Chris Deaton

An intra-Democratic fight over border security portends a power struggle in the upcoming Congress.

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

Personal politics don't work against a movement.

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

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

A dent in Democratic efforts to flip the Senate.

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

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

Freedom of speech is the latest casualty of Europe's encounter with Islam.

Democrats have owned the debate for two years, while Republicans have had difficulty articulating their side of it.

Ultimately, fully funding it may be unrealistic for myriad reasons.

The Democrat turned Republican turned Independent re-registers as a Democrat with 2020 on his mind.

Just look at all the power she wants to give the executive branch in the legislation she pushes in Congress.

Former FBI director James Comey endorsed the agency’s capability to impartially investigate allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, writing in a Sunday New York Times op-ed that the bureau is staffed with “people who just want to figure out what’s true.” Such an angle could lead…

Perceptions from within have improved, but it's a big, big country.

It's used to measure the man's influence on business—but it applies to how he changes what happens on the golf course, too.

Impulsively acting on incomplete information is a political artform.

Analyzing the senator's ethics reform package.

The media exec never denied saying that Trump was good for business.

The Nebraska senator tweeted about it on Saturday.

If you're putting yourself in the shoes of the author, consider the possible audiences he or she was trying to reach.

A case study in how the country creates, disseminates, and consumes information.

The word is losing all meaning at this point.

It’s what happens when loyalty—to a party or president—trumps everything else.

It's not clear that even she knows.

The president’s general attacks against the press are at the least obnoxious—and at the most untrue. There is no better way to demonstrate the latter point than to place facts above all else.

He ran hard early not against Donald Trump, but Paul Ryan. And he might have peaked too soon.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen that kind of fist pump.

First they came for the Infowars host. Then they stopped.

Are you Trumpy enough?

The federal price tag of Bernie Sanders's proposal is not surprising. But the implications are kind of insane.

"Well, I call it stupid."

The governor’s race in the Peach State has been combative. With President Trump intervening, it’s about to go all-out.

The president’s approach to international policy is venturing outside the very mainstream of American politics.

The Open Championship returns to Carnoustie, an historic landscape of pain.

Given that Republicans hold a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate and a few key moderates in both parties could decide the fate of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, here are a few facts and possibilities about his confirmation process.

Old center-right policies get caught in the web of opposition to something new.

Even those without a college degree who are seeking work are doing well.

DeMarcus Cousins is an economic genius.

For a party desperately in need of pre-Social Security-age blood, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seems like a promising prospect. The woman who felled Representative Joe Crowley in the New York 14th last week is just 28-years-old, which would make her the youngest member of Congress next January when she…

The congressman turned radio host has criticized the president’s behavior, but he supports much of the agenda.

Conservatives are now challenging the law's regulations in court, not Congress. A key Republican says it's a bad idea.

Dennis Rodman, Donald Trump, and Kim Jong-un.

The “friend” of Kim Jong-un is headed his way—and being used—again.

President Trump takes petulance to a new level.

We have no idea how good this is.

Ludicrous.

The star Democratic candidate for governor awaits the result of a GOP runoff, one that could help fuel her unique campaign's strategy.

It started with Larry Bird, the hick from French Lick. And now Brad Stevens has the team on the cusp of greatness once again.

Republicans are pushing a budget-cutting process Democrats say punishes the vulnerable. The real problem is that it's pointless.

The Republican businessman prevails in a divided primary field to face Senator Joe Donnelly in November.

An "outsider businessman" looks poised to knock off rising-star politicians in Indiana's GOP Senate primary. And it all has to do with Trump.

Seattle Mariners hurler James Paxton is what you would call a “monster” only in the statistical sense. First, he’s from Canada, which has a centuries-old ban on literal monsters, first proposed by Sir John Goodfellow in the 19th-century pamphlet “Apologies, Niceties, and Other Best Traits of Common…

Mike Braun, Luke Messer, Todd Rokita are all running for a chance at a rare GOP pickup in the upper chamber.

More Republicans are embracing legalized marijuana, for medicinal or recreational use.

Can a new system of voting really deliver civility?

Let’s be honest: Congress was never really going to reform entitlements under House speaker Paul Ryan. The subject is campaign poison—the only way lawmakers would act proactively is if congressional terms were measured in decades instead of years.

As far as people-watching goes, you could do worse than the third hole at Augusta National. The rope line separating the gallery from the green is to the right of the putting surface, which is also just behind the tee box of the Homeric par-3 fourth. With no sand traps or obstructive trees around,…

The basketball term "jump shot" describes the act of a player springing from their toes and flicking the ball toward the rim. Its form was perfected by Ray Allen: body oriented toward the basket with the exactness of a NASA flight path, feet quickly off the ground with token resistance from…

Atlanta

A group of moderate Republicans was pushing this week to include legislation for “stabilizing” Obamacare within a spending bill that funds the government beyond its latest shutdown deadline of Friday night. The lawmakers’ proposal contains new money subject to abortion funding restrictions—a…

There is an argument, based on both stats and results, that the 10 best programs in Division I men’s basketball the last half decade are Arizona, Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State, North Carolina, Villanova, Virginia—and Wichita State.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that could make a primary election for Texas land commissioner interesting. Not if Kinky Friedman were running. Not if Milton Friedman were running. Not if an underwater city of gold and vibranium and sweet crude oil were discovered on election eve 10 miles off…

Hours after the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, Zeynep Tufekci spent part of her evening calling out major media that aired video of students trembling while the noise of gunshots ruptured the air. “This is a snuff film,” she said of one such clip, which was embedded atop a New York Times story.…

We laid our grandfather to rest last weekend. Among his many honorifics—Claude the Wise, the Servant, the War Hero, the Parent, Her Majesty’s Loyal and Precious Cincinnati Reds Fan—was Claude the Catholic.

Three answers to one question Tuesday night summed up the Republican primary in the Indiana Senate race. During the campaign’s opening debate, the moderator asked the trio of candidates running to replace incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly to name two spending cuts they would vote to make right away.…

Who among us hasn’t said, “I’m so mad I could beat my television with a hammer”? Finally, the National Rifle Association has acted on the impulse.

For a stupid but explicable reason—American culture is bored, indulgent, tribal, and unthinking—Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean dicator Kim Jong-un, was memed (flatteringly) because she gave Vice President Mike Pence “side eye.” As the Washington Post's Philip Bump tweeted (before…

During the trophy presentation after the Super Bowl, Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, tight end Zach Ertz, and MVP Nick Foles each began their interviews with mentions of their faith.

George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and son of the former Florida governor and Donald Trump rival Jeb Bush, tweeted his unmistakable support for the president’s agenda on Tuesday, in response to an endorsement from Donald Trump, Jr. of his reelection campaign.

Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long is the first Super Bowl athlete this year to say he won't visit the White House if his team becomes champions. Like the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry—the face of basketball’s signature franchise, who said after the NBA Finals last year, “I don’t…

President Trump’s second annual address to Congress passed Tuesday night without him mentioning a sole word about entitlement spending, continuing a deviation from the economically conservative Congress he inherited.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Major League Baseball will expand its experiment of starting extra innings in certain games with a runner at second base.

If there were ever an occasion for President Trump to create some buzz for his health care agenda in 2018, it was on Monday morning, in a case of man-meets-moment. Trump introduced new Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar before the Cabinet official’s swearing-in ceremony, one day before…

The Centers for Disease Control alarmed the public in early January when it announced that the topic of its next monthly public health briefing would be preparing for nuclear war. But the agency soon changed the subject to something it deemed more urgent: this season’s flu outbreak.

It’s Virginia Woolf’s 136th birthday, meaning she’s had plenty of time to finish her description of the child orbiting the lake by foot and how it brings to mind the circular nature of life. After all, the kid made it just five steps, and it was a century ago.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Trump negotiated toward a bargain on immigration reform that could have satisfied both parties and reduced the likelihood of a shutdown, the New York Times reported hours before government funding expired at midnight Saturday. Democrats would have…

In one part of the room, lawmakers and public health experts debated whether an increase in opioid abuse among Medicaid expansion states could be a direct result of Obamacare policy. In the other part by himself—a shock, I tell you—was Rand Paul.

There must be a specter of bad timing that haunts good athletes, like some ghost that breathes allergenic dark matter into a player’s airway and makes him cough up the moment. It appears in about two and a half seconds: Which is how long it took the ball to leave Mookie Wilson’s bat, bounce toward…

Customs and Border Protection told THE WEEKLY STANDARD this week that testing continued on eight prototypes for a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. The prototypes were commissioned earlier this year to give officials ideas for what types of structures they ultimately want to build. “Through the…

About 28 million people live in Texas. Imagine a population the size of Austin has cholera, and one the size of Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso, Arlington, and Corpus Christi faces the imminent threat of famine. Add Plano, Laredo, and each of the 167 cities down the line…

Media critics and anti-Trump skeptics are charging that President Trump may have violated Twitter’s terms of service Tuesday evening for initiating a nuclear button-measuring contest with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. “I think they're trying to decide if this kind of tweet—referring to a…

Few goods reflect a culture’s welfare, tastes, and very zeitgeist like food. Black-and-white images of hungry Londoners gripping loaves of bread define our perception of England in the mid-1800s. (They gripped Dickens’s, at least.) In times of decadence, spoiled Americans order an appetizer of peas…

Basketball is “Indiana’s Game,” says the slogan of the state’s NBA franchise, the Pacers. It’s not Hoosier imagery of burnished hoops nailed to barn doors, the scent of popcorn inside a gym, keeping warm in winter with the exhalations of 5,000 spectators under the same rafters. It’s two of those…

Pending certification on Wednesday, a recount of a Virginia House of Delegates race has resulted in a one-vote win for the Democratic candidate, turning what was once ca 66-34 Republican majority into a 50-50 split.

Winning isn’t everything, nor is it the only thing for Democrats in special elections this year. Political observers had built up Tuesday’s Alabama Senate vote as yet another put-up-or-shut-up moment for Washington’s minority party, suggesting that a loss by Doug Jones there would be another…

Birmingham, Alabama

The New York Times suggested there would be two lessons from a Roy Moore victory: “It would illustrate the enduring limitations of Democrats in the South and suggest that the tug of partisanship is a forbiddingly powerful force.”

Birmingham, Alabama

Athens, Alabama

Former Trump administration adviser Steve Bannon opined that Mitt Romney “hid behind” his religion instead of serving in the Vietnam War during a rally Tuesday night for Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Birmingham, Ala.

As if there was a need to remind everyone that American politics has lost its marbles and then pulverized them with a steamroller, here are five observations from recent domestic events and the president’s Twitter feed.

President Trump retweeted three incendiary videos from a fringe far-right British activist, called for a boycott of CNN, floated the firing of NBC executives for propagating “fake news,” and suggested an investigation into the 2001 death of an aide to then-Rep. Joe Scarborough: a matter the far…

President Trump retweeted three incendiary videos from a fringe far-right British activist, called for a boycott of CNN, floated the firing of NBC executives for propagating “fake news,” and suggested an investigation into the 2001 death of an aide to then-Rep. Joe Scarborough: a matter the far…

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t say Sunday if she believed the multiple women who have accused Democratic Rep. John Conyers of sexual misconduct, and instead encouraged “due process” as a congressional ethics committee probes allegations made against the 88-year-old lawmaker in multiple…

At 12:30 p.m. Thursday, the NFC North-leading Minnesota Vikings (8-2) will visit their lone division challenger, the Detroit Lions (6-4). It will be the only hour of the day it can be said that Thanksgiving football is better than Thanksgiving basketball.

Doug Jones’s Senate campaign called Roy Moore a sexual “abuser” in an advertisement released Wednesday, its bluntest attack yet against the Republican candidate’s alleged history of pursuing teenage girls sexually, some of them underage.

Birmingham, Ala.

An attorney for Roy Moore failed to defend his client Wednesday from multiple allegations of past sexual misconduct printed in theWashington Post, and instead questioned the credibility of a separate accuser’s account and attacked her celebrity representation, Gloria Allred.

