April 2014

Only two-thirds of the eight million enrollees into new health insurance plans as mandated by the Affordable Care Act have paid their first month's premium as of April 15, according to a report from the House Energy and Commerce committee. Here's an excerpt from the committee's statement:

"France is not impressed with Thomas Piketty." 

A new poll from PPP found Arkansas senator Mark Pryor, a Democrat, effectively tied with his Republican challenger Tom Cotton. Forty-three percent say they support Pryor, while 42 percent say they support Cotton.

A new poll shows Florida Republican governor Rick Scott behind his most likely opponent, Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist, by 10 points. The Quinnipiac poll of registered voters found 48 percent support Crist while 38 percent support Scott. Scott's fortunes would improve…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the May 5, 2014 edition of the Books and Arts section.

A graphic that is ricocheting around the liberal blogosphere this week is purported to demonstrate–what else?–how stupid and ignorant Americans are. (Well, non-Democrat Americans presumably.)

ABC News's Jonathan Karl verbally sparred with White House press secretary Jay Carney for eight minutes over the latest revelations about the origin of talking points that wrongly blamed an American's internet video for the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi,…

To avoid having to directly quote the great Winston Wolf, let's begin with a gentle reminder that the midterm elections are still 6 months away and that a lot can happen in 25 weeks. The economy could take off. Unemployment could plummet. People could decide that they're thrilled with Obamacare.…

Sold anything on Craigslist lately? An old TV, a crib, chair, or lamp? If so, you may have broken federal law.

Health care costs rose in the first quarter of 2014 by 9.9 percent, according to a quarterly report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The jump in costs with respect to real GDP comes after several periods of more modest health care cost growth. In 2013, for instance, costs only grew 2.4 percent…

Michael Goodwin writes at the New York Post: 

The numbers on 1st quarter GDP are, in a word, dismal.  An economy that had been limping along came nearly to a standstill. As Jeanna Smialek of Bloomberg reports:

The first question that national security types, including the president, supposedly ask in an international crisis is, “Where are the carriers?” Soon, that opening line will be rephrased to something like, “Where are the … oh, never mind.”

After shelling out $677 million to build the federal health care website, the government will spend an additional $121 million in 2014 to repair it—$30 million more than previously estimated—the Washington Times reported last night. This comes just as the Obama administration is starting the hunt…

Trigger warning: mansplaining and unchecked privilege. 

A GOP super PAC is spending more than $75,000 on TV ads supporting Oregon Senate candidate Monica Wehby ahead of the state's May 20 primary. The Oregonian reports that New Republican, headed up veteran consultant Alex Castellanos, will be airing ads in the Portland market touting Wehby as an…

Over at the Washington Examiner, Philip Klein points out two interesting results from a new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of 18- to 29-year-old voters: 

Al Franken, the first-term Democratic senator from Minnesota, is under 45 percent against 4 potential GOP challengers in a new poll. Suffolk University's poll of likely voters in Minnesota also found Franken with a 46 percent favorability rating, while 41 percent say they have an unfavorable…

Sarah Palin has endorsed Taylor Griffin in the Republican primary for North Carolina's 3rd congressional district. Griffin announced the endorsement on his campaign website:

April 17, 2014, has come to be known among Iranian dissidents as “Black Thursday.” On that day, at least 100 Iranian riot police, members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, soldiers, and officers of the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security joined prison guards in raiding Ward 350 of…

Ben Sasse, a university president and former Bush administration official, is running for Senate in Nebraska as an ardent foe of Obamacare. But Nebraska state treasurer Shane Osborn, Sasse's GOP primary opponent, is out with a new TV ad that undercuts Sasse's message:

Savannah-based congressman Jack Kingston is getting some support in his bid for the U.S. Senate in Georgia by way of a new ad from the Chamber of Commerce. The ad calls Kingston a "consistent conservative." Watch it below:

With a week to go before the North Carolina Republican primary for U.S. Senate, Thom Tillis has broken 40 percent support, according to a new poll. Tillis, the state speaker of the house, has 46 percent support, with top rivals Greg Brannon and Mark Harris receiving 20 percent and 11 percent,…

Michelle Obama wrapped up her March visit to China with a stop in Chengdu, arriving on March 25 and departing for the United States on the following day. But that one leg of the trip alone required about 900 room nights, ranging from 21 rooms beginning on March 13 for the advance team to a peak of…

No one has done more than American Enterprise Institute scholar Christina Hoff Sommers to watchdog the perennially unreliable claims of activist feminism. Ever since her Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women (1994), Sommers, a former professor of philosophy, has been performing the…

Recent polling conducted by McLaughlin & Associates for the 2017 Project asked Americans, “If you could undo one thing that President Obama has done as president, what would it be?” The choices that the poll provided were “overregulation of the economy,” “high deficit spending,” “tax increases,”…

Barack Obama's approval rating is at its lowest ever, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Just 41 percent of American adults approve of his job as president, with 52 percent saying they disapprove. That's the worst rating Obama has received in a Post-ABC poll since he became president…

A culture of conformity. 

Should the government give different protections to different classes of property owners based on a politician’s ability to demonize them? The Senate Banking Committee may weigh in on this matter when it considers a proposal to reform the mortgage-finance market on Tuesday.

Politico's David Nather takes a look at how some Republicans would like to repeal and replace Obamacare: 

Bill Kristol, with Paul Krugman, Matthew Dowd, and Alicia Menendez, yesterday on ABC News:

Michelle Nunn, the likely Democratic nominee for Senate in Georgia, has a new ad that explores her biography. The daughter of former senator Sam Nunn, the younger Nunn points out that while she played basketball like her father, she did not follow him into politics.

Senior writer Stephen F. Hayes led a discussion last Wednesday with North Carolina senator Richard Burr and Concerned Veterans for America on the need for Congress to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs. Watch the entire event below:

Everybody seems to agree that the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative-easing program, which involves buying bonds to lower interest rates, plays a role in spurring economic growth. Folks differ on whether the contribution to growth outweighs the risk of inflation. 

President Obama spent only one night in Japan last week on his current swing through Asia, but the State Department estimated total "lodging nights" required by the president and his entourage could run around 2,172, and the use of "functional rooms" (presumably conference rooms and the like) could…

I'm sorry to report the death of Werner Dannhauser last Saturday in Frederick, Pennsylvania, at the age 84. Werner, whom we had the honor of publishing a few times, was a man of uncommon wisdom, wit, and humanity.

Has Cathy McMorris Rodgers given up on repealing Obamacare? A spokeswoman for the Washington state Republican House member and chair of the GOP conference says the congresswoman still supports repeal, despite a report from a Spokane newspaper that characterized her as saying that repeal of the law…

Evidently, it is news when a spokesman for House minority leader Nancy Pelosi issues a statement denouncing the "failures of the Republican Congress.” 

Guess what—Jesus not only has a wife; he’s got a sister-in-law as well.

