April 2016

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To death and taxes add a new certainty: Starting next year we will watch the size of our government expand. We Americans, one-time disciples of the theory that that government is best which governs least, will have to choose in November between two paths to bigger government. The Democratic…

South Bend, Ind. --

Utterly, totally unexpected developments are occurring in Britain's Labour Party, which is led by Jeremy Corbyn, a man who once described Osama bin Laden's death as "an assassination attempt, and . . . yet another tragedy, upon a tragedy, upon a tragedy." It turns out—and certainly, no one could…

As the New York Times has reported, General Jim Mattis has ruled out a potential independent bid for the Presidency.

New York

If you want a good indication of how unserious America’s politics are at the moment, consider that this election has had virtually no discussion of entitlement reform. It was a central issue in 2012, and not only that, Republicans put the issue front and center by putting Paul Ryan on the ticket,…

Indiana governor Mike Pence said Friday that he will vote for Ted Cruz in the upcoming Hoosier primary, qualifying his support with compliments of John Kasich and especially Donald Trump.

Bill Kristol reacted Thursday to the personal criticism of Ted Cruz among his congressional colleagues.

Donald Trump created a stir in Indiana Thursday by touting an endorsement by boxing legend (and convicted rapist) Mike Tyson (via the IndyStar):

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Confirmed isolationists, and others concerned with United States over-involvement in foreign conflicts, often quote the 1821 admonition of John Quincy Adams that America should "go not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy."

At an April 14 MSNBC town hall, Ted Cruz was asked about abortion. The senator and presidential candidate made a point of mentioning last year’s Center for Medical Progress undercover investigation showing Planned Parenthood striking illegal deals to sell fetal body parts for profit. "I will say…

George Santayana was sitting in his stately, well-appointed Cambridge home when the housekeeper announced he had visitors. Seconds later, Mrs. Hudson ushered three oddly garbed men into the parlor, where he greeted them with sherry and cheroots.

The Scrapbook has always had great admiration for scientific achievement. However, in recent years we’ve been repeatedly hectored about whether we are sufficiently reverential towards "Science," which has become a term of art on the left and is less about empirical discovery for the betterment of…

On Tuesday, April 26, Donald Trump won impressive primary victories in five states, victories that would seem to make it difficult (though not yet impossible) to deny him the Republican nomination. On Wednesday, in Washington, D.C., Trump read from a teleprompter a foreign policy speech designed to…

My earliest memory of running—of making an effort to run as fast as I could—comes from first grade. There were a lot of footraces at school that year. They were short distance sprints across the blacktop and back. Maybe 75 yards. As often as not, I won. My only real competition was John Scotto, a…

"I'll do everything I can to get disenfranchised voters entrenched," says Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, who promised when he ran for the office, he now says, to be "a brick wall" to protect their rights.

If we may quote ourselves, "Movies have the Oscars. TV has the Emmys, Broadway the Tonys. And the conservative movement has the Bradley Prizes." Last week, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation announced the first two recipients in its annual celebration of individual achievement in the cause of…

Are there really too many high-achieving college applicants? Ted O’Neill, dean of admissions at the University of Chicago for two decades, seems to think so, writing recently, "It was nice to be able to take chances on kids who didn't have perfect records, but who revealed something special—some…

As the Trump campaign steamrolls ahead, most of us are still scratching our heads. How could this have happened? The usual answer focuses on the grievances of the Trump voter: economic anxiety, frustration with the status quo in politics, the desire to see somebody “tell it like it is," and so on.

It wasn't just predictable, it was inevitable: The ritual calumniation of the late Antonin Scalia has begun. A noisy scrum of faculty and students are protesting the naming of George Mason University's law school after the recently deceased Supreme Court justice.

For two weeks now Donald Trump has been whining that he is the victim of sinister, shadowy forces colluding to deny him the Republican presidential nomination. This miniature campaign began with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which Trump complained about the Colorado convention, calling it…

"What sound will accompany the end of days?" For Laurent Dubois, the question admits of one ringing answer: the sound of the banjo. A professor of Romance studies and history at Duke and "obsessed" amateur banjo player, Dubois relates here a history of the instrument that is both learned and…

Although Edward St. Aubyn has received handsome praise from a number of more than respectable novelists and critics, my sense is that he is still something of a secret, less known than he should be to readers who try to keep up with contemporary fiction. 

The part of Vermont that is called “the Northeast Kingdom" includes three counties and fewer than 70,000 people and does not really live up to its name. It is undeniably beautiful to look at but equally hard to live in. The familiar woes of New England's small towns and farming communities—poverty,…

In 1995 the city of Roswell, New Mexico, population just trailing 50,000 then as now, discovered that it had the potential to become a major tourist site, courtesy of The X-Files. That immensely popular television series ran from 1993 to 2002 and was briefly revived in early 2016. It combined…

As a futurist, Herman Kahn’s job was to think about the unthinkable. And the unthinkable subject in the 1960s was thermonuclear war. Kahn's analysis struck a nerve; going beyond consideration of how to prevent a nuclear war, he assessed how the United States could survive and win one. This step…

Differences between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump go beyond their personalities and opinions. One sprang up when Cruz last week named Carly Fiorina his vice presidential running mate, should he win the Republican presidential nomination. He couldn’t wait until the California primary in June, though…

Indianapolis

Word has it that Mae West—that "plumber’s idea of Cleopatra," as W.C. Fields once wise-cracked—haunts her Hollywood estate; her reflection has been seen in the mirrors that in life she approached with the concentration of a card shark. In a world of haves and have-nots, West knew any man could be…

Senior Writer Jonathan Last comments on Donald Trump's treatment of his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski once the going got tough in the latest edition of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Newsletter.

President Obama told the New York Times he attributes Democratic losses in the House and Senate during his administration to a lack of communication.

In 1983, Donald Trump promised to make my beloved New Jersey Generals great, yet he succeeded only in destroying my team and the rest of the USFL.

On Thursday, Senator Lindsey Graham asked General Dunford about his ISIS strategy.

Technology has made the world run faster, increased productivity, and given us more stuff. Governments have organized themselves into massive institutions built to run more and more programs on behalf of citizens. And yet, for all this creation, our brave new world often seems cold,…

When Ted Cruz is standing on the debate stage, does he ever reflect on the words of Michael Corleone? "Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment." After all, the Texas senator and presidential contender did recently admit The Godfather Part III is one of his favorite movies.

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Hillary Clinton's Brooklyn-based campaign sells lots of gear perfect for your inner hipster, from "Herstory" shirts (get it?) to shirts celebrating her very newfound pro-same sex marriage stance.

"Are you looking for that perfect Malbec to pair with Donald Trump's xenophobic and misogynistic rally speeches?" Who isn't?! "Perhaps a complex Cabernet over which to discuss Bernie's case for democratic socialism?" Of course! "Maybe a simple Riesling to balance the rage you feel while watching…

Indianapolis --

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer John McCormack on Donald Trump's foreign policy speech, and Carly Fiorina's acceptance speech.

For decades, Democrats and Republicans have had very different positions on drug prices. Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton portrayed drug companies—like other profitable industries—as greedy profiteers whose prices should be cut by having government 'negotiate' drug prices as they do in Europe,…

One of the hallmarks of Trumpism is that signing on with Trump means that you can't just support the wall and leave it at that-you're required to defend every stupid thing he says, ever, until infinity. Don't take my word for it. Here's Trump Super-Fan Ann Coulter: "It's like constantly having to…

Harry Wu, the former Chinese political prisoner died Tuesday at 79. In the 1990s, Mr. Wu used his personal experiences and research to bring the matter of forced labor—and the products they exported to the West—into the then vigorous American debate over human rights in China. Thanks to Mr. Wu, the…

It has long been hard to see why John Kasich has remained in the presidential race. The slim rationale for his candidacy going into last night was that, even though Kasich had lost every state but his own and had failed to come within ten points of the winner in 32 of 34 states, he would do well in…

On Wednesday, Ted Cruz teased a "major announcement" set for 4pm.

