326 articles
Lacking the votes necessary to pass their border crisis legislation, House GOP leadership pulled the bill from the floor Thursday. But Rep. Steve King of Iowa, one of the two dozen or so Republicans who (along with all Democrats) opposed the bill, told Greta Van Susteren this evening that he's…
MSNBC's Alex Seitz-Wald reports:
It’s been nearly a year since Michelle Obama began her bizarre, medically discredited campaign to get Americans to drink more water. The campaign, dubbed Drink Up, began last September with a pro-water speech in Watertown, Wisconsin (we were meant to find the location clever), and has since morphed…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with online editor Daniel Halper on his New York Times best selling book, Clinton, Inc. The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine. Buy it today!
Media coverage of yesterday's latest development in the Lois Lerner saga focused on her colorful description of conservatives as "crazies" and "a--holes" in emails released by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich).
No state in the union could be more sympathetic to the Obama administration or to its immigration policies than Vermont (where I live). But there is only so much a small state, and a sympathetic governor, can do. As the Burlington Free Press reports, when Washington asked if Vermont could find a…
The 302,000 is a so, so number. But close to what was expected – 300,000. And not as good as last week’s 284,000. But as Bloomberg reports, the monthly average is encouraging.
The House Republican leadership is having trouble getting 218 votes for its immigration bill. The policy objections to the bill seem convincing to me—among them that it seems to appropriate more money, on a pro-rated monthly basis, than the president's proposal; that it might well make it harder,…
Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and Kentucky's secretary of state, is turning heads with her confusing answer to a question about the military conflict between Israel and the Hamas-led government in Gaza. Asked by the Lexington Herald-Leader about American support…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on Hamas's attack tunnels, Operation Protective Edge, the Iranian factor, and what the media gets wrong about Israel's involvement in Gaza.
On Wednesday afternoon, the White House Office of Management and Budget released a formal veto threat of the House GOP bill dealing with the crisis of unaccompanied minors from Central America illegally immigrating to the United States:
It’s surely the most hilarious academic story so far this year: Slavoj Zizek, the most Marxist-chic of all Marxist-chic philosophers, has been caught plagiarizing an article from American Renaissance, a paleoconservative magazine-turned-website with an obsessive focus on what it calls “racial…
A Democratic congresswoman told her colleagues at a House hearing Wednesday morning that the debate over a bill that would grandfather in otherwise canceled group plans under the Affordable Care Act reminded her of a comedy skit about "whiners."
The latest Talk Business & Politics/Hendrix College poll shows Republican congressman Tom Cotton leading Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor 44 percent to 42 percent in the Arkansas Senate race:
As I've made pretty clear, I am not a fan of the "explanatory journalism" trend that purports to take an empirical approach to explaining complex issues. Its chief practitioners are a bunch of young, terribly biased journalists who tend to treat politics and policy as some sort of game, even as…
Casual dining establishment TGI Fridays, you may have heard, is advertising what it bills as “endless” appetizers for a mere $10. Yet if you dine at Fridays here in the District of Columbia, you can expect to spend $11, not $10, on the “endless apps,” once DC’s 10 percent dining tax is included.…
Recently National Journal’s Ron Fournier published this story, “Why Benjamin Netanyahu Should Be Very, Very Worried.” Fournier’s strange line is that the Israelis until recently enjoyed a “near-monopoly” over “the mind share of public-opinion elites.” Partly because those elites “embraced and…
While the New York Times continues to editorialize in favor of the legalization of marijuana (Wednesday's installment posits the federal ban is "rooted in myth and xenophobia"!), others are pushing back against legalizing the drug. At the Wall Street Journal, Pete Wehner argues the push for the…
After contracting in the 1st quarter, 2nd quarter GDP grew by an unexpectedly robust 4.0 percent. As CNBC reports: Gross domestic product expanded at a 4.0 percent annual rate as activity picked up broadly after shrinking at a revised 2.1 percent pace in the first quarter, the Commerce Department…
Yuval Levin, writing for National Review Online:
If the midterm elections were held today, the Republican party could expect a three-seat majority in the Senate next year, according to the new poll from the New York Times, CBS News, and YouGov. The poll, which surveyed voters across the 34 states with Senate races via an online panel, finds GOP…
In a surprising decision, a federal judge overturned Washington, D.C.’s open and concealed carry ban this past weekend. While the ruling has received some fanfare, few reports have paid attention to the section in the order that invalidated D.C.’s firearms residency requirements. Just lifting the…
If you like going out in the sun or, perhaps, must do so because of your work and you don’t want to get burned, there is good news. Of a sort.
Ayatollah Seyed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi has been incarcerated, mainly in Tehran’s ignominious Evin Prison, since 2006. He is accused of “combat against God” for his criticisms of the Iranian clerical dictatorship, and is serving an 11-year sentence. Now kept in the “special clerical ward,” he…
The U.S. has been at war for 13 years and according to General Michael Flynn, outgoing head of the Defense Intelligence Agency:
Vice President Joe Biden inadvertently may have produced the worst public service announcement for a state since Maryland's Governor William Donald Schaefer referred to the Eastern Shore of his state as the "[outhouse]" of Maryland. Biden recently recorded a White House White Board video to boost…
In Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, W. James Antle III reviews Daniel Halper's new book, Clinton, Inc. Here's an excerpt:
Publicly, President Obama loves to demonize insurance companies. But behind the scenes, Big Government and Big Insurance maintain a cozy alliance that the Obama administration actively nourishes, often at taxpayer expense. Indeed, as emails recently obtained by the House Oversight Committee show,…
Our friends at the admirable Italian newspaper, il Foglio, have announced a rally in front of their headquarters in Rome Wednesday night. The rally has two goals: First, to support the right of Israel to defend itself -- something that will be a useful challenge and rebuke to the anti-Israel…
Thousands of illegal immigrants are streaming across America's southern border, but on Wednesday the chief of the Department of Homeland Security will be attending an educational event with schoolchildren in Washington, D.C.
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on President Obama's track record on the rule of law, Israel, Immigration, and more.
The economic numbers roll in ceaselessly and some are good. As with last week’s initial unemployment claims. But then there comes a number that makes it plain that it would be premature to break out the champagne and sing “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
The following is a transcript of a conversation in the Oval Office passed to me simultaneously by the German, French, and British intelligence services, along with copies of their governments' complaints about the immorality of American spying on its allies.
"A lot of the liberal commentary about this week’s D.C. Circuit decision on Obamacare is hard to square with the way liberal judges have tended to approach these cases," notes Ramesh Ponnuru. "I have in mind the commentators who say the decision is 'corrupt,' its theory 'preposterous,' and the…
Lamar Alexander, the two-term Republican senator from Tennessee, is in a strong position to win reelection this November. But only if he can get through his August 7 primary.
