396 articles
During a speech on the Senate floor Monday afternoon, Texas senator Ted Cruz endorsed the latest House bill to fund the government. This continuing resolution would not defund Obamacare, as Cruz has demanded for months, but it would delay Obamacare's individual mandate by one year and end employer…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the current House/Senate showdown over funding the government and delaying Obamacare.
On Saturday night, the House of Representatives voted 423-0 to pass the "Pay Our Military Act," which would ensure that the troops will be paid in the event of a partial government shutdown.
The Washington Times reports:
Monday morning, White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett tweeted (and the White House retweeted) the following:
One day away from the launch of the Obamacare marketplaces, the question most on the minds people visiting the Healthcare.gov website is not about coverage, but rather about avoiding the penalty, or tax, for not having health insurance. As of Monday morning, here is how the website listed its "Most…
When two Republicans, Sam Johnson and John Carter, deserted a bipartisan immigration reform group this month, the death knell did not sound for immigration reform. One group may have collapsed, but 84 House Republicans have publicly voiced support for granting some type of legal status to the 11…
Seems the government is on the verge of shutting down. And just as it was about to provide affordable health care for all. How is that for bad timing?
Mark Steyn writes:
Bill Kristol, with Paul Krugman, Jennifer Granholm, and Matthew Dowd, yesterday on ABC's This Week:
Even as President Obama and his administration are making a last minute push to encourage enrollment in Obamacare, a quiet change was made on the Healthcare.gov website regarding those who will still not be able to afford coverage after the program kicks in. From at least June 26, 2013 to as…
The Scrapbook was thumbing through the pages of the Nation last week and stumbled upon the sort of essay in which the Nation has specialized since October 1917: defending the peace-loving Russians against a bellicose United States (“Demonizing Putin Endangers America’s Security”). In this instance,…
When it approved reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) last year, a normally spendthrift Congress showed that its members could work together and do the right thing for taxpayers. Majorities from both parties voted to end some of the program’s subsidies for vacation homes and…
This school-reopening season ought to be a time of deep pondering and self-examination for conservatives and everyone else who cares about the future of this nation and the world. It’s time to notice how little we have done about the most powerful, dangerous, reactionary force in America today: the…
What if everything we think we know about the history of baseball is wrong? What if despite the carefully cultivated image of its manly origins—long mustachios and tobacco-juice-stained vests—it was a game played by women as well as men? What if the game was invented 100 years before Abner…
Just before the August congressional recess the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued a press release on its progress in reviewing the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the nation’s biofuels policy. Since 2005 the RFS has established an annual mandate for the amount of renewable biofuels that…
Craftsbury, Vt.
In his groundbreaking history of the American War of Independence from the British standpoint, The War for America (1964), Piers Mackesy argued, “To understand the war, one must view it with sympathy for the Ministers in their difficulties, and not with the arrogant assumption that because they…
It's amazing how little President Obama has learned about economics in his four and a half years in the White House. Growth, incentives, tax reform, tax increases, private investment, the middle class, a second great depression, the sequester—all these issues have one thing in common: Obama doesn’t…
The media have been pretty down on Obama recently. Or rather, the media have been about as critical as they’re ever going to be. Case in point, The Scrapbook was a bit taken aback when we saw last week’s Time cover. Vladimir Putin’s visage is glowering against a stark background, and the cover line…
Syria has receded from the front pages. A long and winding road of failed diplomacy lies ahead, and who wants to bother covering that? Meanwhile, Bashar al-Assad is more firmly in power than before, al Qaeda is stronger among the Syrian rebels, the United States has lost credibility, and Iran and…
You get the sense, reading this off-kilter collection of stories, that somewhere in the background, jazz is playing. Bop, probably. The plotlines and patter of the characters tootle off every which way, high and low, with now and then a nod to the theme. Sometimes (as in the sax work of Coleman…
It's not often officials from the nation’s largest business lobby and an AFL-CIO-affiliated union speak to one another, let alone work together. But last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and North America’s Building Trades Unions held a joint press conference on Capitol Hill in support of the…
This month’s issue of AARP The Magazine is chock-full of important news for your golden years. There’s an essay on Dr. King’s America. (We’re still not past racism.) A piece about Obamacare. (It’s going to be great!) And a long feature about Bill Clinton’s new-found veganism.
When balletomanes consider the dancers who stirred the creativity of George Balanchine (1904-1983), they might think of Maria Tallchief (his third wife) or Tanaquil LeClercq (his fourth) or Suzanne Farrell and Allegra Kent (his muses). One name that probably does not spring to mind is Lidia…
Since January 2011, Republicans have tried to repeal Obamacare, in whole or in part, more than 40 times. That number is recited with a predictable sneer by congressional Democrats and the Washington press corps each time a new vote is held. The mockery is meant to obscure the fact that Obamacare is…
In the early days of the Obama administration, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was the bipartisan superstar. At Duncan’s confirmation hearing, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told him, “President-elect Obama has made several distinguished cabinet appointments, but in my view of it all, I think…
It may be overdone to say that the Obama administration aims to shove America in the direction of European social democracy, but there’s one domain where this is surely true: energy policy. Any number of administration diktats and subsidy schemes, from Solyndra to proposed EPA strangulation of…
Literary reputation is an unstable thing. Not so long ago, the luminaries were Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Mailer, but one hardly hears about them these days, unless one of their novels is adapted for the screen. Certainly Arthur Koestler, a much more profound thinker than his contemporary George…
Though I never met the man, I feel a debt of gratitude to Ronald Coase, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who died on Labor Day at age 102. Reading his “Nature of the Firm,” one of the most cited essays in all of economics literature, encouraged me to start my own business.
A few years ago, I was in New York with my wife, Cynthia. Passing through Queens, we stopped in to see an old family friend of hers who was in town, with a new baby, visiting relatives.
Williston, N.D.
In 1941, a girl climbed off a train in Los Angeles. She was the daughter of a North Carolina farmer and a housekeeper, had grown up bitterly poor, and had few prospects in life. But her older sister had married a man who owned photo shops in New York City. He had taken a picture of the girl and put…
Happy times are all alike, nestled in the comfortable batting of peace, growth, and stability. Every unhappy time is unhappy in its own way.
In the wake of last week’s mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, as first responders were tending the victims, police were searching for more culprits, and the nation’s capital was entering lockdown, President Barack Obama gave a speech. This normally would not be news. After all, the…
Republicans these days are eager to replay the Reagan revolution. It is not hard to see why: In the 1980s, the GOP was the party of ideas, and the vision that Ronald Reagan and his supporters brought to Washington proved immensely popular with voters and profoundly improved American life. But in…
Christian Whiton occupied several posts at the State Department during the administration of George W. Bush, all of them at the juncture where realpolitik meets ideology. Or would meet, anyway, if the department were able to recognize the importance of ideas in international politics. Whiton served…
As House Republicans come under unfair and even vicious assault over the next hours and days, how to react? Here's a recommendation: Having had the great good fortune of seeing Cosi fan Tutte at the Met Saturday night, with the great James Levine back in the pit and an all-star cast led by Susanna…
In the climactic scene of Star Wars (spoiler alert for those few who haven’t yet seen it), Luke Skywalker flies his Rebel X-wing fighter along a trench of the Imperial Death Star and, with one perfectly placed shot, hits a small exhaust port leading directly to the fortress’s main reactor—causing…
The Federal Housing Authority is running a little short so the Treasury is advancing a small loan – not even $2 billion – to replenish an insurance fund. This is necessary, as Clea Benson of Bloomberg reports:
If not Janet Yellen, who? Larry Summers wanted the job, but couldn’t win the support of leftish Democrats and feminists. Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who can have Ben Bernanke’s job as chairman of the Federal Reserve board for the asking, is said to have told the White House that he…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with contributing editor P.J. O'Rourke on Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, Obamacare, Ted Cruz, the Weekly Standard Cruise, and the etiquette of drinks before lunch.
