May 2017

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren and managing editor Eric Felten talk about how "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" holds up at half a century. Is it the Beatles' masterpiece?

The May 27 headline in the London Spectator couldn't be more direct. "This is the worst Tory election campaign ever," proclaims author Rod Liddle. He just might be right.

A suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives near the German Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, at 8:22 local time this morning. The death toll has steadily risen in the hours since. The Afghan government says that at least 90 people were killed and 400 more wounded, according to the…

On Wednesday morning, Vox published a leaked draft of a proposed federal regulation that would allow business owners to opt out of Obamacare's contraceptive mandate for religious or moral reasons. "Employers seeking an exemption would not be required to notify the government, under the drafted…

Editor's note: There will be no Prufrock tomorrow or Friday.

There is little doubt among economic forecasters that over the medium term, Asia's emerging economies—China and India foremost among them—are expected to drive global economic growth. Taken as one, the region from India to Japan is not only the biggest market for raw materials, energy, and the…

For nearly 40 years, the federal government has enforced the "Common Rule." The rule required researchers in the social and medical sciences to get the approval of an independent review board, or IRB, for their federally funded experiments. The purpose of the boards, which are usually set up by the…

Tom Ricks is disappointed in General H. R. McMaster. On May 15, during Donald Trump's hebdomas horribilis, McMaster, the president's national security adviser, appeared briefly outside the White House to attack a story in the Washington Post. The Post piece alleged that the president had revealed…

St. Paul, Minnesota

At his first on-camera briefing of the press since President Trump returned to Washington, Sean Spicer spent a good 10 minutes Tuesday recapping the highlights of an "incredible, historic trip" to the Middle East and Europe. "We've never seen before at this point in a presidency such sweeping…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, executive editor Fred Barnes discusses his recent story about the media's Nostradamus complex.

In this latest micro-episode, the Substandard salutes our military and our favorite war movies. Sonny Bunch loves Inglourious Basterds and … Aliens? Vic and JVL remember meeting R. Lee Ermey, who explained how he landed the role of a lifetime in Full Metal Jacket. All on the latest Substandard!

President Trump urged the Senate to eliminate its 60-vote threshold for ending debate on most legislative matters Tuesday morning, though his reasoning appears to be garbled.

The impulse to do something after a horrific event is universal, and perhaps even more pronounced in politicians than typical civilians. And so, in the wake of the horrific murder of two commuters on a Portland, Oregon, light rail over the weekend, it's not entirely surprising to see that city's…

Reviews and News:

President Donald Trump's upcoming decision on whether to keep the United States engaged in the Paris climate accord sounds like an important moment. It's being cast as a yea or nay decision: Stay in and show global leadership on an issue world leaders find important. Or get out and do what's best…

We will soon, TED talks promise, travel to the beach in driverless cars, where our artificial blood cells will enable us to stay underwater for hours. But we may prefer the virtual reality we will be able to inhabit thanks to direct brain implants, which will have replaced unfashionable headsets.…

Pensacola

"First Black Bachelorette shines in debut, but is America ready for interracial love?" When NBC executives tweeted that question last week, what exactly did they expect the answer to be? Were they hoping for some racial unrest to boost their primetime ratings? Have they noticed Kanye West and Kim…

President Donald Trump seems to be suffering a political death of a thousand cuts—from anonymous sources throughout the government providing information to the press about his missteps, misjudgments, and misbehavior. The Trump administration and its allies are up in arms, blaming an unprecedented…

If there's a shakeup for the West Wing staff coming, no one has much to say about it. Former campaign aides Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie reportedly met with President Trump Monday at the White House, though whether either will be tapped to official positions in the administration—as opposed…

Lionel Shriver is a novelist who is controversial in the literary world for her withering criticism of "cultural appropriation." It's the notion that if you belong to one ethnic, racial, or gender group, you're barred from writing fiction with characters from another group. If you're Asian, for…

A reader sent to TWS Fact Check this Memorial Day weekend an internet meme claiming that of the more than 58,000 fallen service members commemorated on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, only eight are women. The engraved wall of names cuts into the topography of Washington, D.C.'s monumental core…

Wouldn't it be nice if voters punished politicians who increase budget deficits? Well, according to one research paper, they do.

Edward Said saved my life. And I don't mean that the work of the late American intellectual and Palestinian activist rescued me when I needed intellectual or emotional or moral sustenance. Sure, at one point in my political odyssey, Said's work was important to me. Even now, though my ideas about…

Who is the history's greatest explorer? Marco Polo, Magellan, da Gamma and Cook are the main contenders, along—of course—with Christopher Columbus, whose star has fallen over the last few decades. Vancouver, Peary, Amundsen and Scott all have their partisans, as do Lewis and Clark. There are Cortez…

Today is Memorial Day. Here's Bill's note from last year, which we remembered well and thought required no additional comments.

In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Fred Barnes joins host Eric Felten to talk about GOP hopes to get things done even with President Trump pulling down the party like a boat anchor. Thomas Joscelyn tells us how not to lose the 9/11 wars. And John McCormack unravels the conspiratorial…

Rolling out the Trump administration's formal 2018 budget, acting Pentagon comptroller John Roth confessed that Defense secretary James Mattis "hasn't spent one moment" looking beyond the coming budget year. But even a cursory glance at the plan makes one wonder whether he paid much attention to…

President Trump is no dummy. He chose to exchange gifts with the pope in Rome while leaving his budget director and Treasury secretary in Washington to respond to critics of his budget. Let them take the heat while he takes the bows for a successful trip.

Boston

David Lynch has not made a movie or a television show in a decade. But his overwhelming talent—a talent all but unmatched in cinematic history—for transferring to the screen the jarring and unforgettable images (and sounds) that haunt his unconscious has not been dimmed by his absence. The first 4…

The morning after the Washington Post and the Intercept linked to a leaked transcript of President Trump's late April phone call with Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, reports surfaced alleging that Trump had given Duterte sensitive intel about American nuclear submarines located near North…

In a cover story in this magazine almost a decade ago, the late Dean Barnett hailed "the 9/11 generation" and held out the hope—nay, the expectation—that they would contribute more to the nation than their parents, the baby boomers:

The Prince of Wales did not mince words in warning about the ravages of global warming. No piddling nonsense about a few inches of sea-rise; nothing so trivial as coastal erosion; no focus on the plight of the polar bear. No, the prince had a louder alarm he was sounding, one about the Future of…

Vice President Mike Pence assured graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy Friday that the president will "always have your back." He pointed to the administration's recently delivered defense budget proposal, which he described as "one of the largest increases in defense spending since the days of…

On this week's episode of Kristol Clear, editor at large William Kristol discusses the politics of Trump from the mountains of Montana to the sands of Saudi Arabia, all in one week.

There's a scene in the John Landis comedy Trading Places when Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd stand in the potential energy of the New York Stock Exchange's trading floor. It's a few ticks before the opening bell, and the camera cuts from the wall clock to the zombies below: pit traders in shirts,…

Comedian Adam Carolla and talk radio host Dennis Prager are joining forces to both do a campus tour and make a documentary about it. The two men aim to show how "how so many terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ideas have ruined college for young people and now threaten to ruin the country by…

Thursday on Facebook, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed (of Bloom County fame) posted a letter purportedly from President Donald Trump's New York attorney, Marc E. Kasowitz, taking Breathed to task for disseminating "flagrantly altered photos [of the president] wearing apparel featuring your artwork."…

Republican businessman Greg Gianforte won the special election for Montana's open House seat Thursday, one day after instigating a violent confrontation with a reporter that his campaign blamed on the journalist and left him with a misdemeanor assault charge.

Some of the entertainment coming out of California these days is simply outstanding.

On January 26, 1945, this is what an American soldier in Belgium wrote home to his parents:

The Prince of Wales did not mince words in warning about the ravages of global warming. No piddling nonsense about a few inches of sea-rise; nothing so trivial as coastal erosion; no focus on the plight of the polar bear. No, the prince had a louder alarm he was sounding, one about the Future of…

When we look back on the late-19th/early-20th century and think of the technological changes that made life “modern,” we usually imagine the conquests of distance: telegraphs and telephones, trains and steamships, automobiles and airplanes. We don’t think about canned goods, cigarettes, soda pop,…

In a cover story in this magazine almost a decade ago, the late Dean Barnett hailed "the 9/11 generation" and held out the hope—nay, the expectation—that they would contribute more to the nation than their parents, the baby boomers:

Special advisers to political leaders need to get out more. Prime Minister Theresa May's decision to sneak what was quickly labeled a "dementia tax" into the Conservative party's general election manifesto (the British general election will be held on June 8) was reportedly heavily influenced by…

Pensacola

Rolling out the Trump administration's formal 2018 budget, acting Pentagon comptroller John Roth confessed that Defense secretary James Mattis "hasn't spent one moment" looking beyond the coming budget year. But even a cursory glance at the plan makes one wonder whether he paid much attention to…

Tokyo

With all due respect to the Marine Corps, "The Few, The Proud, The Gender-Neutral" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Yet there is now a movement in the corps—even backed by some female jarheads—to require women to meet the same physical fitness standards as the men. In some respects, this is…

One of the quieter celebrations of a literary centennial may be the one for Prufrock and Other Observations, T. S. Eliot's first book of poems, published in 1917.

