie’s eating habits.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association is hosting a Washington, D.C. summit tomorrow, July 10, inviting over 300 companies to discuss the labeling of genetically modified foods. The meeting is in response to attempts on a state by state basis to require labeling of foods with genetically modified…

A close aide to Rand Paul who celebrates the assassination of Abraham Lincoln has claimed that the Kentucky senator is simply pretending to be more moderate than his father, Ron Paul. The Washington Free Beacon's Alana Goodman reports.

The House of Representatives will take up a bill that would stop the Department of the Treasury, including the Internal Revenue Services, from implementing and enforcing the provisions of Obamacare. The bill, authored by Georgia Republican Tom Price and co-sponsored by 114 other House members, is…

Arab and non-Arab commentators alike perceived a definitive regionalization of the Syrian civil war last month, when Iranian regular troops and Tehran-backed Hezbollah forces helped the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad retake the strategic town of Qusayr, near the Lebanese border, from rebel…

Boomberg's Jeanna Smialek is reporting that the International Monetary Fund has revised its predictions and that:

Eliot Spitzer has dug himself out of a political grave and, while his fingernails are still bleeding, is out on the stump hustling for signatures and votes.  This is what happens when nobody remembers that a wooden stake must be driven through the heart before earth is shoveled over the body.

On MSNBC this morning, Eliot Spitzer, who's trying to reemerge on the New York political scene, said that he's gone through "A lot of pain. A lot of pain." He then tried to cry:

In an editorial out today, the New York Times comes down hard on Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer, two New York politicians who previously resigned in disgrace but are again running for office.

Attend in person or check out online: An event later today at Heritage called, "A Passion for Secrecy: Government Overclassification as a Threat to Freedom and Accountability."

We are conservatives who have differed in the past on immigration reform, with Kristol favorably disposed toward it and Lowry skeptical. But the Gang of Eight has brought us into full agreement: Their bill, passed out of the Senate, is a comprehensive mistake. House Republicans should kill it…

Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as governor of New York after getting caught seeing prostitutes, believes the world's oldest profession should remain illegal:

GOP Rep: Another shoe to drop in IRS scandal?

Now that he’s not seeking another term as Texas governor, Rick Perry says he has a year to decide whether to run for president in 2016.  And he’ll be highly visible across the country while he’s making up his mind.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with James C. Capretta on his recent stories about the Obamacare employer mandate delay and the revelation that HHS will rely on self-reporting for Obamacare subsidy eligibility.

President Barack Obama will huddle tomorrow with the Congressional Black Caucus. The meeting will take place at the White House. 

The Associated Press reports:

Texas governor Rick Perry announced today that he will not seek reelection:

On Friday, the Obama administration dropped another health care implementation bombshell.

President Obama announced today that his administration would follow the models pioneered by Google and his presidential campaign to make government smarter:

The New York Post reports:

As we've learned over the last few days, there is a lot hanging on the meaning of the word "coup."  Or, more precisely, the answer to this question:  Was Egyptian President Morsi removed from office by a military coup?

Yuval Levin, writing for Mosaic: 

Former health care lobbyist Chris Jennings has been hired by the Obama administration. He will be a "a health policy coordinator and strategist," the New York Times reports.

Real Clear Politics reports:

Yuval Levin, writing for National Revew Online:

A century and a half later, the battle of Gettysburg’s place in the national consciousness is so secure that you think of it as inevitable: the great contest of arms toward which all the previous battles of the Civil War had been leading. Thus, all that came before the breaking of Pickett’s Charge…

President Barack Obama’s climate agenda announced last week represents the latest of many Democratic party efforts to address climate change. Although it includes no new legislation, the president’s plan makes unprecedented use of executive branch powers and offers a great many things that appeal…

Last month The Scrapbook reported on a slightly arcane, but important, change being proposed for the American Community Survey. The ACS is an annual survey conducted by the Census Bureau; it goes out to 3 million households and is one of the most robust tools we have for gathering demographic data…

