May 2014

Two top ranking Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services committees released a joint statement on the release of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for the release of five Taliban operatives from Guantanamo Bay. From Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services committee, and James…

The Obama administration announced today that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has been held by the Taliban for several years, has been freed from his captors. Reading the stories of his newfound freedom it is impossible not to feel joy for Bergdahl and his family. NBC News reports that Bergdahl held up a…

Little ado about not very much. Markets yawned when the government revised its initial estimate of economic growth in the first quarter from a slight positive, +0.1 percent, to a non-trivial negative of -1.0 percent. There are several reasons that the first shrinkage of the economy in three years…

Eli Lake: Al Qaeda grows in Afghanistan.

The Huffington Post reports that the "Obama Administration Plans To Let Some Young Undocumented Immigrants Join The Military." The plans have been approved by the Pentagon. 

An Oklahoma woman signed up for a new health insurance plan--only to find that there's not a doctor that will accept that plan within 400 miles. KTEN-TV reports that Janet Grigg, a cancer survivor, moved to Durant, Oklahoma to care for her elderly mother. But after signing onto a Blue Cross Blue…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on the departures of Secretary Shinseki and Jay Carney from the Obama Administration.

Yesterday’s GDP report was treated – by the administrations and its supporters in and out of the media – as an outlier.  A good number would have been 3 percent growth, which is what the experts at places like Goldman Sachs had been predicting back when the quarter was still young and hopes were…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Victorino Matus reading his casual essay "Technical Difficulties."

The Washington Post reports:

Startling charts from the Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee about male participation in the labor force, particularly men between the ages of 25-54:

Hillary Clinton is right about Benghazi—or at least she's right about one thing. 

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alan Webber of New Mexico says of his likely political opponent, Republican governor Susana Martinez, that "We need to send her back to wherever she really came from."

A report released this week by the inspector general for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) found that "inappropriate scheduling practices are systemic throughout VHA." But as recently as September 2013, Stephen Warren, the executive in charge for information and technology for the VA, said…

The White House pool reporter confirms a People magazine tweet saying that President Obama had lunch today with Hillary Clinton. Here's the pool report:

In a piece titled, "Vergara v. California: The Most Important Court Case You’ve Never Heard Of," Campbell Brown writes for the Daily Beast:

Seven Democratic senators up for reelection in November have said they believe Veterans Affairs secretary Eric Shinseki should resign over revelations that his department severely mismanaged treatment of veterans at VA hospitals that may have resulted in the deaths of scores of veterans across the…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the June 2, 2014 edition of the Books and Arts section.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the VA health care scandal is the way the paperwork was creatively done to make it appear that the system was operating as it was meant to.  This took serious, sustained effort, as the AP reports:

The Ukraine crisis continues and intensifies, despite the recent election. This morning, the BBC is reporting that:

John Bolton, writing in the Wall Street Journal: 

As PBS reports, the last 24 hours has seen the "floodgates open" with calls for Veterans Affairs secretary Eric Shinseki to resign. Five Democratic senators--Mark Udall of Colorado, Al Franken of Minnesota, John Walsh of Montana, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Kay Hagan of North Carolina--are…

As reported by Kellie Lunney at Government Executive, the:

Steve Hayes, with Mara Liasson and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

First Lady Michelle Obama plays a sideline reporter in a video with NFL star-turned White House chef Richard Sherman in a video promoting healthy eating:

Michelle Obama has a lot on her mind. According to the first lady of the United States, she's constantly worrying about "every kid in this country."

The Commerce Department released revise first-quarter GDP numbers this morning. They were expected to show that the economy had actually shrunk a bit,  instead of expanding by 0.1 percent as the initial report showed.  The contraction was predicted to be somewhere around .5 percent.  And while this…

Hillary Clinton will be speaking at the 1STBANK Center next week in Broomfield, Colorado. But it appears event organizers are having a hard time selling out: tickets to the event have been put on sale, and are now selling for 66 percent cheaper than the original sale price.

In October 2013, as the nation was focused on the deeply flawed rollout of the Healthcare.gov Obamacare marketplace, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) awarded $3 million in prizes to three participants in the agency's Medical Appointment Scheduling Contest. The contest was announced in 2012…

Gary Schmitt, writing for AEI:

Senator Mark Udall of Colorado says Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki should resign amid reports of misconduct in VA hospitals. Udall, a Democrat facing reelection, made the announcement on Twitter:

Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas is now the second Democratic senator to co-sponsor the VA Management Accountability Act. The legislation, authored by Florida Republican Marco Rubio, would allow the secretary of Veterans Affairs to fire senior staff members based on performance. The bill had the…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on President Obama's speech at West Point.

Elliott Abrams says that "Obama just accidentally explained why his foreign policy hasn’t worked." He writes in the Washington Post:

Reza Jan writes for AEI:

Reporting on the administration’s bungle that blew the cover of the CIA’s Afghanistan station chief, Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times does a little egregious falsifying of the historical record.  The objective, apparently, was to remind readers of how nasty the Bush administration was by…

At Tablet, French writer Marc Weitzmann explains what is behind the attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on Saturday that killed a visiting Israeli couple, a French volunteer at the museum, and a Belgian museum employee. Weitzmann is a well-known novelist, literary critic, screenwriter, and…

In a major foreign policy speech today at West Point, President Obama says that "for the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to America at home and abroad remains terrorism." But, Obama argued, that didn't mean every country could be invaded: "But a strategy that involves invading every…

A new ad campaign from Concerned Veterans for America asks Democratic senators to hold the Department of Veterans Affairs accountable. "President Obama won't hold the VA accountable," says the voiceover in one version of the ad, focusing on Arkansas's Mark Pryor. "Senator Mark Pryor can, but he's…

White House press secretary Jay Carney told the press today that NSA leaker Edward Snowden "faces felony charges here in the United States and he ought to return here to face these charges." Carney made the comments aboard Air Force One, en route to West Point where President Obama will deliver…

The NFL commissioner is headed to the White House to dicuss concussions in sports, the Washington Post reports. He'll join President Obama and "200 sports officials, medical experts, parent activists and young athletes Thursday for the first White House summit on sports concussions," the Post…

In the lead-up to Georgia's July 22 GOP runoff election for U.S. Senate, Congressman Jack Kingston of Savannah has received an endorsement from the Heisman Trophy-winning University of Georgia football legend Herschel Walker. Walker, a Georgia native and star running back of UGA's undefeated 1980…

President Obama is delivering the commencement address at the Military Academy at West Point on Wednesday where he is expected to detail future plans for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. The president laid out the basic outline in a Rose Garden appearance on Tuesday which calls for an almost…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Obama's Afghanistan speech and the European elections.

Today in the Rose Garden, President Obama announced that he’s going to keep a little under 10,000 troops in Afghanistan through 2014, half that number by the end of 2015, and will have all those forces out by the end of 2016. Putting aside the fact that this is the lowest number military advisors…

Going by the returns, the voters were weary of high unemployment, economic growth that it would be charitable to call “sluggish,” and a high-living, rule-writing bureaucratic elite enthralled by its own policymaking genius and inclined to dismiss critics as ignorant racists. 

The expletives were flying during a ceremony for wounded warriors at the vice president's residence on Memorial Day.

It appears that in the age of Obamacare, no health care plan is safe.  Not even one covering California farm workers and named after Robert F. Kennedy. 

Hillary Clinton has already sold one million copies of her book, according to Mike Allen. Her book, Hard Choices, is set to be released next month.

