491 articles
The two most powerful Republicans in Congress say the memory of Army captain Humayun Khan, a Muslim-American soldier who died in Iraq in 2004, should be honored and valued—but both stopped short of criticizing the GOP nominee for president, Donald Trump. Khan's parents spoke out against Trump's…
Donald Trump insulted a Gold Star family who spoke at the Democratic National Convention, denied a years-long incursion by Russia into Ukraine, and voiced support for the Russian annexation of Crimea in a single interview Sunday.
Hillary Clinton said Sunday that there was no contradiction between her claims that she did not send classified information from her private email server and the FBI's findings that she did.
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Fred Barnes and Vic Matus join host Eric Felten to discuss the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
This week, we learned Bill Clinton LOVES balloons, Bernie Sanders lost his speech, and Terry McAuliffe lets loose.
Hillary Clinton had an opportunity Thursday night to make the electoral map a mad scramble. For months, we've heard about Donald Trump's Rust Belt strategy, by which he would parlay a blue-collar coalition into blue-state pickups like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. For three days this week,…
Saturday's must-read: Harvey Mansfield in the Wall Street Journal, "Why Donald Trump is No Gentleman."
Reviews and News:
How did it get to this point?
Philadelphia
In 1965 the average CEO earned 20 times what the average worker took home. Now, with globalization expanding the reach of CEOs and depressing the wages of factory-floor workers, that ratio is over 300-to-1. This rise in inequality has caused critics of the American capitalist system to begin to…
Hillary Clinton recycled a misquotation of Alexis de Tocqueville Thursday night, minus the misattribution. "[I]n the end, it comes down to what Donald Trump doesn't get: that America is great—because America is good," she said.
As fans of My Big Fat Greek Wedding know, virtually anything worthwhile in life is very ancient and very Greek. My dad understood this, and was understandably surprised when he walked into a rheumatology conference several years ago to be confronted by a flashy display featuring "newly approved"…
In an interview with free speech advocacy group FIRE, George Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin, Richard Pryor's daughter Rain, and Lenny Bruce's daughter Kitty confirm their dads would have a few choice words on today's "thought police."
The festival of Philadelphia celebrated the wonderful present and the even more fantastic future and the festivities went on well into the night. Then came morning and a bucket of cold water from the Commerce Department.
If Bill Clinton truly did fall asleep during his wife's speech at the Democratic convention on Thursday night, you can hardly blame him. And that's not (only) because of the soporific content of the remarks. Rather, Clinton's speech went late into the night, not wrapping up until around midnight,…
Tim Kaine has moved sharply to the left on the issue of abortion over the last 10 years, but there remains some confusion over where the Democratic vice presidential nominee stands on the issue of federal funding of abortion.
Perhaps he had some intimation that he would soon be dead. He’d seen the Persians sack Athens and had fought against Darius at Marathon and Xerxes at Salamis, but when Aeschylus submitted what would be his last plays to Athens's prestigious public festival, his theme was neither war nor empire but…
TWO DAYS AFTER the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson opened themselves to national condemnation by declaring that the terrorists’ success was a direct judgment of God, visited upon the United States for the sins of abortionists, feminists,…
The day after endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, Bernie Sanders was asked a question he didn’t welcome. Did he believe Clinton could be trusted to enact a left-wing agenda if elected? Sanders ducked. "Sorry, I'm not going to get into the trusted or not." The questioner wanted him "to…
A beautifully carved marble votive relief of Asklepios, the god of medicine, leaning on his staff welcomes us as we enter The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander at the National Geographic Museum. The noble procession of the god and his children confronting a group of worshippers echoes, on a small…
What’s it like to be in the heart of a jihadist? He called her his "baby." Each morning she awoke to a string of missed Skype calls asking where she was. They talked for hours each night. "He" was Abu Bilel, the French right-hand man of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and she was an undercover reporter he…
The Alien and Sedition Acts almost strangled the American republic shortly after its birth. Terri Diane Halperin, who teaches at the University of Richmond, has written a lucid and concise account of a controversy whose importance to American history is not to be underestimated.
Donald Trump is guilty of a lot of reckless and irresponsible rhetoric. Most of this can be chalked up to his nature, but it doesn’t help that the media tend to reward him with excitable coverage, further encouraging him. Indeed, their selective outrage over Trump's remarks often seems to give him…
Tokyo
The Weekly Standard has a full-time senior position available for a talented individual with digital media, social media, and editorial expertise. This individual will be a key contributor to all of The Weekly Standard’s online efforts. Duties will include maximizing the reach and influence of…
Hillary Clinton officially secured the Democratic party’s nomination for president last week, placing her one step closer to the job she has been doggedly pursuing for almost 20 years.
The facts are by now widely known, if still not nailed down with precision. On Friday, July 22, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, a massive trove of emails purloined from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) by hackers was posted on WikiLeaks, the online bulletin board for leaked…
Excluding the foundations laid in Jerusalem and Athens, we’d hazard that no country's contribution to the causes of liberty and justice for all has been greater than England's. It was English barons at Runnymede who demanded their rights be protected from royal usurpation in the Magna Carta. It was…
Sherrod Brown was one of nine senators who addressed a luncheon on May 25 celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month. He spent the majority of his time at the podium, not surprisingly and not unlike most of his colleagues, extolling the American Jewish community for its contributions to the civil…
Back when I was 8 years old, my days would usually begin with my mom telling me to go stand in line at the small neighborhood shop. The line would have been there since before dawn, long before the shop would open, if it opened at all, because they had so little to sell. This was Chile in the early…
Fifty years ago, on September 8, 1966, Star Trek premiered on NBC. It struggled through 79 meh-rated episodes before it was cancelled. No one knew it would prove to be the most influential piece of American popular culture of the past half-century.
Per a settlement to a discrimination lawsuit approved by a California judge in late June, the dating website ChristianMingle.com is now adjusting its service to accommodate gay couples. The lawsuit claimed a violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on…
Philanthropy is on the rise in the United States, hitting a record $373 billion last year, according to the Giving Institute. And yet the image of charity is taking a beating during this election season, a campaign featuring a businessman remarkably stingy with his fortune and an entrenched…
After initial reports that the Nice attacker, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was a self-radicalized lone wolf, French prosecutors said last week that he had a group of accomplices. Like Lahouaiej Bouhlel, all had been living in France for several years, some with dual citizenship. As the threat of…
It’s unfair to say that athletes, and the people who discuss them, commit more penalties against the English language than anyone else in our culture—pop musicians, actors, politicians, and academics are all in foul trouble. But sports personalities have their own unique brand of cringeworthy…
The New York Times published a useful update last week on the horrific scale of the purges undertaken by Turkey’s strongman president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the aftermath of the coup attempt against him ("Failed Turkish Coup Accelerated a Purge Years in the Making," July 22).
Someone has played a rotten trick on the late Scoop Jackson. The legendary senator from the great state of Washington was a committed cold warrior who saw the Soviet Union for the evil empire it was, and until his death in 1983 used all his powers of persuasion to drag the McGovernized Democratic…
Let’s make America great again, you say? We'd settle for making the Constitution great again. That's been a goal of Republicans for years, and it's a worthy one. It is essential, in fact, to making America great again.
In a contest for the best novels of the past four centuries, the winners, surely, are: for the 17th century, Don Quixote; for the 18th century, Tom Jones; for the 19th, War and Peace; and for the 20th, Remembrance of Things Past, or as it is now increasingly known in English, In Search of Lost…
For a minute or two last week, over coffee in a working-class bakery in Massachusetts, I recovered my optimism about the human race. To say working-class might be a stretch. It was in a gentrifying neighborhood once inhabited by factory workers. It had an Italian name. Everyone was welcoming,…
Depressed? We feel your pain. It’s not great to be living through the worst presidential matchup ever. And it's not a cheerful thought that one of these two horrendous candidates is very likely to be our next president.
The same day the Hillary Clinton campaign store introduced a new collection of pins designed by various artists and graphic designers, The Forty-Five Pin Project, the collection is already one short. Within hours of listing the collection Thursday, the pins designated by Polish artist Agniezka…
Reviews and News:
Have you ever stayed at a hotel that was so dingy, dirty, and broken down that, when you returned home, you felt like you just had to take a shower? I did—last weekend, in fact. And this one bears the name of the GOP's nominee for president of the United States of America.
Philadelphia
On Thursday, Khizr M. Khan, the father of Army Captain Humayun Khan, addressed the Democratic convention.
PHILADELPHIA — At the Democratic National Committee I ran into Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor and Libertarian Party nominee for president. Here's a transcript of our conversation, edited for clarity, and reorganized thematically.
Philadelphia
So in this time of populist resentment and political gridlock comes a man to deliver us. His name is Evan Bayh and he is from Indiana … sort of.
Is there any politician as ill-suited to a city as Hillary Clinton is to Philadelphia?
Philadelphia
Donald Trump's promotional team has a new web ad up on sites including Politico.com. In keeping with the GOP candidate's strange affinity for Russia, the ad has a certain uncanny resemblance to a Lenin classic.
The Obama administration's latest assault on for-profit colleges—a broadened borrower-defense-to-repayment rule from the Department of Education—could have quite a few collateral victims. First of all, the rule is broad enough to rain down costly lawsuits on traditional, nonprofit colleges as well…
Philadelphia
President Obama brazenly overplayed Hillary Clinton's experience in his 2016 DNC speech Wednesday night.
