Mark Hemingway

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

National party dynamics seemed to drag incumbents over the finish line

Courts are more often recognizing the arguments of religious-freedom advocates.

The new film Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer begins with a title card: “Most incidents portrayed are exact representations of court transcripts, police interviews, or eyewitness accounts.” Those familiar with the case involving the Philadelphia abortion doctor—and that’s not…

Will Oregon be the next blue state with a Republican governor?

How science fiction and rock music shaped one another: Mark Hemingway reviews Jason Heller’s ‘Strange Stars.’

On the joys of a cheap amusement park.

Conservatives pounce, the media fiddles.

Colorado turns up the heat on America’s most controversial baker.

Jack Phillips faces a new civil-rights complaint for refusing to bake a cake celebrating a gender transition. This time, though, he’s going on the offensive.

What should voters take away from a last-minute attack ad?

Look at Ozy Fest and despair.

Mark Hemingway, stock boy.

Wendy Kaminer is actively engaged in an unusual mission for a former board member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): warning the public that the ACLU has abandoned its commitment to defending free speech. Writing in the Wall Street Journal on June 20, Kaminer notes that a recent internal…

SCOTUS ruled in Janus such dues were unconstitutional. Based on past examples, unions can expect a financial hit.

The noted public intellectual stumbles in an interview.

SCOTUS didn't touch the First Amendment issue, but Kennedy's decision smacked down anti-Christian hostility

A plaintiff complained that being unable to mock the president's tweets affected her "as a public intellectual."

On May 25, the people of Ireland are set to vote on repealing the eighth amendment of their constitution, which recognizes that children in the womb have a right to life. As you can imagine, this has sent a country long riven by passionate disputes over religion into a frenzied debate. Naturally,…

Mark Hemingway, guitar addict.

It might be bad that the former secretary of state is meeting with foreign diplomats, but it shouldn't be illegal.

Today’s church provides plenty of targets for the satirical publication.

He says he’s never been an anonymous source for a news story. Is that true?

The porn actress has also sued Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen.

The rapper has always been crass and annoying. But now he's the "wrong kind" of crass and annoying.

Israeli teens learn to be paramedics through a volunteer program called United Hatzalah. It's establishing a presence here.

Asking why the president might care about attorney-client privilege is the latest head-smacker.

Silicon Valley has long been the Wild West of capitalism, but we may finally be reaching a point where Congress feels both entitled and justified in starting to regulate monopolistic tech giants. Exhibit A: The announcement Wednesday that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be testifying before…

Citibank has announced a new “U.S. Commercial Firearms Policy” a move it descries as a direct response to recent gun violence. At the same time, Citibank claims this new policy is “not centered on an ideological mission to rid the world of firearms.” The measures that Citibank is instituting are no…

Nashville

There was an interesting announcement on Wednesday for Ben Rhodes, formerly the Obama White House deputy national security adviser. Rhodes, you may recall, caught some flack at the end of Obama’s presidency for admitting to the New York Times that he was manipulating the media in his efforts to…

On Tuesday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD noted multiple media outlets were were confirming the existence of a second anti-Trump "dossier" authored by Cody Shearer, a longtime associate of the notorious Sidney Blumenthal, who as a very checkered history of finding himself at the center of Clinton scandals…

State Dept. Official Reportedly Passed On Second Trump ‘Dossier’ Written by One of Clinton’s Most Discreditable Supporters

Can anyone think of a better way for the Grammys’ to commemorate the #MeToo movement than to have a failed politician with a long history of protecting alleged sexual harassers read from a book that includes a slimy accusation against our female U.N. ambassador? Because the show organizers…

Earlier this week, Senator Dianne Feinstein released some 315 pages of closed-door testimony by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Fusion GPS was the firm paid by Democrats to compile the dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Well, it's not every day that Guitar World has an eye-opening political report, but here we are. In a normal year, it would be shocking enough to learn the Pentagon had a secret multimillion dollar program to investigate UFOs. But since it's still 2017, the least “normal year” in recent memory…

Covering the Trump presidency has not always been the media’s finest hour, but even grading on that curve, the month of December has brought astonishing screwups. Professor and venerable political observer Walter Russell Mead tweeted on December 8, “I remember Watergate pretty well, and I don’t…

If we’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that the Republican party, even when handed full control of the American government, is so riven and otherwise dysfunctional that it simply can’t govern. The one consolation Republicans have is that voters seem to intuitively understand that while…

Les Whitten died over the weekend. Whitten was an investigative reporter who worked with famed columnist Jack Anderson, author of Washington’s Merry-Go-Round column. (Fox’s Brit Hume is another notable reporter who worked for Anderson.) However, Whitten was reasonably well-known in his own right.…

On Monday Washington Post columnist Christine Emba wrote a piece headlined “Let's Rethink Sex.” It's a commendable essay in a lot of ways, but the headline is a bit misleading in the sense that it advocates rethinking a view of sexuality that much of the country never signed on to in the first…

The wave of sexual abuse allegations against men from Harvey Weinstein to Roy Moore has prompted significant reflection among liberals about how Bill Clinton’s misdeeds were handled and how his accusers were treated in the 1990s.

Nearly a month ago, I wrote “There's an Awakening Against Sexual Assault, So Why Is No One Talking About Bill Clinton?” It took long enough, but there is a growing chorus of voices on the left demanding that Clinton’s crimes not be ignored. The disturbing allegations against Roy Moore appear to…

I recently saw a sportswriter on social media paying tribute to a deceased editor he’d had the pleasure of working with. “The best editors are a psychologist, a friend, an idea person, a life vest,” he wrote. “Every story written is a trust fall into an editor’s arms.” I don’t doubt this sentiment…

On October 30, special prosecutor Robert Mueller indicted President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and deputy chairman Rick Gates on 12 charges, including money laundering, false statements, and conspiracy against the United States, related to their work with Ukrainian…

October 31 marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and the occasion brings to mind a joke: A young priest asks a wise older priest, "What's the difference between the Jesuit and Dominican orders?" The older priest says wearily, "Well, actually they have a lot in common. They were both…

Axios has put together this nifty series of charts detailing the timeline of sexual assault charges against Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, Donald Trump, and Bill Cosby. The charts track the dates of when the various incidents allegedly occurred relative to the years they were first…

James O’Keefe’s undercover investigations of various liberal institutions have resulted in everything from congressional action to criminal charges filed against the conservative provocateur. His latest exposé reveals an important truth, but maybe not the one he intended.

The Boy Scouts of America announced Wednesday that they would admit girls into the organization for the first time ever. From now on, Cub Scout dens (usually around 6 to 12 kids) will be single gender—either male or female. Cub Scout packs (comprised of multiple dens) will have the option of being…

I was recently in San Francisco on business. I was there on business because, well, I would never go there for pleasure.

Retired Lt. Col. Robert M. Heffington, who recently quit teaching at West Point, has penned an open letter about a series of disturbing developments that have taken place at the U.S. Military Academy, starting with the revelation that West Point graduate Spenser Rapone is an avowed Communist who…

I was recently in San Francisco on business. I was there on business because, well, I would never go there for pleasure.

The New York Times has a report about an internal struggle at the ACLU. The organization helped sue to for the right of assembly for the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in August that resulted in the death of a young woman, after a car driven by one of the white supremacists plowed into…

C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley both died on the same day as the JFK assassination. It's an odd bit of historical trivia that often gets cited to show how even important markers can get lost amid earth shattering news. It might be as stretch to compare Tom Petty to those intellectual titans, but it…

Controversial firebrand Roy Moore’s primary victory Tuesday over appointed Alabama senator Luther Strange to run for the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions wasn't even close. Moore won the race by nearly 10 points.

The evidence clearly suggests that Russia tried to influence in our election last year, and more broadly, Russia is actively trying to destabilize the U.S. both politically and culturally. Russians are running a 24/7 propaganda operation on D.C. airwaves, for crying out loud. They're not even being…

The fate of America's latest attempt at comprehensive health care reform may hinge on the opinions of a late night talk show host. I've nothing against Jimmy Kimmel; topical political jokes are the meat and potatoes of late-night comedy. And in fact, Kimmel has a reputation for joking about the…

For some months now, the House Intelligence Committee, led by Rep. Devin Nunes, has been investigating whether there were political motivations to the the Obama White House’s “unmasking” of American citizens who were named in intelligence reports. Nunes has previously stated that he has seen…

In July, I noted that Sputnik Radio—an honest-to-God Russian propaganda outlet—had started broadcasting on Washington D.C. airwaves:

Conservative book publisher Regnery, which has published major conservative authors such as Mark Levin and Ann Coulter, has made a startling announcement: They no longer want anything to do with the New York Times’s best-sellers list. According to the Associated Press, “Regnery is annoyed that its…

San Francisco

San Francisco

Ta-Nehisi Coates—national correspondent for the Atlantic, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, National Book Award winner—has a new essay out Thursday, which makes it something of an intellectual holiday for America's liberals.

Pretty incredible quote here in the New York magazine interview with New York mayor Bill de Blasio. Several people have jokingly called the man a communist, but here he is arguing against private property rights more or less on the basis of "each according to his ability, each according to his…

Lakewood, Colorado

Let's cut to the heart of a big problem with Trump's remarks about Charlottesville over the last few days: They were ignorant and inarticulate.

Fred Barnes has a good rundown of the state of play in the Alabama Senate race this morning. He rightly zeroes in on the most important question in the race right now: Will Trump's endorsement of of former Alabama attorney general Luther Strange, who was appointed to fill Jeff Sessions’s seat in…

In July, when news broke that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met last year with a Russian lawyer and a former Russian intelligence officer who promised dirt on the Hillary Clinton campaign, there was a media feeding frenzy. After months of speculation…

In July, when news broke that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met last year with a Russian lawyer and a former Russian intelligence officer who promised dirt on the Hillary Clinton campaign, there was a media feeding frenzy. After months of speculation…

In The New York Times on Thursday, Lindy West has an op-ed on the recent announcement by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee campaign chairman Ben Ray Luján that the group would not impose a litmus test for Democratic candidates requiring them to be pro-abortion. West is a fairly radical…

Tim Gill is best known as the Denver-based mega-donor who bankrolled the successful national campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. In June, Gill sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone. He was asked about the future of the gay rights movement. If you had any doubt that Gill and other…

Tim Gill is best known as the Denver-based mega-donor who bankrolled the successful national campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. In June, Gill sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone. He was asked about the future of the gay rights movement. If you had any doubt that Gill and other…

As the Senate investigates allegations that elements of the Trump campaign may have been colluding with Russia, an interesting angle has emerged. Fusion GPS is the shadowy research firm that was commissioned by interests aligned with the Democratic party to produce (possibly with the help of the…

My wife and I are record collectors. At the moment, we own 1,151 of them (I have an app on my phone cataloguing the collection), and that number has been growing at a good clip. There’s no real organizing principle—it’s a diverse collection of rock, classical, jazz, soul, and even a fair bit of…

My wife and I are record collectors. At the moment, we own 1,151 of them (I have an app on my phone cataloguing the collection), and that number has been growing at a good clip. There’s no real organizing principle—it’s a diverse collection of rock, classical, jazz, soul, and even a fair bit of…

On Tuesday evening, Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave a speech to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a legal group dedicated to protecting religious liberty. A lawyer that works with the organization, David Cortman, recently represented Trinity Lutheran in its case before the Supreme Court…

On June 24, there was a minor controversy at the “Chicago Dyke March.” Three Jewish lesbians were ejected from the gay pride event because they showed up waving rainbow flags that had stars of David on them. They were accosted by Palestinian sympathizers. March organizers then told them, “Your flag…

In an op-ed in the New York Times Thursday, Mark Penn and Andrew Stein argue that the “path back to power for the Democratic Party today, as it was in the 1990s, is unquestionably to move to the center and reject the siren calls of the left, whose policies and ideas have weakened the party.” Penn…

As wealth has poured into the nation’s capital and the city has largely redeveloped over the last two decades, one of the last reminders that Washington, D.C., possessed any local culture at all was the existence of Bluegrass Country 105.5. The FM station was sponsored by American University and…

The rhetoric on the Republican bill in Congress to overhaul Obamacare has been a bit overheated, to say the least. Specifically, the preferred criticism of the bill seems to be that it will kill hundreds of thousands of people.