Complaints of media bias seem to be reaching a fever pitch—from conservatives and liberals alike. Right-wingers accuse a broad swath of the press of trying to undermine the presidency of Donald Trump. Left-wingers lament the airtime and credence outlets give to Trump supporters. Both groups object…

Boston

At 4:20 a.m. on July 10, 2016, gunshots rang out in Washington, D.C. When Metropolitan Police Department officers arrived at the scene, about two miles north of the U.S. Capitol, they found Seth Rich, a 27-year-old employee of the Demo­cratic National Committee, lying down but "conscious and…

We will soon, TED talks promise, travel to the beach in driverless cars, where our artificial blood cells will enable us to stay underwater for hours. But we may prefer the virtual reality we will be able to inhabit thanks to direct brain implants, which will have replaced unfashionable headsets.…

The locked-room mystery was a favorite subcategory of detective stories in the early 20th century. By 1941, it seemed all possible variations on getting a murderer into or out of a room locked, sealed, barred, closely observed, or otherwise inaccessible, without resort to supernatural agencies, had…

For nearly 40 years, the federal government has enforced the "Common Rule." The rule required researchers in the social and medical sciences to get the approval of an independent review board, or IRB, for their federally funded experiments. The purpose of the boards, which are usually set up by the…

Edward Said saved my life. And I don't mean that the work of the late American intellectual and Palestinian activist rescued me when I needed intellectual or emotional or moral sustenance. Sure, at one point in my political odyssey, Said's work was important to me. Even now, though my ideas about…

Republicans are not dead yet. In the House, they are moving ahead briskly on tax reform. In the Senate, Republicans are talking privately in hopes of agreeing on how to repeal and replace Obamacare, the House having already passed its bill overhauling the health care system.

Tom Ricks is disappointed in General H. R. McMaster. On May 15, during Donald Trump's hebdomas horribilis, McMaster, the president's national security adviser, appeared briefly outside the White House to attack a story in the Washington Post. The Post piece alleged that the president had revealed…

There is little doubt among economic forecasters that over the medium term, Asia's emerging economies—China and India foremost among them—are expected to drive global economic growth. Taken as one, the region from India to Japan is not only the biggest market for raw materials, energy, and the…

David Lynch has not made a movie or a television show in a decade. But his overwhelming talent—a talent all but unmatched in cinematic history—for transferring to the screen the jarring and unforgettable images (and sounds) that haunt his unconscious has not been dimmed by his absence. The first 4…

Donald Trump is fond of claiming that his predecessor mismanaged America's role in the world. "And I have to just say that the world is a mess. I inherited a mess," the president noted during a joint press conference with King Abdullah of Jordan in the Rose Garden on April 5. "Whether it's the…

President Donald Trump seems to be suffering a political death of a thousand cuts—from anonymous sources throughout the government providing information to the press about his missteps, misjudgments, and misbehavior. The Trump administration and its allies are up in arms, blaming an unprecedented…

On April 30, 2012, Barack Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser made a bold prediction: It was possible to envision a world in which al Qaeda's central leadership would "no longer [be] relevant" to the United States and the organization itself would be eliminated. "If the decade before 9/11 was the…

Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee easily passed a bipartisan bill that slaps sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile tests and other non-nuclear behavior Thursday, amid attempts by former Obama administration officials to stymie the legislation over concerns that it could hurt the…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer John McCormack handicaps today's Montana special congressional election, which pits a bad-tempered tech millionaire against a cowboy folk singer.

Reports spread over the weekend that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault had "flooded," succumbing to the same force it was designed to protect the world's food supply from: global warming.

The ball in Times Square hit zero Wednesday evening for the Congressional Budget Office's latest projection of the American Health Care Act. As with the agency's estimate of an earlier version of the bill, the document was immediately put to political use. "The Congressional Budget Office just…

The investigation into the Manchester Arena bombing quickly turned to the possibility that the bomber, 22-year-old Salman Abedi, had accomplices. "I think it's very clear that this is a network that we are investigating," Chief Constable Ian Hopkins of the Manchester Police told reporters on…

Great Scott! In this week's episode the Substandard discusses Alien: Covenant and the best (and not-so-best) of Ridley Scott. JVL admits he has "the sensibility of a 9-year-old girl." Something hits Sonny in the head. You say ci-cay-da, Vic says ci-cah-da. Plus theme park terror and a word from our…

Here's (hopefully) the wildest campaign story of 2017: On the eve of Thursday's special congressional election in Montana, Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs asked GOP candidate Greg Gianforte a couple of questions about the CBO score of the House health care bill. Gianforte responded by—I kid you…

Thursday's NATO Summit provides an opportunity for the alliance to get tough on its putative Turkish ally. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's destabilizing policies in Europe and the Middle East have made it appear less an ally and more a Russian Trojan horse. To keep Turkey on track,…

The Trump administration is taking significant steps to target a full range of Iranian military aggression and human rights abuses, functionally reversing the Obama administration's near-total prioritization of the 2015 nuclear deal, according to discussions conducted by THE WEEKLY STANDARD with…

Donald Trump's first budget request does not propose fixing the two major entitlement programs, Social Security retirement and Medicare. But as Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget testified Wednesday, the White House's proposal could be the last balanced budget request to not…

The AARP is targeting five GOP senators in an ad campaign about the American Health Care Act, even though Senate Republicans have said they'll scrap the bill in favor of new legislation that presumably won't tank with the American public.

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren breaks down President Trump's budget proposal.

It is official: Puerto Rico has entered into the "Title III" bankruptcy that many feared would be the ultimate outcome of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act passed by Congress last summer. This includes the island's largest public pension plan, the Employee Retirement…

Reports that President Trump revealed sensitive information to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, mentioning on a phone call that the Unites States had nuclear submarines near North Korea last month, drove a fresh round of media hysteria on Wednesday. But days before Trump even spoke to Duterte…

All the attention has been on Georgia this special election season. But the race for Montana's open House seat is set to conclude first, with a former GOP gubernatorial candidate trying to stave off an upset bid Thursday from a Bernie Sanders-backed musician and small business owner.

Ten months after his death, reports continue to circulate concerning the murder of Seth Rich, a 27-year-old data analyst for the Democratic National Committee. Seth Conrad Rich died hours after what police investigators (who are still working on the case) have long said was likely an attempted…

The Jesuits are sorry. Last fall, Jesuit-founded Georgetown University apologized to the descendants of 272 slaves sold by the institution in 1838. In addition to the formal apology, the school announced plans to rename some buildings, construct a public memorial, and possibly offer scholarships or…

Reviews and News:

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, will defend the White House's budget request in front of the respective congressional committees Wednesday and Thursday. The administration's goal on Capitol Hill this week, according to a White House source, is two-fold: to make a…

The National Security Agency under former President Barack Obama routinely violated American privacy protections while scouring through overseas intercepts and failed to disclose the extent of the…

Peter Augustine Lawler was a humanities professor's humanities professor, a genial gadfly who could talk and write about contemporary politics and pop culture—he was a huge fan of director Whit Stillman and published articles such as "Disco and Democracy" and "Celebrity Studies Today"—as adroitly…

Several Republican senators reacted to President Trump's budget request Tuesday by highlighting just 0.0001 percent of its spending.

On Monday evening, a terrorist blew himself up in the foyer of Manchester Arena as the audience was filing out of an Ariana Grande concert. At least 22 people were killed and 59 wounded in the blast. British authorities have identified Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old whose parents are from Libya, as…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, executive editor Fred Barnes shares his outlook for President Trump and the GOP's agenda: what's possible, and what isn't.

Ever since the Washington Post reported last week that President Donald Trump disclosed classified information in his meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, commentators have been debating how the revelation might affect intelligence gathering and sharing among America and its…

On Monday night in the English city of Manchester, a suicide bomber detonated a homemade IED in the foyer of the Manchester Arena, killing at least 22 people and wounding almost 60 others as they left a concert by Ariana Grande. Shortly after the worst terrorist attack in Britain since the 7/7…

Former CIA director John Brennan said Tuesday that he did not know whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin, but told lawmakers that he had seen intelligence that triggered questions about the possibility of such coordination.