New Hampshire Senate candidate Scott Brown has a new ad targeting what the Republican calls the Democrats' "pro-amnesty policies." The 30-second spot, among the first in the 2014 cycle to address the illegal immigration crisis on the border, features the former Massachusetts senator juxtaposing the…
Agreement has been reached on the particulars of a bill that supporters say will fix the VA’s problem and as Matthew Daly of the AP reports:
The New York Times has described M.I.T. economist Jonathan Gruber as “a card-carrying Democrat” whose “position as an adviser to the influential Congressional Budget Office also left him perfectly positioned to advise the White House on health reform.” Moreover, the Times writes, “After Mr. Gruber…
To what will Obamacare lead? If the administration’s health policies continue on their present trajectory, Obamacare will lead to some form of European-style single-payer national health system.
This fall, voters will get another chance to register their opinion on Obamacare. President Obama’s signature legislation is causing health costs to spike, federal spending to soar, doctors to leave their profession, millions of Americans to lose their health plans, and millions more to be coerced…
Last week the world of comic books reeled from two bits of sensational news. First, it was -revealed that Archie Andrews, hero of the classic Archie comics, was dead. Or rather, “dead,” as they put it in industry parlance, because only the Archie of one of the Archie books, Life with Archie, had…
Gonzales, La.
At the end of the 19th century, physicists smugly proclaimed their field closed.
Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki knows what he wants: a third term in office for himself and U.S. military help in defeating ISIS (now the Islamic State). Political reconciliation between Iraq’s Shiites and Sunnis, and between Arabs and Kurds, can wait. In the words of one of his colleagues in…
Lhasa
There are no copyrights on book titles. F. H. Buckley nevertheless shows remarkable audacity in borrowing The Once and Future King from T. H. White’s children’s classic, published in 1958. White enchanted his readers with a fantasy based on the Arthurian legend, replete with swords and sorcery,…
If you really want to know what a bunch of simians—whose IQs have been boosted by drugs to the human level (or higher, maybe even to the Kardashian level)—would do with themselves if that same drug wiped out all of humanity, then you really have to see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It’s quite an…
Our colleague Daniel Halper’s highly anticipated new blockbuster, Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, goes on sale this week. It promises to be the go-to book for fearless, not to mention nonhagiographic, reporting on Hillary Clinton’s effort to return the family…
One of the cities of my boyhood was Duluth, Minnesota, where most of my mother’s family lived when they weren’t in Florida. I recall it as spectacular, with high hills overlooking the unswimmably cold Lake Superior, evergreen forests, and many signs of intense industry and trade. In 1868, Dr.…
Last February President Obama launched a new initiative to help “boys and young men of color” facing tough odds in life to stay on track and reach their full potential. At the time we observed in an editorial that there was a not-exactly-minor problem with “My Brother’s Keeper” (as the initiative…
It’s hard to know what to make of Lincoln Dreamt He Died. On reading the title, my first irreverent thought was: Hey, safe bet. My second: Contrary to popular myth-ology, many of us dream of our own deaths—and guess what? We’re prophetic! Then I studied the subtitle and worried some more. Was this…
Google has not been kind to Rick Perry. Type in “Rick Perry gaffe” and you get 111,000 results. Google also offers “searches related to Rick Perry gaffe.” These include “Rick Perry drunk speech, Rick Perry oops, Rick Perry gaffe YouTube, Rick Perry gaffe debate . . . Rick Perry video, Rick Perry…
On the topic of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the contraceptive mandate case decided on the last day of the recent Supreme Court term, the Democrats are fighting mad. They don’t like the decision. No, they despise it. Indeed, their rhetoric on Hobby Lobby has become so misleading, even strange, that the…
The adulatory use of the word “cool” is often credited to Lester Young, the tenor sax man, but the provenance is somewhat murky. Less uncertain, however, is that the term, no matter its definition, is a description many seek: from celebrities posturing on screen and in print to the rest of us…
Should the law compel nursing homes to starve certain Alzheimer’s patients to death? This is not an alarmist fantasy, but a real question, soon to be forced by advocates of ever-wider application of assisted euthanasia. The intellectual groundwork is already being laid for legislation or court…
The twilight of the scandal-plagued Obama administration is upon us, and voters are faced with a real conundrum. Which of the failures of progressive governance should be confronted first? The Mideast is an even more blood-drenched goat rodeo than pessimists predicted. There are 50,000 illegal…
In past years I have taken to print to attack two words—focus and icon—that drove me bonkers. Focus, a metaphor from the world of cameras and microscopes, replaced the words concentrate and emphasize. Suddenly everywhere ballplayers lost their focus, students were encouraged to find theirs,…
It looks like Florida legislators are heading back to the drawing board—literally. On July 10, Tallahassee circuit court judge Terry Lewis ruled that the GOP-run legislature violated the state constitution by redrawing two congressional districts “with the intention of obtaining enacted maps…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the July 28, 2014 edition of the Books and Arts section.
A leading drug policy researcher, David Murray, has a must-read piece up at the Hudson Institute website, "Comparing Marijuana and Alcohol: Seriously." Murray's article is a devastating deconstruction of claims that marijuana is relatively safe, or at least safer than alcohol. And, as he points…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with David Skinner reading his casual essay "The Family Man."
Writing in Haaretz (Israel's New York Times, but further left), Barak Ravid, unquestionably a man of the left, turns on John Kerry. Read the whole thing, but here are highlights:
In making the case for closing tax loopholes used by corporations, President Obama says in his weekly address that the American people "don't get to pick which rules you play by." Neither should corporations, Obama argues.
Celebrating a fourth birthday and growing nicely. That’s the story of the Dodd-Frank law, designed to end a “too big to fail” banking system that forced taxpayers to bail out bankers who took not only their own banks but the entire financial system to the verge of collapse, and brought on a record…
The Obama administration is preparing to effectively "nullify" the immigration laws of the United States through an executive action, says one Republican senator. As Time reported Thursday, President Obama appears prepared to provide millions of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. work…
CNBC reports the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Douglas Lute, is saying that
The law does not always deliver what people might consider the “fairest” outcome. But setting aside the law and the various compromises made by elected officials when they crafted it in order to deliver a “fair” outcome would be a costly mistake—costly for every single city, county or state…
Congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who serves as the chairman of the financial services committee, wrote a letter to President Obama Friday urging him to stop all Export-Import bank deals with the Russian government and Russian companies:
Bruce Braley, the Iowa Democratic congressman running for U.S. Senate, touted his work on behalf of veterans at his state party's 2012 convention. "I fight for veterans every day on the Veterans' Affairs committee," he said. Watch the video below:
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the United Nations, the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine, and the crisis at the southern U.S. border.
Earlier this week, a three-judge panel on the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the plain text of the Affordable Care Act only authorizes health insurance subsidies for residents of states that set up their own exchanges. Therefore, the court ruled, the IRS had illegally provided Obamacare…
I've lived in Europe the past dozen years—in Berlin, Prague, and London. When it comes to Israel, Europe's ways seldom cease to amaze.
Musician Peter Himmelman, who is married to Bob Dylan's daughter Maria, has released a song taking the world to task for the reflexive attacks on Israel during the recent Gaza conflict. The song, produced for the StandWithUs Israel Fellowship, is called "Maximum Restraint":
Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon, on how Israel can win this war—if the Obama administration gets out of the way:
The Chevrolet Volt is done in Europe. As David Shepardson of the Detroit News reports:
Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House budget committee, ripped Paul Ryan's anti-poverty proposals.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
See update below.
