January 2014

Sean Trende: What are Republicans thinking on immigration?

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on why the Republicans shouldn't move aggressively on immigration reform this year.

The essential argument for the Affordable Care Act was that too many people in the United States did not have health care insurance.  If the law had a natural constituency, then that would logically be those people who were uninsured.  Hence, those who were covered needed to be reassured that, “If…

The State Department releases its final environmental report on the Keystone Pipeline today. Justin Sink of The Hill reports:

President Obama traveled to Wisconsin yesterday and engaged in a tasteless bit of anti-intellectualism. “A lot of young people no longer see the trades and skilled manufacturing as a viable career,” he told an audience in Waukesha, “but I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with…

In Washington state, some sick kids have been denied specialty care due to Obamacare, a local news outlet reports:

The Obama administration and its supporters have been conflating the number of people who have selected an Obamacare plan with the number of people who have enrolled in a plan. It's inaccurate to do that because many of the people who have signed up haven't paid their first month's premium, which…

Another poll shows Hillary Clinton leading the pack of would-be Democratic nominees by an outsized margin. This one is courtesy of ABC News-Washington Post, which has her at 73 percent support among would-be Democratic voters—with Joe Biden trailing at just 12 percent.

First Lady Michelle Obama tells rich donors to keep the checks coming. "You can write a check. Or another one. Write a big fat check. Write the biggest check you could possibly write," the first lady said at a high-dollar Democratic fundraiser last night in San Francisco.

Dorothy Kosinski is looking forward to the release of The Monuments Men, and not just because it stars George Clooney. The director of the Phillips Collection sees the movie as a way of spreading awareness that culture matters—and is even worth fighting for. The film is based on Robert Edsel's…

The State Department is presenting a global webcast on February 4, titled "From the Street to Mainstream: The Evolution of Rap/Hip Hop Music."  The host of the webcast, rapper and State Department Music Ambassador Toni Blackman, will be joined by Pras Michel, a founding member of the hip hop group…

Senator Jeff Sessions says that House Republicans should "expose" President Obama's immigration plan, and not join it.

The best scam they can come up with?

Representative Henry Waxman is retiring.  Waxman has been in Congress a long time. He got there in the aftermath of Watergate, back when disco was still cool, and he hung around, building seniority and an attachment to certain causes. Among them, health care and the environment.

National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Greg Walden told reporters at the House Republican retreat that immigration votes are "probably months out" and will be after the congressional primaries are mostly over.

Included in the political news of the morning (flash, bulletin: Hillary Clinton is still the front runner for the Democratic nomination) is an interesting item suggesting that Democratic party insiders, fat cats, and such have all but decided that reinstalling Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House…

Ted Cruz says that anyone in favor of the so-called immigration reform bill "should go ahead and put a 'Harry Reid for Majority Leader' bumper sticker on their car."

A poll of New Hampshire voters from Purple Strategies shows how the various potential presidential candidates are faring two years before the traditional first primary. But of more immediate concern is the 2014 race for the U.S. Senate there, where Democrat incumbent Jeanne Shaheen is tied at 44…

Republican congressman Bill Cassidy leads incumbent Democratic senator Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll.

A new poll of Georgia voters found the likely Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate is slightly ahead of four the candidates in the crowded GOP primary. PPP, working on behalf of the liberal group Americans United For Change, found that Democrat Michelle Nunn leads Republican congressmen Paul Broun,…

White House press secretary Jay Carney is concerned that the press in China -- the foreign press there -- is facing "restrictions."

Henry Waxman will retire from the House, the Washington Post reports:

A local news station brings viewers inside one Pennsylvania company as the employees there learn about their new health care plans under Obamacare:

Tuesday, during the State of the Union Address, President Obama boasted that “American diplomacy, backed by the threat of force, is why Syria’s chemical weapons are being eliminated.”  The assertion was premature. In early January, Syria’s Bashar Assad regime indeed started the process of…

As expected, first time claims rose “unexpectedly," last week.  As Jeanna Smialek of Bloomberg reports:

The government shutdown may have ended last October, but the Treasury Department's voicemail is telling callers a different story. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that some House Republican leaders:

Another Munich agreement in slow motion.

During the summer and fall of 2013, Texas senator Ted Cruz repeatedly warned that it would be impossible to repeal Obamacare once Americans began receiving subsidies on January 1, 2014.

Reuters reports:

With twenty-four months to go until the first votes are cast in the Republican presidential primary, Democratic pollster PPP surveys the country and finds Mike Huckabee atop the field: 

The GOP dismisses President Obama's State of the Union Address with this online video, showing the president repeated lines from previous addresses:

House majority leader Eric Cantor applauded President Obama's push for so-called immigration reform in last night's State of the Union Address:

Yesterday afternoon, before President Obama's State of the Union Address, Senator Jeff Sessions' staff hand-delivered to each Republican member of the House an important memo on the so-called immigration reform bill being debated on Capital Hill. The 3-page document, written by Sessions, argues…

According to Gallup  among the 50 states, the president’s highest approval rating is in Hawaii where it is just above 60 percent.  Understandable, since he was born there, spends a lot of time and plays a lot of golf in the islands, and has enough history with Hawaii that he could call it home.

The House voted Tuesday night to pass Congressman Chris Smith’s (R-N.J.) No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which expands bans on federal funding of abortions and requires that the Obamacare insurance exchanges clearly describe which plans cover abortion.

President Obama called for a minimum wage hike in his State of the Union Address, but to hear Washington state Democrats tell it, wages aren't the main concern: The real problem is the modern American workplace itself. The minimum wage in Washington state is already $9.32 an hour, more than two…

Betray your country, hide out in a thugocracy, then have your name put up for the Nobel Peace Prize. So goes Snowden’s improbable odyssey as reported by Reuters:

President Barack Obama delivered a State of the Union Address on Tuesday that was important less for what he said than for what it says about him.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on President Obama's 2014 State of the Union address.

Democratic senator Mark Udall of Colorado won't say whether he'll campaign for his own reelection with President Barack Obama:

Almost immediately after tonight's State of the Union Address, Vice President Joe Biden sent an email to supporters of the Democratic party asking for money.

The text of the Republican response to the State of the Union Address, delivered by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state:

President Obama's State of the Union Address, as prepared for delivery:

Report: Iran deal kept in "super secret location."

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with the 2017 Project's executive director Jeffrey Anderson, on the GOP's new Obamacare repeal and replace alternative.

A provision tucked away in a 2008 bill allocated $20 million to create an office at the USDA to inspect facilities that process catfish. Seafood inspections have traditionally been done by the Food and Drug Administration—and if you're wondering why one species of fish needs to be inspected by two…

A new poll from the Israel Project on Americans' thoughts on President Obama's deal with Iran:

Nineteen Democratic senators filed a brief this week with the Supreme Court in support of requiring business owners to pay for contraceptives and abortifacients for their employees over their religious objections.

