December 2014

While the controversy surrounding House GOP whip Steve Scalise continues to simmer, a 2002 press release (first uncovered by John Sexton) by the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO) promoting the May 17-18 "workshop" to "train future civil rights activists" fails to mention…

Coming on the heels of President Obama's Cuba announcement, the State Department is condemning the "Detentions of Activists in Cuba."

Outgoing Maryland governor Martin O'Malley is commuting the sentences of the state's four remaining inmates on death row. In 2012, Maryland abolished the death penalty, but the law did not apply to those already sentenced for execution. O'Malley, a Democrat, said in an official statement that…

The Wall Street Journal reports that first time unemployment claims:

For at least eight months in 2013 and 2014, letter carrier Devona Charley of Washington, D.C., delivered more than just letters and junk mail. The twenty-seven year old now-former U.S. Postal Service employee was sentenced to a year and a day in prison plus 6 months of home detention, part of three…

The economic news has been getting better, especially regarding the price of oil. Which the consumer sees as what he forks over at the pump. And that, as we all know, is one price the trend of which we follow every day.  

Not a lot of good news coming out of Michigan these last few years.  Detroit went broke, people left the state for Texas and other places where they could find jobs, and the University of Michigan football team could not seem to beat Ohio State.

With the announcement Monday of a five-year, $563 million contract award to Accenture, the Healthcare.gov contractor that rescued the Obamacare marketplace after 2013's disastrous launch, the total cost of the site will well exceed $2.2 billion. The new award is on top of the $1.7 billion in…

The Washington Post reports:

This morning, Hillary Clinton sent an email to supporters with the subject line, "Announcement." But the contents of the message did not explain the former secretary of state's future political ambitions. Instead, the message asked for money from supporters of what is now the Bill, Hillary, and…

The AP’s Dave Gram writes that Senator Bernard “Bernie” Sanders of Vermont continues to deliberate.  Should he declare himself a candidate for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination? A primary field that included Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Jim Webb, and Martin O’Malley would be a…

We’re hearing from all over just how good things are – and are becoming ever more so – and how on top of the game the president is.  There is that 5 percent GDP growth last quarter and an unemployment rate that has dropped below 6 percent (the bar has, obviously, been lowered) and the stock market…

Growing up in Dallas, there is nothing better than living in Washington, D.C., on “Misery Monday”—the Monday after the Dallas Cowboys have whipped the Washington Redskins.  And believe me, yesterday was a whipping with the Cowboys defeating the Redskins 44-17. 

Reuters is reporting that:

President Obama made a gaffe in an interview with NPR when he called Tehran a "country." But the gaffe isn't the news from the interview at all.

America is "less racially divided" now than it was six years ago, President Obama told NPR in an interview. The president was responding to this question, from NPR host Steve Inskeep, "Is the United States more racially divided than it was when you took office six years ago, Mr. President?"

The U.S. bombed three Islamic State controlled buildings in Syria, according to video recently released by U.S. Central Command. Here's the video, titled "Airstrike against three ISIL buildings, Dec. 21, near Aleppo, Syria":

Raise your hand if you want to see Moses portrayed as an insurgent lunatic terrorist with a bad conscience, the pharaoh who sought the murder of all first-born Hebrew slaves as a nice and reasonable fellow, and God as a foul-tempered 11-year-old boy with an English accent.

The Washington Post carried a horrific front-page story last week. Horrific, that is, for anyone who has ever been denied admission to the college of his or her choice—which, The Scrapbook guesses, might include a handful of readers.

On domestic issues, President Obama rarely leads and doesn’t like to negotiate. In his first two years in office, he didn’t have to do either. He was spoiled by having overwhelming Democratic majorities in the Senate and House. And he hasn’t gotten over it yet.

Nicholas Stern is one of the world’s über-environmentalists, the author of the famous Stern Review, a 700-page study released by the British government in 2006, which concluded, “Climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent response.” Eight years on, Stern professes himself…

Last week’s announcement that the White House intends to restore normal diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba is part of Barack Obama’s larger project to overturn what he perceives to be wrongheaded, or at least outdated, foreign policies. From Obama’s perspective, the Cold War…

When Martin Luther King visited the White House on June 22, 1963, President John Kennedy took him on a private walk in the Rose Garden and urged him to cut his personal and organizational ties to both Stanley Levison, a white businessman and lawyer who was a close confidant, and Jack O’Dell, a…

Last week, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren threatened to derail the omnibus continuing resolution (“cromnibus”) that funds most of the government through the end of the fiscal year. She objected to the elimination of an obscure rule in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law known as “push-out.”…

"This is my last column for this newspaper. I am joining Jason Whitlock’s new Web site at ESPN intersecting sports, culture and race, to be launched sometime next year. I plan to continue the work my editors at The Post have generously supported, especially now that many of society’s most…

"Ted Cruz, by the way, is not a Harvard man. He’s Princeton,” [Prof. Harvey] Mansfield said. “Just going to Harvard Law School does not make you a Harvard Man. [Tom] Cotton is a Harvard man. [Ben] Sasse is, too. Elise Stefanik is a Harvard woman. The others are mere alumni.” (“Harvard’s…

When young men and women join the armed forces, their families understand the seriousness of “the knock.” When a soldier is killed, the Department of Defense dispatches officers to find the next of kin, knock on their door, and inform them of the loss, face to face. “I used to have a terrible fear…

Just five years ago, almost no one outside the natural gas industry had heard of fracking, even though the basic technologies were not new; today, the shale gas revolution has transformed America’s energy markets, with profound effects for economic growth, competitiveness, security, and…

Does the New York Times have a Rolling Stone problem? The author of a celebrated op-ed, who confessed to having “tortured” while serving at Abu Ghraib, had previously said he played no role in prisoner abuse at the infamous Iraqi prison.