Republican leaders have often expressed a bit of surprise, even a sense of being unfairly maligned, when rank-and-file Republican voters make clear that they don’t fully trust GOP leaders’ commitment to repealing, rather than “reforming,” Obamacare. Such skepticism certainly won’t be reduced by the…

John Kerry's statement that Israel could become an "apartheid state" means the secretary of state should resign from his job, the Emergency Committee for Israel said in a statement:

Polls are overrated, but they can be still instructive. So what’s to be learned from a Fox News survey of 1,012 registered voters conducted April 13-15? 

Raleigh, N.C. 

There’s a new movie called Draft Day you’re almost certainly not going to see in a theater if you didn’t go see it during its first weekend—and because you didn’t, it won’t be around much longer. Twenty-five years ago, Draft Day might have been a hit. Its headline performer, Kevin Costner, was the…

The other Sunday in Georgia, Bubba Watson won the Masters, which is only the most prestigious golf tournament in the world. And this was the second time in three years for him. It was a very big deal, then, which Watson celebrated by taking his wife and a few friends out for dinner at his favorite…

Jeb Bush’s recent musings on a possible presidential run—and his comments on immigration, rankling many in the Republican grassroots—sparked a familiar clash. Jeb, the establishment’s preferred candidate, some said, could neutralize the fiery GOP base in 2016. Conservatives shot back that Jeb would…

Richard Ravitch is an extraordinary man. He’s an intelligent, indefatigable, honest, honorable, accessible, and personable fellow who, for 45 years, has played a key role in rescuing New York’s jerrybuilt fiscal structure from its own failings. Yes, that’s my personal opinion of the man who has…

Last week the website for the Atlantic ran a highly instructive report about the extent to which the progressive worldview now dominates the university. The most recent conquest: college debate competitions.

The great American fraud that dare not speak its name, though anyone who owns a television set is aware of it, is college athletics. Amateur though they are supposed to be, the only thing truly amateur about them is that they do not pay the (supposed) students who play them, at least not directly.

Kristen Day has just sent an email thanking a Democratic state representative in Michigan for supporting a bill banning abortion funding in Obamacare. He’s grateful for her note—she’s only the second person to thank him. “It’s a really lonely road, to be a pro-life Democrat,” she remarks.

An economic miracle occurred in the fifth century: a leader was able to cut taxes and balance the budget at the same time. This improbable feat was pulled off by Anastasius, emperor of the surviving eastern half of the Roman Empire based in Constantinople. Anastasius, who ruled from 491 to 518…

Last week, National Journal reporter Major Garrett provided an interesting explanation for the White House’s obsession with promoting a dubious statistic on the alleged “pay gap” between men and women. The White House has repeatedly claimed that women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men earn.…

The failure to explore and monitor the threat [of dangerous artificial intelligence] is almost society-wide. But that failure does not .  .  . alter the fact that we will have just one chance to establish a positive coexistence with beings whose intelligence is greater than our own.

"This is the best Supreme Court, if you’re interested in a free society and in the ability of Americans to participate in the political process with a minimum amount of government restrictions. In fact, this is a great Supreme Court.”

Italy has long been Europe’s political laboratory, having invented fascism, incubated eurocommunism, launched the postwar economic miracle, and brought the social democratic nanny state to ruin. Most Italians are very unhappy, as well they might be. Unemployment is at record highs (13 percent…

New York 

“Just because something bears the aspect of the inevitable one should not, therefore, go along willingly with it.” ​—​Philip K. Dick The first time I saw someone wearing Google Glass in the wild, I was standing at a friend’s party at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin​—​the place where the…

For the sake of argument, The Scrapbook is willing to concede that it is possible that Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher, ought to be allowed to graze his cattle on federal land in Nye County. And that protecting the desert tortoise as an endangered species on that same federal land is no good…

A century before the Declaration of Independence, Virginia colonists, mostly from the frontier backcountry, rebelled against their imperious royal governor and his privileged Tidewater elites, forcing him into exile and burning the capital of Jamestown. Their revolution collapsed when their young,…

Republicans in two Northern Virginia House districts selected their nominees Saturday, one of them a three-term female delegate and the other an African American Marine veteran. Barbara Comstock, a former congressional aide, won her firehouse primary to be the GOP nominee for Virginia's 10th…

Earlier this week Michelle Obama hosted a group of children at the White House for the annual "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day." 

For those of us who believe in the market system, there is something unsettling about the thought of the billionaire bosses of Google, Apple, Adobe, Intel, two Disney subsidiaries, and Intuit sitting around a table and agreeing not to compete for staff. Facebook declined an invitation to join the…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on his recent piece about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, "Mudslinger in Chief." 

"In defense of political lying." 

It has been a tough week for President Obama and his foreign policy team. As Mark Landler and Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times report:

Walter B. Jones, the longtime Republican congressman from North Carolina, is facing a tough primary challenge. Jones has made his anti-war stance central to his political identity, and Peter Hamby of CNN reports on how Jones is being challenged on his position on Iraq and Afghanistan:

Veronique de Rugy writes at the Washington Examiner about why we shouldn't buy the claim from the Export-Import bank that it serves mostly small businesses:

Darren Samuelsohn of Politico rhapsodizes over the utter wonderfulness of Al Gore who is, these days, “richer and skinnier than ever.”

EMILY's List, a PAC dedicated to electing women who support a right to abortion-on-demand, is one of Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes's top financial backers, according to the Washington Post. But Grimes, a Democrat from Kentucky, is being cagey about her stance on one of EMILY's List's top…

Karen Handel, a Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, has a new TV ad that pitches her as a "conservative fighter" who wants to "stop illegal immigration and Obamacare" and "cut spending."

Secretary of State John Kerry has now deployed the full rhetorical arsenal against the Russians and their slow march on Ukraine. As Justin Sink of The Hill reports,

Matt Hoskins, the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, announces in an email this morning that SCF is endorsing Joni Ernst in her race for Iowa's open U.S. Senate seat: 

Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is looking for custom-made chairs, but not just any chairs. Although the notice uses the euphemistic term "Non-Human Primate," the intended occupants are monkeys, baboons, or other primates used in the "ongoing behavioral experiments" the NIH is conducting.…

The downfall of Obama's Pay As You Earn student loan program. 

Monica Wehby, Republican candidate for for U.S. Senate in Oregon, released a 60-second ad this week offering window into her biography. The ad features Lex Liebelt, an Oregon woman who discovered during her pregnancy that her daughter had a spinal issue. Her obstetrician recommended Liebelt abort…

President Obama will leave Japan without a vital trade deal. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was supposed to be wrapped last autumn, and the president’s spring trip to Asia—the one he’s currently on—was supposed to be the victory lap.

Mark Jacobs, a Republican candidate for Senate in Iowa, has donated more of his own money to his campaign than any candidate in Hawkeye State history. The Des Moines Register's Jennifer Jacobs (no relation) has the story:

The situation in Ukraine worsens and Putin makes ever more menacing noises. 

The time for building ships is when your nation is at peace.  Once the shooting starts, it may be too late and playing catch-up is hard.  So it is disturbing that, as Christopher Bodeen of the AP reports:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with executive editor Terry Eastland on the recent ruling by the supreme court in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action.