CNN reports that President Obama has been on the phone more with Iran than the speaker of the House, Republican John Boehner:
Daily Caller: "Sister of Obama administration official featured in Obamacare ad."
President Obama announced today that he talked on the phone with Iranian president Rouhani:
Earlier today, 79 senators, including conservative Republicans like Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, voted to end debate and allow a vote on the House government-funding bill that would defund Obamacare.
An interesting thing happened when McClatchy newspaper’s Tim Johnson went looking for two former Guantanamo detainees in El Salvador. He discovered they had left the country. A State Department spokesman says the U.S. government is aware of their departure, but “will not comment on the specifics of…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the unwillingness by President Obama to lead on the budget, debt, and the continuing resolution.
NBC announced today that it would be launching a week of programming to help Obamacare get off its feet, according to a press release sent out by the network. The law has been widely opposed by all Republicans and supported by most Democrats, including President Obama.
CNN host Stephanie Cutter, who worked on President Obama's reelection campaign, has sent a fundraising email on behalf of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe.
Speculation ran high at the United Nations this week about whether or not President Obama and Iranian president Rouhani would shake hands. Ultimately, the two leaders did not as the gesture was deemed “too complicated” for Iran at this time, “given their own dynamic back home.”
Detroit failed after years of one-party rule (guess which one), mismanagement, and corruption. Businesses closed down. Buildings were left derelict until they were torched for the fun of it. Feral animals roamed the streets as the people fled. After the usual protestations that it would never…
How is Obamacare hurting businesses in Ohio? Here's a report from a local affiliate detailing the increased costs and how Obamacare might be making America less competitive globally:
Democratic senator Heidi Heitkamp "is ready to take on President Obama over the long-delayed approval for the Keystone XL Pipeline — and she predicts her side will prevail," according to USA Today.
Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:
Elliott Abrams, writing for National Review Online:
The government will be tapped out on Oct 17, according to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Unless, that is, Congress takes:
There is much to lament about the rise of social media and the damage it has done to ordinary human activities and interactions. And now we learn that it is leeching away the loyalty of American college students for their football teams. Attendance in the student section is down in, of all…
Since its July publication, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. has quickly become one of the most controversial novels of the year. The literary debut of author Adelle Waldman gives an account of the romantic and intellectual life of a young writer who, on the verge of publishing his first book, is…
As full implementation of Obamacare draws near, some aspects of its operation have received relatively little attention. The October 1 launch of the marketplaces, or exchanges, is less than a week away, but outside of supposedly offering a Priceline-like shopping experience for health insurance,…
Senate majority leader Harry Reid called the Obamacare medical device tax "stupid" at a briefing today on Capitol Hill:
Republican congressman Diane Black released this statement after Barack Obama's Obamacare speech today, blasting the president for pushing Americans toward Obamacare:
Bloomberg reports:
Mollie Hemingway, writing for the Federalist:
In a recent article we wrote for THE WEEKLY STANDARD (“The Canary In The Coal Mine,” Sept. 23, 2013), we reported on the findings of six surveys conducted to test the strength of the congressional exemption of Obamacare issue.
Another bad year and deeper in debt. This is the story of the United States Postal Service, which, as Billy House of the National Journal, reports:
The Washington Post reports:
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani didn’t have to snub Obama yesterday by choosing not to meet with him on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting. But, as with Vladimir Putin’s victory lap op-ed in the New York Times, Rouhani chose to rub Obama’s face in the dirt because he could. Obama…
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, along with Senators Pat Roberts (R-KS), John Cornyn (R-TX), John Hoeven (R-ND), James Risch (R-ID), David Vitter (R-LA), Roy Blunt (R-MO), John Boozman (R-AR), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Dan Coats (R-IN), and John Barrasso (R-WY), sent the following Iran letter to President Obama:
The FBI released this chilling footage of the Navy Yard shooter:
A new report by the American Action Forum finds that Obamacare exchanges will cost $5.3 billion and 16 million hours in paperwork burdens.
First Lady Michelle Obama is reaching out to President Obama's former reelection campaign.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on Ted Cruz's day-long speech on the Senate floor opposing Harry Reid's efforts to add Obamacare funding language to the House-passed Continuing Resolution.
The New York Times reports:
The urge to drape mundane or slightly disreputable work with a fancy title has been with us for a while. Thus garbage collectors are "sanitation engineers." Prison guards, "correction officers." Strippers, "exotic dancers." This provided some good material for the late George Carlin and became…
The Defense Department currently operates, as Bob Brewin of Government Executive writes:
A new website details the real Hassan Rouhani, the new Iranian president: www.RealRouhani.com.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with staff writer John McCormack on his recent pieces on Obamacare and Ted Cruz's efforts to stop the Senate from amending the House-passsed Continuing Resolution that defunds parts of Obamacare.
During a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon, Texas senator Ted Cruz said that people who think his plan to defund Obamacare can't work would have opposed fighting Nazi Germany if they had been alive in the 1940s.
Here is how Obamacare is looking at the rollout nears:
The White House pool reporter says an unnamed official claims President Obama offered to have an "encounter" with his Iranian counterpart, but was turned down:
TPM editor Josh Marshall pays tribute to the boss's prescience by re-publishing a twenty-year-old health care memo:
Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate and frontrunner in Virginia's gubernatorial race, has been painting his Republican opponent Ken Cuccinelli as a crusader on social issues. But McAuliffe has repeatedly refused to answer questions from the press about whether he himself holds extreme…
In his speech today at the United Nations, President Obama continued his administration’s odd and somewhat schizophrenic policy with respect to freedom, human rights, and democracy.
In July, 22 House Democrats joined House Republicans in passing a bill to delay Obamacare's requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance by one year, a measure that would save $35 billion. The individual mandate, which Barack Obama opposed during the 2008 Democratic primaries, has never…
Consumer confidence fell to 79.7 in September from last month's (revised 81.8).
William Bennett, with Christopher Beach, writing in the Wall Street Journal:
Cory Booker, the Newark mayor and Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in New Jersey, has an 12-point lead over his Republican opponent, former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. Here's more from the Bergen County Record:
On a hot mic today at the United Nations, President Obama got caught saying he hasn't smoked in 6 years because "I'm scared of my wife":
Hillary Clinton, wrestler.
An aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the Kentucky senator will not filibuster the House bill to defund Obamacare.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the battle over Obamacare and how to extend the soon-to-expire continuing resolution that funds the federal government.
The State Department today announced that John Kerry would spend $10 million "to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in humanitarian emergencies worldwide."
The White House says there is no chance of a "happenstance" meeting between President Obama and Iran's leader. But they aren't saying there's no chance the two leaders will meet.
The question at the core of most of today’s debates in American politics is whether all people have an unalienable right to keep the fruits of their own labor—as the Founders believed and the Declaration of Independence (properly understood) asserts—or whether the government should funnel vast sums…
Nancy Pelosi says that when it comes to the budget, there is no fat left. Every dime of spending is essential.
While Germany was engaging in peaceful elections and the United States was watching football – civilized societies being big on democratic rituals and sports – people in other parts of the world were relieving their frustrations in violence.