"President Obama plans to sign an executive order requiring that janitors, construction workers and others working for federal contractors be paid at least $10.10 an hour, using his own power to enact a more limited version of a policy that he has yet to push through Congress," reports Peter Baker…

Tennesseans who purchased health insurance policies under Obamacare are discovering their doctors and health care providers often don't fall in their new networks. WSMV, Nashville's NBC affiliate, has the story (via the Free Beacon):

Happy days are here again on K Street.  As Kevin Bogardus and Erik Wasson of the Hill write, with Congress debating individual spending bills instead of simply passing continuing resolutions:

Max Baucus, President Obama's nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to China, was remarkably candid at his confirmation hearing in the Senate:

President Obama released this statement on the passing of singer Pete Seeger:

The World Court resolution of Peru’s petition to change its border with Chile didn’t catch much attention beyond the Pacific coast of South America, but it matters, a lot. A century and a half ago la Guerra del Pacifico, in which Chile opposed both Bolivia and Peru, left Chile holding several…

Fred Barnes, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Former press secretary Robert Gibbs said today on TV that President Obama and his White House "long ago" gave up on "trying" to change Washington:

Monday morning, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) blog at Whitehouse.gov published an entry titled: "Support for National Association of School Nurses' [NASN] Position on the Legalization of Marijuana." However, the original link for the post is now meet with a "Sorry, the page…

As Bill Kristol and Jeff Anderson noted earlier today, the introduction by Republican Senators Burr, Coburn, and Hatch of an Obamacare replacement plan is an important milestone in the health care debate. This is a serious and practical replacement proposal, offered by three prominent legislators.…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with literary editor Philip Terzian on the Books & Arts section of our February 4, 2014 issue. He is joined by James Bowman, who authored the review "Casualties of War" in this issue.

Philip Klein on the Senate GOP's Obamacare alternative.

American Action Network, a conservative non-profit organization, has released a new ad knocking President Obama as an "empty suit" in anticipation of Obama's state of the union address Tuesday night. Watch the video below:

The editors at National Review argue that House Republican leadership should not pursue immigration reform in 2014. Here's an excerpt:

The leading Republican candidate for Senate in North Carolina has a seven-point advantage over incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan, according to a new poll from Rassmussen Reports.

The public does not approve of President Obama's "handling" of "The situation with Iran," according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

2017 Project executive director (and frequent TWS contributor) Jeff Anderson has an important memo outlining the new health care reform proposal from three senior Republican senators that would repeal Obamacare and replace it with legislation that "beats Obamacare in every particular" and would…

A gathering of pro-Hillary Clinton activists in Iowa this weekend revealed how supporters of the former first lady are hoping to learn from the mistakes of Clinton's failed attempt to win the Iowa caucuses in 2008. America Rising, a conservative opposition research firm, had its cameras rolling at…

David S. Cloud of the Los Angeles Times reports:

Timothy P. Carney, writing for the Washington Examiner:

In a stunning admission, a recently released government document reveals that the original contract for Healthcare.gov contained no "specific concurrent user performance requirement." The federal government's online marketplace was plagued from the outset, in part due to the lack of ability to…

The head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration is now openly criticizing Barack Obama for his recent comments over the question of marijuana legalization, according to multiple reports.

To appreciate the Senate race shaping up in Arkansas between two-term incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor and freshman Republican House member Tom Cotton, it’s useful to review the state’s particular variant of Southern politics.

Obamacare has quickly become a train wreck. Its troubled website, higher premiums, and inevitable shortages and rationing, married to President Barack Obama’s political refusals to enforce parts of the law, guarantee that the program will go down as one of 

The political debate over what to do about global warming rages on, largely because liberals refuse to have an honest discussion about their plans to deal with it. The heart of their every proposed “solution” to climate change is a radical economic program that would threaten the livelihood and…

Despite what readers may think, when people we never liked reach their expiration date, The Scrapbook tends to lean in the direction of de mortuis nil nisi bonum. (Loosely translated: Don’t speak ill of the dead.) It’s a little different, however, when political careers die—and so we freely confess…

In 2007 the U.S. Navy published a new maritime strategy, “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” known as CS-21. The Navy had already shifted from its Cold War focus on defeating the Soviet fleet at sea to projecting power from sea to shore, as challenges in such places as Iraq, Bosnia,…

Although he has, in most respects, been gone from the scene for the better part of a decade, Ariel Sharon’s death this month has nonetheless hit Israel hard. His military career was among the most exemplary in a nation that has seen far more than its share of great warriors. And by the end of his…

Republicans are being urged to support President Obama’s request for TPA so that he can complete negotiations on TPP and TTIP while pursuing other deals at the WTO. For those who do not often feast on this alphabet soup: Obama wants what we used to call fast-track authority to make a trade deal.

In our November 25, 2013, issue, Jonathan V. Last chronicled the story of Ocean Grove, the New Jersey shore town which was being denied FEMA relief funds to repair damage from Hurricane Sandy. The problem was that Ocean Grove was originally settled as a Methodist campsite and that the town remains…

Those who follow politics know that Dick Cheney’s biography is an extraordinary one. His rapid ascension from Capitol Hill intern (and Yale dropout) in 1969 to White House chief of staff by 1974 is one of the fastest rises in American political annals. It was so fast, and he rose so high, that it…

This week’s Time magazine splashes the question on its cover: “Can Anyone Stop Hillary?” The Weekly Standard is happy to provide our friends at Time with an answer to their query: Yes. Hillary Clinton can be stopped. How? Let us count the ways.

When we speak of “the permanent things,” we should mean the enduring, inescapable, and unfulfilled longings of the contradictory human heart: the helpless yearnings found across radically different times and cultures. And among these permanent desires, the need for home and the need for ecstasy…

It's been more than a week now and I’m beginning to suspect she’s not going to call, so here I will offer Janet Yellen the advice I’ve been hoping to give her privately since the Senate confirmed her as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. My advice is: Think about John Cowperthwaite. By this I…

Under our Constitution, a government agency may not act beyond the authority given it by Congress. Indeed, as the Supreme Court has said, “an agency literally has no power to act .  .  . unless and until Congress confers power upon it.”

Two households, both alike in dignity, 

The year is 1961. 

During Anwar Sadat’s historic trip to Jerusalem in 1977, he met Ariel Sharon, the Israeli general credited by his countrymen as one of the heroes of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Sharon’s crossing of the Sinai and his encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army had turned the tables on Sadat’s forces,…

In one of the most charming moments of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin (1957), our hero is about to be visited by a 14-year-old American boy, son of Pnin’s former (and dreadful) wife and her fraudulent lover, Dr. Eric Wind. Pnin wonders what gifts of welcome he can give young Victor, and decides that along…

Months and months ago, when Barack Obama could be bothered to say anything at all about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, the president promised to bring the perpetrators to justice. That was before White House spokesman Jay Carney dismissed the attacks as something that…

Vincent of Lérins was a Gaulish monk who lived and wrote in the fifth century. Little is known about him, really. It’s said that he was originally a soldier but gave up his military career to enter a monastery near Cannes, on the small Mediterranean island of Lérins (later renamed the Île…

Obamacare is no longer a theoretical proposition. It is now being implemented, if with some notable exceptions for the portions of the law the Obama administration finds particularly inconvenient. Millions of Americans are experiencing its consequences directly, and millions more are forming their…

As Colorado’s new law permitting—encouraging?—the recreational use of marijuana went into effect, many of our country’s finest journalists felt the need to share the details of their experience with the ganja. Some came to celebrate the state’s new liberality, others to condemn it. 