The weekly and closely-watched number of first time jobless claims rose last week by 24,000 to 329,000. Economists had expected the number to come in at 315,000.

A study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that "[m]arijuana use makes tobacco use more pleasurable and may increase the user’s risk for becoming addicted to nicotine." Experiments involving rats found that those animals exposed to THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana,…

President Obama met some Japanese robots and didn't like it. "I have to say that the robots were a little scary, they were too lifelike. They were amazing," Obama said at a technology display while visiting Japan.

It is becoming increasingly hard to tell whether Obamacare is the law of the land, or just the law of the parts of the land that don’t reside in (or aren’t in the good graces of) the executive branch.  One wonders:  Is it really too much to expect an administration that championed the passage of a…

Steve Hayes, A.B. Stoddard and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

President Obama is in Japan meeting with the emperor -- and talking about his gray hair.

A case against affirmative action. 

Yesterday, on the last day of Passover, protesters surrounded the doors of Zabar’s—the iconic Upper West Side grocer famous for its knishes and lox—to demand the store stop selling the carbonated beverage maker SodaStream. The roughly 40 protesters, carrying guitars and signs decrying “Apartheid…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on his recent piece about why the NYT Arkansas Senate poll is bogus, and why the GOP still shouldn't be complacent. 

Is there a problem with the New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation’s poll of four U.S. Senate elections? After the poll results were published Monday morning, the methodology was called into question, particularly in response to a poll of the Arkansas Senate race between incumbent Democrat…

The Bryce Harper-Mike Trout showdown is underway and the outcome is, well, inconclusive. In round one Monday night, the Nationals leftfielder walked and went hitless in three at bats while the Anaheim Angels centerfielder went 2 for 5. On Tuesday, Harper took another collar going 0 for 4 as Trout…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the April 28, 2014 edition of the Books and Arts section.

Monday the Syrian regime announced that presidential elections will be held June 3. The State Department dismissed the news. “The fact that you would even think you can hold free and fair elections in the middle of a civil war,” said a State Department spokesman, “is absurd.”

The political conventions will be coming in the summer of 2016 and the parties must choose locations for the festivities.  As Mario Trujillo of the Hill writes, the Democratic National Committee has asked several cities to submit bids, among them:

The State Department is warning of a protest in Malaysia on Friday, one day before President Obama is expected to arrive there on Saturday.

Texas senator Ted Cruz has endorsed Ben Sasse in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Nebraska. From the Sasse campaign announcement:

The Arkansas Senate race has been close in virtually every serious poll. The Republican challenger, Tom Cotton, probably had a small lead a month or so ago; after a massive negative assault on him by Harry Reid's Super PAC, the Democratic incumbent, Mark Pryor, is probably now ahead by a point or…

Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor has a 10-point lead in his race to retain his Senate seat, according to a new poll from the New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation. A two-term senator, Pryor has 46 percent support, while his challenger, Republican congressman Tom Cotton, has 36 percent…

President Obama did not attend the funeral of his late aunt Zeituni Onyango. Instead, he went golfing.

The Republican National Committee has released a brutal memo on Senate majority leader Harry Reid, savaging him for repeatedly lying. The memo, under the name of press secretary Kirsten Kukowski, is titled "Nothing’s Too Unethical for Harry Reid."

In response to a report that the Obama administration may cut U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan to below 10,000, senators Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte, and John McCain have released a statement. Read it below:

Charles Murray says an event he was scheduled to speak at was postponed at the last minute because the university was worried about "hurting our faculty and students of color." The event was supposed to take place tomorrow at Azusa Pacific University.

This ought to be an easy one for the White House which has been petitioned to take action in a matter of national importance that ought to be a political slam dunk. The people on one side are all too young to vote and those on the other are full of passionate intensity (to borrow a phrase) in…

The attempts of defenders of Obamacare to rouse the American people in favor of the doomed monstrosity have become more desperate and bizarre. The most recent example is taking place in Florida, where the sudden death of a young uninsured woman is being cited as an indictment of the…

Americans have become increasingly more afraid of their own government, as Eric Katz writes in, appropriately, Government Executive.  Seems that:

Senior writer John McCormack joined Greta van Susteren's political panel Monday on Fox News to discuss the protest at the Bundy ranch in Nevada. Watch the video below:

Media reports suggest that President Obama is looking to declare victory and withdraw from Afghanistan, as he did from Iraq. The military commander in Afghanistan, General Joe Dunford, has said that he needs 10,000 US troops to accomplish the missions the president has said he wants to accomplish…

As I noted a few weeks ago, the introduction of widespread instant replay into major league baseball threatened to do serious damage to how the game is played and enjoyed. That damage arrives in ways that replay's proponents simply failed—or refused—to countenance.

Vice President Biden addressed Ukrainian legislators Tuesday in a committee room of the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, where he began his remarks by thanking the legislators for "making me feel relevant again." Biden is in Ukraine to show support for the Ukrainian government as that country faces…

Michigan Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land has a new 30-second ad out taking on the Democratic line that Republicans like her are waging a "war on women." Land is facing Democratic congressman Gary Peters in November, and Peters has criticized Land's opposition to the so-called Paycheck Fairness Act.

The Keystone pipeline has been under study for five years and will be studied further. It will be built, or scuttled, when the politics are right.  For now, the pipeline, as Coral Davenport of the New York Times reports:

A few months ago when Obamacare was in free fall, many were left scratching their heads when the Democrats were touting stay-at-home motherhood as one of the perks of Obamacare.

Elizabeth Warren, the freshman Democratic senator from Massachusetts, did not say whether or not she thought her fellow Democrat, Hillary Clinton, would make a good president. ABC News's David Muir asked Warren the question in an interview airing Monday night on ABC.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Jay Cost on his recent magazine piece "Can This Marriage Be Saved?"

Bill Kristol writes in his latest newsletter: 

Back when the Obama administration needed a little help selling the Affordable Care Act, (then) HHS Secretary Sebelius made a few calls.  Friendly, no doubt, in tone, suggesting that a contribution might be helpful.

Last month, Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor told NBC News that he believed his Republican opponent, congressman Tom Cotton, has a "sense of entitlement" with regard to Pryor's Senate seat. Cotton is a first-term congressman and Army veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, while Pryor is a two-term…

President Obama declared everyone "a winnner" at the White House Easter Egg Roll:

The Affordable Care Act was designed and written chiefly by lawyers – Congress is full of them and if you throw a rock in Washington, you’ll hit one – so it is not so very surprising that among its effects is a trend among doctors to work fast and bill by the hour.  As Roni Caryn Rabin of the…

Bill Kristol, with Donna Brazile, S.E. Cupp, and Jeff Zeleny, yesterday on ABC's This Week:

NBC has been so alarmed at Meet the Press's decline, the network hired a "psychological consultant" to assess the host, David Gregory. The Washington Post reports:

Since Obamacare “hit” its “enrollment” “target,” Democrats, liberals, and their friends in the press have enjoyed some old-fashioned taunting of Republicans. This would be justifiable if a.) Republicans had destroyed the website that needed fixing or b.) predicted that nobody would sign up for the…

When it became known last year that George W. Bush had taken up painting, The Scrapbook took note of the fact, commenting on a couple of random examples that they were “better than you would expect, show imagination, and are certainly evidence of Bush’s well-developed sense of humor. .  .  . The…

How should we react to the fact that the average length of a prison sentence in the United States has nearly doubled in the last 30 years? That 140,000 inmates are serving life sentences, and more than 100,000 are in prolonged solitary confinement? That California alone incarcerates more inmates…

It’s hard to believe, but the rebirth of the Republican party in Virginia may be happening in the unlikeliest of places: the liberal bastion of Northern Virginia.