In Grutter v. Bollinger, decided in 2003, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor upheld race preferences in higher education but also declared they must have “a termination point.” So when a lawsuit against preferences in admissions is brought, there is a presumption that they could be terminated, perhaps…

Senator Lindsey Graham said on CNN earlier today that China was likely involved in the hack attack on Sony.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with literary editor Philip Terzian on the December 22nd issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

President Obama released this statement, marking the end of America's "combat mission" in Afghanistan:

CNN reports that thousands of police officers turned their backs on New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, when he spoke this morning at the funeral of slain NYPD officer Rafael Ramos:

An estimated 90 million of us will drive 50 miles or more during this holiday season, and recent years’ gnashings of teeth at the pump are being replaced with smiles. The price of gasoline is down 36 percent since April, to a national average of around $2.40 per gallon, with some cities reporting…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on why he wants a wild open field for the GOP come 2016, and the year 2014 in review.

The Environmental Protection Agency has increasingly seen its mission as the regulation of … just about everything.  And as its sense of mission expands the confidence of the people in its ability to do so fairly and effectively has declined. As Timothy Cama of The Hill reports:

An anecdote from the New York Times piece on volunteers who drive in the president's motorcade:

Speaking with troops in Hawaii on Christmas, President Obama repeated his pledge to end the "combat mission" in Afghanistan "next week."

In April of this year, the Obama administration announced it would “reformulate” clemency guidelines for federal prison offenders. As the Washington Post described it, “Justice Department Prepares for Clemency Requests from Thousands of Inmates.” The paper claimed that this “unprecedented campaign…

Just two days before Christmas, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took the first step to prepare for a possible "surge" of unaccompanied minors in 2015. HHS posted a "Sources Sought" notice to gather information on "options for contract surge capacity to shelter and care" for…

Back in the late 1970s, when I worked for Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan, our office followed the changing data about the Empire State closely.  It was a habit of Pat Moynihan’s, indeed almost an obsession, to chart the state’s decline.

Last week the White House released a first draft for what it ultimately intends to be a report card for the nation’s colleges. And there’s no way this effort will improve the lot of the typical college student.

Vice President Joe Biden will attend the funeral of a slain NYPD officer, the White House announced.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the assassination of two NYPD officers in the wake of anti-police protests.

The star of the The Interview comments on the news that Sony will indeed allow the movie to be shown.

The FDA will seek to change the ban on gay men's blood, so long as the donor hasn't had sexual contact in the last year. 

Sony Pictures will offer a limited release of its upcoming Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy, The Interview. Sony had pulled the movie from release after several large theater companies said they were cancelling their screenings, citing a threat of terrorist attack from a group that appears to be…

When Congress headed home for the year last week without renewing the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) many in the real estate, tourism, and insurance business predicted disaster. The Coalition to Insure Against Terrorism—a broad grouping representing everyone from real estate investors to…

Heather Mac Donald writes at City Journal on how an anti-cop lie has left two New York police officers dead:

U.S. Central Command has released this video of an airstrike that took place December 18 on ISIS in Iraq:

Reason for good cheer.  The Wall Street Journal reports that:

The latest episode of Conversations With Bill Kristol features guest Jim Manzi:

The New York Times reports from Afghanistan on the renewed threat of the Taliban in previously secured parts of the country. Rod Norland writes from Helmand Province:

Zeina Karam of AP writes that:

Barack Obama’s accommodation with Castroite Cuba is a low point in the history of American international relations. Benjamin Franklin affirmed, “Where liberty dwells, there is my country.” The Obama administration, in its attitudes on Iran, Syria, and Ukraine as well as on Cuba, appears to prefer…

Justin Sink of The Hill writes that:

Secretary of State John Kerry used the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami in the Indian Ocean region as a reminder about climate change. The earthquake released huge walls of water that inundated a number of coastal regions in both Asia and Africa…

Having twice visited Castro's Cuba -- once during the 1970s, when Cuban troops were fighting in Angola and Mozambique, and again a dozen years ago, long after the Soviet subsidies had disappeared -- I can attest that the place is a horror.

Bill Roggio reports at Long War Journal that:

As the historically minded will recall, back in 2012 the Obama administration declared that the United States “will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific.” That was the guidance the commander in chief gave to the U.S. military, the idea being that since, the peace of Europe was eternal and…

Having a problem with your Comcast cable? No problem--that is if you fall into the following categories: "congressional staffers, journalists, and other influential Washingtonians." Just talk to a Comcast lobbyist. 

Secretary of State John Kerry, who wrote an op-ed for the Miami Herald along with Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, evoked Ronald Reagan's timeless challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Berlin Wall in 1987, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." In reference to…

It's the 2000s all over again. The New York Times has an editorial this morning calling for the prosection of Vice President Dick Cheney -- and others! -- for helping to keep America safe. But for some reason the paper lets George W. Bush off the hook. 

With nearly every passing day, yet another detail in last month’s sensational Rolling Stone article alleging gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house collapses under the weight of scrutiny. Its author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, has retreated into strategic silence; her editor, Will Dana,…

Scan the television listings and you’ll find quite a few shows based on older source material. There’s Gotham, which imagines the lives of Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and the villains before the comic book. There’s Sleepy Hollow, which has Ichabod Crane traveling 250 years through time to unravel…

The Scrapbook was thrilled to learn that the U.S. Navy finally has a fully operational laser—and, no, not the kind we’ve been using for years with guidance systems, but rather an actual laser weapon.

The nickname “El Greco” reveals two things about Doménikos Theotokópoulos, the weird and sublime painter of the Counter-Reformation: He was Greek, and he was a stranger. When everybody around you is Greek, nobody is “the Greek.” El Greco’s vision reflected the second part of his identity even more…

Anger among conservatives over President Obama’s decision to grant amnesty to four or five million illegal immigrants has focused not only on the substance of the decision but also on the constitutionality of his exercise of executive power. And while that debate is important, the separation of…

The Blind Man’s friend:  Don’t suffer because of the past. You censored books for the sake of God. .  .  . What is it you are taking?  The Blind Man:  Valium. I’m taking it to forget everything, even God. Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s 2003 movie script Faramoushi (Dementia) never passed the censors at Iran’s…

A year ago, Ukraine’s “Euro-maidan” protests, spurred by then-president Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to reject a promised trade agreement with the European Union and rush into the well-paid embrace of Vladimir Putin, began to escalate in Kiev, turning to violent clashes with government forces. A…

Is there any subject more esoteric than esoteric writing? Turn to the groundbreaking book on the subject, Leo Strauss’s Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), and you’ll find such chapter headings as “The Law of Reason in the Kuzari” and “How to Study Spinoza’s Theologico-Political…