What would Arik have done? The death of former prime minister Ariel “Arik” Sharon last week has evoked this question for Israelis, who face chaos and jihadists in Syria, Hamas in Gaza, instability in Egypt, and above all a potential nuclear threat from Iran.

The boss reported this morning on CBS that Republicans will unveil an alternative to Obamacare tomorrow in the Senate:

President Obama made a rather sweeping statement in his weekly address as his administration launches the White House Task Force on Protecting Students from Sexual Assault.  In a show of support to victims of assault, the president said:

In his time on stage at Davos, Secretary of State John Kerry felt obliged to assert that the United State is not withdrawing from the international stage. That it is, in fact, more involved and more of a player than ever.  As Terry Atlas of Bloomberg reports, Kerry was:

Unlike you, I will be watching the Pro Bowl this weekend, albeit grudgingly.

There is something about the energy business that is conducive to the creation of myths. So Roger Sant, a long-time and highly respected participant in the energy policy game and in the industries that energy legislation and regulation affect, told a group of Houston oil men recently. Energy myths…

Debbie's defenders.

This week, the state of California finally got around to announcing how many people had signed up for health insurance through the state's Obamacare exchange by the end of December. Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas of the Washington Post's WonkBlog immediately declared victory in a post titled, "In…

Steve Jobs knocked their socks off (if in fact “they" were wearing socks) when, as Megan Garber of the Atlantic writes:

Impossible to imagine American college football without Notre Dame.  Rockne.  “Win one for the Gipper.”  The Four Horsemen.  The Blue and the Gold.  Heismans and national championships by the bushel. Rudy. Exclusive television deals.  And now, as Kavitha A. Davidson at Bloomberg reports:

The one robbery where there should have been enough for everyone. Six million dollars in cash and jewels. And yet, within days of the robbery the dream score turned into a nightmare. What should have been the crew's happiest moment turned out to be the beginning of the end. —Nicholas Pileggi on the…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on how the GOP can win in 2014.

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:

In a little noticed interview President Obama did with German media last weekend, he defended his positioning on the NSA by saying, "I am one figure, one man in this broader process."

Erin Bilbray, a Democratic congressional candidate in Nevada, uses Facebook to connect with friends and supporters alike. She also uses it to express support for musicians (Amy Winehouse, Dave Matthews) and, well, other not-so-wholesome things.

Certain elements of the pro-Israel community are willing to give DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz a pass on being tough on Iran. After all, she's in difficult position, they say, trying to be pro-Israel and the head of the Democratic party.

A security expert who has testified before Congress and spoken to the media about vulnerabilities of the Healthcare.gov website has weighed in on the website's latest security issue, which was first reported Thursday by THE WEEKLY STANDARD. David Kennedy, the CEO of TrustedSec, an information…

Max Boot on Obama's choice in Afghanistan.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with executive editor Fred Barnes on Obamacare and how it will impact the midterm elections in November.

On Thursday afternoon, bored journalists took a break from tweeting about Justin Bieber to mangle a remark uttered by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting.

In school, the intense pressure to do well on tests creates a temptation to cheat. And in Philadelphia, it seems that teachers and their supervisors succumbed to it.  As Stephanie Banchero of the Wall Street Journal writes:

Bill O'Reilly will interview President Obama before the Super Bowl, Mediaite reports.

The Iranian president tells Fareed Zakaria of CNN that, under the nuclear deal, there will be no limitations to nuclear technology and no destruction of centrifuges:

President Obama will partner with Google for the "first-ever Presidential Hangout Road Trip," Google announced today.

Republican congressman Tom Cotton, a candidate for U.S. Senate, raised more money in the last quarter of 2013 than his Democratic opponent, incumbent Mark Pryor. The Hill reports that Cotton, a first-term House member, raised $1.2 million dollars at the end of last year, compared to Pryor's $1.1…

This week’s first time claims number is yet another mushy indicator which will be spun according to the preconceptions of the spinner.  As Jeffrey Sparshott & Sarah Portlock report at the Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration is worried that Israel is riling up American Jews, according to a report in the Israeli press. The allegations are detailed in a story headlined, "'US perceives Israel as encouraging anti-Obama backlash among Jews,'" which appears in the Jerusalem Post.

At least three marketers of health-related or insurance products and services have taken advantage of the "data-set" feature at Healthcare.gov to give themselves a virtual presence on the federal government's Obamacare site.  The ability to use a web address containing "healthcare.gov" may lend…

Following today's annual March For Life in Washington, D.C., Fox News's Brit Hume appeared on Special Report this evening and delivered some stirring remarks about the ongoing travesty of legalized abortion:

Republicans shouldn't abandon the cause of life.

Foreign Minister Zarif of Iran said on CNN that the White House is getting the nuclear deal wrong -- and that they don't have to give up anything: 

Now that the Grand Coalition has returned to power, will there be a thaw in German-Russian relations? The Social Democrats (SPD) have retaken the foreign ministry. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister, gets along well with the Russians—he was once chief of staff to Gerhard Schröder, a…

The Olympics – ancient and modern divisions – were intended to be celebrations where men laid down their arms and engaged in competitions that did not end with bodies strewn across the landscape.  The intentions were noble but the games – especially those of today – were inevitably corrupted by the…

Megan R. Wilson of The Hill reports that:

The Middle East Media Research Institute translates a recent article by Saudi columnist Khalaf Al-Harbi, published in the Saudi government daily Okaz, arguing that the number of Arabs Ariel Sharon “killed is nowhere near that of those who died at the hands of Arab rulers, especially since the onset…

Another reporter is joining the Obama administration. Emily Pierce, the deputy editor of Roll Call, will be joining the office of public affairs at the Department of Justice, the federal agency headed by Attorney General Eric Holder. 

Barack Obama's average approval rating is currently just below 43 percent. If that sustains itself through November, says Real Clear Politics's Sean Trende, Democrats running for the Senate this year could be in trouble. Trende has run the numbers on how presidential approval relates to performance…

In a statement marking the controversial Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, President Obama says that "this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams."

In 2012, Democrats ran a well-coordinated campaign to demonize and distort pro-life candidates as anti-woman misogynists hell-bent on taking away birth control. The Republican response to this line of attack consisted mostly of pivoting away to focus on “jobs” and the “economy.” With rare…

A Republican candidate for Senate trying to unseat first-term Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon raised half a million dollars in the last quarter of 2013. The Oregonian reports:

A local reporter finds a California woman who, since enrolling Obamacare, can't find a doctor:

Hundreds in Ohio are losing their doctor due to Obamacare, a local news outlet finds:

The new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, went to Texas yesterday to check out the U.S. border with Mexico and to push immigration reform.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with senior writer Mark Hemingway on the New York City Human Rights Commission's curious case against dress codes at stores run by religious store owners in Williamsburg.