I’m a Los Angeles girl, born and bred. My hometown is Pasadena, about 12 miles northeast of L.A.’s downtown, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. My husband is another Angeleno, raised in Hawthorne, in far southwest Los Angeles County, on the South Bay flatlands abutting the Pacific…

"The dinosaurs surviving the crunch” was how Stephen Sondheim described women living an outdated lifestyle and grimly aware that “everybody dies.” If Sondheim had the slightest interest in the less exalted subject of economics, he would apply that descriptive to a host of companies and industries…

Aficionados often refer to comic books in terms of eras: the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age. The same may now be true of the comic-book movie. Judging from last year’s mega-hit Iron Man 3, and the brand-new mega-hit Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the comic-book movie has entered…

Anyone who’s ever misplaced the family car in a parking lot at the mall must surely sense that we are not living in a golden era of automobile design. Gazing in panic out across that vast tar pit, every car seems to look like every other car. Late-model midsize sedans and compacts, especially,…

Amsterdam 

Is Barack Obama’s threat of preventive military action against the Iranian regime’s nuclear program credible? Would a one-year, six-month, or even three-month nuclear breakout capacity at the known nuclear sites be acceptable to him? Is he prepared to attack if Tehran denies the International…

Do we really need another book about Pete Rose?

The Coastal Barrier Resources Act, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1982, ranks among America’s greatest free-market conservation success stories. Administered on a shoestring budget out of an obscure Fish and Wildlife Service office in Arlington, Va., the Coastal Barrier Resources System protects an…

Last week, Brandeis University withdrew the honorary degree it was going to bestow next month on human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. According to a statement from Brandeis, “We cannot overlook that certain of her past statements are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.”

From the moment Detroit filed for bankruptcy last summer, comparisons to the 2009 Chrysler and General Motors bailouts have abounded. Most highlight the differences, noting that the federal government is unlikely to pump billions of dollars into Detroit. But although the differences are real, the…

In his Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony last week, Secretary of State John Kerry blamed Israel for the breakdown in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. He argued that an Israeli announcement of 700 new housing units for a neighborhood in Jerusalem were what did in…

Distinguished lineage is no guarantee of good breeding, and in the case of the junior senator from Rhode Island, the gap is startling. Mayflower ancestry, a diplomat grandfather and father, railroad money, and education at the best schools seem, if anything, to have encouraged the hauteur and…

Arlington, Texas

A Masters without Tiger: It is not quite the case of an athlete dying young. He will almost certainly recover from the back surgery that kept him out of the tournament and play at Augusta again next year and, probably, for many years after that. He may even win again. After all, Jack Nicklaus won…

There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.

The tangled tale of the proposed Eisenhower Memorial next to the National Mall in Washington gets more complicated by the week. On April 3, the National Capital Planning Commission stunned just about everybody by rejecting the memorial design submitted by “celebrity architect” Frank Gehry and…

The debate over Obamacare may remind a student of British history of the debate in Britain over the National Insurance Act of 1911, which was in effect until the initiation of the welfare state after World War II. The protagonists in that debate (like ours, not formally a debate, but implicitly…

Amid the usual news stories this Easter Sunday – accounts of the president’s family attending church and the pope addressing multitudes – there is this startling and vastly hopeful headline:

The front page of today's Denver Post skips Easter. Its main focus? Marijuana.

Via the White House pool report:

The news that the administration would like kept quiet, and which it therefore announced in the afternoon, on Good Friday is that it has:

A few weeks ago I suggested that we now know when Federal Reserve Board chair Janet Yellen will raise interest rates: never. Her first formal monetary policy speech can be read to support that view, or at least that “normal” interest rates are what the Economist describes as “a distant prospect.”…

Politicians looking for work and calling themselves “Democrats” are being advised to avoid using the word “recovery.”  As the AP reports:

Republican governor Paul LePage of Maine has a slight lead over his Democratic challenger, House member Mike Michaud, according to a new poll of the race. Here's more from the Portland Press-Herald:

Charles Thomas of ABC’s WLS in Chicago reports:

Kathleen Sebelius is "not considering" a run for Senate, a new report claims. 

Beau Biden, son of Joe, will, as Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post reports, be running for governor in Delaware in 2016, further confirming that the impulse to a career in “public service” is genetic and hereditary.

Jack Kingston, the Savannah-based Republican congressman running for the U.S. Senate, has been endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Here's more from the Washington Post:

In his press conference yesterday, President Obama said that the debate over the Affordable Care Act is over, or should be … and will be if he and his party have anything to say about it.

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare, the CBO projected that 9 million people would buy Obamacare-compliant insurance through newly established government-run exchanges. Now, after an enrollment period that his administration expanded by about two months—to more than half a…

The title of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's new book will be Hard Choices, Simon and Shuster announced this morning:

We often think of the Constitution as a two-part document: first the original 1787 text, which primarily establishes the government’s structure; and then the amendments, which primarily set forth our rights. But it’s not nearly that simple: Our government’s structure—its federalism and its…

Don’t ban e-cigarette flavors for the children.

The British Labour party announced David Axelrod will be working to help Ed Miliband become the next prime minister.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on the GOP's prospects in 2014 and 2016.

The White House claims 8 million people have signed up for Obamacare:

There is, as Elise Viebeck of the Hill reports, to be a little meeting at the White House today where:

Writing in the Tennessean, a man named George Parker writes:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the April 21, 2014 edition of the Books and Arts section.

In a call-in show on Russian television, Vladimir Putin:

President Obama appears to be the best there ever was when it comes to raising cash. But that’s because he works so hard at it. As James Oliphant of Government Executive reports:

A couple of days ago, a Timothy P. Carney piece appeared in the Washington Examiner over the headline:

The Washington Free Beacon reports on a new Iowa poll:

First time jobelss claims held steady, this week, at 304,000. That would be less than than the “expected” 315,000 but more than last week’s 302,000.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will spend the four days leading up to the Boston Marathon conducting a helicopter-based survey to measure naturally occurring background radiation in a ten square mile area west of downtown Boston.  The measurements are being taken to "establish…

Over two dozen widows in Alabama were dropped from their health care plans due to Obamacare, WHNT reports:

Fox poll: about six in ten voters think Obama lies about important matters some or most of the time. 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Fred Barnes reading his Casual Essay, "They Got Game."