We are very sorry to learn of the death of the distinguished scholar and writer Peter Augustine Lawler, a valued contributor to many journals, including THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Michael Flynn appears destined to spend much more time in the spotlight than he spent working at the White House, where he served as President Trump's National Security Adviser for three and a half weeks. On Monday, the AP reported that Flynn's lawyers told the Senate intelligence committee that…

It's been a banner week for the World Health Organization (WHO), the lavishly funded global health agency that somehow botched the biggest health crisis in years back in 2014, when it failed to respond to the Ebola crisis that was then ravaging west Africa. (Oh, and the AP reported this week that…

Protesting political commencement speakers—presidents past and present, former or current Cabinet members who wax platitudinous on graduation day—is not a new phenomenon. SoVice President Mike Pence knew what he was walking into at Notre Dame last weekend. He came prepared. And while he condemned…

Reviews and News:

How did Venezuela go from Latin America's richest economy to an impoverished basket case where food is so hard to come by that the average citizen has lost some 20 pounds? The answer would seem to be obvious—so obvious that it could be captured in a single word. But The Scrapbook gets ahead of…

Like millions of American men, I spent a good number of weeknights in my youth donning a goofy uniform and heading off to church. The meetings all began the same way—we would rise from our folding chairs, make an odd gesture with our hands, and say, "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to…

Editor's note: This piece has been updated to reflect developing news.

Committee chairs in Congress look at White House budget proposals with something between indifference and disdain. Congress, not the White House, writes the budget, or so the thinking goes. So why, besides the law mandating he submit one, does a president spend so much time and energy crafting a…

Enes Kanter of the Oklahoma City Thunder shrank his nearly 7-foot-tall frame into the red dot on Indiana Jones's map this offseason. Since his team was eliminated from the NBA playoffs last month, the Turkish center said he went from countries in the Asia-Pacific to eastern Europe, and eventually…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor-in-chief Stephen F. Hayes weighs in on Trump's Middle East tour and the clarity of his message on terrorism.

It's the quintessential Churchillian remark—particularly in the sense that there's no evidence that Winston Churchill ever actually said it: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they've exhausted all other options." But perhaps the adage should be updated to this: You…

It's Burger Time at the Substandard. In this micro episode, we discuss the Harris poll putting Five Guys at the very top, ahead of In-N-Out. Sonny says Fact-check: True! JVL defines what makes a great burger. Vic adds a bit of history, from White Castle to the Nile—all on this micro-episode of the…

President Trump's defense budget proposal for 2018 essentially follows Obama administration plans and adds only slightly more funding, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Monday.

For politicians, giving away money is fun, but telling others to give away money is even better. That's what the Washington, D.C., government is contemplating as it debates a new rule that would have employers subsidize people who neither take the Metro nor drive to and from work. They want to give…

In an effort to debunk a story dogging him for the last several days, President Trump seems to have revived questions. The story is the report that Trump, in his May 10 meeting in the Oval Office with two top Russian government officials, revealed up-to-then classified intelligence from a foreign…

From the Foundation for Constitutional Government:

Reviews and News:

The 19th-century Irish-American vagabond and travel writer Lafcadio Hearn opened the first of his many books on Japan by quoting an English professor whom he met in his first days there. "Do not fail to write down your first impressions as soon as possible," the old scholar said. "They are…

Topeka

Ottawa

There was news a couple of weeks ago that a U.S. Navy cruiser—the Lake Champlain— collided with a South Korean fishing boat in the Sea of Japan. I remembered reading a few years ago that one our Navy destroyers had collided with a Japanese oil tanker—in 2012, in the Strait of Hormuz. Two collisions…

Can President Trump broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians? That's the "ultimate deal" that will be on the president's mind as he travels Monday to Israel. Here's more from the New York Times:

You're in your early 60s, and you hold an endowed-chair professorship at Duke University's prestigious divinity school, where your specialty is Catholic theology, and where the subjects of the courses you teach include a range of religious and secular philosophers from Augustine of Hippo to…

Leave it to the nanny state to put the "block" in "sunblock." Multiple state governments are pursuing bills to let schoolkids apply their SPF-50 without first asking for permission or acquiring a doctor's note. According to the Wall Street Journal, California, New York, Oregon, and Texas have…

In June 2001, physicist and self-styled "eclipse chaser" Frank Close found himself at an isolated roadside stop deep in the Zambian bush, chatting with a small local boy. Close was trying to explain his purpose in being at this remote outpost, why he had traveled all the way from England—some 5,000…

Pax Romana is a magic mirror that shows us the bloody beasts we must become to raise and rule an American empire. Few seek such a course, but it is the inevitable end of many or indeed most realistic American foreign policy options, especially in the Middle East. How must we behave if we wish to…

"Does anyone remember when Donald Trump wasn't president?" Senator Roy Blunt (D-Missouri) asked the audience recently at a Capitol Hill seminar sponsored by the law firm Baker-Hostettler.

In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Michael Warren joins host Eric Felten to talk about another week dominated by the Trumpiest of tempests. Will the appointment of a Special Counsel calm the waters? Then Philip Terzian comes by to tell us about outrage over Turkish security men beating…

Rare is the reporter, it seems, who lets go by an opportunity to praise Britain's system of socialized medicine. And a perfect opportunity presented itself this month when the "WannaCry" computer virus seized networks worldwide.

In the deceptively thoughtful 2014 action film John Wick, Keanu Reeves plays a recently widowed assassin who comes out of retirement after Russian gangsters beat him up, steal his car, and kill his dog. Miffed about the car, not too happy about the beating, but furious about the demise of his…

Reviews and News:

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor at large William Kristol wraps up the week in Trump, from the Comey memo to President Trump's "nut job" comment to the Russians. Is there a team who can turn this around for Trump? And if so, would he listen?

The fish, as they say, rots from the head first. And Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch. It's not that the U.S. government isn't beset by innumerable problems and systemic dysfunction. But in the here and now, Donald Trump is the problem. The president is the dysfunction.

I leave it to others to sort out who said what to whom about Russia, loyalty oaths, secrets, and other matters now roiling Washington. Instead, here is an attempt to sort out the economic consequences of the doings of our political class.

The Washington Post reports that the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election (and possible collusion with the Trump campaign) has "identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest." The paper hints at who that person might be.

Former FBI director James Comey will testify publicly before the Senate Intelligence Committee after Memorial Day, the panel's chairman and ranking member announced Friday evening.

On the same day Donald Trump called his deputy attorney general's letter about James Comey a "recommendation" for termination, Rod Rosenstein told senators in private that he assembled the document at the president's request only after Trump decided to fire the FBI director.

Of all the crazy ways that members of Congress are above the law, the fact that politicians and their staff are largely immune from insider trading laws has to be near the top of the list. (Oh and it's also a problem for federal employees.) It boggles the mind to think of the conflicts of interest…

Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:

Reviews and News:

Washington greeted the news that the Justice Department had named Robert Mueller special counsel to oversee the FBI's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election with a collective sigh of relief. The speed and intensity of events and developments about this interference—and the…

Many mistaken beliefs left over from the 1960s are embedded in mainstream, which is to say liberal, American culture. As an earnest young lefty I was taught that generals like war, that businessmen like free markets, that Christians think everyone else is going to hell, and that Republicans are…

President Trump sees himself as harassed and abused. True enough. Presidents often feel oppressed. But Trump is protected and defended in a way that he appears to take for granted. It comes from having both houses of Congress controlled by his own party.

In January 1944 the up-and-coming novelist Vladimir Nabokov sent the oracular literary critic Edmund Wilson a letter, with two enclosures. The first was a sample of Nabokov's new translation of the Russian verse novel Eugene Onegin; the second was a pair of socks Wilson had lent him. The…

Last year, at age 70, Annie Dillard received a National Medal for the Arts and Humanities for, as the citation put it, “her profound reflections on human life and nature." The presentation, made at the White House, had a valedictory air, as if capping a career that's more or less concluded. A…

Rare is the reporter, it seems, who lets go by an opportunity to praise Britain's system of socialized medicine. And a perfect opportunity presented itself this month when the "WannaCry" computer virus seized networks worldwide.

Pax Romana is a magic mirror that shows us the bloody beasts we must become to raise and rule an American empire. Few seek such a course, but it is the inevitable end of many or indeed most realistic American foreign policy options, especially in the Middle East. How must we behave if we wish to…

The 19th-century Irish-American vagabond and travel writer Lafcadio Hearn opened the first of his many books on Japan by quoting an English professor whom he met in his first days there. "Do not fail to write down your first impressions as soon as possible," the old scholar said. "They are…

Ever since the founding, the people of the United States have been particularly interested in their own history. The first collected edition of the Federalist Papers was published shortly after the originals were first printed. In the early days of the republic, newspapers would print transcripts…

In June 2001, physicist and self-styled "eclipse chaser" Frank Close found himself at an isolated roadside stop deep in the Zambian bush, chatting with a small local boy. Close was trying to explain his purpose in being at this remote outpost, why he had traveled all the way from England—some 5,000…

Topeka

The New Deal's Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography project remains a landmark of documentary photography—and social realism. The project launched the careers of several major photographers, and when we think of Depression America, we see its searing images. But it was a political…

Washington greeted the news that the Justice Department had named Robert Mueller special counsel to oversee the FBI's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election with a collective sigh of relief. The speed and intensity of events and developments about this interference—and the…

This week Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed a special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. It was an important move, and one that President Donald Trump made unavoidable with his erratic and irresponsible behavior over the past fortnight.