During an appearance on the Fox Business yesterday, former Texas congressman Ron Paul said he blames terrorism on American neoconservatives. The Free Beacon reports:
In a USA Today op-ed and speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday, House budget committee chairman Paul Ryan unveiled his plans to reform anti-poverty programs.
NBC News reports that Meriam Ibrahim, who was sentenced to death by a Sudanese court because she was a Christian, has made it to safety in Italy:
One week after pro-Russian separatists shot down a civilian jetliner flying over Ukraine, Hillary Clinton said that the Obama administration's policy toward Russia was a success.
Each year the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires all federal agencies and departments to file reports detailing FOIA requests submitted by the public. Each report contains statistics on requests submitted, processed, granted (full or partial), and denied, in addition to current backlogged…
General Motors recalled another 718,000 of its vehicles yesterday to correct defects serious enough to require the action. This puts the number at "nearly 30 million vehicles since the start of the year, by far a record for any automaker and more than half the vehicles recalled by the industry as a…
For the numbers. Not so much for “expectations” which the economy continues to wrong-foot.
The boss appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday and discussed the geopolitical fallout from the attack on the Malaysian airliner shot down by Russian-backed separatists over Ukrainian territory.
Joe Klein of Time defended Israel's military actions in Gaza on MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday. Klein, a self-described critic of Israel's support of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, nonetheless argued that Western media needed to do a better job of telling Israel's side of the story, a point he…
Republicans have distinct advantages in Senate races this year, including President Obama’s low job ratings, the number of vulnerable Democrats, and an unhappy national mood. But there’s another advantage: the generally high quality of their candidates. This wasn’t the case in 2010 and 2012, when…
As John T. Bennett of Defense News reports, perplexity is the theme in Washington today. Everyone, it seems, is waiting for Europe. From Nancy Pelosi who said that President Obama had "taken the lead on sanctions" in the hope that the Europeans would "enthusiastically follow suit,” to General Barry…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with staff writer Jay Cost on the odds of a GOP takeover of the Senate.
Jonathan Martin reports for the New York Times that John Walsh, who is now running to keep the Montana Senate seat to which he was recently appointed, plagiarized a master's thesis in 2007:
Rep. Bruce Braley, the Iowa Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, missed three quarters of committee hearings concerning oversight of the Veterans Affairs administration in 2011 and 2012, including one, the Des Moines Register reports, on the same day Braley attended three fundraisers.
A new poll from Marquette University shows Wisconsin governor Scott Walker locked in a tight race with Democrat Mary Burke, a former state Secretary of Commerce and member of the Madison school board. Among registered voters, Walker leads Burke 46 percent to 45 percent, with 8 percent undecided and…
The Obama administration announced Tuesday in a court filing that it would change the way it imposes its contraception and abortifacient mandate on religious non-profits, such as Christian schools like Wheaton College and charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor.
ISIS is well on its way to having a country of its own and, evidently, already has a military infrastructure set up to train recruits in skills needed to wage Jihad and secure the Caliphate.
A wizened soul who worked in the bowels of the United States Treasury in the Eisenhower administration once explained to me all that is wrong with the U.S. tax code.
Businessman and first-time candidate David Perdue pulled off what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls a "political shocker" by winning the Republican primary runoff for the U.S. Senate in Georgia Tuesday. Perdue defeated Republican congressman Jack Kingston, who had the backing of much of the…
Vladimir Putin does not seem inclined to talk nice and patch things up with the West. To the contrary, he is drawing lines. They may, or may not, be “red." He seems confident enough not to need the modifier.
Daniel Halper, THE WEEKLY STANDARD's online editor and author of Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, writes for Politico magazine:
The Federal Aviation Administration banned U.S. airlines from flying to Israel on Tuesday afternoon. Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, issued the following statement Tuesday night:
The Islamists of ISIS are, as Maggie Fick and Isra' al-Rubei'i of Reuters report
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with frequent contributors Adam J. White and Jeffrey H. Anderson on the conflicting court rulings over the legality of the IRS's interpretation of Obamacare subsidies for those participating in the federal Obamacare exchange.
Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) has released a new poll of the North Carolina Senate race, featuring Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan squaring off against Republican state house speaker Thom Tillis, with ostensibly good news for the Democrat: She’s up seven points and expanded on…
Earlier today, a panel of federal judges in the District of Columbia ruled 2-1 that the plain text of Obamacare requires states to set up their own health care exchanges in order for their residents to be eligible for Obamacare subsidies. Thus, the court ruled, the subsidies provided and tax…
Daniel Halper sat down with Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Fox and Friends this morning to discuss his new book Clinton, Inc.
The tensions between Russia and the civilized world – especially Europe – are making for some tough economic decisions. Trade and finance give the U.S. and the E.U. leverage. But sanctions are not a one way street. Things do, however, seem fairly clear cut when it comes to arming Russia with…
Yesterday, moments after Secretary of State John Kerry departed for the Middle East to attempt to broker a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war, the State Department issued a warning recommending that “U.S. citizens consider the deferral of non-essential travel to Israel” due to the threat from…
A federal court has ruled that the IRS illegally rewrote Obamacare to provide subsidies and impose tax penalties in states that did not establish their own health insurance exchanges. The Washington Post reports:
There is a fairly robust debate about inflation going on these days. Is there too much? Not enough? Any at all? And just how much is too much? Can we hit the Goldilocks sweet spot?
Online editor Daniel Halper is out with a new book Tuesday titled Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine. Halper joined Fox News's Megyn Kelly Monday night for an exclusive first interview about the book's revelations on the former and would-be first family, Hillary's likely…
On Monday morning, President Obama signed an executive order prohibiting organizations that receive federal contracts from making employment decisions on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. A group of religious leaders and Obama allies had called for the executive order to include a…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on Obama, Putin, Ukraine, Netanyahu, Hamas, and Israel.
When nations start imposing sanctions and embargoes on each other, black markets and hoarding follow as light comes with dawn. Witness Cuban cigars, which never went away and became even more desirable, especially as a status item favored by international types who smoked them to demonstrate that…
In her last video of the season, the Factual Feminist exposes the flimsy thinking behind a Verizon ad. Watch the video below:
Over at the New York Times, Nate Cohn throws cold water on the notion that 2014 is going to be a landmark year for the GOP:
The Emergency Committee for Israel has just released a statement in response to President Obama's call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Over at the New York Times, Nate Cohn throws cold water on the notion that 2016 is going to be a landmank year for the GOP:
A new Politico poll shows that Hillary Clinton might have her work cut out for her if she wants to run for president on her foreign policy credentials:
An Ohio-based trade association, the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers (IAITAM), wants to know why the IRS’s IT Asset Managers have apparently “disappeared at a key juncture.”
President Barack Obama spoke on the White House lawn Monday morning about the downing of a Malaysian Airlines airplane flying over Ukraine last week by pro-Russian separatists there.
So who you gonna trust, Joe Biden or Robert Gates?
Can Robert McDonald, the former Procter & Gamble CEO tapped by President Obama to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, turn things around at the famously troubled department?