I had not realized, until very recently, that the business of depicting famous people on American currency is a zero-sum game. Alexander Hamilton is, at the moment, the hero of a blockbuster Broadway musical, and so there was never any chance that he might be supplanted on the $10 bill. (More about…

The word tsar derives from "Caesar." Ivan IV first adopted the title in 1547, when he elevated himself from "Duke of Moscow" to "Tsar of All Rus." He adopted the Latinite name, but retained the Slavic state. Now, nearly 100 years after the death of the last tsar, President Vladimir Putin seems to…

On Wednesday, Donald Trump told CNN's Chris Cuomo that he likes Indiana governor Mike Pence, but he doesn't expect his endorsement.

The star of the hit political comedy Veep said Tuesday night that the wacky events depicted in her show are not all that far removed from reality.

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The boss reacts to the "pseudo-sophisticated fatalism that disdains Trump but derides any attempt to work for an alternative."

At The Washington Post, Christopher Ingraham told the story of how a routine traffic stop turned into the police seizing tens of thousands of dollars from the manager of a Christian band.

On Wednesday, Joe Scarborough asked Donald Trump about Bernie Sanders. "You said Hillary Clinton was shouting her message—Bernie Sanders shouts his message too, right?"

Bernie Sanders suggested last night that he is seeking the Democratic party's vice presidential nomination. The suggestion came in a press release put out by the Democratic candidate late last night.

Knightstown, Ind.

An hour before polls closed in five states last night, Our Principles PAC declared that Donald Trump would sweep all five primaries. No worry, the anti-Trump outfit said. "The path to the nomination does not hinge" on any of these outcomes.

Bill Kristol joined Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC today to discuss the efforts to stop Donald Trump's bid to become the Republican nominee, whether Ted Cruz might announce Carly Fiorina as his VP pick, and the likelihood of a third-party alternative to Trump-Clinton.

Donald Trump is expected to win all five northeastern states holding GOP primaries today, likely taking close to 110 of the 118 bound delegates up for grabs. His total delegate haul could drop to 95 or so if he unexpectedly fails to win 50 percent of the statewide vote in Connecticut and if he…

Writing in the Washington Post, former senator Jim Webb laments the announcement that Andrew Jackson will be taken off the $20 bill, and heaps unwarranted praise upon America's seventh president. Webb writes:

Indiana legend and former basketball coach Bobby Knight will appear with Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Indianapolis Wednesday, the Trump campaign has announced.

In last week's Kristol Clear newsletter (sign up here for free!), the boss held a competition to honor the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

Here is the bulk of an April 24 memorandum from Rich Danker, a bright young conservative operative who ran the Lone Star Committee, an independent expenditure effort on behalf of Ted Cruz. Danker's insights go beyond his analysis of the 2016 Republican race, and are a helpful guide to any…

America's emcee Donald Trump roasted celebrities saying they wanted to leave the United States if he's elected president Tuesday morning, calling their hypothetical departure a "great thing for our country."

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Utah senator Orrin Hatch has contended in numerous speeches, op-eds, press releases, and television appearances that the Senate should not act this year to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court that resulted when Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13. Instead, says Hatch, the Senate should…

Virginia Republicans are considering efforts to block Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe’s new executive order restoring the voting rights of the state's former felons. McAuliffe's order, announced on Friday, would give nearly 206,000 violent and nonviolent convicts who have served their time the…

During MSNBC's town hall with Hillary Clinton, Rachel Maddow made the mistake of suggesting Clinton could ever in the future be behind Bernie Sanders in the delegate count.

Thanks again, Rick Monday, forty years on! It was exactly four decades ago today, when playing centerfield for the Cubs Monday executed what many think of as one of the greatest plays in baseball history: He saved the American flag from being burned. Just as the bottom of the 4th inning was…

Keeping with Former President Bill Clinton's aspiration to be the least helpful surrogate for a presidential candidate, on Monday, he criticized President Obama's jobs record.

Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is vetting Carly Fiorina as a potential running mate, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," an ancient proverb goes. So it is for Ted Cruz and John Kasich in the upcoming Indiana, New Mexico, and Oregon primaries, where spokesmen said the weakest of the two challengers to Donald Trump will stop competing in the hopes of taking out the New York…

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The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the Ted Cruz-John Kasich non-aggression pact to stop Donald Trump, and whether it will hold.

While the Obama administration touts its recent rules to limit corporate inversions as a step forward towards fixing our broken tax code, it is clear this administration fundamentally misunderstands the problems that are driving American companies abroad. In the long run, punitive Treasury…

Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe defended his executive order to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 ex-felons, citing the state's past history of disenfranchisement and saying it was the "right thing to do morally." Speaking with ABC News's George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning, McAuliffe,…

Donald Trump continues to argue that the Republican presidential-selection process is “rigged" and that any result other than his getting the party's nomination would be an affront to democracy. The response that "Trump knew the rules" is true but isn't the strongest rebuttal to his claim. The more…

The latest episode of Conversations With Bill Kristol features Garry Kasparov:

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In the quarter-center I’ve spent studying British relations with Europe, I have never seen, or read, a performance that recapitulated as many cliches as President Obama's press conference with Prime Minister Cameron on Friday. I suppose I should be grateful: in future, I won't have to spend months…

The presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and John Kasich announced Sunday night that they will get out of each other's way in a select batch of upcoming primary states, attempting to bolster the strongest challenger to Donald Trump on voting day.

Later today, the White House and the Brennan Center for Justice will host an event pressing for the release of thousands of convicted federal felons in the name of sentencing reform. During this event, titled “The Economic Consequences of the Criminal Justice System," those consequences will likely…

Hillary Clinton's cough returned today at a rally in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Today's coughing fit occurred as Clinton was on stage, as she rallied in front of her supporters.

The boss joined George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week to discuss the state of the GOP nomination race, along with Jon Karl, Jennifer Granholm, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, and Ana Navarro.

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace repeatedly asked Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz about the attacks between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. She repeatedly refused to address them, instead opting to talk about the Republican primary.

This week, President Obama had a lot of fun at the White House Science Fair. Donald Trump preempts your trolling. And Ted Cruz REALLY loves America.

April

Donald Trump was asked this week, “Do you believe in raising taxes on the wealthy?" He replied, "I do. I do—including myself. I do."

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Almost two terms later, Barack Obama is still defending removing the Winston Churchill bust from the Oval Office. Obama delivered his defense today in London, England, at 10 Downing Street, in a joint press conference with David Cameron.

Donald Trump has gone from saying he would eliminate the U.S. national debt "over a period of eight years" with the help of renegotiated trade deals to saying he would pay off a percentage of it in a decade with the help of debt refinancing and take a "not so ... aggressive" approach.

It has received an appalling, but unsurprising, lack of media coverage, but a congressional hearing this week has rolled out quite a bit of evidence indicating that Planned Parenthood was selling—and profiting from—fetal body parts. Congressional investigators produced evidence of websites where…

If they don't simply call it an "anti-LGBT law," those in the news media typically call North Carolina's law requiring single-sex public restrooms and changing facilities the "bathroom bill" or the "bathroom law."

Ann Coulter recently stated that Ronald Reagan was the last presidential candidate as unpopular as Donald Trump. She claimed to cite a Los Angeles Times poll from March 1980, close to the same period in which the current presidential campaign finds itself. And irrespective of the numbers, Trump…

For all of Donald Trump's seemingly un-Republican rhetoric on trade, much of his skepticism is actually found in the official party platform from the last presidential election. The GOP's 2012 language is thoroughly anti-China, detailed in how a Republican president would approach the Asian nation,…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on the 2016 GOP race, Donald Trump, and the convention in Cleveland.