Many sorrowful conservatives observed after President Obama’s speech Wednesday night that Democrats, not Republicans, are the party trumpeting American greatness and optimism this year. To hear some tell it, John Winthrop was in the house. "American exceptionalism and greatness, shining city on…
The Second City comic team on display at the Kennedy Center for The Second City's Almost Accurate Guide to America is a good one. Ryan Asher, Marla Ceceres, Tyler Davis, Sayjal Joshi, Andrew Knox, and Ross Taylor are all excellent comic actors, with impeccable timing, quick wits, and charming stage…
"Within the context of the times it is clear that 'all men' was a euphemism for 'humanity,' and thus those people, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, who used the Declaration of Independence to demand equality for African Americans and women seized the…
As Jonathan Last recounts, Barack Obama's speech Wednesday night was the most motivated, focused, and impassioned address that he has given in some time And that certainly isn't due to his long-time love of Hillary Clinton. Rather, with Donald Trump having pulled even—or slightly ahead—in the…
Philadelphia
As Hillary Clinton prepared this week to become the first woman in U.S. history to be nominated for president by a major political party, her campaign reposted a video ad on Twitter originally produced by the Hillary for President campaign late in 2015. The ad, titled "44 boys is too many",…
Reviews and News:
A class action lawsuit against the Motion Picture Association of America—claiming "tobacco imagery" in Hollywood movies brainwashes our youth—would have every film with as much as puff receive an R rating.
Finally, something went right for the Democrats in Philadelphia on Wednesday night.
Even though Democrats, activists and the media insist campus sexual assault is such an "epidemic" we have to eviscerate due process rights to solve it, there has been little mention of the issue at the Democratic National Convention.
Philadelphia
Philadelphia
The deputy director of the Democratic National Committee opposed issuing a statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day earlier this year—because then the DNC might have to issue statements commemorating the mass murder in Darfur and Rwanda, too. Gosh, genocide can be such a bother sometimes!
Philadelphia
Philadelphia
The twin pillars of the administration's environmental policy have collapsed, but the Democratic platform is calling for a doubling down on that policy of regulation and subsidization in order to achieve "climate justice" and transform America into a "clean energy superstar". Nothing less. The…
Philadelphia
On Wednesday, Donald Trump addressed concerns that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's emails for his benefit.
Former President Bill Clinton spoke Tuesday evening at the Democratic National Committee Convention in Philadelphia, the same night his wife Hillary received the Democratic nomination for president. Around that time or shortly thereafter, the Donald Trump campaign website briefly added a press…
What's weirder, praising Donald Trump's feminism or denouncing first-female-presidential nominee (it's historic, haven't you heard?) Hillary Clinton's anti-feminist ways? Moreover, when both presidential nominees are evidently "gender neutral" in their self-serving blind ambition, who really cares?
Reviews and News:
Five years after the collapse of MF Global, a settlement will soon be reached between Jon Corzine, the former CEO of the now-bankrupt brokerage firm, and customers who claim their funds were wrongfully used to offset the shortfall, making those accounts unavailable to them. Although Corzine and his…
Philadelphia
Long-range ballistic missile capability has traditionally been a tough nut to crack, reserved for superpowers and the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Not only is the telemetry and rocket technology prohibitively difficult to master, but the process of building a nuclear weapon small…
In a congressional race in which Ted Cruz clashed with House Republican leaders, the former mayor of West Point, Georgia, captured the GOP primary Tuesday and is all but certain of winning the general election in November.
You may not remember this, but four years ago Bill Clinton spoke on the third night of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. And it turned out to be the hinge of the campaign against Mitt Romney.
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer John McCormack on former president Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Philadelphia
Philadelphia
Philadelphia
On Tuesday, the boss talked with Andrea Mitchell about the importance of not underestimating Donald Trump and the value of speeches at the Democratic convention.
As of 5:00 P.M. EST on Tuesday, FiveThirtyEight's state-by-state, polls-only forecast for the November 8 general election showed a projected tally of 269 electoral votes for Hillary Clinton and 269 for Donald Trump. FiveThirtyEight projects Trump to win all 24 of the states that Mitt Romney won,…
It is a fact well known to every student of the Constitution that the Framers' fourth national institution—the presidential selection system—never functioned as intended. Yet the 2016 presidential election keeps bringing the Framers' concerns to the forefront, as we lose control of every item on…
Philadelphia
Anthony Weiner called Hillary Clinton "the most accomplished" U.S. presidential candidate since the nation's first president Tuesday.
Philadelphia
A Texas district judge, on Tuesday July 26, tossed out the last remaining charges against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, the anti-abortion activists whose undercover video last August accused Planned Parenthood of trafficking in fetal tissue.
The boss spoke to ABC News about the Democratic convention so far and which events at the convention will have an impact that lasts past the next few days.
In Scott Pelley's joint interview with the Democratic ticket, the CBS anchor asked Hillary Clinton some questions about the leaked DNC emails where top Democratic party officials are conspiring to smear her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders. The question produced some startling answers from Clinton,…
The Kremlin snapped back Tuesday at allegations that Russia hacked the Democratic party's email database to sway the U.S. election—without denying the Russian government was behind the attack.
During morning mass Tuesday, two ISIS terrorists stormed a Catholic church in France and killed an 86 year-old priest. Another person was seriously wounded. Monday afternoon, German authorities announced that a suicide bomb attack in Ansbach was perpetrated by a man pledging allegience ISIS leader…
Washington, D.C., isn't the only place where the separation of powers and constitutional forms are under attack. In Virginia, Governor Terry McAuliffe was rebuked by his state's Supreme Court on Friday for his attempt to circumvent the language of the Virginia Constitution—and the will of the…
Reviews and News:
Day one of the Democratic convention was dominated by disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporters. The protested in the city; they chanted and booed inside the arena. And so even though 90 percent of Sanders voters now say they're supporting Hillary Clinton, the Sanders vanguard was still fighting.
Philadelphia
When accepting the Republican nomination in Cleveland last week, Donald Trump said:
Philadelphia
Philadelphia
Philadelphia
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with online editor Michael Warren on the Bernie disruptions on opening day of the DNC.
Philadelphia
In a crass display, even by 2016's low, low standards, Katie McGinty, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, called her Republican opponent Senator Pat Toomey an "a--hole" on Monday.
Last week, at several points during the Republican convention, the crowd erupted into chants of "Lock Her Up!" in reference to Hillary Clinton. To say that the media found this distasteful and worthy of stern fingerwagging, would be an understatement. See "The GOP's new convention theme: 'Lock her…
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus floated a conscience exception Monday afternoon for Democratic convention delegates upset by the party's meddling on behalf of Hillary Clinton during the primary.
Philadelphia
At a rally sprinkled with anti-Democratic National Committee and anti-Hillary Clinton signs on Monday in Philadelphia, Bernie Sanders implored his supporters to vote for Clinton and Tim Kaine.
The email hack of Democratic National Committee officials has widened to include the personal account of a staffer researching Donald Trump advisor Paul Manafort's Russian political ties, according to a report from Yahoo's Michael Isikoff.
Outgoing Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke through unceasing crowd noise and jeers at a delegate breakfast for her state Monday morning, spinning the tremendous "interest" in her remarks into a plug for Florida.
The boss published some thoughts on Donald Trump's chances on Twitter Monday morning. He explained why Trump's messaging, though at a "6th-grade level," could prove to work well for him.
The Democratic party has been plunged into turmoil over an email focusing on, of all things, whether or not Bernie Sanders believes in God. It's a remarkable turn of events, considering that Sanders has tried so hard to avoid talking about that very subject.
Donald Trump is leading Hillary Clinton in one new poll and tied with her another. Both polls were taken after the Republican National Convention, giving Trump an overall lead of 0.2 percentage points over Clinton in the Real Clear Politics average of polls. This marks Trump's first RCP lead since…
Reviews and News:
Last Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry met in Washington with leaders of forty-five nations to discuss the Islamic State, which he calls "ISIL," and terrorism. Refering to that meeting, Kerry said Friday during a remarks at the Vienna International Center in Austria that working on climate…
In an article and podcast posted Sunday, Politico's Glenn Thrush interviewed the boss about 2016.
Philadelphia
This week, Chris Christie played it off like he wasn't heartbroken that Donald Trump picked Mike Pence over him. People had some ridiculous analogies for Ted Cruz. Finally, what the hell was going on with the RNC playlist?
With the United Kingdom thrown into chaos after last month's Brexit vote—the pound plunged, Scotland suggested secession, the elites lost it—it's reassuring to learn there's one thing you can count on: Eddy and Patsy are still showing us that "politically correct" can be not just a way of speaking…
Donald J. Trump is the presidential nominee of the Republican party. But that does not absolve every Republican office holder, donor, and activist from the responsibility of satisfying himself that it is right to support that nominee for president. There are, in my judgment, many reasons to doubt…
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab with Eric Felten and Victorino Matus, recapping the gala GOP Convention.
Cleveland
Cleveland
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Hillary's VP pick, Virginia's Tim Kaine.