Before his death late last month at the age of 80, Mark Strand could claim one of the most varied careers of Americans active in the arts. Born on Prince Edward Island in 1934 and raised everywhere from Montreal to Brazil to pre-Castro Cuba, Strand was a painter, collage-maker, translator, writer,…

"In the last several years, allegations that college administrators mishandled complaints, or even discouraged victims from filing complaints, have cropped up at Columbia, Yale, Amherst and Vanderbilt, among dozens of other universities. The exact scope of the problem, though, remains muddy.…

When last we wrote about the womyn at Smith College, they were protesting the invitation of Christine Lagarde, a French leftist in good standing and the first woman to head the International Monetary Fund, to be the commencement speaker at the school’s 2014 graduation. The Smithies—both students…

There are many signs that our politics are broken; one of them is the constant need to create new words to more exactly describe the terrible state of affairs. Most recently, we’ve been saddled with “cromnibus,” which is a portmanteau of “continuing resolution or CR” and “omnibus.” A continuing…

Fox News reported this morning on two brave utility workers, employed by Con Edison, who chased the New York City cop murderer from the crime scene to the subway:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with literary editor Philip Terzian on the December 15th issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

President Obama said the hacking of Sony was an act of "cyber vandalism," and not an "act of war." He made the comments in an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley, according to a transcript provided by the network.

In an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley, President Obama took a shot at pundits--and Putin. He made the comments in response to a question about whether he's getting rolled in his deal with Cuba.

New York Police Department chief Bill Bratton said that "some people get caught up" in the "anti-police" movement: 

President Obama reacts to the murder of two New York City police officers:

WNYW, the local New York City Fox affiliate, reports that New York Police Department officers turned their back on Mayor Bill de Blasio after two of their own were shot execution style earlier today in Brooklyn:

Senator Rand Paul has an op-ed in Time magazine making the case for normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba as Barack Obama has proposed. It’s a reasonable objective for U.S. policy and there’s a good case to be made that the embargo on Cuba is anachronistic.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Mark Hemingway reading his casual essay "Plato's Diner."

December 17 was already an important milestone for the North Korean regime: It’s the day the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, opening the way for his son Kim Jong-un to succeed him as absolute dictator. That anniversary was marked Wednesday with commemorations to signal the end of a…

Jon Harper of Stars and Stripes reports that:

Two potential Republican presidential candidates weighed in on the hack of Sony Pictures by the North Korean government.

Thanks to (mostly) fracking you can not only drive to work for less than before, you may now be writing a smaller check to cover the mortgage.  As the Wall Street Journal reports:

Barack Obama apologized to Cuban president Raul Castro during their phone conversation after the American commander in chief's opening remarks. Speaking to reporters at his final White House press briefing of 2014 Friday afternoon, Obama gave more details about his phone call with the communist…

President Obama said that Sony "made a mistake" by pulling The Interview after being hacked by North Korea:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the Sony hacks, North Korea's role, and the U.S. response.

Jeh Johnson, the secretary of homeland security, has released a statement following the North Korean-backed cyber attack on Sony Pictures. Johnson urges American companies to protect themselves against cybersecurity threats and says the Department of Homeland Security is "here to help."

President Obama and his family will head this evening to Hawaii, where he's expected to vacation until the new year.

The full FBI statement on the Sony hacking:

CNN political analyst Gloria Borger likened President Obama to Santa Claus in an appearance this morning:

Concerned Veterans for America has launched a new video series on the failures of the Obama administration's foreign policy doctrine of "leading from behind." The launch begins with Libya as a case study in what's gone wrong with U.S. foreign relations. Watch the video below:

The State Department's Rose Gottemoeller, under secretary for arms control and international security, spoke at the Brookings Institution Thursday where she reaffirmed the United States' "unassailable" commitment to putting the nuclear weapons genie back in the bottle. Gottemoeller told the…

Congressman Keith Ellison wants Elizabeth Warren to run for president of the United States. 

Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:

Neil Shah of the Wall Street Journal writes:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with assistant editor Ethan Epstein on the Sony hacking and his blog item "Franco and Rogen, Useful Idiots?"

The Washington Post editorializes: 

The AP reports: 

From Reuters:

Buried in the avalanche of Cuba and North Korea news was this revealing tidbit about the Obama administration's environmental priorities: 

The New York Times reports that:

President Obama quietly issued 12 pardons and 8 commutations late yesterday afternoon, which happened to be one of the busiest news days of the year.

Obama feels liberated, aides say, and sees the recent flurry of aggressive executive action and deal-making as a pivot for him to spend the last two years being more of the president he always wanted to be. This breathless news comes from Politico and one wonders if even they don’t get a little…

The fiesta is over. Mexico, a remarkably important nation of some 120 million people—indeed, the world’s fifteenth largest economy—is descending into crisis. Students have been slaughtered en masse with the complicity of a corrupt police force. The country’s young president and his finance minster…

In October 1940, Americans flocked to movie theaters to see Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, mocking the most powerful tyrant on the globe. In December 2014, movie theaters and then the production company cancelled the release of The Interview because of threats of terror from a tinpot, though…

In John Kerry's statement on President Obama's Cuba policy changes, the secretary of state doesn't simply suggest the policies in place for five and a half decades are outdated. He seems to be suggesting they were a failure from the start. And in doing so, he apparently misstates his own age at the…

It’s difficult to tell whether the North Korean regime has anything to with the hack attack on Sony Pictures, or the subsequent terrorist threats against movie theaters planning to screen The Interview. The forthcoming Sony film centers around an assassination plot against North Korean dictator Kim…

Jeb Bush is considering running for president in 2016, but he might have run in 2008 if not for the reasonable belief the country wouldn't elect brothers to the White House successively.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, his item "Castro, Cuba, Obama—and Iran".

Republican senator Marco Rubio said a top State Department official was "dishonest" about the Obama administration's plans to change its policy on Cuba. Tony Blinken, the newly confirmed deputy secretary of State, told the Florida senator at his confirmation hearing in November that the…

To see how NPR, activist scholars, and the Justice Department set the stage for the latest eruption of hysteria over alleged campus rape, watch here:

Imagine for a moment that you are a Saudi, Emirati, Jordanian, or Israeli. Your main national security worry these days is Iran—Iran’s rise, its nuclear program, its troops fighting in Iraq and Syria, its growing influence from Yemen through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon.