A self-described nerd, he is known to travel with policy journals and send all-hours inquiries to think tanks … … an intellectual in search of new ideas, a serial consulter of outsiders who relishes animated debate and a probing manager who eagerly burrows into the bureaucratic details. The…

The Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA) posted three notices on fbo.gov in 2013 regarding the agency's intent to purchase appointment scheduling software to correct problems with preparation and delivery of appointment notices to veterans for the VA's compensation and pension clinics. The…

Jeffrey Gedmin, writing for the Huffington Post:

From the boss's newsletter, marking Memorial Day:

When Hillary Clinton tweeted her support for the more than 200 Nigerian girls held by the extremist group Boko Haram, she probably did not expect that her tenure as secretary of state would soon be critically examined by the press through the lens of that very same mass kidnapping. But examined it…

Far be it from The Scrapbook to know why Jill Abramson was fired, after three short years, as executive editor of the New York Times. Or to care why she was fired. 

Last week in these pages (“Unfree Speech”), editorializing on the shamefully canceled commencement addresses of Condoleezza Rice and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Philip Terzian noted, “Both are identifiably conservative, and therefore, so far as the left is concerned, persona non grata. .  .  . But as it…

New York enjoyed a mid-season subway series last week with four games between the Mets and Yankees. Seeing the two teams play every year instead of once in a generation is one of the upsides of Major League Baseball’s recent experiment in inter-league play. But for the hometown TV audience, it…

The legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington has spawned reports of increased use, declining perception of risk, increased neonatal risk, drug tourism, diversion of public assistance to fund use, creation of significantly more powerful forms of the drug, and new financial rules to…

You can tell George Will is a serious baseball fan because—I wish I could find another way to put this—he is serious about baseball. The statement isn’t (quite!) as fatuous as it sounds. Lots of people who profess their love of baseball are mere romantics and mythologists. They’ll well up at the…

Lewes, Sussex

Cambridge, Mass. 

Who was Herschel Grynszpan? He was a 17-year-old Polish Jew, born and raised in Germany, who in November 1938 walked into the German embassy in Paris, where he had been living for two years, and shot a 29-year-old diplomat named Ernst vom Rath, who died two days later. Vom Rath’s assassination was…

Having lived through and survived Richard Nixon’s promise of energy independence, Jimmy Carter’s effort to substitute a hair shirt and a woolly sweater for a thermostat set at comfortable levels, George W. Bush’s insistence that Americans surrender their incandescent light bulbs, other presidents’…

At least since his 1994 bestseller The Death of Common Sense, the New York lawyer, author, and founder/chairman of the reform group Common Good Philip K. Howard has been trying to rescue Americans from ever-denser laws, regulations, and litigation. (Disclosure: I have known  Howard for half a…

There was a lot of hullabaloo last week over Michael Sam, who, after being drafted in a late round by the St. Louis Rams, is poised to become the NFL’s first openly gay football player. Sam was the SEC defensive player of the year, so a chance to play in the NFL seems well merited, regardless of…

In the curious pantomime that is the EU parliament, the French politician Joseph Daul is a star. He’s the president of the European People’s party (the principal center-right bloc in the parliament), an apparatchik with impeccable EU establishment credentials. He has euro-federalist beliefs, a…

Two emails recently showed up, one right after the other, in my inbox. The first was a mass mailing from Ron Paul (my inbox is a big tent!). Its subject line: “The IRS asked for a fight. How about a revolution?” The second was a review by Peter Berkowitz of the recently reissued book by Roger…

Democrats think they are the party of the future. After a last hurrah for Republicans in this year’s midterm elections, Democrats will have a commanding majority at the polls as far as the eye can see. A rising tide of minority, young, female, and affluent liberal voters assures them of this. And…

Like a lot of people, I used to hate dancing in public. But unlike most people, I have professional ballroom dancers for parents. When you regularly lose your father in the grocery store only to find him practicing waltz turns down the bread aisle, a fear of public dancing is not sustainable. 

Terry Teachout is a remarkable man of letters whose interest in the arts is multi-directed. Officially, he serves as drama critic for the Wall Street Journal and has reported on theater performances all over the country. He is also critic at large for Commentary, where he publishes a regular column…

The new movie Chef is about a hotshot cook who loses his way and then finds himself anew selling Cuban sandwiches off a truck. The food-cart-as-spiritual-salvation trope became a pop-culture cliché a couple years ago: Jason Segel did exactly the same thing with tacos in The Five-Year Engagement,…

"I love to smoke,” says Colorado congressman Cory Gardner, his voice trailing off. His aide’s eyes widen. “Finish that thought!” she says.

That the New York Times is a subversive cultural force can readily be seen in its unremitting assault on human exceptionalism, the philosophical backbone of Western civilization. 

It's a question often asked these days in conservative circles: Do you really think Obamacare can be repealed? Usually uttered behind closed doors, the question reveals both an un-Reagan-like pessimism and something of a disconnect from political reality.

The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has written that Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty’s new book on inequality and wealth, “will change both the way we think about society and the way we do economics.” Clive Crook describes the raptures with which intellectuals have greeted…

Probably in the seventh grade, Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii appeared on my summer reading list. I read the 1834 novel of ancient Roman life, adventure, mystery, and horror with the rapt attention of a boy drawn to a fictitious tale (which I doubt I knew was fictitious). But even had…

Kobani, Syrian Kurdish Region

CNN's John King reports that Democrats are privately calling President Obama "detached," "flat footed," and "incompetent."

In his weekly address, President Obama referred to care for veterans as part of a "sacred trust to all who've served." He said our nation has to do "much more … to make sure all our veterans get the care they deserve."

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the handling of the VA scandal by the Obama administration.

The fracking euphoria had to end. For three reasons. First, the claims for its benefits were wildly exaggerated, ensuring eventual disappointment as even a cheerful reality could not meet the imaginings of the pro-fossil-fuel gang. Second, environmental groups were not going to sit idly by, their…

It has been days now (at least two of them) since General Motors has issued a recall on any of its cars.  But then, the law of diminishing returns applies here.  After the first 15 million, there aren’t that many GM vehicles left out there for recalling.

In a Memorial Day piece for The Hill, Nancy Pelosi writes:

Over at the Washington Post, Greg Sargent reprints President Obama's remarks from a fundraiser Thursday night. They're worth pondering, because the remarks amount to a pretty perfect distillation of Obama's recent fecklessness. Naturally, Sargent is encouraged because Obama is on board with the…

The VA story is still unfolding and the consensus seems to be that it will be with us for a while. Which makes the eagerness of some not-in-office political hacks to wade in all the more unseemly.

Mark Pryor, the Democratic senator from Arkansas facing reelection this year, hasn't answered questions about whether he thinks Veterans Affairs secretary Eric Shinseki should resign amid stories of malfeasance at VA hospitals. While many of his colleagues up for reelection have answered questions…

Jeffrey H. Anderson, writing for National Review Online:

In Chicago this morning, President Obama made sure to let everyone know that he'll was paying for his breakfast with Illinois governor Pat Quinn. "I don't take free food," Obama said at the food counter. 

Here's the abstract of a piece from Adam J. White on Congress, regulations, and what he calls "the new administrative state."

The same day President Obama held a press conference about the growing scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of State John Kerry faced the press in Mexico at a joint appearance with Mexican foreign secretary Jose Antonio Meade. Kerry was in the country to discuss trade, economic…

Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the growing scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs and how it will impact the remaining years of the Obama presidency.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the May 19, 2014 edition of the Books and Arts section.