Roy Moore and his defenders have questioned the timing of a Washington Post story that includes the first-hand account of a woman who said that Moore, now 70, initiated an intimate sexual encounter with her when he was 32 years old and she was 14. “To think grown women would wait 40 years before a…

(This post has been updated to account for additional vote returns reported Wednesday.)

Roy Halladay, one of two pitchers in Major League Baseball history to toss a playoff no-hitter and a two-time Cy Young Award-winner, died in a plane crash Tuesday at age 40.

The House Republican tax reform package met immediate resistance after it was unveiled Thursday. Some blue-state GOP reps were wary of the measure’s treatment of state and local sales taxes. Sens. Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker expressed their own concerns. The National…

Baseball is not obligated to resemble your imagination.

President Trump proposed axing Obamacare’s individual mandate in a tax reform bill late Wednesday morning, to help offset the cost of reducing rates. To meet this year’s budget, an overhaul cannot increase the deficit by more than a projected $1.5 trillion over the next decade, and Republican…

American society expects the president of the United States to be all things to all people. Some roles are related to constitutional or political duty: the country’s chief diplomat, its civilian head of the military, and its primary influence on domestic policy. Others flow from the nation’s…

The windows one floor up and diagonal from the living room window were illuminated shortly past midnight. We’ve all been there: A child wails, an animal skedaddles, a stomach growls, a phone rings, a bladder pleads, and suddenly you’re ambulant when the rest of the home is prone, wondering why…

Boston

Potential Senate candidate Kid Rock, a term that never becomes any less weird each time you write it, said Tuesday that he will not challenge Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow in next year’s election.

Boston

Reduced for the time being to pruning Obamacare, Sen. Lamar Alexander announced 11 Republican cosponsors Thursday afternoon to a health insurer subsidy bill the president may or may not like, conservatives detest, Senate Democrats embrace, and the House speaker has all but dismissed.

Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray reached a bipartisan deal on Tuesday to reinstate subsidies paid to insurers for lowering costs on certain low-income insurance enrollees. This “cost-sharing” process is a one-two step: One, a carrier reduces the amount of health expenses a particular…

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate’s health committee have struck a deal to fund reimbursements to insurers that discount prices for low-income individuals, just days after the Trump administration determined the payments were illegal without an appropriation from Congress.

Trump administration officials announced late Thursday they will end reimbursements to insurers for lowering costs on individuals “immediately,” potentially destabilizing premiums on the exchange unless Congress reacts with legislation to continue the payments.

The Red Sox and Yankees survived on Sunday, setting up a Columbus Day quadruple-header. Were they lucky or just timely? And what’s in store now?

Vice President Mike Pence departed an NFL game Sunday afternoon in response to several players who knelt during the playing of the National Anthem, he said in a statement.

Jose Altuve went yard thrice, and Trevor Bauer was not so nice to the Yankees in a dominant Game 1 performance on Thursday. The first day of the MLB Divisional Series round now gives way to a full slate of games Friday—here’s TWS’s Lee Smith and Chris Deaton to break it down.

California representative Linda Sanchez, a member of the House minority leadership, says in an interview set to air Sunday on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers that it’s time for a new generation of Democrats to replace Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn.

The Yankees won—and Gary Sanchez survived! The Diamondbacks outlasted the Rockies—thanks to a pitcher . . . hitting? Two wacky wild card games are in the books, and the 2017 MLB playoffs are set: It’s the Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks and Nationals vs. Cubs in the National League, and the Indians vs.…

It’s a classic case of man bites Blue Dog. The southern Arizona chapter of the Indivisible Project, a leading organizer of anti-Trump progressives, protested outside Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran’s office Tuesday for supporting a crime bill making it easier for the government to deport…

Construction began Tuesday in San Diego on eight prototypes of a proposed southern border wall, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced, with the six contractors chosen by the federal government expected to complete work within the next 30 days.

Protesters in pristine pulmonary health didn’t stop chanting until chairman Orrin Hatch asked “Where’s the damn police?” and the damn police showed up. Sen. Lindsey Graham traveled miles off script and actually had saliva on his lips as he vowed to thrust “a stake in the heart of single-payer…

Bubble-dwellers everywhere in American culture are prone to make comparisons that become hackneyed over time. In music criticism, someone’s going to liken a songwriter to Dylan. In political punditry, someone’s going to call a bad guy Voldemort. And in baseball, someone’s going to compare Joey…

There are two campaign commercials from House hopefuls in 2018 worth considering as a pair. The first one is from Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Dan Helmer, a Democrat challenging at least seven others in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District to face Rep. Barbara Comstock.

The Graham-Cassidy health reform bill is notable for how much its policy caters to governors—no matter their party affiliation. Its private-market provisions are premised on a simple plan: Take the money projected to be spent on four key Obamacare-driven expenditures, including the Medicaid…

Some of Kid Rock’s best-known work is mashups of genres and past hits. He made a fortune fusing rap and metal. He created a worldwide chartbuster mixing “Werewolves of London” with “Sweet Home Alabama.” Now he’s sewing a political image cut from the theatrics of Idiocracy’s President Camacho and…

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will always have London and Sydney and yes, even Paris. But in 2017, and likely forever, they won’t have their long-awaited clash in Queens.

President Trump sat at the inflection point of a horseshoe with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell on either side of him and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi just to McConnell’s left. A reporter asked him if he would support Congress bunching aid money for Hurricane Harvey relief with a three-month…

For a town accustomed to punting major policy issues, the Trump administration’s boot of DACA to Congress could nab it a Pro Bowl nod.

A bipartisan health reform proposal headlined by Governors John Kasich and John Hickenlooper would preserve Obamacare and instead provide states more flexibility under the existing law, according to an outline of the plan released Thursday.

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans mixed it up the first several months of 2017, concocting a doozy of four parts discord and one part accomplishment. Candidate Trump made antagonism with the GOP establishment a selling point of his campaign. While that approach earned votes at…

President Trump returned to demanding money from Congress for his border wall on Tuesday night, just a couple of weeks before the issue takes top billing in a showdown over keeping the government funded beyond September.

Bob Ley is one of ESPN’s all-time great personalities. With Chris Berman (of “back-back-back-back . . . gone!” fame), Ley is one of the last two original SportsCenter anchors still with the company. His longevity isn’t attributable to some Milton Waddams fluke: He is sharp and versatile, having…

Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had already heard the name Benjamin Banneker by the time the Maryland-born free black wrote to him on August 19, 1791. Banneker, a farmer and self-taught man of scientific pursuits, lived near the Quaker Ellicott brothers in what is now Ellicott City, just north…

Even Bob Gibson wasn’t this merciless. In what has to be a new best worst first pitch of all-time, 17-year-old Jordan Leandre plunked a photographer standing several feet behind and to the left of home plate before Wednesday’s game between the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals at Fenway.…

Evaluating the violence in Charlottesville and the reaction to it from public officials and commentators requires basic levels of reason and decency. To botch it reveals some terribly unflattering trait: It could be related to political or partisan obsession, ego, honest-to-goodness insensitivity,…

President Trump wants lawmakers to sign off on something his own Department of Homeland Security can’t yet provide. As Axios’s Jonathan Swan reported last week, “sources close to Trump say he’s dead serious about building an impressive wall and will go crazy when he realizes Congress has no plans…

The summer of 1992 was owned by Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson—in that order, His Airness certainly would attest. It was 25 years ago this week that they led the Dream Team to Olympic gold in men’s hoops in Barcelona: an eight-game romp in which they outscored their opponents by 350 points. It’s…

I’ve been wondering what in the hell Robin Ventura was thinking since I was age 7, when the pup third baseman for the Chicago White Sox charged Nolan Ryan like he was an untrained bull calf loosed upon Pamplona. This was the sequence of events:

The (really good) website FiveThirtyEight is tracking how often members of Congress vote with the positions favored by President Trump. A “Trump Score” of 100 percent indicates that a senator or representative has matched the White House’s stance on every bill to have been weighed up or down. The…

In a provocative excerpt of his new book, Arizona Republican Jeff Flake identifies hazards of the Trump aura that conservatives have abetted and must challenge today. They include: “the most egregious and sustained attacks on [President] Obama’s legitimacy” ... “the strange specter of an American…

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…

From full repeal to skinny repeal to no repeal.

Pictured above: Three skinny health reform amendments that could stand a chance of passing.

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;…

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 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.

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.

Several reporters were piqued Thursday evening by a county-level Republican official's one-liner cited in the Tennessean (emphasis mine):

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…

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 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,…

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…

The Washington, D.C. rapid transit system was restored to full capacity Sunday, meaning it now runs as fast as a moped instead of a riding mower. The “Metrorail” had undergone significant repairs since last June, creating service disruptions on multiple train lines week after week. Sometimes this…

It’s often said that reforming the U.S. health care system amounts to reshaping one-fifth of the economy. It’d follow, then, that voters would hold the GOP’s grotesquely unpopular health bills against its reputation on economic issues. But historic polling shows that the public doesn’t relate the…

One of the major hang-ups of the Senate GOP’s stalled health bill is how the legislation approaches Medicaid and insuring low-income populations. The Better Care Reconciliation Act overhauls the state-federal program so dramatically that many individuals who want insurance and otherwise might have…

The legislation faces opposition from both conservatives for not doing enough and from moderates for cutting too much.

The Senate GOP has revealed its closely guarded alternative to the American Health Care Act, which stitches together significant changes to Medicaid intended to unify disparate Republicans and modifies the House approach to Obamacare regulations in a way that still provoked the immediate ire of…

Two years ago, the NBA’s New York Knicks drafted Kristaps Porzingis, a 7’3” superweapon who can shoot, run, and jump. He’s unique. The team’s general manager, Phil Jackson, called him a “unicorn” on Wednesday. Porzingis is only 21 years old but has withstood the withering heat lamp of playing ball…

Between the fundraising and national attention, it all appeared just peachy for Jon Ossoff. Then Georgia voted.

All this time, the national headlines about health care reform in Congress have prioritized the terms “CBO” and “pre-existing conditions.” Not nearly enough attention has been paid to “Medicaid.”

Democratic donors have poured tens of millions of dollars into the most expensive test run in the history of House campaigns.

It was two years ago Friday when Donald Trump descended an escalator inside Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for president. Did he drag the country's political conduct with him? "Any debate about civility in politics begins with Trump," New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush tweeted on Thursday.…

Atlanta

Jon Ossoff, the Democratic nominee in the special election to replace Tom Price in Georgia's 6th congressional district, is the progressive hope du jour. He has a small lead in an average of polls against his opponent, Republican Karen Handel, ahead of the vote next Tuesday. The district favors the…

What the Golden State Warriors accomplished Monday was, as it had been most nights of the NBA season, amazing. Not because they won and did so in emphatic fashion—12 months ago they were a juggernaut, Kevin Durant made them a cyborg, and their victories typically have been inevitable. Rather, they…

Donald Trump's campaign changed the political playbook in elections across the country. But if Republicans in greater Atlanta retain an imperiled House seat next Tuesday, it will be thanks in so small part to their having called a familiar play.

Atlanta

Scooter Gennett hit four home runs on Tuesday night. "Scooter Gennett" is not an anagram for "Mike Trout." Though it is only a "u" short of having the letters to spell "get out" and a "d" short of Scrabbling together his traditional position, "second"—which isn't often associated with power…

American culture may be approaching the event horizon of politics, from which all matter(s), including harmless diversions, cannot escape. This includes the Twitter account We Rate Dogs (@dog_rates), which was sucked into the singularity on Thursday.

The United States has experienced a tumultuous last decade. It's endured an historic financial crisis, prolonged government dysfunction, eroding trust in public institutions, a farcical presidential election, and Twitter. No society should have to suffer any of these. But gaze upon the world for…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The term "pre-existing conditions" has become a catch-all to describe a certain category of health status, high-cost medical patients, and a popular provision of Obamacare under scrutiny in the health care reform process. It's applicable to all three of these things. But without understanding how,…

He should’ve stuck with "ridiculous." That was the word President Trump used in late April to describe the "first 100 days" standard by which new commanders in chief are judged for their productivity. Trump himself cited the timeline before the election in his Contract with the American Voter, a…

Ohio governor John Kasich dismissed changes to the American Health Care Act designed to give states flexibility under Obamacare's insurance regulations on Friday, telling reporters that the House amendment process is a "bouncing ball" he hasn't been interested in following.