Nobody loved Shai Agassi and his company, Better Place, more than Tom Friedman. Friedman dedicated two slobbering, wide-eyed, wet-kiss columns to Agassi's Better Place in 2008. You can read them here and here. 

A video of a large al Qaeda gathering in Yemen has raised eyebrows in the press. Nasir al Wuhayshi, the head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as well as general manager of al Qaeda’s global network, can be heard saying to a crowd of more than 100: "We must eliminate the cross. ... The…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on why the U.S. needs to push back against Vladimir Putin.

President Obama is about to undertake a fence-mending mission to America’s Asian allies in Tokyo, Seoul, and Manila. The U.S. “pivot” to Asia is coming under renewed scrutiny following Beijing’s announcement of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) for the East China Sea in November,…

The city that President Obama was credited with “saving” – before it turned out that he hadn’t – is getting a little help from Washington as it struggles through the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history.

Former New York City mayor is pledging to spend $50 million this year to push gun control, the New York Times reports. For this and other deeds (such as taking on obesity and smoking), Bloomberg believes he's going to heaven.

The nicest homicidal white supremacist.

Marco Rubio is pushing President Obama to strengthen Russian sanctions. “Russia’s efforts to foment unrest in eastern Ukraine are tantamount to another violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty. Assertions from Moscow that Russia is not involved hold little credibility, particularly in the wake of its…

Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott of Texas is more popular among female voters than his Democratic opponent, state senator Wendy Davis, according to a new poll from PPP. The Democratic polling firm found 51 percent of Texas voters support Abbott while 37 percent support Davis. That's…

At the beginning of this month, two prominent Hong Kong democracy advocates visited Washington to seek America’s support.

The crisis in Ukraine has not reached the dreaded point where it turns into a shooting war.  And likely it will not.  So we hear no urgent analysis of things like objectives, interior lines, unity of command, logistical staying power, the durability of alliances, and the other matters that have…

Writing in the Daily Beast, Mark McKinnon argues that a Hillary/Jeb contest in 2016 would be good for the nation.  (Not to mention, good for business.)  His arguments amount to the usual pap, made without much rigor or, even, conviction. That is, Hillary & Jeb are both experienced. Not too…

Attorney General Eric Holder tells the Huffington Post that he had "youthful experimentation" of marijuana. In other words, he smoked pot in college.

Democratic senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana is in a tough reelection battle because of her support for Obamacare. So its not surprising her latest TV ad focuses on the one high-profile fight she's had with the Obama administration, over oil and gas exploration. The 60-second spot features people…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol, on Obama's weakness abroad.

The Republican party's best chance to win a statewide office in California for the first time since 2006 all started with a check for $800. Pete Peterson’s wife Gina is graphic designer in Santa Monica who owns her own business, a limited liability company. Last year, she was getting ready to pay…

An excerpt from Bill Kristol's weekly newsletter:

A new 30-second TV ad from Republican Senate candidate Tom Cotton hits back at an attack from the Harry Reid-affiliated Senate Majority PAC. The original ad claimed the Arkansas congressman "got paid handsomely working for insurance companies," but the Cotton ad notes that the Washington Post said…

Four years after Obamacare became law, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is notifying Medicare providers and suppliers of new fingerprint-based background checks.  Eventually, all individuals who hold a five percent or greater stake in a Medicare supplier or provider that is…

Why aren’t feminists backing Ayaan Hirsi Ali?

From U.S. Treasury Department:

The Hill reports:

Lolita C. Baldour of the AP reports that:

The Watertown Daily Times reports that Elise Stefanik beat out Matt Doheny to win the endorsement of the Conservative party in New York's 21st congressional district:

What we usually hear about when the subject is climate change is stuff meant to scare you out of your socks.  Rising oceans, violent storms, draughts, famines, plagues of locusts … and so forth.  The implied alternative is austerity so severe – no cars, rationed electricity, smaller houses,…

Michelle Nunn, the presumptive Democratic nominee for an open Senate seat in Georgia, has raised $2.4 million in the first quarter of 2014. The Associated Press reports:

Politics at its best brings people and groups together in unexpected ways. Although the Reagan administration responded sluggishly to the emergence of HIV in the 1980s, its last FDA commissioner, Frank Young, reached out to the very HIV activists who had for years made life miserable for him and…

Here's video of the detained suspect in yesterday's shooting at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas:

Vladimir Putin learned lessons from the Balkan wars of the 1990s that the rest of the world ignored or has forgotten. He invokes an obviously false parallel between the NATO bombing of Serbia and liberation of Kosovo in 1999, and his own annexation of Crimea. In his speech of March 18, Putin sought…

The literary and intellectual world was up in arms last week with the publication in Germany of Martin Heidegger’s private philosophical notebooks. The first three volumes of the diaries, from the years 1931-1941, bring conclusive evidence that the man who is arguably the greatest philosopher of…

The modern Democratic party has a bit of a history problem. The oldest political party in the world regularly celebrates Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners, yet both men are hardly taken as role models by today’s left-leaning Democratic party. Both were slaveholders, with Thomas Jefferson possibly…

From the journalists of the Mumbai Mirror (with acknowledgments to HuffPost, which drew the clarification to the attention of The Scrapbook): “For the last 12 years we have been writing about the chief minister of Gujarat [Narendra Modi, likely India’s next prime minister] as being responsible for…

What do Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia have in common? For one, none has a city larger than 400,000 people. For another, they all voted for John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. For yet another, they are the most likely places for Republicans to pick up…

Whenever the topic is broached, proponents of same-sex marriage assert that people who have reservations about redefining the primary building block of civilization are simply on the “wrong side of history.” Now, no one would deny that the political crusade for same-sex marriage is on the march.…

First and foremost,Noah is a movie, and the first question about a movie is whether it is good or badas a movie. That turns out to be a difficult one to answer.

It was time for the CIA to lawyer up. In 1974, then-New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh broke a story exposing illegal covert actions conducted by the agency over a quarter of a century. Congressional investigations followed. The CIA emerged from the organizational ordeal wrapped in a dense web…

Springfield, Va.

A new Gallup poll of Ukrainians undermines the main rationale for Russia’s aggression towards its neighbor and calls into question the U.S. approach to diplomacy with the Russians, which treats some of the Russian claims as legitimate. The findings of the national survey also cast further doubt on…

The Scrapbook is a Johnny-one-note when it comes to our favorite quarterly, National Affairs: It’s great. The Spring 2014 issue arrived on our desk this week, and as usual editor Yuval Levin has assembled a winning lineup. Jim Manzi’s essay on what he calls “the new American system of innovation”…

If this absorbing, but imperfect, history of the waxing and waning of large-scale film musicals teaches us nothing else, it is that critical tastes from the 1960s bear a striking resemblance to those of today: The edgy is nearly always esteemed over the innocuous. 