Fifty members of the United States Senate haved signed a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell urging the league to "endorse a name change for the Washington, D.C. football team," known to the rest of us as the Washington Redskins. The name, the undersigned argue, is a "slur against Native…

At a press conference Wednesday, President Obama said that the inspector general for the VA "did not see a link" between veteran deaths and delays in care at VA hospitals. The president suggested that he can't take action until investigators "find out what exactly happened":

Steve Hayes, with Ron Fournier and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

It's not just veterans at VA hospitals who are having trouble finding care. One young Marine veteran in California can't find a doctor who will accept his Anthem Blue Cross insurance plan he purchased through Covered California, the state's Obamacare exchange. KPIX-TV reports:

Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren is bringing her name and fundraising prowess to Oregon next week to help her fellow Democrat, Jeff Merkley. Politico Playbook reports:

Gary Palmer, who is seeking a House seat in Alabama, is a unique candidate. Until this year, he’d never run for political office. Yet he has a long and impressive record in politics. He was a walk-on for Bear Bryant’s University of Alabama football team – whoops, that’s not politics.

Secretary of State John Kerry recently told the graduating class of Boston College that climate change is threatening "nothing less than the future of the entire planet."  Now another State Department official is asserting that even if the planet dodges the climate change bullet, the earth may be…

As is well established, I have been less than impressed by the efforts of media "fact checking" organizations. Of these organizations, however, PolitiFact deserves special consideration. Most recently, they were forced to declare Obama's oft-repeated "If you like your health care plan, you can keep…

Poll: Penalties drove healthcare sign-ups. 

It is an uncomfortable fact that several European countries depend on Russia for energy and the situation in Ukraine has jeopardized that arrangement. Today, as Vanessa Mock of the Wall Street Journal reports:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Michael Warren on the recent primary elections and how they're bad news for Democrats seeking to run against an "extremist" GOP.

Martin Gross, a trustee on the Brandeis board, responds to the faculty outrage over Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

The director of the Phoenix VA hospital where 40 veterans died while waiting for care received an $8,500 bonus last month, according to Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. 

Two Democratic members of the House of Representatives have said Eric Shinseki, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, should resign amid reports of the neglect of sick and injured veterans at VA hospitals around the country.

The bailout of GM – at a final cost to the Treasury of $10 billion and change – was a landmark event in evolution state capitalism, American-style.  The company was saved, certain creditors were stiffed, the unions were protected, and the corporate culture, it seems, was not altered in any…

Drew Griffin, the CNN reporter who has covered the Veterans Affairs hospital scandal from the beginning, said moments after Barack Obama's press briefing on the issue that the president did not say anything that the veterans waiting for care wanted to hear.

President Obama didn't ask his VA secretary to resign. Instead, after meeting with Secretary Eric Shinseki, Obama addressed the press and praised the embattled cabinet member:

Alison Lundergan Grimes, the newly minted Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, is out with her first ad of the general election. The 60-second spot features Grimes speaking directly to the camera about how "no matter how many elections we have, nothing gets better in Washington--it only…

A new poll suggests that finding employment, particularly for the long-term unemployed, continues to be a struggle for Americans. The poll, conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals, asked questions of 1,500 unemployed adult Americans last month.

The White House just announced that President Obama will deliver a statement directly after meeting with Veterans Affairs chief Eric Shinseki later this morning. Here's the president's schedule, from the White House:

Paradise for the most dedicated supporters of President Obama would look like an eternal campaign. It would, in fact, be an eternal campaign. The speeches about hope and change would never end and there would be no messy governing to attend to.  One could promise passionately, to make the…

Earlier this morning on national TV, Bill Kristol pointed out that President Obama is meeting with his VA secretary later this morning, as the White House just announced. The boss asked, will Secretary Shinseki use his morning meeting with his boss to resign?

Just a day after House Republicans introduced legislation to roll back some Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations on school meal programs, the USDA announced some flexibility would be granted to some schools for the coming school year when implementing the new policies:

Monica Wehby has won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Oregon by double digits, according to the projections of the Associated Press. Wehby, a Portland-based pediatric neurosurgeon and political newcomer, won 55 percent of the vote, while her closest rival, state senator Jason Conger,…

The Associated Press reports that former CEO David Perdue and congressman Jack Kingston won first and second place, respectively, in Tuesday's Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Georgia. Because Perdue, at 30 percent, did not win an outright majority, both he and Kingston (who got 26 percent)…

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has won the Republican nomination, the Associated Press projects. McConnell held off a primary challenge from Matt Bevin, currently winning 60 percent of the vote to Bevin's 35 percent. The call was made shortly after polls in Kentucky closed at 7…

America is not Amerika.

President Obama is talented. He said so himself. 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Maria Santos reading her casual essay Strictly Ballroom.

Monica Wehby is on track to win today's Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Oregon, and Democrats are already unloading on her as she prepares to face off against incumbent Jeff Merkley in the fall. Last Friday, a Politico article described a police report filed last year that alleged Wehby, a…

CBS affiliate KMOX reports:

James Webb has served in the U.S. Senate and as secretary of the Navy. He is also an accomplished writer of both novels (Fields of Fire), non-fiction (Born Fighting), and a contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. And he won a Navy Cross for his service as a Marine officer in Vietnam. He is now…

Secretary of State John Kerry did not shy away from pejorative language when addressing "climate change" in his commencement speech at Boston College on Monday.  Kerry referred to those skeptical of the Obama administration's climate claims as "members of the Flat Earth Society" who are "risking…

If there’s one thing we know about today’s Georgia Republican primary for U.S. Senate, it’s that we really don’t know who will win. Or, more precisely, we don’t know which candidates will come in first and second to proceed to the inevitable runoff election in July. With five major candidates in…

The American Military Partner Association (AMPA) held its first National Gala Dinner in Washington Sunday, and the Department of Defense used the opportunity to tout the rapid advances the military is making in erasing gender distinctions in policies regarding military spouses and partners. As…

Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev says that "we are slowly but surely approaching a second cold war." He also said that U.S. President Barack Obama could be "more tactful politically" and that he's disappointed in some of the decisions Obama has made.

A thank you to the class of 2014.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer John McCormack on the growing scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the White House's response.

Lachlan Markay reports for the Washington Free Beacon:

The Republican National Committee is out with this new video showing that President Obama is mad:

Georgia Senate candidate Michelle Nunn is coasting to victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary, while her Republican opponent won't likely be decided until the July 22 runoff. With a contentious, crowded GOP field getting most of the attention, Nunn has been able to stay out of the spotlight. A…

This week the Factual Feminist takes on the “rape culture” panic that is riling college campuses with help from the media, radical feminists, and too many politicians. Just as in the shameful panic over alleged child abuse at day care centers that sent innocent people to prison in the 1980s, false…

Responding to mild U.S. sanctions on Russia, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced on May 13 that U.S. astronauts would no longer be welcome to ride to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Russian rockets.  “After analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest the…

Kentucky's Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes has developed a reputation for giving shifty answers to straightforward questions. So it wasn't surprising when her press secretary recently said that "Alison opposes late-term abortions" but then refused to say how Grimes would vote on…

Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty praised former New York Times editor Jill Abramson's Wake Forest graduation speech:

The Smithsonian's Natural History Museum in Washington has a new exhibit, "Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation," about the contributions and influence of the small but vibrant community of Indians and other South Asians living and working in the United States. "Photographs,…

More signs that the dynamism that once characterized the American economy is waning:

President Obama has painted a bleak portrait of cooperation in Washington in several recent speeches, charging that Republicans say "no to every proposal that we know could make a difference in the lives of hardworking Americans," and that "Washington doesn’t work" because we have a "party on the…

Forty-one recently declassified State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, have reignited the controversy over the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Ben-ghazi, Libya. One document in particular, an email authored by Ben Rhodes, a deputy national…

Declinist literature about America hasn’t been so fashionable since, well, since the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik, or the Japanese seemed to be buying up every American golf course west of the Mississippi in the 1980s, or China commissioned its first aircraft carrier in 2012. Gloom…

"Nigerian girls inspire international action,” reads the headline on the front page of the May 7 Washington Post. But nowhere in the story will you learn of any action actually being taken to rescue the 276 Nigerian girls abducted over three weeks ago by the Islamic terror group Boko Haram. You…

Democrats habitually congratulate themselves on being the brainy party. They’re rational and rely on empirical evidence for their views. Or so they insist. And they strongly believe in science and are quick to accuse Republicans of being antiscience—that is, dopey and inclined to fall for…

George Clooney’s reps have yet to make the official announcement, but all the tabloids and gossip sheets are reporting that the Hollywood heartthrob recently popped the question to his girlfriend of less than a year, Amal Alamuddin. The 36-year-old Beirut-born and London-based human rights lawyer…

Birmingham, Ala. 