Voters don’t necessarily make decisions based on a candidate’s record in office. Otherwise, we might be in the lame duck years of President McCain’s presidency. Before he ran, President Obama was known mostly for his book and, as his primary opponent Hillary Clinton pointed out, a single speech.
North Korea’s Kim dynasty is in decay—literally. According to a report in the defector publication Daily NK, the founding dictator Kim Il-sung’s embalmed corpse, which has been on public display for some 20 years, is starting to show its age. “Kim’s skin appears to be deteriorating and his head and…
Rand Paul is a man of conviction. His reputation for acting on principle is the foundation on which he has begun to build the infrastructure of a presidential campaign. It is very difficult, however, for a man of conviction to adjust his image without compromising his reputation for integrity.
Istanbul
Watching the influx of unaccompanied minors crossing our southwestern border daily, a reasonable man could conclude that we are living out the fevered dreams of a dystopian novel. The United States has lost a basic aspect of sovereignty. Control over its borders is a relic of the past.
Last week, Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, lashed out at President Obama over the border crisis. Since last fall, more than 40,000 unaccompanied minors, mostly from Central America, have been caught illegally trying to enter the country. Cuellar called Obama’s response “aloof,” “bizarre,” and…
Certain amusements appropriate to childhood or adolescence have established a beachhead in adulthood, or its 21st-century American simulacrum. Grown men and women indulge, with or without shame, in video games, fantasy football leagues, sitcoms, online porn, comic books, and movies based on comic…
Over half a million people filled the streets of Hong Kong on July 1, marching for democracy on the anniversary of the British colony’s handover to Chinese Communist rule in 1997. On June 29, an unofficial referendum organized by democracy activists concluded with 800,000 votes cast—more than…
The Scrapbook has its compassionate side, and confesses to feeling a twinge when it read the recent interview with Hillary Clinton in the New York Times Book Review. The NYTBR, it should be explained, interviews famous people about their reading habits—their recent dialogue with Lynne Cheney was…
Last week, Hamas fired hundreds of rockets and missiles at targets throughout Israel, including the nuclear reactor at Dimona. Two of the three M-75 missiles targeting Dimona missed the mark entirely, but one had to be brought down by Iron Dome, Israel’s antimissile shield. The U.N. considers an…
Did the United States really need a French statue, especially one of colossal proportions? The visionary French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi thought that it did. And if it weren’t for Bartholdi and his generous nature—to say nothing of his creative idealism—there would be no Statue of…
The administrative state is a modern invention. It was, and remains, a necessity in our complex modern age. Or so goes the argument.
The facts are simple. The IRS systematically targeted conservative and Tea Party groups after their activism proved decisive in the 2010 midterm elections—Obama’s famous “shellacking.” The effects of this targeting were widespread. Some Tea Party groups were neutered in the months before the 2012…
Louis Sullivan, an early advocate of office towers, called rooms “cells,” meaning the cells of plants, not those of monks or prisoners. Plants inspire architecture, as do structures built by animals and insects. Call them nests, hills, reefs, hives, or something else—homes in nature efficiently use…
On November 8, 1917, Vladimir Lenin gave a rousing speech at the Smolny Institute in Petrograd calling for permanent revolution across all Western democracies. Afterwards, his fellow Bolshevik and founder of the Red Army, Leon Trotsky, stood at the podium, warning that “the Russian revolution will…
A few years ago, I was offered two very good tickets to a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. I invited my daughter to the game, but almost immediately my wife complained, “Why don’t you ever let me go?” So I gave them the two tickets and went to see the legendary pianist Alfred Brendel…
The circumstances facing Israel have changed. Rockets fired from Gaza now reach deeper into the country, threatening two-thirds of Israel’s eight million people. Hamas, the terrorist group responsible for the surge in rocket attacks, has become a partner in the government of Palestinian Authority…
Something interesting happened a year ago: The movie theater a few blocks from my house was radically redesigned. This came as a surprise, for the AMC 84th Street wasn’t failing in any way. Indeed, from its opening in 1985 to the present day, it has been one of the most successful theaters in…
It has been five years now since America got the news, or was supposed to: Henceforth our children would enjoy a revolutionary new approach to learning in the public schools, in the form of national educational standards. They’re called the Common Core State Standards, or Common Core for short—or…
Recently I was fingerprinted for a work ID. Sitting at a little table across from a gentleman who, like many federal employees, wore his ID badge and metro card around his neck, I concentrated on rolling my right thumb just so over the scanner between us, from the leftmost edge of the nail to the…
Republicans are searching for big, bold ideas that will inspire voters to embrace a conservative agenda. To unite its disparate segments, the GOP needs to uphold our nation’s founding principles—a key requirement for Tea Party adherents—while fostering the aspirations of those who believe the…
As the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) capture territory and establish a caliphate stretching across the now-eradicated Syria-Iraq border, hard-won gains secured with American blood and treasure are being lost. We are watching the rise of potentially the gravest threat to…
Scrapbook correspondent Richard M. Langworth, the author and longtime president of the Churchill Centre in Washington, D.C., weighs in on the new statue of Gandhi to be erected in London . . .
Something important is missing from the New York Times's coverage of the war in Gaza: photographs of terrorist attacks on Israel, and pictures of Hamas fighters, tunnels, weaponry, and use of human shields.
Fox News Sunday reports on a hot mic that caught John Kerry mocking Israel's "pinpoint operation" against Hamas in Gaza:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with David Skinner reading his casual essay "The Daily Dishes."
Last week, Texas governor Rick Perry made that mistake. Sen. Paul responded by mocking Gov. Perry’s new hipster glasses and saying that if the governor remains so stubbornly ignorant, “I’ll make it my personal policy to ignore Rick Perry’s opinions.”
Hours after news reports indicated that a Malaysian Airlines jetliner had been shot down over Ukraine, President Obama spoke at a previously scheduled event in Wilmington, Delaware on Thursday. "It looks like it may be a terrible tragedy," Obama said of the plane's destruction. He added that "our…
Some jobs depend on there being lots of jobs and people having a little disposable income to blow on things like … well, the slots. Which is why, in Atlantic City, as Terrence Dopp of Bloomberg reports:
It's still a year and a half before the first presidential primaries of 2016, but Gallup has a new survey out asking Republicans and Democrats about the potential GOP candidates. Analyzing those candidates' familiarity and favorability among Republicans, Gallup has discovered the best known and…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the happenings this week in Ukraine, Israel, and the United States.