The Scrapbook has an announcement to make: Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016. She may not necessarily win the election, but she will definitely run. And The Scrapbook is absolutely confident about this. How do we know? By a complicated process of induction, deduction, instinct, and…

I once lived for a year in a small town in Alabama. Like many small towns in the mid-20th century, Anniston was worried about its long-term prospects, and kept thinking of ways to keep the town, especially the downtown, vital. If this had been New England, the town fathers would have closed off one…

The importance of the Midwest to American and even world history is, one would think, obvious and uncontroversial. Jon Lauck points out that in the decades after the American Revolution, the Midwest “proved to those who were skeptical that this republic could expand and that republican sentiments…

Edinburg, Texas

It is a decade since America confronted the question of just how much financial assistance to provide Iraq, then burdened with billions in debt incurred by the Saddam Hussein regime. Now we face a similar problem in Ukraine, the important difference being that Iraq’s huge but mismanaged oil…

The crowing by the Obama administration over getting 7 million people to sign up for mandatory health insurance—with some portion actually paying for it—will soon fade. The big picture will remain clear: Obamacare isn’t working. And Americans, who didn’t like Obamacare when the Democrats passed it…

Throughout the Ukraine crisis, Moscow has insisted that the Euromaidan protests against the pro-Russian regime of Viktor Yanukovych were driven by far-right groups, fascists, or even “neo-Nazis” and that Yanukovych’s downfall has brought these dark forces into the corridors of power. These claims…

During the summers of 1964 and 1965, more than 51 million people—beatniks, squares, and international tourists alike—packed their bags and traveled to the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Just in time for the 50th anniversary of opening day, Joseph Tirella, in this carefully detailed…

The Obama administration has scheduled a deputies committee meeting this week—tentatively set for Tuesday—to resolve a bitter inter-agency dispute over a request from Russia with respect to the Open Skies program. Informed sources believe the White House is likely to side with the State Department,…

The situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate, providing Russia with what it considers a case for intervention.  As James Marson and Lukas I. Alpert of the Wall Street Journal report this morning:

Fred Barnes, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

The government is putting its (big) foot down.  No more junk food in schools.  As Danica Lo of Epicurious writes:

To begin on a positive note about the outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services: Kathleen Sebelius was perfectly cordial the one time I met her.

Employers’ requests for the limited number of H1-B visas that allow foreign skilled workers to work and live here has wildly exceeded the supply. After all, the visas allow employers to hire foreigners, rather than bid up wage rates to attract American citizens, or incur the cost of training…

Passover, a festival of freedom.

Nobody does show trials like the Russians and according to some reports some of their politicians would like to bring them back. According to an AFP story, a group:

Matthew Continetti writes at the Washington Free Beacon about the recent announcement that Democratic lobbyist power couple Tony and Heather Podesta are divorcing:

Mississippi state senator Chris McDaniel is widely regarded as the Tea Party candidate with the best shot of knocking off an incumbent U.S. senator in a GOP primary this year. Incumbent Thad Cochran, 76, is well-known for his love of pork-barrel spending and could easily lose a race decided by…

Mississippi state senator Chris McDaniel is widely regarded as the Tea Party candidate with the best shot of knocking off an incumbent U.S. senator in a GOP primary this year. Incumbent Thad Cochran, 76, is well-known for his love of pork-barrel spending and could easily lose a race decided by…

The Keystone pipeline has been studied longer than just about anything this side of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  And, still, the administration continues to weigh its merits.  The stall is making certain members of the political class uncomfortable.  As Laura Barron-Lopez of the Hill reports, several…

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate, features heavily in a new TV ad from Georgia Senate candidate Karen Handel. "You know her background. You know her record," says Palin, who endorsed Handel two weeks ago. "The conservative who has walked the walk."

At a celebration ceremony for Kathleen Sebelius's resignation as secretary of Health and Human Services, President Obama excused the problems with Healthcare.gov by saying it's the "final score" that matters:

Kathleen Sebelius had one final glitch on her way out the door. At her resignation celebtration at the White House Rose Garden today, she was missing the final page from her prepared remarks:

The first official word from the Obama administration on Kathleen Sebelius's resignation as secretary of health and human services is a retweet by the official White House Twitter account of a tweet by Vox.com's Ezra Klein:

Not so long ago, we learned from a Wall Street Journal story that the nation’s electrical grid could be taken completely down by the disabling of nine critical electrical substations 

The distinguished intellectual historian Jeffrey Herf, whose Ph.D. is from Brandeis, has written an eloquent and powerful letter to Brandeis president Fred Lawrence. Prof. Herf concludes:

While crises continue in Ukraine, Syria, Iran, and the Central African Republic, the United Nations turned its attention to a different kind of crisis on Thursday: the "global road safety crisis."  The U.N. General Assembly held a session on Improving Global Road Safety in which the United States…

What Ayaan Hirsi Ali would have said at Brandeis.

Hillary Clinton is an advocate of something she calls “Smart Power,” which she presumably exercised during her time as Secretary of State and will, again, should she become president.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Philip Terzian reading his essay, "The Elevator Blues."

A new poll released Thursday found New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen with an eight-point lead over her Republican challenger for the Senate, Scott Brown. The survey of registered voters, conducted by Democratic polling firm PPP on behalf of the League of Conservation Voters, found 49 percent…

West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin broke with his party's leader in the Senate by refusing to attack a pair of wealthy billionaire brothers who donate to free-market causes. Asked about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's frequent attacks on Charles and David Koch, Manchin told Brian Kilmeade of…

Secretary of State John Kerry is miffed and hurt. As Olivier Knox of Yahoo reports, Kerry feels that “his friend,” Senator John McCain, crossed some kind of line when Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations committee. Knox quotes a source (Mr. Unnamed) as saying:

Three Republican House members from Georgia, who are also running for the Senate, voted against their conference's budget Thursday. Jack Kingston, Phil Gingrey, and Paul Broun joined nine other Republicans in voting against the budget, authored by chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

In a new radio ad, Republican Senate candidate Karen Handel of Georgia hits back at her primary opponent David Perdue for his recently released comments about her lack of a college education. Perdue also touted his international business experience. The minute-long Handel ad replays Perdue's…

Fred Kagan gave the following testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade on "Is al Qaeda Winning? Grading the Administration's Counterterrorism Policy."

Is it finally spring in the world of employment?  If one is looking for encouraging signs, this week’s first-time claims number is very encouraging.  Down from slightly over 330,000 last week to 300,000.  Lowest number since May 2007 and the greatest weekly drop since January 2006.

Former President Jimmy Carter does not think much about Hillary Clinton's effort to bring about peace in the Middle East. John Kerry's efforts, on the other hand, are "notable," according to Carter. 

Jay Bergman, an alumnus of Brandeis University, forwards us the letter he sent to the president of his alma mater regarding the disgraceful Ayaan Hirsi Ali episode:

Eric Holder complained yesterday to civil rights activists about the way Congress is treating him. He made the remarks, which appeared unscripted, yesterday at Al Sharpton's National Action Network conference in Manhattan:

John Podhoretz: “The Shame of Brandeis.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has just released this statement in response to Brandeis University's decision to rescind her invitation to receive an honorary degree:

A new Suffolk University poll of the Iowa GOP Senate primary shows state senator Joni Ernst narrowly leading wealthy business executive Mark Jacobs: 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol, on the controversy over Brandeis and the revoked offer of an honorary degree for Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (At times, the sound quality is poor.)