When news broke that Hillary Clinton had chosen Virginia senator Tim Kaine to be her running mate, NARAL (the group formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League) showered praise on Kaine for maintaining a "100% pro-choice voting record in the U.S. Senate." Despite saying that he's a…
If you're curious how Donald Trump could win the election, just game out what the Democrats should do in Philadelphia next week versus what they probably will do.
Reviews and News:
July 12 just might have been the day on which the retail sector as we have known it here in America came to its end. If not its end, surely the beginning of its end. Amazon has an estimated 54 million Prime customers in the U.S. who pay $99 per year, and millions more around the world who pay about…
Cleveland
The New York Times reports:
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Donald Trump's convention speech and about spending a week at the RNC Convention.
In his Thursday night convention speech, Peter Thiel cribbed his same old thesis but Trump-style.
It is a rare book that features appearances by Albert Camus, Willa Cather, and H. L. Mencken, but—alas—an even rarer book that squanders such a captivating cast of characters. The work of the aforementioned authors, along with that of dozens of others, was released by the husband-and-wife…
Last week, President Barack Obama’s administration dismissed reports of Iranian support for al Qaeda as the product of fevered minds. Claims of collaboration between the Islamic regime and the terrorist organization are little more than "baseless conspiracy theories," an Obama administration…
Among several things Alexander Astin’s impassioned new study sets in italics is this disconcerting observation: "Most of the students who end up in college are [about] average or even below average." That is, the main business of most colleges and universities is educating average or below average…
Politics is a team sport. Ronald Reagan understood that. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell treat politics as a team effort. Ted Cruz isn’t a team player.
There was a remarkable moment on CNN July 21, the morning after Senator Ted Cruz’s speech to the Republican National Convention. Representative Peter King, a Trump enthusiast, had called Cruz an "a—hole," and when CNN hosts asked Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer about King's…
Two years ago, students and administrators successfully obstructed a debate about abortion at Oxford. Last year, Stanford students tried to cancel a campus conference on the sexual revolution. Mary Eberstadt argues that groups at each university, separated by an ocean and a continent, joined ranks…
At a meeting of the National Association of Science Writers in New York in 1954, the chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission laid out his vision for a nuclear-powered future. Famines would be the stuff of history, Lewis Strauss said; people would “travel effortlessly over the seas and under…
Each summer, my wife and children head up to Connecticut to spend a week with my in-laws. Believe me, I’d love to join them for a fun-filled week of swimming, cookouts, and cocktails—or as Jack Nicholson put it in As Good As It Gets, "good times, noodle salad." Alas, I am stuck in our nation's…
The worst thing I have ever done on a bicycle was race after a car that had just run a red light and nearly run me down. Pedaling like Lance Armstrong after a fresh IV of oxygen-rich blood, I caught up to the beat-up Toyota at the next pause in traffic, banged on its roof, and then, in a ridiculous…
‘A vote for anyone other than Donald Trump in November is a vote for Hillary," the governor of Wisconsin has spent the week of the Republican convention robotically repeating. "It's a binary choice," the speaker of the House keeps on telling us, in his less colloquial, more game-theoretical…
Pamela Haag calls gun makers “merchants of death." And America's love affair with guns, she says, didn't really start until the late 1800s, when the "merchants of death" convinced Americans that they wanted guns. She describes how gun makers were innovators in advertising, using promotional…
NOW THAT EVERYONE AGREES we are at "war," it is time to think seriously about what that means. The usual voices—from the European Union and its various agents of influence in America—warn us about the importance of "international cooperation." Americans who are eager to fight back may be tempted,…
It was the decade of hot jazz and short skirts. Knowing what we now know about the 1920s, the Jazz Age can feel at times like the Decameron, with beautiful people dancing on the edge of oblivion. Even though liquor, wine, and beer were prohibited, thanks to the Eighteenth Amendment, the nation kept…
It was the mayhem that made Theresa May. Britain’s unexpected vote to leave the EU crushed financial markets and plunged some Remainers into angry, unhinged, and tellingly snobbish mourning: It was, one author explained, "the revenge of the Brownshirts, a dictatorship of the illiterate and the…
Donald Trump has been nominated and, who knows, may even be elected. Leaving us a last, forlorn hope that—following General Sherman's immortal formulation—he might choose not to serve. So we might as well get started with the recriminations and guilt. Whose fault is it?
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent outburst against Donald Trump has been roundly criticized by people of all political stripes. Insofar as her comments suggested a clear bias about cases that could come before the Supreme Court, they were clearly a mistake and a departure from the norms of Court…
He was just 36 years old when he gave what was, according to many historians, the greatest political speech in American history. Certainly it was a success in making him not merely famous but also the presidential candidate of the Democratic party. Youth was not the only apparent handicap he needed…
Last week’s big stories tended to drown out another big story that should not go unnoticed. For the third time in eight months, a Baltimore police officer who had been tried in the death of Freddie Gray was acquitted of all charges. (A fourth policeman's case ended last December in a hung jury,…
The main tropes and mechanisms of “reality" television lend themselves awfully well to the world of politics. Just take Survivor (the groundbreaking series produced by Mark Burnett, who, tired of living in jungles while filming, would go on to create a New York-based show called The Apprentice).…
Madrid
Ayatollah Khamenei, the "Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution," commemorated the end of Ramadan with a lengthy anti-American, antisemitic screed. Khamenei has repeatedly accused the West and Israel, rather than Muslim-majority forces, of sponsoring violence in the region, and the title of his…
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Hillary Clinton’s It Takes a Village, and given what's written there, Clinton must be sorry she isn't running for president of Scotland. After all, the Scots have been rolling out a law that implements much of her argument, namely that government—or "the…
The American foreign policy community is up in arms because Donald Trump told the New York Times he is disdainful of NATO. They’re right to be upset, but where were they when Barack Obama helped put Russia on NATO's Turkish border with his Syria policy?
It is an ordinary summer day in northern Syria, in 2013. No barrel bombs filled with shrapnel that indiscriminately kill all living things; just a few artillery shells that no one pays much attention to. Suddenly a bomb hits close to a house where members of the Free Syrian Army are drinking tea.…
Reviews and News:
We can pretend that Hillary Clinton's vice presidential pick matters, but it doesn't. In fact, it may matter even less than usual. Very few voters like or trust Clinton, so instead the campaign is turning into referendum on Donald Trump.
First came the studies saying red meat was good for you. Then came news that butter should be embraced over margarine. It's okay to eat eggs again. Now comes word that, based on a recent study, pasta is not the carb-laden villain we once knew. To the contrary, it can be an essential part of your…
Cleveland
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on Trump's convention speech.
Cleveland
Cleveland
Ted Cruz's speech Wednesday night was an impressive endorsement of conservatism, the Constitution, and liberty—and an equally impressive non-endorsement of Donald Trump. It was, in other words, a conservative version of Ted Kennedy's "Dream Will Never Die" speech, given at the 1980 Democratic…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with deputy online editor Chris Deaton on Mike Pence's address to the GOP convention.
Cleveland
Byron York has an interesting piece Thursday about the Trump team's bizarre eagerness to get into a fight with John Kasich. You should read the whole thing, but the short version is this: Kasich, either out of pique or self-interest or principle, didn't want to participate in the convention in his…
Cleveland
Something is missing from the Republican National Convention YouTube page. The page includes Monday's live stream, and a link to Thursday's live stream, but not Tuesday's or Wednesday's.
Last month, when voters in the U.K. decided to exit the European Union, the pound plummeted and market chaos ensued. The media speculated as to which companies might pull out of the country. And everyone wondered how the referendum would impact the flow of immigration. But there's an even graver…
The Kremlin sidestepped Donald Trump's statement that the United States should not immediately come to the defense of NATO allies under attack, according to reports by Russian news outlets, instead criticizing the premise of the question that prompted his response.
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with contributing editor Charles Krauthammer on Ted Cruz's speech at the GOP convention.
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
Reviews and News:
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
CLEVELAND — As Mike Pence accepted the Republican Party's nomination for vice president, I witnessed a supporter of Donald Trump and a Ted Cruz backer in a nearly chest-to-chest shouting match in the back of the convention floor, fighting over Cruz's non-endorsement.
Cleveland
The Obama administration has sanctioned three senior al-Qaeda members operating in Iran just weeks after dismissing reports of cooperation between the global terror organization and the Islamic Republic, deepening criticism from experts and lawmakers that the administration is seeking to downplay…
Cleveland
From the Republican party platform: "Merit and hard work should determine advancement in our society, so we reject unfair preferences, quotas, and set-asides as forms of discrimination."
Cleveland
Cleveland
Well, it's finally here, the moment we've all been waiting for, when Donald Trump is formally enshrined as the face, the body, and the soul of the Republican party. I hope it works out for them ...
CNN's Maeve Reston reports that the staffer who helped Melania Trump write her plagiarized speech has offered her resignation.
Cleveland
Cleveland
On Tuesday night, House speaker Paul Ryan gave a surprisingly enthusiastic speech on behalf of Donald Trump, imploring Republicans to give it their all in 2016 and "unify this party" in the interest of achieving "a conservative governing majority."
Cleveland
Cleveland
Reviews and News:
CLEVELAND — Walk around the Republican convention and talk to Ohioans, to Republicans from around the country, and to party strategists about the feud between Donald Trump and John Kasich, and here's the short version of what you'll hear: Kasich is being a jerk, but Trump is crazy to fight with him.