The Obama administration is embarking on a “policy shift” to normalize diplomatic and economic relations between the United States and Cuba, according to senior administration officials who spoke with reporters on background Wednesday morning. One official described the current Cuban policy as…

Alarm bells have gone off in Beijing, in Moscow, and even among some so-called “realists” in the West. They caution that the pending U.N. General Assembly consideration of an EU-Japan joint resolution on North Korean human rights violations, scheduled for December 18-19, could push Pyongyang over…

The White House announced President Obama will deliver remarks on Cuba later today.

The Obamas talked with People magazine about dealing with their "own racist experiences," as the magazine described. 

Ex-Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg is back in the news this week. On Sunday, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed Begg to get his perspective on the recently released report, written by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, concerning the CIA’s controversial interrogation program.…

The New York Times reports the Obama administration relaxed immigration restrictions and did favors for a wealthy Ecuadorian family after some members of the family donated to Democratic campaigns. From the Times:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with staff writer Michael Warren on Jeb Bush's announcement.

For the U.S. and NATO, Afghanistan is about withdrawing troops and ending their role in the fighting.  For the Taliban, it is a different story with Reuters reporting that:

As if the plunging price of oil were not enough to doom the market for electric and hybrid automobiles, there is this from ABC News:

Portland, Oregon, city commissioner Steve Novick is nothing if not verbose. Since his 2012 election, he’s used his publicly funded position to rail against DirectTV, driving around to look for a parking space, and–I’m not kidding–sitting in chairs. Rare indeed is the issue that the proudly…

With the price of oil plunging, the ruble crashing against other currencies, and its interest rates soaring, Russia has announced to the world that it: 

When President Obama visited Brisbane, Australia in November for the G-20 summit, the large U.S. delegation required multiple hotels and thousands of "room nights" for the length of the stay, though the president himself spent only one night in his hotel. Initially, as first reported by THE WEEKLY…

Michael Warren, staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, responds to Jeb Bush's announcement that he's exploring a presidential run:

Jeb Bush just announced that he's exploring "the possibility of running for President of the United States." Here's his statement:

President Obama's statement condemning the mass murder in a Pakistan school fails to blame the perpetrators, the Taliban. Here's Obama's full statement:

On MSNBC, David Axelrod said that Hillary Clinton was in "danger" of getting "in front of any rationale for" her presidential candidacy:

Mosaic has just published Menachem Begin’s Zionist Legacy, by Michael Doran, Daniel Gordis, Douglas Feith, Hillel Halkin, Meir Soloveichik, and Ruth Wisse.

Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom joined former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York Monday for a Data2X event to "promote gender-sensitive data." Data2X is a United Nations Foundation sponsored…

In one final ignominious act of parliamentary genius, outgoing Senate majority leader Harry Reid rolled Republican troublemaker Ted Cruz of Texas over the weekend, robbing the GOP of a chance to stop Democrats in the lame-duck session. That’s the consensus in most Washington political circles, and…

President Obama will mark the end of America’s combat mission in Afghanistan by welcoming home service members in New Jersey on Monday. Denis Slattery of the Daily News writes that, in his remarks, the president will note that:

Senator Ted Cruz offers this compelling video for the victims of the Fort Hood terror attack deserve to receive the Purple Heart:

Two extreme responses to the disrupter known as Uber. In France, the solution is to just say Non.  As David Jolly and Mark Scott of the New York Times report:

Somehow it comes as no surprise that, according to a recent poll, Hillary Clinton

The top Democrat in the Senate, Harry Reid, admitted today that he hasn't slept at home since May. The admission comes the same week Reid is beginning to plot his 2016 reelection.

CBS's Mark Knoller reports that the lights went out briefly at the White House this morning. 

It’s easy to see how Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood—a Bible-reading, pro-gun, pro-life, Democrat—has survived in statewide office even as his already conservative state has turned a deeper shade of red. Quite simply, he’s a likeable, quotable guy who doesn’t seem to have forgotten his roots…

Elizabeth Warren says she currently is not running for president. But in an NPR interview, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts refuses to go beyond the present tense.

Here are videos of a few hostages escaping in Sydney, Australia: 

With the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing safely over and regional leaders departed, China’s new strongman Xi Jinping decided to lower the boom on Hong Kong. Police there began clearing the barricades last week from the city’s main thoroughfare with the students in…

Many Brits are known to enjoy a pint a day. Winston Churchill certainly did—though his daily ration was a pint of champagne, not ale. So it was fitting that the wartime prime minister was toasted last week in Washington with clinking glasses of bubbly. House speaker John Boehner invited a small…

In William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1848), Pitt Crawley, Becky Sharp’s first employer, “an old, stumpy, short, vulgar, and very dirty man, in old clothes and shabby old gaiters, who smokes a horrid pipe, and cooks his own horrid supper in a saucepan,” is given a characteristic by his…

When we received the order, not a man could seem to believe it. However, on we went, and during that ride what each man felt no one can tell. I cannot tell you my own thoughts. Not a word or a whisper. On—on we went! Oh! Every man’s features fixed, his teeth clenched, and as rigid as death, still…

Assisted suicide exploded into the news again two months ago after Brittany Maynard, dying of brain cancer, announced she would take a lethal prescription as permitted under Oregon law. Maynard became an international celebrity, lauded as “courageous” in a cover story in People and featured in the…

It's heartening these days to see an outbreak of bipartisan seriousness, given how rare those instances have become. Herewith some excerpts from a statement delivered by Bob Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at the committee’s December 3 hearing on…

In Hermann Hesse’s short story “The Painter,” a young artist experiences the pain of having his works shunned. Because his paintings are so unpopular, the artist becomes reclusive. He decides to stop depicting love, heroes, and celebrations in beautiful pictures that give pleasure to others.…

Speaking truth to power is easy—or easier, anyway, than speaking truth to money. We might resist a sovereign who commands us to preach his favored doctrines. But a sovereign who slips us a little cash on the side, just for a sermon or two on something we maybe don’t really disagree with all that…

Towards midnight one night last week I walked miles down the pitch-black European shore of the Bosphorus, the 15-mile channel that splits Istanbul and Turkey in half. To any watcher of TV news, that will sound nuts. Fifteen million people have converged on Istanbul in recent decades, cramming into…

After a long day on November 13, 2013, Speaker of the House John Boehner walked down the marble hallways of the Longworth House Office Building to the personal office of Representative Devin Nunes for a drink, a cigarette, and maybe a brief reprieve.