On March 24, World Vision, one of the nation’s best-known Christian relief and development nonprofits and one of the world’s largest charities, announced that it would no -longer exclude from employment, on its stateside staff of 1,100, Christians who are in legal same-sex marriages. Two days…

In November 1953, while shooting On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan wrote a tetchy letter to producer Sam Spiegel in which he grouched about creative differences and hard practicalities such as budget and schedule. “Every once in a while you may get a letter from me,” runs his pre-salvo lead-in. “Its…

The Scrapbook cited Gary Becker last week, in a list of outstanding recipients of the Bradley Prize. We’re sorry to have a sadder reason to mention his name this week: He died May 3, at the age of 83. “He was perhaps the greatest living economist,” George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen…

At the first of the Nuremberg trials, Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief American prosecutor, delivered one of the most powerful opening statements in modern times. Speaking of the 22 top Nazi leaders brought before the International Military Tribunal (and Martin Bormann, who was tried in…

The Scrapbook’s friends at the Foundation for Constitutional Government last week announced the launch of a new website devoted to the writings of Irving Kristol. Both new readers and longtime admirers of Kristol’s work will want to bookmark the site. Presented in a catalogued, searchable format,…

My first contact with Ken Tomlinson was a phone call. He was a top editor at Reader’s Digest, and I was a political reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He wanted me to write a piece on the least savory provisions of President Reagan’s tax-cut legislation. It must have been late 1981, after the bill had…

With enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges now closed, Democrats and their friends in the media are ebullient. Obamacare is an enormous success, they say, and conservatives have been humiliated. On closer inspection, however, things seem decidedly less bullish for President Obama’s signature…

Detroit

Was Andrew Wyeth so celebrated because he was so misunderstood, or did it work the other way around? His reputation seems ill-fitting, whether you consider him one of the great American painters of the last century, as many laymen and a few professionals do, or a kitsch monger and conman, as many…

May 22, 2014, marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s “Great Society” address, delivered at the spring commencement for the University of Michigan. That speech remains the most ambitious call to date by any president (our current commander in chief included) to use the…

The first magazine to which I subscribed was neither Boys’ Life nor Sports Illustrated; it was Mad, whose longtime editor (1956-85) Albert Feldstein died last month at the age of 88. I was gratified to see that his death, at any rate, was duly noted with lavish tributes and extended obituaries. He…

The Scrapbook would be remiss if we failed to note that Monica Lewinsky is back. She has a tell-all article in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, and it’s a curious moment for her reemergence. Much more than during the Clinton era, the American left is now ruled by identity politics and the virulent…

Montagnola, Switzerland

In little over a year, close to 60 Chinese officials have died of unnatural causes, with most being suicides. The strong suspicion is that this epidemic of mysterious deaths among China’s elite is likely tied to the anticorruption campaign being led by Chinese president and party general secretary…

It's  hardly news that conservatives are not especially welcome on college and university campuses. Speech codes are designed to restrict discourse and punish the exercise of fundamental rights. Faculties are disproportionately left-wing in their politics. Administrators are sometimes intimidated…

Benghazi, crazy. That’s the association the White House and its allies want to encourage as a House Select Committee begins what should be the most thorough investigation of the Benghazi attacks to date. The White House wants to delegitimize the process before it begins and preemptively discredit…

In his speech at at Yale College Class Day in New Haven, Connecticut today, Secretary of State John Kerry told (at least!) two jokes: one about erectile dysfunction drug Viagra and another about NBA team owner Donald Sterling.

Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick refused to endorse Hillary Clinton this morning on CNN, and called the notion that she's inevitable "off putting to the average voter."

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Fred Barnes reading his Casual Essay remembering his friend and colleague Ken Tomlinson.

In the Ukraine crisis, the weapons of choice for the Obama administration and NATO have been lots of stern talks followed up by exceedingly anemic sanctions.

Pfizer is an American pharmaceutical company that makes Viagra to increase many men’s sexual activity, and Lipitor to prevent strokes and heart attacks (my lay language, not the more precise Pfizer claims). AstraZeneca is a British pharmaceutical company that makes cancer and other drugs. Pfizer…

The New York Times reports:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on why the GOP shouldn't rest on its laurels when it comes to poll numbers and why they should continue the offensive through to November.

Secretary of State John Kerry has put out a statement "Commemorating International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia," which is today.

"Is she too old to be president?” It is an indelicate question and you wonder if there is anyone of voting age for whom Hillary Clinton’s age would be a deal-breaker should she be the Democratic candidate in 2016.  Can you imagine someone thinking, Well, I was going to vote for Clinton but … well,…

New Hampshire senator Jeanne Shaheen says Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorist group that has kidnapped hundreds of Nigerian girls from their families and forced them to convert to Islam, should not be confused with Islam. The Democrat made the point in a Thursday hearing.

Matthew Continetti writes at the Washington Free Beacon on Jill Abramson's firing and the juvenile goings on at the offices of the New York Times:

The head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration was called in to speak with Attorney General Eric Holder and told to get in line with the Obama administration's policy on lessening sentencing for drug offenders, according to a report from the Huffington Post.

A live webcast of the Jack Kemp Forum on the Future of the American Idea, taking place this morning in Washington, D.C.:

In London Thursday for a meeting with the foreign ministers of the nations of the London 11, the "Friends of Syria," Secretary of State John Kerry revealed that “raw data that suggests there may have been” chlorine-based chemical weapons used by the Assad regime in Syria:

Secretary of State John Kerry, in the United Kingdom for a meeting of the nations of the London 11, spoke to the press at the Foreign Commonwealth Office in London.  While the gathering was principally to address the military conflict and humanitarian crisis in Syria, the secretary commented on the…

Former FDNY commissioner reflects on the 9/11 museum. 

Veterans Affairs secretary Eric Shinseki testified before Congress Thursday that he's "mad as hell" about allegations that veterans were placed on secret waiting lists at VA hospitals and died while awaiting care. But when Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, called for a…

Vice President Joe Biden is not making too much money off his book Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics. Last year, in fact, he made less than $201 in royalties from his book publisher, according to just-released disclosure forms.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with literary editor Philip Terzian on his recent editorial "Unfree Speech" and the on campus assault on free speech.