One of the truths I've come to believe over the years in covering conventions is that they play differently in the hall than they do on TV. I'm not in Cleveland, so I can't tell you how it played to the room, but on the screen, Chris Christie's show-trial indictment of Hillary Clinton came across…
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
Under Article V of the Constitution, a constitutional amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress or by a special convention called by Congress on the application of two-thirds of the state legislatures. Thus, Congress controls one path for proposing amendments,…
Cleveland
Trumpism is a many splendored thing. It encompasses both support for the Iraq war and opposition to it. On a meta-level, it condemns supporters of the Iraq war and also forgives them.
The rulers of Saudi Arabia have announced a new program for cultural renovation of architecture associated with the life of Muhammad. As described in the leading pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat, a Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) has begun planning rehabilitation of sites in…
Law professor and legal commentator Richard A. Epstein has published a new article on legal rulings involving religious liberty in the Hoover Institution publication, Defining Ideas. Epstein's assessment of the reasoning behind a federal judge's injunction against a Mississippi law protecting…
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
For generations now, "If They'd Only Listened to Me" has served as the mythical title of the ultimate Washington memoir. The staffer/speechwriter/advisor/ex-close friend of a president/senator/ambassador lands a book contract and agrees to look back over his government service more in sorrow than…
Reviews and News:
Cleveland
In Celebration of Paul Mellon, a showcase of the great philanthropist's "most treasured works on paper," is a fine collection of art by the great American, English, and French masters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There isn't much linking the pieces at this exhibition at the National…
Art Laffer is a famous economist, one of the brains behind President Ronald Reagan's supply-side tax cuts in 1981. But he was also a political adviser to Reagan and other presidential candidates. Based on history rather than polls or demographics, he insists Donald Trump will win the presidential…
Cleveland
On Twitter, Jarrett Hill noted a big problem in Melania Trump's Republican National Convention speech. It was First Lady Michelle Obama's.
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
Fox News's Bret Baier asked General Mike Flynn, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, about surprising details in his book on Monday.
Cleveland
Cleveland
Cleveland
As grounds either for having children or for having an irreversible vasectomy, these words from Christopher Hitchens have remained with me a long time: "Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened" as fatherhood, he wrote. "[I]t's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to…
Arkansas senator Tom Cotton defended Donald Trump's track record of receiving false and misleading ratings from fact checkers Monday.
House speaker Paul Ryan said Donald Trump is "not my kind of conservative" Monday, as he tried to explain the ideology of the presumptive GOP nominee for president.
Cleveland
Cleveland
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with literary editor Philip Terzian on good books to read at the GOP Convention.
CLEVELAND — A coalition of gadfly delegates will try to slow proceedings at the start of the Republican National Convention this afternoon. There is no robust push to stop Donald Trump from becoming the nominee (that was effectively quashed last week); instead, they will push to have a roll call…
Cleveland
President Barack Obama opined that Republicans are on the verge of ruining the Supreme Court nominating process for all time, writing in the Wall Street Journal that their treatment of Merrick Garland "will effectively nullify the ability of any president from the opposing party to make an…
Reviews and News:
On Sunday, 60 Minutes aired a joint interview with Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Mike Pence. After Trump suggested that as president he would declare war on ISIS, Lesley Stahl noted, "but we did go to war, if you remember. We went to Iraq."
The new episode of Conversations With Bill Kristol features National Review senior editor Jonah Goldberg, who talks with the boss about the state of conservative in the era of Trump, his updated assessment of the insights in his book Liberal Fascism, and the prospects of a political realignment.…
Pictures From a Convention
Cleveland
Cleveland
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Eric Felten talks with Fred Barnes about Hillary's Foundational Corruption, Mark Hemingway discusses the mile high Senate race, and Terry Eastland talks about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.
Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political scientist, has published a predictive model of presidential elections for decades. Through three simple factors—economic growth, presidential job approval, and tenure of the incumbent party—Abramowitz explains most of the variation in presidential…
This week, Pokémon ruined everything, and then politics ruined Pokémon. There was lots of weirdness surrounding Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Finally, there now exists a perfect gift for the renegade in your life.
In yet another installment of "nothing new under the sun," the Fordham Institute has put out a survey-analysis assessing the controversial Common Core math standards. As the first of its kind, the survey of teachers' reactions to the overhaul-alignment of American public schools is overdue and…
Hillary Clinton is with it.
The coup against the Turkish government has reportedly been put down. It's almost a day after a faction of the Turkish military attempted to topple the government by closing bridges, sending tanks out in to the street, firing missiles at protestors from helicopters, and arresting a number of…
Reviews and News:
Recently, I attended a marvelous performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with my twin three-year-olds, a one-year-old, and my wife.
Before this year's string of tournaments began, fans of professional golf were talking about the arrival of three "young guns." And it was excited talk—as golf talk goes. It had been some time since the game had the kind of rivalry at the top that these three promised. The prospect of Rory McIlroy,…
Polls show that we are approaching our date with the November 8 election as a 50-50 America when it comes to choosing between a self-styled billionaire who might initiate a major war if some foreign leader insults him, and a woman whom the FBI has demonstrated has not even a passing acquaintance…
One thing that it would seem nearly all conservatives and/or Republicans could agree upon is that, in the midst of a crime uptick and in the waning months of a soft-on-crime liberal presidency, now is not the time to pass "criminal justice reform" of that president's liking. But apparently that's…
“La Marseillaise," the French national anthem, was originally sung by the Revolutionary Army as it marched forth to defend "la république" against European monarchies who wished to quash the revolution as soon as it began. It's a song of war, calling Frenchmen to take up arms against "foreign…
In this first episode of the new WEEKLY STANDARD podcast Kristol Clear, editor Bill Kristol speaks with host Michael Graham about the fallout from this week's terrorist attack in Nice, Mike Pence's selection as Donald Trump's running mate, and the upcoming convention in Cleveland.
At the Resurgent, a publication of conservative radio talk-show host Erick Erickson, a number of leaders in the "Never Trump" confederation have a thorough rundown of why Donald Trump should not be the Republican nominee or the president of the United States.
A preeminent Israeli missile expert criticized the Obama administration for weaknesses in the Iran nuclear deal signed last summer, telling THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the agreement allows Iran to explain away its attempts to procure missiles with nuclear capabilities.
The late mayor Marion Barry called the D.C. streetcar project "ill-planned, ill-thought-out, ill-engineered, ill-everything," a statement with which few would disagree. After a 54-year hiatus, the streetcar is back in action, offering commuters the nostalgia of a sluggish transit service with a…
In 2010, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives. One of the Republicans re-elected that year was Mike Pence, for a sixth term. During his campaign, Pence gave major speeches about the presidency and the Constitution, a key point of which was that President Obama was a poor…
It seems that Obamacare is not enough for the law's namesake. In a lengthy journal article published Monday, President Obama called on Congress to revisit the policy of allowing Americans to buy government-run insurance plans, an idea that was scrapped during original consideration of the…
Not long ago, a slick, viral video appeared in my Facebook feed. Produced by Al Jazeera Plus, it featured a woman named Amaryllis Fox talking about what she had learned working for the CIA. I was frankly alarmed by a lot of what she said.
Thursday night NBC Nightly News aired Bill Neely's "exclusive" interview with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. As Neely later explained, he's been angling for an interview with Assad for 5 years, and finally it came through.
Move over Will Ferrell and Frank Caliendo! Donald Trump's reported VP pick Indiana Governor Mike Pence is apparently really good at doing impressions of former President George W. Bush.
Early Friday Donald Trump tweeted that he has, in fact chosen Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate.
Jay Nordlinger writes a brief but poignant reflection on Thursday night's massacre of nearly 100 innocents in Nice, France. Here's Nordlinger at National Review Online:
Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday in Moscow, a meeting that stretched to one in the morning, according to Kerry. Although the session centered on Syria and restoring the "cessation of hostilities", spokesperson John Kirby noted that Kerry also raised…
Reviews and News:
THE CHATTERING ASSES Four-fifths of the British public support a war against global terrorism. Three-quarters approve of George W. Bush’s leadership. But don’t tell the chattering classes. The Guardian, Britain’s leading liberal paper and house organ of the intellectual class, has become a hotbed…
The Scrapbook was amused to see a poll this week from the digital marketing firm Fluent, reporting that 46 percent of voters say they’ve seen a "Trump for President" TV ad—despite the fact that no such ads have run. In fact, Trump's imaginary ads have been seen by nearly as many voters as have seen…
The Weekly Standard has a full-time senior position available for a talented individual with digital media, social media, and editorial expertise. This individual will be a key contributor to all of The Weekly Standard’s online efforts. Duties will include maximizing the reach and influence of…
The death this month of Elie Wiesel left a gaping moral and historical void that widens daily as the ranks of the generation of Holocaust survivors continues to thin. But in The Nazi Hunters, Andrew Nagorski fills that void, blending key documentary evidence with over 50 interviews of central…
A bit past the midpoint of the last century, roughly from early 1967 to late 1969, a sizable number of human beings believed that Paul McCartney was the coolest man who ever lived. Compared with your average world-historical claim, this one was not unreasonable.
Call it déjà vu, call it old whine in new bottles, call it a tale thrice told, perhaps by an idiot; there are a lot of things one can call this Republican political season, but new is not one of them. Been-there-done-that might be more like it.