Ottawa

The Jesuits are sorry. Last fall, Jesuit-founded Georgetown University apologized to the descendants of 272 slaves sold by the institution in 1838. In addition to the formal apology, the school announced plans to rename some buildings, construct a public memorial, and possibly offer scholarships or…

The fish, as they say, rots from the head first. And Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch. It's not that the U.S. government isn't beset by innumerable problems and systemic dysfunction. But in the here and now, Donald Trump is the problem. The president is the dysfunction.

Here's the latest academic news: It turns out that letting left-wing protesters run roughshod over your campus is bad for business.

There is something dispiriting about the debate over trade policy, and the problem does not lie with Donald Trump, or his tweets, or his on-again, off-again threats to various trading partners, or his fickle choice of partners to head the negotiating queue: EU to the front, Brexiting Britain to the…

Leave it to the nanny state to put the "block" in "sunblock." Multiple state governments are pursuing bills to let schoolkids apply their SPF-50 without first asking for permission or acquiring a doctor's note. According to the Wall Street Journal, California, New York, Oregon, and Texas have…

Like millions of American men, I spent a good number of weeknights in my youth donning a goofy uniform and heading off to church. The meetings all began the same way—we would rise from our folding chairs, make an odd gesture with our hands, and say, "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to…

Mary Cheh, who represents a leafy, affluent, embassy-filled section of Washington, doesn’t fit anyone’s image of a free-market reformer. A member of the D.C. Council since 2007, the sixty-something’s dress and manner are those of the Harvard-educated law professor she is. Many of her legislative…

In the deceptively thoughtful 2014 action film John Wick, Keanu Reeves plays a recently widowed assassin who comes out of retirement after Russian gangsters beat him up, steal his car, and kill his dog. Miffed about the car, not too happy about the beating, but furious about the demise of his…

Many mistaken beliefs left over from the 1960s are embedded in mainstream, which is to say liberal, American culture. As an earnest young lefty I was taught that generals like war, that businessmen like free markets, that Christians think everyone else is going to hell, and that Republicans are…

How did Venezuela go from Latin America's richest economy to an impoverished basket case where food is so hard to come by that the average citizen has lost some 20 pounds? The answer would seem to be obvious—so obvious that it could be captured in a single word. But The Scrapbook gets ahead of…

Anyone wishing to learn more about the economic effects of immigration on America and American workers would do well to read this book. George J. Borjas is a highly respected economist at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and one of the world's foremost experts on the economics of immigration.…

As readers of THE WEEKLY STANDARD know, Rebecca Tuvel, an assistant professor of philosophy at Rhodes College in Memphis, got quite a bit of nasty backlash from her peers in university perches over an article titled "In Defense of Transracialism" that appeared the most recent issue of Hypatia, an…

Senator Ben Sasse's new book The Vanishing American Adult calls attention to a coming-of-age crisis: The undeniable drag that consumerism, technology, and other modern forces have had on the institution of family and the work ethic for which Americans were once recognized around the world.

Utah representative Jason Chaffetz, whose committee chairmanship has tasked him with oversight of the tumultuous Trump administration, announced his intention Thursday to resign from Congress at the end of June.

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Mark Hemingway weighs in on the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel regarding Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

What's interesting about media fact-checkers is that, while they often prove to be subjective in their findings, they do allow others to objectively evaluate them since they append value judgments such as "true" or "false" to statements. I've previously noted two university studies, one at the…

By now, there's a kind of collective Kubler-Ross process that we all go through with the deaths of beloved musicians, accompanied by varying degrees of grief and angst. The one-two gut punch of Prince and Bowie last year will be pretty hard to top. And now, Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell has…

Two musical forms dominated Beethoven's mind and rounded every chapter of his life: the piano sonata was his vanguard. The string quartet was the ultimate expression. Beethoven's five late quartets, the last works he wrote, represent more than his total subjugation of the most difficult frontier he…

There's been an avalanche of news over the past week, but here's one report that shouldn't be buried:

"What to do?"

On this week's episode, the Substandard reviews King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and the Guy Ritchie oeuvre—in other words, rankings! Sonny cleans his grill and suffers a terrible injury. JVL talks mages and +5 ice swords. Vic complains about breakfast in bed. Plus Powers Boothe and a word from our…

Reviews and News:

For years, the U.S. market has been much more open to Korean goods than Korea was to U.S. goods. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement that went into effect in 2012 was supposed to change this. But that hasn't been the case. And President Trump agrees. In a recent interview he told Reuters, "It's a…

Have a question for Matt Labash? Ask him at askmattlabash@gmail.com or click here.

Robert Mueller—the former FBI director who on Wednesday was appointed by the Department of Justice as a special prosecutor to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and possible collusion with Trump campaign associates—loves to prosecute.

The Justice Department appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the FBI probe of Russian interference in the election, multiple news outlets reported Wednesday. That probe includes any potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Contentious school board elections in Los Angeles served up a dramatic victory for education reformers in a district, the second-largest in the nation, that has long been dominated by teachers unions' hand-selected board members.

Well, this should attract people's attention: Stocks plunged big-time on Wednesday, as Washington political drama reached a fever pitch and investors worried that politicians won't deliver on tax reform and a health care overhaul.

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes updates us on the latest details of the fallout resulting from the firing of FBI director James Comey.

When the Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke at the Brookings Institution in Washington in March 2016, a handful of Armenian-American pickets appeared on the sidewalk beside Massachusetts Avenue, holding signs aloft and chanting about Erdogan's burgeoning Islamist dictatorship and the…

"I hope you can let this go," Donald Trump is reported to have said in a private conversation with James Comey. The president was apparently asking the then-FBI director to put the kibosh on the bureau's investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. The reported quote is said…

The controversy over a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian officials, which grew Tuesday to engulf Israel, will not harm intelligence sharing between Washington and Jerusalem and is unlikely to negatively affect the president's upcoming visit to the country, according to a top former…

Speaker Paul Ryan committed the House Wednesday to "follow the facts wherever they may lead" in response to a growing briar patch of allegations against the Trump White House, including a report that the president discouraged James Comey from continuing an investigation of former national security…

The pressure to respond to a constant stream of Trump administration controversies appears to be taking its toll on congressional Republicans. Strain began to show on Capitol Hill Tuesday even before the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump asked James Comey in February to end the…

Reviews and News:

Novelist Curtis Sittenfeld will be recasting Hillary Clinton's life in a bizarro world where Ms. Rodham might have met but never married Bill. The same Bubba who softened her hard heart, we're to understand, hardened the last glass ceiling over her head.

Does the president have recordings of the conversations he had with James Comey? It's a question the White House has had to deal with since Friday morning, when President Trump tweeted a vague threat of sorts to the man he had ousted as FBI director. "James Comey better hope that there are no…

Arizona senator John McCain says the mounting controversies surrounding the Trump administration are reaching the level of Watergate.

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren reports on how the White House has responded to recent allegations that President Trump shared highly classified information with the Russians.

Watching the White House these days is like driving down an interstate, but every two miles you have to slow to a crawl as you pass yet another car crash. More than likely, the cause of the wreck is a reckless driver, but, of course, there are the innocent occupants in the other car. Trump's…

Texas senator John Cornyn, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, took himself out of the running for FBI director on Tuesday.

The White House national security adviser on Tuesday did not deny several reports that President Donald Trump disclosed to high-ranking Russian officials previously classified intelligence from a foreign intelligence service. Speaking to reporters at the White House, H.R. McMaster said repeatedly…

Washington is afire once again with a controversy pitting President Donald Trump against the U.S. intelligence community and the media. The allegations are deadly serious: In an Oval Office meeting, the president disclosed highly classified information from a friendly intelligence service to an…

A Republican congressman is calling on the White House to share with some lawmakers the entire transcript of a controversial meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian officials, during which Trump reportedly revealed highly classified information.

Reviews and News:

President Trump appeared to admit Tuesday morning that he did share sensitive information, which multiple news outlets have reported was classified, with Russian officials in the Oval Office.

Note: Fox News retracted the story upon which this report was based on May 23.

Do Brexit, unbridled immigration, Russian aggression, and mounting nationalist sentiment augur the imminent end of the European project?

Have you ever sat in Starbucks and thought you might enjoy your latte more if you were surrounded by cats? Dozens of them? No?

Some years ago, I read Roger Ekirch's At Day's Close, a book about the history of sleep. Ekirch discovered that before the arrival of artificial light, English people had customarily had two sleep periods each night. People retired soon after dusk, and rose again at dawn. But their nights were…

If the Washington Post's bombshell report Monday is true, then President Trump has a big, big problem on his hands. As the Post reported, last Wednesday in the Oval Office Trump relayed what had been highly classified intelligence information related to ISIS to Russian foreign minister Sergei…

Democratic lawmakers, and a few Republicans, were deeply troubled by a report that President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information in a meeting with Russian officials last week.