The poll data is clear and cuts across party lines: 92 percent of the public does not think it is right that Congress and their staff are letting the Obama administration exempt them from the costs of Obamacare. Yet it seems many in Congress still want to dismiss these findings in hopes that these…
President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle attended the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Phoenix Awards Dinner at the Washington Convention Center Saturday night. While extolling the benefits of Obamacare less than 10 days before the opening of the new health insurance marketplaces,…
The box-office surprise of 2013 is a cheaply made, unbelievable, unfunny comedy-drama with a Mexican star-writer-director you’ve never heard of, who isn’t the least bit amusing, doesn’t act very well, and writes even more poorly. Imagine Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy crossed with Three Men and a Baby,…
The Scrapbook discounts a lot of the perennial harrumphing about “kids these days,” but we were nonetheless a bit taken aback by last week’s Wall Street Journal report on our latest generation of participation-trophy winners: “Should You Bring Mom and Dad to the Office? Employers Are -Embracing the…
There is something futile about breakfast meetings. Breakfast ought to be where you dissipate the irrationality of dream-life and find your way back to a clear view of the things you care about in the waking world. Alcoholic memoirs are full of where-the-hell-am-I stories, some funny (“I seem to…
Almost exactly a year ago, The Scrapbook reported with dismay that the Kennedy Center Honors (“Mau-Mauing the Kennedy Center,” Oct. 15, 2012) were under assault from Hispanic pressure groups because the annual selection of five (mostly baby boom pop culture) performers had an insufficient number of…
It has long been The Scrapbook’s contention that one of the great weaknesses of Barack Obama in the White House is both simple and obvious to discern: inexperience. People can argue until they’re blue in the face about his Kenyan father, or his wicked Chicago friends, or whether he’s a socialist or…
Late one night last October, a SWAT team from the police department in Billings, Montana, served a search warrant on what they thought was a home meth lab. Dressed in military gear and toting assault rifles and a battering ram, the officers surrounded the house. As one group staged near the front…
President Obama’s handling of Syria over the last several months has suggested that we are witnessing Jimmy Carter’s second term. Yet every so often there are other items in the news which suggest that we might as well be in 1978 all over again. Witness: the Peace App.
Maybe Barack Obama really is a Marxist. His September 10 speech to the nation on Syria seems to have been inspired by Groucho’s great number in Animal Crackers (1930):
When President Obama abruptly called off the bombing strike on Syria and decided to seek the approval of Congress, he surprised no one more than French president François Hollande. France, the only country set to join the United States in the raid, was left in the lurch. Hollande was humiliated and…
Americans watch our tragedy-of-errors Syria policy from the safety of houses and apartments in suburbs and cities 5,000 miles from the conflict. Israelis are next door, and two weeks ago—when an American strike and possible Syrian counterstrike at Israel seemed imminent—they were lining up for…
With his Syria policy careening from inaction to the threat of force to a request for congressional approval to a diplomatic bailout from Russia, the long-vexing puzzle of what makes Barack Obama tick has again come to the fore.
As the United States vacillates over what to do in Syria, it might be a good time to check in with the Obama foreign policy “pivot.” A little less than two years ago President Obama’s administration announced that the United States would pivot away from the Middle East and toward Asia.
The word “chivalry,” associated with the Middle Ages and its knightly ethos of courtesy and dragon-slaying, has a bad rap nowadays. “Chivalrous” refers to the patsy in shining armor who opens doors for women, picks up the tab on dates, and is willing to be there with sensitive sympathy (along with…
When it was announced earlier this year that gun rights activists were attempting to recall two Colorado state senators for helping pass new gun control laws, the campaign wasn’t taken seriously. It was treated as a marginal curiosity by the political press, when it wasn’t ignored altogether. But…
Forty years ago this fall, the United States shipped more than 20,000 tons of tanks, artillery, weapons, and supplies to Israel to ensure its victory over two of the Soviet Union’s Arab clients, Syria and Egypt. Those airlifts showed the Arabs that despite their numerical superiority, they had no…
Canberra has joined Tokyo and other U.S. allies in Asia by electing a conservative government vowing less tax on business, robust defense, support for the United States, and guarded cooperation with China. A big victory in Australia’s national election on September 7 for Tony Abbott’s…
Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940) was the first novel by an African American to become a bestseller and the first selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. And until the rise of Toni Morrison and other black women writers, Wright was widely considered the leading African-American author, while…
Several times a day, especially if he’s out travelin’ and talkin’ to folks, as he always is when the U.S. Senate isn’t in session, Ted Cruz will stand before an audience and reflect, seemingly for the first time, about the generational shift taking place in the Republican party.
It now seems to be the general consensus that President Obama’s Syria policy is a contradictory mess. But that’s only how it appears on the surface. Probe a bit deeper and it’s very seriously deranged.
Berlin
Berlin
Frankfurt "For the first time in this election I'm feeling nervous," one FDP member just confessed. And he should be. ZDF's final poll (Politbarometer) was released, and the race could not be tighter. At the moment, Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union is holding steady at 40 percent. Its…
Given that mine is the dismal science, it is my role to cool the exuberance of investors at the news that the Fed will continue to print money rather than taper, with a bit of news that should worry them--the possible revival of the trade unions, long a fading force in the private sector.
It's make or break for immigration reform.
Roll Call reports:
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is continuing his public campaign against the Obama adminstration and its lawsuit halting the state's public school voucher program. In a new ad airing on TV in Louisiana, Jindal criticizes the Department of Justice's suit, saying the federal government "wants to run…
Robert Zarate writes at the Foreign Policy Initiative:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on his recent story about the Benghazi Review Board, the congressional hearings on Benghazi, and the debate over whether to defund or delay Obamacare.
In a column Friday, Bill McGurn of the New York Post attributes the Obama administration's foreign policy woes to an overabundance of former members of the U.S. Senate. Here's an excerpt:
President Barack Obama has no plans to meet with either the president of Iran at the United Nations in New York next week nor with House Republican leaders on the budget negotiations. That's according to a pool report from the White House press corps on a conversation with deputy press secretary…
It’s easy to become inured to the state of abortion in the United States, but every so often someone sends a shock to the system.
Caroline Glick, writing for the Jerusalem Post, looks at the U.S.-Russia negotiation over Syria and its effect on Iran, and sees parallels with the nuclear build-up in North Korea:
It is no secret that Washington generally prospers even as the rest of the country struggles. In a rough fashion, prosperity in the capital and economic hardship in the rest of the country are inversely related. An economic crisis means lots of new government pump priming--remember the…
Occasionally the White House conducts "background briefings" for reporters, often in the form of a conference call in which "senior administration officials" participate. The officials, though known to the reporters, are not to be named by the reporters in their stories; hence the term…
In 2009, the Obama administration made news with an $18 million, five year contract to redesign Recovery.gov, the website the government set up to allow taxpayers to track the stimulus spending enacted by the president and Congress soon after President Obama took office. On Wednesday, notice of…
Frankfurt
Wednesday Nancy Pelosi spoke at the Center for American Progress to help mark the launch the organization's new initiative called “Fair Shot: A Plan for Women and Families to Get Ahead.” In her remarks, Pelosi referenced the Republicans' plan to scale back the food stamp program, the cost of which…
The leaders of the Administrative Review Board that investigated the attacks on US facilities in Benghazi, Libya, appeared before the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Thursday, and offered testimony that further undermined the already-tattered credibility of their own probe.