Once upon a time, secretary of defense was something of a prestigious title. But if recent news is any indication, in the twilight of the Obama administration the gig is about as desirable as “chicken sexer” or “sewer inspector.” First, there is the ongoing fallout from former senator Chuck Hagel’s…

A press release tonight announces the beginning of Ready for Romney, a new super PAC encouraging Mitt Romney to run for president of the United States. 

Tony Abbott, the prime minister of Ausralia, urged Australians to go about business as usual, despite the ongoing hostage situation at a cafe in Sydney:

Australian prime minister Tony Abbott says that "The National Security Committee of Cabine has ... convened for briefings on the situation" a "reported hostage taking incident in Martin Place in Sydney."

I hereby nominate Dick Cheney's answer to Chuck Todd's question about a United Nations official who's called for the criminal prosecution of U.S. interrogators, as the 2014 Sunday Show Answer of the Year:

Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick again would not commit to supporting Hillary Clinton for president, and voiced admiration for Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick explained on CNN that part of the point of protests yesterday in Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C. was to be "disruptive." 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with literary editor Philip Terzian on the December 8th Holiday Reading issue.

CBS News published a story on December 11 under the headline: "Bill would let Michigan doctors, EMTs refuse to treat gay patients." CBS News reports: 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Philip Terzian his casual essay "Voice of Experience."

Jonathan Gruber’s testimony before Congress last week was a series of apologies, evasions, denials, and outright lies. The MIT professor widely acknowledged to be the “architect of Obama-care” before it was known that he attributed passage of the law to legislative deception and the “stupidity of…

Jonathan Easley of the Hill reports that the Republican party appears to have:

Not that long ago, the world’s central bankers rushed to rescue a small nation with a colorful history and a very troubled economy.  How everything, but everything, came to depend on the survival of Greece’s economy was never quite clear but the crisis went away. 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the CIA, the Senate report, and enhanced interrogation techniques.

Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:

The new dawn didn’t. There was to be no more sturm und drang, no more brinkmanship, no more government shutdowns, no more threats of default on America’s debt. Just routine passage of a $1,100,000,000,000 spending bill to keep the government running until next September when the current fiscal year…

A group of more than 300 hundred former Obama staffers have written an open letter urging Elizabeth Warren to run for president of the United States. "We helped elect Barack Obama — now we’re calling on Elizabeth Warren to run in 2016," the letter is titled.

DW reports that:

Outgoing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recently reported on the efforts his department has made against sexual assault within the ranks of the military. A year ago, President Obama directed Hagel to conduct a full review of progress being made, and while Hagel reported a decrease of twenty-five…

The House of Representatives passed a long-term spending bill Thursday night, just hours before the current continuing budget resolution is set to run out. The vote of 219 to 206, including nearly 60 Democrats, took longer than the alotted 15 minutes as House members from both parties witheld their…

Fox News producer Chard Pergram reports that House speaker John Boehner told reporters this evening that he's a happy warrior. "Boehner walks into chamber. Says to reporters: I am a happy warrior," Pergram reports on Twitter.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi of California has announced her opposition to the 2015 omnibus spending bill. Congress is attempting to pass the bill to continue funding for the federal government, which runs out at 12 midnight Friday morning. Without passing this bill or a short-term continuing…

Kyle Stock of BloombergBusinessweek reports that, while there is undeniably good news for the driving class in the falling price of gasoline:

In an open letter to Democrats, Nancy Pelosi urges her colleagues to continue fighting the House spending bill. 

Republican senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma delivered his farewell address to the U.S. Senate Thursday. An emotional Coburn thanked the staff of the Senate and the U.S. Capitol before delivering an assessment of the state of the Congress and of the country. Watch the video below:

Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey, writing in USA Today:

Ben Watson of DefenseOne reports that:

Prominent Democrats have been lining up to rue the day when they went all in on the Affordable Care Act.  First, Senator Charles “Chuck” Schumer said it was bad politics from the get-go.  No votes in it.  Then, Senator Harry Reid, who will be losing the title “majority leader” and the various…

Perhaps Jeb Bush isn't running for president. At least, recent activity suggests it's less likely that he'll run than the Florida governor has let on.

An MSNBC reporter asked Rick Perry in an interview that aired this morning whether the Texas governor is "smart enough to be president of the United States." Perry responded that "running for the presidency is not an IQ test."

The Chinese equivalent of the Nobel Prize, the Confucius Peace Prize, has been awarded to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

If Chris Hughes knew anything about journalism, he’d throw a big party in New York and another in Washington and the media wags now heaping abuse on him would be hailing him as the last of the Medicis. But the 31-year-old owner and editor in chief of the New Republic doesn’t know a damn thing about…

Conservatives on Capitol Hill are passing around a document titled, "Omnibus Contains $2.5 Billion to Accommodate Illegal Immigrants and Refugees," which claims to new spending bill has dedicated a lot of money to helping people in the U.S. illegally.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with frequent contributor Thomas Joscelyn on the Democrats' CIA interrogation report, and how it was tailored to fit their biases.

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs announced the introduction of legislation today to prevent foreign diplomats from receiving Obamacare.

Jonathan Gruber's testimony before Congress on this week was a series of apologies, evasions, denials, and outright lies.

An interesting interview with retired Air Force psychologist James Mitchell on the enhanced interrogation program from Vice News:

President Obama was asked by journalist Jorge Ramos why he doesn't more to combat "white privilege" since becoming president of the United States:

They had a good run, those oil rich countries that formed a cartel back in 1973 and called it OPEC.  Its first act, as John Waggoner of USA Today reminds, was to declare:

Steve Hayes, with Mara Liasson and George Will, last night on Fox News:

In the last five years, the Department of Defense (DOD) has spent over $130 million to store unused satellites from eight different satellite programs, and plans to spend another $206 million on storage over the next five years. Storage costs for individual pieces of equipment range from $40,000 up…

There's more Obamacare bashing from the political left today. This time it's from outgoing Senate majority leader Harry Reid. 