While Indiana is a crucial state for presidential candidates Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Donald Trump, election day in the Hoosier state brings another crucial choice: Who should replace retiring senator Dan Coats?

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From the beginning of Obamacare's implementation, President Obama's signature legislation has been riddled with problems. Its latest problem ought to unite Republicans and Democrats in finding a solution.

Four bits of news from the front lines of World War T in the last week or so.

Elections matter, affecting even the appointment of judges, as the Merrick Garland nomination demonstrates.

April 23, 1616 — a date which will live in infamy. At least in literary circles. For on that date both Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died. To be sure, they did not die on the same day. At the time, Spain had adopted the new Gregorian calendar, while England was still on the old Julian…

London

In the fall of 1999, a musical called Wise Guys ran for three weeks at the New York Theater Workshop. It had music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a starring role for Nathan Lane, but it never made it to Broadway. The title referred to the brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner, luminaries of the…

Early in April, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter previewed his two-week Asia-Pacific tour by reaffirming the administration’s belief that this is the "single most consequential region" for U.S. national security interests. Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, he celebrated…

One criticism that can be made of Patrick Allitt is that he usually writes with the historian’s “objective” detachment, concealing his own opinions or conclusions about his subject matter. His previous histories, on religion and on American conservatism, are very well done; but at the end you have…

Early in the Internet’s life, and relatively late in his own, the great journalist Christopher Hitchens embarrassed me away from the Web. This embarrassment, luckily, did not involve his writing anything. He had invited me to work on a project and deadlines were approaching. I emailed him without…

One of the best lines attributed to, though not actually said by, Winston Churchill is, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." The line sprang to mind when The Scrapbook read of the plight of the U.K.'s new polar research vessel (presently…

On April 19, 1775, first at sunrise in Lexington and then at midmorning a few miles away at the North Bridge in Concord, the war for American independence began:

As might be expected from someone who makes his living from writing, I was an English major in college. But what always seems to baffle people is when they learn that I only became that person with that job because I stopped going to class. My grades were never good, and I recall recoiling from…

‘I'd long been told that there's no finer book editor in all of publishing than Bob Weil, and what amazing fortune to learn up-close exactly how true that is. Bob's passion for this project has been its soul from the very beginning. His careful and attentive edits turned court transcripts and…

Donald Trump would come to the defense of Andrew Jackson, wouldn’t he? One blustery populist looking out for another. When it was announced last week that Harriet Tubman will replace Old Hickory on the $20 bill, Trump allowed that "Tubman is fantastic," then denigrated her choice as "pure political…

On the eve of President Obama’s final state visit to Saudi Arabia, 60 Minutes produced a story suggesting that 28 classified pages from the 9/11 Commission report point to direct Saudi government involvement in the attacks. There has been a lively debate over those pages since the report was first…

It didn’t get a lot of play in the United States, but on April 9 disturbing news came from the Philippines. Eighteen soldiers were killed and 52 wounded in a firefight with Abu Sayyaf militants on the southern island of Basilan. This is a tragedy for the Philippines that also raises questions about…

Milwaukee’s Marquette University is poised to fire a tenured political science professor, John McAdams, for speaking his mind.

One More Time, a small-scale drama set in the Hamptons now playing on demand in your living room, is a beautiful mess. The infectiously watchable Christopher Walken plays a 70-year-old singing star named Paul Lombard desperate to stage a comeback. A spectacular Amber Heard plays his 31-year-old…

Nearly a decade ago The Weekly Standard’s own Philip Terzian, who had been a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and served as a Pulitzer juror, wrote in the pages of this magazine, "The Pulitzer Prizes are a singularly corrupt institution, administered by Columbia University and the management of the…

If you have not ever seen it, you will be told by anyone who has that there is no way you can prepare yourself, that when you first gaze upon it, it is impossible not to be stunned by its glory. You may have seen photographs and films, read the literature, and imagined it in your mind. Still.  .  .…

Things were not going well in Madrid. Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham had conspired to travel in disguise to Spain and somehow wed the Protestant Charles to the Roman Catholic Maria Anna, the Spanish king’s sister, and in so doing put an end to centuries of tension between the two…

Biography is not an easy trade, but biographies of the living are especially deadly. A biography of a deceased person allows the author to unmask, judge, and even to dislike their subject. When it comes to the living, most life-writers must cozy up to their subjects, flatter them, woo them, and…

As Sinatra might put it, this time we almost made some sense of it. We almost made that long hard climb to reduced dependence on Saudi Arabia for our oil supplies and diminished its ability to affect the fate of the American economy. Not that the technological feat of our frackers made us…

The presence of “Trojan horse" delegates—or "double agent" delegates, as Donald Trump calls them—is not a new phenomenon at a Republican convention. There were many at the last convention during which a presidential nomination was contested.

Showman and hustler PT Barnum once said, "The noblest art is that of making others happy." Thus, the simplest way to build a successful business is to follow Barnum's dictum and continue towards it for the life of the company, making your customers and employers happy.

Sen. Marco Rubio shifted his rhetoric on Donald Trump, saying he would support any Republican nominee against Hilllary Clinton.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on the Obama administration's effort to promote Iran by driving up Saudi Arabia's negatives.

Silver Spring, Md.

With less than two weeks to go until the critical Indiana primary, not a single public poll of the presidential contest has been released. But Politico's Shane Goldmacher reports that two private polls show Trump and Cruz tied, while a third poll showed Trump leading Cruz:

My favorite Prince song, I'm reticent to admit, is "Purple Rain." The choice is a bit clichéd—it's the title track from Prince's most successful album (and first film)—and it's hardly representative of Prince's eclectic musical style or risqué lyrics. But what I love about "Purple Rain" is the…

Aretha Franklin reacted to the death of Prince today on MSNBC:

Ted Cruz's campaign has released a new video that goes after Hillary Clinton and mimics Huma Abedin. Watch it below:

Queen Elizabeth II has achieved two royal milestones during the past year. Last September, she became the longest-serving British monarch in history, beating the record previously held by her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria. For nearly a decade now, she’s been the oldest British…

In recent weeks, John Kasich’s most important support has come from the Wall Street Journal editorial board. The Journal's opinion pages have published perhaps a handful or two of pro-Kasich pieces—roughly as many as the number of counties that Kasich has won to date outside of Ohio. It is…

Senator Rand Paul has focused on advancing policies that solve problems prevalent in cities. One of those policies, focused on combating poverty, will be up for a vote soon.

Following a big primary win in New York this week, Hillary Clinton laid out her rival Bernie Sanders's exit strategy for him during a Thursday interview.

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Yesterday Sen. Tom Cotton moved to block confirmation of an Obama nominee for an important post at the Department of Treasury. Adam Szubin was nominated last year to fill the position of Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes, and when the Democratic Senator from Ohio Sherrod Brown…

There is no denying the dominance of Donald Trump’s performance in his home state of New York, in which he got 60 percent of the vote. Still, it is perhaps interesting to note that, with more than 99 percent of the vote counted in the Empire State, Ted Cruz got more votes in Wisconsin (a state with…

Turks understand statistics better than the rest of us, or at least they seem to have a more practical statistical bias. I say that because today a bird pooped on me, and after I texted my wife the news she quickly responded by congratulating me and then telling me to buy lottery tickets.

With the New York primary in the rear window, let's take a break to talk about something other than politics and, you know, the utter destruction of civilization.

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump all have strong ties to New York, and they all approached their campaigns in the state very differently.

As has been obvious since his time as the Islamic Republic’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif is capable of creating a distortion field around him that often renders Americans somewhat giddy. The Iranian foreign minister's amiableness and wit have earned him many admirers in…

About a year ago, the New York Times magazine published an article detailing, in breathless terms, the wonderful "humaneness" of a Norwegian prison. Halden prison, the Nordic nation's most secure detention center, boasts "modern, cheerful and well-­appointed facilities," the Times rhapsodized. The…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Jay Cost on the scramble for the remaining delegates in the race for the GOP nomination.