He should’ve stuck with "ridiculous." That was the word President Trump used in late April to describe the "first 100 days" standard by which new commanders in chief are judged for their productivity. Trump himself cited the timeline before the election in his Contract with the American Voter, a…

The House Freedom Caucus officially backs an updated version of the GOP health care bill that includes a significant amendment co-sponsored by the group's chairman, the conservative bloc's spokeswoman announced early Wednesday afternoon. She did not respond immediately to a Twitter inquiry asking…

President Trump cited a conversation he had with Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly when he emphatically stated Tuesday that the United States will build a wall along its border with Mexico “soon."

It's supposed to go like this: Lawmakers make the law, and the president then enforces it. That very obvious function of government might help the Republican party prevent a government shutdown later this week.

The word around Capitol Hill is that Republicans are preparing to revive the dormant American Health Care Act after members return from their Easter break. Lawmakers have tried adding some conservative muscle to the bill in an effort to make weight. But a central reason why the AHCA could be back…

President Trump has provided his opponents abundant material with which to criticize him. His Twitter feed as commander in chief is similar to what it was when he was a candidate: an early-morning soapbox about cable news and what bothers him. It often gets him into trouble. So do his policy planks…

Speaker Paul Ryan will take advantage of the House recess to lead a bipartisan delegation to the United Kingdom and three other European countries next week to discuss economic and security matters facing NATO member countries, his office announced Wednesday.

The Senate is unique among American political bodies in that its very rules and traditions have often been the basis for consequential oratory. Such was the case on Thursday, when South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham delivered a 3,000-word speech on the chamber's elimination of the 60-vote…

President Donald Trump certainly did his part in setting the table for the current state of public discourse. Make what you will of his agenda: His successful campaign has transformed the substance of political speech. This is an era when offhand vulgarity counts as straight talk; when “bomb the s—…

Oregon senator Jeff Merkley, who spoke on the Senate floor for 15 hours Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in opposition to the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, said in an interview three years ago that he supported eliminating the 60-vote procedural threshold for High Court…

Delaware's Chris Coons became the forty-first senator to pledge a no vote on ending debate of Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court later this week, giving Democrats the minimum number needed to filibuster his confirmation.

No politician is bigger than the game. This is not a lesson unique to President Donald Trump, though he doubtless has a new appreciation for how entrenched Washington is in its ways. But it may be a revelation to some of the millions who voted for him, energized by a pledge that this would finally…

No politician is bigger than the game. This is not a lesson unique to President Donald Trump, though he doubtless has a new appreciation for how entrenched Washington is in its ways. But it may be a revelation to some of the millions who voted for him, energized by a pledge that this would finally…

Despite being forums to question and receive testimony from public officials and experts, House committee hearings often rank near Cher's Twitter feed as informative sources of information about politics and government. Sometimes this is because of the prevarication of the witnesses. Almost always…

Senate Democrats delayed a committee vote Monday on Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch to next week, with the top Democrat on the judicial panel citing the failed appointment of Merrick Garland, interest-group spending in support of Gorsuch, and the jurist's answers about past High Court…

Republicans pulled out all the stops but ultimately pulled the bill.

Sen. Ted Cruz and House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows have called on Republicans to roll back Obamacare's insurance mandates in the American Health Care Act. These include blanket requirements for coverage of those with pre-existing conditions: Insurers are prohibited from denying…

The House GOP health bill faces more defections than it can withstand from inside the party's own conference, after a spokeswoman for a conservative caucus announced several no votes on Wednesday, and multiple members have warned that several moderates are also still opposed to the legislation in…

Backed by several letters from his former law students refuting a claim that he advocated employers probing the family planning of female job candidates, Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch explained to a senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee that he facilitated classroom discussion of…

President Donald Trump emerged from a meeting with House Republicans Tuesday morning confident that their health care bill would pass the lower chamber this week, even as conservatives continued to express doubts about the legislation's new and arguably improved substance.

Utah senator Mike Lee had a wish for Neil Gorsuch: "You are not a politician, which means that the acrimony, duplicity, and ruthlessness of today's politics are still foreign and unfamiliar to you. May that continue to be true."

Texas senator Ted Cruz, one of the leading critics of the congressional GOP's health reform plan, revealed Sunday that he and two of his colleagues met White House officials at Mar-a-Lago this weekend to discuss changes to the American Health Care Act.

One of the conservative sticking points in judging the House GOP's health plan has been the measure's treatment of "non-budget"-related items. Under the legislative mechanism Republicans are using to move the American Health Care Act, the bill's particulars must have an impact on spending and…

NCAA office pools once served a special societal purpose. Before the advent of tweeting, they were the one communal activity in which the entire populace could weigh in on things it knew absolutely nothing about. (Well, that, and elections.)

In the hour it was reported with smothering ubiquity that the GOP's Obamacare replacement would cause 24 million individuals to "lose" insurance, the debate about government health care policy was given a bucket of buffalo wings, a wet nap, and a day off. It was about to get sloppy and awfully lazy.

Trusting the process makes for good life advice and bad legislating. The morning after congressional Republicans released their Obamacare replacement, dubbed the American Health Care Act, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham complained it lacked the "Trumpism of the health care reform" the…

A budget estimate of the House GOP's health bill has found that millions of Americans insured through Obamacare's exchanges would opt out of purchasing coverage once the federal government stops penalizing them for doing so.

The New York Times Magazine's Charles Homans has an in-depth look at the rapid evolution of Democratic resistance to the Trump administration.

Trusting the process makes for good life advice and bad legislating. The morning after congressional Republicans released their Obamacare replacement, dubbed the American Health Care Act, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham complained it lacked the “Trumpism of the health care reform" the…

House speaker Paul Ryan got himself into trouble Thursday for broadly describing why the GOP considers the risk-sharing under Obamacare between younger and older consumers a failure, leaving out the details that got reporters questioning his understanding of insurance.

Amid unsparing challenges from conservative critics and policy wonks, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the House GOP's new health care legislation is "the bill" to begin undoing and supplanting Obamacare, and has the White House's backing.

House Republicans revealed draft legislation Monday evening designed to allay conservative lawmakers without spooking moderates, reassure wary voters, and not alienate Democrats too much.

With the confirmation of four more of President Trump's secretary-level appointments this week, the new administration is close to filling all 15 openings that technically comprise the "cabinet". Only two departments, Agriculture and Labor, still have vacancies.

Former Democratic governor Steve Beshear sat inside a Kentucky diner and drawled a picture of Obamacare's benefits to his state on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, minority congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer attacked President Donald Trump for being a corporate sellout despite his…

On Tuesday's episode of Man, We're Really Going to Spend Time Talking about This, Aren't We, New York representative Eliot Engel announced that he will not position himself along the receiving aisle to shake the president's hand as he enters the House chamber Tuesday night for a speech to Congress.…

It wasn't Ted Kennedy—not that he'd want it to be—but House speaker Paul Ryan quipped Tuesday morning that his dream of entitlement reform hadn't died.

Former House speaker John Boehner, who oversaw multiple attempts to undo Obamacare during his tenure, predicted Thursday that most of President Obama's health care law "is going to stay there," and that previous talk of repealing and replacing the law amounted to "happy talk."

Vice President Mike Pence told a group of Missourians on Wednesday to spread the word about the Trump administration among their townsfolk.

Beyond the fuss created by President Donald Trump's social media habit, the new Oval Office occupant is undertaking many of the same policy initiatives a generic Republican administration would have pursued, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told a calm group of his Kentucky constituents on…

The politics of Democratic opposition to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito were twofold. One, 2006 was an election year, and senators in the minority were hearing about it from their base. Two, partisanship, a vessel for the Senate filibuster, had dropped anchor inside the confirmation process.…

A congressional oversight panel is seeking details from the White House about President Donald Trump's discussion of a North Korean missile test in the presence of dinner guests at his Mar-a-Lago resort last weekend.

Amid mixed messaging from the Trump administration, House speaker Paul Ryan was the first major Washington official on Tuesday to announce that the president had asked former national security advisor Michael Flynn for his resignation. Ryan's take, which contradicted White House counselor Kellyanne…

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said President Donald Trump's behavior in the first few weeks of the new administration necessitates a "new standard" for Supreme Court nominees, including a unique a demonstration of judicial independence.

A single anti-Semitic valentine attributed to a College Republicans group has been found to be the work of a non-student, Central Michigan University concluded on Friday.

Days after the Super Bowl in Houston, the NFL is warning Texas that legislation requiring individuals to use public bathrooms in accordance with their biological sex could cost the state future opportunities to host the big game.

Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch has been defending the integrity of his branch of government and not attacking the president during his private meetings on Capitol Hill, Nebraska senator Ben Sasse said during a speech on Thursday afternoon.

If this was 1920, and Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge had disciplined his fellow Bay Stater for impugning the integrity of a colleague, we might have fairly said Elizabeth Warren was silenced on Tuesday night. Lacking an instantaneously publishing Internet and 'round-the-clock cable news, she would have…

The NCAA says it has not ruled out venues in North Carolina as possible sites for championship events between 2018 and 2022, after a letter from a local marketing agency addressed to lawmakers said all the Tar Heel state's bids to host post-season competitions in that time frame would be rejected…

Amid concerns of cold feet in the congressional GOP and noncommittal comments from President Donald Trump, House speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday the House and Senate would conclude their role in repealing and replacing Obamacare by the end of 2017, but cautioned that implementing a new regime will…

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, a leading congressional hawk on U.S.-Russia relations, broke with President Donald Trump in his characterization of Vladimir Putin on Monday, but contextualized the commander in chief's defense of the Kremlin last weekend as just one comment amid a broader approach to…

Like a reflex hammer to a knee, it's now obligatory that any comment a celebrity makes in opposition to Donald Trump gets retweeted 10,000 times. As of early Monday afternoon, New England Patriots tight end Martellus Bennett was more than 99 percent of the way there.

Among Frederick Douglass's many indispensable roles in American society—that of abolitionist, reformer, and statesman—was educator. Learning was his hope and inspiration, opposite qualities of what made a "contented slave". To make one, he wrote, "It is necessary to darken his moral and mental…

President Donald Trump continued encouraging his party's Senate leader Wednesday to waive a 60-vote threshold to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, if necessary, the morning after the upper chamber's top Democrat suggested a nomination fight was coming.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday night he has "very serious doubts" whether Judge Neil Gorsuch will meet his standard for winning confirmation to the Supreme Court. "The burden is on … Gorsuch to prove himself to be within the legal mainstream and, in this new era, willing to…

West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said he won't block President Donald Trump's choice to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, who is scheduled to be announced Tuesday evening.

Former labor secretary Elaine Chao won confirmation to lead the Department of Transportation on Tuesday, sailing through the Senate by a wide bipartisan margin of 93 to 6.

A weekend Wall Street Journal story examines the interior design trend of maximalism, roughly defined as, if it has the properties of matter, screw it (and hang it up):

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans had 12-to-15 billion dollars in mind for construction of a southern border wall, as they await a supplemental spending request from the White House to move forward on the project.

President Donald Trump derived power from a 2006 law to order work on a "secure, contiguous, and impassable" barrier along the United States's southern border Wednesday, advancing a campaign promise many critics have said is too ambitious to fulfill.