No columnist rivals Matthew Continetti's ability to contrast so starkly the president's exalted self-image with his actual smallness on the world stage. This morning's installment of his weekly Free Beacon column is perhaps the best example yet. While President Obama announces his arrival at coffee…
Amy Alkon, Los Angeles-based syndicated advice columnist (“Advice Goddess”) and author of Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck (St. Martin’s Griffin), is a friend of mine, so this is a plug, not a review. But even if this were a review because I didn’t know Amy, it would read like a…
Some 53,000 Medicaid recipients in western New York will lose their managed care coverage from BlueCross BlueShield, the Buffalo News reports:
We've been seeing short clips from President Reagan's address to the nation a few days after Korean Air Lines fight 007 was shot down by the Soviet Union. But it's worth reading the whole text to remember what an eloquent, serious, tough, and thoughtful American president says--and does--in such a…
Elliott Abrams, writing for the Council on Foreign Relations:
Until housing picks up. That, anyway, is the way Neil Irwin of the New York Times is reporting it:
A senior at the University of Buffalo in New York called the $275,000 speaking fee the school paid to Hillary Clinton last year "ridiculous." Local TV station WVIB reported on the former secretary of state's appearance and the fee, which amounted to about 30 percent of the university's $900,000…
The world continues to ask questions about who is responsible for the July 17 downing of Malaysia Airlines (MH) flight 017 as it was crossing the airspace over the border between Russia and the eastern region of Ukraine near the city of Donetsk. The aircraft, a U.S.-made Boeing 777, was by all…
Max Boot, writing for Commentary:
What to do about cyber attacks from state actors and their surrogates? For the State Department and DHS it would seem that the answer is now the courts and international negotiation. Hints of this came recently with the indictment of 5 Chinese military personnel for hacking. An utterly futile…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on Ukraine, the crash of MH17, and the rise of Texas Governor Rick Perry.
On Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi changed her mind about the crisis of unaccompanied minors from Central America illegally entering the United States. CNN reports:
Our affable colleague, senior editor Victorino Matus, is famous for his big head, big heart, big appetite—and encyclopedic knowledge of food, drink, the consumption of same, contemporary German politics, and the sociology of his native New Jersey. Vic’s attention to detail, and mastery of English…
Conflate two separate issues and you get one policy error. That is what too many opponents of carbon taxes are doing, getting caught up in the argument about climate change, which really has nothing to do with the case for a carbon tax. That case is that such a tax can make growth-inducing tax…
The discussion over economic inequality in the United States seems to have captured the public imagination, at least on the political left. President Obama has called it “the defining challenge of our time,” and Secretary Clinton has deemed it “a cancer.” Given the shorthand manner in which…
During the open enrollment period for the state and federal health care exchanges, each staff member and volunteer worked with an average of 1.8 people per day, according to a survey of assister programs released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser calculated the number of people receiving aid…
Douglas Murray has a terrific post at the London Spectator's website, a reply to Hugo Rifkind's claim in his column in the magazine that Israel is "drifting away" from the West.
Vice President Biden and his entourage visited Brazil in mid-June to attend the USA versus Ghana World Cup game, a trip that also included meetings with both the president and vice president of Brazil. Although the vice president spent only one night in Brazil before moving on to Colombia, the…
Diane Ravitch, public education sexist.
Bureaucrats at the Veterans Affairs are working hard … to keep stonewalling investigations into the slovenly, corrupt, and criminal performance of it responsibilities. As Mark Flatten of the Washington Examiner reports:
CNN reported last night that while Maryland governor Martin O'Malley doesn't want unaccompanied minors to be deported, he doesn't want them in certain parts of Maryland either.
Yesterday, Senator Barbara Boxer had an op-ed at the Huffington Post about, among other related issues, the nonexistant threat that women will be denied birth control to treat medical conditions as a result of the Hobby Lobby decision. I personally know someone who works for a religious…
This week senior officials from the Pentagon will testify before Congress on their request for emergency appropriations, known as the Overseas Contingency Operations funding (OCO in military speak). A decision to maintain troop presence in Afghanistan, a resurgence of radical Sunni terrorism…
We have been paying attention to other things so it probably slipped out minds. But as Bernie Becker of the The Hill reports, the defect hasn’t gone away (gone down, some, but not away) and:
The latest Conversations With Bill Kristol, featuring Charles Murray:
On Friday, July 11, as reported at the Kurdish English-language news portal Rudaw [Events], combat fighters representing the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, known as Peshmerga, occupied oil fields in Hassan and Makhmour, near the ethnically-mixed city of Kirkuk that the KRG occupied in…
Gary Palmer, the founder of the conservative Alabama Policy Institute and a candidate for the House of Representatives, won his Republican primary runoff Tuesday against Paul DeMarco. Palmer is running to succeed retiring Republican Spencer Bachus for the GOP-friendly, Birmingham-area district. At…
With Barack Obama's job approval well below water these days, perhaps it's no surprise that Democratic candidates for Congress this year aren't jumping at the chance to have the president come campaign for them. Dave Weigel at Slate points out how remarkable it was last week when Democratic senator…
The threat to the U.S. government and U.S. businesses from foreign hackers, especially from China, has been increasingly in the news in recent months. In a little noticed WTOP interview last week, recently installed National Counterintelligence Executive William Evanina expressed the threat in…
Martin Luther King dreamed that one day his children would "be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not the color of their skin." This week, the current head of the Justice Department said that "given the disparities that still afflict and divide us," that dream will have to wait.
Reuters is reporting that:
The Mary Landrieu campaign is out with a new hit against the Louisiana Democrat's Republican opponent, Congressman Bill Cassidy. The 30-second ad focuses on Cassidy's support for policies that supposedly hurt senior citizens. Watch the video below:
The president gave a speech today. No surprise there. And in this speech, which was nominally devoted to infrastructure spending, he praised his administration’s economic record. No surprise there, either, though it does take some cheek to boast about an economy in which fewer people than ever…
Someone I'm related to by marriage has written a superb column on the problem of media ignorance. The fact I'm not a disinterested observer shouldn't stop me from noting that the column and the event that prompted it has attracted some attention. The piece is pegged to a much discussed interview…
This week, Christina Sommers answers questions from her mailbag about workplace discrimination and discrimination in the sciences and responds to a critic of her employer, the American Enterprise Institute. See for yourselves:
There was a time when stock car racing was an outlaw sport. Some of the greatest of the early drivers learned their skills hauling moonshine. Most conspicuously, Junior Johnson who did a stretch in the federal crossbar hotel. But the days of Junior, Richard, Dale, and the rest of them are long…
In March 2010, Obamacare was about to be voted upon by the House of Representatives, and the Democrats were in the process of deciding whether to ignore public opinion at their peril. At that time, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that Obamacare would cost $938 billion over a decade…
The reluctance of Hamas’s “military wing”—a misnomer for the more extreme elements of its extremist leadership—to accept the cease-fire designed by Egypt is, well, logical. Let’s admit it. They do not wish to accept defeat, and the Egyptian terms are a defeat for Hamas.
As John Kerry travels from country to country on various diplomatic missions as secretary of state (almost half a million miles so far), he often addresses the staff and their families at the U.S. embassies in the countries he visits. Remarks at these informal gatherings are often more casual than…
Representative Peter Welch (Democrat, Vermont and, by the way, my representative) has announced that he is in favor of raising the tax on gasoline. He has a safe seat and, anyway, in Vermont it isn’t politically dangerous to propose a tax increase, especially if it can be somehow made into a…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on the situation in Israel and Operation Protective Edge.
Joni Ernst, the Republican Senate candidate from Iowa, is getting a boost from GOP super PAC American Crossroads. A new TV ad from the group contrasts Ernst's background as "a mother and a soldier" with that of her opponent, Democratic congressman Bruce Braley.