"Advocates for poor people and progressive causes say they still plan to make a stink—literally—during Hillary Clinton's big night accepting the Democratic presidential nomination this month.
One of the stranger incidents in the modern history of the Supreme Court unfolded this past week when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told a New York Times reporter, “I can't imagine what the country would be with Donald Trump as our president," and was accelerated with a further dose of acid about…
Jonas Karlsson’s new novel begins with an annoyance: An astronomically large invoice arrives for an unnamed narrator. "A scam!" our hero thinks. "A mistake!" he thinks again. Many would dissolve immediately into irritation, but our hero merely chuckles it off and goes about his simple, content day.
President Obama’s self-described "rant" in front of the Canadian prime minister the other week included one more encore of the same drum solo that Candidate Clinton pounds out nonstop: that progressives do a better job of taking care of the poor and needy than . . . well, anyone else. The…
London
Since Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February, the Obama administration and its allies have insisted that a failure to confirm D.C. circuit judge Merrick Garland to replace him would result in chaos. In the absence of an odd number of justices, the story went, the Supreme Court wouldn't be able…
Even when the New York Times is in a rare, truth-telling mode, it can’t help but fudge the discussion of terrorism, draping ugly reality in gauzy euphemism.
It's settled: The U.K. is in “uncharted territory." In the immediate wake of the British decision last month to leave the European Union, an aide to Prime Minister David Cameron got the mantra going, declaring, "We're in uncharted territory." The New York Times picked up the motif and proclaimed…
The Chilcot report on the Iraq war ought to elicit two emotions: sympathy and pity for former British prime minister Tony Blair. As was evident by late 2002, when Europeans saw the frightful resolve of George W. Bush and began earnestly debating how evil Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was and what…
It was Sunday, a month before Election Day 1932, and the Roosevelts were having a guest to lunch at their Hyde Park estate. When Eleanor Roosevelt greeted him at the door, the guest was dressed in a plaid suit that could politely be described as “loud." The suit was complemented by a pink tie and a…
Hillary Clinton may or may not be the all-around worst presidential nominee in the history of the Democratic party. That party has, over the years, thrown up some pretty unappealing characters. It’s also nominated candidates whose policies did (James Buchanan, Jimmy Carter) or would have done…
Some disputes simply cannot be resolved by rational debate but must be settled in the field, and by blood. Alabama and Auburn people can, for instance, argue 364 days of the year about which “program" is superior. Then, on the 365th, all the calls to Paul Finebaum's radio show will be forgotten and…
Colorado Springs
A transgender advocacy group known as the “Movement Advancement Project"—a name redundant on so many levels it's distracting—is paying to run an ad on Fox News during the Republican national convention. The ad features a transgender narrator being denied the use of a ladies' room and explaining…
Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to get this close to becoming president of the United States. Aaron Burr was corrupt, but his treason didn’t occur until after his presidential possibilities had dried up. Ulysses Grant was a great man whose administration was riddled with corruption,…
Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by healthy margins in four important swing states the Republican would need to win the White House. In Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, Clinton polls ahead of Trump, each by more than five points. That's according to the new survey of…
Cleveland
Donald Trump announced he was delaying an expected Friday announcement of his vice presidential pick that was slated to take place in New York. Trump made the announcement on Twitter:
A truck drove through a crowd of celebrants in the French city of Nice Thursday night, reportedly killing at least 60 people and injuring many more.
"Lemon laws are American state laws that provide a remedy for purchasers of cars and other consumer goods in order to compensate for products that repeatedly fail to meet standards of quality and performance," goes the Wikipedia definition. Republican delegates should study this carefully, as it…
Republican governor Mike Pence still has not filed the necessary paperwork to withdraw himself from the governor's race that would allow him to run for vice-president, two sources inside the Indiana secretary of state's office tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Hillary Clinton held a campaign rally in Virginia Thursday with a possible vice-presidential pick, senator Tim Kaine. The presumptive Democratic nominee for president also made a strained joke about the faddish video game Pokémon Go.
Donald Trump has reportedly picked Indiana governor Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate (though it's not quite official yet). On the surface, Pence comes off as a traditional conservative Republican, and his experience both in Congress and as a governor will round out Trump's relative…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on the reports that Donald Trump has chosen Indiana governor Mike Pence to be his vice presidential candidate.
Tim Duncan retired from professional basketball this week. This was no diva departure as we have become accustomed to in big-time sports, especially basketball. Duncan played hard until the final whistle the way he always did, and then he announced his retirement and included this in a letter of…
The Drudge siren is blaring that Mike Pence is Trump's VP pick. I'm not sure I believe it, though, for a couple reasons.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed "regret" Thursday morning for commenting on the presidential election in multiple recent interviews.
Donald Trump has selected Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate, according to two independent reports. Both Roll Call and the Indianapolis Star are reporting the first-term Republican governor and former congressman will be Trump's pick for the vice presidency. Here's the Star:
Cracking down on fraudulent recruiting materials put out by for-profit colleges—what could go wrong? A proposed rule from the Department of Education will expand "borrower defenses" and lengthen the list of who's eligible for debt-repayment under the Higher Education Act of 1965. But most of the…
Cleveland
Legend has it that during the Black Plague, superstitious Europeans started killing cats. The idea was that witches had caused the plague and cats were disguised devils, serving as the witches' "familiar spirits," ergo killing them would hurt the witches and hopefully spare people from the disease.
In the wake of multiple Tesla autopilot accidents—maybe more than we know of—the flim-flam futurist behind the electric car company and other science-fictional projects SpaceX and OpenAI teased a new "Master Plan" on Twitter.
Thursday marks the one year anniversary of the Iran nuclear deal with China, Russia, Germany, France, Great Britain, and the United States. The deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has been controversial since its inception. Critics say that the deal gives Iran far too…
Boeing executives are mischaracterizing Congressional efforts to block a controversial $25 billion aircraft sale to Iran, according to lawmakers who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD about statements by executives from the aerospace company.
Reviews and News:
Donald Trump had his best polling news of the summer when Quinnipiac released polls yesterday showing Trump tied or leading Hillary Clinton in three swing states. Trump and Clinton were tied in Ohio, while Trump led Clinton by two points in Pennsylvania and three points in Florida.
I got a chance to hunker down with the new issue of National Affairs over the weekend. (I was on a commuter train full of drunk, sunburned Millennials, going from the Jersey Shore to New York City on a Sunday night. This is, I think, the optimal setting in which to consume National Affairs.)
The Republican National Committee released a partial list of convention speakers Thursday morning. Among the named speakers are potential vice presidential picks Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Mike Flynn, and Scott Walker. But Indiana governor Mike Pence isn't named. A colleague asks: Does that…
Last month a federal district judge in Wyoming invalidated an Interior Department rule setting stricter standards for hydraulic fracturing ("fracking," in commin parlance) on public lands. The decision dealt a blow to the Obama administration's environmental agenda, and news coverage focused on…
The House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that aims to prevent the federal government from discriminating against healthcare providers that do not provide abortions.
Two new polls of important swing states finds Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump among registered voters.
Hillary Clinton has escaped indictment, but the FBI’s characterization of her as having been "extremely careless" in using multiple "personal servers" to send "Top Secret" emails—and as perhaps not having been "sophisticated enough" to understand classified markings while serving as U.S. secretary…
In my last essay, I made the moral case for why the delegates to the Republican convention in Cleveland should feel free to reject Donald Trump as the GOP nominee. Their function is not to reflexively obey the 45 percent of primary voters who supported Trump, sacrificing their best judgment for the…
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Donald Trump was in search of an "attack dog" as his running mate. As far as job descriptions go, that's akin to an accounting firm recruiting people who are "good with numbers"—it's obvious, and it's a prerequisite of the job. What's newsy is the…
Like many in the world of politics, I like to collect political bric a brac. Official Trump gear, like the hats, are commonplace these days, so you have to go to the entrepreneurs of America to get the really good stuff.
Bernie Sanders officially ended his improbable campaign to be the Democratic party's presidential nominee Tuesday. He did so with visible reluctance, which is both understandable and odd. He came close, which makes losing even harder. But he was never much of a Democrat to begin with. He had made a…
Three stories Wednesday morning out of Trump World on the vice presidential front. The first is CNN reporting that the Trump children want Mike Pence while Big Orange is leaning toward Christie. The second is the New York Times with a quote from Trump where he says that he has five finalists, two…
An ominous “What now?" hung in the air after the FBI circumvented intransigent Apple to hack the San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook's iPhone back in March. The FBI paid a third-party firm that had come forward offering to unlock the phone but wouldn't disclose its methods to the feds. Thus…
A new Quinnipiac poll shows Hillary Clinton losing her lead in swing states.
Rainy day fun in the gauzy summers of my youth often meant endless games of Clue. Nobody wanted to play as Mrs. White—Mrs. Peacock, Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, Mr. Green and Colonel Mustard are the more colorful characters. So if a glut of older kids joined us at the board, I got stuck in the…
Reviews and News:
Despite being one of the most celebrated chefs in the world—and hanging out with Anthony Bourdain—Eric Ripert still has a recurring nightmare. It involves his former boss, the legendary Joël Robuchon. When I interviewed Ripert last month for the Washington Free Beacon, we chatted at length about…
All of the hubbub over the Permanent Court of Arbitration's July 12 ruling that left China's "nine-dash line" in tatters and raised questions anew about Beijing's ability to become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international arena overlooked one vital factor: There's a new sheriff in town in…
On Tuesday, Republican senators Mike Lee of Utah and Ben Sasse of Nebraska spoke about their newly introduced ALLOW Act, which would stop the Washington, D.C. government from enacting excessive and arbitrary requirements for people to get jobs. They hope that states will follow their lead.