Seven Greenpeace activists climbed to the top of a crane north of the White House and hung a large banner reading "RESIST" on Wednesday morning. Given the timing, one would think the word might allude to President Trump's orders to revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Greenpeace is…

Democrats have taken stock of Dr. Tom Price's financial dealings before the Senate votes on his nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services. The two most recent lines of attack, reported in separate media stories last week, concern health care investments Price said were made at the…

It was an odd time for the inauguration goers to sing the boos. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a liberal Democrat, had just delivered a few lines that could have easily prompted applause had they been uttered by President Donald Trump, the populist Republican most people in attendance were…

Two key members of President Donald Trump's national security apparatus sailed through Senate confirmation votes Friday afternoon, as retired Marine Gens. James Mattis and John Kelly earned overwhelming support in the upper chamber to become the first cabinet picks of the new administration to win…

Jonathan Last presciently writes this morning of the tennis calendar's first major tournament, the Australian Open:

It's an elastic stretch to compare Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro to Donald Trump, as pundits and critics of the Hugo Chavez successor have done for the last year and a half. Maduro's opinion of immigration from Colombia into his country—"Who comes over from Colombia? It's people practically…

Plans to fund a wall between the United States and Mexico are starting to take clearer shape as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office. Politico reported this month that congressional Republicans and the new administration are contemplating a bid to appropriate money through an…

The House approved a budget Friday providing for Congress to axe the revenue-related portions of Obamacare, teeing up a repeal procedure that congressional Democrats are powerless to stop.

Plans to fund a wall between the United States and Mexico are starting to take clearer shape as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office. Politico reported this month that congressional Republicans and the new administration are contemplating a bid to appropriate money through an…

Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly spoke about border security and Russian meddling in U.S. political activity during a confirmation hearing for his nomination to be Secretary of Homeland Security Tuesday, telling a Senate panel he has "high confidence" in the Intelligence Community's assessment that…

President-elect Donald Trump may have cranked up the heat on Republican lawmakers working to repeal and replace Obamacare, telling the New York Times the two goals must be accomplished "together" in an interview published Tuesday.

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that Mexico will somehow reimburse the United States for the building of a border wall, an apparent response to reports that he wants Congress to fund the project through the appropriations process early this year.

Republicans plan to use a 2006 border security law supported by more than half of Senate Democrats to fund the wall President-elect Donald Trump pledged his administration would construct, Politico reported Thursday. The Secure Fence Act mandated double-layer fencing between particular ports of…

Former senator and U.S. Ambassador to Germany Dan Coats is President-elect Donald Trump's choice for Director of National Intelligence, according to multiple reports, with a formal announcement expected as soon as Friday.

Top GOP officials say their first order of business in the new year is to repeal and replace Obamacare. But the first order itself has a clear first step.

The House formally reelected Paul Ryan to the speakership Tuesday in a vote that was tamer than what the GOP majority has endured in recent years, with only one of his party colleagues defecting.

Israel needs to "stay strong" until Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday, when he vows there will be a shift in policy toward the American ally.

Yet again, a doggedly optimistic American public is hopeful that next year will be better the current one, which people have described over and over as "meh," "less than glowing," and something "they would rather forget," according to the Associated Press's reporting of its regular year-in-review…

President-elect Donald Trump described the United Nations like it was a diplomatic holiday party Monday, saying it has "great potential" but implying it does little good.

President Barack Obama is set to meet with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in Hawaii on Tuesday, where the two men will honor American war casualties at Pearl Harbor. The encounter is expected to be the president's last meeting with a foreign head of state before departing office next month.

The National Basketball Association gifts sports fans a showcase of holiday competition superior to the drowsy slate of Thanksgiving games served by the NFL almost every year. Turkey day football, with the league’s comparatively dominant popularity, is celebrated annually as the premier family…

A published draft letter attributed to Republican governor Susana Martinez touting Obamacare's benefit to her state was the work of the independent New Mexico health care exchange, the exchange's office tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD, and the text was never shared with Martinez's staff before it was…

Before the days of Schick and Barbasol, a lithograph from the printmaker Currier and Ives depicted President Lincoln's ZZ Top of a cabinet and the chinstrap in chief holding the Emancipation Proclamation. Over his shoulder was graybeard Gideon Welles, secretary of the navy, and to his left were…

Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid defended the unsubstantiated charges he made about Mitt Romney's tax liability as "necessary" during an interview on Nevada public radio Wednesday.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, incoming Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is among the Democrats willing to work with President-elect Trump to pass some of his more "populist" ideas into law. But the tough liberal campaigner issued a blanket statement about cooperating with the new administration.

A new suspect in the terrorist attack that claimed a dozen lives at a Berlin Christmas market was under covert surveillance for several months this year, according to German authorities, and is now the focus of a continental manhunt launched Wednesday.

An internal Defense Department memo identifying President-elect Trump's four "defense priorities" as articulated by a Trump transition official makes no mention of Russia, according to Foreign Policy, which obtained the document and shared it Tuesday.

President Barack Obama granted a single-day record of 231 clemencies Monday, as his White House counsel predicted there would be more in the weeks to come before he departs office in January.

Texas senator Ted Cruz petitioned the Smithsonian Institution Monday to correct what he called its "mistake [of] omitting the enormous legacy and impact of Justice Thomas" at the new National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The Obama administration finalized a long rulemaking process Monday to tighten regulation of coal mining near streams, drawing pushback from Capitol Hill who questioned the move's necessity and had hoped the government would leave the issue alone before the president departs office next month.

President Obama tried on Friday to stop short of saying Vladimir Putin was responsible for Russian hacking into Democratic party political data, but he dropped multiple hints—his own spokesman may have called them "not particularly subtle" ones—that the American adversary was behind the activity.

Craig Sager, the beloved NBA broadcast reporter who won over the most uncooperative of athletes and coaches with his geniality and garb, died Thursday after a nearly three-year fight against leukemia. He was 65.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Intelligence Community wasn't "particularly subtle" in its October assessment of which Russian actors could have authorized the country's hacking of U.S. election activity this year, hinting that Vladimir Putin must have somehow been involved.

The Federal Reserve raised a key interest rate for only the second time since 2008 Wednesday, and left its economic projections mostly unchanged despite granting the uncertainty of how Donald Trump's economic policies could alter the economy and its future decision-making.

Harry Reid claims he has lost respect for Mitt Romney. It's likely Romney lost his for Reid sooner.

President-elect Trump lifted his eyes from the phone long enough to notice the man standing in his doorway. "Kanye, Kanye, come on in!" he exclaimed. "I've just been fighting all these—the media, they're so biased. Rex Tillerson, widely respected, and they're spreading lies about him. It's unfair."

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich lauded Donald Trump's chosen department chiefs as "what may be the smartest cabinet of modern times" Tuesday morning, hours after news broke of the president-elect's selection of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state.

More than 1,000 Russian athletes competing in "summer, winter, and Paralympic sport" have been identified in a vast doping conspiracy tainting numerous international competitions in recent years, a finding that indicated a hijacking of global sport, the World Anti-Doping Agency's chief investigator…

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell chided the opposition for holding up last-minute spending legislation to keep the government funded beyond midnight Saturday, as a small group of Democratic senators pledged to fight the bill until they could secure a longer extension of health benefits for…

Americans have an "obligation" to give President-elect Donald Trump a chance to show what he can do, Vice-President Joe Biden said Wednesday during an impromptu stop at a Delaware state celebration on the U.S. Capitol grounds.

President-elect Donald Trump selected Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt to be his EPA administrator Wednesday. Since taking office in 2011, the 48-year-old Republican has found himself at odds with Washington, D.C., on issues ranging from Obamacare to overreach from the very agency he has been…

The world's biggest basketball star, LeBron James, says his decision to stay elsewhere than the Trump SoHo hotel with his teammates on a road trip in New York City is not an attempt "to make a statement," but rather a matter of taste.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie has reached an historical low for gubernatorial approval ratings taken by a renowned pollster, plunging below 20 percent for a mark not seen in more than 20 years of surveys.

Ohio governor John Kasich has asked presidential electors not to cast votes for him later this month, a response to news that a group of Democratic Electoral College members was planning to back him when they gather December 19.

A fight over several of Donald Trump's cabinet selections is brewing in the Senate before the 115th Congress even convenes, a development that one Democratic senator who is often at odds with his party calls "BS".

Tiger Woods, like he has been so many times in the last 15 months away from the PGA Tour, was alone on Friday. His playing partner in the Hero World Challenge—Tiger's event in many respects, from his hosting, his foundation's sponsorship, and his first event since last August—withdrew before the…

Retiring Indiana senator Dan Coats is under consideration to be President-elect Donald Trump's choice for Director of National Intelligence, according to a report and confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by a source with knowledge of the situation.

Elaine Chao is the daughter of a shipping magnate. She was an administrator in the U.S. Maritime Administration in the mid 1980s. And when the calendar turned to the late part of the decade, she became chairwoman of the separate Federal Maritime Commission. Chao, who has had extensive government…

Several world leaders on both sides of the Atlantic praised Fidel Castro after the Cuban president's death was announced after midnight Saturday. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama's comments summarized his White House's Cuba policy and predicted "history" would judge Castro's effect on Cuba and its…

The U.S. Surgeon General granted that the country's worsening opioid epidemic received due attention amid the long election season, but said alcohol-related issues are still costlier to the public after the release of a government report on drug addiction and abuse this week.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said there should be an investigation into Rudy Giuliani's alleged knowledge of FBI activity in the lead-up to Director James Comey's letter to Congress about the review of additional emails related to the Bureau's investigation of Hillary Clinton.

President Barack Obama spoke about the mindset of young people put off by last week's election results during a speech in Greece Wednesday, urging them not to deviate from the values that ensure "lively, open debate" amid a nationwide swell of protests and school walkouts.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who received media interest amid President-elect Donald Trump's attacks on fellow Latino-American judge Gonzalo Curiel during election season, "demurred" from commenting on the campaign when asked Tuesday evening if she felt any apprehension about the result.

Florida governor Rick Scott told reporters Tuesday that he wouldn't rule out a run for Senate in 2018, the year voters will choose his successor on account of his being term-limited.

Reince Priebus provided some clarity to his new job as White House chief of staff Monday morning and how it will coexist with the role of Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon as Donald Trump's top political adviser, with the outgoing head of the Republican National Committee confirming that part of his work…

President Barack Obama and his incoming successor Donald Trump met for about 90 minutes in what was described as an "excellent" first meeting between the two men Thursday.

Saying the presidency is "bigger than any of us", President Barack Obama complimented the big-picture message of President-elect Donald Trump's victory speech during remarks outside the White House on Wednesday morning, adding that his team would conduct a smooth transition to his successor's…

Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson was all but written off for most of his bid to defend his Senate seat. The first-term incumbent pulled out the eraser Tuesday night, and inked himself in for a return to the upper chamber in a shocking comeback victory over former Sen. Russ Feingold.

Republican representative Todd Young will defeat former senator Evan Bayh in the Indiana Senate race, NBC News reported just short of 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, giving the GOP a crucial hold early in its quest to maintain a majority in the upper chamber.

Before there was Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, and Bill Mitchell's Yard Signs, there was Vigo County, Indiana. The half-urban, half-rural area about 80 miles southwest of Indianapolis has voted for the winner of the presidential race in 30 of the last 32 elections, and…

Look at the numbers, but look at the variables, too: Republican Todd Young is now firmly the favorite to win Indiana's Senate race, seizing control of a key toss-up race the GOP almost certainly must win to retain its majority in the upper chamber.

With the news that Republican representative Todd Young had overtaken Evan Bayh in a new poll of the Indiana Senate race—an intuitive result, given the torrent of negative news against the Democrat—the GOP now has their noses in front in at least three and perhaps all five Senate contests…

FBI investigators are building a case around alleged "pay to play" tactics at the Clinton Foundation, according to a report, and two sources cited in a separate account say they are confident in the increasing body of evidence. But the news comes amid tales of personnel conflict, both within the…

Van Dyne, Wisconsin

House speaker and Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan said he "already voted" for Donald Trump during his state's early voting period, marking a public declaration of support weeks after making a private announcement that he would withdraw from defending and campaigning for his party's nominee.