Yesterday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported on the New York City human rights commission's dubious case against seven business owners in the Hasidic community Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The commission alleged that these Jewish stores were guilty of religious and sexual discrimination for posting dress…

The White House released this readout of a phone call between President Obama and President Putin of Russia today:

Former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, a Republican, and his wife were today indicted on corruption charges:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with literary editor Philip Terzian on the Books & Arts section of our January 27, 2014 issue.

Much good news is emanating from Japan, one of America's most important allies, though some of it comes with an unnecessary taint. After decades of economic stagnation and foreign policy reticence stemming from its postwar legacy of pacifism, Japan is back as a strong and confident alliance…

The public holds Congress in minimal high regard these days and if any of the members are bewildered about why this should be, they might want to consult the reporting of Eric Lipton in the New York Times, where he describes in detail the:

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, released this statement on the Iran nuclear deal:

Beginning at 8:30 a.m., a live video stream of an event co-hosted by the Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) and The Weekly Standard: America's Biggest Threat: The Consequences of Debt, featuring Admiral Mike Mullen
 , 17th chairman, Joint Chief of Staff, Bill Kristol, and Pete Hegseth.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo came under fire for criticizing pro-life and pro-Second Amendment citizens of his state -- and saying "that is not who New Yorkers are."

The White House has just released details of President Obama's upcoming Europe trip, which includes a visit with the pope in Vatican City on March 27. "The President looks forward to discussing with Pope Francis their shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality," says the White…

The federal government is closed, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Managment:

The GOP Senate primary in Nebraska will be a 2014 battlefield in the hot war between the Republican establishment and the Tea Party insurgents. But at first glance, it's hard to see a casus belli.

Will the individual mandate survive?

The New York City human rights commission is putting seven Jewish business owners on trial tomorrow for discrimination in the heavily Hasidic neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Orthodox Jewish business owners' supposed crime? Posting a dress code in storefront windows: 

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on the Patriots, Obamacare, Hillary Clinton, and marijuana legalization.

In a recent issue the Economist, a British newsmagazine, published an article about the Obama adminstration's efforts to reach a deal with the Iranian government over its nuclear program. The article was accompanied by a political cartoon that depicts President Obama being chained and restrained in…

The young state of Kosovo—with an Albanian majority of more than 90 percent, of whom 80 percent are Muslim—declared its independence in 2008, but now faces a “risk from extremist religious currents, which requires . . . counter-measures at a strategic level.” Further, Kosovar Albanians have an…

In this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, the boss writes that nothing about Hillary Clinton's candidacy, nomination, or election to the presidency in 2016 is inevitable. Here's an excerpt:

Reuters reports:

A new poll finds that 64 percent of Israelis believe President Obama will not prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Only 22 percent "trust" that the U.S. president will be able "to ensure that Iran does not achieve a nuclear weapon."

CBS reporter Mark Knoller reports on Twitter that varmint continue to stalk the press area at the White House:

In an article published a couple days ago, Time magazine endorses "Polyandry," which Merriam-Webster defines as "the state or practice of having more than one husband or male mate at one time."

In recent days, the new U.S. ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, took to Twitter to express deep concern about the practice of a local Japanese tradition.

The importance of this book stretches beyond the subject it addresses. 

The United States is sending more military aid to Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki to fight al Qaeda in Fallujah and Ramadi. This is understandable. The resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is a clear threat to Maliki’s government and the Iraqi people, and its leadership of foreign fighters in…

These observations of his on the Middle East have easily withstood the test of time:

The fallout continues from the New York Times’s failed attempt to change the narrative on the Ben-ghazi attacks. The latest hit comes from an unexpected source—the Washington Post:

You would guess that an agreement between the United States and Japan to move a Marine air base from one location to another on Okinawa would be good news. And it is, for three reasons. First, because there has been opposition to relocating the base on the island, and negotiations had stalemated.…

The memoir of former defense secretary Robert M. Gates has landed with a bang. Gates has harsh words for President Barack Obama’s wartime decision-making and quotes Hillary Clinton saying that her opposition to the surge in 2007 was political. There is more than enough to outrage partisans—and even…

If this painting isn’t iconic, the term should be banished from the vocabulary of art. Forget, for a moment, Mona Lisa’s smile and the Sistine Creator transmitting the spark of life to Adam. Set aside what was to come, including Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). They, obviously, have…

One of the government’s slyest powers is the right to grant licenses. As a piece of law, the license is rooted in the idea of communal interest: In areas of life where the general public can easily be harmed by bad actors, the government seeks to mitigate harm by credentialing certain actions.…

In the summer of 2008, Barack Obama, senator and presidential candidate, toured the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama had endeared himself to the antiwar left by denouncing President Bush’s decision to topple Saddam Hussein and repeatedly claiming that the war in Iraq had diverted resources…

Things have been a bit of a mess at MSNBC lately. The network’s fortunes are tied to the fate of liberalism, and with Obama’s undeniable incompetence the preeminent political topic for the last few months, this has sent the network off on an increasingly desperate search for right-wing villainy to…

In 2014, very few Senate Democrats are safe from the undertow of Obamacare. One who—surprisingly—may not be is Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Merkley, by all accounts, should safely win reelection in November. Elected in 2008 over incumbent Republican Gordon Smith, he’s a perfect fit for the state’s…

Few social scientists doubt that both nurture and nature contribute meaningfully to human achievement. But the balance among the cognoscenti has tilted in recent years toward the perfectibility of the body and mind through practice, even in athletics.

In its first 20 or so years, the Kennedy Center Honors—annually allocated to performing artists of purported preeminence—there were more than enough leading lights still living to assure that the well of meritorious honorees would not quickly run dry. While there is truth to Frank Rich’s…

We're a UVA family. My three daughters, two sons in law, and I are graduates of the University of Virginia. We have season tickets to UVA football and basketball games. We’re loyal UVA fans.

Even with al Qaeda making gains across the Middle East and Iran still enriching uranium in its march to a nuclear breakout, John Kerry’s attention is focused on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He has visited Israel 10 times since becoming secretary of state. The aim of Kerry’s feverish…

Before Chris Christie’s first scandal devolves into an obsessive quest to prove who knew what, when, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the wonderful, quintessential New Jerseyness of the incident itself. What happened, roughly, is this.

Arthur Schlesinger posited the existence of cycles in American political history alternating between “public purpose” and “private interest”—his jaundiced labels for liberalism and conservatism. There are also cycles in American foreign policy alternating between interventionism and…

As an institution, the jury—especially in civil cases—is having a bad run these days. Nobody likes that summons in the mail (even though clerks-of-court in the electronic era have figured out ways to make jury service less of a hassle). Experts who monitor medical-legal issues scoff at the notion…

The Wolf of Wall Street is three hours long, and you feel every minute of it. It’s not that it’s tedious; this filthy and foul-mouthed portrayal of young and crazy drug-addled securities crooks is far too garish and overheated to be boring. Instead, Martin Scorsese’s latest portrait of American…

On the one hand, Barack Obama, speaking as a dad, says he "would not let my son play pro football." It's a reasonable judgment, one other parents have made and one they're entitled to make (though enforcing it on recalcitrant sons is another matter!).