Monica Wehby, a Republican candidate for Senate in Oregon, leads her primary opponent Jason Conger by 17 points in a new poll by a GOP polling group supporting Wehby. New Republican, which has been running TV ads on Wehby's behalf, polled 500 likely primary voters in Oregon and found 41 percent…

Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst of Iowa has a double-digit lead over her closest primary opponent in a new poll from Loras College. The survey of 600 likely Republican primary voters found Ernst, a state senator, with 30.8 percent support, while businessman Mark Jacobs comes in second with…

I did not get to know Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki when we served together in the Obama administration, but in our limited interactions I liked him. He struck me as polite, smart, earnest and hard-working. Over time he resisted the ego-tripping that many agency heads find…

More evidence that the legs of the long economic recovery may be getting less wobbly.  First-time jobless claims fell, last week, to a seven-year low and beat, on the downside, economists’ predictions by a large margin.  (One sometimes thinks that the economists ought to pick a figure and stick…

The official White House schedule says President Obama was in the Philippines for less than 24 hours, but the estimated cost of the hotel and vehicle rentals in support of the trip topped $1.1 million. The hotel contract (Sofitel Luxury Hotel) provided for up to 3,600 room night plus various…

Speaking at a fundraiser (naturally), the president said what many have been saying. Namely that “Washington doesn’t work.” And, as Justin Sink of the Hill reports, he blamed the dysfunction on:

Ben Carson is warming to the idea of running for president. Since the famous brain surgeon retired last year from Johns Hopkins Hospital, he’s been speaking around the country to enthusiastic audiences. And they’ve affected his thinking about seeking national office.

Inequality myths. 

With just days before Georgia's May 20 primary election, the leading Republican candidate has suggested he would support raising taxes as a way to fix the economy. Speaking to editorial board of the Macon Telegraph, businessman David Perdue said he supports "both" curbing government spending and…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the May 19, 2014 edition of the Books and Arts section.

The voters in play – and crucially so –  this election cycle are what Linda Killian, writing in the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire, calls "Starbucks Moms."  White, suburban women, in other words, for whom the most pressing political issues would be:

Eliot A. Cohen, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

A book event on May 22 for the book Brothers Forver at the American Enterprise Institute, featuring retired Gen. John Allen:

The featured speaker at a recent conference on “Excellence in Government,” was the secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack.

Fifteen years ago I had a discussion about movies with a genuine public intellectual, one of the great foreign-policy minds of his generation. At the time, he had young children. He tried to convince me that A Bug’s Life was a great act of cinema. “For the first 20 viewings or so, it’s just a good…

Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed French foreign minister Laurent Fabius to the State Department in Washington on  Tuesday to discuss a range of issues, from Iran to Syria to climate change. Or, in the words of the foreign minister, "climate chaos." Kerry and Fabius made a joint appearance…

Ben Sasse has just won a decisive victory in the Nebraska Republican Senate primary. As of this writing, the race has been called by the Associated Press and Sasse holds a 27 point lead over his nearest competitor, with 79 percent of precincts reporting. Having clinched the primary win, early…

The next senator from West Virginia will be a woman, a first for the state. Republican congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito and Democratic secretary of state Natalie Tennant are projected to win their parties' respective primaries.

RIP, Keystone XL. 

Republican Senate candidate Tom Cotton holds a small lead over Democratic senator Mark Pryor in an internal poll released today by the Cotton campaign. The poll of 600 likely voters in Arkansas found 42 percent support Cotton and 40 percent support Pryor. See the full release here.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Mark Hemingway on the IRS Scandal and why it resonates with voters.

A new internal poll of the Georgia Republican primary for U.S. Senate finds David Perdue, Karen Handel, and Jack Kingston all within a few points of each other. The poll conducted by Rosetta Stone Communications on behalf of the Handel campaign, found Perdue leading the pack with 22 percent…

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Department of Justice doesn't have any plans to investigate allegations that veterans placed on secret waiting lists at VA hospitals died while waiting for care.

Every so often you'll find a headline about robots that will soon resemble (replace?) humans—the technology is only 20 years away. And these robots will be able to act like us and think like us, but they'll obviously be much smarter, making calculations at the speed of light. Sort of like that…

But just how bad was the first quarter for the American economy?  Commerce Department GDP came in at .1 percent growth, which is treading water, but barely.  Speculation had the revised figures showing that the economy actually contracted and now, as Ben Leubsdorf of the Wall Street…

President Obama has been briefed on mystery virus MERS, White House spokesman Jay Carney said at today's briefing.

Talking today with law enforcement officials at the White House, President Obama said changes to immigration law is necessary "for our safety and security."

The Affordable Care Act is, evidently, still a work in progress, though it has long since been “the law of the land,” and made available (more or less) via a website to a confused and disgruntled public.  There have been many tweaks, modifications, waivers, and exemptions since then.  Too many, it…

On Sunday, the White House blog declared that Obamacare made this Mother's Day "particularly special."  On Monday, the Obamacare website Healthcare.gov got into the act, suggesting that "Health insurance with Medicaid is the perfect Mother’s Day gift":

The Des Moines Register reports:

An eye-opening report from KMOV about an Obamacare contractor using taxpayer dollars to pay their employees to spend all day doing nothing:

Given the lack of foreign policy success with "red line" threats of military force, the Obama administration has apparently broadened the definition of "use of force" to include financial threats of red ink against Russia for recent actions in Ukraine. U.S. ambassador to the U.K. Matthew…

Tips for the war on poverty. 

Support for the decision of Brandeis University not to award Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree, after previously announcing it would do so, has coalesced around the notion that while Islamic radicalism can be criticized, even condemned, one cannot criticize Islam itself.  By condemning both, and…

This headline from TPM:

Boys are languishing in school--but "gender equity" in education means programs for girls. The Factual Feminist is concerned about all our children, boys as well as girls. Watch here:

The new issue of Time presents a stark cover photo of Vladimir Putin, captioned with a succession of titles: once "Premier," then "President," but now "Czar." In analyzing "Putinism," Time's Michael Crowley and Simon Shuster do not hesitate to trace the roots back a century and beyond:

An excerpt from the boss's weekly newsletter:

The New York Times is up with a story today, "Tea Party Activists See Own Groups Among Washington Adversaries," about the supposed tension between national Tea Party groups and local Tea Party activists. The lede of the piece involves an anecdote -- and I use that term loosely, as it seems to bear…

In advance of tomorrow’s Nebraska Republican Senate primary — one of the most hotly contested in the nation — Ben Sasse’s final two television ads note his opposition to Obamacare. The first begins, “Conservatives are rallying in Nebraska against Obamacare and for Ben Sasse,” and it features Sarah…

Good news for those of us – and our numbers are legion – who are abidingly and insatiably interested in the American Civil War and the large footprint it has left on our history: Mackubin Owens has published a splendid piece in the current National Review on the battles and maneuvers of 150 years…

Rahm Emanuel famously declared early in the Obama administration that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Apparently the White House feels the same about holidays.  On Sunday, a blog post appeared on the official White House website entitled "Happy Mother's Day, from the ACA":

A new poll of registered voters in Arkansas shows Democratic sentaor Mark Pryor leading his Republican challenger, Tom Cotton, by 11 points. Pryor receives 51 percent support, while Cotton has 40 percent, according to an NBC News/Marist poll released Monday. This is the largest lead for Pryor since…

Timothy Geithner, the former secretary of the Treasury Department, says the White House wanted him to lie in scheduled appearances on the Sunday TV talk shows. As Geithner writes in his new memoir:

Students from the Harvard Extension School at Harvard University are hosting a "Satanic black mass," which will take place tonight in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed last summer by Judicial Watch, the Obama administration last week released 41 documents related to the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. An email from the deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, has…

Last week’s “botched execution” of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma has rekindled the national debate about capital punishment. Not that the debate needed much rekindling. Since 1972, when the Supreme Court essentially suspended capital punishment, and 1977, when it ruled that state death penalty…

It's mature to be calm. Republicans are nothing if not mature. It’s chic to be cool. Republicans yearn to be chic. It’s a sign of gravitas to be collected. Republicans have gravitas. And so Republicans, from candidates to consultants to commentators, cultivate a calm, cool, and collected affect.…

Still fresh from victories over both cigarettes and the secondhand smoke they emit, many public health advocates have turned their attention to new supposed hazards: e-cigarette “vapor” and “thirdhand” smoke. While the previous campaigns to prevent smoking have had positive results, the latest ones…

The world’s attention was largely turned to Ukraine last week. To the extent that the Middle East was on the front pages, the focus was the new agreement between the PLO and Hamas, its implications for the “peace process,” and John Kerry’s comment about Israel as an “apartheid state.” 