Al Qaeda operatives based in Iran worked on chemical and biological weapons, according to a letter written to Osama bin Laden that is described in a new book by a top former U.S. intelligence official.
The Obama administration did not brief top lawmakers about key details of an $8.6 million purchase of nuclear material from Iran for months after announcing the sale in April, according to interviews with multiple members of Congress.
While Washington elites spent Monday fussing about the merits of Mike Flynn versus Mike Pence, real America was rocked by leaked pictures of Lego's newest super set, the 71040 Disney Castle.
What a week for anniversaries! Thursday we'll be celebrating the first year of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It's Barack Obama's major foreign policy initiative, which ostensibly prevents Iran from a nuclear breakout, but in reality paves the way for the White House's realignment with the…
With fewer than than 48 hours until the 2016 Republican National Convention's Rules Committee convenes, a leading anti-Trump delegate is increasingly convinced she'll have the votes necessary to allow the delegates to vote their consciences when casting ballots for the GOP's presidential nominee.
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with deputy online editor and native Hoosier Chris Deaton on the Republican and Democratic Veepstakes.
Here's a matter on which elites and the general public sharply differ: affirmative action in higher education. Recall that on June 23 in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin II the Supreme Court upheld the school's use of race in admissions. Leaders at UT-A and competitive schools across the…
Why did Brexit win? Well, first bear in mind it's not unusual for the EU to lose referenda. Before the end of the Cold War, the only votes it lost were in Norway (1972) and Greenland (1973). But in 1992, the Maastricht Treaty almost lost in France (51.1 percent in favor) and did lose in Denmark…
On Tuesday, former President George W. Bush spoke at the memorial service for slain Dallas police officers.
The Trump campaign and the leadership of the Republican National Committee are working hard to pressure delegates to vote for Trump. The race is over, they say. The voters have rendered their judgment. Delegates do not have the right to nullify this verdict. Now is the time to rally around Trump…
Retired four-star admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO James Stavridis is being vetted as Hillary Clinton's running mate, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Reports indicate Indiana governor Mike Pence is well positioned to be Donald Trump's vice-presidential selection. But a Pence spokesman says the Republican remains "focused" on his reelection campaign.
A new report posted today by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), led by chair Rob Portman (R-OH) confirms that the U.S. State Department funded an Israeli political organization that later ran a campaign dedicated to ousting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
What happens when a major global power—one that will soon boast the world's largest economy to boot—refuses to accept legally "binding" arbitration decisions? We're about to find out.
Reviews and News:
A new NBC/SurveyMonkey poll reveals some weird insights, including that many of Hillary Clinton's own supporters think the FBI should have recommended prosecuting her for her email conduct.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal highlighted a study showing that people who tell good stories "are happier in life and in love." Yes, research was conducted to determine this. Specifically, "New research, published this month in the journal Personal Relationships, shows that women find…
Whether Donald Trump emerges from the Republican convention as the GOP presidential nominee is an open question at the moment. I happen to believe that he will; but it is theoretically possible that he will not—and we might well see a brokered convention, or a fractured convention, in Cleveland…
In marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of Justice Clarence Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court, lawyers and writers have rightly celebrated the judge's remarkable judicial opinions, especially the concurrences in dissents in which JThomas criticizes the Court for failing to vindicate the…
NBC News's First Read has the list of those "in the hunt" to be Donald Trump's vice-presidential pick down to five names, the same number that Trump gave Monday morning to the Washington Post. Both lists include one name that would likely doom Trump's candidacy: retired Army general Michael Flynn.…
The news that Democrat Evan Bayh was entering the Indiana Senate race prompted election watchers to label the once-safe contest for Republicans a toss up.
A GOP delegate has won his lawsuit challenging a Virginia law that would have forced him to vote for Donald Trump on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention next week.
When historians seek to explain an event, they often divide their explanation into three parts. In the long run—what the French Annales School called the longue durée—there are deep historical structures, mental frameworks or other slow-to-change systems. In the intermediate term, there are…
Though I'm not a delegate to the Republican National Convention, the following letter to the presumptive nominee says what I imagine many party faithful, deeply concerned about both the party and the country, might wish to say to Donald Trump.
Florida congresswoman Corrine Brown and her chief of staff were recently indicted for fraud. Prosecutors allege Brown and chief of staff Ronnie Simmons used a charity as a personal slush fund to pay for things like the "use of luxury boxes for an NFL game and a Beyoncé concert."
Former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels hasn't ruled out a bid for his old office should his successor, current governor Mike Pence, be named Donald Trump's running mate, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned.
A savvy and patriotic friend writes:
Masters of the universe and titans of tech converged on Sun Valley, Idaho last week for deal-making, fun in the sun, and expert panels on world events. And, according to Variety, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, and their billionaire buddies spent Thursday afternoon at Illuminati summer camp…
In Cleveland Monday morning, Boyd Matheson, the former chief of staff to Utah senator Mike Lee, made an interesting pitch to Republicans on the party's platform committee: a shorter, more meaningful GOP platform. Rather than a party platform that takes up tens of thousands of words and attempts to…
Here something that's hard to believe: In many states, taxpayers pay lobbyists' salaries. So-called "public lobbying" is a common practice whereby one government entity uses taxpayer money to hire lobbyists who then lobby another government entity—even within the same state.
In this week's issue, venturing a thumbnail sketch of Justice Thomas's brand of constitutional interpretation, I noted a significant difference between Justice Thomas and other conservative "originalists": Unlike many "first-generation" originalists, Thomas expressly interprets the Constitution as…
Reviews and News:
Evidently Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn't like that her colleague Sonia Sotomayor has recently surged past her to become the most popular Supreme Court justice among denizens of the Internet left. Justice Ginsburg granted an interview to the New York Times over the weekend seemingly designed to shore…
New legislation signed into law last week by Vladimir Putin strengthens anti-terrorism efforts at the price of civil liberties. The new law allows adolescents as young as 14 to be tried as adults, as well as criminalizes the failure to report a crime, "inducing, recruiting, or otherwise involving"…
Secretary of State John Kerry skipped out early on what many considered the most important NATO meeting in decades in order to see the final original performance of a Broadway musical Saturday night.
Donald Trump claimed last week that Saddam Hussein, the deceased Iraqi dictator who was deposed from power more than a decade ago, was "so good" at killing terrorists. The presumptive Republican nominee's point was to suggest Iraq would be better off as it was prior to the 2003 invasion by…
Any serious student of the theory and history of the Republican National Convention knows the delegates to that convention are unbound and free to exercise their judgment. If this were not the case, why did the Gerald Ford forces think it necessary in 1976 to move to explicitly bind the delegates…
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Eric Felten talks with Fred Barnes about Trump and free trade; Terry Eastland on why Hillary gets a pass; and Adam J. White on Clarence Thomas 25 years after the start of his epic confirmation battle.
In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown expressed deep concern about the conversation about police in America.
This week, Donald Trump retired Senator Ted Cruz's nickname, some senators had some harsh words for Trump, and Japan is still weird.
Back at the Broadmoor
The Iran government tried to obtain nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons technology from German companies, according to a new report from the Jerusalem Post. Here's Benjamin Weinthal, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, reporting from Berlin for the Post:
With a presidential election four months away and with two cases of executive discretion just out of the news, it may be a good time to reflect on the nature of presidential power.
President Obama said at a Saturday press conference in Poland that it is "very hard to untangle the motives" of the shooter in Dallas who killed five police officers Thursday evening.
In what is apparently a first, the Dallas police department used a bomb-toting kamikaze drone robot to kill Micah Xavier Johnson, the suspect in the killing of five police officers working parade detail during a Black Lives Matter protest.
FBI Director James Comey's choice to recommend against the federal prosecution of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has spurred no shortage of commentary, to say the least—including THE WEEKLY STANDARD's editorial this week, "Hillary Skates."
Reviews and News:
More often than not, a writer of history has to choose either to entertain the masses or to fill a hole in some subject's scholarly literature. George Goodwin's new Benjamin Franklin in London has the dust jacket of the former but the minute detail of the latter. It is not a book to be entered into…
A rule of thumb for researchers: If you create a super-smart algorithm to determine, say, the best movie of 2015, and you come back with Mortdecai, that might be a sign that there's something wrong with your research methods—not that the American people inexplicably failed to appreciate the genius…
So we will not add to the world's Brexit woes by having a recession here in America. At least not soon. The U.S. economy added 287,000 jobs in June, compared with a meager 11,000 in May (revised down yesterday from 38,000). Since we are deep into the political season, cheers from the Obama-Clinton…
Utah senator Orrin Hatch remembered the late Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor, in a speech on the Senate floor this week. Wiesel died on Saturday at 87.
House speaker Paul Ryan, Senator Marco Rubio, and other leading Republicans spoke in unusually frank terms about race Friday, following a string of fatal confrontations involving black men and law enforcement that have claimed seven lives this week.