In an interview with the New Yorker, President Obama says that he believes marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol.

According to a cyber security expert, security for the Obamacare website, Healthcare.gov, is "much worse off" now than before:

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz won't say where she stands on Iran. Instead, she's ducking questions from a reporter on her trail.

There will be only two games this weekend in the National Football League.  Down from four the previous two weekends as many as sixteen during the now-completed regular season during which 256 games were played.  Many of these would be charitably described as “forgettable.”  But what often seemed…

Vice President Joe Biden addressed the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Thursday and reminisced about the state of the industry before and after the Obama administration came into office.  He observed that the steep decline in auto sales during President Obama's first year in…

A war against immobility, not inequality.

Florida senator Marco Rubio says that "some" of President Obama's proposed changes to the way the NSA collects date "go too far."

In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canada's foreign minister, John Baird put things plainly:

Thankfully, President Obama is not a doctor.  If he was and you happened to visit him in his office and mentioned that you were worried about the potential for lung cancer, he’d immediately put you under, open you up, and pull out a lung—or, at least, that’s the logic that seems to be guiding his…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on Hillary Clinton's bad week and the Iranian regime's good week.

The Hague, Netherlands

President Obama announced that U.S. intelligence will still "gather information about the intentions of governments," despite changes to the NSA programs:

The complete text of President Obama's NSA speech, which he's delivering now at the Justice Department:

Campbell Brown, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

First Lady Michelle Obama turns 50 today, and she's already got ahold of an AARP card. This morning, she tweeted a picture of her holding the card:

As China gains strength, militarily and economically, the strategic interests of the United States will lie increasingly in the Pacific.  As China commissions aircraft carriers, we redeploy ours with plans to have some 60 percent of the fleet and 6 of our 11 carriers in the Pacific by 2020. 

In a speech about Obamacare on the floor of the Senate, Ted Cruz made the argument that the president's signature legislation, Obamacare, is causing income inequality in America to worsen:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that Accenture Federal Services would be taking over for CGI Federal as the main contractor for Healthcare.gov.  CMS documents reveal that without the new estimated $91.1 million contract, the government could end up making…

Dr. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, announced in a statement Thursday night that this is his last year in the Senate: 

Utah senator Mike Lee on higher-education reform.

Divisions between the Republican party and conservative activists have helped hand a competitive upstate New York congressional seat to Democrat Bill Owens in recent years, but 2014 may be the year when all factions unite behind one candidate.

Josh Rogin reports:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with literary editor Philip Terzian on the Books & Arts section of our January 20, 2014 issue.

The approval numbers for Congress are lower than a snake’s navel and passing, a matter of hours, a spending plan that runs to a couple of thousand pages doesn’t seem destined to fix that. So how about a change of diet.

Vice President Joe Biden thanked the executive chairman of Ford at today's North American International Auto Show for "saving our ass." The event took place in Detroit.

An official from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services admitted at a House hearing today that no one knows how many people have actually paid for Obamacare coverage:

Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has announced he is running for the U.S. Senate in Virginia against Democratic senator Mark Warner. He introduces himself and his candidacy in a new ad. Watch it below:

The effort to design, fund, and build a monument to Dwight Eisenhower has been underway for 15 years now.  So, unsurprisingly, while money has been spent and headquarters have been staffed, ground has not yet been broken. For that matter, the proposed design of the monument has, as Hannah Hess…

This is the year when the U.S. Military withdraws from Afghanistan.  Entirely, if status-of-forces negotiations go badly.  Not quite that severely if things can be worked out with the regime of President Karzai.  Either way, the bases from which U.S. troops once operated are being disassembled,…

Echoing a report issued last month from the Kaiser Family Foundation, Ezra Klein says that the projections of significant adverse selection in the Obamacare exchange pools are vastly overblown.  Indeed, Klein even claims that “the risk of a ‘death spiral’ is over.”  But a closer look at Klein’s…

Did Michelle Obama attend an encore presentation of a classified Presidential Daily Briefing this past December?  According to the official White House schedule, it would appear so. The schedule for December 18, in addition to listing the Presidential Daily Briefing at 9:45, includes a 2:05…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the why the recently released Senate report on Benghazi is a big deal.

On January 27, the Tikvah Fund in New York City will be kicking off its new Winter Speaker Series with a talk by Bill Kristol on "American Foreign Policy and the State of Israel." Other speakers in the line-up include Elliott Abrams, Yuval Levin, Meir Soloveichik, and Ruth Wisse.

Today would not be a good day to hang out with Michel Richard. I've been around the award-winning French chef when something's not right—the vegetables in the soup aren't fully cooked, bread is being wasted, a waiter's shirt is verging on the untucked—it's not pleasant. Normally Richard is a jovial…

As the implementation of Obamacare sent Democratic poll numbers plummeting in recent months, party leaders responded with an Obamacare message they hope will spare their candidates from the wrath of voters in 2014: Mend it, don't end it.

As the implementation of Obamacare sent Democratic poll numbers plummeting in recent months, party leaders responded with an Obamacare message they hope will spare their candidates from the wrath of voters in 2014: Mend it, don't end it.

As the implementation of Obamacare sent Democratic poll numbers plummeting in recent months, party leaders responded with an Obamacare message they hope will spare their candidates from the wrath of voters in 2014: Mend it, don't end it.

Some have predicted that the New Hampshire Senate race will be one to watch. Sure enough, Scott Brown is polling well there, as Politico reports:

Democratic senator Kay Hagan refused to appear with President Obama during his trip today to her home state of North Carolina. But Obama went out of his way to "publicly" thank Hagan anyway:

1.) So just how bad is this George Washington Bridge traffic incident?

The Senate Intelligence Committee has now released its declassified review of the intelligence surrounding the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. The bottom line is this: Multiple parts of al Qaeda’s international terrorist network were involved.

First Lady Michelle Obama contemplates life after the White House in a recent interview with People. The Washington Post reports:

President Obama’s approval ratings are down, the country’s wrong-track numbers are up, the most recent employment numbers came in (“unexpectedly”) as dismal.  And as Jennifer Epstein of Politico reports, the president is telling his Cabinet:

Sufficient good news for one day and, even perhaps, an entire week.  As Donna Cossata of the AP reports, Congressman Jim Moran has decided not to run for reelection.  One does not have to be a partisan of any stripe to welcome this as a deliverance from boorishness, bigotry, and that sense of…

The office of the Director of National Intelligence released its interactive 2014 Counterterrorism Calendar this week on the website of the National Counterterrorism Center.  The map provided with the calendar contains an embarrassing error, misspelling the name of the U.S.'s closest ally in the…

The EPA awarded $461,368 in grants this week for various environmental projects along the U.S.-Mexico border.  About half of the funds went to projects in Calexico, CA and Phoenix, AZ, but the remaining $230,000 went to two cities on the Mexican side of the border, Nogales and Ensenada.  The…

Secretary of State John Kerry covered a broad range of topics with his counterpart Pietro Parolin at the Vatican in Rome on Monday. Besides Syria, the Middle East peace process, Sudan, and Cuba, the subject of poverty came up during their discussions.  