Politico reports that abolitionist Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, with founding father Alexander Hamilton remaining on the front of the $10.

Melissa V. Harris-Perry—"Professor, Author, Intellectual," if you trust the descriptors of her personal website—is back in the brainy thick of it all, this time popping up as the Editor-at-Large at Elle.com, the online version of the high-profile, global fashion magazine.

Veteran consumer reporter and published WEEKLY STANDARD contributor John Stossel announced a cancer diagnosis in a column published Wednesday. And true to his life's work, he reviewed the customer service he's received at the hospital while being evaluated.

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After a big win in his home state of New York, three of Donald Trump's children joined Fox News's Sean Hannity for an interview. Donald Trump Junior went on a rant after being asked a question by Hannity on Team Trump's inability to secure delegates.

After Donald Trump lost the Wisconsin primary two weeks ago by a double-digit margin to Ted Cruz, he was garnering about 54 percent in the New York GOP primary polls. But Trump didn't suffer any negative consequences in New York because of his failure in Wisconsin. He won his home state on Tuesday…

Is tiny, pro-Western, landlocked, democratic, free-market, Christian Armenia (pop. 2.9 million) a threat to its neighbor, Turkey (pop. 75 million)? According to the government of Turkey, and its autocratic Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Armenia's "alliance" with Russia is lethal to…

John Kasich has now won his first county in more than a month—Manhattan. That brings Kasich's nationwide tally for number of counties won, outside of his home state of Ohio, to 7. So for every state won by Donald Trump (20, not counting New York) or Ted Cruz (10, not counting Texas), Kasich has won…

The Associated Press reports:

House Republicans are finding new ways to rein in the IRS. In a statement, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy called the agency "a picture of government corruption and incompetence."

By late April 2000, Vice President Al Gore was thumping his liberal challenger Bill Bradley with 70 or 80 percent of the vote in most primary states. That same time four years later, the tent hosting Howard Dean's populist revival had been folded for two months.

If you like your UnitedHealthcare Obamacare plan, that doesn’t mean you can keep your UnitedHealthcare Obamacare plan. That's because the nation's largest health insurer is bailing on the central policy initiative of the Obama presidency.

On Monday, the latest Pulitzer Prizes were announced. I would say what I think about the Pulitzer Prizes, except that I'm just going to defer to my distinguished colleague, Phil Terzian. Since Terzian has been both a Pulitzer finalist for Distinguished Commentary as well as a Pulitzer juror, his…

Arguably the biggest complaints skeptics have about climate change advocates are that 1) they frequently make predictions that are wrong, 2) they engage in extremely specious reasoning when called to account for why those predictions were wrong, and 3) they carry on making silly predictions as if…

It's no secret that intelligence is not precisely correlated with moral wisdom. But it's still alarming that three Nobel laureates have apparently decided to pay a visit to North Korea.

In his new book, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People, Georgetown law professor Randy E. Barnett answers the question of who constitutes "We the People." He provides new insights into what that means for America's Constitution and government, while…

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The war of words between the two Democratic presidential candidates is escalating. In his latest note, Robbie Mook, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, is blasting Bernie Sanders.

Towson, Md.

Congressmen Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) were standing a long first-down pass apart in front of the Supreme Court building on Monday, each man commanding a microphone and armies of decibels. Gohmert is a particularly carnivorous hawk on border security. Gutierrez would just…

Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robbie Mook, wants Bernie Sanders to stop making "baseless" accusations of illegal activity.

Why have California and New York state moved to implement a $15 minimum wage? They say that it's to provide workers with a "living wage."

In an interview on MSNBC, Bernie Sanders's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, questioned Hillary Clinton's "unusual" fundraising practicies.

Chess master and Russian immigrant to the United States Garry Kasparov has some strong words for Donald Trump in today's New York Daily News:

On Monday during a Hillary Clinton rally, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said women would harm themselves by voting for Ted Cruz. But she picked what is arguably the worst analogy.

The Marine's Hymn might need some amending. No longer is the venerable military force ready to "fight our country's battles ... In the air, on land, and sea."

Americans for Tax Reform is using tax day as an opportunity to remind people what the income tax once looked like.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Michael Warren on Donald Trump's constant conspiratorial complaints.

In this quarter's volume of National Affairs, attorney Jeff Rosen suggests putting regulatory agencies on a leash by subjecting them to a budget. "It is plainly time to impose the same kind of overall discipline on the regulatory system as is already in place on the fiscal system, however imperfect…

In the current issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, I have an article that goes through the blow by blow of the strange battle over the Virgin Islands delegation to the Republican convention. I encourage you to read the article, but without glossing over too many details, six delegates were initially…

In a recent piece at New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait writes that “Republican alternatives to Obamacare have lain just over the horizon for half a dozen years" yet somehow never come into view. He asserts, "The reason the dog keeps eating the Republicans' health-care homework is very simple: It is…

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The Bernie Sanders campaign is claiming to have had the "Biggest Bernie Rally Ever in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park," according a campaign press release. The New York primary is on Tuesday.

More New York, New York

This week, John Kasich proved that, despite his resistance to the idea, he is indeed vice presidential material. Senator Ben Sasse was silenced by a young lady. Donald Trump also gives us a peek at his policy ideas.

In Austin, Texas "Fight for 15" protesters advocating for a $15 minimum wage swarmed a Taco Bell flooded to talk to workers about their cause. Instead of receiving support, the workers told them to leave.

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Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton have all come to the same conclusion: no more nice guy when it comes to trade. Voters are convinced free trade is inimical to their interests, and even if it were a good thing our trading partners don't play fair. They have a point. China…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on the week that was, and the New York Post's weak endorsement of Donald Trump.

Bernie Sanders reportedly earned just over $200,000 in 2014. That same year, Hillary Clinton, Sanders's top Democratic rival, gave about 45 paid speeches, many of which paid her more in a single hour than Sanders made the entire year.

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz spoke at length about the American economy Friday morning, making a case that a return to robust growth would help alleviate myriad problems troubling the country's fiscal health.

Donald Trump has an op-ed in Friday's Wall Street Journal in which the Republican presidential candidate rails against the "system" and his top rival, Ted Cruz. The diction of the op-ed is much more cerebral than Trump's typical style, but the thrust of the piece is pure Donald. Particularly in its…

"Donald J. Trump" has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today in which he whines that the Republican establishment robbed him of delegates by rigging the contest in Colorado. As Michael Warren reported the other day, Trump's claim is the opposite of true: The establishment wanted a primary in…

The "year of the outsider" in this presidential election has also been the year of free trade skeptics. But according to a new poll, the biggest group of them aren't gathered in a hip cafe serving $4 fair-trade dark roasts. That is, unless demographers have missed a mass migration of Republicans to…

Democrats and many others on the left have expressed outrage that judge Rosemary Collyer threw out the Financial Stability Oversight Commission's ruling that Metlife is a 'Financially Important Institution' and thus deserving of enhanced capital requirements. Andrew Ross Sorkin, writing in the New…

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Chelsea Clinton has a busy day. The daughter of the leading Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, has four campaign events scheduled for today.

In a memo distributed to the press this morning, the Republican National Committee is fighting back against Donald Trump, who has criticized the political party for its system of selecting a presidential nominee.

Despite growing support from some conservative policy wonks, the idea of taxing carbon dioxide emissions, even as an alternative to the sort of heavy-handed greenhouse regulations promulgated by the Obama administration, has failed to garner much enthusiasm on the right.

The highly religious, on average, get together with extended family more regularly than the non-highly religious, according to the Pew Research Center’s third "U.S. Religious Landscape Study." The highly religious are more satisfied with family life and just plain happier in general.