As West Virginia Democrat Nick Rahall, a top Republican target in the 2014 elections, entered a $1,000 a plate fundraiser at the Willard hotel in Washington, D.C. yesterday, a GOP tracker attempted to get the congressman to comment on a CNN report that Rahall was about to retire until Nancy Pelosi…

The student leaders of Taiwan’s Sunflower movement, having occupied the legislative chambers in the capital of Taipei for the past three weeks, recently announced plans for demonstrators to vacate the floor of the Legislative Yuan on April 10. The students have been expressing their strong…

As West Virginia Democrat Nick Rahall, a top Republican target in the 2014 elections, entered a $1,000 a plate fundraiser at the Willard hotel in Washington, D.C. yesterday, a GOP tracker tracker attempted to get the congressman to comment on a CNN report that Rahall was about to retire until Nancy…

As the Boston Red Sox collected their World Series rings last Friday, Boston faithful had much to be thankful for. And among those to whom they owed more than a little thanks was Bill James, the team's official analytical guru, who enjoyed an increased role in team decision-making after the team…

As Lori Lowenthal Marcus notes, Brandeis University has in recent years bestowed an honorary degree on Tony Kushner, who called the creation of Israel as a Jewish state “a mistake” and who attacked Israel for ethnic cleansing and for causing “terrible peril in the world.” Brandeis has also…

My review of former top CIA lawyer John Rizzo’s book Company Man appears in the current issue of this magazine. A friend in a high place who read the review pointed out to me that the book adds something significant to our understanding of the Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby, Richard Armitage, Judith…

Nebraska Senate candidate Ben Sasse has been declared "Obamacare's Nebraska Nemesis,"  and in a new ad Sasse explains why he's personally invested in repealing the law. In 2007, his wife Melissa had an aneurysm followed by an arduous recovery, which left his family with $160,000 in medical bills.…

Any Democrat interested in running for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination is, at present, reduced to waiting to see what Hillary will do, and isn’t the suspense just about too much to bear.

The administration’s enthusiasm for GM extended to its electric car, the Chevy Volt. President Obama once said he’d like to drive one when he leaves office and no reason he couldn’t. There’s lots of inventory lying around.

Brandeis University will no longer be awarding an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The university released this statement last night:

On Eich, dissidence, and totalitarianism.

A study released Tuesday by the non-profit RAND Corporation found that only 3.9 million people have enrolled in the Obamacare exchanges--a much smaller number than the 7 million sign-ups touted by the Obama administration: 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the April 14, 2014 edition of the Weekly Standard's Books and Arts section.

Over at Talking Points Memo, Sahil Kapur reports: "On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) dismissed the Democrats' all-out push for action on gender pay equity as a 'bizarre obsession' designed to blow 'kisses to their powerful pals on the left.'" The Chicago Sun-Times picked up…

A new poll from Talk Business found Mark Pryor, the sitting Democratic senator from Arkansas, with a three-point lead over Republican challenger Tom Cotton. The survey of more than 1,000 likely voters found 45.5 percent said they would vote for Pryor, while 42.5 percent said they would vote for…

A new ad from a Republican primary challenger to Michigan congressman Justin Amash notes he has voted for bills supported by Barack Obama more than any other Republican in Congress. Brian Ellis, a businessman from Grand Rapids, released the 30-second ad on Tuesday.

In the two days since Jeb Bush’s interesting and provocative interview with Fox News reporter Shannon Bream, many commentators and analysts have parsed his words and offered thoughts on what they mean for a prospective 2016 presidential bid. There’s a good reason for this interest. Bush is a…

The Ukraine crisis may end not with an invasion, but a lien. As Reuters reports:

CNN's John King called the White House's push for equal pay "a textbook case ... of do as I say, not as I do."

Republican Scott Brown leads incumbent Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire by five points in a recent poll obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The poll, commissioned by the Republican Governor's Association, was conducted on March 19 and 20 and asked 600 likely voters in New Hampshire…

Bill Kristol made the argument that Jeb Bush will not be the next Republican presidential nominee:

CBS says the White House is getting "roughed up by its own pay equity rhetoric." 

In an interview last night on Megyn Kelly, House speaker John Boehner talked tough about investigating the IRS:

Despite the Obama administration's insistence that everyone -- the government, insurance companies, doctors, medical providers, and consumers -- will reap benefits from Obamacare, a recent grant proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) suggests that the agency does have…

PHOENIX — In the waiting room of Maricopa County’s Tent City Jail, a weathered screen flashes red, green and yellow words with a euphoric fireworks effect worthy of an early 2000s Word document.

“We have a responsibility to make sure Jeb runs.”

A taste of the boss's newsletter (which is sent out every Monday):

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Michael Warren on his recent story "The Next Governor of Texas?"

Rebecca Kleefisch, the Republican lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, likes to talk about butter. By the time we’re done talking, I know exactly how to buy a month’s worth from a Wisconsin Kwik Trip—and what Kleefisch thinks that has to do with Republican politics.

“In the end, history is not kind to those who would deny Americans their basic economic security.  Nobody remembers well those who stand in the way of America’s progress or our people. And that’s what the Affordable Care Act represents.” President Obama, who made that statement last week, has never…

As far as political odd couples go, it doesn't get any odder than Sarah Palin and Jon Stewart. However, the two have come together to help veterans and have cut an ad in support of ACP AdvisorNet, which helps vets get jobs. ACP AdvisorNet is an innovative idea -- it's a virtual community service…

Karen Handel, the former secretary of state of Georgia, has raised $200,000 in the past two weeks for her campaign for Senate, according to a spokesman. The cash-strapped Republican, who is facing better financed primary opponents, has raised more in that time than she had in the previous quarter.

Republican senator Mike Lee has an op-ed decrying cronyism. But first, he says, the Republicans must purge the unseemly activity from within its "own ranks."

The Washington Post catches the boss grabbing lunch. This time, he's with Indiana governor Mike Pence. As Reid Wilson reports:

Bill Kristol, with Donna Brazile, Newt Gingrich, and Alicia Menendez, yesterday on ABC News:

Jeb Bush says that he'll "make up" his "mind at the end of this year" on whether he's running for president in 2016:

We now know the approximate date when Federal Reserve Board chair Janet Yellen will feel comfortable ending the Fed’s near-zero interest rate policy: never. Those who were led to believe by her first press conference that she has shed her dove’s feathers for those of an inflation hawk, circling…

An interview with George W. Bush on his new art…

Arkansas senator Mark Pryor, a Democrat up for reelection this year, told local station KARK-TV he would have still voted for Obamacare despite all the law's problems.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on President Obama and Obamacare, Mozilla, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:

So the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are, predictably, collapsing. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry responded to the frustration of his manic peacemaking efforts by quoting an ancient complaint, "There’s an old saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Now it's time to…

In late March, President Obama took a week-long trip through Europe which included a stop of less than 24 hours in Brussels, Belgium for meetings with the European Union and NATO. The president stayed at The Hotel, a twenty-seven story hotel in the center of the city. The estimated cost for the…

The monthly jobs report is in and the sound one hears all around Washington is that of spin machines running through the gears.