Even as they publicly condemn Tea Party Republicans as hostage-taking legislative thugs, the truth is that some Democrats are quietly jealous of them. Think of it: The Tea Party gang gets to intimidate party leaders, threaten legislation, block nominees, shut down the government and default on the…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the CIA interrogation report, and how it fails to report the facts.

Can be seen in plain focus through the prism of the Washington Redskins and their miscalculations (some would say “delusions”) about quarterback Robert Griffin III.  That, anyway, is the way Gabriel Baumgaertner writes it at Sports Illustrated:

President Obama responds to the Senate report on the CIA:

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber refuses to say how much he's been paid for his work on Obamacare, under questioning by Republican Jim Jordan:

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

In an article turgidly tallying up the racial backgrounds of the actors appearing in Ridley Scott’s forthcoming movie Exodus, contributor to The Week Jonathan Merritt says that viewers will “notice one ingredient painfully missing: melanin.”

What follows is the document written by Jason Beale -- a pseudonym for a longtime U.S. military and intelligence interrogator with extensive knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on some high-value detainees. Those techniques are scrutinized a forthcoming report,…

Along with the primary goal of expanding the availability of health insurance, the Affordable Care Act aims to make the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) universal. This plan actually began with the 2009 stimulus (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), which included the Health…

The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly tortured suspected terrorists, regularly lied about it to Congress and the White House, and, for all the pain and trouble this caused the agency and the United States, didn’t end up extracting a single piece of valuable information not readily available by…

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Neil Bush says his brother should run for president of the United States. "I personally would like to see him do it," Neil Bush says.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the Rolling Stone U. Va rape story.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post Magazine published a survey detailing the most popular spirits in ten U.S. cities. The study, conducted by Nielsen Scarborough USA, spans a 30-day period and tracks millions of adults. The findings are intriguing.Boston, for example, leads when it comes to gin…

The latest episode of Coversations With Bill Kristol features Harvard professor Ruth Wisse:

Michael Tomasky is taking the defeat of Mary Landrieu hard.  It is, he writes in the Daily Beast, proof of:

So bad that there is widespread hoarding as a precaution agains economic collapse.  As Bloomberg reports, Russian citizens are:

Bret Stephens is the Wall Street Journal’s Pulitzer Prize winning foreign affairs columnist. He is also author of a new book, America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming World Disorder, detailing the Obama administration’s foreign policy blunders. Recently I spoke with Stephens about…

CNN’s lame duck, Candy Crowley, asked former President George W. Bush one of those questions.  How did he feel about something in the New York Times.  Namely, a review that:

Foreign Policy reports that the U.S. believes Iran is cheating on U.N. nuclear sanctions. "The United States has privately accused Iran of going on an international shopping spree to acquire components for a heavy-water reactor that American officials have long feared could be used in the…

Congress is closing in on a final spending deal in the last week of the lame duck session, Politico reports. Negotiations between the Republican House and the Democratic Senate on appropriations are nearly complete, and the impending deal would be, according to senior congressional reporter David…

Martin Short, who starred in the 1986 film ¡Three Amigos!, praised President Obama for executive amnesty at last night's Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C.

President Obama stayed only one night in Australia for the G-20 summit, but the entire presidential delegation required over 4,000 rooms costing in excess of $1.7 million for the entire stay. Rooms at three different hotels were reserved for the U.S. delegation, and due to the large number of…

Few books of late have pleased me as much as this one. Whether it will interest anyone else is an open question, but it might, and it should. In essence, this book consists of an ongoing dialogue between two very cultured men, Philippe de Montebello, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of…

This, the “concise edition” of Liberty and Union, is an abridgment of a larger, two-volume work. It contains a glossary of legal terms (“writ,” for example, is a court order), tables of cases, a list of the 118 (so far) justices of the Supreme Court, and the texts of the Declaration of…

So we’ve done it: wrested control of the Senate from the do-nothing Democrats. But who are “we”? Are we the corporatist conservatives who fret that high marginal tax rates are stifling the risk-taking of wealthy investors, that business taxes are too high, that the entitlement state is…

Predictably, President Barack Obama and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have decided to extend again the Joint Plan of Action, the interim nuclear deal they concluded in November 2013. Unlike the last extension, which was for four months, this one is for seven months; the “political” parts of the deal,…

French readers follow the herd. They believe in prizes. When a French author wins the Goncourt or the Nobel, people rush to bookstores and send his books rocketing to the top of the bestseller lists. But today the French have other things on their minds. President François Hollande is France’s…

If you need a break from the noxious violence in the daily news and find yourself searching for a recuperative nighttime read about the loony haplessness that is the byproduct of a free and prosperous culture—well, you can do no better than to curl up with this ingeniously conceived, wickedly…

This book is something of a Rube Goldberg machine. Its author, Time theater critic Richard Zoglin, makes enormous claims about the cultural importance of his subject: He calls Bob Hope “the entertainer of the century,” the first person to be a star in every medium, the man seen by more people in…

The death of Marion Barry last week inspired all the usual observations: that he was the son of a Mississippi sharecropper; that he was a veteran, albeit a minor one, of the civil rights movement; that he was better known for his scandals, as mayor of the District of Columbia, than for his…

Despite its rather contrived title, this is a fine book: extraordinarily learned, exciting (most of the time), and beautifully written. There is already an enormous body of writing about how English Catholicism survived the tidal wave of the Protestant Reformation under Elizabeth, but this study…

"The St. Louis County grand jury’s decision not to indict the white police officer who in August shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, would have generated widespread anger and disappointment in any case. But the county prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, who is widely viewed in the…

On Friday, November 21, the Republican-majority House Intelligence Committee released a report about the CIA and the intelligence community’s conduct in the terror attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. The report uncritically accepted the CIA’s defense of its conduct, and so reporters…

Atchafalaya Basin, La.