Portugal invented the Atlantic Ocean, the poet Fernando Pessoa once wrote—a bizarre claim that sounds a lot less bizarre once we start to ask ourselves how a small, broke, and backwater country in Europe ended up with a far-flung empire and vast system of trade. The power of European ocean travel…

Few ordinary Americans still consider the contras, the Nicaraguan anti-Communist rebels of the 1980s, much of a hot topic. But American leftists, especially among the Democrats of Washington, D.C., haven’t forgotten them. The reappearance in George W. Bush’s administration of John Negroponte, Otto…

For generations, the IRS has held the distinction of being America’s most hated government agency. Its title is now in jeopardy.

A 2014 lawsuit alleging that Led Zeppelin ripped off a lesser-known band to produce "Stairway to Heaven" will proceed to a jury trial, a California judge decided this week.

On Wednesday, Sean Hannity asked Trump about his upcoming series of speeches on policy.

What's the hardest role to cast in theater? Surely, one of them has to be Frankie Valli of 'Four Seasons' fame, whose story is told in Jersey Boys. How many actors, after all, can boast Valli's combination of diminutive stature, Mediterranean complexion – and most important of all, that inimitable…

Prominent GOP lawmakers are signaling an openness to funding efforts to combat the Zika virus, right as the Obama administration freed up existing money to address the issue. The exact path forward, however, remains undetermined.

On Thursday, CNN's Chris Cuomo asked Hillary Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon about Clinton's path to victory.

A new advertisement from the anti-Hillary Clinton super PAC American Crossroads seizes on recent comparisons between the Democratic front-runner and Richard Nixon.

A new video from the Republican National Committee highlights that early on in the 2016 race, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders wanted a civil, issue-focused debate. However, things have now changed and Clinton and Sanders now attack each other on issues, qualifications, and for being too…

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Following the lead of populist insurgent Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton emerged from her Secret Service Mystery Machine to join the picket line of telecom giant Verizon.

Bernie Sanders had a massive crowd tonight in New York City. The campaign for the 74-year-old socialist from Vermont claims 27,000 came out tonight for the event.

Remember the new birtherism? That Ted Cruz might not be eligible to become president under the constitutional definition of "natural born citizen"? Ha. Of course you don't. In 2016, it's only news if it happened in the last couple of seconds.

The Boston Globe is reporting that U.S.-based shoe manufacturer New Balance has come out hard against the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. The odd thing, though, is that "the Boston company had gone quiet [on TPP] last year."

There's a "demotivational" poster that reads, "Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others."

Donald Trump has shown a mastery of bravado, spin, and radical changes of direction thus far in the 2016 bid for the GOP nomination. Along the way, he's managed to build up a loyal base of supporters.

Ted Cruz fired away at Donald Trump's criticism of the primary process on Glenn Beck's radio program Tuesday, needling the GOP front-runner for his lack of knowledge of the delegate selection process in various states.

Rhode Island is officially a "safe space."

You will recall Donald Trump's promise to bring you only "the best people."

The key domestic policy fight of 2017 will be over Obamacare. If it is repealed, then the centerpiece of the Obama presidency will lie in ruins. If not, then President Obama will have been what he set out to be: a sort of Reagan of the left—a transformative president who will have profoundly…

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An anti-Donald Trump group is hitting the New York businessman over his use of 9/11 recovery funds ahead of his home state's primary vote next week.

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich went to Borough Park yesterday to campaign for the upcoming New York primary. While there, the governor of Ohio ran into a group of Yeshiva students -- and lectured them about Joseph.

On Tuesday, Fox News's Megyn Kelly spoke with Heidi Cruz. Kelly noted Cruz's long list of accomplishments and asked if she would consider a run for office.

Here’s the read-out from Senator Grassley's office, on his breakfast this morning with Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland:

Authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina have initiated a new proceeding against Husein Bilal Bosnic, a prominent local Wahhabi preacher, reports the Sarajevo daily of record, Oslobodjenje [Liberation]. Bosnic is already behind bars, convicted of organizing groups to join the so-called "Islamic State"…

Geoeconomics, or the "use of economic instruments" like aid, trade and sanctions "to accomplish geopolitical objectives," is a critical venue for interstate competition. According to Jennifer Harris and Robert Blackwill, both former administration officials and current fellows at the Council on…

A couple of weeks ago, Nate Silver wrote that "[Donald] Trump has been able to disrupt the news pretty much any time he wants, whether by being newsworthy, offensive, salacious or entertaining. The media has almost always played along."

With the growing likelihood of a brokered convention, lots of ink and pixels has been spilled on what might happen if there isn't a first ballot winner in Cleveland.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg used his opening speech at his company's annual conference to speak out against those calling for a "wall," for "slowing immigration," and for "reducing trade." Zuckerberg's comments appeared directly aimed at the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump.

In an awkward new video, Hillary Clinton celebrates the anniversary of her first, anticlimactic, campaign launch. Following that botched attempt, Clinton later re-launched her campaign at a rally on New York's Roosevelt Island in June.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on Trump's impact on the Republican party.

Donald Trump is explaining his recent loss in Colorado by once again blaming "the establishment" for introducing changes to Colorado's delegate-selection process that would secretly undermine his campaign. But contrary to Trump's conspiratorial claims, interviews with participants in the debates…

Colorado senator Cory Gardner defended his state's delegate selection for the GOP convention Monday night, and dismissed Donald Trump's "temper tantrum" about the process.

During a meeting with Newsday's editorial board, Hillary Clinton discussed her change of heart on criminal justice. She suggests she only recently realized realized the impact of systemic racism on the criminal justice system.

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Donald Trump is furious over losing to Ted Cruz in Colorado. Of the 37 Republican delegates up for grabs in Colorado, 3 are party leaders, 21 were elected at district conventions, while another 13 were elected over this past weekend at the Colorado State Republican Convention. According to the…

Over ten thousand came out to support Bernie Sanders last night in Buffalo. This comes as experts predict Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic primary in New York and the Democratic nomination to be president.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer John McCormack on his recent piece about the remaining GOP contests leading up to the Cleveland convention.

It has been reported that Eric and Ivanka Trump failed to register in New York state as Republicans, and thus can't vote for their father in the upcoming New York primary.

The Scrapbook noted a few weeks ago that several brave students at Stanford University, affiliated with the Stanford Review, were pushing to reinstate Western Civilization courses into the elite college's core curriculum via a student referendum. Sadly, today comes news that the measure was voted…

John Kerry has become the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park, ground zero to the first atomic bomb. He recognized the victims of World War II, saying he was there in part to "revisit the past." As part of that history, a prisoner of war of Imperial Japan, I hope that…

President Obama said in an interview aired Sunday that the public is justifiably angry at the "ineptitude" and "corruption" in the government.

The Labor Department issued new regulations on Wednesday that will require financial advisers and brokers handling individual retirement and 401(k) accounts to act in the best interests of their clients. The government move is expected to encourage a shift of retirement funds into lower-cost…

Hillary Clinton is looking forward to running against Donald Trump, it seems.

Who is to "blame" for the rise of Donald Trump? It's a question that pundits across the ideological spectrum have been attempting to answer for months. And now the pontificator in chief, Barack Obama, has weighed in with his own theory of the real estate tycoon's political success.

The latest episode of Conversations With Bill Kristol features Princeton professor Robert P. George:

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The president is defending his former secretary of state. In an interview over the weekend with Chris Wallace, President Barack Obama excused Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.

After a series of controversial remarks last week, President Clinton is being sent to an old folks home. According to a schedule released by his wife's campaign, the former president will spend this morning at the Hebrew Home for the Aging in New York City.

Donald Trump's convention manager Paul Manafort says Ted Cruz is using tactics similar to those of the Nazi police.

CNN's Jake Tapper asked Hillary Clinton if she had any doubts about the kind of president Bernie Sanders would be.

This week, John Kasich ate everything in New York and came up with a witty nickname for Ted Cruz. We also learn what Donald Trump would look like if he didn't tan.