The State Department is disputing a report that Iran has sought to obtain nuclear technology since signing a deal aimed at curbing its nuclear program last summer.
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with online editor Michael Warren on the week that was.
This week, the president and vice president revealed plans to intensify their personal crusade against campus "rape culture." President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will "put the pedal to the metal," per the Washington Post: They, their wives, and cabinet members won't set foot on college…
Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee expressed outrage Thursday about the disappearance of Guantanamo Bay transfer Jihad Ahmed Mustjafa Diyab, who was part of a six-person group released to Uruguay in December 2014.
Last week the Associated Press announced that it will begin using automated writing for its coverage of minor league baseball. The AP has reported minor league game recaps before, but didn't have enough manpower for the full schedule, which comprises 142 ball clubs across 13 leagues. But now,…
China has a well-known problem with cyber-theft and with taking five-finger discounts on other peoples’ intellectual property. Their new fighter jet is our new fighter jet, the design and technical details of which they stole. Their new predator drone is our predator drone, which they stole. Their…
In House of Lost Worlds, Richard Conniff fills an instructive gap in the story of how and why American museums were invented. The creation of Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History is a tale encompassing all three subjects of the subtitle, with the most delicious being the drag-down drama of how…
Owing to an editing error, in “Jesus' Wife? The final debunking" (July 4, 2016), we mistakenly reported of the writer Ariel Sabar, "By this time, he was already in possession of copies [Karen] King had given him . . . of her email correspondence with Fritz (along with the purported provenance…
The Scrapbook was on vacation when Elie Wiesel passed away, and we would be remiss if we failed to say something. Wiesel died at the age of 87, and as a Holocaust survivor, he knew more than anyone that he had been blessed with a full life. Indeed, his life will continue to reverberate.
After the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts approved a revised design for the Eisenhower memorial last month, a New York Times reporter asked Anne Eisenhower, Ike’s granddaughter, whether the controversial design could now, at long last, get built, despite the objections of her own family and countless…
The Weekly Standard has a full-time senior position available for a talented individual with digital media, social media, and editorial expertise. This individual will be a key contributor to all of The Weekly Standard’s online efforts. Duties will include maximizing the reach and influence of…
Last week, the FBI made its recommendation to the Justice Department not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information while secretary of state. Attorney General Loretta Lynch quickly accepted it, announcing that she was officially closing the case with no charges filed.
There has been much slackjawed amazement about the FBI’s decision to recommend that Hillary Clinton not be charged over her cavalier treatment of classified material on her private email server while secretary of state. FBI director James Comey, both in his initial statement and in a congressional…
What if the left threw a high-tech lynching and no one came? It happened this spring, although you probably didn’t notice. On April 16, HBO aired Confirmation, a docudrama version of Justice Clarence Thomas's 1991 Senate confirmation hearings—more specifically, of Anita Hill's sexual harassment…
Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is based on two issues: immigration and trade. And there's a significant difference between the two. On immigration, Trump capitalized on existing opposition to illegal immigrants. But on trade, he not only created a wave of anger…
Exactly twelve score years ago, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." More precisely: On July 2, 1776, the members of the Continental Congress agreed to declare independence. On July 4,…
Central Intelligence, the only nonanimated and nongenre hit of the summer, is far from the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Among other things, it has a startlingly effective low-key performance by Kevin Hart, who for the first time in his film career doesn't spend two hours chomping on the scenery and…
Coming into the park from any direction, you pass through vast, old-growth forests. At the lower altitudes, the trees will be mostly Ponderosa pine, transitioning to lodgepole and then to mountain hemlock and red fir as you climb to higher altitudes. These stands of imposingly large trees are…
OF ALL THE FORBIDDING CHALLENGES that now confront the United States in its war against Islamic terrorism, easily the most dangerous is navigating the Muslim emotions surrounding Osama bin Laden and his call to holy war. If we read those passions wrong—if we see others as we see ourselves—we will…
President Obama thinks Britain made a mistake by voting to leave the European Union. So does Secretary of State John Kerry. So do most on the left of American politics. Most on the right see Britain’s so-called Independence Day as a sensible democratic decision to shed the protectionist and…
At a local library sale, I not long ago picked up for fifty cents a clean copy of The Olympia Reader, an anthology from the Paris publishing house that in its day printed the best high-class pornography then going. Olympia Press published the Marquis de Sade, John Cleland, Pauline Réage, Frank…
Is crime spiraling out of control in America? Are we letting too many dangerous people out of prison and jail? Is the nation retreating from the policies that lowered crime and restored public safety in the 1990s and 2000s?
July 14 marks a year since President Barack Obama announced an unsigned agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), perhaps the most important diplomatic event in recent memory. A majority of Congress and Americans opposed it; Obama considers it his…
Vice President Joe Biden has canceled two planned campaign appearances on behalf of Hillary Clinton following the fatal shooting of five law enforcement officers in Dallas.
House speaker Paul Ryan spoke Friday morning on the floor of the House on the fatal shooting of five police officers in Dallas Thursday.
Donald Trump offered "thoughts and prayers" to the victims and their families of Thursday night's attack on police officers in Dallas. In Friday morning posts on both Twitter and Facebook, the presumptive Republican nominee for president said America must "restore law and order."
Hillary Clinton said on Twitter that she "mourns" the police officers in Dallas who were shot by snipers in the midst of protests Thursday night. The presumptive Democratic nominee for president tweeted her message Friday morning:
Reviews and News:
Four Dallas police officers and one Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer have been killed in what the Dallas Morning News called a "coordinated attack during [a] demonstration against recent shootings of black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota." Altogether, 11 officers and one bystander were…
A recent WEEKLY STANDARD editorial highlighted how the federal government is hiding some $104 billion in federal spending by falsely labeling Obamacare's outlays to insurance companies as "tax credits." Now a 157-page investigative report released by two powerful House committees—Ways and Means in…
In 1908, H. L. Mencken was approached by an editor and author named Robert Rives La Monte, who was keen on persuading the 28-year-old Mencken to join him in an epistolary debate about the benefits of socialism: La Monte would argue for and Mencken could argue against. Despite his misgivings,…
On Tuesday night, House speaker Paul Ryan was asked during a Fox News appearance about Donald Trump's deeply misleading comment that Saddam Hussein was good at killing terrorists. "Tonight at a rally, Donald Trump said, 'Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, but he was very, very good at killing…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with executive editor Terry Eastland on the results of the investigations into Hillary Clinton's email server.
Bernie Sanders and other prominent liberals are taking a stance against established science to warn Americans of food ominously called "Genetically Modified Organisms."
Donald Trump is so committed to upholding the Constitution that, if elected and sworn into office, his oath to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" will include protecting and defending parts of the Constitution that do not exist.
For decades, the Democratic party has supported the right to abortion in its very platform. One group, however, is trying to change that by placing a pro-life billboard advertisement in Philadelphia ahead of the Democratic National Convention.
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress are pushing for legislation that would prevent a multi-billion dollar deal between Boeing and Iran Air from being funded with taxpayer dollars. The Republican-led proposal is getting Democratic support.
The June 28 release of the 2016 DEA National Heroin Threat Assessment addresses the emerging scope of the synthetic opioid threat—particularly from fentanyl, a drug that significantly escalates the current devastating heroin and prescription opioid abuse outbreak. Fentanyl and its analogues, lethal…
Over the last several years people have been led to believe a number of ineluctable demographic truths, most of which turn out to be almost exactly wrong. (I wrote a book about this a few years back, which can loosely be summarized as: "Everything you think you know about demographics is wrong.")
Multiple GOP lawmakers led by House speaker Paul Ryan have asked Obama administration officials and introduced legislation to revoke Hillary Clinton's security clearance.
Since FBI director James Comey blasted Hillary Clinton for her deceptions about mishandling classified information and yet inexplicably announced he was recommending no charges be brought against her, there's been a lot of speculation about how this could be justified. In his own words, Comey…
Lawrence Osborne's 2014 novel The Ballad of a Small Player is a perfectly structured book about an English lawyer on the run who spends his life playing baccarat in Macau casinos and hits a streak of luck so remarkable that he nearly falls in love. It's something like a combination of a ghost story…
The New York Times reported this week that the Democratic super PAC American Bridge had discovered plagiarism in a real estate investing publication produced and used by Donald Trump's Trump Institute in 2006. While Alan Garten, Trump's attorney, said that "obviously" Trump was not aware of the…
On Thursday, FBI director James Comey testified before Congress about the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's email use while secretary of state, following the FBI's decision not to recommend criminal charges.
Bill Kristol joined the table on MSNBC's Morning Joe Thursday to discuss the latest in the effort to unbind delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland later this month. Kristol disputed the idea that Donald Trump espoused in his Ohio speech Wednesday that the "Never Trump"…
Reviews and News:
Democratic lawmakers are joining their Republican counterparts in expressing concern that a pending multi-billion dollar deal between Boeing and Iran will endanger American security. The estimated $17.6 billion agreement for dozens of planes would be the largest American business transaction with…
"Putin umer?" Is Putin dead?
Only one eco-feminist (yep, that's a thing) came with the full force of ideology to an event on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon called "Gender Equality and Energy Access"—and of the handful of private and public sector panelists, she was the one speaking for the White House.