Study of the humanities has never been more important to the welfare of the nation. Information whizzes by at breakneck speed. The contest between conservative and progressive visions of government’s scope and aim in a free society implicates rival understandings of human nature. The ways of life…

At the height of his career, in 1963, Alfred Hitchcock spoke of playing the audience like an organ: “I’m using their natural instincts to help them enjoy fear,” he said to an interviewer, adding, “I know exactly when to stop, to relieve them at the right moment, otherwise they’ll laugh in the wrong…

Like most civilized people of goodwill and sound reason, I’ve always held that violence isn’t the answer. It is, however, an answer. Which is why if I ever see Larry Randolph again, I intend to knock his teeth out. 

While Robert E. Lee was whipping Joe Hooker at Chancellorsville in May 1863, there were ominous developments for the Confederacy in Mississippi. During that month, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg and then executed a lightning…

By now, almost everyone knows the lurid truth about the military—or they think they do. Last month, after a 2012 survey showed that sexual assault against servicewomen had risen dramatically in the last few years, the media went into overdrive. The Washington Post called it an “epidemic.” The New…

The Scrapbook has said it before and will say it again: Not only has the 24-hour news cycle revolutionized the business of journalism, it has taken a certain amount of the fun out of reading all that 24-hour-cycle journalism.

That little American girls still yearn to be princesses only shows how little history they read. So it is too bad that The Deadly Sisterhood, which is about Italian Renaissance princesses, is not written for them. It verifies the reality of all those Disney lures: the sumptuous weddings to princes,…

Despite their striking resemblance, Li’l Abner, the midcentury comic strip hero, was everything his creator Al Capp was not: an unlettered, unambitious, all-American hillbilly who was strapping (rather than one-legged) and repelled by sex with women (rather than compulsively bedding them). Al Capp…

This case is about power in several respects. It is about the power of our people to govern themselves, and the power of this Court to pronounce the law. Today’s opinion aggrandizes the latter, with the predictable consequence of diminishing the former. .  .  .

The political tables have turned almost 180 degrees. President Obama uneasily defends surveillance programs of the National Security Agency, while his liberal and libertarian opponents accuse him of lawlessly abusing his powers. The spectacle might even be entertaining, were it not for its…

It’s been one year since the Supreme Court decision that allowed Obama administration officials to begin implementing the Affordable Care Act, and the frequency and volume of reports about the challenges facing those reforms—and the difficulties they are visiting on those who were supposed to…

In his second term, President Obama won’t lead or compromise. But he still manages to find ways to keep the country divided.

Senegal is an impoverished West African country where some 26 percent of the population subsists on less than $1 a day. Nearly one in five children there are malnourished. In the country’s rural areas, fewer than half the children regularly attend school.

 In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled against using race to determine public school assignments. Chief Justice Roberts concluded his plurality opinion with this eloquent statement: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

The Scrapbook takes some pleasure in noting one happy ending in the annals of industrial disputes. 

Recently a Japanese economist visited Washington to explain his government’s “five year economic outlook.” A five month outlook might have been more credible. Yet with surprising hubris, the economist forecast inflation and GDP five years out.

When Prohibition ended in 1933, Pennsylvania governor Gifford Pinchot promised to make purchasing alcohol “as inconvenient and expensive as possible.” To this day, Pennsylvania has some of the most stringent—and absurd—liquor laws in the country. Beer and wine can’t be sold in grocery stores, and…

"For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

In the wake of the 2012 election, Republicans have been treated to seemingly endless prophecies of doom. Many have come from liberal Democrats, who would happily see the demise of the GOP. But more than a few Republicans have also made the case that the party must either change or disappear, and…

The earth is a place of woe and wailing: This is an understanding as old as human consciousness. However, most men and women have always seen that such an understanding is hardly adequate. Small contentments and towering ecstasies, consolation and redemption, must have their significance as one…

As the Supreme Court finished its term, we looked ahead to see which big cases the justices have taken for review starting in the fall. And lo, Township of Mount Holly, New Jersey, et al. v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, et al. caught our eye.