The Washington Post reports that President Trump "revealed highly classified information" to high-ranking Russian officials last week. According to the Post's sources, Trump disclosed to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak information about a source of…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Jay Cost argues the left's obsession with the "I" word is both political malpractice and underestimates the strength of American democracy.

The headlines I saw said that only 29 percent of Americans approve of President Trump's decision to fire James Comey. That includes the headline written by NBC News about its own poll, which produced that result.

Top officials from the Obama administration are working to stymie congressional pressure on Iran, including through a quiet push in Congress by an organization that has been criticized for helping mislead the public about the Iran deal, according to correspondence obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Transportation secretary Elaine Chao told the Chamber of Commerce Monday that the Trump administration will unveil its infrastructure plan in the "next several weeks," the latest such estimate from a top official in recent days for one of the president's most touted priorities.

The statistic that 1-in-5 college women are the victims of sexual assault is so ubiquitous, and advocates so insistent that "the science is settled," that it can lead to predictable outrage when different reports—like a new analysis from the American Association of University Women showing 89…

A new poll shows that less than a quarter of people surveyed support the GOP bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare.

The weirdest thing about Hulu's much-discussed serialization of Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale is the Handmaid's Tale cosplay industry.

Cheri Bustos, a Democratic congresswoman from Central Illinois, was touted last week by Politico as the politician who has cracked the code for getting Trump voters to elect a Democrat.

Reviews and News:

The UK's Telegraph newspaper published an interesting report last week, the upshot of which was that Germans laugh very little. One in three Germans laughs fewer than five times a day. "When they do allow themselves a chuckle," writes the Telegraph, "it's more likely than not to be at the expense…

The U.S. dollar is strong and the British pound is weak these days, meaning that now is an advantageous time for Americans to visit the United Kingdom—rarely has the country been cheaper for us Yanks.

It's that time of year again: Graduating high school students, consumed by "senioritis," are making that all-important decision of which college or university they will attend. And their parents, consumed by anxiety, are aghast at the ever-growing cost of higher education.

The three people involved in effecting the termination of FBI director James Comey last week were President Donald Trump and the two highest officers in the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The Constitution vests in Trump the executive…

President Trump will be making a decision soon—though likely not this week, I'm told—about whether to send at least 3,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. That's the main element of a proposal presented to Trump by the National Security Council's principals committee (the whole of the president's…

Editor at large William Kristol joins the Washington Examiner's Hugo Gurdon and Byron York to discuss the firing of FBI director James Comey.

For decades, universities have meas­ured the performance of instructors in part by asking students to grade their professors. This has created a Yelp-y tyranny where teachers live in constant fear that their "clients" might torpedo them with one-star reviews. But not being dummies—at least for the…

I don't blow but I'm a fan. Look at me swing, ring-a-ding-ding. I even call my girlfriend 'man.' .  .  . Every Saturday night with my suit Buttoned tight and my suedes on I'm getting my kicks digging arty French Flicks with my shades on. —"I'm Hip" lyrics by Dave Frishberg The first distinction…

It's been over six years since IBM's Watson bested a pair of Jeopardy! champions, and now another venerable game show is getting the man-vs.-computer treatment. Starting this month contestants will battle a music-recognition app on #BeatShazam, a digital-age update of Name That Tune—a show I found…

In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Fred Barnes and Michael Warren discuss the James Comey firing fire-storm. Andrew Ferguson reports on the lurch to the left in Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial primary. And Ethan Epstein on the lurch to the left in the presidency of South Korea.

Reviews and News:

Wallingford, Conn.

Barack Obama took a break from his packed schedule of playdates with billionaires last week to go to Boston, where the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation presented him with its ever-so-prestig­ious "Profile in Courage AwardTM." Yes, the JFK folks have trademarked "Profile in Courage."…

This discussion of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will feature spoilers, so I don't want to hear any whining from any of you nerds. Read on, or don't; I get paid either way. Anyway, if you do complain, you're being silly because (a) this movie isn't a mystery, and (b) there aren't really any big…

There is no lack of drama in the Trump administration when it comes to trade policy. The ingredients are there: interesting players, uncertainty of outcome, the rise to and fall from favor. The principal actor and star, a man who brooks no rival for the spotlight is, of course, President Donald J.…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor at large William Kristol discusses his recent editorial and how the Comey firing and its after effects have changed the political climate profoundly in just a few days. Talk of Trump not finishing his term isn't just a punchline any more.

Wednesday seemed to offer a somewhat dispiriting conclusion to what had been a hopeful period for regulatory-reform advocates. Senate Republicans were unable to muster the 51 votes needed to repeal Obama-era rules governing methane emissions that stem from oil or natural-gas drilling. Vice…

Iran continues to boost the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria and act as the leading state sponsor of terrorism even as the nuclear deal temporarily limits the country's ability to build a nuclear weapon, according to a top intelligence chief.

An attempt by Senate Republicans to rollback an Obama-era regulation limiting methane emissions on federal lands failed, but the Interior Department has announced it would review the rule on its own.

China may only be implementing sanctions against North Korea in fits and starts, but it has shown no trouble sanctioning its democratic neighbors, South Korea and Taiwan. South Korea, for the "crime" of trying to protect itself from North Korean missiles—Beijing loathes the THAAD missile defense…

On May 8 President Trump announced his nominees to fill 10 of the 120 vacancies on federal district and appellate courts. All 10 have conservative pedigrees. They were on a list supplied by the conservative Heritage Foundation (the same list from which Trump picked Neil Gorsuch). Or they were…

Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:

Reviews and News:

The Republican party's dream of an Obamacare replacement might yet become reality. But the House-passed American Health Care Act is a nightmare: a labyrinth of policy trade-offs and academic ideas the public has resisted entering. It's currently polling in the 30s—a relative achievement, given that…

The firing of FBI director James Comey was a long time coming, to hear the insiders of the Trump administration tell it. But the final actions that put it in motion took place over the course of slightly more than 24 hours—light speed by government standards, and the hastiness and improvisation…

In his address to Congress, President Trump promised that "dying industries will come roaring back to life." I think the president should be even more ambitious: He should seriously consider bringing back industries and services that have already died. And I can think of two "dead" products that…

Donald Trump is an embarrassment. It would be better for the country if he were president for at most one term. It would be desirable that his manner of governing go down in history as an aberration; that his form of conservatism be judged a detour from the broad path of a mostly praiseworthy…

Barack Obama took a break from his packed schedule of playdates with billionaires last week to go to Boston, where the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation presented him with its ever-so-prestig­ious "Profile in Courage AwardTM." Yes, the JFK folks have trademarked "Profile in Courage."…

It was a long time before they were overcome—before we finished them. When we did get to them, they all died in one place, together. They threw down their guns when their ammunition was done, and then commenced with their pistols, which they used as long as their ammunition lasted; and then they…

Arlington, Va.

Some years ago, I read Roger Ekirch's At Day's Close, a book about the history of sleep. Ekirch discovered that before the arrival of artificial light, English people had customarily had two sleep periods each night. People retired soon after dusk, and rose again at dawn. But their nights were…

On May 21, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will perform for the very last time, ending a 146-year run. As of this writing, you can still buy tickets on the Internet for some of the final shows at various East Coast venues. The Ringling website also features a photo of a dazzlingly…

President Donald Trump fired James Comey just as the FBI director moved to expand and intensify the bureau's counterintelligence investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the possible collusion of Trump advisers in those efforts.

Do Brexit, unbridled immigration, Russian aggression, and mounting nationalist sentiment augur the imminent end of the European project?

The Scrapbook likes to think it's open to new experiences. For instance, we have concluded that the designated hitter rule won't destroy the institution of baseball. The Scrapbook is worldly.

"Everyone said it would be impossible to do what we did," France's new president, 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron, told a crowd of politely applauding supporters in the courtyard of the Louvre shortly after the polls had closed on May 7. "But they didn't know France!"

This discussion of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will feature spoilers, so I don't want to hear any whining from any of you nerds. Read on, or don't; I get paid either way. Anyway, if you do complain, you're being silly because (a) this movie isn't a mystery, and (b) there aren't really any big…

Have you ever sat in Starbucks and thought you might enjoy your latte more if you were surrounded by cats? Dozens of them? No?

I don't blow but I'm a fan. Look at me swing, ring-a-ding-ding. I even call my girlfriend 'man.' .  .  . Every Saturday night with my suit Buttoned tight and my suedes on I'm getting my kicks digging arty French Flicks with my shades on. —"I'm Hip" lyrics by Dave Frishberg The first distinction…

The U.S. dollar is strong and the British pound is weak these days, meaning that now is an advantageous time for Americans to visit the United Kingdom—rarely has the country been cheaper for us Yanks.