While the encomia from world leaders and cultural figures continue to pour in after the death of Gabriel García Márquez at the age of 87 last month, a Charles Lane column in the Washington Post last week on the 1982 Nobel Prize-winning novelist threatened to reopen a 40-year-old wound. Lane…

This volume is full of unexpected revelations, not for the squeamish, starting with the fact that the preferred plural of “octopus” is “octopuses,” not “octopi.” Octopuses, we learn, can lurch onto land and can change color and shape in seconds. After 272 pages in the company of these animals, they…

In October 1940, the Germans, with help from the Poles, crammed 400,000 Jews into the Warsaw ghetto. They sealed off the ghetto from the rest of the city with six-foot-high walls topped with barbed wire, ensuring that few could escape. If any tried, they were seized, often by Polish “betrayers,”…

Okay, history buffs, let’s do a brief test, a free-association game about the Bronze Age. I say Mycenae, you instantly shout out, “Agamemnon.” I say Minoans, you say, “palace of Knossos.” Troy—“Schliemann, Priam, Hecuba, Trojan horse.” Egypt—“Ramses.” This is easy, right? On to the next level. I…

When we first meet Jane Eyre in Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, she is hiding behind the curtains reading a forbidden book that transports her to the polar tundra: 

Plus ça change. .  .  . Algeria, ever obedient to the wishes of the army and Security Services, reelected its ailing and elderly president in a landslide on April 17. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, known as Boutef for short, garnered 82 percent of the vote in a virtually uncontested race. Ali Benflis, who…

It's hard to look on the bright side of the dismemberment of a sovereign state by force of arms. But because of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the ongoing threat Vladimir Putin intends to pose to eastern Ukraine, the Obama administration must now face international reality free of one of its…

A favorite saying of liberals not long ago was: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Hillary Clinton, then a senator, said it. It was on bumper stickers. John Kerry, also a senator, said in 2006, as violence engulfed Iraq, that dissent in wartime and support for a war are “two sides of the…

Mountain View, Calif.

When the government provides medical care, it normally delegates the task. Under Medicare, Washington doesn’t employ doctors, nurses, and hospitals to treat the elderly. It has to coax them to participate. Similarly, Obamacare functions only if big insurance companies are willing to play ball with…

The Scrapbook heartily congratulates Weekly Standard friend and sometime contributor Terry Teachout, who was just announced as the recipient of a 2014 Bradley Prize. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation annually presents up to four awards to “individuals of extraordinary talent and dedication”…

The affair ended as suddenly as it began.

Let me say, remotely alluding to Robert Frost, that something there is that loves a puzzle. Any kind of puzzle, as long as it makes the solver feel good. His conquest cannot compare with Genghis Khan’s or Napoleon’s, but conquest there is, and the glow of satisfaction.

Adultery comedies usually follow a pat formula: A perfectly sensible married person is being cheated on. Revenge is plotted, and the punishment usually involves taking advantage of the fact that the person with whom the spouse is cheating is either a gorgeous bimbo or a brainless hunk. The Other…

We're sorry to report the death last week of Werner Dannhauser, whom we had the honor of occasionally publishing in these pages. He was a serious thinker and a graceful writer, dealing with a wide variety of topics with an unusual combination of elegance and directness, and of power and irony. As…

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel might be in trouble. If a recent poll is to be believed, Rahm might have trouble getting reelected.

I experienced some rough emotions rooting for my alma mater, the University of Kentucky, during the NCAA tournament. Partly because of the close games and come-from-behind wins, and partly because of their one-and-done reputation under Coach John Calipari. The media contrasted UK’s likely NBA-bound…

Hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein is not a man to be fazed by the recent rise in mortgage interest rates. Nor is he one to worry that the housing market might be softening, loping the odd million off the $147 million he shelled out for an 18-acre beachfront home in the Hamptons, on New York’s…

"The Real Africa." 

The Los Angeles Times has endorsed Republican Pete Peterson for secretary of state of California. Here's an excerpt from the endorsement:

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and its secretary, Eric Shinseki, are under fire as reports surface about negligence at VA hospitals, including the death of around 40 military veterans in Phoenix who were placed on a "secret waiting list" to delay their care. Two administrators have been…

Congressman Tom Cotton took to the House floor yesterday to blast the Democrats' "fake outrage" over the establishment of the Select Committee on Benghazi:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with literary editor Philip Terzian discussing the May 12, 2014 issue of the magazine.

President Romney, as Marina Koren of the National Journal reports, appeared today on the television show Morning Joe and said:

In an age of hypersensitivity to sexism and homophobia, why does the North Korean regime escape censure? North Korean media specialize in a gutter rhetoric that, from any other source, would be met with immediate condemnation. The world, however, seems so accustomed to hearing astonishingly…

The office of the speaker of the House released this list of members chosen for the Benghazi Select Committee:

Beverly Hills has banned fracking. Which makes it "the first municipality in California to prohibit the controversial technique for extracting natural gas and oil from underground rock deposits," according to Reuters.

Last night Martin Indyk, now the chief assistant to Secretary of State Kerry in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, spoke at length to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. One account of his speech appears here at the Times of Israel's web site.

There’s a refrain familiar to any regular Capitol Hill reporter trying to ask a question of Senator Al Franken, Democrat from Minnesota and Saturday Night Live alum: “I don’t talk to national press. You’ll have to speak to my staff. I only talk to Minnesota press.”

Labor groups might not be happy about President Obama's planned trip to a California Walmart today. But the big corporation is ecstatic. 

Next month former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy will publish his book Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment. And already the Democratic party is trying to raise money off the title.

Ethan Epstein on the human rights activist running for Congress. 

The government was spending too much money.  And wasting a lot of it.  The need to cut back was obvious and pressing.  So Congress passed something called the “sequester,” that would force frugality upon the government and oblige Washington, Inc. to endure the kind of downsizing that had been…

Speaking to a collection of people that included Barbra Streisand – and asking them, just incidentally, for money – President Obama made his case in this fashion:

Earlier this week, I reported on the absurdity of the open GOP Senate primary in Nebraska. Currently, outside groups affiliated with prominent Republican leaders are flooding the state with dishonest attack ads on the leading Republican candidate in the race, apparently motivated by petty…

A new poll released Thursday shows that Americans oppose Obamacare's HHS mandate--the rule requiring "free" coverage of contraception, sterilizations, and the "week-after" pill that may kill human embryos--by a 10-point margin.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor WIlliam Kristol on Hillary Clinton's tenure at the Department of State, Boko Haram, the recent and forthcoming Republican primaries, and the newly-launched IrvingKristol.org.