South Carolina representative Trey Gowdy slammed Harry Reid in multiple interviews Sunday and Monday for his accusation that FBI director James Comey may have violated the Hatch Act, which limits the political activity of executive branch employees, in reopening the investigation into Hillary…

Joe Buck, the multipurpose Fox sports broadcaster, has called almost every World Series for the last two decades, beginning with the revival of the New York Yankees dynasty in 1996. Ever since, he has been criticized for banality, bias, and boredom, or as I like to call them, the triple Zzz's.…

A new poll of four swing states from Quinnipiac University shows Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump slipping in three likely must-win states.

The Washington Post calls attention to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey about how much Americans are prioritizing Obamacare relative to other health care issues this election season (emphasis mine):

One of Obamacare's key architects said Wednesday morning that Americans weren't being penalized enough for forgoing health insurance coverage, which he characterized as "probably the most important thing experts would agree on" as it relates to improving the law.

As House speaker Paul Ryan tries to weather a Trump imbroglio, his GOP counterpart, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, remains silent on the election.

Evan Bayh's true address might be the swamp Donald Trump wants to "drain." The former Democratic senator, running in Indiana to reclaim his old seat, has faced an onslaught of negative news about his years of residency outside the Hoosier state, his post congressional-work, and his vote for…

Indiana Senate candidate Evan Bayh remains dogged by charges that he bailed on his home state before seeking a return to Congress this year, with a new revelation that the former Democratic senator didn't stay overnight in his Indianapolis condo once during his last year in office in 2010.

President Obama spoke behind a campaign sign reading "Clinton/Kaine" in Florida on Thursday. But Donald Trump wasn't the only Republican on his mind.

Despite rebukes from fellow Republicans and assurances from surrogates that Donald Trump really would accept the results of the presidential election, his campaign appears to be all-in helping him joke about the matter.

If you put Marco Rubio's many opinions of Donald Trump and Election Day the last several months into a paragraph, there's a cohesive, though not entirely coherent progression in there:

How do baseball managers pick their own six pack in a liquor store, I wonder? Do they have a designated slot in the cardboard carrier—say, front-left—for the lager, and the ale must be middle-left, and the bottles go 'round in a horseshoe shape until they reach the front-right: the last, the best,…

The Senate Democrats' official campaign arm is pulling its remaining ad dollars from the Florida Senate race, a decision it said was not linked to Republican Marco Rubio's debate showing against challenger Patrick Murphy Monday night.

Like almost every Republican incumbent in a battleground state this year, Florida senator Marco Rubio had to survive the Donald Trump portion of a debate Monday night before he could focus the event on his own race. He succeeded in doing both—and he took advantage by outmaneuvering Democratic…

Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, tweeted an op-ed from Republican medical doctors critical of Obamacare with an accompanying message Monday afternoon.

Ignoring the besieged, carefully coiffed elephant in the room, House speaker Paul Ryan delivered remarks over the course of 45 minutes Friday in a starkly worded critique of Hillary Clinton and progressivism. It set the table for a Clinton presidency, the stakes of it—and the significance of a…

Republican senator Kelly Ayotte and Democratic challenger Maggie Hassan are statistically tied in the New Hampshire Senate race, days after the incumbent lawmaker rescinded her support of presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Top advocates for presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump set the table for the final stretch of the campaign Thursday with dueling, scathing messages that cut to the core of each nominee's weaknesses.

Minnesota governor Mark Dayton liked it, but couldn't keep it—his staunch support of Obamacare, that is, which he dropped on Wednesday with a tough assessment of the law.

Days after House speaker Paul Ryan said he would begin focusing solely on preserving the GOP's House majority, a new poll of congressional races may get Republicans feeling and seeing blue.

A senior State Department aide coordinated with the Clinton Foundation to identify assistance offers to Haiti that came from "Friends of Bill," as the charitable organization filtered requests to the federal government during Clinton's time as Secretary of State.

House speaker Paul Ryan all but cut and sprinted from the presidential race Monday, telling Republican members that he would spend the election's final month working to preserve the party's congressional majority instead of defending Donald Trump.

Multiple polls conducted after the Friday release of the Donald Trump Access Hollywood video show Hillary Clinton extending her advantage in the presidential race, with one survey of a four-way field giving her an 11-point lead.

A bit more than a month from Election Day, the electoral forecasts for Republicans differ between congressional campaigns and the one for the White House. The party's odds of retaining the Senate, once believed long, have improved substantially in recent weeks, as one-time toss-up races like…

The latest surveys of swing states in the election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton find the GOP candidate lagging in critical battlegrounds, with both nominees still sitting below 50 percent in expanded three- and four-candidate fields.

A vulnerable Republican senator who has dissociated herself from Donald Trump walked back her characterization of the White House hopeful as a role model based on the admirable pursuit of running for president, creating a potentially awkward flash point in a toss-up contest.

The State Department announced Monday that the United States had broken off talks with Russia of implementing a ceasefire agreement in the Syrian Civil war, as the Kremlin continued to back an aggressive bombing campaign in rebel-held parts of Aleppo.

In a lengthy interview recapping some of the pivotal moments of his administration, President Barack Obama told New York magazine that he hopes his successors will not have an "imperial presidency."

Hillary Clinton added a wrinkle to her consistent criticism of Donald Trump's "strongman" approach to governing Friday, using the near-dictionary definition of a despot to describe the GOP nominee for president.

Donald Trump said the first presidential debate and the "system" were "rigged" on Thursday, despite saying he "loved" the debate and the "process" on Wednesday, which followed weeks of the Republican candidate predicting that his showdown with Clinton on Monday and the election would be tilted…

Here's some post-debate analysis that'll make your head spin. Spin right off.

A State Department official testified Thursday morning that the administration was considering "some new" options to address Russia's activity in Syria at the request of President Obama, some seven months after Secretary of State John Kerry warned of a "plan B" in the event that an agreed-upon…

House speaker Paul Ryan has publicly rooted for a Donald Trump victory this November, but there are still indications the two are on a different page on policy.

Donald Trump seemed to embrace the election process Wednesday, after repeatedly expressing alarm on the campaign trail in recent weeks that it would be "rigged" against him.

It was Mickey Mantle's habit to keep his head down after hitting a home run, he said, because "the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases." But there are rare occasions when it is appropriate to violate the unwritten Baseball Code and show emotion after…

Hillary Clinton set out to do Donald Trump the biggest favor she could Monday night: Depict him as a normal Republican.

A man Donald Trump named as a foreign policy adviser earlier this year is being probed by federal officials for potentially opening up a dialogue with senior members of the Russian government, Yahoo News reported Friday afternoon.

Donald Trump included Utah senator Mike Lee, one of his toughest conservative critics, to his expanded list of possible Supreme Court nominees on Friday.

A new slate of state polls shows Hillary Clinton's advantage holding in key swing states this week, though the Democrat's margins indicate a competitive race in some of the most vote-rich battlegrounds.

American hockey is better than this.

Donald Trump funneled more than $250,000 from his charity to cover legal settlements, according to a report published Tuesday, raising additional legal and ethical questions about the presidential candidate's past financial and charitable dealings.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are virtually tied in the key swing state of North Carolina, according a new poll from Elon University.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton exchanged fierce denunciations of their national security credentials throughout the day on Monday, after separate attacks in Minnesota and New York City prompted the candidates to say the other would make the homeland less safe as president.

President Obama said that the government sees "no connection" among separate weekend attacks in New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota that left dozens wounded, as authorities apprehended an individual Monday morning in connection to the bombing-related incidents in the Northeast.

Both major-party presidential nominees were at 42 percent support or below in all seven national polls that included Gary Johnson and Jill Stein this week.

Hillary Clinton said her fault was being in overdrive too much and shifting down too late amid a spell of bad health, as she took questions from the media Thursday afternoon about her tumultuous weekend and brief time away from the campaign.

The prominence of climate change has risen to the point that the issue is discussed in the White House Situation Room, President Obama said during a State Department forum for oceanic matters Thursday morning.

A new Quinnipiac poll of likely voters finds Hillary Clinton up five percentage points in a one-on-one contest with Donald Trump, but her support dwindles significantly in a four-person race, particularly among young adults.

For all the deserved flack Donald Trump has received for citing inaccurate news, he literally broke from script Monday to accurately quote the context of Hillary Clinton's description of some of his supporters as a "basket of deplorables".

A poll storm of critical states in the presidential election reflected a tightening race the last week, but they also showed a large battleground that could indicate trouble for the nominees in places their party is accustomed to winning easily.

In the latest installment of Conversations with Bill Kristol, author and American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray discusses how changes in American society help explain the political environment in 2016. Issues include the decline of communities, immigration, and anti-trade sentiment,…

Roger Federer is one of the most gracious and likable athletes to have performed before mass audiences. He is a paragon of sportsmanship: polite toward his opponents, respectful of officials, joyous but self-effacing in victory, disappointed but complimentary in rare defeat. We come to root for…

There's more than one conspicuous absence from a list of top Democratic Senate targets published Friday, and it includes Florida.

The 2010 midterm elections were the initial referendum on lawmakers who voted for Obamacare: Democrats took a thumping. But two years later President Barack Obama proclaimed the debate over the law “settled" after he won a second term, treating his reelection as a judgment on his signature…

Matthew Continetti's column in the Washington Free Beacon this week reviews The Fifty Year Mission, a two-volume history of Star Trek that chronicles the tumultuous story of the science-fiction franchise from the perspective of the cast and crew.

A poll of likely voters in North Carolina taken mostly after Labor Day finds Donald Trump with a three-percentage point lead over Hillary Clinton, continuing a trend of surveys that reflect a tight race in the critical swing state.

Donald Trump welcomed Florida attorney general Pam Bondi to his Mar-a-Lago club for a fundraiser supporting her campaign after her office stayed out of a multi-state lawsuit against Trump University, according to a new report.

A super-PAC backing Hillary Clinton has released an advertisement quoting Donald Trump on nuclear weapons, the latest such spot from Clinton's side calling to mind former President Lyndon Johnson's "Daisy" attack against Barry Goldwater.

A spokeswoman for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump played down perceived inconsistencies in his immigration platform Tuesday morning, saying that immigration is not "a top priority" among the public and stressing his commitment to a policy that resembles "touchback" for undocumented…

The FBI released interview documents of its investigation of Hillary Clinton Friday, providing details of the bureau's probe into the former secretary of state's use of a private email server in conducting official business.

President Barack Obama said he'll be better positioned to influence Republicans about climate change policy after completing his term, telling a reporter during an environmental-themed visit in the Pacific that he'll be more credible and convincing as a private citizen.

Indiana governor Mike Pence addressed a Utah policy forum Thursday at the invitation of Senator Mike Lee, who helped lead an insurgency of anti-Donald Trump delegates at the Republican National Convention just weeks ago.

A majority of likely voters fault Bill and Hillary Clinton for failing to appropriately handle past donations to the Clinton Foundation, according to a new poll from Suffolk University and USA Today.

Donald Trump's immigration speech Wednesday night in Phoenix was unquestionably true to form—true to the Trump of the last year, and true to the "law and order" message his presidential ticket adopted when he named Mike Pence his running mate.

The way John Kerry sees it, there is no joy when the president goes on The View.

A conservative watchdog granted the opportunity to seek written testimony from Hillary Clinton about her email saga filed its questions for the former secretary of state in federal court Tuesday, apparently compelling her to answer under oath before the end of September.

The FBI found about 30 emails involving Hillary Clinton that are potentially related to the Benghazi terrorist attack as part of its investigation of the former secretary of state's use of a private email server, the State Department said Tuesday.

The Islamic State announced Tuesday that a senior official considered its second in command was killed in Syria, stripping the organization of its official public face.

A majority of registered Republican voters say that Donald Trump wasn't their party's best option for presidential nominee, a new poll from the Huffington Post and YouGov finds.

Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence pledged to campaign for the support of "never Trump" voters who have stoutly opposed the top of the ticket, focusing attention toward the GOP and Democratic agendas and away from the candidates themselves in his pitch.

