381 articles
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly takes a necessary first step in bringing some order to a chaotic White House—defenestrating Anthony Scaramucci. Senior writer Michael Warren has the story.
In Caracas on Sunday Venezuelan “Assassin in Chief” Nicolas Maduro abandoned his last pretense of legitimacy and commenced open warfare on democracy. Ignoring the heavy losses of his legislative allies in the December 2015 legislative elections (which transpired despite corrupt rulings by the…
Mooch, we hardly knew ye.
As well, Donald Trump can tell you, New York theater is one tough business. Even the most critically acclaimed shows can struggle to make a buck. Just this year, Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat lasted barely 100 performances on the Great White Way. (Though in that case, the market was…
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A congressional sanctions package that targets Russia is triggering icy resentment from the Kremlin, with top officials there warning of further retaliation and worsening relations between Moscow and Washington.
Athens
In a recent article for Townhall, columnist Kurt Schlichter wrote that the putative Senate candidacy in Michigan of “Kid Rock” (stage name of rocker/rapper Robert Ritchie) “should make every normal American smile” because “it will drive the liberals insane” and “make George Will [and other…
John Kelly begins his first week on the job as chief of staff at a time of great challenge in the White House. President Donald Trump’s first major legislative effort, repealing Obamacare, has failed. Prospects for the next agenda items—tax reform, a budget deal, infrastructure, immigration—are…
Burlington, Vt.
Tim Gill is best known as the Denver-based mega-donor who bankrolled the successful national campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. In June, Gill sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone. He was asked about the future of the gay rights movement. If you had any doubt that Gill and other…
What is one to think as one watches the clown show in the White House, the train wreck in Congress, and the multi-vehicle accident that is conservatism today? We’re inclined (as we so often are) simply to quote Winston Churchill, in this case speaking in 1931 about Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald:
This week on the Confab, executive editor Fred Barnes talks about how every day is Groundhog Day at the White House. Then movie critic John Podhoretz and digital editor Jonathan Last debate Dunkirk.
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If you wonder what is supposed to happen when the demand for labor outruns the available supply, take a look at the picture below. It’s a Starbucks plea for baristas—the usually young people who make your latte, americano, or coconut milk mocha macchiato every morning. True, this particular branch…
There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of futurology, the utopian and the apocalyptic. In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari, like the Book of Revelation, offers a bit of both. And why not? The function of imaginary futures is to deliver us from banality. The present, like the past, may be a…
There are few events in the history of war comparable to the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the French beach at Dunkirk in the late spring of 1940. It is an episode that repays close attention to its every aspect—the terrifying Nazi triumphs in combat that led to it, the halting…
President Donald Trump announced the latest White House shakeup via Twitter on Friday afternoon, tweeting that John F. Kelly would replace Reince Preibus as White House chief of staff.
In a shot at their colleagues in the Senate who failed to pass their Obamacare repeal measure overnight, House GOP members reportedly played “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” before a meeting on Friday. "The searches all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay, If they’d put 15 more miles behind…
Today on the Kristol Clear podcast, filling in for Bill Kristol is senior writer Michael Warren, who talks about the Senate's epic failure to repeal Obamacare, and the chaos being spread by the president's new communication director, Anthony Scaramucci.
Conservative journalist and speaker Ben Shapiro outlined for Congress on Tuesday the steps liberal opponents of free speech take to silence those with whom they disagree: “The first step is they say the validity or invalidity of an argument can be judged solely by the ethnic, sexual, racial or…
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We’re not fans of adding “ism” to the names of presidents—“Reaganism” and “Jeffersonianism” make sense to describe those men’s political worldviews, but you wouldn’t use the formulations “Fordism” or “Clintonism” and expect to be understood. Nonetheless, “Trumpism” meant something definable to a…
Some years ago, a group of newspaper reporters came up with a headline that could work with almost any story. Here’s what they agreed on: “They’re at it again.”
From full repeal to skinny repeal to no repeal.
There’s not much more to add to what Anthony Scaramucci told the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza on Wednesday night. Shortly before publicly making a false accusation against Reince Priebus, the brand new White House communications director laid into Priebus, White House aide Steve Bannon, and many other…
These are perilous times for understatement and modest expectations. In the age of Trump, even the smallest of things are transmogrified into epoch-defining events. These are the days of mountains out of molehills, “a new low” almost daily, and more proof (as if more were needed) that your…
Is the multinational behemoth that owns Budweiser—AB InBev—a threat to American beer? Democrats seem to think so. In their populist campaign manifesto for 2018, “A Better Deal,” they warn, “In the last year, InBev which owns Anheuser-Busch and is the world’s largest beer company, struck a deal to…
Rocked by massive protests and violent skirmishes, Venezuela is on the brink of civil war and has been for some time now. It should come as no surprise, then, that the socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro is shoring up support with the country’s military in every way it can. This includes rewarding…
If you are an American man born after 1945, you have almost certainly played with Legos. Earlier generations had Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, and Erector Sets, but Legos began taking over the world of building toys in the early 1970s. Meaning if you are under the age of 70, you likely played with…
Pamplona, Spain
The Dynamics of World History
We’re not fans of adding “ism” to the names of presidents—“Reaganism” and “Jeffersonianism” make sense to describe those men’s political worldviews, but you wouldn’t use the formulations “Fordism” or “Clintonism” and expect to be understood. Nonetheless, “Trumpism” meant something definable to a…
What is one to think as one watches the clown show in the White House, the train wreck in Congress, and the multi-vehicle accident that is conservatism today? We’re inclined (as we so often are) simply to quote Winston Churchill, in this case speaking in 1931 about Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald:
When Sir Gawain and the Green Knight first appeared in print, in 1839, its wintry world of Christian revelry, chivalric honor, and Arthurian romance had long since vanished. Indeed, that world, or rather, medieval romantic literature as a whole, was antiquated even at the time the poem was written,…
These are not the journals you’re looking for.
There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of futurology, the utopian and the apocalyptic. In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari, like the Book of Revelation, offers a bit of both. And why not? The function of imaginary futures is to deliver us from banality. The present, like the past, may be a…
Some people endeavor to live an eco-friendly life. But why should your environmental activism stop just because you die? California legislators are debating a bill that would give morticians permission to dispose of corpses in a relatively new way—one in harmony with nature—known as “water…
No contemporary political issue is more emotionally fraught: The LGBT lobby, enjoying its new political ascendancy, worries that religious conservatives wish to diminish the self-definition and harm the dignity of the wider LGBT community; meanwhile, religious conservatives, feeling beleaguered,…
Athens
Some years ago, a group of newspaper reporters came up with a headline that could work with almost any story. Here’s what they agreed on: “They’re at it again.”
THE WORD "HONOR" is not one we hear much these days. It sounds quaint when we read it of the past and pretentious if applied to the present. We prefer to speak more realistically, more candidly, of self-interest.
These are perilous times for understatement and modest expectations. In the age of Trump, even the smallest of things are transmogrified into epoch-defining events. These are the days of mountains out of molehills, “a new low” almost daily, and more proof (as if more were needed) that your…
Burlington, Vt.
I once worked in a small state agency that, among other things, analyzed legislation. At one point the agency’s head hired three new analysts. One of them was a woman in her early thirties—call her Leena. Her job was to brief other staffers on budget-related bills. When she first took the job,…
In a recent article for Townhall, columnist Kurt Schlichter wrote that the putative Senate candidacy in Michigan of “Kid Rock” (stage name of rocker/rapper Robert Ritchie) “should make every normal American smile” because “it will drive the liberals insane” and “make George Will [and other…
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump was shown a disturbing video of Syrian rebels beheading a child near the city of Aleppo. It had caused a minor stir in the press as the fighters belonged to the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, a group that had been supported by the CIA as part of its rebel…
Diagnosing the illnesses of historical figures is a strange activity. I’m not really sure I approve of picturing the dead in the blue light of a science unknown in their own times, as if they were wearing hospital robes and sitting on examining tables, legs dangling like small children in an adult…
There are few events in the history of war comparable to the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the French beach at Dunkirk in the late spring of 1940. It is an episode that repays close attention to its every aspect—the terrifying Nazi triumphs in combat that led to it, the halting…
Tim Gill is best known as the Denver-based mega-donor who bankrolled the successful national campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. In June, Gill sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone. He was asked about the future of the gay rights movement. If you had any doubt that Gill and other…
Shortly before 10 p.m. on Thursday, Senate Republicans finally revealed to the public the text of the health-care bill they hope to pass. The so-called "skinny" repeal bill is just 8 pages long. You can read it here. A vote is scheduled shortly after midnight.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed a sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill targeting Russia, Iran, and North Korea Thursday, 98-2.
Republican senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Ron Johnson, and Bill Cassidy told reporters Thursday afternoon that they despise the idea of a “skinny” Obamacare repeal bill—but that they would vote for it on the condition health reform ends up being negotiated further between the House and…
Pictured above: Three skinny health reform amendments that could stand a chance of passing.
A reporter with a Turkish newspaper has admitted he made up quotations about White House adviser Jared Kushner—including comments that Kushner believes Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is “trying to make his country great.”
After months of private deliberations, GOP leadership and the White House announced Thursday that they are ready to move forward on tax reform.
During a week in which all signs point to Republicans enshrining President Obama's top domestic achievement into law, it's now looking like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has tricked President Trump into keeping the main pillar of Obama's foreign policy legacy in place indefinitely: the…
Move over, Bill Gates: There’s a new richest man in the world.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on a sunny Tuesday, communications director Anthony Scaramucci threatened an executive branch purge.
Millennials are responsible for more killings than Jeffrey Dahmer. At this point, my generation—those us born, roughly, between the 1982 and the year 2000—have been accused of killing dinner dates, golf, napkins, running, and Applebees. (OK, that last one is justifiable homicide.)
Derek Harvey, a top Middle East adviser to President Donald Trump, has been fired from his position at the National Security Council, effective today. Harvey, a longtime intelligence professional with vast experience in the Middle East, was a key player in the Trump administration’s Iran policy…
The reporter who published information that White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci claimed was leaked denies that anyone from the administration leaked it to her. Politico reporter Lorraine Woellert reported Wednesday on Scaramucci’s financial disclosure, which Woellert wrote was…
Lawmakers reached an agreement Wednesday for the Senate to vote on a sweeping sanctions bill that was overwhelmingly approved by the House this week, in a push to promptly get the legislation to the president’s desk.
On this week’s episode, the Substandard reviews Dunkirk and ranks the Christopher Nolan oeuvre. Sonny hates the beach, JVL hates Tesla even more, and Vic discovers Game of Thrones. Plus Justice League woes and Gene Shalit goes to the IMAX, all on this week’s Substandard!
Tesla honcho Elon Musk is not like Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, or even LeBron James, who made their billions through innovation in a free, fair market. Musk has made his wealth from the taxpayer (if not all, at least a lot of). In a particularly glorious, damning bit of…
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President Donald Trump is thinking about making a recess appointment of a new attorney general next month. Luckily for him, two of his administration’s top lawyers are experts on the subject of recess appointments.
One of the most effective rallying cries against the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010 was a simple question: “Have you read the bill?” The question was an indictment of a 2,700-page measure that was poorly understood by those voting for it, sold to the public under false pretenses (“if you like…
Anthony Scaramucci has had some difficulty over the course of his first few days as White House communications director, but as he wrapped up his first week on the job he managed to provide an unambiguous answer to one question on the minds of millions of Americans watching the Trump presidency…
I saw Dunkirk over the weekend. What a lousy movie!
Senator John McCain has voted during the last two days to consider—not approve—a practically empty vessel which Republicans will try filling with legislative cargo; to waive Senate rules restricting an amendment as-written; against adopting one of those amendments as working language for a bill;…
The U.S.’s European allies are split on how to respond to new American sanctions on Russia. Some of the sanctions the House passed on Tuesday are targeted against companies or individuals that cooperate with Russian energy companies. According to the bill, “The Government of the Russian Federation…
As the Senate investigates allegations that elements of the Trump campaign may have been colluding with Russia, an interesting angle has emerged. Fusion GPS is the shadowy research firm that was commissioned by interests aligned with the Democratic party to produce (possibly with the help of the…
Jared Kushner’s three-hour interview with the House Intelligence Committee has led to some verbal sparring between members of Congress.
As I write this, Jeff Sessions still has a job as America’s attorney general, though for all I know, he could be gone by the time you read this.
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, deputy online editor Chris Deaton talks with host Eric Felten about the Obamacare repeal debate going on in the Senate Wednesday.
The Senate is weighing removing North Korea sanctions from a sweeping bill that overwhelmingly passed the House on Tuesday, the chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations panel said, in an effort to get the package passed before August recess.
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Poor Richard. Richard Dawkins, that is. The British evolutionary biologist and professional atheist devoted years of his life to blasting Christianity, and the intellectual left couldn’t shovel enough praise onto his head. But more recently he has begun blasting Islam, and uh-oh! The Berkeley-based…
Over at the Justice Department, it’s “business as usual here.”
This is the third part of an interview with Vladimir Kara-Murza. Read part one here and part two here.
As President Macron and President Trump stood side by side during the Bastille Day ceremonies in Paris, it was not difficult for commentators to point out the differences between the two men. Neither in personal style nor substantive policies do they have much in common. Indeed, Macron’s victory in…
My wife and I are record collectors. At the moment, we own 1,151 of them (I have an app on my phone cataloguing the collection), and that number has been growing at a good clip. There’s no real organizing principle—it’s a diverse collection of rock, classical, jazz, soul, and even a fair bit of…
It’s true that the Trump administration is flailing. The president hasn’t managed to accomplish a single major reform or win a single policy victory. The investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, moreover, seems likely to bring charges against one or more people associated with the…
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a sweeping sanctions bill targeting Russia, Iran, and North Korea on Tuesday, 419-3.
Senate Republicans advanced an instrument more than an idea for Obamacare repeal Tuesday with a wild vote interrupted by jeering protesters and applause for the pivotal return of an ailing colleague.
The leaders of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe emerged satisfied from a three-hour meeting with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, but left open the possibility of further questioning.
On Monday, the congressional leaders of the Democratic party announced their 2018 campaign agenda, modestly titled “A Better Deal.” And it was no coincidence that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Elizabeth Warren visited Berryville, Virginia for…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren discusses what happens if President Trump succeeds in shaming Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of office.
Bipartisan agreement in the House on a Russia sanctions bill was the first sign this week that the alliance between President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress was growing shakier. On Tuesday, it grew shakier still, as multiple Republican senators spoke out in protest of Trump’s continued…
The House is expected to vote on a sanctions bill targeting Russia, Iran, and North Korea Tuesday, but the chairman of the Senate's foreign relations panel says lawmakers need to work out a few more kinks—which might prevent the bill’s passage before August recess.
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This is the second part of an interview with Vladimir Kara-Murza. Read part one here.
One thing that everyone ought to be able to agree on about the Olive Garden and its 844 chain-Italian restaurants is that the food there is pretty cheap (“value-oriented” is the favored way of describing the cuisine). Another thing that almost everyone ought to be able to agree on is that is that…
Is Attorney General Jeff Sessions heading out the door, or isn’t he? White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirms that Sessions visited the West Wing on Monday but did not meet with President Donald Trump. A source close to Sessions tells me his Monday trip was a “standing” meeting:…
It looks like the finale for the final clubs. A Harvard faculty committee released a report last week recommending that all fraternities, sororities, and similarly “exclusionary” single-sex social organizations be phased out by the spring of 2022. The committee determined that it would not be…
Senate Republicans still don't have 50 votes to pass any piece of legislation dealing with Obamacare, but they may nevertheless vote to proceed to debate on health care legislation Tuesday with no apparent endgame in sight.
Over 2,700 words would seem to be quite a superabundance of prose when you have but one point to make, especially when that point can be made in four words: Donald Trump is overweight. But the folks at Politico did just that last week, releasing a breathless piece declaring “Donald Trump is the…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, RealClearPolitics Washington editor Carl Cannon comes by to talk about his new book "On This Date," a calendar of significant events in American history.
Charlie Gard’s parents have announced they will withdraw their application to take their son to from London to the U.S. for experimental treatment. Their decision comes in response to new medical evidence which showed it was “too late” for Charlie to benefit from nucleoside therapy.
Planned Parenthood has long been known for its frank, scientific, and matter-of-fact advice on how parents should talk to their kids about their bodies and sex. But the organization's recently revamped website has scrapped biological explanations for male-female distinctions in favor of a…
The King and I is on borrowed time. The 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical—a staple of the stage since debut—feels downright subversive in 2017.
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Vladimir Kara-Murza was late to our interview because he was at the hospital, receiving treatment for being poisoned. Again. He’s not a spy, he’s not KGB—he’s just a journalist and political activist, and not really all that threatening. But twice in the past two years, Kara-Murza has experienced…
Readers of The Scrapbook will recall the recent item about L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood, where some locals mounted a campaign against an art gallery, claiming it represented an intrusion of gringo culture into the predominantly Hispanic community (see “White Out,” March 6, 2017). The activists…
Opinions may vary about Donald Trump Jr., but nearly all can agree that his meeting with the mysterious Natalia Veselnitskaya—and two or four or seven other people in Trump Tower last summer—has done his father no good. I plead agnosticism on this particular case, tending to conclude that it…
What will new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci do to shake things up in the West Wing? Let’s go to the tape, specifically to Fox News Sunday, where Scaramucci spoke extensively with host Chris Wallace about his plans. Scaramucci listed (in his discursive manner) three actions…
Cambria, Calif.
Harvard is banishing the off-campus “final clubs” that have functioned for generations as the school’s equivalent of fraternities and sororities, as Naomi Schaefer Riley reports elsewhere in this issue. The university has its reasons, most notably a contentious claim that the clubs foster a culture…
Even the most devoted Baker Street Irregular or Baker Street Babe must have trouble keeping up with the frenetic celebration of Sherlock Holmes and his creator Arthur Conan Doyle—the movies and TV series, the volumes of letters and diaries, the special editions of the canonical stories, the…
Evidently the state of American moviemaking has regressed to the point where all low- to mid-budget movies made at the periphery of the mainstream must be either triumphs or failures, as though all it takes to make an artistically significant film is merely an artistic vision. A Ghost Story,…
Some of the Senate's rules governing what legislation can be passed with a simple majority, rather than 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, are vague and confusing. So it was widely expected that the Senate parliamentarian would say that some provisions in the GOP bill to partially repeal and…
This week on the Confab, President Trump regrets having chosen Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Michael Warren joins Eric Felten to talk about what the White House thinks it can do about it. John McCormack looks at the ever-changing prospects that the Senate will do something about Obamacare.…
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As somebody who makes a living, in part, by writing history, I have a confession against interest: I am not a big fan of biographies. My main problem is the constant interruption of narrative flow. Real life moves along multiple tracks simultaneously, but a biographer can only discuss one item at a…
In July 2016, Roger Federer looked like he might be calling time on his illustrious career. He was 34, old for an athlete and especially so for tennis, a game in which Federer was at his best in his mid- to late 20s. His knee gave out on him in the semifinals of Wimbledon, and he announced that he…
“The trusts are hijous monsters. On the one hand they must be crushed underfoot; on the other hand not so fast.” So spake Mr. Dooley, the fictitious Irish bartender and font of wisdom created by Finley Peter Dunne in the late 19th century. Trusts were the form monopolies took at the time. Dooley…
The Big Sick is a movie about a struggling comedian from a Pakistani family and his graduate-student waif of a girlfriend. They break up. She gets a mysterious infection and is put in a medically induced coma. He must deal with her parents, who are angry with him for the way he treated her, and his…
It was a busy day at the White House, as Sean Spicer resigned after the White House named investment banker and GOP fundraiser Anthony Scaramucci the new communications director. Before he was a member of the administration, Scaramucci was a staunch defender of President Trump on Twitter and cable…
Today on the Kristol Clear podcast, Spicer is out; Scaramucci is in. Bill Kristol talks about the latest White House shakeup.
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Hedge fund manager and new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has never held a press job before. But he has repeatedly demonstrated the key qualifying characteristics: a willingness and ability to carry water for the president.
Amtrak interim CEO Charles W. Moorman III made a rare admission for a businessman in a speech last week: His company is never going to make a profit. That’s no surprise to anyone who knows anything about Amtrak, which has cost taxpayers more than $45 billion in subsidies since service began in…
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary who became a celebrity in his own right, has resigned, according to multiple reports. Spicer tendered his resignation Friday morning following the hiring of Anthony Scaramucci has communications director.
George Delgado, M.D. is a family-practice physician in San Diego, California. His credentials seem quite respectable: He’s a 1988 graduate of the University of California-Davis’s medical school, and he has admitting privileges at Scripps Mercy Hospital, a well-regarded San Diego facility, and the…
Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:
South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham on Thursday blasted the Trump administration's reported decision to cut a CIA program that trained and armed Syrian rebels fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The latest version of the Senate GOP’s bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare was pronounced dead the evening of Monday, July 17, when Utah senator Mike Lee and Kansas senator Jerry Moran announced their opposition, bringing the number of “no” votes to at least four. In a Senate that…
Donald Trump is angry and frustrated with the federal investigation into Russian meddling in our election. In his view, the inquiry doesn’t just call into question the legitimacy of his election. Now he feels his own family is a target and under siege. Trump blames the highest-ranking members of…
Opinions may vary about Donald Trump Jr., but nearly all can agree that his meeting with the mysterious Natalia Veselnitskaya—and two or four or seven other people in Trump Tower last summer—has done his father no good. I plead agnosticism on this particular case, tending to conclude that it…
Six months into its existence, the Trump administration seems unsure what its stance toward Iran ought to be. That’s less because the current president and his advisers don’t know what they think about Iran’s leaders than because the previous president committed the United States to a reckless and…
On the morning of Monday, July 17, we opened our copy of the New York Times, as we do most weekday mornings. Now, we’re aware that Mondays aren’t the best day for newspaper reading, because rarely is Sunday a big news day. But then again, you never know what you’re going to miss, especially in the…
This is 85-year-old Edna O’Brien's first novel in 10 years, and in interviews, she has said that she found it difficult to write. One could argue that the violent history behind the novel added to her difficulty. For as she explains in a brief preface, the chairs of the title refer to the siege of…
Donald Trump is angry and frustrated with the federal investigation into Russian meddling in our election. In his view, the inquiry doesn’t just call into question the legitimacy of his election. Now he feels his own family is a target and under siege. Trump blames the highest-ranking members of…
As President Macron and President Trump stood side by side during the Bastille Day ceremonies in Paris, it was not difficult for commentators to point out the differences between the two men. Neither in personal style nor substantive policies do they have much in common. Indeed, Macron’s victory in…
In April 2012, a Philippine surveillance vessel interdicted eight Chinese fishing ships sailing toward Scarborough Reef, an outcropping in the South China Sea claimed by both China and the Philippines (as well as Taiwan). Incensed, China dispatched its own surveillance vessels to block the…
It looks like the finale for the final clubs. A Harvard faculty committee released a report last week recommending that all fraternities, sororities, and similarly “exclusionary” single-sex social organizations be phased out by the spring of 2022. The committee determined that it would not be…
Evidently the state of American moviemaking has regressed to the point where all low- to mid-budget movies made at the periphery of the mainstream must be either triumphs or failures, as though all it takes to make an artistically significant film is merely an artistic vision. A Ghost Story,…
Readers of The Scrapbook will recall the recent item about L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood, where some locals mounted a campaign against an art gallery, claiming it represented an intrusion of gringo culture into the predominantly Hispanic community (see “White Out,” March 6, 2017). The activists…
Even the most devoted Baker Street Irregular or Baker Street Babe must have trouble keeping up with the frenetic celebration of Sherlock Holmes and his creator Arthur Conan Doyle—the movies and TV series, the volumes of letters and diaries, the special editions of the canonical stories, the…
My wife and I are record collectors. At the moment, we own 1,151 of them (I have an app on my phone cataloguing the collection), and that number has been growing at a good clip. There’s no real organizing principle—it’s a diverse collection of rock, classical, jazz, soul, and even a fair bit of…
The latest version of the Senate GOP’s bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare was pronounced dead the evening of Monday, July 17, when Utah senator Mike Lee and Kansas senator Jerry Moran announced their opposition, bringing the number of “no” votes to at least four. In a Senate that…
Cambria, Calif.
As somebody who makes a living, in part, by writing history, I have a confession against interest: I am not a big fan of biographies. My main problem is the constant interruption of narrative flow. Real life moves along multiple tracks simultaneously, but a biographer can only discuss one item at a…
[img caption="Saddam with Chirac (far right) in France in 1975" float="right" width="318" height="210" render="<%photoRenderType%>"]1057[/img] AS FRANCE'S political leaders feign high-mindedness in their opposition to waging war in Iraq, could it be that a little-publicized threat of…
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On November 30, 2016, Syria watcher Tobias Schneider tweeted out pictures of an Iraqi Shia militiaman boarding an Iranian commercial airliner en route to Damascus. One selfie taken on the plane showed young men in military fatigues in the background. Another photo, likely taken when the militiaman…
The Big Sick is a movie about a struggling comedian from a Pakistani family and his graduate-student waif of a girlfriend. They break up. She gets a mysterious infection and is put in a medically induced coma. He must deal with her parents, who are angry with him for the way he treated her, and his…
The effort by congressional Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare hit a major roadblock last week, as GOP senators on the left and right sides of the caucus declared their opposition to majority leader Mitch McConnell’s latest proposal. It is hard to blame them for their unease. Obamacare was…
In July 2016, Roger Federer looked like he might be calling time on his illustrious career. He was 34, old for an athlete and especially so for tennis, a game in which Federer was at his best in his mid- to late 20s. His knee gave out on him in the semifinals of Wimbledon, and he announced that he…
On Friday, July 17, 2015, Donald Trump called me at the offices of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. He wanted to tell me that even though I’d been critical of him, and indeed though I had said I couldn’t imagine supporting him for president, he thought I’d been fairer and more open-minded about him than some…
Over 2,700 words would seem to be quite a superabundance of prose when you have but one point to make, especially when that point can be made in four words: Donald Trump is overweight. But the folks at Politico did just that last week, releasing a breathless piece declaring “Donald Trump is the…
When it comes to understanding America’s place in the world, prospective presidential candidates could do much worse than read just three pieces of writing: Charles Krauthammer’s Weekly Standard essay “Decline Is a Choice” (Oct. 19, 2009); Robert Kagan’s New Republic article “Superpowers Don’t Get…
Journalist Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza has earned a coveted place in the annals of silly lawsuits. She covers “Trump and the law” at the magazine Pacific Standard and is currently suing the president for blocking her on Twitter.
On Friday, July 17, 2015, Donald Trump called me at the offices of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. He wanted to tell me that even though I’d been critical of him, and indeed though I had said I couldn’t imagine supporting him for president, he thought I’d been fairer and more open-minded about him than some…
The name of William Woodward (Hootie) Johnson, who died last week at 86, is not likely to be widely familiar. He was the scion of a South Carolina banking dynasty, and something of a civil-rights pioneer in his home state: Recruiter of African-Americans in the family firms and local politics;…
The move would allow Gard to get treatment here if a British court were to allow it.
On this week’s episode, the Substandard discusses War for Planet of the Apes. Should Andy Serkis get an Oscar nom for best actor? The hosts share their innermost Star Wars fantasies. Sonny scolds Vic for getting his son a graphic novel that’s extremely graphic. And JVL turns into Red Hulk when he…
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Contributor Geoffrey Norman shares this story from his book Bouncing Back, about a group of POWs who survived the Vietnam War. This scene is told from the point of view of Al Stafford, another POW who flew, coincidentally, in the same squadron as McCain: VA-163, The Saints, a legendarily aggressive…
“It’s extremely unfair.”
At the beginning of the year, just in time for the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump, Boston Review published a poetry chapbook called Poems for Political Disaster. Collecting works by 36 poets, nearly all of which are published there for the first time, the book is a chance, according to…
Dreams of a Northwest Passage connecting America to Asia tantalized empire builders from the earliest days of New World exploration. But after the Napoleonic Wars, the British turned this fascination into an obsession. Sending out the fleet to explore new trade routes kept the Royal Navy busy and…
Duke University historian Nancy MacLean has written a book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, asserting the existence of a vast right-wing conspiracy (actually a vast libertarian conspiracy) funded by the villainous Koch brothers to subvert…
Two college geography professors are urging their colleagues not to cite geography research done only by straight white men. Relying on the scholarly efforts of pale males who mate with females perpetuates “white heteromasculinism,” say geographers Carrie Mott of Rutgers University and Daniel…
Minneapolis
The online title of an op-ed in the New York Times recently caught our attention: “Racism Is Everywhere, So Why Not Move South?” The observation that the American South isn’t the backward place frequently portrayed by our entertainment industry is not a new one. Nor are appalling expressions of…
Following surgery to treat a blood clot above his eye, Senator John McCain's office announced that a brain cancer known as glioblastoma was detected:
The Senate’s way forward on health care is still uncertain, but majority leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that the upper chamber will take a procedural vote on at least something next week.
The Russian government would rather ask for forgiveness than permission. Its foreign policy for years has depended on establishing “facts on the ground.” Once the Kremlin’s forces or its allies take what they want, the Foreign Ministry is happy to commit to accords that cement their aggression in…
Texas senator Ted Cruz dubbed the Trump administration’s certification that Iran is fully implementing the 2015 nuclear deal a “serious mistake” Wednesday.
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, executive editor Fred Barnes talks about why Senate Republicans fumbled health-care reform so badly.
The White House is attempting to revive a repeal and replacement of Obamacare, starting with overtures to one of the Republican senators who expressed his opposition to the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act. President Donald Trump will unveil his plans to the gathering of Senate Republicans…
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Have a question for Matt Labash? Ask him at askmattlabash@gmail.com or click here.
I’m a man who uses a tea bag twice, and tells himself that the tea often tastes better on the second use of the bag. I go out of my way to buy gas for my car at a station where it is usually 20 to 35 cents a gallon less than at a much closer station. When I discover red grapes or tangerines at a…
John McCain’s unexpected retreat to Arizona for eye surgery and the defections of Mike Lee and Jerry Moran have added yet another delay to the Senate’s health-care reform slog. But even as the most recent Senate health-care bill dies, Republicans are charging ahead to lay plans for their next…
“All women are witches” would be a truly provocative premise. But what is a witch in 2017? The author of Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive, dishes up different definitions, framing a witch-as-everywoman thesis to suit the modern day feminista. The witch is less a sorceress…
Donald Trump met with Russian president Vladimir Putin a second time at this month’s G20 summit in Hamburg. Following the two leaders’ bilateral meeting on July 7, Trump and Putin spoke privately after a dinner hosted by German chancellor Angela Merkel.
For many years, starting in elementary school, my mother took me to an ophthamologist for an annual examination. Dr. Itzkovitz was a master in distracting a child just long enough to get a good look at his retina. By the time we arrived, after school, his part-time secretary had left for the day,…
In the introduction to A Subtreasury of American Humor, published in 1941, E. B. White told of the various disappointments and disillusionments he and his wife had encountered in gathering the pieces that would make up the anthology. They had hoped to include a section of “newspaper humor” and…
Congress is ratcheting up pressure on the Trump administration to keep a watchful eye on Tehran, after the House approved an amendment last week requiring the president to inform lawmakers regularly of any efforts by Iran to ferry weapons and fighters using its commercial planes. The provision,…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren comes by to talk about the failure of the White House to move the repeal and replacement of Obamacare across the goal line.
On this week's mini episode, the Substandard looks back on the life and work of George Romero and Martin Landau. Sonny reflects on the zombie legacy of Romero, JVL remembers the time he met Landau, and Vic may or may not have played hours of Doom.
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Winnie-the Pooh has found himself engulfed in controversy far beyond the confines of the Hundred Acre Wood, this time seemingly due to his resemblance to Chinese president Xi Jinping.
On Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump spoke at a White House event about American manufacturing. But he eventually wended his way to the pending health-care legislation in Congress. “I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people,” Trump said. “But they’re pushing very hard. The Republican…
Sunday was an exciting day for nerds everywhere, with both the season premiere of Game of Thrones and the announcement of a new Doctor in the British sci-fi show Doctor Who.
In December 2016, President Obama signed into law the 21st Century Cures Act, which contained a laundry list of regulatory reforms and new funding. One of the most controversial sections wasn’t about cancer, Alzheimer’s, AIDS, or drug prices. It was about Lyme disease.
“My number one priority,” Donald Trump said to the America Israel Public Affairs Committee on March 21, 2016, “is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” Six months into Trump’s presidency, it’s looking more like number 10 or 20.
Last week, Amanda Nelson, managing editor of book blog Book Riot, claimed to have definitive proof of “systemic bias” in the publishing industry. Apparently, the Book Riot editors put their lab coats on and tracked all the unsolicited galleys sent to them by publishers for possible review for “a…
The latest version of the Senate GOP's bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare died Monday night when GOP senators Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas announced their opposition to legislation. The bill could lose only two GOP votes and still pass, and Lee and Moran brought the grand…
Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, a Republican wildcard in the upper chamber’s health reform discussions, accused majority leader Mitch McConnell Friday of being duplicitous in his struggle to assemble 50 yea votes to pass the Better Care Reconciliation Act.
The steady drip of Russia-related controversies surrounding the Trump administration are becoming a “nuisance” and “distraction,” a Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said Monday.
A barrel of crude oil was trading at around $48 at the end of last week. For a generous segment of the population, this is good news. Commuters will spend less on gas and have more to spend on, say, the things that Amazon Prime can deliver to their front doors. And, of course, Jeff Bezos will be…
The Trump administration called Iran “one of the most dangerous threats to United States’ interests” and a senior administration official said that that the United States. has “not seen any change to Iran’s malign behavior in the region” since the implementation of a multi-national agreement to…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer John McCormack talks with host Eric Felten about what comes next and when for Obamacare repeal, as Obamacare reform is on hold for a week while Sen. John McCain recuperates from a blood clot.
Swiss photographer Roger Eberhard traveled to 32 different countries in the course of 365 days and stayed in 32 different Hilton hotels, one for each country. He was shocked, shocked to discover that—guess what? Hilton hotel rooms look pretty much the same no matter whether you’re visiting Panama…
Reviews and News:
A bill slashing funds that benefit the Palestinian Authority will easily pass the Senate’s foreign relations panel, likely before August recess, the leaders of the committee told THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The measure conditions the flow of U.S. dollars on whether the PA has stopped monetarily rewarding…
By the end of his presidency, Barack Obama, who had once seen in his own coming the healing of the earth and a curb on the rise of the oceans, had reason to be well pleased with his environmental record. He had not mastered the tides perhaps, but he had imposed upon the nation a climate program…
Jim Acosta, senior White House correspondent for CNN, has acquired a certain renown lately for his habitual, and carefully staged, verbal confrontations in the White House press room with President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer. You could make the argument that both Spicer and Acosta, in…
When John Coltrane died 50 years ago this July, the New York Times wrote that he “was considered one of the most gifted modern jazz musicians of this decade.” It was a reserved, careful judgment—was considered not was; of this decade not of all time. In the years since, the qualifiers have all…
Jay Sekulow is not Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyer. The Republican attorney, who works on the private legal team for President Donald Trump, reiterated on many of the five Sunday political talk shows that he does not represent the president’s son. Nor did Sekulow represent the Trump presidential…
Republican tax negotiators believe they are closing in on an agreement to overhaul the U.S. tax code but remain at odds over whether reform would be enshrined permanently or automatically sunset after a period of years.
Wimbledon, England
“Proverbs is probably the most Republican book of the entire Bible.”
The latest threat to the American workforce has arrived, and it’s on four hooves.
New York
This week on the Confab, senior writer Michael Warren tells why the Trump administration is sticking with the Iran nuclear deal—for now. Reporter Alice Lloyd reports on an Education Department summit about how colleges should treat accusations of student sexual assault. And senior editor Andrew…
Wimbledon, England
Reviews and News:
As we go to press, Donald Trump is visiting Paris. His visit can’t help but remind us of a famous trip to Paris by an American over three-quarters of a century ago. That American businessman, Rick Blaine, had little in common with Donald Trump—except perhaps a propensity to brand businesses with…
No rest for the wary. Fearful of facing constituents with nothing but months of intra-party wrangling to offer, senate Republicans decided not to recess for the usual full month of August, and instead stay in Washington for an extra two weeks.
Donald Trump hates the Iran nuclear deal. Brokered by the Obama administration and officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement has the stated purpose of preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. But the president believes the deal gave Iran…
In the past 15 years, no fewer than seven movies have featured the character of Peter Parker, the Queens teenager who obtains powers from a radioactive spider bite. Tobey Maguire starred in three of them from 2002 to 2007; Andrew Garfield starred in two from 2012 to 2014; and after appearing in a…
When Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, endorsed the latest draft of the Senate healthcare bill after it included a tweaked version of a proposal he had pushed, many observers expected his longtime ally and original co-author, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to quickly follow.
This week on the Kristol Clear podcast, editor at large Bill Kristol discusses how the Donald Jr. Russia meeting is throwing a wrench into the workings of his father's White House.
Wimbledon, England
A British judge has ruled that an American specialist can travel to the U.K. to examine the terminally ill baby Charlie Gard.
Several reporters were piqued Thursday evening by a county-level Republican official's one-liner cited in the Tennessean (emphasis mine):
The recent revelation of Donald Trump Jr.’s 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer is causing headaches for the Trump administration. But in their enthusiasm to decry Trump Jr. and the campaign, congressional Democrats are jumping to some shaky conclusions.
Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:
If Senate Republicans are going to pass a bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare, it appears they'll need everyone but libertarian Rand Paul and moderate Susan Collins to do it.
Reviews and News:
It took some time, but here we are. After decades of minimizing the menace posed by Russia—recall Barack Obama’s gibe, in response to Mitt Romney’s suggestion that Russia was our greatest geopolitical threat, that the 1980s had called and wanted their foreign policy back—American liberals are…
The president-elect’s narrow victory at the end of a volatile campaign quickly led to efforts at planning a meeting of the American and Russian leaders. Relations between the two countries had deteriorated badly, not to say spectacularly, in the last year of the previous administration, amidst…
When former president Barack Obama initiated efforts to implement his pledge to close Guantánamo Bay and transfer its detainees to U.S. and foreign prisons, he started a cascade effect that has boosted the global jihadist insurgency. The most recent example of the impact of Obama’s foreign policy…
Dreams of a Northwest Passage connecting America to Asia tantalized empire builders from the earliest days of New World exploration. But after the Napoleonic Wars, the British turned this fascination into an obsession. Sending out the fleet to explore new trade routes kept the Royal Navy busy and…
New York
The latest threat to the American workforce has arrived, and it’s on four hooves.
The online title of an op-ed in the New York Times recently caught our attention: “Racism Is Everywhere, So Why Not Move South?” The observation that the American South isn’t the backward place frequently portrayed by our entertainment industry is not a new one. Nor are appalling expressions of…
This year’s winners have been announced in prizes recognizing advocates who support “First Amendment rights and rational [read licentious] sex and drug policies,” the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards. That’s right, Hugh M. Hefner. Is there anyone who wouldn’t have known for whom the prize was…
The Scrapbook will leave it to others to comment on the propriety—or lack thereof—of the meeting Donald Trump Jr. arranged with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. But we will note an odd feature of the defense the president’s son made for himself last week.
Florida senator Marco Rubio is fond of tweeting out Bible verses to his followers. Lately, he’s been quoting the Book of Proverbs. Believe it or not, this is grounds for criticism—and from a Hebrew Bible professor at the Yale Divinity School no less. Prof. Joel Baden writes in Politico that…
In the past 15 years, no fewer than seven movies have featured the character of Peter Parker, the Queens teenager who obtains powers from a radioactive spider bite. Tobey Maguire starred in three of them from 2002 to 2007; Andrew Garfield starred in two from 2012 to 2014; and after appearing in a…
When John Coltrane died 50 years ago this July, the New York Times wrote that he “was considered one of the most gifted modern jazz musicians of this decade.” It was a reserved, careful judgment—was considered not was; of this decade not of all time. In the years since, the qualifiers have all…
William Faulkner once mused that the past is never dead, in fact it’s not even past. The story of the coup that toppled Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 may not be dead, but it is unhinged from history. Tall tales by a scion of the American establishment—former CIA agent and…
In the introduction to A Subtreasury of American Humor, published in 1941, E. B. White told of the various disappointments and disillusionments he and his wife had encountered in gathering the pieces that would make up the anthology. They had hoped to include a section of “newspaper humor” and…
Jim Acosta, senior White House correspondent for CNN, has acquired a certain renown lately for his habitual, and carefully staged, verbal confrontations in the White House press room with President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer. You could make the argument that both Spicer and Acosta, in…
War for the Planet of the Apes hits theaters today and if it’s anything like its predecessors, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), it should be a hoot.
There was nothing normal about the July 7 meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit in Hamburg. The mere scheduling of this friendly chat handed Putin a PR victory, which the Kremlin-controlled media exploited gleefully. Not only was the Russian dictator not isolated or…
Minneapolis
Donald Trump hates the Iran nuclear deal. Brokered by the Obama administration and officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement has the stated purpose of preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. But the president believes the deal gave Iran…
There was nothing normal about the July 7 meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit in Hamburg. The mere scheduling of this friendly chat handed Putin a PR victory, which the Kremlin-controlled media exploited gleefully. Not only was the Russian dictator not isolated or…
The president-elect’s narrow victory at the end of a volatile campaign quickly led to efforts at planning a meeting of the American and Russian leaders. Relations between the two countries had deteriorated badly, not to say spectacularly, in the last year of the previous administration, amidst…
When the novelist and essayist Mary McCarthy died in 1989 many observers called her the foremost American woman of letters. In the past quarter of a century, McCarthy’s writing has faded from sight, but she may be making a comeback, for the Library of America recently published a two-volume edition…
Hobby Lobby, the Oklahoma City-based arts-and-crafts chain, was recently fined $3 million by the Department of Justice for purchasing and shipping artifacts–Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform tablets, among other things, mostly from Iraq–to its headquarters by way of an antiquities dealer in the…
As we go to press, Donald Trump is visiting Paris. His visit can’t help but remind us of a famous trip to Paris by an American over three-quarters of a century ago. That American businessman, Rick Blaine, had little in common with Donald Trump—except perhaps a propensity to brand businesses with…
I’m a man who uses a tea bag twice, and tells himself that the tea often tastes better on the second use of the bag. I go out of my way to buy gas for my car at a station where it is usually 20 to 35 cents a gallon less than at a much closer station. When I discover red grapes or tangerines at a…
In the first sentence of the first essay in this collection, Geoff Dyer confesses that on his way to French Polynesia to write about Gauguin he somehow lost his copy of David Sweetman’s biography of the artist. As travel writer failings go, it pales in comparison to Karl Ove Knausgaard's arriving…
"Mother,” asks 10-year-old Johnny upon returning from school, “do I have a cliché on my face?”
In December 2016, President Obama signed into law the 21st Century Cures Act, which contained a laundry list of regulatory reforms and new funding. One of the most controversial sections wasn’t about cancer, Alzheimer’s, AIDS, or drug prices. It was about Lyme disease.
It took some time, but here we are. After decades of minimizing the menace posed by Russia—recall Barack Obama’s gibe, in response to Mitt Romney’s suggestion that Russia was our greatest geopolitical threat, that the 1980s had called and wanted their foreign policy back—American liberals are…
Liu Xiaobo, the literary critic, philosopher, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, died today at age 61. His death is an inestimable loss, and the circumstances cruel. Liu was serving an 11-year sentence for subversion for his role in Charter 08, a democracy manifesto and other writings critical of…
Leave sausage out of this. The ever-evolving Republican health care bills demonstrate how rancid legislative livermush gets made: a pudding of policy innards blended and baked with haste because the ingredients were up against their expiration date, or in this case the August recess. The concoction…
It’s up to the legislative branch, not bureaucrats, to decide whether Title IX of the Higher Education Act actually applies to gender identity, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Thursday afternoon, after a day of meetings with Title IX stakeholders at the Department of Education.
Wimbledon, England
On Tuesday evening, Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave a speech to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a legal group dedicated to protecting religious liberty. A lawyer that works with the organization, David Cortman, recently represented Trinity Lutheran in its case before the Supreme Court…
Liu Xiaobo’s deeply depressing death coincides with the long, slow demise of the cause he so bravely championed: Chinese liberalism.
Wimbledon, England
Insurers would be able to offer plans escaping nine Obamacare mandates by offering at least one compliant plan, according to a portion of a draft of the revised Senate healthcare bill obtained by the Washington Examiner.
On this latest episode, the Substandard reviews Spider-Man Homecoming. JVL offers his take on Peter Parker 3.0 and his nerdified nemesis, Flash. Vic channels his inner Gene Shalit. And Sonny knows Amelia Earhart will never be found—but does he know his cured meats? Plus the best of In Search Of.…
President Donald Trump plans to recertify Iranian compliance with the Iran nuclear deal before the congressionally mandated deadline to do so on Monday, according to four sources with knowledge of his thinking on the issue. The decision, which continues to provide Iran sanctions relief for their…
Reviews and News:
There’s a lot riding on a Title IX summit that’s happening at the Department of Education today. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will meet privately with sexual assault victims and advocates who want her to maintain the campus sexual assault provisions decreed by the Obama administration (and plan…
The events of this dizzying week present us ample opportunities to take the Earth 2 Test. Imagine we’re on an alternate planet where Hillary Clinton won the election and the parties and players are flipped. Then ask yourself if you would care if she and the Democrats were doing it.
Earlier this month Stephen Hawking declared: “We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump’s action [withdrawing from the Paris climate accord] could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees…
On June 24, there was a minor controversy at the “Chicago Dyke March.” Three Jewish lesbians were ejected from the gay pride event because they showed up waving rainbow flags that had stars of David on them. They were accosted by Palestinian sympathizers. March organizers then told them, “Your flag…
The recent protests over alleged racial injustice at Evergreen State College in Washington looked bad: A professor whose classroom was invaded by student radicals so aggressive that he felt forced to hold his next class at a public park off campus; the president held virtual prisoner in his office…
“Our goal is to be as transparent as humanly possible, and to put every bit of information that we have at the forefront, and willing to cooperate with anybody that is looking into the matter,” said Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, at the Wednesday
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, reporter Jenna Lifhits talks with host Eric Felten about how the Donald Trump Jr. revelations are playing among lawmakers.
Wimbledon, England
House Democrats have not decided yet whether to file their own version of an Iran-Russia sanctions bill, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee told THE WEEKLY STANDARD Wednesday afternoon.
Oklahoma, where the wins came sweeping down the plain Tuesday for a couple of state-level Democrats, is the new flashpoint for progressives hoping the resistance is taking electoral root. Karen Gaddis, a retired public school teacher, captured a House district representing parts of Tulsa. Michael…
The main Russian media outlets are reporting the story of Donald Trump. Jr.’s meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya like they would any other scandal in a far-off country—barely at all.
South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham drilled Trump’s nominee for FBI director Wednesday on whether the president’s son should have contacted the FBI after Russian sources offered him dirt on Hillary Clinton.
A spokesman for Mike Pence on Wednesday repeatedly refused to answer whether the vice president ever met with representatives from Russia during last year’s campaign. Appearing on Fox News, Pence press secretary Marc Lotter was asked by host Bill Hemmer, “Did the vice president ever meet with…
On Wednesday, Christopher Wray, the president’s nominee to head the FBI, swore to maintain the independence and nonpartisanship of the Bureau, with the Trump’s May firing of then-director James Comey fresh in lawmakers’ minds.
Reviews and News:
Bhavini Bhakta loved her union—until she got to know it. As a fifth-grade teacher in southern California’s Monrovia Unified School District, she put her trust in her local chapter. But after Bhakta’s principal had to fire and rehire her six years in a row because of a nonsensical seniority law, she…
According to the government, Roswell, New Mexico, is an uninteresting place. They want you to believe the city (population 48,754) is little more than the birthplace of John Denver and the location of Leprino Foods, one of the largest mozzarella factories in the world. The men in black want you to…
In a prepared statement Tuesday, President Donald Trump called his oldest son, Don Jr., a “high-quality person” and added, “I applaud his transparency.” Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read this statement to reporters in the White House briefing room Tuesday afternoon, a few short…
Expressing concern about “the amnesia of people that are in the Trump orbit,” something he described as a “medical issue,” Rep. Trey Gowdy on Tuesday issued some of the harshest criticism yet by any GOP lawmaker of the Trump administration’s handling of the Russia controversies.
The House Intelligence Committee will investigate a June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked lawyer, and plans to call those connected to the meeting to come before the panel, the committee's top Democrat said Tuesday.
New York Yankees’ rookie sensation Aaron Judge hit nearly four miles’ worth of homers Monday night in Miami to become Major League Baseball’s 2017 Home Run Derby champion. The 25-year old right fielder hit a total of 47 home runs, including 11 in the last round to beat Minnesota Twins’ third…
Several Republican senators are calling on Donald Trump Jr. to testify before Congress in the wake of the news that the president's oldest son met with a Russian lawyer with the intent of obtaining official documents from the Russian government that would incriminate Hillary Clinton.
Republicans' faith in the American higher education has sharply diminished since 2015—as it well should have. A national survey from the Pew Research Center found a growing majority of Republican and rightward-leaning independents believe colleges and universities have a negative effect on the…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor in chief Steve Hayes joins host Eric Felten to talk about the unfolding story of Team Trump's meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
On Tuesday morning, Donald Trump Jr. publicly released emails he sent in June 2016 to set up a meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer. The content of these leaves no doubt that at least some in the Trump campaign knew that Russia supported their candidate and welcomed electoral aid from a foreign…
On the latest micro-episode of the Substandard, Vic, JVL, and Sonny curse David Brooks for ruining Amazon Prime Day and suggest ways for the beneficent Jeff Bezos to improve the most wonderful time of the year.
What began as a bill slapping sanctions on Iran for ballistic missile development and human rights violations is being mired in minutiae over a single added word—“Russia.”
Reviews and News:
In June, the Senate passed a bill codifying U.S. sanctions on Russia. The bill—based on a series of Obama-era executive orders retaliating for Russia’s de facto invasion of Ukraine and, later, its meddling in the U.S. elections—passed the Senate by an overwhelming margin: 98-2.
Another day, another troubling development in the latest story about the possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election.
Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Yes, and the intellectual ambitions of prog rockers.
Josh Hawley is a rarity in politics. Elected attorney general of Missouri last November, he’s held that office for five months. Yet he’s already under extraordinary pressure from Republicans to run for the Senate in 2018.
If Americans today know John Quincy Adams, whose 250th birthday we celebrate on July 11, it is probably as Congressman Adams—Anthony Hopkins’ character in the film Amistad. Congressman Adams was Adams at his best. But that was a late development.
Automobiles, pop songs, and movies form a golden braid as eternal as the one that binds Gödel, Escher, and Bach. In 1980, the writer-director Paul Schrader released American Gigolo, whose first three minutes mostly feature shots of Richard Gere driving a black Mercedes convertible along the Pacific…
Wimbledon, England
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren explains the recent revelations that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort all met at Trump Tower during the campaign with a Kremlin-associated Russian lawyer.
Wimbledon, England
Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton issued a stern warning to the president Monday about negotiating with Russian president Vladimir Putin, after Putin and Trump held their first official in-person meeting Friday. Bolton, who was under consideration to be Trump’s secretary of state, also criticized…
In a move that apparently surprised everyone, including his family and colleagues, Venezuelan authorities released political prisoner Leopoldo Lopez in the middle of the night on July 8. Lopez, a prominent democracy activist who has long challenged the authoritarian socialism of Hugo Chávez and his…
Reviews and News:
I've been reading the post-mortems on last week's G20 summit in Hamburg, and depending on the source, it was either the dawn of a new Era of Good Feelings in global affairs, or another catastrophe in the history of the 6-month-old Trump presidency. The truth, I suspect, lies somewhere in-between.…
Three prominent figures in the Trump presidential campaign appear to have sought the assistance of a Russian political operative with ties to the Putin government months before last November’s election. This comes via reporting by the New York Times, which broke a story over the weekend that Donald…
The Associated Press reported Sunday some accurate, if incomplete information about Sen. Ted Cruz’s health reform proposal. “Cruz’s plan,” the story reads, “… aims to lower premiums for healthy people.” The article provided no additional details, either specifics or their presumed consequences,…
America, the New York Times groans (chortles?), was "ostracized" by the other G20 countries at the recently concluded meeting in Hamburg. And with Angela Merkel leading the band of ostracizers. And on not one but three issues: immigration, climate change, and trade. These are all worth examining in…
Don't blame Roger Federer for being nervous on Tuesday against Dusan Lajovic, a low-ranked player. This was week one at Wimbledon, a period that usually feels like a vacation for Federer, who has won this title seven times, tied for the most in history. Not this year. Federer, who has lost just two…
A top Russia hawk in Congress slammed President Donald Trump on Sunday for letting Russian election interference slide after a lengthy meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin Friday.
Wimbledon, England
This week on the Confab, Fred Barnes talks with Eric Felten about how state attorneys general, such as Missouri's Josh Hawley, are moving up the slippery pole of politics. Ethan Epstein comes by to discuss North Korea's ballistic missiles, and Phil Terzian tells us about a final exoneration of day…
Reviews and News:
So it’s come to this. The monetary policy gurus at the Federal Reserve have decided to reduce the size of the bank’s swollen $4 trillion balance sheet in a gradual process—initially $10 billion per month, rising steadily thereafter.
If Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s readout of Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin is a preview of the Trump administration’s approach to Russia, it’s going to be a rough three and a half years. In a diplomatic depantsing that will have repercussions far beyond Russia, Tillerson’s comments…
Wimbledon, England
This week on the Kristol Clear podcast, editor at large Bill Kristol explains why Donald Trump's Warsaw speech was a high point for his presidency.
Startling new evidence from German intelligence reports shows the Tehran regime is working to illegally obtain technology and know-how to advance its nuclear weapons and missile programs, despite the 2015 agreement to curb its nuclear program.
Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:
Reviews and News:
The trailer for the new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is just weird. For one thing, Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot, trim and blond, looks very little like Christie’s rotund, black-haired sleuth. He overdoes the mustache, adorning his face with an enormous, Chester Alan…
Among the industrialized nations, Japan has been notably resistant to immigration. Only 2.3 million foreigners reside in the country of 126 million—less than 2 percent of the total population. (By contrast, about 13 percent of U.S. residents are thought to be foreign-born.) And in Japan, the vast…
Now that the 2017 commencement season is past, I'm emboldened to express my shock that the University of Pennsylvania didn't honor its most famous—and arguably, most distinguished—graduate, Donald J. Trump (Class of 1968) with an honorary degree. Shock, I would say, but not necessarily surprise:…
Well, that was quick! The 35th America’s Cup was over in a heartbeat. It took barely a month for Emirates Team New Zealand to buzzsaw through a fleet of four challengers before shellacking the U.S. defender, Oracle Team USA, 7-1, to snatch yachting’s oldest prize. This was not your father’s…
Over the last quarter-century, America has witnessed a remarkable decline in urban crime—most notably in New York City, where murders dropped from a record high 2,245 in 1990 to 335 in 2016. This drop coincided with a change in police practices, with the NYPD leading the way in more active…
I decided against Jane Austen, without having read her, at 21. I had gone up to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read English, and the first don I met was my tutor (tutors oversaw one’s moral hygiene and general deportment, while supervisors handled the academic end). He was a voluble little dumpling…
In December 1943, Winston Churchill contracted pneumonia on a visit to North Africa and found himself banned from work and laid up in bed. While convalescing, he asked his daughter Sarah to read him Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It proved just the tonic. “What calm lives they had, those…
‘You have to realize this is 2017 . . . and people will get upset about literally anything. It seems like we live in a world with smart phones and dumb people.”
Automobiles, pop songs, and movies form a golden braid as eternal as the one that binds Gödel, Escher, and Bach. In 1980, the writer-director Paul Schrader released American Gigolo, whose first three minutes mostly feature shots of Richard Gere driving a black Mercedes convertible along the Pacific…
Josh Hawley is a rarity in politics. Elected attorney general of Missouri last November, he’s held that office for five months. Yet he’s already under extraordinary pressure from Republicans to run for the Senate in 2018.
Hampton, Virginia, has been promoting itself as a tourist destination with a campaign advertising the coastal region as a place to “Come Face-to-Face with Adventure.” Visitors are urged to “Discover the history, the attractions and the flavorful culture” of the city. In a display ad, the flavorful…
If angst, lovesickness, and ennui alone made for half-decent poetry, just about every moody high school student would be in the running for the Pulitzer Prize. Although strong emotion has been vital to many artistic movements, from Romanticism on, simply placing emotions on a page almost never…
The response was typical Trumpism—with a soupçon of Mean Girls. Just as he had called jihadists “losers” a few weeks prior, the president reacted to North Korea’s test launch of a midrange ballistic missile on July 3 with a gibe that cut to the quick. “Does [Kim Jong-un] have anything better to do…
Delbert Hosemann doesn’t have the profile of a member of the Resistance. For one thing, he’s a Republican elected official. He’s also from Mississippi, where Donald Trump won nearly 58 percent of the vote in an election that Hosemann, as secretary of state, personally oversaw.
Donald Trump has been hoping China would pressure North Korea to behave itself, perhaps by restricting trade with the hermit kingdom. No such luck. And as the New York Times noted, “Mr. Trump vented his displeasure with China in a pair of early-morning tweets.” Being that these were tweets, and…
The Illinois legislature responded to the state’s ongoing fiscal crisis by—what else?—voting to hike the state income tax by a third, from over 3-and-a-half percent to nearly 5 percent. Republican governor Bruce Rauner fought against the budget, denouncing what he accurately described as a 32…
One evening in 1984, working late in the offices of the Los Angeles Times, I was interrupted by a reporter giving a local woman a tour of the premises. The woman’s name was Judy Johnson, the reporter informed me, and she was the principal source for a story that had just broken—and had hypnotized…
Jurupa Valley, Calif.
To the recent college graduates who have somehow failed to spend all of Daddy’s money in five-and-a-half years, fear not, tradition says you deserve a vacation. Consider it your version of the Grand Tour, the jaunt through Europe that served as the capstone to a formal education in centuries past…
Ting Xue, a committed Christian, is a refugee who fled from religious persecution in his native China. He now lives in Denver with his wife, a lawful permanent resident who likewise hails from China, and their young daughter. Xue has a job, pays taxes, and is active in a local evangelical church.…
"I'm for the most conservative outcome that we can get,” Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told Politico’s Manu Raju last summer. House speaker John Boehner would agree with that goal. But critics to their right disagree. They are for the most conservative outcome they cannot get.
The Scrapbook spent a few days driving around with the station on, and if you’re looking for bizarro-world news and endless gabfests about how America is populated with imperialist running dogs, well, Sputnik Radio is for you. The station’s Moscow-mandated agenda is impossible to ignore. There’s an…
One of the lesser-noted lines from Donald Trump’s inaugural address was “We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space.” During his speech to a joint session of Congress a month later, the president said, “American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a…
I stuffed notebook paper into my dress sleeves and got praised for being a “shero” on Twitter.
Walter M. Shaub, the head of the Office of Government Ethics who has repeatedly critiqued Donald Trump’s sustained connections to his private businesses, announced on Thursday that he will resign his post later this month.
Speaking to the Polish people in Warsaw Thursday morning, President Donald Trump reaffirmed U.S. commitments to Europe and promised to work together with allies to defend the values of family, freedom, country, and God.
In an op-ed in the New York Times Thursday, Mark Penn and Andrew Stein argue that the “path back to power for the Democratic Party today, as it was in the 1990s, is unquestionably to move to the center and reject the siren calls of the left, whose policies and ideas have weakened the party.” Penn…
The White House says it is in agreement with the State Department on how to handle the Saudi-led decision to freeze diplomatic ties with Qatar, despite mixed messaging from President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the issue.
There’s more than meets the eye on the latest episode of the Substandard. The hosts discuss Transformers: The Last Knight and the Michael Bay oeuvre. Sonny hates people who shoot off fireworks. Vic remembers drinking on the National Mall. And Jonathan explains his mysterious absence. All on the…
Reviews and News:
Two of the most mordant videos from the Trump era were clipped from the real world. In one, the camera zooms on the pained face of Chris Christie as he stands behind Donald Trump, staring into the abyss on the night of Super Tuesday. In the other, Sean Spicer excavates a new low for White House…
Everyone who studied middle-school chemistry recognizes the prominent chart that hangs in classrooms and laboratories around the world: The Periodic Table of Elements contains the “ingredients” that make up the material universe and addresses the scientific question of what we are made of.
A century ago today, Captain T.E. Lawrence helped capture the city of Aqaba and became the legendary Lawrence of Arabia. Sent by the British army as a military advisor, Lawrence convinced Emir Faisal I, leader of the Arab Revolt, to attack the Turkish stronghold by way of the Nefud desert, which…
Yesterday I spoke with the painter Trevor Winkfield about his early years as an artist—and his first experience of surrealism as a young boy in post WWII Great Britain, studying heraldry. (You can read the first part of our interview here.)
The Trump administration will announce Thursday an agreement with the government of Poland to sell the Eastern European ally American-manufactured surface-to-air missile systems. The agreement comes seven years after the Obama administration removed a group of missile launchers from near the…
Chinese president Xi Jinping is headed to the G20 meeting in Hamburg later this week planning to paint the town—no, not red—but green. Using President Trump’s decision to withdraw America from the Paris climate deal as an excuse, Xi will present himself as the new savior of the environment. As he…
Victoria Azarenka shouldn’t be at Wimbledon. She shouldn't have won a tricky first round match and then suddenly pummeled Elena Vesnina, one of last year's semifinalists, in the second round. Azarenka has a 6-month-old son and hasn't played Grand Slam tennis since last year's French Open. Before…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren talks with host Eric Felten about what to watch for in President Trump's trip to Warsaw for a speech and then Hamburg for a G20 summit.
Recent American presidents have held up Poland as a beacon of freedom and democracy in the post-Soviet era. Of all the former Communist bloc states in Eastern Europe, Poland most closely resembles the United States—a nation of freedom-loving, working-class religious people. And as Barack Obama,…
The Trump administration is not ruling out providing Ukraine with defensive weapons in its fight against Russian-backed separatists, a State Department official told THE WEEKLY STANDARD, though the administration is focused on a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse joined WEEKLY STANDARD editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes at the Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs to discuss his new book: The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis—and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance.
Reviews and News:
President Trump’s embrace of the conservative agenda has healed one rift in the Republican agenda. But he’s exacerbated another with his latest tweets, one featuring a video in which he clotheslines a “CNN” character, the other attacking MSNBC commentator Mika Brzezinski.
The U.S. counter-ISIS campaign may be racking up tactical victories in Iraq and Syria but the narrow focus on it also risks America’s interests over the long run. American military personnel and local partners have been taking the fight to ISIS, helping liberate territory from the Islamic extremist…
As wealth has poured into the nation’s capital and the city has largely redeveloped over the last two decades, one of the last reminders that Washington, D.C., possessed any local culture at all was the existence of Bluegrass Country 105.5. The FM station was sponsored by American University and…
The painter Trevor Winkfield was born in 1944 in Leeds, England, and moved in 1969 to New York City. There he became involved with writers, poets, and other painters from the New York School, including John Ashbery and James Schuyler. Winkfield’s paintings are in the collections of the Museum of…
President Donald Trump leaves for Europe Wednesday morning ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg Friday and Saturday. But instead of starting off with meetings with the leaders of traditional allies of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, the president will first travel to our NATO ally…
President Trump and Pope Francis have now both expressed support for Charlie Gard, the British infant who a court ordered to be taken off life support.
In men’s tennis, Russia is coming.
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer John McCormack talks with host Eric Felten about Ted Cruz’s efforts to amend the Senate GOP’s floundering (okay, foundering) healthcare legislation.
The increasing repression being visited upon Hong Kong by Beijing is well documented. The Chinese regime is muddling in the city’s politics, which are supposed to be off limits. Beijing has also kidnapped several people from Hong Kong, even though the Chinese police legally have no jurisdiction…
Novak Djokovic is not playing terrible tennis. He’s not thinking about retirement, or wondering, “Why bother? I never win!” He’s not about to collapse, or quit, or become a television host about cooking in Serbia, where he grew up and now owns a restaurant chain. Yes, Djokovic has lost far more…
Remember when Obama and others said we “couldn’t drill our way out” of an oil crisis? They were wrong.
The Republican party—the party of the Kemp-Roth tax cuts, the Laffer curve, the George W. Bush tax cuts, and the Obama-era extension of nearly all of those Bush tax cuts—currently controls both houses of Congress and the presidency. That means the GOP has its best chance in more than a generation…
In the run-up to the Iraq War, a Bush White House official explained to me that 9/11 had changed the way we read national security intelligence. There was a relaxed way to read intelligence, he said, and there was an alarmed way to read intelligence. Sept. 11 proved that we had to read intelligence…
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Eric Felten talks with Andy Ferguson about Paul McCartney and Michael Warren about Sgt. Pepper 50 years after the Beatles provided the soundtrack to the Summer of Love.
Editor's note: Prufrock will be off Monday and Tuesday for the July 4 holiday. It will return on Wednesday, July 5.
With the president once again managing to divert attention from a sensible policy to a vulgar tweet, you might not have noticed that this past week has been “Energy Week.” The immediate result has been a lot of speeches, including one by Harold Hamm, the Trump-supporting oil-and-gas man who played…
After a frenzied week of healthcare negotiations, the Senate recessed for the Fourth of July holiday not with a bang, but a whimper.
Seventy-three years ago today, 44 nations descended on Bretton Woods in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for a conference on the future of the global financial system. In the Gilded Age, the area’s stately Mount Washington Hotel was a preferred summer destination for robber barons and…