The conservative quest for political purity.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with the American Enterprise Institute's James Pethokoukis on the recent actions by the Federal Reserve.
The National Right to Life Committee, which typically endorses pro-life incumbents, has endorsed Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell for reelection in 2014. WDRB.com has the story:
On Thursday, the Ken Cuccinelli campaign released a new ad hoping to capitalize on an endorsement from a high-profile PAC in northern Virginia. The 30-second spot touts the endorsement from the Northern Virginia Technology Council's political action committee and contrasts it with how PAC officials…
As Ben Schachter explained earlier this month in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, the implementation of Obamacare has been especially hard on creative professionals, whose trade associations have been forced to eliminate various cost-effective insurance offerings due to the law’s mandates. But uninsured…
Yesterday, President Obama signed a number of supposedly uncontroversial bills into law.
Sunday was September 15. It's an important anniversary, because it's the day that gave us President Barack Obama.
Bill Kristol joined Anderson Cooper and his panel Wednesday night on CNN to discuss Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapon capability. Watch the video below:
Yesterday, the Fed decided that the economy was not yet sufficiently robust for it to "taper." Wall Street celebrated.
In an unaired portion of an interview with NBC correspondent Ann Curry, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani did not refute his predecessor's claim that the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany was a "myth."
Adam J. White, writing for AEI:
Wiesbaden, Germany
Against the expectation of many observers, social change continues in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Recent reforms have particularly affected the status of women. At the end of August, the Saudis took a remarkable and surprising step by criminalizing domestic violence. As reported in the London…
As soon as I heard about the Navy Yard shooting in Washington D.C. this week I was sickened and appalled. I lived in that neighborhood for over a decade, and coming from a military family, I used venture on to Navy Yard a few times a month to do my banking at the Navy Federal Credit Union branch. I…
Seniors push for repeal of Obamacare provision.
The implementation of Obamacare on the employer side was delayed for a year so that business could get up to steam and find ways to comply without doing too much damage to the bottom line or cutting the hours of too many full-time employees. Businesses, it seems, are using this breathing spell to…
Bobby Jindal is outraged over a Department of Justice lawsuit against a Louisiana school voucher program. The suit, which he (repeatedly) calls “cynical, immoral, and hypocritical” and the “worst misuse” of federal desegregation laws, aims to stop a program that allows poor students in failing…
NBC's Ann Curry donned a head scarf to interview Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, according to a picture released by the Iranian leader:
Sam Cappellanti of the American Action Forum claims that the Department of Health and Human Services is using "faulty" data to mislead on Obamacare.
In 2012, then-senator and chairman of the Senate Conservatives Fund Jim DeMint endorsed Jeff Flake in the Arizona Senate race. “Jeff Flake is one of the strongest conservative leaders in Congress," declared DeMint. "[N]obody has done more to advance the cause of freedom than Jeff Flake. Nobody.”
Joe Biden, on the stump in Iowa:
In 2012, then-senator and chairman of the Senate Conservatives Fund Jim DeMint endorsed Jeff Flake in the Arizona Senate race. “Jeff Flake one of the strongest conservative leaders in Congress," declared DeMint. "[N]obody has done more to advance the cause of freedom than Jeff Flake. Nobody.”
CBS reports this morning that Walgreens is altering its health care plan for 160,000 workers due to Obamacare:
A Michigan school district has cut the hours of 15 employees due to Obamacare, according to a local report:
The administration's second-term woes might have been avoided if only the first term spinners had stayed around. Amie Parnes of The Hill writes of speculation that if Gibbs and Axelrod and Plouffe were:
In a plea for bipartisanship at building ribbon-cutting ceremony, Chris Christie said, "I may be the only damn Republican here."
Live video of a joint Concerned Veterans for America-WEEKLY STANDARD event:
The White House released a Presidential Memorandum today entitled "Presidential Determination on Traficking [sic] in Persons." The memo relates to funding provided or denied to foreign governments in accordance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. According to the memo, the U.S.…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on Obama's economic speech yesterday in the wake of the Navy Yard shootings.
Beginning tomorrow and through Sunday I will be reporting on the German elections, aka Bundestagswahl 2013, from Frankfurt, Mainz, Wiesbaden, and Berlin, as part of a study group sponsored by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. The foundation is the nonprofit arm of the Free Democrat Party, the…
Tuesday morning, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius announced on Twitter:
The White House announces that Brazilian leader President Dilma Rousseff told President Obama that she's postponing her planned trip to the United States:
Dennis Prager writes:
You know things are bad for President Obama when even Warren Buffett has soured on Obamacare and says that "we need something else." Money Morning writes:
The news that union leaders were pushing the White House for a unilateral Obamacare “fix” should have come as no surprise, given President Obama’s repeated disregard for the rule of law. However, single-handedly extending premium subsidies to union members who already have generous, tax-exempt…
Reuters reports that Edward Snowden, who stole any of his own country's secrets that he could get his hands on before fleeing to the arms of its enemies is a hero. Or is, at any rate:
Timed to coincide with the annual Walter Berns lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which is in turn timed to coincide with Constitution Day (September 17), there's a new website honoring Walter Berns: walterberns.org.
Hewlett-Packard Company released this statement on Aaron Alexis, the alleged Navy Yard shooter, who worked for a subcontractor of HP:
The Washington Post's updates on the Navy Yard shooting.
In a Friday night news dump, the Obama administration announced that it would not allow Obamacare subsidies to go to union members on multi-employer "Taft-Hartley" health care plans.
The FBI has released a "seeking information" poster for the suspected Navy Yard shooter, Aaron Alexis:
Sophisticated folks like to tell themselves that history doesn’t repeat itself. Life, politics, and diplomacy are all driven by a multitude of circumstances that make every moment different and every judgment so much different … except of course when they aren’t. But as Maya Kandel, an analyst at…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Mark Hemingway on his recent post about how the some are blaming the unpopularity of Obamacare on Republicans.
Of the 39 most awesome jobs in America, only the nine members of the Supreme Court have lifetime tenure. Major League Baseball’s 30 shortstops, on the other hand, are always looking over their shoulder. Every ground ball in the hole, every slow roller dribbling past the mound, every relay throw…
Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, the Republican chair of the House Budget Committee, argued on a local news program that the GOP should delay parts of Obamacare, particularly the individual mandate. Ryan said that the effort to defund the law, advocated by some Republicans in Congress, would not…
Paul Mirengoff writes:
A new USA Today/Pew poll on Obamacare is out today. According to the fine print on the poll, "Three years after President Obama signed his signature health care overhaul, Americans are as negative toward it as they have ever been, and disapproval of the president on the issue has reached a new…
Between now and the end of the calendar year, congressional Republicans and the Obama White House will engage in a protracted struggle over fiscal matters. The pile-up of must-do budgetary items now on the agenda makes that certain, starting with the need for stop-gap funding before October 1 to…
If the public is to understand the full awfulness of the sequester, it seems that it must first suffer. So, as Eric Katz reports at Government Executive, the FBI will be furloughing agents and cutting costs in a way that, according to its departing director will:
In August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (HHS/CMS) quietly awarded a maximum $11.6 million contract to Novitas Solutions of Camp Hill, Penn., already a CMS contractor, for financial management services related to the…
An unnamed White House official released this statement on the shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.:
Did President Obama just save Bashar al-Assad? Gary Schmitt writes:
The Washington Post reports:
Time has put Vladimir Putin on the covers of various editions of its September 16, 2013 magazine, distributed across the world. It's appearing almost everywhere -- in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific.