One of the Democratic party’s most loyal and powerful interest groups is, evidently, falling out of love with the Obama administration. As Peter Sullivan of The Hill reports:
From Gallup, we learn that:
The New York Times does it again. On Sunday, Ethan Bronner, the paper’s deputy national editor, handed us his analysis of what has unleashed another round of horror in the Middle East. It seems that the cause is Israel’s decision to build a wall which creates “growing human distance between…
Radio host Hugh Hewitt says on his blog Monday that Daniel Halper's book, Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine is a "must buy" book of the summer. Hewitt notes the leak of Halper's book to members of the media over the weekend:
The boss, joined Cokie Roberts, Ana Navarro, and David Plouffe, joined George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week to discuss the border crisis, attacks on Israel, and more. Watch the video below:
In a new report on a bizarre email sent to dozens of reporters over the weekend, the Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove explores "The Strange Leak of the New Expose 'Clinton, Inc.'"
There are reports this morning that Israel has identified and destroyed an armed drone apparently being used by the terrorist group Hamas:
On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government cannot force Americans to abandon their most deeply held convictions as the price of doing business in the United States. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby counts as a landmark win for religious liberty. But it is also an important vindication of…
Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, every four years America witnesses the reemergence of a rare and annoying creature, the soccer scold. With the onset of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, there have been numerous sightings of soccer scolds in their native habitat—that is, in the media.
Hardly a day passes that I don’t think it’s a good time to go back and reread Fouad Ajami. As events unfold in the Middle East, he always offers some insight or information, or better yet one perfect and memorable sentence or phrase, that points at an answer to the whole puzzle. And now I want to…
Imagine that it is 1937 and time for the first Social Security payroll taxes to be assessed on workers and their employers. Two years earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s new program was successfully sold to the American public as an ambitious yet fiscally responsible, self-financing…
On a wide range of matters, including health care, energy, immigration, foreign policy, and education, says House speaker John Boehner, President Obama has ignored some statutes completely, selectively enforced others, and at times created laws of his own, thus failing to “take care that the laws…
Palo Alto
In 1949, Vernon Scannell (1922-2007) was working at an English fairground boxing booth, taking a fall in one fight and avenging himself on a hapless challenger in the next. Behind him were convictions for bigamy and desertion, an abusive childhood, short stints as a professional boxer and a private…
When the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that the government could not force a business owned by evangelical Christians to pay for contraceptives that might act as abortifacients, progressives responded with hysteria and dishonesty. Salon claimed the Court sanctioned “bosses’…
With Iraq collapsing into another Sunni-Shiite civil war, the Kurds are holding their own in the north of the country. -According to the Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, “The time is here for the Kurdistan people to determine their future.” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for one,…
After U.S. goalie Tim Howard had a record-setting 16 saves in the American team’s 2-1 World Cup knockout loss to Belgium, a wag edited Chuck Hagel’s Wikipedia entry to show Tim Howard as the true U.S. secretary of defense. The meme took off on the Internet, and by Wednesday afternoon Hagel was…
In Tim’s Vermeer, a 2013 documentary film about Tim Jenison, an inventor of digital software, Jenison cracks the technical code of Vermeer’s art. Inspired by the theories of David Hockney and physicist Charles Falco, he builds a replica of Vermeer’s Delft studio in Las Vegas and, with a camera…
"If at first you don’t succeed,” W. C. Fields supposedly said, “try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.”
Of all of the giants of American popular music, there is perhaps no artist who had as brief a recording presence as Hank Williams, a prime mover in several genres who did all of his prime moving between 1946 and 1952.
A few weeks ago the Times Literary Supplement ran a photograph of the grisliest act of violence in Italy since World War II—Italy’s equivalent of our own September 11 attacks. In 1980 a shadowy group of homegrown terrorists planted a time bomb in the waiting room of the Bologna Central station.…
Our affable colleague, senior editor Victorino Matus, is famous for his big head, big heart, big appetite—and encyclopedic knowledge of food, drink, the consumption of same, contemporary German politics, and the sociology of his native New Jersey. Vic’s attention to detail, and mastery of English…
We know the first book on your summer reading list: Vic Matus’s Vodka (see above). We know what the second item will surely be: Daniel Halper’s Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, due to be published in just a few weeks, and about which we’ll have more to say then.
This is a biography of a man who disliked, even hated, biographies. Pointing this out is ironic in the contemporary sense of the word, though not cheaply or glibly so. Paul de Man, the Belgian Nazi collaborator, embezzler, bigamist, fraud, and all-around academic snake-oil salesman, insisted that…
The Scrapbook has previously lauded the work of the Foundation for Constitutional Government. To support the serious study of politics and political philosophy, it’s developed a series of websites devoted to important, contemporary thinkers (Walter Berns, Irving Kristol, Harvey Mansfield, James Q.…
Urbi et Orbi, the city and the world, Tehran and the globe. In his turban and clerical robe, softly speaking of peace, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, resembles a spiritual guide more than a modern politician. Western statesmen, scholars, and journalists have been impressed by the differences…
The life of a young college graduate isn’t what it used to be, as viewers of Girls and other recent hits well know. In 1970, the median age of marriage was 21 for women and 23 for men, not much different than in 1950. By 2000, the averages were 25 and 27, and they have continued to climb. Gone are…
One February day in 2012, the U.S. government granted its 8,112,504th patent to a corporation called Personal Audio. The company’s invention was described as a “system for disseminating media content representing episodes in a serialized sequence,” which sounds complicated and impressive. The…
Italian Futurism may be one of the less-acclaimed early-20th-century artistic movements, but its striking aesthetic interpretations of the human being and radical ideological manifesto have left a legacy that must still be reckoned with. All of these aspects of Futurism are on full display at this…
A strong statement of support for Israel by the prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper:
At the New York Times, Maureen Dowd is outraged at what she calls Chelsea Clinton's "cashing in to help feed the rapacious, gaping maw of Clinton Inc." Here's an excerpt, from her July 12 column, on the former first daughter's $75,000 speaking fee:
Attorney General Eric Holder has a "lot of sleepless nights," reported ABC News this morning. Chief among his concerns? The threat of "homegrown violent extremists."
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Christopher Caldwell reading his essay "Stranger on a Train."
All good things must come to an end. And bad things, too, if you believe that the Federal Reserve Board’s bond buying program was a mistake. The minutes of its June 17-18 monetary policy committee meeting, published a few days ago, reveal that these purchases, largely credited with keeping…
John Bolton reviews Hillary Clinton's book.
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the unaccompanied minor immigration crisis, the situation in Israel, and other topics.
Speaker Boehner's proposed constitutional lawsuit against the president doesn't lack critics, including those who doubt that Congress has "standing" to bring such a case in federal court. And it's no surprise to find some conservatives among the critics: Conservative justices and judges were…
Former head of the Shin Bet Avi Dichter joins former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin and others insisting that Operation Preventive Edge can't be merely tactical. Rather, writes Dichter, Israel must uproot Gaza's terrorist infrastructure, not only smuggling tunnels but also munitions…
Charles Krauthammer writes about the crisis of unaccompanied minors from Central America illegally crossing the U.S. border:
A Pew Research Center study from last year found that Twitter reaction to events is often at odds with public opinion. There is perhaps no better example of this phenomenon than the Hobby Lobby decision.