The Other Sports

There ariseth a little cloud out of Minneapolis, smaller than the hand of a central banker, but worrying nevertheless. Neel Kashkari, newly appointed president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, wants to break up the big banks. Kashkari has taken to introducing himself with an…

There will be plenty of time, likely seven months' worth, to predict the electoral consequences of each major party nominating a historically unpopular candidate for president. But as a starting point, it's worth noting the relative standings of Hillary Clinton (unliked), Donald Trump (unpalatable)…

Everyone is in agreement that the federal government needs to address Puerto Rico's insolvency sooner rather than later. What that would entail is where the consensus breaks down.

While announcing new humanitarian aid for Iraq, the Obama administration has acknowledged that nearly 10 percent of the Iraqi population, or 3 million people, is living in territory controlled by ISIS (or ISIL).

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor Bill Kristol on Ted Cruz's efforts to capture as many delegates as possible in New York.

Ted Cruz said Thursday that he has no plans to make up with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, calling the intrigue about their relationship the sort of inside baseball that makes voters "so frustrated with Washington". But the public acrimony between Cruz and the Senate's rank-and-file…

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Hillary Clinton said in an interview this morning that it's a Republican "fantasy" that she'll be arrested and put in handcuffs. Clinton laughed it off and insisted in the interview that it won't happen. "There is not even the remotest chance that it's going to happen," she said.

Bernie Sanders is leaving the country ahead of the New York primary. The Democratic presidential candidate is heading to the Vatican.

When he was 13, but more man than boy, Andrew Jackson got his first taste of war, helping his mother tend to the casualties after the Battle of Waxhaws. The May 1780 battle became, in legend, a massacre of defenseless colonials by British redcoats under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Banastre…

Why is John Kerry eager to provide Iran with more economic benefits by publicly declaring the Iranians may actually deserve more relief? Why did the secretary of state tell Charlie Rose that the United States and Iran want the same thing when it comes to ending the war in Syria? Why does America’s…

Making sense of the 2016 Republican primary is a task best left to future historians, but here’s one rough measure of how crazy things have become: Results of one hotly contested primary in March are still being disputed. And the fight has gotten so bitter that negative campaign ads are being run…

Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited major state and Communist party media outlets in February, where he demanded “absolute loyalty."

After Ted Cruz won every delegate up for grabs at the Colorado Republican convention, Donald Trump began complaining that the process at such conventions is unfair. His claim is that party insiders should not be making these choices, but rather that the power should be vested with the voters. As a…

The rap on Ted Cruz has been that his strength is limited to (1) caucus states and (2) states with large proportions of evangelical Christians. But Cruz undid that analysis with his double-digit victory over Donald Trump in Wisconsin last week.

After several particularly tumultuous weeks in Donald Trump’s always turbulent presidential campaign—a stretch that included a humiliating loss in a key state and credible reports that his campaign is in "disarray"—Trump's paid advisers and his many media boosters seem to agree on the best bet to…

With Ted Cruz’s victory in last week's Wisconsin primary, the odds are rising that the Republican party will have a "contested" or "brokered" convention in Cleveland this summer. That presents a host of questions, not only about how such a process would work but whether it would be legitimate.

To spread awareness of the putative wage gap between men and women, members of the Democratic National Committee had a plan. On the occasion of the fatuous "Equal Pay Day" (April 12), they would open a lemonade stand at a Metro stop in Washington and charge two prices: 79 cents for women, a dollar…

A group of believers from the soldiers of the Caliphate .  .  . set out targeting the capital of prostitution and vice, the lead carrier of the cross in Europe—Paris." Thus did the Islamic State claim credit for its terror spree in the City of Light in November, the latest in a string of murderous…

Is a slow-growth future inevitable for America? More than ever, that’s the conclusion of economists, and it's a recurring theme of some presidential candidates. The irony is that the U.S. economy has been leading the world for a century in terms of total GDP, income per capita, and entrepreneurial…

Her politics are leftish, and her hottest tirades are reserved for Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and both George Bushes. But the novelist Joan Didion voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964—"ardently," by her own account—and swears that "had Goldwater remained the same age and continued running, I would…

Ted Cruz, we are told, has a fondness for American popular music. We therefore trust he knows by heart and can belt out on demand Frank Sinatra’s "New York, New York."

Way back in 1989, John O’Sullivan, the former Thatcher aide and National Review editor, coined what's known as O'Sullivan's First Law: "All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing." (This is sometimes confused with an overlapping law formulated by the late…

Tucson

St. Paul

If you're not a fan of watching legends fall, it's been a tough couple of weeks. First, the great novelist, poet, fisherman, and gourmand Jim Harrison (he who wrote Legends of the Fall) cacked in his writing chair. And now comes word that Merle Haggard, "the poet of the common man," after suffering…

I first acquired a connoisseur’s interest in dull headlines in 1963, when I read, in a note in the air edition of the English New Statesman, that the London Times had staged a contest for the dullest headline to appear in the paper over the past year. The winning entry was "Small Earthquake in…

If you’re a conservative, you admire Edmund Burke—and you may recall this passage—a bit hyperbolic perhaps, but stirring and powerful:

Three-quarters of the way through Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides, the narrator Tom Wingo describes the death of a relative, lamenting in the process an inability to fully articulate the loss. "The only word for goodness is goodness," he notes, "and it is not enough." Ever since I learned of…

How often can you say you’ve seen a movie that takes on a key moral and philosophical issue raised by the war on terror and does right by it? Maybe Zero Dark Thirty—although that initially garlanded and subsequently defamed picture, which does not kowtow to the screechy assurances of the…

New York

Bronx, New York

With the Republican National Convention in Cleveland rapidly approaching, local officials are taking advantage of a $50 million federal security grant to stock up for the coming protests.

New Haven, Conn.

Almost 40 years ago, the last “green" president, Jimmy Carter, went on national TV and glumly told the nation from the Oval Office: "We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade."

Pittsburgh

When tales of an Italian codista combined with the NCAA tournament, I was afflicted with remembrance of sports events past. In post-WWII New York City, basketball was the sport of obsession with Jews, in part because it was a low-cost, low user of space. The City College of New York, known as the…

Is Donald Trump as good at making deals as he says? He’d better be or his chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination are likely to vanish before his eyes.

If you’re running for your party's presidential nomination, you'd better not rely on the notion that you have the best chance of being elected in the general election. The most compelling evidence at the moment is John Kasich's campaign—that is, its lack of success.

Let me be frank: I am a terrible citizen. I haven’t voted in any election since 2008. I'm a registered independent and a card-carrying member of exactly zero civic organizations. I've never been a Young Republican or, for that matter, a middle-aged Democrat or an old Whig. I'm unlikely to Lean In…

Of all the arguments against Donald Trump, the softest has been his poor prospects for victory in the general election. True, he has consistently polled worse against Hillary Clinton than have Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and virtually every other person who ran. But polls change. And if Trump were to…

Twenty years ago, in Dazed and Confused, the largely unknown writer-director Richard Linklater offered up an indelible portrait of America in the 1970s in the guise of a conventional R-rated teen movie. Now, in 2016, the garlanded Linklater has brought us a conventional R-rated teen movie in the…

Pointing out that a good school and a good education do not necessarily go hand in hand may amount to beating a dead horse these days. Still, The Scrapbook was taken aback by the uproar last week at -Indiana University (our alma mater), which may have achieved a new low in ungrounded social panic.

Where you come down on the Hillary Clinton email scandal is likely a matter of political—or at least candidate—preference.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Michael Warren on the Cruz v. Trump cage match in New York.

Astoundingly, 40 years after his death, China still celebrates Mao Zedong. He lies permanently preserved in Tiananmen Square and is honored annually by hundreds of thousands of Chinese visitors who come to pay their respects.