The three people involved in effecting the termination of FBI director James Comey last week were President Donald Trump and the two highest officers in the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The Constitution vests in Trump the executive…

For decades, universities have meas­ured the performance of instructors in part by asking students to grade their professors. This has created a Yelp-y tyranny where teachers live in constant fear that their "clients" might torpedo them with one-star reviews. But not being dummies—at least for the…

It's been over six years since IBM's Watson bested a pair of Jeopardy! champions, and now another venerable game show is getting the man-vs.-computer treatment. Starting this month contestants will battle a music-recognition app on #BeatShazam, a digital-age update of Name That Tune—a show I found…

Wallingford, Conn.

WHEN I LEFT HOME for my freshman year of college three years ago, my mother and father did what every diligent parent since Polonius has: They sat me down for the Talk. Unlike most 18-year-olds about to set off into the world, however, I did not receive the usual warnings about drugs, alcohol, or…

It's constantly surprising to me how promiscuously Americans use the term "expert." An expert is someone who has comprehensive knowledge of a subject or total mastery of a skill. We all recognize such people—the guy who repaired my roof last year is an expert, I think, because you can't perform the…

The firing of FBI director James Comey was a long time coming, to hear the insiders of the Trump administration tell it. But the final actions that put it in motion took place over the course of slightly more than 24 hours—light speed by government standards, and the hastiness and improvisation…

It's that time of year again: Graduating high school students, consumed by "senioritis," are making that all-important decision of which college or university they will attend. And their parents, consumed by anxiety, are aghast at the ever-growing cost of higher education.

For a symbolic issue, the Keystone pipeline has sure caused a lot of damage—to Canadian-American relations, to Democrats, to President Obama. And it feeds, underscores, or reflects a variety of political divisions, some of them quite bitter.

Among the swirling parts of the controversy over President Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey, there's one that matters most. It stands in the way of the naming of a special prosecutor, the creation of a bipartisan, joint House-Senate committee to investigate the Trump-Russia connection, or…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren analyzes the various reporting regarding the firing of FBI director Jim Comey. What have we learned? Nothing.

Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey certainly raises a lot of questions. However, the two salient facts here remain: The Trump-Russia investigation isn't going away, and not even the FBI disagrees that it was within the Trump's power to fire a man who serves at the pleasure of the president.…

Editor's note: Former Democratic representative Corrine Brown was convicted by a federal jury on 18 counts in her corruption trial Thursday. The 12-term Floridian's prosecution was related to theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fake charity. Most of the counts were related to mail,…

Aetna announced late Wednesday it will withdraw from the last two Obamacare exchange states in which it was still participating, taking one of the nation's insurance giants off the law's markets entirely next year.

Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe was on Capitol Hill Thursday nominally to discuss worldwide threats, but that did not stop him from facing questions about reaction within the bureau to the dismissal of James Comey. McCabe said that the vast majority of FBI employees did not lose confidence in…

Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe said Thursday that the bureau is continuing its work despite the sudden firing of James Comey, and that there have been no attempts yet to hinder the agency's efforts.

Bloomberg is reporting that President Trump is considering former Rep. Mike Rogers to replace James Comey as FBI director. Rogers is a former FBI agent; by the end of his seven terms in Congress he was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Bloomberg's report suggest that Rogers "would…

In the world of politics, perception becomes reality. But when it comes to the prevailing wisdom about the 2016 presidential elections and their likely impact on the 2018 mid-term elections, perception more closely resembles fake news.

There's a scene in the Brock Landers documentary—the movie-within-a-movie tucked away inside Boogie Nights—where Dirk Diggler explains how his work in adult films is actually a public service:

The Substandard discusses Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2—it was great, it was good, it was terrible! JVL gives us a rundown of the Substandard Season One, Sonny's theory on chain restaurants is challenged—by Sonny! Vic's not afraid of "street meat." Plus pizza rankings and a word from our sponsor,…

Reviews and News:

The United States has been at war for nearly a decade and a half, and although American military forces achieved tactical success in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have not been able to convert military victory into political success. This failure to consolidate military gains into stable order has…

Abortion is back: back in the news, back in the American political scene, back in the fights that rage through a party as it tries to understand itself. Last time we saw this, it was during Donald Trump's campaign for the Republican nomination, when three months in a row—February, March, and April…

The victorious Iraqi troops who greeted us this winter in the newly liberated town of Bartalla on the edge of Mosul seemed so different from those I remembered from the mid to late 2000s that it was hard to believe they came from the same country. These guys were, to put it in American military…

Why did President Trump fire James Comey? The initial explanation offered by the administration on Tuesday night was that the FBI director had mishandled the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server, dating back to a public appearance by Comey back in July 2016—10 months ago. It had…

Save for a few peaceful patches in the commencement program—when the concert chorale sang, when the brass band played, when the the charismatic chaplain called graduates and guests to prayer—students at the historically black Bethune-Cookman University's commencement ceremony on Wednesday clamored…

OK, someone—and the surveillance video shows exactly one man wearing black clothes—hung bananas by strings that resembled nooses at three locations on the campus of Washington, D.C.'s American University during the wee hours of the morning on May 1. The banana-hangings were plausibly a racial hate…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor at large William Kristol weighs in on Donald Trump's firing of FBI director Jim Comey.

Mississippi governor Phil Bryant would waive certain Obamacare mandates specified in the House-passed health care bill if doing so would improve the state's insurance market, Bryant's office told THE WEEKLY STANDARD on Wednesday.

The Senate Intelligence committee investigation into Russian election interference may face a few procedural bumps but will ultimately be brought to fruition despite the Trump administration's firing of FBI director James Comey, Republican committee members said Wednesday.

Portman and Toomey to tackle Medicaid growth rates

Reviews and News:

Political scientist and law professor Carol Swain retired from academia just when some of her research had become remarkably relevant. She doesn't see it quite that way, though. Swain prophesied the rise of the alt-right 15 years ago, but she won't call Donald Trump's election victory a vindication…

Tuesday at the White House began with an almost unusual stillness, with President Trump having no public appearances on his schedule. Trump met with aides, received his daily intelligence briefing, and tweeted a series of criticisms of his former acting attorney general. A normal morning, really.

In the wake of President Trump's surprise firing of FBI director James Comey, Democrats are redoubling their calls for an independent investigation into Russian election interference, including any potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russi.

President Trump has fired the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In a statement, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said James Comey has been "terminated and removed from office." Spicer also stated that both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein,…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, reporter Alice B. Lloyd discusses her recent story "There Is No Easy Way to Clean Up Obama's Title IX Mess."

Soon after President Trump issued his executive order on "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty," which includes potential "conscience protections" for those with religious objections to certain health insurance mandates, Planned Parenthood issued a press release noting that some "faith…

Dismantling Obama-era over-regulation is supposed to be a top priority of the Trump administration. And few regulations have caused as much consternation as Obama's reinterpretation of Title IX. Alas, no amount of subsequent policy can easily disentangle this overreach from campus life.

In the end, self-interest defeated collective interest. The South Korean presidential election, which concluded Tuesday, featured one strong left-wing candidate, Moon Jae-in, and three credible centrist-to-conservative contenders. (Notably, all three of the center-right candidates professed hard…

A national survey conducted entirely after House passage of the Republican health care bill found that support and opposition to Obamacare is split evenly among Americans.

Reviews and News:

It's been telling to watch the a-flutter reaction of liberals to President Trump's April 21 appointment of Sylvia Trent-Adams as acting U.S. Surgeon General after forcing the resignation of Barack Obama's appointee of three years, Vivek Murthy. It's as though incoming presidents are expected to…

You know about the Oscar curse: The notion that winning the Academy Award for Best Actress is great, but often followed by professional oblivion. Is there a New York Times curse as well?

To start off the new year, I bought my family three museum memberships. My kids take music lessons, we attend plays and concerts, and our trips to the big city almost always include a historical, cultural, or artistic experience. We are above-average consumers of "the arts." If Congress eliminates…

In Aristophanes' play The Knights, I came upon the following sentence, spoken by the Greek general Demosthenes to a sausage-seller whom the gods have prophesied will become the next leader of Athens: "No, political leadership's no longer a job for a man of education and good character, but for the…

What's going on at the National Security Council? Eli Lake at Bloomberg View reports that President Trump himself has "clashed" with National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster "in front of his staff." And it's not just the president, Lake writes:

Former director of national intelligence James Clapper said Monday that he was not aware of an FBI investigation involving potential coordination between Russia and the Trump team before March, but reaffirmed nonetheless that he had not seen evidence of such coordination.

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren discusses his feature profile of Jared Kushner, "The Voice in His Ear."