On May 29, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a law creating a statewide regulatory framework governing ridesharing services. The impetus for the law was clear—overriding the city of Austin’s onerous ordinances that prompted the sector’s leaders, Uber and Lyft, to stop operating in the state capital…

In a major victory for religious freedom, the Supreme Court ruled today that states cannot exempt churches from benefiting from state programs solely because they are a church.

The “Fight for $15” suffered a hit with the release of a study that hints at the negative effect that Seattle’s dramatic minimum wage increase has led to reduced wages for low-income workers.

Weeks after Germany’s Cabinet announced a plan to fine social media companies over their users “hate speech” and amid efforts to push similar restrictions across the European Union, authorities are cracking down on individuals whom they have deemed to have crossed a line. The New York Times…

On May 29, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a law creating a statewide regulatory framework governing ridesharing services. The impetus for the law was clear—overriding the city of Austin’s onerous ordinances that prompted the sector’s leaders, Uber and Lyft, to stop operating in the state capital…

Yesterday, following the news that a Republican congressmen was shot playing baseball, along with four others, in Virginia, the New York Times wrote what one conservative website is calling the "Worst Editorial In Human History." Discussion of it has dominated social media, and even a number of…

Tuesday afternoon, as I do most days, I went to the YMCA near my house in Alexandria. On the way in, I said hello to my neighbor and her daughter, who is in my own daughter's class at the Lutheran school about a mile up the road. I ran a couple of miles on the treadmill listening to podcasts and…

In recent decades, Portland, Oregon, has acquired a reputation as one of America's most tolerant and liberal cities. In practice, this means there are taxpayer-funded sex changes for municipal employees and lots of bike lanes, but comparatively little tolerant liberalism. The city government has…

In recent decades, Portland, Oregon, has acquired a reputation as one of America's most tolerant and liberal cities. In practice, this means there are taxpayer-funded sex changes for municipal employees and lots of bike lanes, but comparatively little tolerant liberalism. The city government has…

Today's hearing with James Comey contains at least one rather revealing nugget unrelated to the Trump-Russia investigation—that the Obama Justice Department improperly tried to influence the the Clinton email investigation:

David Edelstein is one of the better-known film critics in the country. He's been a critic for decades and is currently the chief film critic for New York magazine, as well as the film critic for NPR's Fresh Air and CBS's Sunday Morning. Like everyone else in his position, he recently wrote a…

Fact Check: Did Obama Director of Intelligence James Clapper Deny Collusion Between Trump and Russia?

1) As many liberal commentators have eagerly pointed out, coal is a dying industry, and it makes no sense to prop up a dying industry. The issue, however, isn't whether Trump's pulling out of the Paris Agreement is propping it up so much as refusing to kill the industry prematurely. About a third…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The news that former national security adviser Susan Rice was responsible for "unmasking" the identities of associates of President Trump in government surveillance reports sent shockwaves through Washington. But almost as newsworthy was the identity of the man who got the scoop: vociferous Trump…

I wanted to say something almost as soon as I heard that legendary National Review editor Kate O'Beirne had passed, and I regret it's taken a few days. When I heard the shocking news Sunday, I was already scrambling to get to another funeral out of state. It turns out that death is also what…

The New York Times has a long story about the role FBI chief James Comey played in shaping last year's election. Buried well into the piece is this bombshell:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has been in the news recently because a source in the intelligence community informed him that Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice was behind the "unmasking" of Trump campaign associates in intelligence reports, which may have led to other…

Rick Perlstein is a respected historian, and not without reason. Though he is an outspoken man of the left, his first book, Before The Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, earned praise from the right for being a well-researched and relatively nuanced account of a…

During the Bush administration, the popular protest refrain was “Bush lied, people died." It's true that a major justification for the Iraq war was eliminating Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of so-called weapons of mass destruction, a catch-all phrase for biological and chemical weapons, as well as…

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster delivered remarks in Florida today to give some background on the strikes against Syria Thursday. He made one curious comment that raises a lot of troubling questions:

According to a recent headline from Reuters, "U.S. intelligence agencies suspect Assad did not turn over all chemical weapons stockpile." The evidence of the recent chemical attack in Syria makes that declaration little more than stating the obvious. However, back in January in an in interview with…

First of the Month, a leftist website, has a provocative column up titled, "Trumpism on the Left: Stephen F. Cohen and The Nation Magazine." Author Eugene Goodheart serves up a really interesting reminder that The Nation, which is nominally opposed to Trump and everything he stands for, has been…

Bloomberg's Eli Lake dropped a bombshell on Monday: Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice was responsible for "unmasking" the identities of Trump officials in intelligence intercepts, and spreading this information around the government.

A few days ago, Sen. Tim Kaine tweeted the following about Judge Neil Gorsuch:

One of the more prescient essays in recent years is Jody Bottum's "The Spiritual Shape of Political Ideas," which I'm proud to say was published in THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The essay posits that religious ideas are transforming politics as we know it, only instead of the hand-wringing about the Moral…

In the current issue of The Atlantic, Peter Beinart has an essay arguing that the decline in religiosity among American voters is what allowed for the election of Donald Trump and contributes to the bitter state of American politics:

Iowa representative Steve King is receiving a torrent of criticism right now for tweeting, in support of controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders, "Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."

Health care legislation proposed by Republicans to replace Obamacare has received a barrage of criticism from outside conservative groups, as well as a number of prominent members of Republicans' own caucus, such as Sen. Mike Lee. Many have speculated that the current bill is dead on arrival.

Amid Thursday’s over-hyped brouhaha about Jeff Sessions meeting with the Russian ambassador, a curious detail emerged. In Sessions's recusal memo, it was explained who at the Justice Department would be handling any investigations into the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia. "Consistent with…

After years of campaigning on the need to repeal and replace Obamacare, Republicans in Congress are in disarray about what to do now that voters have empowered them to do just that. In his address to Congress on February 28, President Donald Trump helpfully exercised some leadership by letting…

A lot can be said about President Trump's speech Tuesday night, in terms of content and rhetoric. There's certainly much to be said about policy—Will Trump endorsing tax credits have an effect on Congress's Obamacare plans? Will Republicans come around to actually endorsing paid family leave?—but…

I keep hammering this point home, but the media seem obdurately unwilling to come to terms with the fact they have little credibility with the American people, and Trump voters especially. This situation is not helped by the fact they keep blowing stories on President Trump badly and they are…

The selection of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to be President Trump's new National Security Advisor has received near universal praise. But understanding why McMaster is highly regarded is another matter altogether. Here's list of illuminating articles on McMaster that helps explain why he's one of the…

On September 30, Donald Trump tweeted in his inimitable style, “Anytime you see a story about me or my campaign saying 'sources said,' DO NOT believe it. There are no sources, they are just made up lies!"

In the latest issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, I have a piece on the problems of a media almost totally reliant on anonymous leaks to cover the Trump administration. This is obviously a huge part of the scandal surrounding Michael Flynn's resignation. As I note in the piece, "it's remarkable to…

On September 30, Donald Trump tweeted in his inimitable style, “Anytime you see a story about me or my campaign saying 'sources said,' DO NOT believe it. There are no sources, they are just made up lies!"

For months now, there's been a major environmental protest over the Dakota Access pipeline. From the beginning the protest was based on questionable environmental and legal justifications. Pipelines are a safer mode of energy transport relative to other methods currently being used, and over 99…

In his excellent rundown of yesterday's ruling by the Ninth Circuit refusing to reinstate President Trump's immigration executive order, National Review's David French noted something rather curious about the court's rationale. In essence, the court said that Trump's campaign rhetoric was an issue…

The Telegraph recently reported the horrifying news that a doctor in Holland had been cleared of charges after she drugged an elderly woman suffering from dementia, had her family hold her down, and killed her. The laws in Holland are such that what occurred falls under the rubric of “euthanasia."…

A new poll shows that President Trump's controversial executive order on immigration is not unpopular:

I was at the gym yesterday catching up on the latest Hardcore History podcast—seriously, Dan Carlin is national treasure—and I noticed something. According to the iTunes charts, one of the ten most popular podcasts in the country right now is produced by the Washington Post. It's about Donald…

The Telegraph recently reported the horrifying news that a doctor in Holland had been cleared of charges after she drugged an elderly woman suffering from dementia, had her family hold her down, and killed her. The laws in Holland are such that what occurred falls under the rubric of “euthanasia."…

Reuters commissioned a poll about President Trump's executive order that caused so much controversy over the weekend. Here are the results:

For years now this magazine has been arguing that civil service reform is a necessary condition for fixing a myriad of America's problems. When the IRS starts politically targeting people and the VA's incompetence is killing veterans, and both are almost entirely resistant to the efforts by…

In between keeping tabs on the Trump administration's mess-up over its executive order on immigration, I spent some time over the weekend reading. I don't have the best track record with New Year's resolutions, but so far I'm ahead of schedule on my plan to read the complete works of Shakespeare.…

The fourth quarter economic growth numbers are in, and they are ugly:

Today, on the day of the annual March for Life, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse has reintroduced the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. LifeNews reports:

The State Department's senior management team has all resigned, reports the Washington Post's Josh Rogin:

Over the course of the last year or so, many Trump supporters have pointed to the string of unlikely victories that propelled him to the White House and argued that he was playing three-dimensional chess. I think the temptation to consider Trump a tactical genius should be avoided. For every…

Here's the problem in a nutshell: President Trump thinks the media are out to destroy him. The media think they're holding him accountable. Neither Trump nor the media can tell the difference between these two things. In his most recent column, Ross Douthat rightly worries that this dynamic is…

On its way out the door, the Obama Education Department quietly released the results of its $7 billion investment in the School Improvement Grants program, "the largest federal investment ever targeted to failing schools," according to the Washington Post. Education Secretary Arne Duncan had…

The Washington Post's "fact check" of Donald Trump's inaugural address is a pretty perfect distillation of one of the most egregious aspects of "fact checking." It kind of pains me to say this, because while I have serious problems with other fact-checking organizations that are institutionally…

Perhaps there are a few relevant historical touchstones, but President Donald J. Trump—typing those words still feels surreal—delivered an inaugural address unlike any any other. Inaugural speeches are typically vehicles for unity and uplift. Even Abraham Lincoln, on the verge of civil war,…

As journalistic bombshells go, CNN’s January 10 report on President Trump was explosive: "Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump,…

According to The Hill, Trump officials are preparing an ambitious plan to cut spending and shrink the size of the federal government. In a nutshell, this is the plan:

Among the more than 200 commutations handed out yesterday, President Obama commuted the sentence of Oscar López Rivera, a member of Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group advocating Puerto Rican independence. He is set to be released May 17.

Over at Fox News, the headline blares: "Clinton Global Initiative to lay off employees, shut down amid dwindling donations." Let's pause for a moment and contemplate why donations to the overarching Clinton Foundation would be dwindling. It's almost as if it were really a vehicle for influence…

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There are all manner of principled reasons that someone—especially a Democratic senator—might oppose Alabama senator Jeff Sessions becoming the next attorney general. (Indeed, a number of prominent conservative voices have even wondered aloud about Sessions's enthusiasm for civil asset forfeiture.)

Thursday's New York Times has a report on how the highly suspicious dossier alleging that Donald Trump was compromised by Russian intelligence agents came into existence. Among the other interesting revelations was that the dubious opposition research report was put together by the research firm…

President-elect Trump's pick for education secretary just had her nomination hearings delayed a week, but the media aren't wasting any time lining up breathless attacks on Betsy DeVos. At Politico, there's this astonishing headline: "DeVos' donations spark questions about her stance on campus…

Senator Jeff Sessions begins confirmation hearings on Tuesday to become the next attorney general. Since President-elect Donald Trump nominated the Alabama Republican to the post in November, critics have resurrected old allegations that Sessions is racist. The allegations were first made in the…

Less than a fortnight after his successor was elected, Barack Obama got to work on shaping his legacy. "I'm extremely proud of the fact that over eight years we have not had the kinds of scandals that have plagued other administrations," he said. On January 1, White House consigliere Valerie…

Vox interviewed President Obama on Facebook Live Friday. He discussed health care, along with the doomed fate of his health care law. One of the more interesting things he had to say was this:

The Washington Post reports that House Republicans have revived an obscure rule that could prove to be the most significant civil service reform in decades:

Urban strivers like to insist suburbia is a soul-deadening place to warehouse failed ambition. I, however, feel no need to defend my choice of safer streets, lower taxes, better schools, and local officials who are misguided rather than criminal. In fact, when my wife and I finally abandoned…

Less than a fortnight after his successor was elected, Barack Obama got to work on shaping his legacy. “I'm extremely proud of the fact that over eight years we have not had the kinds of scandals that have plagued other administrations," he said. On January 1, White House consigliere Valerie…

The crosstabs of the latest YouGov poll show that the majority of Democrats have embraced a reading of the November election that is conspiratorial and false:

So long as everyone expected a Hillary Clinton victory in November's presidential election, high-minded rhetoric ruled the day at the White House. Michelle Obama's quote from the Clinton campaign trail—"When they go low, we go high"—became something of a mantra. Initially, Barack Obama even spoke…

After initially promising to respond to Barack Obama's recent actions against Russia for meddling in American politics, Vladimir Putin is now saying he won't respond in kind to the Obama administration's decision to expel Russian diplomats and shut down Russian facilities in America:

To fill the position of U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Donald Trump has nominated David Friedman, an accomplished lawyer and an adviser to Trump on Israeli issues. Friedman is something of a political outsider, but in a Trumpian world, that may actually be an asset. And like Trump, he has something of…

Law and order became a flash point in this year's presidential election. And it looks like voters were not wrong to have some anxiety about rising crime—2015 was the first year that saw an increase in homicides in a decade, and the Wall Street Journal is reporting a significant uptick in homicides…

In an interview with NPR Monday, President Obama offered some advice for President-elect Trump: Don't become overly reliant on unilateral executive actions that can be easily undone by your successor. "My suggestion to the president-elect is, you know, going through the legislative process is…

In City Journal, Kay Hymnowitz has a must read essay on the how the media, which are increasingly comprised of educated women, missed the boat on Trump's support among women so badly:

Despite a heavy campaign to sway—even harass—Republican electors in, the only really unpredictable about Monday's Electoral College vote was that more Democratic electors defected from Hillary Clinton than from Donald Trump. Per Politico, Clinton advisers were not happy with even more votes of no…

Over at the Washington Examiner, Philip Klein has the must-read health care policy story of the day. Klein's spoken to several legislative aides about the GOP plans to repeal Obamacare:

It's come to this. Facebook has been so bullied over the "fake news" narrative since the election that they're actively appointing a panel of censors to police speech on Facebook:

Tom Wheeler, the Democratic chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has announced he will resign at the beginning of Donald Trump's presidential term, per Bloomberg. With Wheeler gone, Republicans will have a 2-1 majority on the FCC.

The latest Fox News poll shows that Donald Trump has been growing on people since the election:

The Clinton campaign of 2016 will surely go down in history as having made some of the most incredible strategic mistakes in the history of American politics. And we're still learning just how bad it was—a Politico report Wendesday morning contains this shocking detail:

After spending the entire election railing against Hillary Clinton and siphoning votes from her, Green party candidate responded to Donald Trump's victory by demanding a recount—but only in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, three states Trump narrowly won where reversing the results would…

"Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during last month's presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News," according to a report today in the Detroit newspaper. "Detailed…

For years now, the Republican party has promised to “repeal and replace" Obamacare. Now that voters have delivered Republicans control of the White House and Congress and they can make good on that promise, suddenly they are singing a different, decidedly off-key, tune: "Repeal and delay."

On November 16, United States District Judge Ed Kinkeade ordered Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey and New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman to be deposed by ExxonMobil lawyers in December. The two are further subject to legal discovery from ExxonMobil's legal team. These are…

Over the weekend, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted "I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." As you can imagine, lots of people were outraged by this insane claim. But I don't know which is more insane: Trump's assertion of millions of fraudulent votes…

On November 16, United States District Judge Ed Kinkeade ordered Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey and New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman to be deposed by ExxonMobil lawyers in December. The two are further subject to legal discovery from ExxonMobil’s legal team. These are…

Please see full update below.

Three-term U.S. House member Mike Pompeo of Kansas has been selected by Donald Trump to head the Central Intelligence Agency. A cursory glance at his biography shows he's eminently qualified. Pompeo was first in his class at West Point, served as an Army officer during the cold war in Europe, and…

The most crushing defeat for Democrats on November 8 was quite obviously Hillary Clinton’s. The party's next most significant loss, however, may well be that of Brad Avakian. He was an obscure candidate for what might seem to be a relatively inconsequential position. But as it turns out, Oregon's…

Nebraska senator Ben Sasse has come under fire for this tweet:

"It was around 9:20 p.m. when conventional wisdom died," wrote the Wall Street Journal's Neil King on election night. That was the moment when the New York Times's website began projecting that a Donald Trump victory was more likely than not, and it became abundantly obvious that the presidential…

Since Hillary Clinton's crushing defeat last week, there have been a lot of stories about Clinton campaign hubris. Specifically, the Democrats seemed to badly whiff on a lot of campaign fundamentals: don't nominate someone under FBI investigation who has no retail political skills; have a clear…

"It was around 9:20 p.m. when conventional wisdom died,” wrote the Wall Street Journal's Neil King on election night. That was the moment when the New York Times's website began projecting that a Donald Trump victory was more likely than not, and it became abundantly obvious that the presidential…

One of the big arguments made by Donald Trump and his supporters was that the Republican nominee was capable of redrawing the electoral map. Specifically, they said, Trump would turn out the vote in rustbelt states that hadn't voted reliably GOP in decades. A lot of people found the suggestion that…

Over the weekend, New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro wrote the following squib, "In 1 Unscripted Moment, Hillary Clinton Finds Joy in the Rain," which for reasons both unsurprising and only known to the editors, the Grey Lady saw fit to print:

In late October, a jury in Oregon acquitted Ammon Bundy and six codefendants for illegally occupying a building in the federal Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in a remote eastern part of the state. The protest, the subject of national news coverage in January, was in support of local ranchers…

As if America isn’t suffering from enough anxieties in 2016, you may have noticed the country is gripped by a nationwide epidemic of creepy clown sightings. In fact, someone in a clown costume carrying an axe was recently spotted in a park a few miles from my house. This isn't technically illegal,…

Throughout the 2016 campaign, there's been quite a lot of anguish about how to cover Donald Trump. It was collectively decided that his dishonesty necessitated extraordinary measures to inform the public he was a yuge liar. CNN started calling him a liar regularly in the chryon underneath their…

Last week I noted that DNC head Donna Brazile denied that she leaked questions to Hillary Clinton in advance of a Democratic primary debate. The denials of Brazile, who was working at CNN at the time, were particularly bizarre in the face of a leaked email showing her giving Clinton's team a…

Reports have it that Hillary Clinton is considering Joe Biden for secretary of state in her administration. The bench of popular, high profile Democrats isn't exactly deep these days and Biden has always been particularly interested in foreign policy, so on a superficial level recruiting Biden for…

Around every election, basic cable stations dust off their copies of All the President’s Men and start airing it. For better or for worse, Watergate is still central to modern politics and especially modern journalism. It's encouraging, of course, that we still want to believe no American,…

Among the revelations from the hacked John Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks is quite a bit of evidence of media malpractice. But perhaps the most damning bit involves interim Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile:

On March 5, 2015, John Podesta, former White House chief of staff and longtime Clinton family confidant, received an email from his daughter. “I'm heading back to NY tonight. Any chance you're staying in nyc b/c of weather (or scandal)?" she asked. Podesta responded, "What scandal? A few e-mails…

In a rather unorthodox move, the Donald Trump campaign sent a press release Tuesday afternoon with an acknowledgement that Trump was unlikely to win the election.

Monday morning, House speaker Paul Ryan did something that was unthinkable in the context of an ordinary presidential campaign, but inevitable in this one: He told GOP members of the House that he was no longer going to defend Trump in the wake of the leaked tape of Donald Trump lewdly discussing…

In an interview with the Nieman Lab this week, New York Times editor Dean Baquet was asked about how the media are struggling to cover Donald Trump. He noted that this is not the first time during the course of a presidential campaign that the media has had hard time combat untruths, except that…

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine—then a former governor and candidate for the Senate—was asked in 2012 what he would do about illegal immigration. Kaine responded that he would require illegal immigrants to identify themselves and force them to pay a hefty fine that would be used to…

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has released a letter addressed to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. In it, he asks Lynch a number of pointed questions about "side agreements" given to the Hillary Clinton aides who were also given immunity for cooperating in the email…

Voters have a pretty low opinion of the media. Only 19 percent of Americans have a favorable view of them, according to one recent NBC News poll. There are a lot of reasons for why that is the case, but one that shouldn't be overlooked is that the media don't hide their contempt for voters. Take…

I have long pointed out that PolitiFact is objectively biased. Surveys done by the University of Minnesota and George Mason University have shown that the supposedly impartial "fact checking" news organization rates Republican claims as false three times as often as Democratic claims and twice as…

From the Washington Times:

One can make a lot of arguments about whether or not Donald Trump scored any points in Monday night's debate, but one thing that's hard to say is that Trump substantively articulated any sort of conservative policy vision for America.

Prior to Monday night, the closest thing to a debate between the presidential candidates was the town hall on national security issues hosted by Matt Lauer three weeks prior. Though the candidates didn't share a stage, Lauer asked Hillary Clinton some specific questions about her email scandal, as…

Leading up to Monday's debate, Hillary Clinton, her surrogates, and no shortage of media figures, demanded that Trump be fact checked during the debate. And they wanted Trump fact checked in real time—even if it meant moderator Lester Holt interrupt him.

Tevi Troy, a WEEKLY STANDARD contributor, historian, and veteran of the George W. Bush White House, has a new book out—Shall We Wake the President?: Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office. The book is a fascinating look at a crucial, and sadly overlooked, aspect of policymaking.…

Within a few hours on September 17, a pressure cooker bomb exploded in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York injuring 31 people, a man stabbed 10 people in a Minnesota mall, and bombs were found near the site of a Marine Corps charity race in New Jersey. The following Monday morning, White House…

In this video conference of the Laborers' International Union of North America, Hillary Clinton actually asks a curious rhetorical question that indicates even she is frustrated by her ineffective campaign.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the two least liked presidential candidates since the advent of modern polling. But tellingly, there is one force in politics that voters hate even more—the news media.

Over the last few days, the Clinton campaign's been on the defensive. The reason is James Asher, the former Washington bureau chief of McClatchy, has publicly claimed that Clinton aide and confidant was spreading the rumor that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and therefore not eligible to be…

There are plenty of reasons why, after years of spreading the conspiracy theory, Donald Trump should not be given a pass after his sudden public disavowal of previous claims that President Obama was born in Kenya. However, the media are zeroing in on Trump's assertion Hillary Clinton is responsible…

On Wednesday, Labor Secretary Perez was asked by a reporter about a study done by the American Enterprise Institute on the District of Columbia's minimum wage hike. D.C. raised its minimum wage to $10.50 an hour last July. According to AEI, following the mandatory wage increase, D.C. saw the loss…

The Yale Daily News recently published a guest column by C. Wallace Dewitt, class of 2003, noting that next year marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of Jonathan Swift. If the connection between the famous satirist and contemporary life at one of America's most revered—but rapidly…

At the Washington Post, Dana Milbank has a column that takes on the rather incredible task of defending Hillary Clinton's remarks that half of Donald Trump supporters consist of "a basket of deplorables." According to Milbank, not only is Clinton right, she's being too generous:

DCLeaks.com, a website with reported ties to Russian intelligence, has released hacked emails from former secretary of state Colin Powell. This morning, the New York Times reported that Powell wrote Trump was a "national disgrace" in the emails. Well, it turns out he also doesn't think very highly…

The press, not to mention millions of Americans, were understandably annoyed by the Hillary Clinton campaign's misleading, bordering on dishonest, claim she had merely "overheated" Sunday, after she had to be dragged into a van after apparently fainting. The general consensus is that had the…

At the end of August, incoming University of Chicago freshmen received a letter from dean of students Jay Ellison, accompanied by a short monograph by a Chicago history professor on academic freedom. The letter, in part, read:

Earlier tonight, the NCAA announced it was pulling seven different collegiate championship events out of North Carolina this year. The NCAA's actions were prompted by North Carolina's law that stops local governments from passing ordinances forcing businesses to allow biological men into women's…

At the end of August, incoming University of Chicago freshmen received a letter from dean of students Jay Ellison, accompanied by a short monograph by a Chicago history professor on academic freedom. The letter, in part, read:

There are many deplorable assertions in the Washington Post's editorial Friday excusing Hillary Clinton's criminal conduct, but let's just start with this:

Wednesday night, NBC hosted a presidential forum on issues related to national security and the military where Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were interviewed and took selected questions from military personnel in attendance. Today host Matt Lauer served as moderator.

During Barack Obama's tenure in the White House, he has stacked the deck at the National Labor Relations Board with officials sympathetic to unions. (At one point, a unanimous Supreme Court decision ruled that Obama's recess appointments to the board were illegal.) The NLRB has in turn issued all…

Last month, Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton "lacks the mental and physical stamina" to fight the war against terror. His surrogates followed up by also intimating that Hillary Clinton's health problems have affected her job performance. The Clinton supporters and the media were quite disdainful…

Recently, Indiana's Child Services were called in to deal with a 7-year-old boy who came to school one day with 36 bruises on his body. His mother has been charged with child abuse. The mother's lawyer, for puzzling reasons, is asking for the case to be dismissed under the state's Religious Freedom…

According to ABC News, Hillary Clinton has reached a new high in unpopularity. In their latest poll, 56 percent of Americans view Clinton unfavorably, up 6 percentage points in three weeks. Also notable is that Clinton is underwater with women, and her general unpopularity with other key…

A couple of years ago, THE WEEKLY STANDARD noted that American business interests and the media cover up China's human rights abuses. It contains this anecdote, which seems relevant in light of the recent and long overdue scrutiny of the Clinton Foundation:

Over the weekend, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem at the beginning of an NFL preseason game. Predictably, this touched off a firestorm after Kaepernick explained at a press conference after the game that this was done to protest injustice in…

As the Republican legislatures have tried to implement voter ID laws in recent years, the media have cried foul. Aside from the predictable charges of racism, the main argument is that such laws are a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

As of Wednesday night, these are the presidential candidates voters will choose from on Minnesota's ballot in November:

Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted the following:

A new revelation about former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson's platform is, unfortunately, part of a continuing series, after he inexplicably came out against religious liberty and former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld expressed dubious sentiments about the Second Amendment.

Sir Antony Jay has died at age 86. Jay is best known as the co-writer, along with Jonathan Lynn, of the beloved television shows Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. To be honest, I knew next to nothing about Jay's life prior to his death, and to remedy that I recommend the Telegraph's fine…

Recently, there's been renewed interest in reviving the "public option." Loosely, the public option is a policy proposal to create a giant government-run health insurer that would compete with private insurers. The rationale behind it is that a publicly run insurance company would be able to…

Over the weekend, a Navy machinist, Kristian Saucier, faced a federal judge for taking six photos of the interior of a nuclear submarine. Even though such information is considered the lowest level of classified information, he did not get off lightly:

With less than three months to go until Election Day, Donald Trump's campaign has announced that it will finally start running television ads. However, the ad buys so far are modest and limited to a few swing states, reports Politico:

In the New York Times's recent report on Trump aide Paul Manafort's possibly illegal payoffs from pro-Russian interests in Ukraine, there's this curious detail:

On Monday, I wrote about questions surrounding the Trump campaign's finances. Specifically, a Huffington Post report was circulating noting that the topline FEC numbers suggested that the Trump campaign burned through $63 million last month. I contacted the Trump campaign, which offered no comment…

Earlier this year, Michael Warren wrote about Paul Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign. From the outset, there were questions about his lobbying for foreign strongmen, particularly his involvement with Viktor Yanukovych and Russian interests in Ukraine. "Manafort was instrumental in…

On Monday, Andrew Ferguson wrote on the government's feeble and insulting attempt to explain why insurance premiums were rising precipitously under Obamacare, contrary to what was promised. This is just scratching the surface of Obamacare's current woes.

At The Huffington Post, Bob Burnett reports that Donald Trump raised a sizable amount of money last month:

As Trump speeches go, his address to the Detroit Economic Club was a good one. Donald Trump cleared the low bar of actually staying focused on what is mostly a pro-growth economic policy. But for a speech on economics, it was also remarkable for what it didn't say. There was absolutely nothing…

For a myriad of obvious reasons, I am not compelled to defend Donald Trump's recent remark about "Second Amendment people" in reference to Hillary Clinton, which many have interpreted as calling for her assassination. While I think there's an evident interpretation of the remark that is innocent,…

If you're looking for another fantastic example of how the inmates are running the higher ed asylum, this from UC Berkeley's newspaper the Daily Californian is pretty hard to beat:

Over at 538, Harry Enten has done some number crunching on Democratic unity following Hillary Clinton's bruising primary with Bernie Sanders and, well, it looks like she still got her work cut out for her. A recent CNN poll that was heavily touted showed Clinton nailing down the support of 91…

The Washington Post is reporting that "Free the Delegates," a group of activists that tried to use party rules to strip Donald Trump of the nomination at the Republican convention, is making another attempt to replace Trump on the ticket:

In this election we have a candidate who has said some incredibly ignorant things that run counter to the long established principles of the party that he represents. Huge numbers of people that might otherwise be inclined to vote for him are baffled by the fact he's going out of his way to…

Philadelphia

In Scott Pelley's joint interview with the Democratic ticket, the CBS anchor asked Hillary Clinton some questions about the leaked DNC emails where top Democratic party officials are conspiring to smear her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders. The question produced some startling answers from Clinton,…

During morning mass Tuesday, two ISIS terrorists stormed a Catholic church in France and killed an 86 year-old priest. Another person was seriously wounded. Monday afternoon, German authorities announced that a suicide bomb attack in Ansbach was perpetrated by a man pledging allegience ISIS leader…

Last week, at several points during the Republican convention, the crowd erupted into chants of "Lock Her Up!" in reference to Hillary Clinton. To say that the media found this distasteful and worthy of stern fingerwagging, would be an understatement. See "The GOP's new convention theme: 'Lock her…

Cleveland

Cleveland

Cleveland

Law professor and legal commentator Richard A. Epstein has published a new article on legal rulings involving religious liberty in the Hoover Institution publication, Defining Ideas. Epstein's assessment of the reasoning behind a federal judge's injunction against a Mississippi law protecting…

Cleveland

Colorado Springs

Donald Trump has reportedly picked Indiana governor Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate (though it's not quite official yet). On the surface, Pence comes off as a traditional conservative Republican, and his experience both in Congress and as a governor will round out Trump's relative…

Since FBI director James Comey blasted Hillary Clinton for her deceptions about mishandling classified information and yet inexplicably announced he was recommending no charges be brought against her, there's been a lot of speculation about how this could be justified. In his own words, Comey…

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday morning it would refuse to hear Stormans v. Wiesman, a case from the state of Washington where a family-owned pharmacy was objecting to a state regulation that forced them to prescribe the morning after pill, also known as "Plan B." Unlike traditional…

On Memorial Day, I was in my basement looking for a cat. (Yes, it was a cat, as opposed to my cat—but that's another story.) Anyway, I was sorting through the clutter when I came across a bag containing various tokens of my youth. At the bottom of the bag, I peered in and saw one of my possessions…

Breitbart reported Thursday that Nebraska senator Ben Sasse crossed the aisle to join Democrats in their filibuster this week for gun control laws. As media outlets go, Breitbart is solidly in the tank for Donald Trump, and Sasse has been the leading Republican critic of Trump in the Senate, so it…

Earlier this week, President Obama lashed out at Donald Trump and others who criticized the president for refusing to say that the Orlando terrorist was motivated by radical Islamic ideology:

"Why aren’t we talking this week about bringing this Congress together on an issue like making sure that individuals who are on the terrorist watch list can't buy guns?" Connecticut senator Chris Murphy asked that question shortly before he filibustered for gun control measures on June 15. A few…

The Associated Press reports that things in Afghanistan are not going well:

One of the interesting things about Donald Trump is how he's forging unlikely political alliances. For instance, if anyone had told me a year ago that David Plouffe—Obama's ace campaign strategist—would be blasting the GOP presidential nominee and I would agree with him, I would have been very…

In the wake of yesterday's horrific shooting in Florida, this report is infuriating (emphasis added):

Bloomberg reports that Donald Trump plans to give a speech on Monday attacking Democratic rival Hillary Clinton:

Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Tom Price have just reintroduced the Employee Rights Act, which would make some very necessary updates to labor law. Naturally, unions are engaged in the usual hyperbole attacking the legislation. See, for example, this March op-ed from the president of the…

Months after three U.S. congressmen first made a formal request for a visa to travel to Iran, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported Monday that the Iranian government finally issued a response. The congressmen were looking to make a fact-finding trip to examine Iran's nuclear program, the status of American…

The Salt Lake Tribune published a new general election poll of Utah voters Monday, and the results are as follows:

In February, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported on the attempt of three congressmen, Reps. Mike Pompeo, Lee Zeldin, and Frank LoBiondo, to request visas to travel to Iran. Among other things, they hoped to use the trip to independently verify aspects of the Iranian nuclear deal since the Obama…

Elsewhere from the presidential campaign trail, Ohio Republican senator Rob Portman is being blasted by his Democratic opponent Ted Strickland for both endorsing Donald Trump and disavowing Trump's characterization of the Indiana-born judge in the Trump University case as a biased "Mexican":

On Wednesday, the New York Times published a scathing editorial:

Recent polls have shown the Libertarian party ticket, composed of former Republican governors Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, earning as much as 10 percent of the vote when placed alongside the two most disliked major party nominees of the modern era.

In March 2015, Joe Cirincione, president of a foundation called the Ploughshares Fund, was interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered about the impending nuclear deal with Iran. "President Obama's political opponents try to block everything he does," he said. "But I think the center of the American…

Left-leaning publications and transgender activists are applauding Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., today for her performance in a congressional hearing over trans issues. Talking Points Memo sums up what happened:

In a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton unloaded on Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid. Cotton was angered because Reid singlehandedly held up a defense bill for days that went on to pass the Senate by a vote 98-0, suggesting that even Senate Democrats didn't…

Of all things, Donald Trump has decided to make Vince Foster's suicide an issue in the campaign, calling the death of the former Deputy White House Counsel in the Clinton administration "very fishy." This is yet another example of how Trump's pugilistic, let-it-all-hang-out style is not serving him…

On Thursday, the homepage of Google featured one of the search engine's doodles honoring the birthday of Yuri Kochiyama, a "civil rights" activist who died two years ago at age 93. After Google drew attention to Kochiyama's life, the Smithsonian highlighted the museum's "digital exhibit" honoring…

Let's be clear about something: Donald Trump should release his tax returns.

In a Facebook post in February, Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, who has long been vocal about his opposition to Donald Trump as the GOP nominee for president, said "If Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, my expectation is that I will look for some third candidate — a conservative option, a…

On May 5, the New York Times posted online a lengthy and candid interview with Ben Rhodes, the 38-year-old deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. The interview was something of a get—the profile by veteran journalist David Samuels, which would be published in the May 8…

It was recently announced that President Obama plans to raise $1 billion to build his presidential library in Chicago. By any standard, that's an eye-popping figure. It's nearly as much as Obama spent on his 2012 campaign for president.

In March, Donald Trump said that women who have abortions should be “punished." He quickly backtracked on the comment, but pro-lifers were incredibly frustrated and angered because his callous remark flew in the face of decades of carefully crafted messaging about how ending abortion is really…

After last night, Donald Trump is the "presumptive" presidential nominee for the GOP. What that means is that the Republican party is now effectively operating under Pottery Barn rules: You broke it, you bought it, Trump supporters. Now it's your job to get him elected. In theory, that shouldn't be…

The New York Times has a lengthy report about what's going on at The Late Show on CBS since Stephen Colbert took over for David Letterman nearly a year ago. The Times's write-up bends over backwards to put a brave face on it, but Colbert's show thus far has been a pretty big failure. CBS just hired…

If you want a good indication of how unserious America’s politics are at the moment, consider that this election has had virtually no discussion of entitlement reform. It was a central issue in 2012, and not only that, Republicans put the issue front and center by putting Paul Ryan on the ticket,…

At an April 14 MSNBC town hall, Ted Cruz was asked about abortion. The senator and presidential candidate made a point of mentioning last year’s Center for Medical Progress undercover investigation showing Planned Parenthood striking illegal deals to sell fetal body parts for profit. "I will say…

It has received an appalling, but unsurprising, lack of media coverage, but a congressional hearing this week has rolled out quite a bit of evidence indicating that Planned Parenthood was selling—and profiting from—fetal body parts. Congressional investigators produced evidence of websites where…

Ted Cruz's campaign has released a new video that goes after Hillary Clinton and mimics Huma Abedin. Watch it below:

On Monday, the latest Pulitzer Prizes were announced. I would say what I think about the Pulitzer Prizes, except that I'm just going to defer to my distinguished colleague, Phil Terzian. Since Terzian has been both a Pulitzer finalist for Distinguished Commentary as well as a Pulitzer juror, his…

Arguably the biggest complaints skeptics have about climate change advocates are that 1) they frequently make predictions that are wrong, 2) they engage in extremely specious reasoning when called to account for why those predictions were wrong, and 3) they carry on making silly predictions as if…

In the current issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, I have an article that goes through the blow by blow of the strange battle over the Virgin Islands delegation to the Republican convention. I encourage you to read the article, but without glossing over too many details, six delegates were initially…

Making sense of the 2016 Republican primary is a task best left to future historians, but here’s one rough measure of how crazy things have become: Results of one hotly contested primary in March are still being disputed. And the fight has gotten so bitter that negative campaign ads are being run…

A lot of politicians talk about the need for more transparency in government. But few have taken action so decisively as Ohio state treasurer Josh Mandel. In 2014, Mandel created a searchable database for state spending, as well as participating local governments. Our colleagues at the Washington…

The New Boston Post, which covers conservative news in the Bay State, has an interesting report on a lawsuit involving Brandeis University over the school's procedures for handling sexual assault accusations. A student disciplined for sexual assault is suing the university.

Today’s New York Sun editorial points us to The Scandal of Money: Why Wall Street Recovers but the Economy Never Does, the new book by economist and futurist George Gilder. The editorial heartily recommends Gilder's book, which makes the argument that America's current monetary policy is immoral:

This year, the tax plans offered by various Republican candidates were all over the map in terms of the proposals being made. And most tax plans failed to avoid certain pitfalls, such as finding ways to cut taxes without increasing the debt and ensuring that cuts weren't disproportionately skewed…

Just a few months ago, few would have predicted that John Kasich would be one of the last three candidates standing in the GOP presidential primary. Now, a lot of GOP voters are looking at Kasich with fresh eyes and considering voting for him.

Sarah Palin endorsed Donald Trump for president in January, but in a clear sign that Trump isn't unifying the GOP, Sarah Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, sent out a fundraising email today that doesn't mention Trump. Instead, the fundraising plea asks for money to help "elect new…

Today, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan delivered an address on Capitol Hill to a bipartisan group of congressional interns. In the speech, Ryan calls on Americans not to become disheartened by the state of American politics and angry rhetoric. And he urges his fellow politicians not to give in to…

President Obama is on his historic trip to Cuba right now, though it’s proving historic in ways that Obama didn't intend. Right before the president arrived, Cuban authorities took the liberty of arresting dozens of human rights protesters right before he arrived. Otherwise, being forced to…

At Thursday's presidential debate, CNN's Jake Tapper asked Donald Trump about incidents of violence at his campaign events:

Following Donald Trump's March 8 victory press conference, the presidential candidate was asked a question by reporter Michelle Fields. Apparently the question about affirmative action wasn't welcome, because before Trump could answer, she was grabbed from behind and dragged down almost to the…

In the magazine today, I have a profile of Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, who in a very short span, has become a prominent spokesman for constitutional values and unlikely leader of the anti-Trump movement. As I noted in my profile, until a few months ago, very few people had any idea that Ben Sasse…

At Thursday night's debate, Donald Trump was asked about his campaign's position on H-1B visas for highly skilled workers. Trump actually changed his position on the issue from the debate stage:

Who is Ben Sasse? A lot of people seem to be asking that question these days. The junior senator from Nebraska has been in office just over a year, and even people on Capitol Hill still don’t know who he is. It's well after 9 p.m. on Super Tuesday, and Sasse is watching the election returns in his…

Last week, elections were held in Iran. If you're following the news, you'd get the sense that the outcome was a good one for people who care about human rights and the general thawing of relations between the U.S. and Iran. And further, we are told, the election result was big vindication for the…

Of all the crazy revelations about Donald Trump, arguably the one that seems most alarming, is that he has a fondness for reading Hitler speeches. Now the charge was made by his first wife Ivana relating to his divorce proceedings, but when asked about it, Trump's denial was less than reassuring:

The news last week was that The New Republic had been sold. After the magazine's turbulent tenure under Facebook mogul Chris Hughes, it was purchased by Win McCormack, an Oregon resident. At first glance this seems like a good fit. McCormack co-founded Mother Jones, another liberal publication, and…

At today's press conference announcing New Jersey governor Chris Christie's endorsement, Donald Trump was asked about another endorsement he received recently from white supremacist David Duke.

Donald Trump had a complete meltdown Thursday night when he got locked in this exchange with Marco Rubio over health care. Rubio kept pressing him on what his plan for health care was, and Trump responded by incoherently talking about getting rid of "the lines around the states." Essentially, Trump…

Last month, Ted Cruz released an ad attacking Donald Trump for trying to use eminent domain to bulldoze a widow's home in order to build a parking lot for limos in Atlantic City. Trump didn't succeed, but the fact he tried makes him look like an almost cartoonish movie villain:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid took to the pages of the Washington Post recently to write about Republican efforts to block any nominee to replace Justice Scalia. In drearily predictable fashion, the op-ed is headlined, "For the good of the country, stop your nakedly partisan obstruction."

Even though Bernie Sanders has long caucused with the Democrats in the Senate, he was always officially an independent in a nod to his avowedly socialist beliefs.

Twitter, like any social network that allows a degree of anonymity, has its problems with trolls and people who spout hateful rhetoric. However, there have also been a number of incidents that have led users to suspect Twitter is lumping mainstream conservative voices in with those who are…

There was a bit of a dust-up between the Cruz and Carson campaigns in Iowa. On caucus night, Cruz's campaign sent out a message to supporters telling them that "CNN is reporting Ben Carson will stop campaigning after Iowa" and urging them to tell other caucusgoers this news, and it soon spread from…

"The odds of making it past the front door? I'd say it's 60-40," says Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas. "To actually get to the Iranian Interest Section? Low single digits." Pompeo is in the back of a black SUV cruising past the National Mall in Washington, on his way to the Pakistani Embassy. Since Iran…

Yesterday, I noted that the White House's recent comment that Hillary Clinton would not be indicted "based on what we know" raised some troubling questions. Specifically, are the Justice Department and FBI briefing the White House on the ongoing investigation? And given the consequences of the…

At this point, it's pretty clear that the scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton's emails isn't going away anytime soon. The Associated Press recently reported that 22 emails on her likely compromised private email system contained information at the highest levels of classification. At every turn, it…

Megyn Kelly is a good looking woman. I don't say this to objectify her, I say it because I have eyes. While it would be absurd not to notice this, that doesn't take away from the fact that she's certainly a capable broadcast journalist. I would not want to be in the position of having to answer…

Harmony Daws was recently appointed president of the Oregon Right to Life board of directors. She works at a cleaning business in Portland, and informed her boss of her new position. Her boss did not take it well:

The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has spent the last number of years writing on the Koch brothers. She's done her best to cast the two funders of libertarian and conservative causes as a shadowy threat to democracy, even though numerous holes have been poked in her reporting.

On Tuesday, a state legislator in South Carolina proposed a law that would force journalists to register with the state as part of a "responsible journalism registry." Of course, Rep. Mike Pitts wasn't seriously proposing this. He was simply engaged in a bit of formal trolling to point out the…

In the New York Times, Margot Sanger-Katz kicks the tires on Bernie Sanders’s just released health care plan and the details, or rather the lackthereof, are not encouraging:

On Wednesday, I noted that the New York Times had heaped a lot of favorable coverage upon New Yorker writer Jane Mayer’s new book on the Koch brothers, despite the fact that the coverage was unfair to the Kochs and failed to disclose that Mayer is the wife of the Times's Washington editor. Well,…

In 2011, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker published, "Covert Operations," an article that purported to "expose" the well-known fact the Koch Brothers were financially supporting a lot of libertarian and conservative causes. The trouble is, the article had some pretty serious factual problems and…

The Hillary Clinton campaign has benefited greatly from the perception that her nomination is inevitable. The DNC has done its best to favor her, with a debate schedule that leaves few opportunities for insurgent candidacies to be heard, to say nothing of how they have even unfairly punished the…

East of the Cascade Mountains, Oregon is largely bitterbrush and high desert. Virtually no one lives there, and compared with the populous and rainy Willamette Valley to the west, agriculture is difficult. Unless you’re from the area — I was raised there — it's hard to appreciate the sense of…

Before I begin, a word of caution: Public Policy Polling (PPP) is a Democratic firm that seems to have no problem using psephology stir up mischief among the political GOP.

I grew up in the next town west of Burns, Oregon, where so-called militia men are occupying a federal building in protest of the federal sentencing of some local ranchers for arson. If you know anything about how sparsely populated Eastern Oregon is, that means Burns is a two hour drive from my…

Earlier this week, it made news that "Bringing Peace, Security to Syria" was listed as one of the top achievements in 2015 by the Obama State Department. If this is what peace and security in Syria look like, I’d hate to see the hellish charnel house the region would have to become for the State…

A federal judge has ruled that the state of Utah can cut off funds to Planned Parenthood, reversing an earlier decision requiring the state to keep funding the abortion provider.

Throughout the debate over the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama administration insisted that its approach to brokering a deal with the mullahs is guided by a simple principle: "verification, not trust." Of course, by the time a deal was…

If there was one moment of Tuesday's GOP debate that has the most potential to alter the race, it had to be the heated exchange between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz over immigration.

Via Commentary's Noah Rothman, I see The New York Times is up with a feature on Florida senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio's new television ad airing in New Hampshire and Iowa. In the middle of describing the ad, the article contains this gem:

Some shocking results from the latest New York Times poll:

On December 7, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a federal investigation of the Chicago police department. Recent history shows that the Obama Department of Justice cannot be counted on to perform a competent investigation, but at least this particular inquiry is not without cause. The city…

The New York Times has a short article today that seems primed to cause maximum alarm, headlined, "Jeb Bush's Tax Plan Would Cause $8.1 Trillion Budget Hole, Analysis Finds."

I remain perplexed by the current "debate" over gun laws. After President Obama's speech on Sunday, a great many pundits seemed to have raced forward with evaluating the political considerations of pitching new gun control laws for 2016. However, it seems to me that the logical and rhetorical…

New York

Ahmed Mohamed, the 15 year-old Muslim kid who was invited to the White House after he was arrested for bringing a clock that he allegedly built to school, has filed a $15 million lawsuit:

The Associated Press is running with a rather tendentious headline at the moment, "AP FACT CHECK: On climate science, most GOP candidates fail." For their fact check, the AP asked a group of Ph.D. scientists to grade presidential candidates based on their statements about global warming. To keep…

For decades, the American university system has been creeping towards both moral and intellectual bankruptcy. But the events last week at Yale and the University of Missouri suggest we are reaching a tipping point, and that campus culture is transitioning from painfully idiotic to wantonly…

Mark Steyn has a typically great column about the reaction to the terror attacks in France and reading it is well worth your time. But I want to focus on one particular paragraph:

As gaffes go, it was an especially amusing one for a woman who has thus far been caught with 671 instances of classified information appearing in her personal email. “Earlier today I announced that as president I will take steps to ‘ban the box,’ so former presidents won’t have to declare their…

Amherst Uprising—"a collective of students on campus who came together as a result of the sit-In organized in Frost Library on 11/12/15"—has delivered demands to their university president. Number five on their list is pretty illustrative how far off the deep end these student protesters are…

The tensions at Yale and Mizzou are spreading. In response to student protests, the Dean of Students at Claremont McKenna resigned yesterday. The Claremont Independent, a center-right journal at Claremont McKenna College, has weighed in on the controversy with a long editorial headlined, "We…

One of the big problems with media "fact checkers" is the presumption of expertise that the reporter doesn't actually have. Sitting around googling whenever a politician opens his or her mouth often means a rush to judgment, and the results can be embarassing. Last night, Politico Pro sent out the…

The Center for American Progress (CAP), one of the largest and most influential liberal think tanks in Washington, recently extended an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He spoke there yesterday, and the New York Times write-up notes that Netanyahu "project[ed] a benevolent…

On October 27, the House of Representatives moved to impeach the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, John Koskinen. It may seem odd that Koskinen is being punished since he wasn’t commissioner when the IRS scandal broke two years ago. But make no mistake, Koskinen is a worthy candidate…

In Ben Carson's bestselling book, Gifted Hands, he recounts a tale about how as a top ROTC student in Detroit growing up he had an opportunity to meet General William Westmoreland. Apparently, the meeting went well. According to Carson, "Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point."

Last week, the New York Times rolled out a petty and somewhat meanspirited editiorial against Chris Christie and the rest of the Republican field. The gist of it is that, by running for president, Christie isn't spending as much time at home working for New Jersey as he ought to:

A big part of liberal media bias is the insatiable need to create drama about any intra-party Republican disagreements, while downplaying or ignoring Democratic divisions. Even the most liberal media outlets agreed that last week's CNBC debate was a flaming dirigible, but when the Republican party…

This morning, Washington Post fact checker Glen Kessler decided to fact check Marco Rubio's statement at the latest GOP debate that Hillary Clinton lied about al Qaeda's involvement in the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi. In public, Clinton initially attributed the attack to spontaneous…

Earlier tonight moderator John Harwood, of CNBC and the New York Times, attacked Senator Marco Rubio's tax plan on the grounds that it disproportionately benefited the top one percent of earners. Rubio insisted the premise of his question was wrong, but Harwood stuck to his guns. Here's the…

Last year, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was asked a simple question: What was your proudest moment as secretary of state? Posed at a women’s forum, it was hardly hostile in intent. Clinton was unable to answer, and the resulting New York Times headline was brutal: “Hillary…

Hillary Clinton is running her first national television commerical, and amidst a cloud of scandal and falling poll numbers, she’s already playing defense. The ad claims that the House Republicans’ committee to investigate Benghazi “was created to destroy her candidacy.” That was hardly the purpose…

So Bernie Sanders, who wants to make college education "free," just tweeted out the following:

CNN host Anderson Cooper, who is set to moderate tonight's Democratic debate, was listed as a "notable past member" the Clinton Global Initiative's website along with a number of other big name journalists:

Say what you want about the merits of her campaign, Hillary Clinton knows exactly who she has to pander to in order to raise the exorbitant sums needed to run for president. Unions have spent over $400 million in each of the last two presidential election cycles, almost exclusively on Democratic…

In August, six Republican presidential candidates appeared at a forum to discuss education reform in New Hampshire hosted by Campbell Brown. Brown, the former NBC news anchor and CNN host, has just launched a news website, The Seventy Four, dedicated to covering issues related to education reform.…

The ACLU's website reports on how China's communist government is working with some of the country's biggest corporations to insitute an Orwellian system to "score" every citizen:

Following last week's tragic shooting in Oregon, Hillary Clinton is making big promises on gun control. She's even gone so far as to promise "executive action" to restrict gun sales, even though such measures would be constitutionally questionable. Even President Obama, who has not exactly been shy…

The Washington Post fact checker looks at "repeated, misleading claim that Planned Parenthood ‘provides’ mammograms." Michelle Ye Hee Lee's conclusion is spot-on:

At CNN, Dylan Byers is reporting "'60 Minutes' used 'planted' questions, Hillary Clinton email says":

The controversy over Carly Fiorina's comments at the last GOP debate about seeing a video of an aborted fetus with its legs kicking is still raging. Earlier today, David Daleiden, the journalist behind the Center for Medical Progress's undercover Planned Parenthood investigation that produced the…

In March, an investigation by ProPublica and Gawker revealed that a “secret spy network” that was not on the State Department payroll, run by longtime Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal, was “funneling intelligence about the crisis in Libya directly to the Secretary of State’s private account starting…

Vox's Ezra Klein wrote a good piece of analysis Monday about how unpredictable politics has become. He notes that the four surprising political developments we've seen in the last few months—Speaker of the House John Boehner resigning from Congress, and Scott Walker dropping out of the presidential…

Here's a less than illuminating passage from a hot-off-the-presses New York Times story on Scott Walker bowing out of the presidential race, headlined "Scott Walker’s Dismal Finish Is a Fitting Result, Old Foes Say" :

The media have been quite zealously attacking Ben Carson for criticizing aspects of Islam that he believes are incompatible with the American political system. The skeptical among us -- and that, unfortunately, must include every discerning consumer of mainstream media -- would note that much of…

As an addendum to Jonathan Last's piece about the bizarre willingness of liberals rushing to the defense of illiberal Muslims so long as it makes the GOP look bad, BuzzFeed has a nice story up today about a Muslim-American woman embracing her heritage and celebrating Eid. But BuzzFeed's story…

The New York Times has a truly horrifying story about how the U.S. military has turned a blind eye to child sex abuse in Afghanistan as a matter of official policy: 

Over at the Free Beacon, our old colleague Matthew Continetti is already up with his thoughts about the debate. He's reached the conclusion that "debates basically serve to propel second-tier candidates to the top. That’s what happened with Ben Carson last time. And it’s what’s going to happen to…

A reader sends in this image from the streets outside tonight's GOP Debate. It's the symbol from the Hunger Games -- a symbol of rebellion from the YA novel where kids fight to overthrow a dystopian cociety run by elites. The unorthodox street art campaign for Cruz has been seen in other parts of…

More than a few Republican graybeards are panicking about how the rise of Donald Trump is pulling at the seams of the GOP’s big tent. However, the Republican establishment itself has played a big role in creating this particular Frankenstein’s monster.

The Washington Post has a poll out this today that finds Hillary Clinton's numbers are down in the wake of her email scandal. The poll undercuts one of the main arguments for her candidacy -- electing the first woman president would excite female voters. While Hillary Clinton has a negative…

The Center for Medical Progress is out with another horrifying video exposing Planned Parenthood's practice of harvesting the organs from aborted fetuses for money. One of the people that appears in this latest video is Cate Dyer, the CEO of StemExpress, whose sister was the health policy advisor…

If you want a good idea of how much water the media is willing to carry for Planned Parenthood, go ahead and check out this Politico story. It seems Planned Parenthood commissioned a "forensic report" to analyze the undercover videos that have got the organization in trouble for harvesting and…

At the New York Times, Nick Kristof has written a column in favor gun control in the wake of Wednesday's terrible shooting of a local news personality and camera man near Roanoke, Virginia. It's a drearily predictable column in that it reiterates a number of pat talking points about gun control…

For several years now, PolitiFact has been waging war on anyone who points out that America has the smallest Navy it's had in nearly a century. Mitt Romney pointed out this fact in a presidential debate in 2012 and PolitiFact rated his statement "pants on fire" even though the number of ships in…

The Washington Times reports:

PolitiFact, which has really been outdoing itself with its coverage of the Planned Parenthood scandal, has come up with another doozy. Here is the statement PolitiFact chose to evaluate:

Over at Slate, there's an article headlined "Washington Man Wearing Anti-Government T-Shirt Thanks Firefighters for Saving His Home." The article is based on a news photo of a man in Washington state who's wearing a T-shirt from the conservative grassroots group FreedomWorks that says "Lower Taxes…

The New York Post reports that Senator Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has expanded on his rationale for opposing the White House's Iran Deal:

The Center for Medical Progress has released another video highlighting the questionable and possibly illegal conduct of Planned Parenthood. This time, Holly O’Donnell, a former procurement technician for medical research firm StemExpress, reports that Planned Parenthood would take fetal organs…

In Ohio, the State Judicial Conduct Board has ruled that judges can't decline to marry only same-sex couples because of their personal religious beliefs. But the Judicial Conduct Board's ruling went much further than that:

Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig is considering a run for president, according to Politico:

For the last year or so, the issue of whether or not cops have been too eager to punish -- and even kill -- African Americans has dominated the news. Yet, one very big story relating to cops and racial tension has been completely swept under the rug. Guardian reporter Spencer Ackerman has been…

Tonight's debate was full of fireworks. And somewhat surprisingly, Donald Trump was arguably not the most confrontational candidate on stage. Senator Rand Paul provided some of the more memorable moments of the night by challenging the other candidates on stage. Here is a transcript of Paul's…

It's too soon to make any solid predictions about which candidates will benefit from the early debate featuring the GOP candidates who didn't make the cut for the primetime debate later tonight. But based on some instant reactions, it appears that Carly Fiorina has been turning heads of viewers:

From Agency France-Presse:

Planned Parenthood now finds itself being heavily criticized after being caught on tape brokering fetal body parts. Fortunately for them, they have no shortage of allies in the media, including PolitiFact.

A few weeks ago, the Center For Medical Progress started releasing undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood selling parts of aborted fetuses.

The battle in Washington to stop Planned Parenthood from using public funds is heating up. Yesterday, even Democratic Senator Joe Manchin came out in favor of defunding the organization on the heels of undercover videos showing the organization selling fetal body parts, possibly in violation of the…

On July 20, The New York Times published a story about the recent spate of undercover videos that show Planned Parenthood affiliates unethically and possibly illegally brokering fetal parts to medical researchers. The story, headlined "Planned Parenthood Tells Congress More Videos of Clinics Might…

The New York Times recently reported -- wrongly, as it turns out -- that Hillary Clinton was the subject of a "criminal" investigation for conducting official State Department business on her private email system. Many of the Times's liberal readers were upset about the paper's handling of the…

Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood recently gained notoriety when the Center for Medical Progress released a video of people at the abortion clinic picking through a dish of aborted baby parts in order to sell them. Now the Planned Parenthood affiliate is facing accusations of serious wrongdoing:

Despite little national coverage, scandals surrounding former NBA star and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson have been intensifying over past few months. Monday's report at Deadspin is a good place to start -- things have gotten so bad that Johnson's allies are accusing a local paper that's done a lot…

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning, Representatives Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, call for the impeachment of IRS head Jim Koskinen. The congressmen accuse Koskinen of a host of serious transgressions including destruction of evidence, hiding the fact that evidence…

On Tuesday, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent penned a piece headlined, "What the GOP presidential candidates could say about the Iran deal, but won’t." While there's perhaps some food for thought in the column, this paragraph stopped me cold:

"They have good days and bad days, but I will tell you they are resolute,” attorney Herb Grey says of his clients, Aaron and Melissa Klein, two bakers from Portland who are facing a $135,000 fine from the state of Oregon for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian commitment ceremony in January 2013.…

The Washington Post appears to be struggling a bit to cover today's blockbuster story about the undercover video of Planned Parenthood harvesting and selling organs from aborted fetuses. First, they changed the headline to something that's far more friendly to Planned Parenthood without noting the…

In April, an administrative judge with the Oregon Department of Labor ordered Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of the now shuttered bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa, to pay a fine of $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple's wedding. While there's a case the couple violated the…

Over at the blog Legal Insurrection, law professor William Jacobson reminds us of this answer Elena Kagan gave to Senator John Cornyn in her confirmation hearings to be Solicitor General in 2009:

America was going to have a national conversation about transgender issues, whether we wanted to or not. Our cultural betters decreed we would. The perfectly named Vanity Fair deployed its considerable resources to present the coming out of Caitlyn—née Bruce—Jenner in what it took to be the most…

The New York Times has an alarming article today about the movement to push sex change operations at earlier and earlier ages. It contains this detail:

Last week, there was yet another news frenzy over something that happened on social media. A Muslim Northwestern University chaplain, Tahera Ahmad, wrote on her Facebook page that she was in "tears of humiliation from discrimination" because a flight attendant refused to give her an unopened can of…

Weekly Standard contributor Adam White posed this question on Twitter yesterday, and maybe it seems a little out there at first blush, but it's worth pondering:

Writing in the Washington Post, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic Senator from Rhode Island, offered a curious suggestion for dealing with global warming skeptics:

Over the weekend, Lally Weymouth, a senior associate editor at The Washington Post, interviewed Naftali Bennett, Israel's new education minister and a notable tech entrepreneur. Bennett wants to annex the part if the West Bank known as Area C and, in the words of the Post, "offer full Israeli…

Lately, there’s a lot of talk among feminists about the need to keep women safe. The rape culture is allegedly inescapable, and trigger warnings are appended to college syllabi to protect sensitive souls from reminders of any past cause of pain, from “neuro-atypical shaming” to mention of “how much…

Last week, I noted that Harvard's Robert Putnam had made a rather baffling and slanderous statement about American Christians. As an empirical matter, it was utterly indefensible and not the kind of untrue generalization you would expect a prominent social scientist to indulge in. So, that was…

Over the weekend, Vox published an article headlined "Hillary Clinton personally took money from companies that sought to influence her." Given Vox's overwhelmingly liberal audience and the astounding lengths the publication's top editors will go to defend liberal politicians, the fact they're…

Earlier this week, Harvard professor Robert Putnam did a Q&A with Washington Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein, headlined "Have faith groups been too absent in the fight on poverty?" Here is Putnam's answer to that question:

After Senate Democrats went back on their word and killed the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, Elizabeth Warren was upheld as a progressive champion for orchestrating the legicide. While Republicans were miffed about the betrayal, the situation quickly devolved into an ugly…

In January 2013, Rachel Cryer and her mother walked into Sweet Cakes By Melissa, a bakery in Gresham, Oregon, and tried to order a wedding cake. Aaron Klein, the co-owner (and Melissa’s husband), was informed Cryer would be marrying another woman. He apologized and told them that providing a cake…

There's still a lot we don't know about what happened in Garland, Texas, earlier this week, including the name of the heroic police officer who averted certain disaster by outshooting two heavily armed terrorists. But blogger Bob Owens, who generally knows his stuff when it comes to firearms, has…

In the current issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, I have an editorial on the plight of Aaron and Melissa Klein—two Oregonians who used to own a bakery in a Portland suburb, who were run out of business and recently assessed a $135,000 fine for politely declining to provide a cake for a gay wedding. For…

Later today, Hillary Clinton is expected to give a speech where she comes out in favor of police being required to wear body cameras. I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, except to say that I doubt it will prove to be the panacea for reining in law enforcement abuses that many of its advocates…

Over the weekend, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins appeared on CBS's Face the Nation. Here's one of the questions that outgoing host Bob Schieffer asked him:

Not that long ago, if you’d spun a dystopian yarn about some future society where culture wars were so pervasive that nobody could enjoy reading a novel without first approving of the author’s politics, it would have been almost too fantastical to be believed. But within the insular world of…

My colleague Jay Cost flags this Newsweek article, which is ostensibly about the scandalous revelation that one of the largest Clinton Foundation donor has trade ties to Iran. But here's the first paragraph:

I understand that to many people who work at the New York Times, guns are frightening animistic objects. But Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor of the Times, just took the following swipe at Ted Cruz, under the headline "Ted Cruz’s Strange Gun Argument," and it is his argument, not Ted…

Following Marco Rubio's announcement that he's running for president, the Associated Press decided to "fact check" some of the candidate's rhetoric. If you follow the news, you're probably aware that "fact checking" is more often than not a lame attempt to cloak partisan opinion behind a veil of…

There are debates worth having, and then there are debates. One of the most dispiriting aspects of our current age is that very often you have to get one side of the debate up to a baseline of logic before any positive exchange of ideas can begin. Recent weeks have provided a rather dramatic…

On Friday, I wrote a short blog post about cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who in the process of receiving a George Polk journalism award, said the murdered cartoonists at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo "wandered into the realm of hate speech" and that "free speech...... becomes its own kind of…

On Friday, I wrote a short blog post about cartoonist Gary Trudeau, who in the process of receiving a George Polk journalism award, said the murdered cartoonists at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo "wandered into the realm of hate speech" and that "free speech...... becomes its own kind of…

On Friday, I wrote a short blog post about cartoonist Gary Trudeau, who in the process of receiving a George Polk journalism award, said the murdered cartoonists at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo "wandered into the realm of hate speech" and that "free speech...... becomes its own kind of…

Today, Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau became the first cartoonist to ever receieve a George Polk Award. During the festivities*, he remarked that the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo -- the satirical Parisian magazine that was recently the site of a terror attack -- "wandered into the realm of hate…

Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation's top law enforcement officer, just issued the following memo. That this memo was deemed necessary inadvertantly reveals a great deal about the state of the Federal workforce:

Rand Paul announced his candidacy for president this week, and the libertarian Republican was immediately greeted by a chorus of doomsayers. NBC News went with the headline, "Why Rand Paul Probably Can't Win Republican Nomination." Dick Morris says, "Rand Paul can’t win." The New York Times's Nate…

Two big Clinton stories landed last week. The first is that Hillary Clinton destroyed the electronic copies of her State Department emails on her private server after the State Department subpoenaed her emails. The second is that Hillary Clinton had an aide running a "secret spy network" that was,…

I don't think very much of Vox.com and its journalistic standards. I've made the case against them before in detail, but the evidence of their general lack of professionalism is still piling up. Vox has a daily email newsletter written by Matthew Yglesias, and today's missive contains the following…

On Thursday, the House voted to override a rule from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), implemented last year, that allows unions to hold elections to organize a workforce in as little as eight days. (The average length of time for a workplace election is 38 days.) Crucially, the NLRB rule…

CBS News reports on another troubling foreign donation to the Clinton Foundation: 

Upon learning that Hillary Clinton used a private email account to conduct all official business during her tenure as secretary of state, CNN’s Dan Merica remarked, “GOP aides on the Benghazi committee have long said they were going to find something others hadn’t. And they did.” The New York Times…

Yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz said the following: “On tax reform, we, right now, have more words in the IRS code than there are in the Bible — not a one of them as good.”