When a few high-profile hacking incidents hit household-name firms like Target and Home Depot in 2014 and 2015, some in the insurance industry – and more than a few in public life– said that cyber risk required an expensive new government solution.

On Thursday, Bill Clinton defended signing the 1994 crime bill. While speaking to a crowd of Hillary supporters, he vehemently defended signing it, focusing on the positive impact it had on crime rates and communities. During his explanation, Black Lives Matter protesters chanted and booed.

Exit polling from the Wisconsin primary shed some light on which of the three remaining GOP candidates might have the best chance of uniting the Republican party going into November. Voters were asked about their "feelings" if Donald Trump, John Kasich, or Ted Cruz were elected as president.

On Thursday, while Bill Clinton was giving a speech to a crowd of Hillary Clinton supporters, he was repeatedly interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters.

Desperately needing a win in the New York primary, Hillary Clinton is looking to exploit any vulnerability that she can find in the Bernie Sanders machine. So, she is going after him on guns. First, for voting wrong on holding manufacturers of firearms liable when their products are used in the…

What "polling crisis?" The following important missive just landed in my inbox:

Responding to a journalist's inquiry at a press availability in Bahrain with Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, Secretary of State John Kerry said that, based on the nuclear deal struck with Iran, "now there is no path to the nuclear weapon."

The rise of Donald Trump and the general "polarization" of politics have pushed six Senate seats toward the Democrats, according to Larry Sabato and his "Crystal Ball" forecast.

Bernie Sanders’s recent interview with the New York Daily News editorial board revealed gaps in his knowledge of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that suggest, at a minimum, he isn't paying attention. Instead he is relying on old Socialist memories of the Israel he visited decades ago.

Ted Cruz accused Donald Trump of saying “anything to try to get elected" and that "truth is not a barrier for him." In an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Cruz said the Trump campaign's claim that the Texas senator illegally coordinated with a super PAC was untrue, adding that it fit a pattern…

Remember when Hillary Clinton said she was "dead broke" after leaving the White House, while she was senator of New York? Apparently she was too broke to use the subway.

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Merle Haggard, one of America's most successful, influential and lasting country musicians, passed away Wednesday. It was his 79th birthday.

On CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett last night, the boss challenged Donald Trump's senior aide Ed Brookover on charges the Trump campaign made in the wake of its humiliating loss to Ted Cruz in Wisconsin on Tuesday. Joining them was Kellyanne Conway, who heads Ted Cruz's super PAC.

Donald Trump's delegate momentum is slowing down.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest is warning that the zika virus is more widespread in American "than previously thought." Earnest made the comments today in front of the White House podium.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Hillary Clinton surrogate, thinks Clinton needs to tone down her attacks on Bernie Sanders.

The boss joined former Vermont governor Howard Dean this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe to discuss Ted Cruz's win last night in Wisconsin. What impressed him was Wisconsin coalescing behind Cruz, despite the evidence suggesting he wasn't necessarily Wisconsin's first choice.

With President Obama's historic trip to Cuba just behind us, a familiar lamentation has been in the air of late, namely that forthcoming American tourism is sure to bring "changes" to Cuba. While one would expect the acolytes of President Changemeister himself to greet such a development with hope,…

The Democratic party has had its own reckoning this year. The electoral street fight between Donald Trump and conservatives has obscured the fact that young Democrats are choosing a 74-year-old democratic socialist with few elected allies to represent their party's future. It's a development that…

After a thumping in Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton is embracing a new tactic to undermine the rise of Bernie Sanders: suggesting he is not a Democrat.

"As we and our coalition partners take the fight to ISIL both where it began as a tumor and where it has metastasized," said Secretary of Defense Ash Carter at a speech in Washington on Tuesday, "we have to coordinate efforts more than ever before."

A lot of politicians talk about the need for more transparency in government. But few have taken action so decisively as Ohio state treasurer Josh Mandel. In 2014, Mandel created a searchable database for state spending, as well as participating local governments. Our colleagues at the Washington…

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In an error-riddled statement released Tuesday night, the Donald Trump campaign claimed Ted Cruz was "coordinating with his own Super PACs (which is illegal), who totally control him." That's more than just campaign bluster; the charge of illegal coordination between a federal candidate and a super…

There would seem to be three possible outcomes for the Republican nominating process. Each has (more or less) a historical precedent.

On Tuesday, Bernie Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver was asked about the Democratic primary heating up and competition with Hillary Clinton.

With his win in Tuesday’s open primary in the blue state of Wisconsin, Ted Cruz has now beaten Donald Trump in 11 of 21 states that have been contested to date outside of the South. Cruz has now beaten Trump in three Midwestern states (Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota—with Cruz having finished second…

Ted Cruz's victory in the Wisconsin primary was a turning point in the Republican presidential race in more ways than one.

Ted Cruz's speech in Wisconsin Tuesday night—one of the best of his presidential campaign—only briefly mentioned his top rival for the GOP nomination, Donald Trump. Instead, the Texas Republican, reinvigorated by a series of recent primary wins capped off by the double-digit victory in Wisconsin,…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Trump's big loss in the Wisconsin primary.

Roger Stone is encouraging Donald Trump supporters to descend upon Cleveland in the event of a contested convention, saying that they'll have the opportunity to confront outed delegates trying to "steal" the GOP nomination from the New York businessman.

Reuters recently reported that the United States would sail a third ship near the Chinese-built artificial islands in the South China Sea. It would be difficult for the Obama administration to telegraph more clearly it has absolutely no interest in China's new islands. Or, for that matter, Russia's…

Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, talked about being asked about the potential of her running for office for as long as she could walk.

Hillary Clinton dismissed the ongoing email scandal by telling the ladies of The View that there "nothing to it."

Marcus Paige acknowledged his immediate future late Monday. "At some point tonight, I have to take this jersey off, and I'll never put it back on." It was wet with sweat. To his right, his coach's eyes were wet with tears. The press area in which both men sat, one of those oppressively fluorescent…

"Hickory dickory dock." If the next line that comes to your head is something obscene, you have Andrew Dice Clay to blame. The 58-year-old comedian, known for his raunchy rhymes and wildly offensive stand-up material, is the subject of a recent Washington Post profile. Clay is in the midst of a…

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In honor of Opening Day, I had a short discussion of baseball in yesterday's weekly newsletter (yes, you can get it--it's easy, just sign up here. And yes, it's free!) But I'll admit last night's Villanova-North Carolina game could call into question my endorsement of the superiority of baseball.…

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is nothing if not consistent. His incompetent (and unremittingly cruel) leadership extends not only to his miserable domestic record. Kim is proving to be a disaster on the international scene as well.

On three separate occasions, I’ve written about the determined struggle of one man in the face of appalling political correctness, anti-Americanism, and bureaucratic senselessness. In Orcutt, California, about an hour north of the Reagan Ranch on the beautiful Central Coast, Steve LeBard has been…

The Hillary Clinton campaign is telling supporters the nomination is not looked up. But the campaign manager, Robbie Mook, has a different message.

The Clinton campaign is telling supporters that the nomination is not locked up. And, the campaign is telling supporters, more cash donations are needed to beat Bernie Sanders.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Jay Cost on the state of the 2016 GOP nomination.

California governor Jerry Brown said Monday that his state's new minimum wage law makes more political sense than economic sense.

In a wide-ranging and extended “town hall" session with Fox News' Greta van Susteren, Donald Trump explained his basic approach to national security and America's role in the world. Using Japan – which has had the effrontery, over several generations, to make great automobiles and sell them at…

Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Republic of Senegal today “for offering humanitarian resettlement to" two now former Guantanamo detainees. As was the case when the administration transferred detainees to Uruguay in late 2014 and Ghana earlier this year, the Guantanamo jihadists are being…

Republicans have fashioned themselves as the austere bunch since President Obama assumed office, fighting him on spending with unconventional tactics and stringent proposals. They used the debt ceiling, which once was an arcane and rudimentary responsibility of Congress, as leverage to extract…

Claremont, Ca.