Boko Haram, the militant group responsible for the recent kidnapping of 276 girls in Nigeria, was not designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Department until November of 2013 despite a long record of violence. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has now come under…

The House of Representatives voted to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt on Wednesday, with every Republican and six Democrats supporting the resolution. The measure passed 231 to 187, without a single Republican voting against it. The six Democrats who voted with the GOP are Ron…

Humana joined the ranks of insurers warning about the potential for large premium increases on next year's Obamacare exchanges. In a conference call discussing its first quarter earning results, Bruce D. Broussard, CEO of Humana, said: "we can see pricing levels anywhere in the single digits to the…

Steve Hayes, with Kirsten Powers and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

MSNBC host Alex Wagner shed some light on dealing with the Clintons this morning on national TV:

A new Brookings Institution report indicates that businesses are shuttering their doors more quickly than new ones are popping up.

Boko Haram and the problem of corruption. 

Nebraska Senate candidate Shane Osborn seems to have made a habit of, one might say, overreaching during this campaign.

It is the “Cubs Fail to Reach World Series” of news stories. American students are found to be doing poorly at their job which is, of course, learning. Today’s iteration of that story comes from Libby Nelson of Vox who reports:

The administration has made climate change its signature issue until something better comes along. This means that the the EPA will be walking point. After all, no new environmental legislation will be coming out of Congress. President Obama didn’t ever try for that when his party had majorities in…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Jonathan V. Last reading his casual essay "Uncommon Grounds."

Six health insurance executives testified on Capitol Hill today. And all six, each representing a different company, unanimously agreed: The Obamacare website is still not entirely fixed.

The Foundation for Constitutional Government has just released IrvingKristol.org, a handsome website dedicated to the work of Irving Kristol:

A Democratic super PAC affiliated with Senate majority leader Harry Reid has an ad accusing a female Senate candidate of being "backwards" on women's issues. The 30-second spot from Senate Majority PAC targets Terri Lynn Land, the likely GOP Senate candidate from MIchigan.

This week, the Supreme Court affirmed a New York town council's tradition of beginning its meetings with a prayer. In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the court held, by a bare majority, that the First Amendment's Establishment Clause does not prohibit such prayers led by local clergymen, even when the…

Kristen McQueary, a member of the Chicago Tribune editorial board, has a devastating piece in her paper on Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. In short, the mayor--the former congressman and former chief of staff to President Obama--hasn't lived up to the bluster.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that President Obama’s notion of governance is that federal laws should be passed to cover as much of human life as possible, and that he should then decide which of those laws to enforce, when, and against whom.  The latest example of Obama’s selective…

The Republican drive to capture the Senate in the 2014 midterm election got a significant boost Tuesday in North Carolina with the victory of house speaker Thom Tillis in the GOP Senate primary.  Tillis will face Democratic senator Kay Hagan in the November election.

Thom Tillis is projected to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, defeating physician Greg Brannon and pastor Mark Harris in Tuesday's primary. The speaker of the state house, Tillis is projected to have won more than 45 percent of the vote, safely overcoming the 40…

Why you shouldn't tune out Benghazi news. 

Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon defended Obamacare's record in his state, despite months of turmoil for the Oregon health insurance exchange that has ended in closing the exchange and prompted a federal investigation. One recent poll found 51 percent of Oregonians disapprove of Obamacare. Merkley, a…

Yesterday, I reported on how a super PAC -- Freedom Pioneers Action Network, started by Mitch McConnell's former campaign manager Justin Brasell -- was flooding Nebraska with outside money to take down Tea Party endorsed Senate candidate Ben Sasse. The primary is just a week away and the Sasse…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on President Obama's performance and the Democrats' chances in 2014.

Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

The administration is playing hardball with the Russians.  Among other tough measures, it has, as Peter Baker of the New York Times reports:

President Obama will deliver the commencement address at West Point later to this month.  This is an opportunity, as Gerald F. Seib writes in the Wall Street Journal, for the president to somehow resolve “a giant foreign-policy paradox.”

The investigation into the Benghazi affair is opposed by the usual suspects who advance the predictable arguments to include, What, another investigation?  We’ve been there and done that. Nothing left to learn. Time to move on.

David Remnick, an Obama biographer and the editor of the New Yorker, said this morning on national TV that President Obama is disappointed in the world:

Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to the U.S. embassy staff in Luanda, Angola on Sunday as he continued his visit to the continent of Africa.  A portion of his remarks seemed to reflect the secretary's awareness of the somewhat precarious position he may be in owing to numerous volatile…

A taste of Gov. O'Malley's Reddit flop. 

The fight to keep the A-10 flying continues and those who believe in the ugly bird saw their high opinion of it validated recently when, as David Axe of War Is Boring writes:

With the Nebraska Republican Senate primary a week from tomorrow, outside money is flowing into the state to take down the race's frontrunner, Midland University president Ben Sasse. And the provenance of the money attacking Sasse is especially curious--a super PAC with strong ties to senate…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with Thomas Joscelyn from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies on the latest inquiries into the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

An excerpt from Bill Kristol's weekly newsletter:

The Wall Street Journal reports that the feds are investigating the implementation of Cover Oregon, the state of Oregon's now-defunct health insurance exchange as provided under Obamacare. Here's an excerpt:

This week the Factual Feminist takes on the new program in feminist biology at the University of Wisconsin, striking another blow for sanity and against agenda-driven, politicized science!

Not Congress, it seems. After all, as David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post reports:

This is not a good time to be young in America, and soon it will be less so.  The generation that elected President Obama will see the price of that college education which was supposed to open so many doors go up. As Janet Lorin of Bloomberg reports:

Governor Rick Perry of Texas criticized President Barack Obama's Washington-centric approach to solving problems in a Sunday appearance on NBC's Meet the Press. Perry was asked by host David Gregory about the recent botched execution of a convicted murderer in neighboring Oklahoma and the…

During a talk to the U.S. embassy staff in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the first stop on his trip to Africa, Secretary of State John Kerry remarked about what he called the "different cross-currents of modernity" and the challenges they present on the African continent. The comments contain a veiled…

The latest USA Today/Pew survey shows Obamacare polling as poorly as it ever has:

At a Harris Teeter in suburban Washington, what used to be Harry’s Balloon Corral is, to young eyes, disappointingly empty. The grocery store has posted a notice explaining why. Children accustomed to alleviating the boredom of the weekly trip to the supermarket with the serious task of keeping a…

Great power competition and the machinations of revisionist states have returned to international politics with a surprising ferocity. The end of the Cold War was supposed to have ended such anachronisms, but the first decade of the 21st century awoke Americans to the danger still menacing the…

In 1962, Arthur C. Clarke famously observed that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This observation is both brilliantly true and wildly overblown: After all, for many of us, even the most basic technologies, even those hundreds of years old, are still nearly…

"As Justice Harlan observed over a century ago, ‘our Constitution is colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.’ .  .  . The people of Michigan wish the same for their governing charter. It would be shameful for us to stand in their way.”

Until the consumer really, really jumps back into the thick of things, the experts agree that this economy is doomed to sputter. Until the average American believes he has the wherewithal to go out and buy that new house, that new car, that new kitchen, unemployment will stay right where it is.…

In a recent story published in Harper’s, Joyce Carol Oates imagines what it would have been like for an elderly Robert Frost—fat and drooling—to be interviewed by a young, female college student on his front porch in 1951. The student adores Frost at first, but as she speaks with him, she discovers…

The names of cities are not static. Even old New York was once New Amsterdam, as the song goes. And now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople. What once was known as St. Petersburg became Petrograd in 1914, and then Leningrad in 1924—only to revert to St. Petersburg after the fall of communism. (One…

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office regularly revises its forecast of economic growth, the deficit, and other variables it studies. The economists at the International Monetary Fund likewise periodically revise their forecasts, at one point claiming that “downward revisions to growth…

One of the stranger stories floating around Washington at the moment is the news, first reported in the Washington Post, that NBC is so concerned about the ratings collapse of its Sunday-morning talk show, Meet the Press, that it hired a “psychological consultant” to interview the friends and…

The Romney strategy is back. Not the flawed campaign plan of Mitt Romney for the 2012 election, but the effort by President Obama and Democrats to malign Romney, even before he’d become the GOP nominee, as morally unfit for the presidency.