Say no to bailing out insurance companies.

Yesterday, we learned that Hillary Clinton’s people keep a list.  Each name on the list is assigned a number between 1 and 7.  A 1 means exceedingly friendly.  A 7, that you are a treacherous creep.  Or something.

“The Post-Sharon era began abruptly on January 5,” Peter Berkowitz wrote in a perceptive and far-seeing 2006 article for the Weekly Standard, describing how Sharon’s massive stroke affected the Israeli political spectrum and Israel’s standing in the region. Moreover, Sharon, wrote Berkowitz, “made…

Lest the American people be put off by the chortling, boasting, and provoking of the Obama administration's Iranian negotiating partner, the administration has tried to deflect domestic political pressure by putting out a statement "condemning" the wreath-laying by the Iranian foreign minister at…

Since 2009, Democrat Bill Owens has won three close races in a competitive upstate New York congressional district, but it seems he doesn't like what he's seeing in 2014. On Tuesday, Owens announced that he will not seek reelection, which is good news for Republican candidate Elise Stefanik.

President Obama yesterday uttered words about Iran we know come from the heart: “What we want to do is give diplomacy a chance, and give peace a chance.”

Good news.  Joy Wilke at Gallup reports that Americans are feeling increasingly upbeat. Recent polling data indicates that:

The Obamacare numbers keep coming in, along with the expert analysis.  We get the latest figures. Then we get the spin. Can, slow-motion, instant replay be far off?  

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani is taking to Twitter to gloat about the nuclear deal his country struck with the U.S. and other Western countries.

Iran's chief negotiator, Abbas Araqchi, who helped his country secure the nuclear deal with the U.S. and other Western countries, is claiming victory.

Times of Israel: "Left for dead in 1948: The battle that shaped Arik Sharon."

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on the life and impact of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

President Barack Obama talked briefly about the Iran nuclear deal and said "give peace a chance." Via the pool report:

Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon:

Reuters reports:

When the first cancellations began going out, like invitations to a hanging, the Obamacare backers in the political class and the media tried to reassure a nervous nation by saying, essentially, Look, that thing about ‘if you like your plan …’ might have been a lie but a) it was a small lie and b)…

The education of the American public as to the smallness of our political class continues.

House majority leader Eric Cantor responds to the Iran deal:

Yesterday, the Obama administration announced an agreement regarding Iran's nuclear program had been reached.  But a statement about the enforcement of the deal made by a senior administration official during a background briefing on Sunday, however, is likely to further worry critics of the deal.…

A new poll conducted on behalf of the Conservative Intelligence Briefing shows Michigan Republican Terri Lynn Land leading Democrat Gary Peters in the race for the U.S. Senate among likely voters. Here's more:

Robert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to health insurance companies—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.”  How can this be? …

The Iran nuclear deal is in place. And Senate majority leader Harry Reid is preventing the Senate from voting on Iran sanctions to be implemented in case the Iran deal fails. Reid is holding up the vote at the urging of President Obama.

"Walmart recalls donkey meat in China,” announced a headline on FoxNews.com last week. The Scrapbook, for one, was incensed: How dastardly to lace edible meat with donkey! We hungered for more information: What were the tainted goods? Were the “100 percent beef” hamburgers at Walmart’s Beijing…

A White House official once noted that the problem with the national press corps is it can only keep one idea in its mind at a time. And while that’s often true, it’s not at the moment in regard to Republicans.

Not that long ago, one could assume that a judge with an activist approach to interpreting the Constitution was probably left-of-center politically and, accordingly, believed that overturning precedents was often necessary in order to make the Constitution relevant to present issues and alive to…

Back in the 1980s I spent one afternoon working for Ralph Nader and wound up with bite marks all over my bum. The memory returned a couple nights ago when a college kid came to the door, shaking the cup for some charity. He’d memorized a spiel about dioxins and microfluids and picoliters. He must…

The year 1946 was vintage for Churchillian rhetoric, with two speeches that significantly affected the history of the West—and, indeed, the world.  

On a beautiful day in late October, Gus and I were enjoying a rare moment when our only companions in the large and hilly park in front of St. Louis’s Concordia Seminary were nut-gathering squirrels and the birds in the trees.

This propulsive and overstuffed movie tries to do far too much. It has more plot than it knows what to do with, and for a while near the end it becomes almost impossible to follow. American Hustle is a partly fictionalized account of the headshaking Abscam scandal, in which six members of Congress…

In his ponderously titled book Contributions to the Correction of the Public’s Judgement Concerning the French Revolution (1793), the German philosopher and political leader Johann Gottlieb Fichte took time out from his defense of the Reign of Terror to compose what has been called by Daniel…

Our item on rampant grade inflation at Harvard (“A Gentleman’s A+,” The Scrapbook, December 16) caught the eye of reader Robert D. King, who also happens to be founding dean of liberal arts and Rapoport chair of Jewish studies emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor King writes to…

When the history of the Obama administration is written, there will be a long and damaging chapter on its immense humanitarian and strategic failure in Syria. With three years of Obama yet to come, we have not even seen the full humanitarian disaster play out​—​nor have we yet confronted the…

Like Diogenes in search of an honest man, The Scrapbook has been on an extended quest to find the Golden Age of American journalism. That was the era, not so long ago, when a literate public was downright serious about the news, and America’s newspapers, magazines, and television networks paid…

If, as Kurt Vonnegut believed, the only reason to use a semicolon is to show that you’ve been to college, what does it say when someone uses a pilcrow? Or, for that matter, an interrobang, a manicule, or an octothorpe? While this book doesn’t make any judgments about the punctuation one chooses to…

Serial entrepreneur Mike Lanza can’t believe what’s happened to childhood. Growing up in suburban Pittsburgh, Lanza spent hours after school, outside and unsupervised, playing with neighborhood kids of different ages. Today, practically the opposite is the case. Kids hardly spend any time outside,…

The year 2014 marks a centennial and a bicentennial. The centennial is well known: 1914 saw the beginning of World War I, a calamity perhaps unmatched until then in the history of the West. We will be reminded many times this year in centennial commemorations of the war’s terrible destruction, but…

As the winter holidays approached, the beleaguered Russian opposition had a rare occasion to celebrate: Russia’s three best-known political prisoners were unexpectedly granted their freedom. On December 20, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon whose arrest a decade ago escalated Vladimir…

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was a man of multiple talents: He was a composer of classical music as well as of musical comedies (On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide, West Side Story) and a number of ballets for choreographer Jerome Robbins. He was composer, too, of the epochal film score for On…

On the morning of April 16, 2012, at the very minute that the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama was being announced, the playwright J. T. Rogers’s telephone rang. A 43-year-old married father struggling to pay his rent each month, he picked up the receiver with nervous anticipation. Caller ID…

When you first meet Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, leading climate “skeptic,” and all-around scourge of James Hansen, Bill McKibben, Al Gore, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and sundry other climate…

To hear it from the New York Times editorial page, the many issues surrounding the attacks in Benghazi are now settled. 