It seems a long time since Nancy Pelosi famously said of Obamacare that, if we were to know what was in it and thus, presumably, understand it, then Congress would first have to pass it.
Berlin
There is little reason to believe that President Obama’s decision to ask Congress for authorization to engage in military action in Syria is the result of a newfound fastidiousness when it comes to the Constitution and his constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully…
War presidents don’t quibble. They don’t leak. They don’t go AWOL. They aren’t dispirited or downbeat. They aren’t ambivalent about the mission. And most important of all, war presidents are never irresolute.
Chief Executive of Sparta,
Since mine is hardly a household name, I can count on a few fingers the occasions when I’ve been interviewed. But one encounter remains as clear as the day it happened.
Science doesn’t make a splash in the news too often. But a year or so ago, when the CERN labs announced that they might have observed the “God particle,” everyone got very excited. A year of peer-review later, it appears they were right: After a 50-year search, the Higgs boson has been found.
'Could this Labor Day mark the comeback of movements for workers’ rights and a turn toward innovation and a new militancy on behalf of wage-earners? Suggesting this is not the same as a foolish and romantic optimism that foresees an instant union revival. What’s actually happening is more…
Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry went against received wisdom—and against the assessment of the White House he works for—when he argued that Syrian opposition forces are not dominated by Islamic extremists. “I just don’t agree that a majority are al Qaeda and the bad guys,” Kerry argued in…
It is said that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king—and when it comes to American movies, the land of the blind is the Sundance Film Festival. Every January, independent filmmakers looking for distributors fight to get their films shown at the festival in Utah. Followers of cinema…
Berwyn, Ill.
New Orleans
Our friends at the Free Beacon report the news that, despite the sequester, the federal government continues to be able to support important scientific research. The National Institutes of Health has been able to fund for another year a $2.2 million inquiry, begun in the fall of 2011, into why…
If Congress refuses to support American military action against the Assad regime in Syria, and President Barack Obama declines to strike or strikes meekly, will American power—that marriage of will, resources, and perception—be diminished in the Middle East? If so, will the ramifications be severe?…
The statesmanlike case for voting Yes on the congressional resolution to use force against the Assad regime has been made widely and well by conservative foreign policy thinkers. At the end, the case boils down to this: As a policy matter, a Yes vote may be problematic in all kinds of ways. But a…
As the debate over gay marriage began heating up, supporters of the idea insisted that it was a matter of basic libertarianism. “Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t have one,” went the bumper-sticker-turned-rallying-cry. Of course, it was never going to be that simple with regard to something as…
Early in 1659, a strong-willed woman named Sarah Chevers and an even stronger-willed woman named Katharine Evans arrived in Malta. By chance—or, as they insisted, Providence—they had been diverted, their Dutch ship chased into the port of Valletta by rumor of pirates and bad weather. And since…
Readers will, we hope, forgive The Scrapbook for the undue pleasure we have taken in Washington Post stories about the impending sale of the Post to Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos.
American interests in Syria are clear: preventing terrorists from acquiring chemical weapons; depriving Iran of its most important ally and staging-base in the Middle East; and preventing al Qaeda from establishing an uncontested safe haven in the Levant. Reasonable people can disagree about the…
"Oh, Winston, why?” Field Marshal Jan Smuts is said to have remonstrated with Churchill over his war memoirs, which Smuts considered too self-serving. “Why did you have to do that? You, more than anyone in the world, could have written as no one else could have written the true history of the war.”…
The show’s hero has huge muscles, wisecracking sidekicks, and a mysterious origin. In each episode, he performs feats beyond the abilities of mere mortals. He fights for values that just about everyone shares, and he dispenses common-sense wisdom in a way that seems profound. Each episode ends,…
Bill Kristol, with Brit Hume, Jane Harman, and Charles Lane, earlier today on the Internet-only Panel Plus:
A Georgia health care company will lay off over 100 employees due in part to Obamacare, according to a WSB-TV report:
With Obamacare’s massive Patient Data Hub poised to open soon, a sloppy mistake by an Obamacare employee hasn’t exactly inspired confidence that Americans’ private information will be closely guarded by Obamacare’s powers-that-be. As the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports (and Andrew Johnson…
Tomorrow it will be five years since Lehman Brothers departed the financial world, and we can almost still hear the gnashing of teeth as then-treasury secretary Hank Paulson watched Richard Fuld, then-boss of Lehman Brothers, take his company into bankruptcy after British regulators refused to…
On Petraeus's harrassment at CUNY.
Israelis aren't too impressed with the way President Barack Obama has handled the situation in Syria, and they aren't too confident in the American president's ability to deal with a nuclear Iran, either. That's according to a new poll, the Algemeiner reports:
In an interview with Buzzfeed's McKay Coppins, Kentucky senator Rand Paul criticized "some" Christians who support Israel and the Jews and those Christians' "overeagerness" to go to war. Adding to sentiments he expressed in a speech earlier this year, Paul told Buzzfeed:
Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, issued this statement in response to President Obama announcing Jeffrey Zients to be his top economic advisor:
President Barack Obama will be traveling to Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines, at the beginning of next, the White House announced today.
A revealing exchange between John Kerry, his Russian counterpart (Sergey Lavrov), and an interpreter:
Politico reports that:
The New York Post imagines the first draft of Vladimir Putin's New York Times op-ed:
High costs and low-quality care have defined the state of Louisiana's system of charity hospitals, established during the Huey Long era to serve the medical needs of low-income citizens. Now, as the Associated Press's Melinda Deslatte reports, Republican governor Bobby Jindal is making the case…
Eliot A. Cohen, writing for the Washington Post:
Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:
Vice President Joe Biden said Repulican opposition to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the House of Representatives came from the "Neanderthal crowd." And he gave himself credit for coming up with the law almost 20 years ago.
Marco Rubio: America is too an exceptional nation, Volodya.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on a resurgent Russia's growing appetite for influence in the middle east.
Syria and weapons of mass destruction behind him, the resident will be “'focusing' on issues related to the economy in the coming weeks, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday at his daily briefing."
As the October 1 implementation of parts of Obamacare nears, House Republicans continue to pass legislation aimed at highlighting the health care law's flaws and weaknesses. On Thursday, the House passed a bill to reform an Obamacare verification process that would better stop fraudulent claims to…
It has been clear for some time now that big labor is no fan of Obamacare. Now the AFL-CIO has passed a resolution making it official. As Sam Hananel reports for the Associated Press:
John Boehner, the Republican House speaker, told reporters Thursday he was "insulted" by the op-ed article in the New York Times by Russian president Vladimir Putin on the Syrian conflict. The Washington Free Beacon has the video:
For comic book writers, the first rule in working for Marvel or DC Comics is this: The toys don’t belong to you and you’re only allowed to play in the sandbox as long as the suits let you.
Hardly an academic semester goes by without a high-profile opportunity arising for the right to address pervasive, perennial anti-conservative animus on the American college campus. And hardly an academic semester goes by without the right, reflexively blinded by righteous indignation, blowing an…
The latest dire consequence of the Sequester may be an increase in the number of cases of the flu and, consequently, increased absenteeism among the civilian Air Force employees.
With the launch of the Obamacare Health Insurance Marketplace less than three weeks ago, one of the only functions consumers were already able to access, creating an account, has been taken "offline" for "upgrading."