The continuing Ukraine crisis raises both a critical “what if?” question and a pressing policy issue. What if, in April 2008, the Europeans had not rejected President Bush’s proposal to bring Ukraine and Georgia onto a clearly defined path to joining NATO? And today, urgently, should we try again…

"The state of Massachusetts doesn’t recognize three-way marriage​—​but .  .  .” (“Married lesbian ‘throuple’ expecting first child,” New York Post, April 23).

From Brandeis on the Atlantic to Azusa on the Pacific, an iron curtain has descended across academia. Behind that line lie all the classrooms of the ancient schools of America. Wesleyan, Brown, Princeton, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Berkeley, Bowdoin, and Stanford, all these famous colleges and the…

New York 

Last week, a press release landed in The Scrapbook’s inbox informing us that author Matt Taibbi would be talking about his new book, The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, at an event hosted at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) headquarters. Now there’s no particular…

The legalization of marijuana has acquired an aura of inevitability. But is there really no choice? Must Americans resign ourselves to the social acceptability, legal entrenchment, and widespread availability (including to our kids) of marijuana? 

Obamacare’s defenders are doing their best to sustain a triumphant mood these days. In the wake of the late-March surge in exchange enrollment, many proponents of the law have insisted it can no longer be rolled back. As the president put it in his April 1 Mission Accomplished speech announcing the…

I'm pleased to report that I’ve just returned from the Evanston Public Library saleroom empty-handed. The saleroom is off the main lobby and contains used books, donated to the library, which sell for a mere 50 cents. Not all the books in the saleroom are serious—junky novels predominate—but a fair…

After an 18-month trial separation, “Jesus’ wife” is back with her man. Only this time with a postnup, a distinctly limited right to the marital property she has previously claimed, and a continuing unresolved debate over whether that big diamond on her ring finger is real or fake.

Ravenswood, W.Va.

A raft of new Education Department regulations has been bobbing among the roiling waters of American higher education for nearly a month now, and perhaps the most sensible reaction to the controversy comes from Sen. Lamar Alexander—a former governor, college president, and secretary of education.…

When the Republican National Committee adopted a new primary calendar in January, few people fully thought through the impact. Successfully and necessarily fighting the last war, Chairman Reince Priebus led the RNC to adopt reforms to end the mindless chewing-up of would-be nominees by more than a…

Yom Hazikaron, Israel's Memorial Day, begins on Sunday night. Israel's Independence Day follows immediately thereafter on Monday night. "Ma Avarech" (English translation: "How Shall I Bless Him") is a song written by Rachel Shapira in memory of her classmate, Eldad Krook, who was killed during the…

At last night's White House Correspondent's Dinner, President Barack Obama made a joke at the expense of his second in command, Vice President Joe Biden:

Nebraska’s Republican Senate primary has long looked to be shaping up as a battle between Midland University president Ben Sasse and former state treasurer Shane Osborn.  Throughout the campaign, Sasse has emphasized his determination to repeal Obamacare and fight the “Obamacare worldview,” while…

The Washington Examiner is up with a five part special report on "the rise and current decline of organized labor in America: How unions lost touch with the workplace and their own members." It's authored by Sean Higgins, one of the best reporters on the labor beat. Union politics can be…

The economy grew in the first quarter at “point one percent,” announced Mitch McConnell, and then repeated it by way of introduction to an attack on President Obama’s economic policies. Whether seeming to revel in the misery of a slow recovery that has kept unemployment high and wages low simply…

A PA union ad about how liquor privatization kills children. 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Benghazi, the Obama White House, and 2016.

Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada, released a statement about the formation of a select committee in the House of Representatives to investigate the federal government's response to the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. In his statement, Reid criticized the Republican party…

After separatists in the Ukraine shot down two government helicopters and violence escalated, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin issued the following statement, as reported by Neil MacFarquahar and Alan Cowell of the New York Times:

Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, has issued a statement expressing support for Speaker of the House John Boehner's decision to have the House vote on forming a Select Committee on Benghazi.

Matthew Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the great editor of Reader’s Digest and later head of Voice of America and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, died last night at the Winchester Medical Center in Virginia, where he had been hospitalized for several days. He was 69. He lived in Middleburg, Virginia.

UPDATE: Other news organizations confirm the report below that House speaker John Boehner will announce the formation of a select committee on Benghazi, led by Rep. Trey Gowdy. 

Non-farm payrolls beat expectations. Quite handsomely. As Michelle Jamrisko of Bloomberg reports:

A new poll shows Republican Monica Wehby leading incumbent Democrat Jeff Merkley for the first time in the race for U.S. Senate in Oregon. The poll, conducted for the Daily Caller by Vox Populi Polling, asked registered voters who they are supporting in the race, with 40 percent saying they'd…

The latest jobs numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the staff of the U.S. embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Thursday as part of a seven-day trip through Africa.  During his remarks, Kerry recognized the work of the foreign nationals employed by the embassy, and he singled out two nationals who recently…

Beware the pomegranate. 

Over at Powerline, Paul Mirengoff asks, “Who was that cranky old man and why did he ice Kevin Durant?” That “cranky old man” would be Joey Crawford, the 62-year-old referee who grabbed the ball and ran over to the scorers’ table Tuesday night after Durant hit his first free throw with 27 seconds…

Vladimir Putin evidently feels a kind of boundless nostalgia for what he remembers as days of glory and pride, with parades and big red flags on the streets of Moscow with the rest of the world looking on in fear.

The State Department released its annual Country Reports on Terrorism yesterday. And once again the U.S. government has highlighted al Qaeda’s relationship with the Iranian regime. While the Iranians hold some al Qaeda members under house arrest, others are allowed to operate. And these terrorists,…

The Mackinac Center is reporting that the Michigan SEIU has lost more than 80 percent of its members after Michigan passed a right-to-work law. The hemorrhaging membership is the result of the law ending an appalling extortion racket that siphoned taxpayer money to the union and forced thousands of…

A new poll of the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Georgia shows former secretary of state Karen Handel moving into a statistical tie for first place with businessman David Perdue, inching ahead of congressman Jack Kingston. The poll found among likely voters, Perdue has 22 percent support,…

The president is in serious – perhaps, irreversible – political decline and the people who are paid to notice such things seem to be the last to have noticed.  But now, as Howard Kurtz of Fox writes, they are all over it.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi was asked Thursday about a White House email, released this week in response to a Judicial Watch FOIA request, that linked the Benghazi terrorist attack to an anti-Islam YouTube video. Pelosi said she hadn't read the email, but was certain that the discussion of…

The Wall Street Journal reports that Senate Republicans are coalescing behind new legislation that would impose tougher sanctions on Russia and authorize direct military assistance, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, to Ukraine and other nations threatened by Russia:

A retired military officer serving in the U.S.'s Africa Command headquarters in Germany told the House oversight committee Thursday that it was his belief at the time that the September 11, 2012, attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attributable to an Islamic extremist group and…

First time claims rose to 344,000 last week, highest in nine weeks. Economists were expecting 320,000. Yesterday, stalled GDP growth in the 1st quarter was widely blamed on the weather. This big, disappointing miss is being explained, according to Michelle Jamrisko of Bloomberg, as having something…

In October 2013, as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was launching Healthcare.gov, CMS also launched a quieter initiative. As part of Ignite, an internal HHS program designed to spur innovation, a team within…