Frank Konkel of Government Executive reports on something new. A collaboration between the private sector and the secret sector as:
Veterans Affairs, following the iron law of institutional self-interest, has been paying its people well – improperly and, possibly, illegally so – at the expense of it supposed “clients” and its mission. As David Wood of the Huffington Post reports:
As anyone who has visited New York City knows, getting a taxicab in the city can prove very, very difficult. And finding a driver that speaks English, has working air conditioning, will let a visitor pay by credit card, and knows directions to major landmarks can be even harder. That’s why it’s…
Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:
Agence France-Presse State Department correspondent Jo Biddle is claiming on Twitter that members of the media traveling with Secretary of State John Kerry to China "have had their bank accounts hacked."
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the July 14, 2014 edition of the Books and Arts section.
Most houses of worship have been granted a full exemption from Obamacare's regulation mandating coverage of contraception and abortifacients, but Ed Whelan points out that new legislation unveiled by Senate Democrats yesterday could put that religious protection in jeopardy.
A bipartisan Senate resolution in support of Israel has been announced. The sponsors include Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire), and Chuck Schumer (D-New York).
President Obama went to pay a $300 tab at a BBQ joint in Texas. But before paying, he had to ask a staffer whether his card worked.
The topic of surveillance by the National Security Agency has arisen in, of all places, a House Republican primary in Kansas. Incumbent Mike Pompeo faced criticism from his challenger, former congressman Todd Tiahrt, over Pompeo's support for NSA surveillance programs. In a recent debate, Tiahrt…
Elliott Abrams, writing for the Council on Foreign Relations:
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, of Texas, says President Obama should, "at some point," visit the border. The Houston Chronicle reports:
Here is a legal fight where the cultural war lines could hardly be drawn any more clearly. John Wayne or a school in North Carolina, infected with the PC virus and notorious for a quasi lynching of its own lacrosse team.
Initial claims came in at 304,000, slightly less than expected (315,000) and low enough to keep the low flame of optimism burning after last weeks good jobs number.
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on what Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton had--and President Obama doesn't.
A lively panel and discussion on Ronald Reagan and today's conservatism, held yesterday at the Heritage Foundation with remarks from the boss, Jonah Goldberg, and Jim Antle:
President Obama visited Denver this week, was offered marijuana, and laughed. His administration made possible the open marketing and use of marijuana in Colorado and Washington state by directing that federal law not be enforced. The president is joined by Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul in…
I taught for a year at the Kiev-Mohyla University in 1993-94 and returned to Ukraine this June after an absence of twenty years. Things here have changed.
When is it okay for a politician to discuss impeaching a president? Iowa Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst is receiving criticism for her responses to questions about impeaching President Obama. Ernst, who won her party's nomination last month, never actually said she supported impeachment.…
On Wednesday, Senate Democrats introduced a bill that would force Christians and other conscientious objectors to pay for drugs and devices, including the "week-after" pill, that may kill human embryos.
President Obama will speak on the "urgent humanitarian situation at the Southwest border," the White House announced. He'll make the remarks from Dallas, Texas.
President Obama announced the resignation of National Counterterrorism Center director Matt Olsen.
Six years in and the new White House press person is saying:
Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar ripped President Obama for being "aloof" and "detached" by not visiting the Texas border to see first hand the immigration crisis. Cuellar made the comments on MSNBC:
America, just before its Fourth of July birthday, lost one of the greatest of the generation that guided it through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Louis Zamperini was 97, so this was not entirely surprising. Zamperini, the American who couldn’t be broken by Nazis in Berlin or…
The ineptitude and corruption at the VA were examined last night at congressional hearings and the revelations were dismaying but not necessarily shocking. It is no longer news that the VA is broken so the details of how bonuses were paid to senior bureaucrats for covering up the problems and…
An event sponsored by the Foreign Policy Initiative, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the Bipartisan Policy Center:
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on his recent Tablet column "America Is the Arsonist of the Middle East."
A Veterans Affairs whistleblower says he experienced "harassment" after he contacted White House aide Rob Nabors about problems at the VA:
President Obama was asked whether he wanted to smoke marijuana by a fellow patron of a Denver bar last night. The offer came from Instagram user manton89, who posted video of the ask on his Instagram account. "Asked him if he wanted a hit of pot...he laughed!" writes manton89 .
The government-provided health care utopia is here.
President Obama believes he has recognized a sullen spirit of cynicism abroad in the land. If he has just now tumbled to it, then he has to be the last living soul to have noticed. As Josh Lederman of the Associated Press reports:
The IDF says a rocket, fired from Gaza, has hit Jerusalem. "Confirmed: A rocket fired from Gaza hit Jerusalem, Israel’s capital city," tweets the IDF.
Representative Bruce Braley of Iowa would like to become Senator Bruce Braley of Iowa. In pursuit of this ambition, he once disparaged a sitting Iowa senator as merely a "farmer from Iowa who never went to law school,” while he, Braley, was a real, sure enough lawyer. With a degree and everything.…
The RNC’s Site Selection Committee has recommended Cleveland, Ohio, as the host city of the 2016 Republican National Convention. Cleveland last held a national political convention in 1936, when Kansas governor Alfred Landon defeated Senator William Borah of Idaho for the Republican presidential…
The New York Post notes a poll released last week that shows Cory Booker, New Jersey's Democratic senator up for reelection this November, with "strikingly soft" support ahead of November:
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the chaos at the border and in the Middle East and President Obama's do-nothing role.
Lee Smith, writing for Tablet:
Hillary Clinton has an answer to the question of whether America will turn into a monarchy if she -- another Clinton -- is elected president of the United States. "We had two Roosevelts. We had two Adams," she tells the German magazine Der Spiegel.
Hillary Clinton's tour promoting her book Hard Choices may be having an effect—though perhaps not the one the 66-year-old former secretary of state might have wanted. A new poll of the potential 2016 presidential field from Quinnipiac, conducted at the end of June, found support for Clinton among…
In an interview with Der Spiegel, the German magazine, Hillary Clinton doubles down on her claim that she was "dead broke" when leaving the White House.
Lucy Flores is the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in Nevada. And as Benjy Sarlin reports for MSNBC, she's known in part for taking an unconventional approach to abortion--she talks openly about her own decision to have an abortion at the age of 16.