Are you feeling impulsive? Well, if you are in the District of Columbia there is nothing to fear—the government is doing all it can to protect you from yourself. D.C.’s health department has issued draft regulations that would require anyone seeking a tattoo to wait 24 hours to be inked. A…
Alaska's lieutenant governor Mead Treadwell, a Republican, has officially entered the U.S. Senate race in 2014 to challenge incumbent Democrat Mark Begich. The Associated Press reports:
New Jersey governor Chris Christie launched his first general election campaign ad Thursday. The 30-second spot touts the Republican's achievements in his first term, including "four balanaced budgets," cuts to "wasteful spending," a property tax cap, and "the most education funding--ever." Watch…
Is Putin really going to disarm Assad?
Dean Barnett on "The 9/11 Generation: Better than the Boomers":
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the twelfth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City by terrorists. Eleven years later on September 11, 2012, events unfolded in Benghazi, Libya, that would ultimately leave a U.S. diplomatic facility gutted and…
Today, President Dalia Grybauskaite welcomed His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, to Vilnius, Lithuania. Two years ago, her Estonian counterpart, President Toomas Ilves, also defied Beijing by meeting the Dalai Lama. Their gestures of principle and graciousness, made in the…
In its story on yesterday's ballot measure on repeal of a controversial law in Colorado, the Los Angles Times reports:
The White House today announced Música Latina, a concert featuring performers Natalie Cole, Lila Downs, Gloria Estefan, Raul Malo, Ricky Martin, Price Royce, Arturo Sandoval, Romeo Santos, Alejandro Sanz and Marco Antonio Solis. The event will take place at the White House next week on September 16.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the Benghazi controversy, one year later.
First Lady Michelle Obama's office is holding a conference call with reporters now to tout her "New Effort To Encourage Everyone to Drink More Water," according to the White House. The content of the call is "embargoed until 6:00AM ET on Thursday, September 12."
On September 3, 2013, CIA director John Brennan sent a letter to House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers responding to questions about CIA-affiliated personnel who were on the ground during the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya. The letter is below:
Since the 2010 elections, President Obama has often expressed impatience with Congress, and at times has said that he would not wait for Congress, did not need Congress, or has simply acted without Congress. At one point, the White House developed an entire We Can't Wait campaign to emphasize the…
President Obama spoke today at the Pentagon at a 9/11 wreath-laying memorial service:
The boss, from the November 1/8, 2004 issue of TWS:
Reuters reports that:
One year after the terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, the survivors may finally begin to talk.
Near the end of his speech to the nation on Syria, President Obama quoted Franklin Roosevelt: “Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideas and principles that we have cherished are challenged.”
The full text of President Obama's address tonight on Syria:
How Assad wooed the American right.
A few hours before midnight in Iraq as September 11 approached, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad posted an "Emergency Message" warning "U.S. citizens against all but essential travel to Iraq." Although the notice referenced the anniversary of 9/11, the main reason for the warning is apparent threats…
Tom Joscelyn delivered this testimony earlier today on Capitol Hill:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on President Obama, Syria, and Iran.
Mike Doran tells the Washington Post what's going on with Syria, Russia, and the United States:
An office building manager in downtown Washington, D.C. is preparing for the 9/11 "Million Muslim March" by explaining to the tenants of the building what's expected for tomorrow.
Although the White House posted its annual Presidential Proclamation of National Days of Prayer and Remembrance commemorating September 11th, 2001, there is no mention of the Benghazi attacks of 2012. One day before the 12th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks and the first anniversary…
Maybe Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin really did discuss the idea of putting Syrian chemical weapons under international control last week on the sidelines of the G20 conference. Putin sure doesn’t care that Obama’s taking credit for the proposal, or that the administration is posturing like a Mob…
Tevi Troy's book What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culture in the White House has gone on sale:
Representative Tom Cotton of Arkansas has introduced a bill which, if it were put to a national referendum, could not lose. The title alone makes it a sure winner:
Catholics across the country are now hearing their priests and bishops urging them to reform—not just their immortal souls, but immigration policy. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is promoting an extensive effort to persuade their congregations to back comprehensive…
A Grand Rapids, Michigan report on a company that had to lay off over 1,000 people due to the Obamacare medical device tax:
Speaking in support of military action against Syria, Alexander Bolton of The Hill reports, Senator Harry Reid brought up the example of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust:
Most members of Congress think they just received a tremendous personal gift on Obamacare, courtesy of President Obama, and paid for by taxpayers. But according to a new poll, this issue cuts across all demographics with unrivaled unanimity: if they accept the gift, they put themselves at risk of…
In an interview with NBC, President Obama suggested a diplomatic solution was at hand regarding Syria, and he said, "If you ask Michelle do we want to be involved in another war, the answer is no."
Americans are more interested in Cyrus than Syria.
The White House pool reporter forwards this message from an unnamed official:
Is this the beginning of the White House turn?
An unclassified version of a September report from the Director of National Intelligence reveals that another five former Guantanamo Bay detainees have either been confirmed as reengaging in terrorism or are suspected of doing so. The report comes just as a judge in Algeria has approved parole of…
The State Department announces that Secretary of State John Kerry will defend America's Syria policy in a "Google+ Hangout" tomorrow.
Michael Zuckert of the University of Notre Dame will give the Constitution Day lecture at AEI. Details:
Eleanor Clift, at the Daily Beast, finds someone who sees this thing clear.
Syrian strongman Bashar Assad will "still be able to eat Cheerios" after a U.S. strike, but he'll have to use a fork and not a spoon. At least that's the metaphor one Obama administration official used to describe the nature of a U.S. strike to USA Today.
The New York Times reported on September 5 that the United States is widening plans for proposed strikes on Syria to punish the Assad government for its alleged chemical weapons attacks. The plans now reportedly include the use of aircraft in addition to cruise missiles:
The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, allowed on NPR this morning that American action in Syria might not be legal:
Susan Rice famously blamed the Benghazi terror attack that took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, on an Internet video. She further said the terror attack occurred after a spontaneous protest over that anti-Muslim film got out of hand, instead of blaming the al Qaeda…
Jane Harman is a former member of the House of Representatives and a lifetime member in good standing of the political class and, hence, a guest from time to time on Meet the Press where the panel discussions are carried on in a language that is known as "high beltway."
In an interview with CBS this morning, Syrian strongman Bashar Assad warned that the U.S. should "expect every action" and hinted at another 9/11-type attack on America:
Sydney
The Scrapbook did not attend the 50th anniversary observance of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. But like most Americans, we did tune in on television for a few minutes—and saw a couple of distressing things, and one very mysterious thing.
A number of Israel’s former foes share its concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, but this is mostly on the principle that an enemy of one’s enemy is a friend. Israel can claim to have a genuinely close partnership with only one majority-Muslim country. It is said that Azerbaijani-Israeli relations…
Is President Obama going wobbly on Syria? No. He’s always been wobbly on Syria—and on pretty much everything else.
Nancy Pelosi waxed rhapsodic in 2010 as she imagined the benefits of Obamacare: “Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance.”
The Scrapbook was a bit taken aback to read a recent AP news report that began “Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning . . . ” It was announced two weeks ago that Bradley Manning, recently sentenced to 35 years in a military prison for espionage and theft of classified documents, wanted a sex change and…
Jerusalem
Fantasies of the “noble savage” are nothing new, of course. There were Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s state-of-nature imaginings in the 18th century, and something similar appears even in the ancient epic Gilgamesh. In 1580, Montaigne compared holy-warring Europeans (unfavorably) with Brazilian cannibals,…
The horrendously titled Short Term 12, a no-star independent film about a young woman working at a foster-care facility in Los Angeles, is receiving rapturous notices of a kind its young writer-director Destin Cretton could hardly have dreamt of. It has a 98 percent positive rating on Rotten…
Living in rural New England with four dogs teaches important political lessons—to the dogs.