Congressman Jim Moran believes that members of Congress do not make enough money. It’s the sort of thing that, even if you believe it, you shouldn’t say. But then, Moran has never been known for his manners or discretion.

In Mosaic Magazine, Walter Laqueur reviews the recently published Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings. Laqueur tries to explain how a German writer (literary critic, essayist, philosopher) virtually unknown in his own day (1892-1940) has become one of the…

Democratic senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon is polling ahead of his potential Republican opponents, but his position is weak heading into his reelection campaign, according to a new survey by a GOP polling firm. Harper Polling found Merkley is ahead of two possible Republican opponents but is still…

In the months and weeks leading up to March 31, the Obama administration pushed the message through press releases, tweets and blog posts that the last day in March was the final opportunity to get health insurance in 2014.  A White House blog post on Monday is typical, beginning with the words,…

National Review interviews McConnell on his role in McCutcheon.

Nebraska senator Deb Fischer will travel next door to Iowa in support of a fellow female Republican running in a tough primary for U.S. Senate. According to a press release from ShePAC, a conservative women's group, Fischer will go to Des Moines later this month to campaign for Joni Ernst, who is…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with attorney and frequent contributor Adam J. White on the Supreme Court's ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC, which repealed parts of federal campaign law pertaining to aggregrate campaign donation limits.

Secretary of State John Kerry believes that, 

So it looks as though the debate over the Affordable Care Act is not quite over.  

 In the midst of the Obama administration's latest push to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released an analysis showing the the percentage of hourly workers earning at or below the minimum wage is down to 4.3 percent, or 3.3…

Dr. Ben Carson has just launched the Save Our Healthcare Project, the goal of which is “to replace Obamacare with positive, patient-centered reforms to ensure all Americans have access to high-quality care.”  In the launch’s initial phase, Carson lists his seven core principles of real health care…

It is a cliché at this point to remark that John Kerry is operating in a fantasy world. But sometimes there is no other word to describe the enormous distance between his perception of what is happening and what is actually happening.

Michelle Nunn, the likely Democratic nominee for Senate in Georgia, has released her first 30-second TV ad of the campaign. Nunn is the daughter of former senator Sam Nunn, but the ad seeks to introduce her more broadly to voters in Georgia.

The monthly jobs numbers will be released tomorrow and they are even more eagerly anticipated than usual now that the Obamacare deadline (using the term loosely) has passed and attention is being increasingly paid to the next elections in which jobs will likely be the prime issue.

Former White House press secretary Robert GIbbs said Obamacare's employer mandate will likely be scrapped. Speaking to a benefits industry convention in Colorado Springs, Gibbs, who served in the Obama White House from 2009 to 2011, said the mandate that large employers provide a certain level of…

A leading Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia criticized a fellow primary opponent for having only a high school degree. David Perdue, a businessman and first-time candidate for office, was touting his experience and education to a group of voters in January when he made a reference to…

Millions of individuals who recently entrusted personal, medical, and financial information to the federal government while enrolling in Obamacare via Healthcare.gov may find a recent trend reported by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) rather unsettling.  The number of security breaches…

Leland Yee and the hypocrisy of the media.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the Benghazi testimony in Congress by former acting CIA Director Michael Morrell.

It was interesting to juxtapose yesterday's Obamacare celebration with this story from my local newspaper:

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal released a health care proposal Wednesday aiming to repeal and replace Obamacare with a conservative alternative.

The Western media have a nasty habit of whitewashing Russia’s Soviet past. During the Winter Olympics in Sochi, many American journalists glorified the U.S.S.R’s Communist legacy while downplaying or ignoring the horrors that defined it.   

Senate majority leader Harry Reid has a whole page on his official Senate.gov website devoted to revealing "THE FACTS ABOUT THE KOCH BROTHERS." One of the alleged facts promoted on Reid's website is that the Kochs do not pay any corporate taxes:

Former CIA deputy director Mike Morell, who also served a stint as acting director of Langley, is testifying before House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence today. The hearing focuses on the Obama administration’s response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Charles Murray, writing for Mosaic magazine:

Travelling from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to Mostar, a city almost midway toward Dubrovnik on the Adriatic Coast, one drives through a stunningly-beautiful landscape of mountains, forests, and rivers. On a recent trip, however, I observed a surprising sight: four gas stations…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Jay Cost on the Obamacare enrollment numbers and the White House's numbers game.

Jonathan Strong of Breitbart reports that the Emergency Committee for Israel dropped a "brutal ad" targeting Republican Walter Jones of North Carolina. Here's the ad:

The new CEO of the new General Motors testified yesterday before Congress and said that she is “deeply sorry” about the company’s negligence in selling cars that came standard with a flaw that could kill you. The company knew. A government regulatory agency knew. And if the administration of…

A new study by American Health Policy Institute finds that the president's signature legislation, Obamacare, will cost large employers "$4,800 to $5,900 per employee." The study, called “The Cost of the Affordable Care Act to Large Employers,” is available here. 

President Obama said yesterday:

A few weeks ago during a Congressional hearing, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress regarding Obamacare, “We have implemented a number of changes in the way the law was written to ease the transition into the marketplace.” This week, her department has done the same…

For the left, error has no rights.

Republican Senate candidate Chris McDaniel supported an earmark in the Mississippi state senate that would have given $2 million in taxpayer money to the Grammy Awards to build a museum in Cleveland, Mississippi.

On Tuesday afternoon, West Virginia's Joe Manchin became the first Democrat in the United States Senate to support a federal bill that would ban most abortions during the final four months of pregnancy. "If it comes to the floor, I'm voting for it," Manchin told THE WEEKLY STANDARD following the…

Washington doesn’t normally do thrift. Governing is a hard job and the people who do it like to pamper themselves. Consider President Obama who recently traveled to Europe on government business and took along 45 vehicles and a team of 900 people. One or two of whom had a bit too much to drink and…

A newly released ABC News/Washington Post poll has some liberals feeling giddy. The poll shows Obamacare suffering from only a 2-point public-approval deficit among registered voters—with 48 percent in support and 50 percent in opposition. According to RealClearPolitics, that’s the best polling…

The non-military measures taken against Russia for its actions in Crimea and against its threatened invasion of Ukraine has not, as yet, had any discernible military effect. Reuters reports that NATO’s Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, "said on Tuesday he had seen no evidence that Russia is…

Janet Yellen, Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, surveying the state of the economy,

The office of the inspector general (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has uncovered seventy-nine "high-risk security vulnerabilities" in the information processing systems of ten state Medicaid agencies that "raise concerns about the integrity of the systems used to…

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is "looking" at banning the sale of tobacco at military installations. According to one military publication, Hagel appears to support it.