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, the consistent but hard-luck gunslinger who will probably have broken more bones than records by the time his career is finished, was injured again Thursday night. In a preseason game against the Seattle Seahawks, Romo had scrambled out of the pocket and was in…

Former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz says in a new interview that might vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, elaborating on concerns he's expressed in recent weeks about the GOP presidential nominee's foreign policy.

Picking up where President Obama left off at the Democratic convention, Hillary Clinton praised the way Republicans used to do things during a speech Thursday, effectively distinguishing the GOP of the last two decades with the one currently led by Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton hasn't held a press conference since early December, an extended vacation from reporters that has created annoyance and even resentment in the media. Sure, she's granted interviews—she did one by phone with CNN's Anderson Cooper just Wednesday night—but she hasn't made herself…

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton implied there is a difference between her family's foundation accepting foreign donations during her cabinet tenure and doing the same during her potential presidency, saying the latter would present "unique circumstances" absent during her time as the…

Three GOP members of Louisiana's congressional delegation are being accused of hypocrisy for advocating a federal disaster declaration in their home state. But there's nothing to the charge when considering how they've approached other relief efforts in the past.

President Barack Obama casually pressured the Republican-controlled Congress to address the medium- and long-term financial needs of flood-ravaged Louisiana as they arise Tuesday, as GOP members of the state's congressional delegation stood behind him.

A federal judge's ruling that Hillary Clinton must give written testimony to a group suing for information about her use of private email was timed in such a way that the former secretary of state will likely be forced to respond before Election Day, barring unforeseen snags in the process.

A federal judge leaned on the State Department Monday to speed up the processing of nearly 15,000 previously undisclosed emails discovered by the FBI in its probe of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Amid mounting criticism in the media, the White House announced Friday afternoon that President Obama would visit flood-ravaged Louisiana next Tuesday.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday night that he has no recollection of a dinner conversation in which he allegedly advised Hillary Clinton to use private email for transmitting non-sensitive information. According to a forthcoming book by liberal journalist Joe Conason obtained…

Mike Pence said Wednesday that Twitter doesn't "matter a hill of beans" in shaping voters' preferences for the presidential candidates, even as the man for whom he's campaigning has used the social media utility to dictate news cycles—often to his detriment—since entering the race last year.

The FBI has sent investigative materials into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server to Capitol Hill, including notes from the Bureau's interview with Clinton, it was reported Tuesday.

The Democratic candidate for Senate in the battleground state of New Hampshire declined to say Hillary Clinton was honest and trustworthy Monday morning after being asked three separate times.

Indiana Senate hopeful Evan Bayh has identified himself repeatedly in public records as a Washingtonian, according to a report, a revelation that fueled charges of opportunism from his critics Monday.

The co-chairman of Donald Trump's New York campaign said Friday that Khizr Khan, the father of a slain Muslim-American solider, "doesn't deserve" the title of a Gold Star parent.

Michael Phelps does not dominate or even contest every swimming discipline in international competition. The butterfly is his most famous stroke and individual race, and he has routinely cleaned up in freestyle. But he has only medaled in backstroke once. That was 10 years ago. And in no year has…

Donald Trump said unequivocally Thursday morning that "this is the time" for government to borrow money for multiple spending priorities, an unusual position for the standard bearer of a GOP that made fiscal restraint one its signature positions during the tea party wave just six years ago.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton made a direct pitch to Utah voters in a Deseret News op-ed published Wednesday, trying to drive a wedge between the state's traditional preference for Republicans and the Mormon community by tying its history of being persecuted to Donald Trump's…

Monday night he was seated in a waiting area, wearing a hoodie pulled over his scalp, scowling as a rival played head games in front of him.

The National Rifle Association tweeted a brief, two-part statement Tuesday afternoon defending Donald Trump's comment earlier in the day about Hillary Clinton and the Second Amendment.

Acknowledging the unrest of voters dissatisfied with the nation's economy and politics, Maine Republican senator Susan Collins announced Monday night that she won't vote for presidential nominee Donald Trump, citing the candidate's personal behavior as her primary reason for withholding her support.

Records are meant to be broken. They are not meant to be pulverized with the hammer of Thor.

Hillary Clinton restated her claim Friday that the FBI assessed her as "truthful" in investigations into her handling of classified material over a private email server, saying she didn't elaborate enough when she used that characterization during a weekend interview with Fox News.

As the presidential election enters its final three months there are plenty of indications that one of the presidential tickets is doing everything it can to limit its ceiling with voters. Even before the Republican National Convention, the mathematical wisdom suggested that Donald Trump was going…

Paul Nehlen, the primary challenger to House speaker Paul Ryan, said this week that he wants to begin a debate about deporting every Muslim from the United States.

Colorado Republican Mike Coffman has released a campaign advertisement that puts some distance between him and presidential nominee Donald Trump.

President Obama challenged "anti-government" types Wednesday to visit a nation with a poorly functioning government in order to appreciate how "useful" a well-run administration is to society.

One of the finalists to be Donald Trump's running mate is now calling the GOP nominee for president "unacceptable".

Donald Trump set a lofty target for federal infrastructure spending Tuesday morning, saying that his administration would expend "at least double" the $275 billion over five years that Hillary Clinton has proposed.

Donald Trump said he's worried the general election will be rigged against him during a campaign stop Monday afternoon.

Florida senator Marco Rubio made one of his most definitive and direct statements in support of Donald Trump yet during a candidate forum this weekend, all but sloganeering the words "elect Trump".

Hillary Clinton had an opportunity Thursday night to make the electoral map a mad scramble. For months, we've heard about Donald Trump's Rust Belt strategy, by which he would parlay a blue-collar coalition into blue-state pickups like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. For three days this week,…

Many sorrowful conservatives observed after President Obama’s speech Wednesday night that Democrats, not Republicans, are the party trumpeting American greatness and optimism this year. To hear some tell it, John Winthrop was in the house. "American exceptionalism and greatness, shining city on…

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus floated a conscience exception Monday afternoon for Democratic convention delegates upset by the party's meddling on behalf of Hillary Clinton during the primary.

The email hack of Democratic National Committee officials has widened to include the personal account of a staffer researching Donald Trump advisor Paul Manafort's Russian political ties, according to a report from Yahoo's Michael Isikoff.

Outgoing Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke through unceasing crowd noise and jeers at a delegate breakfast for her state Monday morning, spinning the tremendous "interest" in her remarks into a plug for Florida.

Cleveland

Cleveland

Cleveland

House speaker Paul Ryan said Donald Trump is "not my kind of conservative" Monday, as he tried to explain the ideology of the presumptive GOP nominee for president.

President Barack Obama opined that Republicans are on the verge of ruining the Supreme Court nominating process for all time, writing in the Wall Street Journal that their treatment of Merrick Garland "will effectively nullify the ability of any president from the opposing party to make an…

Republican governor Mike Pence still has not filed the necessary paperwork to withdraw himself from the governor's race that would allow him to run for vice-president, two sources inside the Indiana secretary of state's office tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed "regret" Thursday morning for commenting on the presidential election in multiple recent interviews.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Donald Trump was in search of an "attack dog" as his running mate. As far as job descriptions go, that's akin to an accounting firm recruiting people who are "good with numbers"—it's obvious, and it's a prerequisite of the job. What's newsy is the…

Retired four-star admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO James Stavridis is being vetted as Hillary Clinton's running mate, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Reports indicate Indiana governor Mike Pence is well positioned to be Donald Trump's vice-presidential selection. But a Pence spokesman says the Republican remains "focused" on his reelection campaign.

The news that Democrat Evan Bayh was entering the Indiana Senate race prompted election watchers to label the once-safe contest for Republicans a toss up.

Former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels hasn't ruled out a bid for his old office should his successor, current governor Mike Pence, be named Donald Trump's running mate, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned.

Utah senator Orrin Hatch remembered the late Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor, in a speech on the Senate floor this week. Wiesel died on Saturday at 87.

House speaker Paul Ryan, Senator Marco Rubio, and other leading Republicans spoke in unusually frank terms about race Friday, following a string of fatal confrontations involving black men and law enforcement that have claimed seven lives this week.

Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee expressed outrage Thursday about the disappearance of Guantanamo Bay transfer Jihad Ahmed Mustjafa Diyab, who was part of a six-person group released to Uruguay in December 2014.

Multiple GOP lawmakers led by House speaker Paul Ryan have asked Obama administration officials and introduced legislation to revoke Hillary Clinton's security clearance.

It turns out that "voting for the lesser of two evils" is a recent invention in presidential elections. We've seen dissenting liberals in wartime and disaffected conservatives amid stagflation, but there rarely has been overlapping dissatisfaction since the 1950s.

A South American airline has alerted its employees to be on the lookout for a member of the "Uruguay Six" that was released from Guantanamo Bay in December 2014.

President Obama says Hillary Clinton "could not have been more diligent" as secretary of state in a video her campaign released mere hours after FBI director James Comey accused her of being "extremely careless" in her handling of classified materials during her tenure.

At a time of historical distrust in the nation's capital, it should come as a bit of comic relief to a faithless public that we can't even believe in Fourth of July fireworks anymore.

Newt Gingrich, a long-time free trader in Congress and champion of the North American Free Trade Agreement, said Friday that there's something "profoundly wrong" with U.S. trade policy, lending his support to Donald Trump's position on the issue.

Imagine being about the fiftieth-best employee in an organization of 400 people and making $24 million a year.

The Pentagon announced it was lifting a ban on transgender individuals serving openly in the military Thursday, permitting them to enlist and banning dismissals based on their gender identity.

In the 2012 presidential election, the joke was that Mitt Romney spent $1 billion to flip North Carolina to the Republicans.

President Obama said globalization is an irreversible reality Wednesday, indirectly rebutting GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's criticism of the United States's participation in international trade deals.

Multiple members of Donald Trump's convention roster are listed as day-to-day after straining to deny they'll appear in Cleveland on his behalf.

Pat Summitt, the women's college basketball coach who won more games than anyone to have led a program at the Division I level, died Tuesday at age 64.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer used logic frequently employed by pro-gun advocates to help justify his majority opinion in the Texas abortion clinic case decided Monday.

The cathartic and palliative HBO political satire Veep has been a weekly spoonful of Mylanta to soothe our stomachs this emetic election year. The show's recently concluded fifth season chronicles the browbeating Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the titular former vice-president, laboring to…

Over at Ricochet, former WEEKLY STANDARD writer Jay Nordlinger and Mark Helprin discuss Donald Trump and "the F-word"—that being "fascism".

Believe it or not, there are head-spinning stories about dysfunctional New York politicians that do not involve Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio are in a forced marriage. Their partnership, such as it is, takes its cues from congressional…

A California jury has decided that Led Zeppelin did not lift "Stairway to Heaven's" acoustic guitar riff from the band Spirit, whose instrumental composition "Taurus" bears similarity to the iconic rock song.

Donald Trump's path to 270 electoral votes remains blocked by a number of toss-up states trending toward Hillary Clinton, a new forecast from election analyst Larry Sabato and recent polls show.

House speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday that the House GOP's new Obamacare replacement is focused more on quality than quantity.

The Department of Education's civil rights office announced Wednesday that a transgender elementary school student in South Carolina will be allowed to pick the restroom with which the student identifies.

The Medicare trust fund that pays the hospital bills of elderly patients is set to run out of reserves two years earlier than previously projected, the program's trustees said Wednesday.

Echoing fellow Wisconsinite and House speaker Paul Ryan, Governor Scott Walker said Tuesday that delegates to the Republican National Convention ought to vote how they see fit.

A new poll of swing states finds Donald Trump running close to Hillary Clinton in Ohio and Pennsylvania, but also getting thumped in the crucial prize of Florida.

A dive into Hillary Clinton's plans to capture the youth vote in November revealed that her strategy largely revolves around stealing Bernie Sanders.

In the past week, Donald Trump has staked out two wildly different stances on gun control: He has publicly appeared to back the Democrats' top gun control initiative in Congress while at the same time endorsing the possession of concealed weapons among people drinking alcohol in bars and…

Florida congressman David Jolly dropped his Florida Senate bid Friday, clearing one of a few possible hurdles for Marco Rubio to run for the seat he intended to vacate.