So I saw World War Z, the new Brad Pitt movie about a worldwide zombie outbreak, and here’s the surprising thing: I can’t decide whether it’s the most anti-Semitic movie ever made, or the most Zionist movie ever made. 

The dismaying violence in the streets of Cairo leads ones thoughts to another city, where the mayhem is scheduled and traditional and sublimely pointless. As the AP reports:

Reuters columnist David Rohde said this morning on CBS that it was "terrible optics" for President Obama to go golfing and Secretary of State John Kerry to go yachting as the Egyptian leader was overthrown:

John Tierney, a Democratic congressman in Massachusetts, will face Seth Moulton, the Boston Globe reports:

NBC called the Obamacare employer mandate "poorly written" and a "damaging moment":

NBC's Chuck Todd said this morning that "the White House doesn't see a path" to passing an immigration bill by the end of this year:

WEEKLY STANDARD executive editor Terry Eastland reviews the Supreme Court's decisions in Fisher v. University of Texas, United States v. Windsor, and Hollingsworth v. Perry.

Secretary of State John Kerry has received some criticism for going yachting as the Egyptian leader was going overthrown. But the State Department, which first insisted that Kerry wasn't even on his boat, is now insisting that the secretary of state has been working hard -- and they've just now…

The White House just emailed to reporters this "Readout of the President’s Meeting with the National Security Council Regarding the Situation in Egypt":

An Asiana Airlines plane, Boeing 777, has crashed at San Francisco International Airport, Fox News reports:

Adam J. White, inspired by the boss's baseball post, takes a break from perusing Supreme Court opinions and reflecting on the greatness of Justice Alito, to write: 

Vicki Needham at the Hill writes that:

"Because of the way in which baseball links the generations it has been a channel through which vital traits of American character are instilled. The health of baseball concerns all of America, and the health of ­America — perhaps especially the American family — finds itself reflected in the state…

Until recently it has been fashionable to denigrate the U.S. economic recovery: “America is the best house in a bad neighborhood,” sniffed many analysts. No longer. America is now a very good house in a terrible neighborhood.

Rick Perry will make an "important announcement" Monday, a spokesman for the Texas governor said in an email Friday afternoon to the press.

John Kerry might be yachting in New England, but he's datelining press releases "Washington, D.C." Consider this one, which was just sent to the press:

Sonny Bunch on World War Z:

Reuters is reporting that Iceland has decided not to take in Edward Snowden. He is running out of options and soon, perhaps, the only one left to him will be to return to the United States and hire Ramsey Clark as his lawyer.

John Kerry, whose State Department office denied he had been out on his boat until picture proof emerged, is back out there today. A CBS producer catches him aboard Isabel:

The Associated Press reports:

Joe Biden's been at the beach all week. And, last night, the White House released his schedule -- announcing that he'd be there through the weekend.

President Obama is spending today, the day after the Fourth of July holiday, hitting the links. Via the pool reporter, he's with his buddies Martin Nesbitt and Dr. Eric Whitaker:

Economist Mark Zandi said this morning on CNBC that the Obamacare might be to blame for the part-time jobs surge: 

While the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report released this morning showed unemployment unchanged at 7.6 percent, the broadest measure of unemployment, the U-6 rate (seasonally adjusted), jumped to its highest level since February 2013, from 13.8 percent to 14.3 percent.  