It seems these days, everything's coming up Romney. There's talk the two-time presidential candidate and the 2012 Republican nominee ought to run for the job again in 2016. Writing in Politico magazine, Emil Henry makes "the case for Mitt Romney" and draws comparisons to Richard Nixon's political…
Yesterday, the Washington Post’s top story was another leak from NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Unlike many of the Post’s other Snowden stories, where sensationalism has greatly outweighed the reported facts about this or that NSA program, this one had more substance and less breathless analysis.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the brainchild of senator (and possible candidate for president) Elizabeth Warren. It was, one assumes, designed to do, more or less, what the name implies. It is based in Washington and like any self-respecting government bureaucracy needs to be housed…
Reporting on the Veterans Affairs, its problems, and what Congress might do to solve them, Craig Harris and Michelle Ye Hee Lee of the Arizona Republic are not terribly encouraging. They write that:
Washington needs more money and if it doesn’t get it, your morning commute will become:
At the same time the Obama administration once again renewed its Equal Pay push, the White House released salary figures for White House staff. Upon analysis, the Washington Post, among others, concluded that the gender pay gap (as defined by the White House) that has existed since President Obama…
Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon reports:
The Scrapbook introduces readers this week to conversationswithbillkristol.org:
Border protection chief Gil Kerlikowske, whose official title is commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, says the influx of illegal immigrants on the Southern boarder need not be feared. "These are family members. These are not gang members. These are not dangerous individuals," said…
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson struggled this morning on NBC to say whether the Obama administration will deport most of the recent influx of illegal immigrants:
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson explained that the immigration crisis is about the children. "We have to do right by the children," he said this morning on NBC:
The president and his party are reworking the message. Envy is out – or to be downplayed, anyway – and optimism is in. They tried “wealth inequality,” and it didn’t resonate. Now, as Zachary A. Goldfarb, at the Washington Post reports:
Looking for some summer reading recommendations? Politico has compiled a reading list from 32 political types, from Condoleezza Rice to Ralph Nader. Each has some unique and interesting offerings. Here's what the boss recommends:
Ali Khedery, writing in the Washington Post:
The vice president of the United States is counseling teenage girls -- at least, one teenager he saw yesterday -- that they can't date until they're 30. "Chestnut St. Nearing 9th, VPOTUS hugs a girl who is wearing a rain poncho and appears to be in her early teens. Tells her, 'No dates ‘til you’re…
After celebrating our Declaration of Independence from the British oppressor, we will return to work Monday having consumed 155 million hot dogs and, for some 41 million of us, bucked traffic jams, long security lines at airports, or storm-induced flight delays in order to visit family or whatever…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with satirist and contributing editor P.J. O'Rourke on his Daily Beast column on why the 4th of July should be... banned?
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on how the founders might view today's America.
For the last couple years, the boss has recommended a few important speeches on and about July 4 from Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Lou Gehrig. All are worth revisiting, but earning special mention this year is Gehrig's July 4 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium. On this day 75 years ago,…
Is Baghdad about to come under attack? And has the city already been infiltrated by ISIS sleeper cells, ready to act when the command comes?
Online editor Daniel Halper appeared Thursday on Fox News to talk about the possible Democratic challengers to Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidential primary:
IRS lawyers ought to enjoy themselves this holiday weekend because, as the Washington Examiner's Mark Tapscott reports, "they'll be busier than normal next week." IRS counsel will make two separate appearances next week in court to explain and defend the agency's handling of Lois Lerner's…
Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times reports that Facebook has disclosed that it:
What return on investment do American taxpayers receive for the money we pay for international broadcasting in 61 languages from the Voice of America and five other USG-funded media organizations? And is that investment effective? The answer to each question is, we believe, not nearly enough.
Twice in the past week, President Obama has needled Republicans in the House of Representatives by saying that while he's doing his job, the GOP House is "not doing anything." The first time was when he was in Minneapolis to spend a "day in the life" of Rebekah, a mother concerned about making ends…
The BLS released its monthly jobs report one day early as tomorrow is the 4th and a holiday. The report provides something to celebrate with payrolls increasing by 288,000. This pushes the jobless down to 6.1 percent.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken her book tour abroad. But in an interview with the BBC, when answering a question about how specialness of the special relationship between the U.S. and UK, the nation's former top diplomat gets the names of the political parties in the UK wrong.
Colorado's 9News reviews its state's Obamacare exchange and finds that it's "clunky, counterintuitive, and confusing." The site was built with a $179 million grant from the federal government, but even the sign in button doesn't work.
A new Rasmussen poll finds that 49 percent of American voters support a religious exemption to the federal government's contraception mandate, while 39 percent oppose such an exemption:
Abandoning the Sons of Iraq.
Rather than legislatively ratcheting up the legal minimum wage, with the attendant political grandstanding, hand wring, and finger pointing (we leave anything out?), how about this? Let’s kick the economy into high gear so that it expands so robustly that employers are pushed into competing for…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on Obama's immigration speech, and the Hobby Lobby ruling.
The Republican party is on its way to rediscovering conservative ideas , reports no less an authority than the New York Times. In an extensive piece for the Times magazine, Sam Tanenhaus profiles the group of reform conservatives (including several frequent WEEKLY STANDARD contributors) who are…
The enemy, it seems, has gotten through the wire and into the command bunker. As Zachary Z. Goldfrarb of the Washington Post reports:
Martin Kramer, writing for Mosaic:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Philip Terzian reading his casual essay "The Snake in the Garden."
In a 2007 article in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, “Let a Hundred Flowers Be Crushed,” the Chinese lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, told of being followed by security agents every year around the anniversary of the June 4, 1989 massacre of democracy protesters. Pu responded by ushering the agents to a conference room at…
In the past week alone, President Obama has twice been rebuked by the Supreme Court for having run afoul of the Constitution (a 9-0 decision) or federal law (5-4). Unchastened, he brazenly picked the very day that the second decision was announced to reassert the Obama Doctrine — namely, that if…
Troubling numbers in the latest Gallup:
In 2007, during his first term as Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe penned a work titled Toward a Beautiful Country, My Vision for Japan. The recent re-examination of the 1993 Kono Statement on the Imperial Japanese military’s use of “comfort women” during World War II (a euphemism for sex…
Another day, another national crisis. Yesterday it was immigration and another threat/promise to go it alone. Today, it is roads and bridges so, as Justin Sink at The Hill reports:
Last night, Manny Ramirez hit his first home run as a member of the Cubs—not the Chicago Cubs, but the Iowa Cubs. Manny, one of the greatest right-handed hitters of all time, finds himself in Des Moines, playing for the Cubs' top minor league team. He's in Iowa because he has no where else to go.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Obama administration has violated federal law in its implementation of Obamacare. Specifically, it has violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a law passed (almost unanimously) twenty years ago by a Democratic House and Senate and signed…
The Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision was an important victory for religious liberty. In a 5-4 ruling on Monday, the Court held that the Obama administration's contraceptive and abortifacient mandate as applied to "closely held" corporations, such as the family-owned craft store Hobby Lobby,…
In late June, the Pew Research Center released "Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology." Breaking the nation's voting public into seven types (plus one type that does not regularly vote), Pew aims to give a more granular perspective on the nation's body politic. Pew's political map can be a…
Now that Washington has acknowledged cultural malaise and a broad failure to provide timely access to health care at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Congress and the executive branch are competing frantically to show the public how hard they are working to fix that failure.
Vodka: How a Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit Conquered America, written by senior editor Victorino Matus, is out today. It's available on Amazon here.
The Department of Health and Human Services recently recognized the RISE project (Recognize, Intervene, Support, and Empower) in Los Angeles County for its work to fight "anti-gay and anti-transgender bias" in the child welfare system in the county:
After a surprising run of 9-0 decisions, the Supreme Court ended its year the way we've come to expect: with hotly contested 5-4 splits. Most importantly, the Court finally decided Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the closely watched fight over whether the Health and Human Services Department can force…