The obituaries of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon touch on virtually every aspect and character trait—from the physical courage, military acumen, and political wisdom to the sense of humor, warmth, and prodigious appetite—of the nearly legendary statesman and soldier who died today at…

Ariel Sharon—a man whose deeds as soldier, general, cabinet minister, and prime minister were decisive in the history of modern Israel, a soldier-statesman of true historical significance, a larger-than-life figure whose like we're unlikely to see again—dies, and Barack Obama issues a statement…

President Barack Obama's statement on the passing of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon:

A 2008 documentary reveals that Terry McAuliffe, who is being sworn in today as governor of Virginia, thinks that members of the Bush family “should all have been put away in jail.”

Here we go again. JPMorgan Chase will pay $2.6 billion in fines and compensation for its inattention to numerous red flags warning that its important customer, one Bernie Madoff, was running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Among other things, JP Morgan Chase failed to notify the authorities that it had…

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio spent nearly half a million dollars on his inauguration on January 1. $35,250 of that was for a Teleprompter.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with literary editor Philip Terzian on the Books & Arts section of our January 13, 2014 issue.

A new ad slated to start airing this weekend targets Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for opposing Iran sanctions:

A clip today of spokesman Jay Carney defending the White House's accusation that some Democrats (and Republicans) want to go to war with Iran:

Amiri Baraka, New Jersey’s controversial one-time poet laureate, died yesterday, aged 79. The poet, essayist, and playwright’s body of work will be remembered, if at all, as among the least humane in the history of American letters. An early 9/11 denier—a notorious 2002 poem suggested Jews were…

Jason Furman works at the White House as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Today he is painting lipstick, blush, eye shadow, and anything else that is lying around handy to the December jobs report which, he spins this way:

Alabama senator Jeff Sessions responds to the latest jobs report:

The State Department today publicly announced a $10 million reward "for information leading to the arrest or conviction of any individual responsible for the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks." The announcement for the reward is posted on rewardsforjustice.net.

The State Department today designated three Ansar al Sharia organizations, as well as three of their leaders, as terrorist entities. The State Department reports that Ansar al Sharia in Derna was “involved” in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi. Former Guantanamo detainee Sufian…

Big surprise and nobody called it.  Here we were, in the midst of all these signs and indicators pointing to an economy that was warming up for takeoff, a recovery that had finally taken hold, an end to the need for stimulus via the Fed.  And what happened is, as reported on CNN/Money:

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

The federal agency that oversees the Voice of America is seeking someone to produce a TV entertainment show to be broadcast in Iran in the Farsi language that includes "Hollywood news" and "other interesting aspects of life on the West Coast of the United States." The Broadcasting Board of…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on Chris Christie's Bridgegate press conference.

Michael Graham, writing for the Boston Herald:

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s State of the Union speech in which he declared a “War on Poverty.” There was, and continues to be, much discussion and debate over how well that effort has gone.  Are we better off now than we were 50 years ago?  The country is…

Stephen Dinan reports at the Washington Times: 

More than 70 foreign policy experts have signed a letter addressed to the leaders in both parties in both houses of Congress urging them to enforce Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal agreed upon in Geneva late last year. Read the full text of the letter, organized by the Foreign Policy…

For all those civil libertarians of both the left and the right who think we ought to thank Edward Snowden for his actions in revealing NSA’s secret metadata collection program—or, at a minimum, believe the U.S. government should show leniency toward him should he ever come back to these…

The former top political advisor to President Barack Obama says that Chris Christie will live to "fight another day," if he's telling the truth. Axelrod made the comment in a tweet.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie said today at a press conference that he's "a sad guy standing here today":

Chris Christie says that he is "responsible" and that he "was blindsided" by officials in his administration closing traffic lanes to punish his political opponents:

Less than two weeks ago, on December 28, David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times trumpeted the results of his investigation into the attacks on U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, writing that there was “no evidence that al Qaeda or other international terrorists had any role in the assault.”…

Democratic congressman Brian Higgins of New York pledged to "review" claims that "9/11 building seven was brought down by a controlled demolition." He made the pledge this morning on C-SPAN:

The Obama administration has come under fire for weeks now for selectively releasing "enrollment" data for Healthcare.gov and the state exchanges.  The latest figure of 2.1 million was met with skepticism by many observers, even some who are sympathetic to the administration.  However, based on…

Chris Christie will face the press today at 11 a.m. in Trenton, New Jersey. He'll address to growing bridge traffic controversy.

A group of House Republicans has written a letter to Barack Obama to warn that the immigration bill he supports will have an adverse effect on American workers. The immigration bill will, the letter writers say, lead to an increase in unemployment and poverty, help collapse the middle class, and…

A special election held Tuesday for a Norfolk-based state senate seat should have been an easy win for Democrats. President Obama won the district by 15 points (57 percent to 42 percent) in 2012, and Democratic governor-elect Terry McAuliffe won the district by roughly 12 points (52 percent to 40…

Time magazine reports on a campaign promise:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with senior writer Stephen Hayes on Bob Gates and his new book, Benghazi, and Hillary Clinton.

In an interview with Fusion's Jordan Fabian, a political consultant to the White House compared the rollout of Obamacare to last weekend’s memorable NFL playoff game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Colts, of course, pulled off one of the great, improbable comebacks of…

The most famous line, of course, from President Lyndon Johnson’s State of the Union Address 50 years ago today was:

If the human interest bits on how one of the athletes in the curling competition overcame a childhood trauma of one sort or another, the over-the-top heraldic music, and the supercharged commentary were not enough to get you to skip the Olympics – or at least watch it via DVR – then this ought to…

Has there ever been a better season of college football?  The final game of the Bowl Championship Series, which ranks among the finest ever played, further confirms what has been clear for some time:  This is the golden age of college football. 

In November, the Obama Justice Department dropped a lawsuit aimed at stopping a school voucher program in Louisiana. The Louisiana Scholarship Program is intended to give students in failing public schools a chance to attend better schools, including private ones. Justice tried to block the program…

On Wednesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder are scheduled to make a joint appearance at Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, MD.  The purpose of the visit is to hold a roundtable with students on "Solutions to Enhance School Climate/Improve Discipline…

The Washington Post reports that U.S. officials suspect Sufian Ben Qumu, an ex-Guantanamo detainee, “played a role in the attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and are planning to designate the group he leads as a foreign terrorism organization.” Ben Qumu is based in Derna, Libya and…

In the past year, President Obama has unilaterally suspended various parts of the Affordable Care Act whenever it's been politically convenient to do so.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with assistant editor Ethan Epstein on his recent cover story on MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen.