CNBC's Rick Santelli is encouraged by the latest jobs report:

The latest jobs numbers from the the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Over at Powerline, Scott Johnson reminds us of perhaps the greatest speech about July 4th—Lincoln's remarks on July 10, 1858, in response to Stephen Douglass. Here's the key passage:

At a pre-Independence Day naturalization ceremony at the Treasury Department Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew used about one-third of his address to a roomful of newly sworn-in citizens to criticize the America’s immigration system and plug the current immigration legislation. According to…

Elliott Abrams, writing for National Review Online:

The hot dog is in decline in America, writes Paul Lukas at Bloomberg, and one thinks, "What isn't?" What institution, anyway.  If everything were not in decline, then what would there be for journalists to write about (see Andrew Ferguson  on George Packer and Haynes Johnson) and what would…

On this 4th of July, I presume that TWS readers are soberly re-reading their Jefferson and carefully studying their Lincoln. But this shouldn't be a day of too much solemnity. So here's a stirring cinematic moment to revisit, from the 1996 hit Independence Day, and enjoy:

Suspend and replace.

For the second time in two years, an Egyptian autocrat has been deposed. In Syria, another embattled tyrant – this one robustly supported by Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia – looks like he might hang on. Across the Muslim world, the political future hangs in the balance.

Echoing the boss, GOP House leaders released this statement on the Obama administration's Obamacare decision:

The House of Representatives will investigate the Obama administration's sudden decision to delay the employer mandate in Obamacare, leaders in the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced today.

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial.  "Speedy" is, admittedly, an imprecise term.  

The New York Times reports:

The Wausau Daily Herald reports that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker endorsed the Senate's immigration bill during an editorial meeting with the newspaper:

A new budget signed into law by Ohio governor John Kasich provides state funding for rape counseling centers for the first time. The measure won Kasich praise from the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, but many Democrats attacked the governor because they said that the budget had imposed a…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the opportunity for House Republicans to highlight how President Obama gives big businesses -- not individuals -- a partial delay from the mandates in his onerous healthcare law.

Yuval Levin, writing about the latest Obamacare decision for National Review Online:

David Axelrod weighed in on the Obamacare delay for big business:

House Republicans need to focus on turning the administration's retreat on Obamacare into a rout. In light of the administration's announced delay of the employer mandate, they could move immediately to delay the individual mandate as well, and/or the legislation as a whole.

CBS's political director compared Obamacare to "a jalopy they are trying to roll out of the driveway here at barely operational" this morning on national television:

The Obama administration must have been hearing some awfully threatening noises from the business community lately, because its unilateral delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate, from 2014 to 2015, is otherwise very difficult to explain. The delay is an embarrassing move for the White House and will…

The Obama administration has announced that it's delaying Obamacare's employer mandate—but not the individual mandate. The Obama administration's solicitude for big business apparently doesn't extend to workers and families and individuals.

In a blatant exercise of arbitrary rule, the Obama administration announced this evening that it has unilaterally decided not to implement a key provision of Obamacare on schedule.  By law, Obamacare’s employer mandate — its requirement that businesses with 50 or more workers provide federally…

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) today agreed to be the lead sponsor of a Senate bill to ban abortion after an unborn child is 20 weeks old.  A similar measure passed the House last month and a state version is now being debated in the Texas legislature, where it is likely to be approved.

Philip Klein: A defense of resisting Obamacare.

The announcement tonight of the delay of part of the implementation of Obamacare prompted Speaker of the House John Boehner to release this statement, saying the entire bill is a "train wreck" and "unworkable."

Obamacare's employer mandate, which would require businesses with 50 or more employees to provide employees with government-approved health insurance or pay big fines, was supposed to take effect on January 1, 2014. But Bloomberg reports the deadline for the employer mandate has been pushed back…

The Obama administration will announce later this week that it is postponing implementation (that would be "enforcement") of the employer mandate feature of Obamacare. Mike Dorning and Alex Wayne of Bloomberg are reporting:

The numbers are down and declining, as Ed Carson of IBD writes:

Andrew Ferguson reviews George Packer's The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America in the latest issue of Commentary: 

An ABC 13 report from Houston, Texas on doctors who are closing their doors because of Obamacare:

Many Republican insiders continue to push the narrative that the GOP lost in 2012 because of the Hispanic vote and social issues, rather than because a badly broken Republican nomination process produced a candidate who didn’t emphasize Obamacare and didn’t motivate downscale rural white Americans…

Aetna, the third largest provider of medical insurance in the country, has mailed a letter to at least some customers this week warning that the "Affordable Care Act (ACA) is changing health insurance" and that "many people will pay more for their health insurance coverage in 2014 than they do…

Prosecutors in Army Pfc. Bradley Manning’s case have introduced an intriguing piece of evidence: Osama bin Laden’s documents, or at least a description of them. The Associated Press reports (emphasis added):

Hofstra University Law School has released a press release celebrating a settlement its "Occupy Wall Street Clinic" reached with the City of New York over "a protester who sustained injuries while being arrested at an Occupy Wall Street demonstration." 

Secretary of State John Kerry admits he did not make "substantive progress" with the Russian foreign minister when they discussed the case of Edward Snowden today in Brunei.

In Tanzania, Michelle Obama joked about the "prison-like elements" of being first lady. "[B]ut it's a really nice prison," she said. "You can't complain."

President Obama called President Morsi of Egypt today to say that " the United States is committed to the democratic process in Egypt and does not support any single party or group." Obama "stressed that democracy is about more than elections," according to a readout of the call provided by the…

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress declared independence. George Washington declared that day that “The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves....The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct…

Kaus on immigration: Amnesty is interested in you.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on his recent story in the magazine, Lipstick on the Obamacare Pig.

David Freddoso writes:

Texas state senator Wendy Davis has been on a whirlwind media tour since her filibuster (and a screaming mob) blocked a vote on a bill that would ban most abortions during the final four months of pregnancy and improve safety standards at abortion facilities.

Texas state senator Wendy Davis has been on a whirlwind media tour since her filibuster (and a screaming mob) blocked a vote on a bill that would ban most abortions during the final four months of pregnancy and strengthen safety standards at abortion facilities.

Singapore

Reuters reports:

Today is Susan Rice's first day on the job as National Security Advisor. And already her portfolio has been expanded. 

There is some movement in Washington toward reforming the tax code which may sound like mere legislation but, as Nancy Cook of the National Journal writes, is being treated more like combat by some interested parties.

We, and our allies, are getting out, but it will, not evidently, be easy.  The enemy has something to say about that and as Heath Druzin of Stars and Stripes reports: 

Remember how the sequester was supposed to ravage the landscape?  The automatic spending cuts would, we were told, cause all manner of pain and suffering – inconvenience, even – as David A. Fahrenthold & Lisa Rein of the Washington Post report, we were warned:

Kenneth Minogue, longtime professor of politics at the London School of Economics, died Friday, age 83. He was a leading conservative political thinker of our time—no, he was a leading political thinker, period, of our time, whose classic, The Liberal Mind, written a half century ago, remains must…

Yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa, President Obama talked about bringing energy and power to the continent of Africa. Today, President Obama is expected to reveal that part of his Africa energy plan involves a soccer ball that carries an electric generator inside.

Presidents Obama and Bush will meet Tuesday at a wreath laying ceremony in Tanzania. Via the pool report:

Vice President Joe Biden, along with his wife, Jill Biden, will spend this week Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

For decades during the Cold War, U.S. policy sought to minimize the role of Moscow in the Middle East. As the Soviet Union weakened dramatically in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so too did its capacity to influence events there (and many other places besides). So matters have stood since. A…

New York City

Two weeks ago, the Obama administration seemed to announce a major reversal of policy: In light of the American intelligence community’s finding, with a high level of confidence, that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons against the opposition, the White House was going to arm…

Bankrolled by the oil and gas wealth of Qatar, now hiring 800 staff members and opening 12 news bureaus across the United States, Al Jazeera will soon be coming to a television near you. From its Doha headquarters, the media empire of Qatar’s royal family is launching a new channel dubbed Al…

Is naval power back? Early in June, Russia announced that it would be permanently stationing an armada of ships in the Mediterranean, restoring a deployment that came to an end with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This muscle-flexing is part of Russia’s effort to bolster the government of…

For his first summit with Xi Jinping three weeks ago, President Obama was apparently prepped by administration Asia hands that the new Chinese president would likely talk of a “new pattern of major power relations.” What that means in terms of actual Chinese policy is perhaps no more clear than the…

Take a visit to the cyber-belly of the beast, to a website run by the European Commission, the EU’s bureaucratic core, and you will be told that “the financial sector was a major cause of the [economic] crisis and received substantial government support.” Soon it will be payback time, in the form…

Over half a century ago, Henry Hope Reed, who died in May at age 97, launched a permanent campaign to restore the classical tradition to its rightful primacy in American public art and architecture. The Golden City (1959) provided the polemical and pedagogical foundation for this campaign,…

The Scrapbook tends to avoid inductive reasoning—that is, drawing a general conclusion from specific examples—because any good polemicist can cherry-pick his anecdotes. But some recent tidings from Bratislava, in Slovakia, have tempted us to wander down Inductive Lane.

John Kinsella, a highly regarded Australian poet who teaches at Cambridge, was quoted not long ago in the Times Literary Supplement as saying that he has “not sold his soul to market fetishization.” Kinsella means that he doesn’t want even to think about making a profit from his writing. But…

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), godfather of the “stimulus” and the “multiplier,” and Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992), who argued that government intervention in the economy breeds prosperity-killing economic distortions, weren’t just polar opposites in economic theory. They were real-life sparring…

In mid-May a U.S. nuclear sales delegation ventured to Vietnam to convince Hanoi officials to buy Westinghouse reactors. Led by a Commerce Department undersecretary, it included an Energy Department assistant secretary, the director of the newly created White House Office of Nuclear Energy Policy,…

On June 19, President Barack Obama delivered a lengthy speech in Berlin, in front of the Brandenburg Gate. The shades of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan surely wept.

The Scrapbook was alarmed at the very French way that the OECD, the Europe-based club of rich countries, tried to make a splash at last week’s G-8 summit in Northern Ireland—by urging the world’s governments to make their tax systems more transparent to one another. The Scrapbook would feel a lot…

The anniversary of the start of the last war between Israel and Lebanon is coming up on July 12, and it makes me wonder how Israel is doing. Not Israel the country, of course—it’s thriving seven years after fighting Hezbollah on its northern border for 34 days. I mean Israel the cat.

For a brief moment last week, The Scrapbook felt a twinge of compassion for President Obama. The setting was Berlin. Readers will remember the extraordinary (and extraordinarily peculiar) sight in 2008 of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaking to a throng of 200,000 worshipful…

"A couple of weekends a month, Tom McMahon, 44, a federal government budget analyst who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., joins his wife for a special indulgence, squeezed in around brunch and his regular Sunday touch rugby games: simultaneous pedicures, complete with nail polish as the finishing touch.…

Critics aren’t crazy about Man of Steel, the new Superman movie. It has a 56 percent favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the site that aggregates reviews. But audiences love it; the Cinemascore poll gives Man of Steel a grade of A-. 

Barack Obama’s foreign policy has one core principle: Get the United States out of the Middle East wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that he “inherited” from George W. Bush and avoid repeating those mistakes. There have been other themes sounded by the White House, most notably the “Pacific pivot,” but…

Sectarian war has reignited in Iraq. Iranian-backed Shia militias have remobilized, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is conducting an intensive and escalating campaign of spectacular attacks against Shia targets, and some of the former Baathist insurgents are staging an effective campaign against the Iraqi…

"What pronoun do you prefer?” The Scrapbook, as readers may know, prefers its. As in, the question above left The Scrapbook scratching its head. But if you seek “to be inclusive,” it’s the polite thing to ask. We gleaned this from a sign titled “Transgender Etiquette,” posted in San Jose, where a…