The Substandard is off to the races in this latest micro-episode, talking all things Kentucky Derby. JVL asks how many mint juleps can one man drink—at a party with kids. Sonny doesn't think horses are athletes. Vic talks about his (genetic?) penchant for gambling and his trip to Churchill…

The current issue of the New Yorker has an article by staff writer Adam Gopnik, who spent part of his childhood up north, titled, "We Could Have Been Canada: Was the American Revolution such a good idea?" The notion that liberals hate America is an intellectually lazy ad hominem attack indulged by…

In March, Arizona became the first state to pass a bill allowing the free flow of medical information between drug companies and physicians. The Free Speech in Medicine Act, which was passed unanimously in both state houses, may seem curiously innocuous: It simply permits pharmaceutical companies…

What is there left to write about George Washington? What insights can be gleaned about a man who has been the subject of centuries of biographies—many devoted to bringing the "flesh and blood" Washington to life—yet who still seems, in his "icy majesty," to stand above and apart from us?

From the Foundation for Constitutional Government:

Reviews and News:

What is the world's most effective weapon? During the First World War, gas killed about 90,000 people. During the Second World War, it was used to kill 6,000,000 Jews. Directly and indirectly, the two atomic bombs killed about 200,000 Japanese; the Japanese used anthrax, cholera and the bubonic…

When news broke that Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina senator and president of the Heritage Foundation, was being removed from his role at the prominent conservative think tank, activists and political insiders wondered: Had the Founding Father of the Tea Party finally been defeated by his…

President Donald Trump passed the 100-day mark in office last week. While the West Wing staff tried furiously to spin his executive pronouncements as a demonstration that he has kept his campaign promises, he can so far boast of zero legislative accomplishments of note. Worse, no prospective…

President Donald Trump will nominate 10 people to federal judgeships on Monday, the New York Times reported Sunday evening. The nominations include five appeals court seats, four district court seats, and a federal clams court seat.

The most unpredictable presidential election campaign in the history of the Fifth Republic ended with a suitably surprising outcome: For once, the pollsters and the commentators were right. After the confounding of the experts in last June's Brexit referendum and last November's U.S. presidential…

In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Michael Warren tells us about the president's most listened-to advisor; Fred Barnes comes by to talk with host Eric Felten about the House vote to repeal and replace (or perhaps just revise) Obamacare. And Garrett Graff, author of the new book Raven…

What does France have against the free press?

North Korea is a notoriously difficult country to escape from, not only because of the physical barriers the country erects along its northern border, but because of a sickening form of hostage-taking: High-ranking officials are not allowed to bring their whole families on overseas postings. That…

Reviews and News:

Education policy is prone to extremes. Cozy bipartisan cooperation brought big, messy compromises like the Bush-era "No Child Left Behind." Then, an oppositional fervor stoked by Tea Party-flavored federalism attacked the Common Core, and now bitter battles with big labor consume the school choice…

In the traditions and superstitions of the theater, Macbeth is known simply as "the Scottish play." To refer to it by name would be, for some never-explained reason, bad luck. Yet, as far as oblique references, this one provides a fairly apt summary of the sense of the play. At its heart, it is a…

Monetary policy is on hold: The Fed has set a pattern of interest rate increases and is sticking to it. Fiscal policy is also on hold. Republican scorpions bottled in the House of Representatives are split between deficit hawks and deficit doves, and those favoring a border tax and those joining…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor at large William Kristol shares his perspective on the House's passage of the American Health Care Act and the road ahead in the Senate for Obamacare repeal.

It's been a tough time for ESPN. The network is losing money and viewers, and just laid off more than a hundred employees, including some of its best-known faces. It's committed unforced errors: To celebrate National Poetry Month, The Worldwide Leader in Sports published a poem in praise of a woman…

"It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself as fully as what it is." —Leo Strauss

Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:

We suspect we are not the only ones amused by the New York Times editorial board's anguish upon hearing that former president Barack Obama will be pocketing $400,000 from investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald to speak at a health care conference in September.

So here we are, once again, coming up on the first Saturday in May and "the most exciting two minutes in sports." That phrase is generally attributed to Grantland Rice but it is a paraphrase. He actually wrote, in 1935, that, "Those two minutes and a second or so of derby running carry more…

Reviews and News:

As President Donald Trump and House speaker Paul Ryan spoke on the phone Thursday morning, hours before the House would vote on the American Health Care Act, they discussed an idea: If the bill passed, Ryan and a group of House Republicans would travel to the White House for a post-vote statement…

Georges Rouault (1871–1958) was born with a bang. A shell struck Rouault père's home during the Commune, and Madame went into labor. Of his birth, Rouault said, "In the faubourg of toil and suffering, in the darkness, I was born. Keeping vigil over pictorial turpitudes, I toiled miles away from…

"It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself as fully as what it is." —Leo Strauss

The Scrapbook is especially pleased to note that our friends at Encounter Books have just published a collection of 20 recent essays by Gertrude Himmelfarb—Past and Present: The Challenges of Modernity, from the Pre-Victorians to the Postmodernists. Of those 20 pieces, 11 first appeared in the…

Abortion is back: back in the news, back in the American political scene, back in the fights that rage through a party as it tries to understand itself. Last time we saw this, it was during Donald Trump's campaign for the Republican nomination, when three months in a row—February, March, and April…

When news broke that Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina senator and president of the Heritage Foundation, was being removed from his role at the prominent conservative think tank, activists and political insiders wondered: Had the Founding Father of the Tea Party finally been defeated by his…

In Aristophanes' play The Knights, I came upon the following sentence, spoken by the Greek general Demosthenes to a sausage-seller whom the gods have prophesied will become the next leader of Athens: "No, political leadership's no longer a job for a man of education and good character, but for the…

Something ugly is happening to the First Amendment. It is being contorted to enable judges to protest Donald Trump's presidency. The perennial impulse of judges to manipulate the law to achieve morally and politically desirable ends has only been exacerbated by the felt necessity to "resist" Trump.…

What is there left to write about George Washington? What insights can be gleaned about a man who has been the subject of centuries of biographies—many devoted to bringing the "flesh and blood" Washington to life—yet who still seems, in his "icy majesty," to stand above and apart from us?

Los Angeles County has 14 area codes. Not zip codes, area codes. (It has 320 zip codes.) Its population is larger than that of 42 states, its area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. It has two mountain ranges, five rivers, two deserts, six major valleys, and a boundary that runs 70…

In mid-December, Jeb Bush announced his intention to explore a presidential bid. If he runs and wins the Republican nomination and then the election, he will be the third President Bush in 25 years. That unprecedented prospect has left many wondering: In a republic like ours, is it proper for one…

The ancient author of Ecclesiastes wrote, "Of making many books there is no end," and that is undeniably true as we consider Martin Luther. With the sole exception of Jesus Christ, more books have been written about Luther than about any other person who has ever lived. In 1983, the 500th…

To start off the new year, I bought my family three museum memberships. My kids take music lessons, we attend plays and concerts, and our trips to the big city almost always include a historical, cultural, or artistic experience. We are above-average consumers of "the arts." If Congress eliminates…

It's been a tough time for ESPN. The network is losing money and viewers, and just laid off more than a hundred employees, including some of its best-known faces. It's committed unforced errors: To celebrate National Poetry Month, The Worldwide Leader in Sports published a poem in praise of a woman…

It makes sense that Mick Herron’s third novel about MI5 can be enjoyed without reading the others: Coming in at the middle of things is integral to his books. It's the condition of life, especially in a government bureaucracy. And the same could be said about intelligence gathering: It's what we…

We suspect we are not the only ones amused by the New York Times editorial board's anguish upon hearing that former president Barack Obama will be pocketing $400,000 from investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald to speak at a health care conference in September.

Political scientist and law professor Carol Swain retired from academia just when some of her research had become remarkably relevant. She doesn't see it quite that way, though. Swain prophesied the rise of the alt-right 15 years ago, but she won't call Donald Trump's election victory a vindication…

That liberals run American universities is never going to be a man-bites-dog news headline, but the urgent question ought to be: When are university liberals going to stand up and defend liberalism?

The United States has been at war for nearly a decade and a half, and although American military forces achieved tactical success in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have not been able to convert military victory into political success. This failure to consolidate military gains into stable order has…

It's getting harder and harder to be politically correct, no matter how assiduously one may try. Consider the tale of the poor feminist philosopher who has gotten herself sideways with the prickly Jacobins of her profession.

Asked why Virginia has become a Democratic state or at least is Democratic-leaning, former governor Jim Gilmore had a one-word answer: "Fairfax."