The New Boston Post, which covers conservative news in the Bay State, has an interesting report on a lawsuit involving Brandeis University over the school's procedures for handling sexual assault accusations. A student disciplined for sexual assault is suing the university.

Today’s New York Sun editorial points us to The Scandal of Money: Why Wall Street Recovers but the Economy Never Does, the new book by economist and futurist George Gilder. The editorial heartily recommends Gilder's book, which makes the argument that America's current monetary policy is immoral:

If you are pro-life, you cannot vote for Donald Trump. The point is simple and unavoidable: If the man is not a covert supporter of legalized abortion, he has at least thought about the issue so rarely and so incompletely that he cannot articulate a coherent sentence about it. Forget walking the…

Ted Cruz continues to prove his is the most organized campaign in the Republican field. The Texas senator is maximizing the delegates he can count on at this summer's Republican National Convention by exploiting both the party's rules and the failure of his chief rival, Donald Trump, to capitalize…

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Bernie Sanders raised $44 million in March. In February, the socialist senator from Vermont also raised an enormous sum, $43.5 million.

Ohio in 2014 launched a searchable database of the state's expenditures, allowing residents to browse how their money was being spent by both the state and participating local governments. Government watchdogs view it as a model for something that could be applied across the nation.

Play Ball!

Some guy dressed as Donald Trump was dancing in New York City.

On Sunday, Hillary Clinton told Chuck Todd that no unborn child has constitutional rights.

Milwaukee

"I must do it. But I fear to do it. Upon my soul I do." So said Alec Guinness' King Faisal to Peter O'Toole's Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia when faced with demands that he place his Bedouin fighters under British command. And so in effect said Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen to the…

A group of marijuana activists advocating for the decriminalization of marijuana will light up across the street from the White House Saturday afternoon.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Donald Trump's terrible week.

You'd think that Republican voters would want to crumple the primary system into wastepaper and chuck it atop a radioactive dump. On the one hand, Donald Trump has criticized the process ("unfair"), the rules ("unfair") and the size of the field ("unfair"), and his supporters have consistently…

Madison, Wisc.

When James Moore was 14 years old, he began playing Sid Meier's Civilization II, a game in which competing empires vie for global domination. And he kept playing one particular scenario just to see how long he could last. Moore started in 2002. Fourteen years later, his world lives on—but it's not…

Nobel economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is fond of mocking his critics for being ideologues rather than economists. In contrast, Krugman's own policy prescriptions, he assures us, are based wholly on sound economic science.

At the Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Continetti writes about "How to Dump Trump," and why he ought to be dumped:

For a candidate who has popularity issues of her own, it's perhaps a bit of surprise that #NeverHillary has not sprung up beside #NeverTrump.

On Greta last night, RNC chairman Reince Priebus suggested to Fox News viewers that even the vice presidential nomination could be contested at the GOP convention in Cleveland later this year.

Do federal conflict-of-interest laws apply to the president? Do the criminal laws that prohibit officials from participating in any decision in which they have a financial interest apply to the man or woman in the Oval Office?

Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, and Irving Kristol have two things in common. All three recognized the extraordinary ability of market capitalism to produce goods, services, and wealth. And they hoped, believed, and feared, respectively, that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction.

When we last checked in on Donald Trump’s campaign it was still a rolling embarrassment—a near-daily parade of pettiness, ignorance, and farce that was nonetheless en route to an ever-increasing delegate lead.

The end of the Age of Obama. It began with high hopes on a winter’s night in Iowa in 2008 and ended in disappointment on a crisp fall day nearly seven years later. 

‘Why don't men and women really like one another nowadays?" asks Connie in Lady Chatterley's Lover. Like D. H. Lawrence's creation, the groundbreaking Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) also felt let down by the ignis fatuus of true love—that elusive will o' the wisp that too often fails to…

Bob Livingston, the former Republican congressman, was among the conservatives who met with Donald Trump in Washington on March 21. Now a corporate lobbyist whose clients include Verizon and Adobe, Livingston liked what the GOP frontrunner had to say. He endorsed Trump as he left the gathering.…

Last week the mayor of London heaped praise on the president of Syria for liberating Palmyra, and thereby saving its prized antiquities from ISIS. In his column for the Telegraph, Boris Johnson wrote that he knows “Assad is a monster, a dictator. He barrel-bombs his own people. His jails are full…

Slate’s legal correspondent, Dahlia Lithwick, has had it up to here with Senate Republicans, who are refusing to hold hearings on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, with the presidential election so soon. Something must be done, she claims, and, well, here's something:

The invention of the smartphone has resolved a primeval fear of our species: What do you do when you’re out in public and forgot to bring something to read? Until a few years ago, the thought of facing a subway train, or the line at an ATM, or the waiting room at the Jiffy Lube, launched a…

When I come upon an artist, a philosopher, a scientist, a statesman, an athlete I admire, I find myself interested in his or her background, which is to say in their biography, in the hope of discovering what in their past made possible their future eminence. I find it more than a touch difficult…

In Batman v. Superman, the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel try to kill each other. In the sequel, they should team up and kill the people who made Batman v. Superman. Its filmmakers and the executives who hired them run the gamut from the unspeakably cynical to the astoundingly pretentious…

Just three years ago, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that, by the end of this century, sea-levels will rise somewhere between 1.7 and 3.22 feet. A new report has found, however, that prediction may be off by some 3 feet. "Study jolts sea-rise predictions" the…

Nearly 50,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2014, the latest year for which there are statistics, with heroin overdose deaths alone increasing 440 percent over the previous seven years. On March 29, at an Atlanta summit on drug overdose deaths, President Barack Obama acknowledged that more…

Over the years The Scrapbook has learned how to read President Obama. In a word, carefully. Consider, for example, a statement he made in the course of nominating Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court:

In the closing pages of Yvor Winters’s Forms of Discovery (1968), the great poet and critic offers measured praise of the work of one of his former students. In Catherine Davis's best poems, "the matter is serious" and "the style is impeccable." Winters had long argued that poetry was an…

In a famous episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza concludes that every instinct he’s had, every decision he's made, has been wrong and that he should henceforth do the opposite of what he had routinely been doing. He implements this new philosophy and promptly manages to entice an attractive woman…

Based on the delegate counts, it seems we may not feel the Bern past this summer—except in one important regard: Bernie Sanders has made socialism reputable in America. Call it the afterBern.

In the good old days, Democrats would complain about the invasion of Madison Avenue into the sacred precincts of politics (see The Selling of the President 1968 by Joe McGinniss). But those days are long gone; and, in fact, our Democratic friends have long since mastered the techniques of…

THE SURPRISINGLY GOOD GUYS LIST, II Last week on this page, we launched The Surprisingly Good Guys List--as a way to recognize people we assumed would be chattering asses but who have turned out not to be. The response to our invitation for nominations from readers was overwhelming. Every single…

My two years as a U.S. Army draftee expired, as it happened, during the Tet offensive, in early February 1968. The South Vietnamese Army base in the Mekong Delta I had called home for eleven months was attacked, but not with any great effectiveness, so when the time came to return to civilian life…

Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam

House speaker Paul Ryan is not running for president. That became clear several months after the 2012 election, in which Ryan was Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate. At two private dinners, a prominent Republican introduced Ryan to a bipartisan group of influential policy intellectuals…

‘Americans and Europeans alike sometimes forget how unique is the United States of America," Margaret Thatcher said. "No other nation has been built upon an idea—the idea of liberty." This is the essence of American exceptionalism. The American identity and national bond are based not just on a…

A new Fox Business poll of the Wisconsin GOP presidential primary shows Ted Cruz leading Donald Trump 42 percent to 32 percent, with John Kasich in third place at 19 percent. Cruz leads Trump among nearly every demographic group except for independents: