November 2018

Not by his critics but by his closest advisers.

Did you miss any of these details?

What is 'vote harvesting,' anyhow? And why did Arizona ban it?

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Also: China’s chilling domestic spying program, Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters, and more.

A meme about nothing.

Is the criminal justice reform bill being considered in the Senate all it’s cracked up to be?

On November 25, Russian military forces opened fire on three Ukrainian ships off the coast of Crimea, rammed one of them, and seized all three. The ships were manned by 23 crew members. Ukrainian authorities say between three and six were injured.

Facebook has had many moments of supposed reckoning in recent years. Is this one different?

Ricky Jay, 1946-2018.

It’s not his style to let someone else take his platform to victory, which makes his 2020 run all the more likely.

The group comes out against equal treatment before the law.

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The votes counted after Election Day have been rough for the GOP.

Islamic Republic has sent weapons to the Houthis in Yemen and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

An old meme, reimagined.

A recent Washington Post report on the exploding market for school security equipment and services caught our attention. It’s now a $2.7 billion industry, a figure that doesn’t include the millions spent on armed campus security officers. Metal detectors, facial recognition software, pepperball…

Tyler Durden would be proud.

The president suggests a new round of tariffs to conceal the damage of the last.

Also: Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s sequel, and more.

On this latest episode, the Substandard takes on Creed II and the Rocky oeuvre. JVL buys a flatscreen, Vic remembers seeing Ricky Jay, and Sonny talks about standing "on" line.

It's amazing what you learn about yourself when you start publishing about Turkey's links to terrorist groups.

On November 28, Democrats officially nominated Nancy Pelosi to be the next Speaker of the House. No one ran against her; she received 203 yeas against 32 nays. Democrats who vowed during the campaign to vote against the former speaker were always a small group. Their opposition—largely rhetorical,…

The stories we tell ourselves about politics are making America lousy.

Conservatives play an essential role as gatekeepers. Vetting some of the left's perspectives and ideas, even in this polarized environment, could resonate with their base.

Local decisions make for better citizens.

His position seems to cover any bill (or person) imaginable.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will deliver a briefing on the conflict Wednesday.

Trump is stronger; but red states are now in play.

The E.U.’s faith in Iran is foolish, dangerous—and a mystery.

One of the nice things about getting old these days is that you no longer become an old person. You become a senior citizen. Another is that we old people—wait, we seniors—are able to discern the sudden and sweeping changes in manners and morals and politics that seem to a young person to be just…

Every year, the folks at Oxford Dictionaries announce a word of the year, and the word this year is toxic. “The Oxford Word of the Year,” the release reads, “is a word or expression that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year, and have lasting potential as a…

Negotiating with terrorists won’t bring peace to Afghanistan.

How Cameron Hanes is redefining masculinity for a new generation

This fall Harvard College has been defending its admissions program against charges of racial discrimination brought in federal court. Ironically, this is not the first time that Harvard’s admissions practices have lain at the heart of an important case that could affect college enrollments across…

Plus, the hero America needs.

Thou shalt not share fake news.

New court filing alleging lies to the special counsel comes just ahead of report that Trump’s campaign manager met with Julian Assange in 2016. But there are several possible explanations.

Just like leftover Halloween candy, this is old.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Booth crews just don't understand sports analytics. They should. Also: A less extreme (and more responsible) interpretation of the administration's climate report.

The Republican plan to ram through NAFTA 2.0 before the Democrats take over is falling apart.

Vladimir Putin’s deliberate provocation is important. What’s more important is the U.S. response.

In 1918, Henry Ford ran for the Senate and lost. Did he concede? Are you kidding?

Federal forest (mis)management is high on the list of reasons.

What happens when the president's son and one of his closest allies spar over criminal justice reform?

Florida counts the number of ways to screw up a machine recount

Plus, when Mission Impossible meets Paddington Bear.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

It's a party

The outgoing U.N. ambassador calls attacks on ships an ‘arrogant act’ and violation of international law.

No, he did not.

Two Republicans decry the nationalization of politics and offer up potentially complementary solutions.

Actually, AOC is a perfectly typical late-20s Millennial. And that's a good thing.

The future only looks bad.

The U.S. has a way to further impair the Maduro regime.

The Christmas season has begun, and ballet companies across North America are blessing their towns and cities with performances of The Nutcracker. For The Scrapbook, it’s the season’s highlight.

With Gary Hart, political journalists went from covering “the issues” as a public service to servicing the public with prurient material.

By abusing religious exemptions, anti-vaxxers aren't just risking public health, they're endangering the public square.

The GOP can’t even win in Orange County.

One is hard put to see how a government commissioned to negotiate in good faith for independence could have come up with a deal quite this bad.

Noemie Emery on the year that all the political nightmares came true.

John Wilson on “the Short 68,” “the Long 68,” and what’s missing from a new account of the protests and their legacy.

The extraordinary fidelity of Christopher Tolkien, last of the Inklings.

The FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet) have real problems.

Alan Jacobs on Andrew Delbanco’s ‘The War Before the War,’ the horrors of the fugitive slave laws, and the costs of union.

Philip Luke Jeffery on how the murdered German theologian came to be a symbol in American politics.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words,” says the biblical proverb. All of us can profit from these words, but perhaps Donald Trump needs to hear them more than most. His helter-skelter, self-exculpatory statement on his administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia was Trump at his logorrheic…

I was raised in one and have spent much of my career researching them. My findings have shown positive life outcomes—reflecting my own.

An item in the New York Times on November 19 brought our attention to the Alfred Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest at Columbia University. The contest is named for the famed author of the 12-line poem “Trees,” first published in 1913: “I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a…

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For generations, probably for centuries, Anglophone writers have struggled with the fact that our language lacks a gender-indeterminate third-person singular pronoun. In English, we have he for a man, she for a woman, and it for everything else. There is no option in the third-person for someone…

They warn the incoming Democratic House may make passage "significantly more difficult."

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Another meme, another falsehood.

Texas v. Johnson v. incorrectly captioned photos.

On this week's episode, the Substandard discusses Steve McQueen's Widows. JVL calls it No Country for Old Women. Vic and Sonny liken it to Lady Heat. The hosts talk about meeting the Substandard Expanded Universe (SSEU) for the first time, aged rum, and Beaver Nuggets. Happy Thanksgiving!

For Vladimir Putin, Interpol is just another tool.

No ribbons for participation here.

An unlikely outcry over a U.K. government architecture committee.

Since most political journalism tends to be wishful thinking, most of the post-midterm analysis this year followed predictable paths.

Personal politics don't work against a movement.

Fletcher Knebel’s ‘Night of Camp David,’ re-released this week, is tamer than reality.

Another good reason not to drop acid.

Neologisms, words newly coined, are as necessary to language as water to land. New inventions, institutions, patterns of behavior require new words to describe them. Nor need all neologisms describe new phenomena. Some are required to cover long-established phenomena that have called out for but…

Election Day is still here, people!

Intelligence community has high confidence that Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the killing.

Democracy dies in memedom.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

An all-time classic puts the future of the NFL on display. Plus: The NYT advocates for price controls, but not on newspapers; and how Donald Trump is like a cornerback.

A new report details the U.S. military is ill equipped to meet the threats of the next decade.

How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis defied the spirit of the age.

Tolerating scoundrels is a bipartisan weakness.

Are you running for president?” For aspiring presidents who haven’t fully committed to running, the question is almost impossible to answer in a way that sounds genuine. “I haven’t given it much thought” means “I’ve been planning to run since I was a teenager but haven’t decided if this is the…

Why I think his odds have dropped in the last two years.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

It's just a fact: Bernie is the guy to beat.

Republican Will Hurd will serve a third term.

How to Make America Good Again by challenging Trump.

Stacey Abrams’s contemptible non-concession.

The debate over gun control in America, if “debate” is the right word for it, has become stale and predictable to the point of parody—but a sad, bitter parody, not a funny one. That’s true largely, if we may be permitted to generalize, because the measures gun-control supporters propose after mass…

A university named for George Washington and Robert E. Lee wrestles with its traditions and heritage.

Ten years after the financial crisis, Robert F. Bruner surveys the best books on what went wrong and what still should be fixed.

Danny Heitman on the slender volumes of Notting Hill Editions—treats for the mind.

Michael M. Rosen on border barriers and the human future—a review of ‘The Age of Walls’ by Tim Marshall.

Sophia Buono on the searching, spiritual journey of Elizabeth Seton, the first American-born Catholic saint.

Albert Louis Zambone reviews ‘Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia and Populist Politics.’

Unless political peace breaks out, the only way Democrats and Republicans can meet interest payments is to let inflation rip, devalue the dollar.

Betsy DeVos can issue new rules, but it’s no guarantee that she can change the cultural climate.

Last week, a group of anti-“fascist” or antifa thugs posted online the home address of Fox News host and former Weekly Standard writer Tucker Carlson. They then gathered outside his Washington residence and terrorized his wife, who was home alone at the time. Maybe these menacing shenanigans were…

George Soros, the Rothschilds, and Harold Wilson walk into a bar...

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Let’s be honest: The administration loves having CNN’s White House reporter in the spotlight.

The president wants $5 billion to go toward construction but Senate leaders have agreed on a lower amount.

The King, who receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump Friday, was basically Nixon’s Kanye.

Media love lets AOC punch above her weight class.

It's about 2020, stupid.

In two phone chats after Democrats won the House in the midterm election, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and likely House speaker Nancy Pelosi broached the subject of bipartisanship—or as McConnell put it, “ways we might be able to find a way forward.”

For a full year, maybe more, Americans who follow national politics were subjected to the unabating use of a single metaphor: the “blue wave.” Would there be a blue wave? If so, how big? What would the blue wave, if it turned out to be a wave, mean for the Trump administration?

The last two years have seen a great deal of handwringing about the future of democracy. Scores of commentators, left and right, have claimed America’s democratic institutions are under siege. Some, mostly on the left, advocate a variety of changes to the Constitution in order to make our electoral…

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Making the King an avatar for racial resentments so long after his death just creates more divisions.

Plus, why Alan Greenberg's memos were great.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

The retiring senator is threatening to block advancement of judicial nominees.

On this week's episode, the Substandard reflects on the death of Stan Lee and the greatness of The Good Place. JVL has an origin story—about Fanta. Vic hates philosophy. And Sonny Bunch returns!

More ministers resign as May faces the axe.

Republicans and Democrats have almost stopped winning on the others’ home turf.

A historian recalls the women’s movement’s forgotten work for working mothers.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

We aren’t proud of this one.

Leadership races have much lower stakes now that the GOP has lost the House.

Those who enjoy the city life should not stop others who want to experience the same thing.

Quelle surprise: The election messes in 2018 were mostly in Florida. Not all, but most.

A hudna is not a resolution.

Office of Legal Counsel says Whitaker’s designation “comports with the terms of the Vacancies Reform Act.”

Step 1: Propose something ridiculous. Step 2: Cause chaos but don't deliver it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There's something rotten in college sports.

Lots of books on politics come across The Scrapbook’s desk, and most, if we may speak with brutal honesty, aren’t to our liking. Often we can’t even make it past the titles. You know the ones we mean. Grand Theft: How a Band of Know-Nothing Media Magnates Is Stealing Your Liberties—and What You Can…

The possible takeaways from Beto O'Rourke's performance.

An item in the press recently caught the attention of our friend and colleague P. J. O’Rourke, who emailed to Scrapbook HQ his always amusing reaction. The offending item was this, from the Washington Post:British “MasterChef” critic and magazine editor William Sitwell is battling backlash over a…

You've been bamboozled.

National Landing just made a huge mistake.

On today's Tuesday Morning Quarterback podcast, columnist Gregg Easterbrook and guest host Chris Deaton discuss what's behind the boom in NFL offense and what may cause it to slow in the season's second half, Drew Brees's place among the stars, and the stars' place amid the construction of several…

Plus: seeing space in a certain kind of light, and 2018 ballot referendums.

The new House Democrats have to figure out how to square opposition to Trump with skepticism about free trade.

From "fire and fury" to summits and appeasement.

There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer,” the business writer Peter Drucker once said. One of the great things about capitalism is its concern with pleasing the customer, but in recent years this concern has gotten out of hand. Nowadays almost every…

We are pro-smoking here at The Scrapbook. We do not smoke ourselves, and to be honest the smell of stale cigarette smoke makes us gag, but we viscerally disapprove of the way in which nicotine users have been browbeaten, shamed, and hounded out of polite society over the last several decades.

Can the Alexander Hamilton Forum prevent history from repeating itself?

Plus, will teens ruined 'boxed Tide?'

Stan Lee created an entire industry.

Trump can maybe eke out victory in 2020 by trading suburban votes for greater rural turnout, but that doesn’t solve his House problem.

Political power brokers must learn that candidate quality is vastly more important than campaign cash.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

What data from 2016 and 2018 tell us about 2020.

Better eye droppers could save a lot of money on prescription drugs.

A federal judge finds a way.

My attention was caught last week by an op-ed piece in the Washington Post written by Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III. Mr. Sullenberger, of course, is the pilot who skillfully maneuvered his disabled airliner to safety on the Hudson River, saving all 155 of its passengers and crew. His essay…

The Scrapbook assumes most of our readers stay well away from the New York Times Style section. That abstention is usually a wise one, but reading the Style pages has its joys, too. We think especially of the long, glowing profiles of rich people. These pieces are satisfying, not because their…

The Obama administration’s decision in 2014 to trade five imprisoned Taliban fighters for Bowe Bergdahl, the deserter captured by Afghan insurgents, continues to spawn ill consequences.

This Election Day, like every Election Day, I entered the sanctum sanctorum of the voting cubicle, searched my conscience, remembered that I’d left it in the car, then voted for my own amusement. This time, I pulled the lever for a state-senatorial longshot named Jesse Peed. It felt exciting and…

Algis Valiunas on the longing that defined Napoleon, man of action.

William A. Wilson on ancient robots and today’s intentionally imperfect quest for artificial intelligence.

Dominic Green on a half-century of the marvelous, mixed-up mess that may be the Beatles’ greatest album.

The wartime prime minister as leader, painter, friend.

Carl Rollyson on the friends and fights of the author of ‘A Dance to the Music of Time.’

The congressman disputed a story we reported. We stand by it.

If the president wants to do deals with the Democrats, he probably can.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

A comedy of errors.

The midterm elections were a draw, with both sides able to make claims of victory. The Republicans bolstered their majority in the Senate, thanks largely to the Democrats’ shameful treatment of Brett Kavanaugh. The Democrats took the House, cutting off any chance that the GOP will pass major…

National party dynamics seemed to drag incumbents over the finish line

Republicans lost the House but held the Senate in the midterm election. That puts Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in the catbird seat.

A 60-count federal indictment was only a slight impediment to reelection. Whether he serves out his term is another question.

That is the lesson of the midterms

Not perfect, but nonetheless impressive.

The suburbs spell trouble for Trump.

The winners and losers of 2018.

Iowa’s worst congressman ekes out a victory.

The Queen pic is a surprise hit—but, writes John Podhoretz, it is unsurprisingly unoriginal.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

If you have to ask ...

On this week's return episode, the Substandard takes on Bohemian Rhapsody. Special guest Mike Warren fact-checks and gives us a Queen ranking. JVL gets into queer theory and Vic recounts his New York City bar crawl. Plus a special review and trenchant analysis of Election 2018!

The real reason Jeff Sessions was fired.

Political gravity, 2020 and the shape of the new House.

The illusory dream of democratic socialism lives again.

If Trump wanted to "solve" abortion, he'd want people like Mia Love around.

Matthew Whitaker has called for Robert Mueller to limit his investigation into 2016 election interference.

As expected, they took the House and some governorships. But the winners were largely anonymous.

The special counsel investigation is now under the purview of acting AG Matthew Whitaker.

The Obama Doctrine is over—at least in Latin America.

Her complaints about "crazy Democrats" and alignment with the president on the migrant caravan came off as cynical.

The winning women Tuesday were mostly anti-Trump Dems.

The data did a pretty good job in 2018.

Walker awaiting military votes to be counted and review of vote tally.

Were admission to Harvard based solely on academic merit, Asian-Americans would comprise 43% of the freshman class, while African-Americans would make up less than 1%, according to an internal Harvard report discussed at a trial here Wednesday.” That’s the sobering lede of a Wall Street Journal…

Russian operatives may be feeding preposterous fictions to gullible Americans on Facebook, but at least our countrymen don’t believe in “statuesque superhuman blonde Baltic snipers in tight white outfits.” In his invaluable daily digest, Windows on Eurasia, the Russia scholar Paul Goble reminds…

He just doesn't realize it yet.

Hurd has represented the swing district since he was elected in 2014.

And what's next.

All the face of the world is changed.

There are questions as to whether she will serve the entire six years.

Rick Scott, Ron DeSantis defy predictions to win Senate, gubernatorial races.

King's son to Des Moines Register: “We are not granting credentials to the Des Moines Register or any other leftist propaganda media outlet with no concern for reporting the truth.”

Another suburban Republican goes down.

A dent in Democratic efforts to flip the Senate.

Tennessee Republicans had a good night, clinching both of the marquee statewide races and further dimming Democrats’ hopes of getting control of the U.S. Senate. In the governor’s race, Republican businessman Bill Lee has defeated Democrat Karl Dean, the former mayor of Nashville. Lee will be the…

The district has been trending toward Democrats in recent years.

Stewart’s alignment with far-right figures likely depressed his chances of statewide appeal.

The Iowa Republican appears to have made a veiled jab at Mexicans at a campaign stop.

No truer now than it wasn't last year.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

No.

The program's and school's insiders put power and money ahead of academics, even ahead of human life, in the case of player Jordan McNair's death. Plus: No more unbeatens in the NFL.

The U.S. captured them after 9/11. Now they’re negotiating the U.S. exit.

Data-driven projections in all three categories.

Could blockchain help?

One of the most underreported asininities of modern American politics is the existence of political “consultancies” that rake in money from candidates, fail to get those candidates into office, then go on to rake in even more money from other candidates. Consider:

Do customers resist businesses that #Resist?

Plus, one easy way to kill a platform.

A look at a red-state senator’s difficult dance to the center.

A Democratic strategist weighs in.

"Oh look, TWS is defending Soros again." -Ace, probably.

Amazon-owned AbeBooks announced that they would no longer host sellers from multiple countries, prompting the response.

Liberals would prefer that he go away quietly. He won’t.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

The possibility that the country of five million could be a peace broker.

Democratic wave or Republican surprise? Americans are going to pass judgment on President Trump.

Alice B. Lloyd on the homespun magical realism of Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, ‘Killing Commendatore.’

Does 12 or 13 count as an early age to become disillusioned? Maybe it was once on the young side for lost innocence. On the other hand, maybe I was just a slow learner.

It’s no longer Voltaire’s Europe.

On the interment of Matthew Shepard at the National Cathedral.

In the days since Robert Bowers murdered 11 congregants inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Americans have contemplated and debated the most urgent questions in our common life. There has been mercifully little discussion of gun laws. Observers on both sides have grasped that these…

A cast member for Saturday Night Live, a late-night comedy show on NBC that hasn't had a funny cast for a very long time, mocked the appearance of Republican congressional candidate and veteran Dan Crenshaw during SNL's latest episode.

Christoph Irmscher on the strange, lifelong discomfort of the author of ‘Siddhartha’ and ‘Steppenwolf.’

Alan Jacobs on the maps that guide writers and readers through fictional worlds.

Paula Deitz on how a New York physician planted the seeds of American medical botany.

Micah Mattix on how Robert Louis Stevenson came to live, die, and be buried in Samoa.

Phil Christman on the Hulu film ‘Minding the Gap’: Three young skateboarders rewrite their destinies.

If things can't get better, does that mean they have to get worse?

Seventeen candidates, a Mega Millions lottery winner, disappearing harassment charges—California's wild 39th District has it all.

The Trump administration is directing transaction network to cut off Iranian banks.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Call it satire if you’d like, but it’s false information.

Also: How smoking can save lives, and more.

As a confirmed "Never Trumper," I would be thrilled, if there were no other considerations, to see Donald Trump’s Republican Party get blitzed in these elections and Trump therefore be humiliated.

The shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue—11 dead, 6 wounded—was especially shocking: It was the most lethal attack on Jews in American history. At the same it reminded us how disconcertingly commonplace mass violence has become. In February, 17 people were gunned down at a high school in Florida, and…

Democrats look to Dan McCready to help them flip the House.

The polarization of American politics has done its work and we now have an especially ugly example of where it leads. I’m referring to the fight over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a justice of the Supreme Court.

The Harvard affirmative action trial has brought out a lot of bad arguments in favor of discrimination.

“I wasn’t born chancellor,” said German leader Angela Merkel in an ad for her 2009 reelection campaign. She repeated the phrase in late October at a press conference to announce her coming resignation as chairman of her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Recent state elections have…

Is Saudi Arabia’s crown prince joining a long line of absolutist rulers in the Middle East?

The plot to get Mueller.

How a good economy might not help the GOP this time but a downturn could cause pain in 2020.

Plus, Halloween disaster!

Noticias falsas.

But one of the biggest state-level elections may be headed to a runoff after next Tuesday.

PHOENIX — Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is moving past the threats that came after she announced she would vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

The movement has already either dwindled or evolved, but the Pennsylvania Republican is a legacy of what substance it had.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

A statistic that’ll be relevant for about five more days.

Also: Donald Hall’s productive final years, and more.

The NRCC takes a stand.

No, really: Trump and the GOP are good on animal testing.

Liberal politicos—as distinct from progressive ideologues—rarely express their belief that “family planning,” as it’s euphemistically known, can alleviate or even solve the problem of poverty. We recall President Bill Clinton’s first surgeon general, the logorrheic Joycelyn Elders, remarking in her…

Nah.

And it isn't ending birthright citizenship or sending the army to the border.