U.S. weakness strengthens al Qaeda.

Robert Gates, the former defense secretary under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, writes in a new memoir that both Obama and Hillary Clinton, who was Secretary of State at the time, told Gates that their 2007 opposition to the surge of troops in Iraq was based on political…

The news that al Qaeda has reportedly gained (at least) temporary control of Fallujah and Ramadi is devastating to veterans of the Iraq war. It is, of course, the same Fallujah that Marines and soldiers fought multiple bloody battles to capture in 2004; and it’s the same Ramadi that was the…

As the situation in Iraq deteriorates, Vice President Joe Biden sends a message of support to the government which is, increasingly, losing its grip on the country, most conspicuously the city of Fallujah, which was secured by U.S. forces in 2004.

Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon reports:

House speaker John Boehner released a statement Tuesday concerning "'emergency' unemployment insurance" (Boehner's quotation marks) and criticizing President Obama for not offering a plan to extend unemployment insurance that would include provisions to "put people back to work." Here's the…

The boss, writing for Politico magazine:

Ofir Haivry, writing for Mosaic magazine:

Even before the great freeze of 2014, the fur industry was – as Martin Kidston reports in the Missoulian – booming.  

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s self-proclaimed “friend for life” Dennis Rodman announced January 4 that he had assembled the promised team of former NBA players to take to Pyongyang. These reportedly include former NBA All-Stars Kenny Anderson, Cliff Robinson, and Vin Baker. Craig Hodges, Doug…

Barbara Comstock announced that she will run for the congressional seat (Virginia 10) currently being held by retiring Congressman Frank Wolf:

On New Year's Eve day, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule correction was entered in the Federal Register related to an Affordable Care Act rule that had been finalized two months earlier.  The published version of the rule entitled (in part) ‘‘Patient Protection and Affordable…

Tim Carney: The de Blasio war against inequality hurts the little guy.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with editor William Kristol on the 2014 elections and whether Ed Gillespie will run for the senate in Virginia.

At its annual conference on Thursday, the Modern Language Association (MLA) will hold a kangaroo-court panel discussion called, “Academic Boycotts: A Conversation about Israel and Palestine.” A few days later the MLA will vote on an anti-Israel resolution that would condemn Israel for the…

Robert Samuelon writes in the Washington Post about the "sensationalism" over Edward Snowden's leaks of details of the National Security Agency data mining:

The ascension of Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani supposedly represented a “period of hope.” That may be true for Western negotiators hoping to spend more time in Geneva, but not for the Sufis and other religious minorities of Iran, whom the regime in Tehran continues to repress.

Max Boot, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Bill Kristol, with Cokie Roberts, Ana Navarro, Brian Schweitzer, and Ben Smith, yesterday on ABC:

Congressman Trey Radel is back in Washington after taking time off to deal with his cocaine problem.  Using that stuff is illegal and the job of those in Congress is to write laws.  So one wonders if perhaps there isn’t something missing from Radel’s statement of public regret as reported by…

Six days into the new year and fourteen days after the extended December 23 deadline, the federal Obamacare website Healthcare.gov is still holding out hope of coverage beginning January 1 to some consumers.  The notice, which first appeared on December 24, advises consumers who had "problems" with…

CNN report Peter Hamby reports on a recent conversation he had with a former White House official:

Ahmed Ali of the Institute for the Study of War writes:

Heath Druzin of Stars & Stripes reports that a member of the ISAF  (International Security Assistance Force):

The last of the unsold tickets to the playoff game between the Cincinnati Bengals and San Diego Chargers were bought up on Friday, mostly by Proctor and Gamble.  Call it a reverse corporate bailout.  If P&G had not come to the rescue, Bengals fans who live in Cincinnati and its environs would have…

Herewith some thoughts about the outlook for this year. Thoughts, not forecasts, for which I have neither the skill nor the courage. I offer these thoughts in deference to the understandable demand for look-aheads. Human beings are always hunting for certainty, attempting to reduce randomness,…

New Iran foreign policy chief approved 1994 attack on Jewish center.

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:

Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon probably isn't the first sitting senator Republicans think they can defeat this November. After beating incumbent Republican Gordon Smith in 2008 by 3 percentage points, Merkley appears safe in his seat. In 2012 Oregon voted for Barack Obama by more than 12 points,…

William Overstreet, an American combat aviator in World War II, has died at the age of 92   But one can hope that a deed of his will be remembered long into the age when humans no longer pilot aircraft. During a 1944 dogfight, Overstreet flew his P-51 Mustang beneath the arches of the Eiffel Tower…

Garrison Keilor’s Writer’s Almanac notes that on this day:

The Cincinnati Bengals won their division and made it to the playoffs but are having difficulty selling enough tickets to this weekend's game against the San Diego Chargers to avoid a local television blackout.

The Food and Drug Administration is seeking a small business to potentially supply the federal agency with a chewing gum tester.  Despite the frivolous sounding nature of the announcement, the search is a serious one, and apparently a growing need.  Chewing gum-based pharmaceuticals (such as…

President Barack Obama made time to visit his grandfather's grave during his two week Hawaii vacation. According to the White House pool report, Obama and his daughters took the 30-minute drive from their vacation rental home to his grandfather's grave. The visit lasted about 4 minutes. 

Is 2014 a good year for another Great War?

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with executive editor Fred Barnes on why Obamacare will remain a major issue in 2014.

One of the leading Republican opponents to Democratic senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina has a new ad in which he promises to "clean up" the mess in Washington that she's "enabled."

A car bomb detonated today in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. So far, four are reported dead and over 50 have been injured. With rumors spreading that the bombing may have been the work of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a Sunni jihadist group with ties to al Qaeda, it seems…

Two days after Christmas I found myself in a doctor's office in New Jersey at eight o'clock in the morning. As I sat in the waiting room, a middle-aged woman came in and began a discussion with the receptionist. It seemed that her daughter, who would turn 26 on December 31, was trying to figure out…

Government, we are told by those who evangelize for more of it, is the “things we choose to do together.”  If so, then “we" don’t appear to be so happy with the job we have been collectively doing.  As Rebecca Shabad at the Hill reports, a recent poll done by the Associated Press-NORC Center for…

A free-market group has launched television ads in three states whose Democratic senators are up for reelection this year, targeting those senators for their support for Obamacare.

The contractor building the financial management system for Healthcare.gov is being blamed by a Houston hospital for delayed Medicare reimbursements that have caused the hospital to miss payrolls for weeks. Novitas Solutions is the federal government's new Medicare payment processor for the…

An image of a state-run veterans’ cemetery posted to the aggregation website Reddit this week is causing a controversy. The image, originally posted by the page "U.S Army W.T.F! moments" on Facebook, captures a scene from Cheltenham Veterans Cemetery, run by the Maryland department of veterans…

During an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick was asked about the connections between Muhammad Jamal’s network and the Benghazi attack.