According to a draft released last week by the the Democratic National Committee, the 2016 Democratic platform will for the first time explicitly call for unlimited taxpayer funding of elective abortions for Medicaid recipients.
I was chatting the other day with a politically savvy and experienced friend. While neither of us is pro-Trump, we agreed that, analytically, Trump's chances are being underrated, and that while one would still have consider Trump an underdog to Clinton, it's not out of the question that he could…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on the Hillary Clinton FBI news conference and Donald Trump's Saddam gaffe.
Hillary Clinton's campaign unveiled an outline of its upcoming new college affordability platform Wednesday. And it looks awfully familiar.
It turns out that "voting for the lesser of two evils" is a recent invention in presidential elections. We've seen dissenting liberals in wartime and disaffected conservatives amid stagflation, but there rarely has been overlapping dissatisfaction since the 1950s.
Michael Cimino died last weekend. If you recognize his name at all, it's probably because you remember that he was the guy who won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for The Deer Hunter in 1979.
FBI Director James Comey delivered a litany of damaging findings Monday from the bureau's investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of personal email while serving as secretary of state. Not only did Clinton violate numerous security protocols, but many of the statements made by Clinton and her…
Donald Trump praised Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for his handling of terrorists at a Tuesday campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.
A South American airline has alerted its employees to be on the lookout for a member of the "Uruguay Six" that was released from Guantanamo Bay in December 2014.
It's chang ma in Korea right now—monsoon season. Every summer, torrential rain clouds park over the Korean peninsula for about month, rendering huddling indoors with soju and some dried anju even more enticing than usual.
Reviews and News:
This past weekend, Wall Street Journal books editor and WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor Robert Messenger reviewed MacArthur at War in the pages of WSJ. This latest history by Walter R. Borneman focuses strictly on the Pacific theater during the Second World War and reappraises the actions of…
The Democratic party published a draft of its official platform last week that continues the Obama administration's attack on for-profit higher education. The relevant section of the platform reduces the entire for-profit university industry to the Trump University case, claiming that the school…
Russia will send Iran another shipment of the S-300 air defense missile system as soon as Tehran is ready to pay, Russian media reported Monday.
Two scholars responsible for the prevalence of the neologism "microaggression" told The Chronicle of Higher Education they're sorry for how their research has been misused to end conversations. A microaggression is a minor, unintentional, yet nonetheless punishable offense in liberal social circles…
The FBI director's decision not to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for mishandling highly classified information is a bump in the road for Donald Trump's campaign against her—a pretty big bump. It may halt Trump's gradual narrowing of her lead in the general election race, at least for the…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on FBI Director Comey's press conference on Hillary's private email server.
Former presidential hopeful and Ohio governor John Kasich has joined other Republican leaders in encouraging delegates to consider their conscience before voting to formally give Donald Trump the GOP nomination.
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation offered an assessment of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state Tuesday. Many of his conclusions contradicted Clinton's often-repeated assertions and criticized the former secretary of state…
A few weeks ago I agreed to take on my most perilous assignment yet: review Outback Steakhouse's Loaded Bloomin' Onion for the Washington Free Beacon. With little help from my family, I hardly made a dent. I did receive loads of feedback, though I never really got around to reviewing the appetizer…
President Obama says Hillary Clinton "could not have been more diligent" as secretary of state in a video her campaign released mere hours after FBI director James Comey accused her of being "extremely careless" in her handling of classified materials during her tenure.
Every Fourth of July, my Cleveland suburb of Bay Village has a Norman Rockwell-esque four-day town festival. Called Bay Days, the festival is held at our idyllic Cahoon Park on the shores of Lake Erie. There are carnival rides, a classic midway with the usual games, food booths (funnel cakes,…
Bangladesh, with 170 million people, 99 percent of them Muslim, is the world's fourth-largest Muslim polity. It became the latest nation where radical Islamist violence has drawn world attention on July 1. A band of terrorists seized control of a popular café, the Holey Artisan Bakery, killing 20…
After announcing that he wouldn't recommend charging Hillary Clinton with regard to her privately-run email server that improperly stored and disseminated classified information, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan released the following statement:
At a time of historical distrust in the nation's capital, it should come as a bit of comic relief to a faithless public that we can't even believe in Fourth of July fireworks anymore.
Democrats are using their party platform to affirm abortion rights more than ever before.
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation says that while there is evidence Hillary Clinton and her State Department aides violated statutes with regard to her privately held email server, the Bureau will not be recommending the Department of Justice prosecute the former secretary of…
Four months out from the general election, most pundits and commentators are acting as if Obamacare will have little effect on the results of this year's races. But given Obamacare's extraordinary unpopularity, that's hard to believe. Obamacare is horrible for middle-class Americans: It worsens…
A new poll from NBC News suggests other high-profile Republicans would perform better in a general election against Democrat Hillary Clinton than would presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
After news of ISIS's last atrocity broke over the weekend—this time, the terror group slaughtered some 150 Iraqis, including scores of children, who happened to be out celebrating the end of Ramadan—State Department spokesman John Kirby weighed in on the matter.
Reviews and News:
A deputy head in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard threatened that the Tehran-backed Lebansese terrorist group Hezbollah had the missile capability to launch a sustained attack on Israel. The Jerusalem Post reports:
From the Foundation for Constitutional Government:
The debate over marijuana legalization is fraught with problematic surveying and misappropriation of data, says David W. Murray. A senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Murray has penned a response to the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado school survey's findings on teen marijuana use. Here is a summary…
Defense secretary Ash Carter announced a new policy last week to lift the ban on transgender people openly serving in the military. The chairman of the House Armed Services committee blasted the decision Thursday, calling it the "latest example of the Pentagon and the President prioritizing…
With Donald Trump slipping, if not precipitously yet nonetheless seriously, in the polls, his choice of a vice-presidential candidate looms all the more important. The wrong choice could doom him, the right choice pull him up even, perhaps ahead of Hillary Clinton. As a not altogether disinterested…
On bathroom fixtures (cont.)
On Face The Nation, neither Senator John McCain nor Lindsey Graham seemed optimistic about a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton presidency. They also shared warnings about the future of American foreign policy with regard to President Obama's and future administrations.
If you're looking for some reading material worth your time this Independence Day weekend, there's plenty from the WEEKLY STANDARD archives to satisfy and enlighten.
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Eric Felten talks with Fred Barnes on DC's traffic nightmare, and Joseph Loconte on the centennial of the Battle of the Somme.
This week, we learn Trump Huts are a thing, Twitter ruins SCOTUSblog's annual tradition, and President George W. Bush gives the best reply to Kanye's video.
Reviews and News:
According to legend, John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence with a signature so large that the King of England could see it without his spectacles. That bit of bravado has long been a staple of American history classes. I must have heard it several times growing up, and even in…
Pasadena, Calif.
It didn't take Brexit to make forecasters take a dim view of the future of the U.S. economy. A cloud considerably larger than a man's hand hovered over the computers of most forecasters before Brexit shocked markets into a deep but transient swoon. The Federal Reserve Board said it dare not raise…
Newt Gingrich, a long-time free trader in Congress and champion of the North American Free Trade Agreement, said Friday that there's something "profoundly wrong" with U.S. trade policy, lending his support to Donald Trump's position on the issue.
Imagine being about the fiftieth-best employee in an organization of 400 people and making $24 million a year.
Following the release of the House Benghazi Select Committee's report, the wife of one victim of the 2012 terrorist attack has spoken out for the very first time. The widow of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods did not mince words about Hillary Clinton and the former secretary of state's "dismissive" comments…
Donald Trump is no stranger to conspiracy theories. Mother Jones recently reported some of Trump's thoughts on asbestos. The toxic material "got a bad rap," Trump wrote in his 1997 book The Art of the Comeback, adding that he believed the mafia was behind the asbestos removal frenzy because…
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said her recent meeting with Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport "raises questions and concerns." Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival Friday, Lynch was asked about her meeting with the former president whose wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, is under…
It was easy to mock Alvin Toffler when he was riding high in the saddle, back in the 1970s. A self-described "futurist" (precise job description still TBD), he was part Jeremiah and part Arthur C. Clarke, warning us all about the dizzy pace of technological change even as he got giddy describing…
Speaking to thousands of veterans Thursday, Republican congressman Peter Roskam of Illinois shamed Boeing for eagerly pursuing a multi-billion dollar deal with Iran that he said jeopardizes American security and forsakes American values.
My phone buzzed with a "news alert" from the New York Times Friday morning. Normally, these alerts are reserved for truly breaking, earth-shattering news, like the rise of "man buns" in Brooklyn.
This election cycle hasn't been kind to Republican big shots. Their favorite presidential candidates—Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio—fell short. Their opposition to Donald Trump was ineffectual, and their subsequent submission to him inglorious.
Reviews and News:
Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia decried having to "veto a so-called 'religious freedom' bill. It's such an oxymoron," on WTOP radio Wednesday.
As the sun rose over the valley of the Somme River in northern France on the first of July a century ago, the soldiers of the British Empire began their charge on the entrenched Germans. It would be the deadliest day—and the start of the deadliest battle—in British history.
A Republican delegate and national committee member is pushing to change the party rules in order to ensure Donald Trump's nomination at the upcoming convention. He claims not to be doing the bidding of Trump or the Republican National Committee. But his effort, if successful, would help both avoid…