Senator John McCain said Thursday that President Obama was "directly responsible" for the Orlando terrorist attack last weekend, pointing to the administration's policies that he says have allowed ISIS to grow into "what it is today".

A nonpartisan department inside Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau's government successfully petitioned Google to remove webpages associated with former conservative leader Stephen Harper from its search results, Canada's iPolitics reports.

When Marco Rubio returned to the Senate in March, fatigued from losing a battle against the most overwhelming presidential candidacy of modern times, he pledged to do some honest days' work—and then quietly step aside.

CBS reports that the Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen posted a pro-ISIS message on Facebook just "moments before" the attack.

Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will meet with the National Rifle Association to discuss banning individuals on the federal government's terrorist watch list from purchasing firearms.

The Orlando nightclub gunman said he carried out his attack because he wanted the United States to "stop bombing his country," according to a witness who spoke at a news conference Tuesday.

President Obama used part of his speech Tuesday to renew calls for gun control, warning that failing to enact new gun laws will allow San Bernardino- and Orlando-style terrorist attacks "to keep on happening."

In light of the terrorist attack in Orlando, Minneapolis attorney Scott Johnson has a timely piece in the magazine recapping law enforcement's case against the 10 "Minnesota men" charged with seeking to leave the United States to join ISIS in Syria.

Senator Marco Rubio said Monday that he didn't want "politics to intrude" upon discussion of this weekend's terrorist attack in his home state. But when pressed by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, the Florida Republican suggested he is rethinking his decision not to run for reelection to the…

Gordie Howe, the National Hockey League's longest tenured player and a member of the sport's Mt. Rushmore, died Friday at age 88.

President Obama warned of a submerged Manhattan without efforts to combat climate change during a fundraiser in New York City Wednesday night.

This election has been one heck of a lab experiment. There's overlap between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, yet Trump "effectively split" the Tea Party between himself and Ted Cruz, who actually is something of a Tea Partier, whereas Trump is more of a "conservative-leaning populist" or just an…

For all the talk of how Donald Trump might affect Republicans down-ballot this November, Nevada representative Joe Heck says his effort to turn Harry Reid's Senate seat red is what will determine party control of the upper chamber come 2017.

The economy added only 38,000 jobs in May and the workforce shed almost half a million people.

The Media Research Center's NewsBusters website has carved out a beat identifying odd discrepancies in how much the press covers one topic relative to another. During primary election season, for instance, it reported routinely on Donald Trump's saturation of the nightly news, rendering his…

President Obama said Wednesday that people in "VFW halls all across America" and other places with access to cable news and talk radio have a warped view of the economy.

A plurality of voters say Donald Trump is the presidential candidate best equipped to take on ISIS, a new poll finds, with just two out of every five respondents trusting a former secretary of state with the task more than the real estate mogul.

Providing a window into his psychology, Donald Trump embraced his image as the equivalent of a heel in professional wrestling during a press conference Tuesday.

By the standards of normal human measurements, Stephen Curry is tall. He's 6 feet, 3 inches, which substantially outstrips the average height of a male as recorded by U.S. government data, a little more than 5 feet, 9 inches.

A new survey of California ahead of the state's June 7 primary shows Hillary Clinton with a 13-point advantage over Bernie Sanders.

Once upon a time in America, a state-sponsored healthcare exchange used a multi-hour Richard Simmons dance party to promote insurance coverage to young people. Somehow this is not the worst marketing ploy to youth a government has used in the last three years.

The impending selection of Donald Trump as Republican nominee for president has made the right-left way of describing American politics insufficient. His views on matters like property rights and libel law have introduced legal issues not usually contested during national elections to the political…

The Republican National Committee is out with a new web ad that uses Trumpian language to describe its party's presumptive general election opponent for president.

The middle-aged man in jeans ambles through the hotel lobby. His button-down shirt is untucked. The brim of his cowboy hat is embroidered with crossed pistols. His boots are made from the scaly skin of some pale reptile. This is what David A. Clarke Jr., sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin,…

Marco Rubio says in an interview set to air Sunday that he wants to be "helpful" to presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, reasoning that he wants to stop Hillary Clinton from taking the White House.

When you step in a mud puddle and soak your socks and dirty your pants, you shrug your shoulders and say, “It happens."

Former secretary of labor Robert Reich implied in an op-ed that the times have left Hillary Clinton behind, writing that her "old politics" might cost her victory in 2016.

President Obama called criticism of a Pacific trade deal "trying to score political points" Monday, countering arguments that the hot-button Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be bad for the United States.

Former presidential candidate and activist Ralph Nader has criticized the rising outrage over "microaggressions" as he mounts a campaign against perceived elitism at his alma mater.

Hillary Clinton now suffers from a higher unfavorable rating than Donald Trump.

An EgyptAir flight bound for Cairo crashed Thursday, with an Egyptian official saying that terror is a "stronger" possibility as a cause than technical error.

Bernie Sanders is set to take more than 50 percent of the vote combined in Oregon and Kentucky, continuing to rack up support despite Hillary Clinton's attempted pivot to the general election.

Voters are dissatisfied and bearish on the economy in a place where the Republican legislature and Democratic executive just can't seem to get along. In that respect, to describe the United States is to describe the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

House speaker Paul Ryan responded Tuesday morning to new poll findings that more Republicans trust Donald Trump than him to lead the GOP.

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton hammered the president's foreign policy staff Tuesday morning, explaining why he's become "public enemy number one at the White House" over his opposition to the Iran deal.

Hillary Clinton said during a campaign stop in Kentucky Sunday that she plans to put her husband and former president Bill Clinton "in charge of revitalizing the economy."

The Departments of Education and Justice issued guidelines Friday to public schools on how they should accommodate transgender students to ensure their compliance with the administration's interpretation of Title IX, a law passed in 1972.

The greatest power forward in the history of professional basketball—not a modest description for such a modest competitor—turned 40 in April, and despite his 7-foot height and two decades of mileage in the NBA, he's maintained a modicum of his best form. He scored an efficient 19 points Thursday…

The U.S. government is forecasting that the world's coal consumption will increase almost 15 percent in the coming decades, despite new regulations that will slow the industry significantly stateside.

Behold what Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Twitter, and the knowledge that media fetishizes Twitter reporting hath wrought:

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

Hillary Clinton was guaranteed to lose the heart of coal country in West Virginia's Democratic primary election Tuesday. But third place in a two-person race?

Federal officials announced Tuesday that the Justice Department won't pursue the death penalty against the suspected ringleader of the 2012 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Allegations that Facebook censors conservative news from its "trending topics" widget has drawn condemnation from the right. The response would have been just fine had it included political complaints and not a government inquiry.

Paul Ryan and Donald Trump, ostensibly the two leading politicians of the Republican party at this point, hardly overlap in their long-term visions for the U.S. economy.

They may as well hang a sign on every city hall that reads, "Eat No Chikin."

The boss appeared on CNN Thursday to discuss the Republican party with Donald Trump at its forefront, and to press the case of how a conservative alternative to Trump and Hillary Clinton in the general election could pull off a victory.

New Mexico governor Susana Martinez has no desire to be tapped as Donald Trump's running mate, a spokesman tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Indianapolis

Donald Trump's national poll numbers continued to ascend as he concluded an incautious week that began with him embracing "tough guy" and convicted rapist Mike Tyson and concluded with him tying Ted Cruz's father to the JFK assassination.

South Bend, Ind.

Madison, Ind.

Donald Trump has experience having to justify his supporters. In February, he unnecessarily wavered off track—speaking of experienced—in declining to dissociate himself from the backing of white supremacist groups and David Duke, a man he had publicly denounced on multiple occasions in the past 15…

South Bend, Ind. --

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

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

Indianapolis

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

Indianapolis --

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

Knightstown, Ind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First he came for the airtime, then he just came for the air. Donald Trump has taken all the oxygen from his Republican rivals and used it to saturate the media with his every word, exclamation, explanation and exhortation to help him make America great again.

Donald Trump said Wednesday morning that his legal appointments to the Justice Department and the Supreme Court "would look very seriously" at Hillary Clinton's email scandal.

Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that bruises Michelle Fields displayed on her arm after an encounter with his campaign manager could have existed prior to the incident.

President Obama delivered a lecture at a Syracuse University event Monday night, in which he instructed the class of assembled press to do their job. It's not just the Senate Judiciary Committee that has been on the receiving end of that particular harangue, it seems.

The bottom line from a reported minimum wage agreement in California? No one knows how it'll be affected.

Take us down to the supergroup city.

Sen. Tom Cotton said Friday morning that Donald Trump would be "a more serious leader" as president than Hillary Clinton, arguing the same is true of any Republican currently running for the party's nomination.

Donald Trump dug in with his skepticism of NATO on Thursday, calling the alliance and its mission out-of-date.

A new national poll from Quinnipiac asked registered voters to list a word that "best describes" how they feel about either of the presidential front-runners as commander in chief. The responses were uninspiring, particularly for the Republican favorite.

Hollywood is nominating former Gov. Sarah Palin for a seat on the courtroom TV bench.

In one of Donald Trump's many gristly interview responses to the Washington Post editorial board, he punted the nuclear football into outer space. Post CEO Fred Ryan asked the Republican presidential front-runner if he would "use a battlefield nuclear weapon to take out ISIS" — a relevant question,…

Donald Trump's campaign didn't give the public much to chew on when it was announced he would host a meeting of Republican lawmakers and notables in the nation's capital. But one participant did say it ended up being a "pretty good" lunch.

Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday that President Obama's trip to Cuba indicates that the world has abandoned political prisoners held under the country's communist regime.

The boss joined The Lead with Jake Tapper Friday to discuss the Republican primary and the efforts to stop Donald Trump.

Paul Ryan is the brains of the GOP. With each passing primary victory, Donald Trump is becoming its voice, if not its soul. Their contrast inevitabily will produce a clash. And although the House speaker said Thursday he'd come to terms with the presidential frontrunner, he also reaffirmed his…

The FOX Business show Stossel has turned the classic "man on the street" interview into "loser on the street."

John Kasich, typically circumspect in his willingness to engage Donald Trump directly, attacked the GOP presidential frontrunner Thursday for his "implicit acceptance of violence."

Lindsey Graham might never be caught hugging Ted Cruz, but he's hugged the cactus in choosing to back his fellow lawmaker's presidential bid.

Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged Thursday morning that ISIS has committed genocide against minority populations, including Christians, though his remarks have no legal consequence and did not indicate a shift in U.S. policy toward the terror group.

Plagiarize Ben Carson, and he doesn't mind. Say he has "pathological disease" — compare his mind to that of a child molester — and he's unbothered. Wrong him, and he shall not revenge.

Ted Cruz said that he won't humble himself before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to smooth over the rough relationship he has developed with colleagues.

Donald Trump has confirmed speculation that he will not attend Monday's Republican debate, adding that the party has held plenty such forums, anyway.

Marco Rubio ended his campaign for president after election results showed him a distant second in his home state of Florida Tuesday, slipping the announcement into a concession speech that reflected on his White House bid, assessed the tone of American politics, and advocated a robust conservatism.

It's understandably difficult to champion a man who once likened you to a pathological child molester. This is the plight of the polite and mild-mannered Ben Carson, who has appeared downright tepid about his endorsement of Donald Trump.

No one can really question the net worth of Donald Trump's free media coverage.

A new advertisement from the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC shows women reading some of the New York businessman's infamous quotations about females.

Marco Rubio warned Monday that there will be a "reckoning" in the conservative movement for those backing Donald Trump.

It's been the night of the living debt in Washington for decades now. Government programs that Congress hasn't expressly approved to receive money keep operating on the taxpayer's dime, and the cost is no pocket change. These "unauthorized" programs, zombies of the federal budget, total more than…

Goose Gossage is still a flamethrower. Even at age 64, many years removed from the mound, the former Yankees closer is throwing heat at hitters, just with his mouth instead of his arm. And true to a hurler's style, he's prone to be erratic.

Asked to explain his past comments on the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Donald Trump described the protesters using similar language contained in the Chinese government's account.

Former presidential candidate Ben Carson said Thursday that he's moving in the direction of endorsing Donald Trump for president, calling the New York businessman "a thinking individual".

A former Trump University employee said he quit the now-defunct venture to help him "sleep at night", slamming the dubious company in a new 60-second advertisement.

Cuba's state newspaper wrote Wednesday that the country's political order would not give any ground despite a visit from President Obama later this month.

President Obama once "ruefully" admitted to staff that he personally is the planet's largest source of carbon emissions, according to an anecdote published in The Atlantic.

Major newspapers typically endorse a candidate from each major party during the presidential primary. The Chicago Tribune is atypical, writing in an editorial Wednesday saying that it can't recommend either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders for the White House.

There hasn't been a Republican praised by both the NRA and a Koch Brothers organization this week. Yet Bernie Sanders has been.

Bernie Sanders outperformed the wildly wrong polls in Michigan in a ludicrous upset of Hillary Clinton in Michigan's Democratic primary.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has found that Donald Trump now trails each of his three remaining Republican rivals in a head-to-head matchup.

Donald Trump fares terribly in poll questions that don't relate to raw support. His favorability ratings are consistently underwater, even when surveying only Republicans. Until recently, he hasn't done well in one-on-one matchups with other candidates, Democrat or GOP.

It wasn't an Oscars speech. There wasn't a statuette for him to hoist, or an orchestra to cut him off after he reached page two of his thank-you list. Peyton Manning already held the Super Bowl trophy for the second time, the final time and the most unlikely time in February. He expressed his…

The National Rifle Association praised socialist senator Bernie Sanders Monday morning.

A Super PAC backing Ted Cruz is trying to KO Marco Rubio in his home state of Florida, releasing a torrent of ads ahead of the state's March 15 primary that attack the candidate from any and all angles.

Bernie Sanders bristled at a question during Sunday night's Democratic debate about government's ability to address the Flint water crisis.

With a tone of statesmanship just caustic enough to burn, Mitt Romney blasted Donald Trump in a speech Thursday. John McCain endorsed Romney's remarks later in the day. George W. Bush was quicker to criticize than both men, having stumped for his brother and saying on the campaign trail, "We do not…

Florida governor Rick Scott wrote in a Thursday Facebook post that he won't be endorsing "a Republican candidate" before his state's primary election on March 15th.

A veterans group is going after Donald Trump for his stance on the Iran nuclear deal, criticizing rhetoric in the New York businessman's record that pre-dates his tough talk about the agreement.

Ben Carson said Wednesday that he does not see a "political path forward" in the GOP nominating contest, all but assuring that he will formally drop out of the race despite assuring supporters that he will remain active moving forward.

Mitt Romney will deliver a speech at a Utah college Thursday morning on the 2016 presidential race.

As Super Tuesday wound down with Donald Trump posting a strong night, Marco Rubio stated that "no one" is going to call on him to back the New York businessman.

From Iowa to New Hampshire and down to the South, the candidates go from coffee shop to restaurant to overcrowded debate stage, tweaking their positions in the field, taking swings at each other and searching for their best fastball. It's a Darwinian contest, these primaries. They begin with a…

Ben Carson and John Kasich will finish far from the top on Super Tuesday. But their presence in the campaign could do more than merely limit votes for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

A new advertisement from Our Principles PAC details the questions and ongoing legal battles of Trump University, asserting that Donald Trump "scammed" Americans into losing up to tens of thousands of dollars each.

CBS chief Leslie Moonves said Donald Trump's run for president has been good business for his network, adding that he hopes the presidential campaign "circus" this year continues.

A new ad from a super PAC backing Marco Rubio expresses stupefaction that Donald Trump is a serious presidential candidate, following the New York businessman's KKK blunder.

Trump "won" the Hispanic vote in Nevada, the argument goes. But there's a primary cause to Donald Trump's reported success with Hispanics.

Citing a "good and loyal" friendship, New Jersey governor and former presidential candidate Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump for president at an event in Ft. Worth Friday.

Marco Rubio turned a familiar line of attack against Donald Trump at Thursday night's GOP debate, tripping the Republican frontrunner for repeating the same detail about his health care platform and passing it off as his plan in full.

There's an old truism in sports that says if you allow an underdog to hang around long enough, he just might win. Such has been the case with Donald Trump.

A Texas appeals court has dismissed the remaining criminal charge that a grand jury brought against former Texas governor Rick Perry in 2014.

John Kasich wondered about his purpose in the presidential race during separate campaign stops in Georgia on Tuesday.

CNN will no longer invite Donald Trump backer and former aide Roger Stone on its network, per a report.

Presidential candidate Marco Rubio responded sternly Tuesday to President Obama's latest overture to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.

Donald Trump fondly remembered the "old days" during a rally Monday night, when a protester who interrupted his event would've been socked in the face and "carried out on a stretcher."

Arizona senator Jeff Flake has endorsed his Senate colleague Marco Rubio for president, the Rubio campaign announced Monday.

Rarely has the United States been so neatly split as it is now. One party holds complete control of Congress while the other holds the presidency--a scenario that has happened only a quarter of the time since 1855.

In the New Hampshire primary, Donald Trump benefitted from a cluster of his rivals competing for second place. Polling showed that no one among Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush was poised to surge on election day and come within shouting distance of the frontrunner. As a result,…

President Obama confirmed reports that he would travel to Cuba in a statement issued Thursday morning.

"Don't move, don't speak, even whisper," Jesse Hughes sang into the microphone. No chance.

Donald Trump elaborated on his opinion of waterboarding and enhanced interrogation of terrorist suspects Wednesday by saying, flat-out, "Torture works."

Despite a heavily criticized debate performance Saturday night, Donald Trump continues to lead the South Carolina primary by a comfortable margin, according to a poll released Monday night.

Donald Trump threatened to sue his "friend" Ted Cruz on Monday, saying he would initiate legal action against the Texas senator if he didn't "take down his false ads and retract his lies."

Texas senator Ted Cruz put his opposition to the president's pending Supreme Court nominee in the starkest terms yet, saying he would filibuster any name the White House submitted.

Ted Cruz's presidential campaign is out with a new ad that questions Donald Trump's fitness to make quality Supreme Court appointments.

Speaking about the presidential race, businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said he'd do "a better job" than Donald Trump in an interview with Bloomberg Politics.

It's Hillary Clinton in Oval Office Space, from the production company that brought you Cruz for President.

Donald Trump told supporters in Louisiana Thursday night he wouldn't use a curse word to describe the "political hacks" negotiating America's trade deals. It led to a pledge that he'd swear off the habit for good.

Polls conducted before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary indicated that Republicans were more fired up than Democrats to vote this year. Looks like they've followed through—so far, at least.

Not news: Harry Reid is talking up a brokered convention.

Coming off finishes outside the top three in Iowa and New Hampshire, Ben Carson said Wednesday evening that he's continuing his campaign because he perceives strength in upcoming states.

Barack Obama's move to the White House was largely due to his success with young people. That's the case in more than just his general election victories, too.

The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates said in an interview with Democracy Now! that he would vote for Bernie Sanders in this year's Democratic primary. Coates is a favorite writer of President Barack Obama.

In his first two budget proposals, President Obama referred to creating a "new foundation" for the country. He used an intriguing verb to describe the process.

Exit polling shows Bernie Sanders winning more female voters than Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night.

The residents of a tiny New Hampshire locale famous for its midnight voting didn't check a single box for Hillary Clinton.

One lightning rod hasn't endorsed another lightning rod because the second told the first one not to.

We've seen Trumpmentum give way to Cruzmentum, heard rumors about the ascent of Marcomentum, and even seen Gilmentum try to force its way into the mix.

Donald Trump said Friday that he will participate in the next FOX News-sponsored debate, scheduled for March 3.

It's a tie ball game in the Democratic primary, according to a new national survey of registered voters.

It's officially a hoarse race in the Democratic primary.

Iowa's largest newspaper roasted the state's Democrats Thursday for how they handled this year's caucus.

Marco Rubio is catching up to the field in the Republican primary race, with a new poll showing the Florida senator slipping past Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in a three-way contest.

Fresh off a victory in the Iowa caucuses, a feisty Ted Cruz unloaded on his rival Donald Trump Wednesday afternoon, asking repeatedly who the New Hampshire frontrunner might call "stupid" next.

Donald Trump's days are numbered.

Jeb Bush has been trying to jab Donald Trump for weeks; in debates, on the stump, in ads, and on billboards. If there's a kitchen sink somewhere, it probably has a "Jeb!" sticker on it. And he'd almost certainly fling it the Donald's way if he could.

Rush Limbaugh said on his show Tuesday that Sen. Marco Rubio is a genuine member of the conservative movement, and that he doesn't care for him being labeled an establishment candidate. (Fellow radio host Michael Savage isn't going to like this.)

Donald Trump went back to the well of his "self-funding" strategy Tuesday, lamenting that voters haven't given him kudos for one of his campaign's central boasts.

Donald Trump has owned the polls, scientific or otherwise: polls about debate performance, polls measuring support in primary states, even "entrance" polls of Iowa caucus goers before they cast a vote Monday night. But Trump fell short in the nation's first primary state, with Texas senator Ted…

It seems that voters have been disenchanted ever since they had the opportunity to elect Barack Obama president. In 2008, the country was war-weary, terrified of its financial state, and eager to change its polarizing politics. In 2010, it was worried about its solvency, agitated by a law of…

It's a coin flip in the Iowa Democratic Caucus between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Not so much in New Hampshire.

Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio need a last-minute charge to compete in Monday's Iowa Republican Caucus. Recent precedent shows that Cruz could overtake Donald Trump to capture first place. Rubio would need an historic surge to win — but he could at least be in the mix by making up ground similar…

Research from the polling firm Gallup has found that Donald Trump is the "most unpopular candidate" for president in either major party — both in this election and all the way back to 1992.

Thank heavens for Ctrl+F, a reader's best friend in times of memory lapse and abject laziness. While scouring a transcript of about 19,000 words, it's also a legitimate research tool—particularly when the researcher has a hunch that the word he's looking for isn't mentioned too often.

Texas senator Ted Cruz addressed "the elephant not in the room" to kick off Thursday night's FOX News-Google debate, doing his best mimicry of Donald Trump in his opening answer.

The Republican presidential primaries have been chaotic thus far. And the chaos could continue.

There's one Republican candidate clearly ahead in New Hampshire, according to a new poll. And there are a lot of them slugging it out for second.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump said in May that he would appear in all the Republican primary debates to hammer home his message.

Lavishly celebrated Atlantic scribe Ta-Nehisi Coates has reproached Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton on separate occasions in the last week. The New York Times wrote about one and not the other. Guess which.

For all the times Donald Trump has maligned an opponent, he's been complimentary of other people on at least a few occasions. Take Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin.

Sen. Ted Cruz is "a nasty person," Donald Trump said Monday, projecting himself as the comparatively reasonable alternative in the Republican presidential primary.

A Houston grand jury investigating undercover videos of Planned Parenthood issued a surprise decision Monday, indicting the founder of the organization behind the footage and another anti-abortion activist.

Donald Trump released a video message Monday morning, naming most every political apparatus imaginable as one of his adversaries.

"I'm not serving in office because I desperately needed 99 new friends in the U.S. Senate," Sen. Ted Cruz has said. Turns out he could've used at least a few.

A headline on CNN goes like this: "Ta-Nehisi Coates' slam on Bernie Sanders." Readers should be excused for thinking the link leads to a story fitting that description. It doesn't.

An ambitious liberal Democrat — some even call him a socialist — is knocking Hillary Clinton for her past support of the Iraq War. His name is not Barack Obama, and the year is not 2008. It's Bernie Sanders, it's 2016, and the presidential campaign's only contender to have voted for the use of…

Donald Trump framed his unqualified support of ethanol Tuesday as an act of political independence — this, before a gathering of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit, less than two weeks away from the state's caucus.