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877)—“the greatest Victorian,” as an eminent historian of that period memorialized him, editor of the Economist, author of The English Constitution, and a prolific essayist—is almost unknown today. (Even the pronunciation of his name is unfamiliar; it rhymes with gadget.) The…
Study the history of the American Red Cross and you’ll find that the most dramatic change in that organization’s history was between 1910 and 1920, when it was transformed from a relatively small organization into the lumbering giant it is today. Until now, this inflection point in Red Cross…
Phyllis Chesler has had a curious career. Back in the 1970s, along with Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, Kate Millett, and company, she was a leading “second-wave” feminist, whose 1972 book Women and Madness sold 2.5 million copies. Yet, in some respects, she always differed from her activist…
It was a cold Saturday night on Columbus Day weekend 1969 when Lance Brisson and I pulled up behind a Yellow cab parked at a crazy angle on the corner of Washington and Cherry Streets, an expensive area of San Francisco called Presidio Heights.
There are reasons to worry about NSA surveillance. Civil servants have all the usual human frailties, and when they abuse their power, it’s good to know about it—that’s why we have extensive whistleblower protection laws. But whistle-blowing is different from stealing state secrets and absconding…
When I asked Mike Lee, the freshman Republican senator from Utah, how he identified himself politically, he said, “A constitutional conservative.” Note the adjective “constitutional.” It’s not surprising that the senator uses it.
Baton Rouge
On August 22, the New Mexico supreme court unanimously ruled that a wedding photographer broke the law by refusing to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. While gay rights advocates are celebrating this latest in a string of legal and political victories, the outcome of Elane Photography v.…
It's not often that The Scrapbook finds itself defending “graffiti artists.” But when they find themselves on the barrel end of silly and borderline extortionate government regulations, we can’t help but feel solidarity.
When we bemoan some bureaucratic atrocity—and the paperwork in which it so often finds tangible expression—we are likely to do so with world-weary, unreflective resignation. A well-known passage from Edna St. Vincent Millay comes to mind: So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of…
The state of California may have a lot to recommend it—give us a few days, and we’ll think of something—but Santa Cruz, a beach town of 60,000 some 70 miles south of San Francisco, encapsulates everything wrong with the Golden State.
Several weeks ago in San Francisco, Attorney General Eric Holder told the American Bar Association that our criminal justice system is too harsh, too costly, and gives convicted African-American males sentences 20 percent longer than others for similar crimes.
"It's a pity they can’t both lose.” So Henry Kissinger famously said about Iran and Iraq during their long and ugly war in the 1980s. Having squandered the many opportunities created by the uprising in Syria against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and with the Syrian opposition increasingly…
The victory by hard-nosed conservative Tony Abbott and his Liberal party in Australia’s national election on Saturday may not have lessons for America. But the center-right victory and ouster of the Labor party–it’s the liberal party–makes comparisons between what happened in Australia and…
The boss, with Bob Woodward, Danielle Pletka, David Ignatius, and David Sanger, this morning on CBS. Video here.
Get up to speed on the latest developments in Syria with senior editor Lee Smith in this edition of THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast.
It’s not hard to imagine the story of Syria and the GOP going something like this:
It’s not that anyone here in Washington begrudges Britain, and to some extent Spain, their fledgling recoveries. But President Obama and other proponents of more government spending aren’t delighted that those nations’ austerity programs seem to be paying off in renewed growth rather than in the…
Could we be witnessing a revival of moral standards in our politics? Not only does Anthony Weiner look certain to go down in ignominious defeat in New York’s mayoral election in a couple of weeks, but Multnomah County, Oregon, chair Jeff Cogen–or, if you prefer, Portland’s Weiner--who admitted to a…
Former senators Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl write in the Wall Street Journal:
He may lose this election but that it merely a setback and not fatal. As Alexander Bolton of The Hill reports:
Eric Cantor, writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
A new poll of likely Virginia voters show Democrat Terry McAuliffe leading Republican Ken Cuccinelli by seven points in this fall's gubernatorial election. Rasmussen Reports found McAuliffe with 45 percent support compared to Cuccinelli's 38 percent. This poll aligns with the Real Clear Politics…
President Obama said that the U.S. talk of military action in Syria is bypassing the "hocus pocus" of the U.N.:
In a press conference today, President Obama defended his proposed Syria action:
One industry badly hit last month was "the motion picture and sound recording industry," according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. From the jobs report released this morning:
CNBC contributor Rick Santelli responds to today's jobs numbers:
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports:
In a briefing with the press, deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes said that any military strike on Syria would be a response to chemical weapons--and would "not [intend] to resolve the underlying political crisis within Syria." Instead, "the underlying political crisis within Syria" would…
When the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the numbers, this morning, on August unemployment, the economics, finance, and political priesthoods will commence digging into the entrails to divine Truth. There is much to be uncertain about in the future and perhaps these numbers will tell us…
The White House made a foreign policy announcement this morning: "United States and China Reach Agreement on Phase Down of HFCs," the press release reads. HFCs are hydrofluorocarbons, which are sometimes called super greenhouse gases.
Six reasons to approve the Keystone Pipeline.
Bob Terris of the National Journal writes of the agonies facing Gerald Connolly, a Congressman whose district is in the Fairfax area of Virginia. In a few days, he must vote 'yes' or 'no' on allowing President Obama to take military action in Syria.
Seventy years ago today, Winston Churchill received an honorary degree from Harvard University and addressed its faculty and students in the university’s largest room, Sanders Theater.
"Our capacity to execute this mission is not time-sensitive," President Obama said during his remarks on Syria this past Saturday in the White House Rose Garden. "It will be effective tomorrow or next week or one month from now, and I am prepared to give that order."
Politico's Reid Epstein reports:
Challenged by a respected and moderate Islamic scholar, Dr. Xhabir Hamiti, in an election for the top position in the Islamic Community of Kosovo, the Balkan republic’s radical chief cleric Naim Ternava has “amended” the Community constitution, which limited occupancy of the post to two five-year…
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal writes in the Washington Post:
Justin Sink of The Hill writes that:
The federal government paid more than $74.6 billion last year to provide 46.6 millions Americans with food stamps. This is an astonishing increase, even for this era of rapidly rising federal spending. Four years earlier the comparable figures were $34.6 billion in benefits for 28.2 million…
Dempsey: Syria could retaliate with cyber attacks.
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, executive editor Fred Barnes discusses President Obama, Syria, and what it means to be a "wartime president":
The Associated Press reports:
If this paragraph from the Washington Post does not say it all, then it certainly says most of it:
The National Security Agency (NSA) is broadening its recruiting efforts for future cyber experts. An announcement on Wednesday named four new schools chosen to participate in the NSA's "Cyber Initiative." The press release explains the program:
Tom Walsh of the Detroit Free Press, writes about some of the obstacles in Detroit's way if it is to show its best face come the "invasion by the nation’s media in October for baseball playoffs and, hopefully, a World Series."
The editors of National Review endorse military action in Syria:
President Obama, speaking earlier today in Sweden about America's proposed intervention in Syria:
President Obama said in Sweden today that he personally "didn't set a red line" on Syria:
In Sweden, President Obama complained about the way he's sometimes treated back home in the United States, and suggested he'd be more welcomed in Europe:
A local report from Green Bay, Wisconsin says that health care premiuns could increase up to 125 percent because of Obamacare:
Lost in the debate over responding to Bashar al-Assad’s use of nerve gas is the fact that the United States has other interests in the Syrian civil war, like mitigating the effects of the war on Syria’s neighbors—Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Israel—and countering the regional ambitions of…
Reports indicate that upward of 70 people were killed in a chemical attack in Douma, Syria, over the weekend. President Trump tweeted about the attack on Sunday morning, both calling out Russia's Vladimir Putin and blaming President Obama for not acting in 2013. At that time, Mike Pompeo and Tom…
Appearing on Special Report with Bret Baier Tuesday night, Florida senator Marco Rubio said that he's "very skeptical" that President Obama's proposed strike on Syria could achieve the president's stated objectives.
Syria and Germany's culture of reluctance.
According to the polls, a little more than a majority of Americans oppose intervention in Syria, although it is difficult to say exactly what this means since the subject is decidedly ambiguous. Does intervention mean the sort of limited air campaign that President Obama seems to have in mind, or…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the deliberation in congress over President Obama's proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force against Syria.
Secretary of State John Kerry said that after U.S. strikes against Syria, dictator Bashar al-Assad will be able to "stand up and, no doubt, he'll try to claim that somehow this is, you know, something positive for him."
The Washington Post reports that Democrats won't whip their members on the Syria vote:
The Republican party's 2012 vice presidential nominee, Congressman Paul Ryan, issued a statement Tuesday saying that he has not made a decision about how he will vote on authorization of force against Syria:
CNN’s The Lead reports that former CIA director, General Michael Hayden points out that in contemplating a military operation against Syria of the sort that would be "just muscular enough not to be mocked,"
House majority leader Eric Cantor says that he intends "to vote to provide the President of the United States the option to use military force in Syria."
Speaker of the House John Boehner says that he'll support President Obama's "call for action" in Syria:
The Wall Street Journal editorializes:
CNN’s The Lead reports that the Washington bureau chief of al Arabiya television, Hisham Melhem, is saying that:
Under the headline, "Veteran Journalist Douglas Frantz Heading To State Department," Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post reports on one Secretary of State John Kerry's latest hires.
Eliot A Cohen, writing in the Wall Street Journal:
Elliott Abrams, writing in Politico, has a devastating critique of Obama's foreign policy—and a call for Republicans to vote to authorize the use of force against the Assad regime. Here's Abrams:
The celebration of work and the working man and woman feels a little forced this year. Union have, as Kevin Bogardus of The Hill reports:
One of American conservatism's leading thinkers, James Ceaser of the University of Virginia, weighs in on "To authorize or not to authorize:"
Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican, is marking Labor Day with a statement lamenting the decline in America’s workforce and the strident push toward passing an immigration bill.
David Simas, a White House staffer, tweets (and the White House retweets) a link to an article and adds, “More good ACA [Obamacare] news. 21% savings on premiums for Ohioans who buy their own health insurance because of the ACA.”
Moscow
The decision by the British government earlier this summer to approve a suite of new technologies that would make possible the creation of human embryos with three genetic parents has brought a long-simmering and seemingly obscure bioethical debate into the public eye, raising questions not only…
The timing was probably not a coincidence, falling as it did on two anniversaries. August 18, 2011, was when President Obama first demanded Syrian president Bashar al-Assad step aside, and August 20 last year was when Obama warned that the use of chemical weapons would “change my calculus.” It was…
Most of the time, intellectual history is a tangle, the threads so snarled that the result looks like a skein of yarn after a dozen kittens have been set loose on it. That lump over there? The muddle that the Venerable Bede made of things. That twisted set of knots? The playful chaos that Thomas…
Melbourne
In the continuing debate over Obamacare, both the law’s champions and its critics are now focused largely on the mechanics of implementation. This is understandable. The insurance exchanges are supposed to launch October 1, most of the law’s other major provisions take effect January 1, and every…
The press, for whatever reason, has been strangely Panglossian on North Korea ever since Kim Jong-un took over as supreme leader back in December 2011. No Stalinist tyrant is he, we’ve been told time and again. In fact, he may just be a bona fide reformer!
One question, more than any other, will determine the shape of the national political discussion over the next several months: Will Republican leaders make Obamacare a central part of the coming negotiations over funding the government and raising the debt ceiling?
The other day, I decided to see how long I could go without reading the word “iconic.”
As was quite clear at the time, the biggest mistake that Mitt Romney’s campaign made in 2012 was not aggressively attacking Obamacare. What may well have been its second-biggest mistake, however, was less noticed: the striking silence in the face of President Obama’s announcement that he would no…
New Haven
Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) is sponsoring a measure that sounds like a good idea and features one of those clever legislative acronyms: the Eliminating Government-Funded Oil-painting (EGO) Act. It would outlaw the use of federal funds to pay for portraits of senior officials, especially members of…
Perhaps inspired by the Searchers’ great 1964 hit “Love Potion No. 9,” the Chinese Communist party seems to be rallying behind “Document No. 9.” As the New York Times reported last week, a memorandum with that title issued forth in April from a party office. While the wisdom of Documents Nos. 1-8…
Seventy years distant, World War II has become indelibly etched in the national memory as “the good war.” The rapid passing of the war generation makes it difficult to disentangle the conflict itself from our collective reverence for its sacrifice and achievement. Yet Lynne Olson reminds us that a…
For decades, the lords of big-league baseball scrambled to protect their antitrust exemption, warning that the professional game would fall apart if the owners could not conspire against free markets to run it their way. Most of all, they wanted to protect the reserve clause, under which a player…
"Anthony Weiner may be lagging in the race for New York City mayor, but he is winning in another area—hot dog marketing. The delicious combination of Anthony Weiner’s name and his sexually suggestive Twitter antics were apparently too good to pass up for one Florida marketing man, who has joined…
Has there ever been a more melodramatic director than Lee Daniels? The man screams out movies at the top of his lungs. Even the titling of his films becomes an occasion for histrionics. In 2009, he made a movie called Push, only to discover there was a science-fiction film with the same name. So he…
Hillary Clinton is the prohibitive frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president—just as she was eight years ago today. If she were to succeed this time around, what would her chances be for a general election victory? Obviously, it is far too early to reach anything approaching a…
Cell phones today in America are of course endemic, if not epidemic. On one of the thoroughfares in the youthful neighborhood in which I live, I can sometimes walk an entire block without passing anyone not on or gazing down at or thumb-pumping his or her cell phone. Everyone has seen three or four…
it is less than three years since the fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the small Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, sparking the events that toppled dictator Ben Ali and launched the “Arab Spring.” Now, the high hopes of those days have faded, and Tunisia is in disarray, its society…
A curious episode unraveled last week that, in The Scrapbook’s judgment, tells us everything we need to know about the motives of Edward Snowden, and the ethics of Glenn Greenwald (the Guardian journalist who broke the Snowden story) and the Guardian itself, Britain’s premier left newspaper.
A few years ago I was getting a ride home from a party with a guy in his early twenties. I lived in a gentrified neighborhood I could no longer pretend to afford, and he lived, it emerged, with his parents. “Good for you,” I said. “I think that’s great.”
President Obama has some work to do if he wants congressional authority to bomb Syria. Already some of his liberal allies are questioning the evidence which is supposed to show that Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his own people.
To keep up with important developments regarding Syria, check out the Institute for the Study of War's blog devoted to "Syria Updates." The web address is http://iswsyria.blogspot.com/.