If any American was ever entitled to leave behind the burdens of public life, surely it was George Washington in 1783. Having created and led the Continental Army to victory over the mightiest military on earth, he had endured much personal hardship, including having to neglect his beloved Mount…

As the theological undercurrents of the present Middle East turmoil roil ever closer to the surface, well-meaning observers in the West have increasingly looked toward a common biblical ancestor to heal conflict among Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Bruce Feiler’s bestselling Abraham: A Journey to…

The Obama administration’s recently announced Clean Air Act power-plant rules, advertised as helping to control the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, have almost nothing to recommend them. Complex, clunky, and burdensome, they’re likely to spike energy bills while doing almost nothing to…

President Obama will meet with Prince William, the duke of Cambridge, tomorrow in the Oval Office, according to the White House. 

At the White House this evening, President Obama spoke to honorees of the Kennedy Center. Obama "was very loose and seemed to be enjoying himself," the White House pooler says as he passes along some lighthearted moments from the commander in chief. 

Most college football fans are happy that the sport has adopted a 4-team playoff.  The method of selecting those four teams, however, is another matter.  This past offseason, McLaughlin & Associates asked self-described college football fans this question:  “As you may know, college football will…

Editor's note: "[F]our-time former governor and ex-convict Edwin Edwards -- a Louisiana icon, both beloved and reviled -- has lost his first, and likely last, political race at the ballot box," the Times-Picayune reports. We're reprinting this article on Edwards's attempted comeback, which…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Philip Terzian reading Joseph Bottum's casual essay "The Dakota Directive."

The Associated Press has called the Louisiana Senate race for Republican Bill Cassidy. "BREAKING: Cassidy defeats Landrieu in Louisiana Senate race, bolstering GOP majority in new Senate," the AP tweets.

In a five year span, the William J Clinton Foundation gave five grants totaling $851,250 to the University of Virginia's Miller Center. One year in particular, 2007, the Clinton gift was specifically marked: "Oral history project of Clinton presidency." 

This afternoon, President Obama got a CT Scan today for a sore throat has had "over the past couple weeks," according to a statement from his doctor, Ronny L. Jackson.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with literary editor Philip Terzian on the December 1st issue's Book & Arts section.

Two weeks ago, Rolling Stone published a bombshell piece that rocked the academic world. In the story, author Sabrina Erdely detailed a horrific crime — a gang rape at one of the fraternities at the University of Virginia that allegedly took place two years ago.

Ron Klain will reportedly be heading back to the private sector. "With the Ebola crisis seemingly in hand, Ron Klain, the veteran political operative the White House plucked from a venture capital gig to coordinate the government’s response, is planning a late-winter return to the private sector,"…

President Obama issued this statement after the death of photojournalist Luke Somers, who was held hostage in Yemen by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was killed in a rescue attempt.

The European Parliament has called for the dismemberment of Google, the French want  “les Gafa,” as they call Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, reined in, EU regulators are under pressure to get tough with the Americans. And the leaders of Silicon Valley’s non-tax-paying, privacy-invading,…

Charles Lane speculates on just what collapsing oil prices will mean for Russia and Vladimir Putin’s grip on power.  This depends, Lane writes:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the the Benghazi cover story by Steve Hayes and Tom Joscelyn, the Hillary song and her 2016 candidacy.

Reuters reports that "United Nations human rights experts on Friday called for a halt to racial profiling by U.S. law enforcement officers and a review of laws allowing police to use lethal force."

At a Washington, D.C. event hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative, Senator Ted Cruz defended the use of drones but also expressed some concern. "I'm worried about what I would call video game warfare," said Cruz in response to a question about drones.

Matthew Continetti writes about the hoax of liberalism at the Washington Free Beacon:

The economy added more than 320,000 jobs last month. Against a forecast of 230,000. The unemployment rate holds at 5.8 percent, indicating that many who had previously given up are again seeking employment.

In Thursday’s lead editorial, the Wall Street Journal argues that congressional “Republicans can’t win by shutting down the government”; thus, they should not attempt to deny President Obama the funding he needs to carry out his unconstitutional executive amnesty for 5 million illegal immigrants. …

For lack of a Status of Forces agreement, the United States pulled virtually all of its military forces from Iraq in 2011.  Since then, the Iraq army has come close to collapse and large portions of the country have fallen under the control of ISIS.  The administration has dispatched American…

A senior White House official says the implementation of President Obama's executive order on immigration is "well underway" and that the administration would "proceed" regardless of congressional efforts to block the order.

President Obama alluded to the recent unrest in Ferguson and New York City in remarks today at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. The president talked of "restoring a sense of common purpose."

The Associated Press reports that the Obama administration is admitting premiums for health-insurance plans sold on healthcare.gov will increase in 2015. Here's the AP:

John Boehner said he would not commit to bringing up a bill to strip critical funding from the Department of Homeland Security in the next Congress. Instead, the speaker of the House says there are "lots of options" for blocking President Obama's executive order on immigration. At a Thursday press…

The White House released a statement threatening to veto an anti-executive amnesty bill that's being considered in the House.

Good news: price of gas down.  Bad news: price of beef up.  Seems that while oil is plentiful, slaughter-weight steers are not. As Megan Durisin of Bloomberg reports:

General David M. Rodriguez of the U.S. Africa Command updated reporters Wednesday on the Defense Department's efforts to assist the response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa. However, later in the briefing, the general addressed questions on other topics as well. Several reporters inquired about…

At a speech yesterday at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Hillary Clinton made the case for empathizing with America's enemies.

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, warned that President Obama is the greatest threat fo freedom since George III. Gingrich, also a former history professor, made the comparison on Twitter.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with staff writer Jay Cost on why the fight over President Obama's immigration executive action is really a fight over separation of powers.

The Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security is hiring 1,000 new employees and has secured new office space to implement provisions of the November executive order on immigration. The Washington Times reports:

A few hours before kickoff, my wife and daughter and I went to Gladys Knight’s place in Atlanta for the chicken and waffles (can’t recommend the “Midnight Special” enough) and the room was full.  It seemed like every third table was occupied by people wearing crimson or orange.  When they caught…

Dr. Nancy Snyderman is NBC’s chief medical editor. So for anyone getting their information on diseases, drugs, and breakthrough treatments from the Today show, she is the go-to person.