When Reince Priebus wants to talk with the most powerful aide in the West Wing, he steps out of his corner office, walks down the hall toward the Oval Office, and knocks on the door of Jared Kushner—sometimes twice. Priebus may be the chief of staff, but it's he who waits for Kushner, the…

Driving past an office building under construction in Reston, Virginia, where I live, I noticed posters on the building that said: "Iconic Offices." While reading a newspaper online, a pop-up ad came up that said, "Make Your Escape Iconic!" It was promoting a hotel in Miami Beach. I was puzzled.…

The Washington Post started the month with another in what seems to be a series of stories proclaiming electoral doom for Republicans. This was the front-page headline: "Kansas's blue hope: In a deep-red state ruled by Koch money, buoyed Democrats toil to flip seats one yard sale at a time." Let's…

President Donald Trump passed the 100-day mark in office last week. While the West Wing staff tried furiously to spin his executive pronouncements as a demonstration that he has kept his campaign promises, he can so far boast of zero legislative accomplishments of note. Worse, no prospective…

On the day of Freddie Gray's funeral—April 27, 2015, when the city of Baltimore erupted in a wave of violence, crime, and arson—the police force did not employ a single chaplain. In the two years since, they've grown an ecumenical corps of 134 men and women of the cloth who ride along with officers…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, executive editor Fred Barnes discusses the House's passage of the American Health Care Act, and why it was a necessary win for President Trump and the GOP.

House Republicans held together just enough on Thursday to pass their partial Obamacare replacement, a surgically repaired bill that a critical mass of conservatives and moderates blocked until they became more comfortable with the final product in recent days.

In this latest episode, the Substandard discusses box-office bomb The Circle and the techno-thriller genre. Vic loves WarGames, Sonny goes on an Andy Rooney rant against elitist foodies, and Jonathan shares an L.A. story. All on this week's "inchoate" episode of the Substandard!

If James Bennett is remembered for anything, it's the formulation: "Democracy, immigration, multiculturalism . . . pick any two." A lot of people—in America, in France, all over the place, really—have come to see this proposition as reasonably serious.

Reviews and News:

On Christmas Day 1780, Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson instructed the head of his state's militia, George Rogers Clark, to fortify Virginia's western frontier against a British-Indian invasion. At the end of his instructions, Jefferson added his hope that the American "Empire of Liberty" would…

Have a question for Matt Labash? Ask him at askmattlabash@gmail.com or click here.

Republicans are adding another $8 billion over five years to their health bill to help Americans with pre-existing medical conditions pay for insurance, the latest such supplement designed to stop moderates and a few skeptical conservatives from bailing on the legislation.

Jean Stein, author and editor, took her own life earlier this week when she leapt from the balcony of her Upper East Side apartment. Friends described her as depressed. She was 83, and leaves behind her two daughters, Wendy vanden Heuvel, an actress and producer, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor…

On April 20 I posted about what I called a "simmering, occasionally boiling cauldron of ethnic self-pity, social-justice terrorism, whines about homework, and calls for the abolition of free speech" at the five ultra-elite Claremont Colleges in Southern California. I focused on news accounts about…

Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Mark Hemingway talks about how newly minted New York Times columnist Bret Stephens trolled the left on climate change.

Amid a tense Democratic debate over whether pro-lifers have any place inside the party, Nancy Pelosi delivered a blunt message to her fellow Democrats: Trump won because of the party's rigid stance on abortion and other social issues.

FBI director James Comey stood by his October decision to inform lawmakers that his agency had discovered new emails linked to the Hillary Clinton investigation, an event that Clinton and her allies continue to charge swayed the election at the last minute. Comey testified Wednesday before the…

In the contemporary campus climate, that lovely stretch from the latter half of April to the first blush of May is also controversial commencement speaker season. The most contested, in a year in which her raked-over confirmation proceedings garnered outsize news coverage, will probably be Betsy…

Reviews and News:

What's the holdup? Deputy national security advisor K.T. McFarland is waiting to leave the White House to prepare for her new assignment as the U.S. ambassador to Singapore. An administration official confirmed back on April 9 that McFarland, a veteran of the Reagan administration who was a Fox…

On Tuesday, the Heritage Foundation's board of Trustees unanimously "asked for and received the resignation of Jim DeMint as president and CEO of the organization," according to a statement from board Chairman Thomas Saunders. The statement blames DeMint for unspecified "significant and worsening…

The latest version of the American Health Care Act continued to leak GOP support on Tuesday, as Republicans stumbled to defend critical details of the bill that Democrats and outside groups have effectively defined as dangerous to sick consumers.

Two prominent Republican senators are exploring a variety of options to push through a Russia sanctions bill as soon as possible, after Senator Bob Corker said Monday that the sanctions are on hold for now.

Colonel Bruce Hampton, a four-star general of the South's jam band scene, contemporary of the Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead, influence and mentor to blues artists, occasional actor and constant character, passed away early Tuesday in Atlanta after collapsing onstage during a concert celebrating…

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Daniel Krauthammer discusses his cover story "What Makes America Great?"

Despite decades of public campaigning, steady increases in penalties, and even the advent of ride-sharing apps, some 10,000 Americans are killed each year by drunk drivers. These are preventable deaths, each one an outrage and a tragedy. The Washington Post, for its part, has therefore…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday panned President Trump's Twitter suggestion to do away with the 60-vote filibuster rule in the Senate.

It's widely accepted that traditional colleges and universities are ripe for some kind of disruption.

Top Republican senators advised the president on Monday to be cautious about meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, after he said in an interview that he would be "honored" to meet with Kim "under the right circumstances."

As the Trump administration scrambles to tamp down reports (via the New York Times) that the National Security Council and the State Department were caught flat-footed by President Trump inviting Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte to the White House, details included in the State Department's…

Reviews and News:

Lawmakers will likely consider an Iran sanctions bill in coming weeks but will not do the same for a Russia sanctions bill, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told reporters Monday.

Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign has been all the buzz in Washington. The book, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, is full of stories that probably never would have been told if Hillary had eked out an Electoral College win. Not just because a victorious campaign tends not to air…

By most measures, Will Manidis is like many other American high school students. He plays lacrosse for Westtown, his Quaker boarding school outside Philadelphia. He’s captain of Westtown's robotics team, which has deepened his interest in math and computer science. Last fall, in the heat of the…

Just whose side is the Washington Post on: that of the little guy or the small plate? The paper approvingly cited an economic study last week that found minimum wage hikes in the San Francisco Bay area were more likely to shutter average restaurants than those favored by foodies. Eateries with…

Last week, the New York Philharmonic presented Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto as part of a wide-ranging program under visiting Belfast-born conductor Courtney Lewis and pianist Jonathan Biss.

If the House of Representatives ends up passing a new version of the American Health Care Act in the next couple of weeks, Republicans can thank the White House—for staying mostly out of the way. While both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence continue to speak with both House…

Since publishing its debut column by Bret Stephens, the New York Times has been under siege by angry readers posting screenshots on social media of them canceling their subscriptions. It seems like just a few months ago, subscribing to the Times and even buying its newsroom pizza —you know, in…

In this knockout mini-episode of the Substandard, we talk about the decline of boxing in America and the rise of UFC. JVL provides a bit of UFC history, and Sonny admits his love for the Sweet Science. Vic shares some scoop from a friend inside the boxing world.

Rep. Mike Kelly is frustrated by his Republican colleagues' resistance to President Trump.

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes suggests that the best way for President Trump to pivot from his many early setbacks is to pick priorities, and focus on them. Health care, for example, would be a good choice.

A hotel in Qatar with links to the United States has decided against hosting a Hamas press conference Monday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned. The cancellation came after reports that the company could face penalties for providing material support for terrorism if it held the event.

Rand Paul's going to be teaching a course on "dystopian visions" at George Washington University next fall. Because of course he is.

The Agriculture Department is scaling back some of the Obama administration's most aggressive nutrition rules for school lunches, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Monday at a Virginia elementary school.

Reviews and News:

After Neil Gorsuch was confirmed, most of America moved on to Russia, North Korea, the tax plan, and Rodrigo Duterte. But a small universe of Republican legal thinkers moved on, instead, to war-gaming the next Supreme Court vacancy.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected, we've been in the middle of a dystopian fiction craze. The anti-Trumpers have sought to understand (and indulge in self-satisfied frissons of terror at) the rise of the Donald by imagining that the current moment is George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or…

Regrets—we've all had a few. L'esprit de l'escalier—that wonderful line coming to mind a moment too late—is a common annoyance after failed dates and dud job interviews; dented fenders and bum shoulders attest to avoidable failures of depth perception and misjudged forays into backyard football…

Immense technological and storytelling evolutions of the last 30 years have elevated video games into a respected art form. Video games today have graphics that make them literal works of digital art and provide cinema-quality experiences to gamers. It's allowed the industry to transition from…

There aren't too many scholarly journals that can be read recreationally; one of them is the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR). Despite what the name might suggest, the BAR is in no sense a religious publication; it is, rather, a serious academic look at discoveries and developments in the…

In the heart of Wall Street, a new statue is causing quite a kerfuffle. Sponsored by State Street Global Advisors, one of the world’s largest asset-management firms, the "Fearless Girl" was installed earlier this year to stand in front of the famous "Charging Bull" in Bowling Green Park, just a…

Welcome to White House Watch, a new reported feature here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, written by me. I aim to continue what I started with the First 100 Days, my daily chronicle of the Donald Trump White House's whirlwind first period. That ended this weekend (read my wrap-up for Trump's first 100 days…