Secretary of State John Kerry has often spoken with some degree of optimism about the chance for peace between Israel and its neighbors in the Middle East. Wednesday, however, in remarks after a meeting with European Union representative Federica Mogherini in Belgium, Kerry acknowledged that the…

Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on President Obama’s executive action on immigration opened with a video montage. Introduced by Republican chairman Bob Goodlatte during his opening statement, the Fox News-produced video featured clips of Obama repeating several times throughout his…

The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports that Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, one of Obamacare's co-authors, regrets passing the law:

For the past decade, the Bowl Championship Series unfailingly provided the matchup for college football’s national title game that reflected the public consensus.  (In the six years prior to that, the BCS’s record was spottier, but after 2003-04, its formula was wisely streamlined, and its…

At a White House Correspondents' Association holiday reception last night in Washington, D.C., the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, mocked the president for holding a press conference earlier this year to announce he doesn't have a strategy to defeat ISIS. 

The White House press secretary released this statement this morning, on the five year anniversary of the unjust imprisonment of Alan Gross in Cuba:

Under questioning from Rep. Barletta, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson was unable to state how President Obama's executive amnesty benefits legal Americans:

Joshua Muravchik is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies and a contributor to this magazine. He is also author of 11 books, including the recently published Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel.…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the response to the Grand Jury's decision regarding now-former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson and the death of Michael Brown.

Call it a tale of two countries. Two would-be Latin American powerhouses, both with populations surpassing 100 million people – and both with weak presidents who are beset by corruption problems. Both, in other words, are severely underperforming countries, whose chronic inability to live up to…

White House spokesman Josh Earnest was unable to provide a cogent explanation for why Colleen Bell, a former soap opera producer, just became the U.S. ambassador to Hungary:

The latest fundraising email for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was sent out this afternoon by Gabby Giffords, the former congresswoman who was shot in the head in 2011.

An event, sponsored by Concerned Veterans for America and THE WEEKLY STANDARD, featuring Senator Ted Cruz, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Rep. Tom McClintock, Bill Kristol, and more: "What Should Modern American Foreign Policy Look Like?"

CNN reports that Ashton Carter will be President Obama's pick to be the next defense secretary:

Less than four weeks before the launch of 2015 open enrollment for Obamacare, the government agency that runs Healthcare.gov suddenly realized the Marketplace site was heading for a repeat of last year's debacle. Documents show that on October 19, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services…

Ohio senator Rob Portman has decided not to run for president in 2016. “It’s a great honor to represent the people of Ohio in the U.S. Senate, and I have decided to run for re-election in 2016.  I am excited about continuing to serve, especially with the change in the Senate leadership," Portman…

Adam Kredo reports:

President Obama will ask Congress "for $263 million for the federal response to the civil rights upheaval in Ferguson, Missouri, and is setting up a task force to study how to improve modern-day policing," Reuters reports.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has cautioned that the adventurism of Russian president Vladimir Putin would not remain limited to Ukraine, or even to other countries bordering on Russia. Since Russia seized Crimea in February-March 2014, Putin’s provocative campaign has included imposition of…

Scammers are taking advantage of President Obama's executive amnesty order. Which is why "advocates and immigration lawyers are doing whatever they can to raise awareness of what the policies mean so scammers don't cost those undocumented immigrants both money and their chances at reprieve,"…

American consumers restrained themselves over the Thanksgiving holiday.  With regard to shopping, at any rate.  As Hiroko Tabucchi of the New York Times reports:

Bloomberg reports that:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently solicited quotes from contractors to recruit minors ages sixteen and seventeen to purchase "regulated tobacco products" on the Internet. The purchase attempts must be made from a facility located in Virginia and shipped to a P.O. Box provided by the…

It was obvious earlier this year that something odd was happening with Obamacare’s enrollment numbers. In May, the White House claimed that over 8 million people had signed up for insurance through Obamacare exchanges after an unexpected and much-hyped “last minute surge” in enrollment​—​but this…

Father Gabriel Naddaf, a Greek Orthodox priest in Yafia, near Nazareth, made news in 2012 when he publicly urged Israeli Christians of Arab descent to join the Israel Defense Forces. Since then, he’s become a lightning rod for encouraging Christians to integrate themselves into Israeli society…

In the fall of 2012, a few days after Hurricane Sandy touched ground, Chris Christie received a phone call from Air Force One concerning New Jersey’s relief efforts. On the other end were two very important Americans: One was, of course, the president, Barack Obama; the other was the Boss, Bruce…

Christopher DeMuth writes:

"Brain drain” is a phrase that first appeared in the 1950s, when London’s Royal Society expressed concern about the number of British scientists, engineers, and physicians being lured to the United States. Its concern was not misplaced: The Second World War had essentially bankrupted Britain, and…

In the froth and frenzy surrounding Ebola reaching America, a surprisingly unprepared Department of Health and Human Services, particularly the Centers for Disease Control, largely failed to rise to the challenge. The FDA contributed to, and continues to contribute to, that lack of preparedness.…

Our generals today don’t seem to enjoy war very much. They usually appear grumpy on television, although distrust of their political masters might well have something to do with that. But even in a friendly biographical piece or autobiography, today’s generals appear somber and dutiful, more like…

There’s a lesson from President Obama’s first term that he should have learned long ago. It’s simple: On an issue that affects many millions of Americans, it’s best—even necessary—to have bipartisan support in Congress. Going forward in a purely partisan fashion is bound to cause national discord,…

For responding to a president who defies his constitutional limits, Congress is said to possess four powers: to impeach, to defund, to investigate, and to withhold confirmation of nominees.

I couldn’t make a snowball to save my life. Not that my need was actually desperate, this time around—although it might have been, if my life were a Robert Ludlum thriller. The Snowball Identity. The Winter Deception. The Coldland Conundrum. Anyway, even in a small town, snowballs are nice for…

1. The Return of Original Sin 

If you’re not already keeping score at home, star CNN talking head Fareed Zakaria has been embroiled for months in a widening plagiarism scandal. The Week provides a useful summary. Zakaria’s “many ethical lapses have been chronicled by the pseudonymous bloggers @crushingbort and @blippoblappo,”…