My colleague Lee Smith has noted that both Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bob Menendez both suddenly found themselves in trouble just as the Obama administration was enduring heightened public scrutiny over their attempt to forge an agreement with Iran, and both may well have been voices of opposition.…

In 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration abruptly stepped down from his post. According to a Foreign Policy report by Josh Rogin (now a reporter for Bloomberg), Gration was the subject of a withering evaluation from the State Department:

Monday night, it was revealed that Hillary Clinton used a personal email account the entire time she served as secretary of state. Not only does conducting official business with a private account violate federal law, it raises a host of concerns ranging from whether or not her communications were…

Last week, I noted that Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee were suddenly demanding extensive information from seven prominent climate scientists, all of whom to varying degrees were not sufficiently toeing the line on climate change alarmism. Now, National Journal reports that…

The Washington Post is up with a doozy of a story showing some serious and troubling financial conflicts of interest during Hillary Clinton's time as Secretary of State. Read the whole thing, but here are some key paragraphs:

On his blog this morning, Roger Pielke Jr. at the University of Colorado, a respected climate scientist, reveals that he was one of seven academics being being investigated by Rep. Raul Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources. Grijalva wants to know all university…

Republican senators Mike Lee, Ben Sasse, and Rand Paul have all been high profile opponents of the Obama administrations current plan to regulate the internet -- in particular, Lee has called the regulation a government "takeover" of the internet and says it amounts to a "a massive tax increase on…

The Washington Post has a long article up about Scott Walker's formative years. It has some fine reporting, but the overall tone and headline are curious: "As Scott Walker mulls White House bid, questions linger over college exit." 

The tragic slaying of three Muslim college students in North Carolina is dominating the headlines today. According to his Facebook page, the killer was a committed atheist and a political liberal. I think it's very rarely helpful or fair to connect political beliefs to the acts of possibly deranged…

The tragic slaying of three Muslims in North Carolina is understandably dominating the headlines this morning. According to his facebook page, the killer was a devout atheist and political liberal. I think it's very rarely helpful or fair to connect political beliefs to the acts of possibly…

Obamacare requires employers to provide "affordable" health insurance to full-time employees, and for the purposes of the law, the word affordable is defined very specifically: 

Obamacare requires employers to provide "affordable" health insurance to full-time employees, and for the purposes of the law, the word affordable is defined very specifically: 

The Supreme Court is about to hear King v. Burwell, a case that threatens to seriously undermine Obamacare. As the plaintiffs of the case have pointed out, the text of the law doesn't allow the federal government to provide health insurance subsidies to people who purchase insurance through the…

The Supreme Court is about to hear King v. Burwell, a case that threatens to undermine Obamacare. As the plaintiffs of the case have correctly pointed out, the text of the law doesn't allow the federal government to provide health insurance subsidies for people on a federal insurance exchange. The…

The Oregonian, the biggest paper in the state, is calling for the resignation of Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber as a result of shady dealings related to his longtime girlfriend and fiancée:

The website Vox.com appears to still be thriving, despite my best efforts to warn people off of their willfully ignorant "explanatory journalism." As I have previously observed, we're on the tail end of a media "golden age for liberals where, to paraphrase Kipling, all the young turks were paid for…

"So-called ‘sand movies,’ the term Hollywood sometimes uses for films set in Afghanistan and Iraq, have a terrible box office track record,” noted the New York Times. Or rather, they had a terrible box office track record. The release of American Sniper, a biopic about Iraq war veteran and…

Back in December, after the mass resignation of the The New Republic staff and general implosion of the existing magazine, one of the departing editors asked pointed question about the magazine's new, reactionary left-wing direction: 

Matt Lewis has a column today over at the Daily Beast headlined, "You Betcha I Was Wrong About Sarah Palin: It’s time to admit that, whatever their motivation was at the time, the Alaska governor’s critics always had a point." I don't really disagree with much of what Matt says when it comes to…

Last week, I wrote about how the professional left was attacking Clint Eastwood's new biopic about Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. American Sniper is almost exclusively about the struggles and heroism of one remarkable man who fought in the Iraq war, but the film's critics can't seem to forgive the…

After the recent massacre by Islamic terrorists at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, people around the world took to social media to declare “Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie.” Solidarity is a nice sentiment, and journalists in particular are fond of uttering self-soothing words about…

Back in 2012, I suggested that the Senate use Leon Panetta's confirmation hearing for CIA director to clear up one of Washington's more interesting media mysteries—who leaked Daniel Patrick Moynihan's authorship of controversial memo that used the phrase "benign neglect" in reference to the black…

It's been almost five years since Obamacare was passed, and the law remains as unpopular as ever—public support hit a record low of 37 percent in November. Opposing Obamacare is a no-brainer for Republicans politically, though the question of what to do about the law remains something that divides…

In the wake of today's massacre in Paris, there has already been a lot of preening about journalistic bravery. Much of it has come from people who, it can be shown, don't have the guts to work in Charlie Hebdo's newsroom. Preening about free speech may be reassuring at times like this, but what we…

Buried in the avalanche of Cuba and North Korea news was this revealing tidbit about the Obama administration's environmental priorities: 

Recently, Rudy Giuliani raised some eyebrows when he got in a heated discussion with Michael Eric Dyson on Meet the Press. He was discussing the killing of Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri and said the following: “Ninety-three percent of blacks in America are killed by…

Ever since the Democrats were trounced in the midterm elections, they and the media have been trying to figure out how Republicans triumphed so thoroughly. Wasn’t the GOP supposed to be in permanent decline, on the wrong side of history, demography, and the issues? So far the soul searching has…

Last week, yet another damaging video emerged of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber talking about Obamacare's "Cadillac tax." The health care law assesses a hefty 40 percent tax on costly, so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans exceeding $10,200 for an individual and $27,500 for a family. However,…

Brutal news for Democrats in the latest Gallup survey:

From the Washington Post this morning:

A few thoughts about last night's stunning results for the GOP, in no particular order.

It's been one of the evening's closest races, but Republican Charlie Baker is projected to be the next Governor of Massachussetts by both Fox News and ABC. The Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, who acquired the nickname "Chokely" after she lost to Scott Brown in the 2010 Massachussetts special…

Ben Sasse is projected to be the next Senator from Nebraska. This does not come as a surprise, as he appears to have won handily. However, THE WEEKLY STANDARD published the first major political profile of Sasse last summer, when he was a virtual unknown in the state.

Despite the quick victory, it's obviously too early to tell whether this is a good omen for Mitch McConnell's chances of becoming Senate Majority Leader. Looking at the map, a few key things jump out. It looks like McConnell overperformed in coal country compared to his 2008 victory in the state,…

Utica, Mich.

Colorado Senator Mark Udall's press secretary had unexpectedly complimentary things to say about Udall's Republican challenger, before attempting to backtrack on their praise:

A new Des Moines Register poll shows Republican Joni Ernst capturing a majority of Iowa voters and besting her Democratic rival Rep. Bruce Braley by a significant margin:

Time magazine has a cover story out that's causing a fair amount of outrage, but for all the wrong reasons. The story is headlined, "Rotten Apples: It's nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. Some tech millionaires may have found a way to change that." Since then, some 70,000 people signed an…

The states of Illinois, New Jersey, and New York have all issued mandatory Ebola quarantine for certain travelers, and the White House doesn't like this one bit. According to the New York Times these states are being pressured to loosen their quarantine restrictions:

This morning, the better half has some thoughts the media coverage of the Ebola epidemic. Her point is that everytime people start to ask reasonable questions about Ebola, the media lecture them not to panic. The truth is that nobody's really panicked about the Ebola epidemic (yet), but by…

Yesterday, the Washington Post had a lengthy report on how former CIA director Leon Panetta was sending out copies of his book nearly a month before it cleared the CIA's internal revue process to ensure that no sensitive national security information was being revealed. According to the Post,…

From last week, another example of PolitiFact's incredible bias:

Given that the Democrats are in total disarray heading into November, it's not surprising liberal groups are making all sorts of dire warning about how it will rain brimstone when the GOP takes control of the Senate. However, this item from MoveOn.org really takes the cake:

For reasons known only to National Journal's Ron Fournier, he included this moment in a column on "wince-worthy" debate moments: 

The New York Times has a news article today that's ostensibly about concerns the Pentagon is engaged in historical revisionism in a recent attempt to honor Vietnam veterans. Any legitimate concerns, however, are outweighed by the fact the article gives a prominent megaphone to radical liberal…

Not The Onion: 

For years, it's been axiomatic among political observers that the GOP "brand" is damaged. There is certainly merit to this observation, though it is often bandied about in contexts where there's little to no evidence supporting that conclusion. The media has turned this talking point into such an…

The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig has the details of yet another damaging Obama scandal:

Last year, the New York Times did a glowing profile of the New York Freelancers Union, focused on how it's providing health insurance for a population of workers that typically don't have affordable coverage options: 

Politico recently hired Timothy Noah to be the publication's Labor & Employment editor. Now Noah is a former Slate and New Republic columnist who's known for being stridently liberal, so if you are an employer or someone who generally just likes reading coverage of labor issues that isn't slanted…

Rep. Tom Cotton, the Republican nominee in the Arkansas Senate race, is running an ad highlighting his leadership in trying to fix Washington's broken farm bill legislation. The ad isn't particularly controversial ormaking false claims, in any discernible way and yet "fact checkers" at…

Lexington, Neb.

The riots in Ferguson, Missouri, have spawned a heated and, one hopes, productive debate about the “militarization” of the police. While one can argue about the tactics and weaponry used by police, however, there’s little debate about the necessity of cops being armed. The real problem is the…

Yesterday, in response to the news that jihadi savages had killed an American journalist on YouTube, the Obama administration revealed that there had been a special forces operation that attempted and failed to rescue James Foley. For the life of me, I can't figure out why this was necessary…

Yesterday, in response to the news to the news that jihadi savages had killed an American journalist on YouTube, the Obama administration revealed that there had been a special forces operation that attempted and failed to rescue James Foley. For the life of me, I can't figure out why this was…

For anyone who follows national politics, there is no shortage of scandals and harrowing economic figures to buttress the opinion that our leadership is corrupt and incompetent. My own pessimism about government, however, is born of experience. I was foolish once and young; I even believed in The…

As I've made pretty clear, I am not a fan of the "explanatory journalism" trend that purports to take an empirical approach to explaining complex issues. Its chief practitioners are a bunch of young, terribly biased journalists who tend to treat politics and policy as some sort of game, even as…

"A lot of the liberal commentary about this week’s D.C. Circuit decision on Obamacare is hard to square with the way liberal judges have tended to approach these cases," notes Ramesh Ponnuru. "I have in mind the commentators who say the decision is 'corrupt,' its theory 'preposterous,' and the…

The twilight of the scandal-plagued Obama administration is upon us, and voters are faced with a real conundrum. Which of the failures of progressive governance should be confronted first? The Mideast is an even more blood-drenched goat rodeo than pessimists predicted. There are 50,000 illegal…

Musician Peter Himmelman, who is married to Bob Dylan's daughter Maria, has released a song taking the world to task for the reflexive attacks on Israel during the recent Gaza conflict. The song, produced for the StandWithUs Israel Fellowship, is called "Maximum Restraint":  

Over at the New York Times, Nate Cohn throws cold water on the notion that 2014 is going to be a landmark year for the GOP: 

Over at the New York Times, Nate Cohn throws cold water on the notion that 2016 is going to be a landmank year for the GOP: 

A new Politico poll shows that Hillary Clinton might have her work cut out for her if she wants to run for president on her foreign policy credentials: 

Yesterday, Senator Barbara Boxer had an op-ed at the Huffington Post about, among other related issues, the nonexistant threat that women will be denied birth control to treat medical conditions as a result of the Hobby Lobby decision. I personally know someone who works for a religious…

Someone I'm related to by marriage has written a superb column on the problem of media ignorance. The fact I'm not a disinterested observer shouldn't stop me from noting that the column and the event that prompted it has attracted some attention. The piece is pegged to a much discussed interview…

Republican primary challenges are all the rage these days. The GOP is reeling from House majority leader Eric Cantor’s loss last week in Virginia to David Brat, a relatively unknown economics professor who campaigned on local issues and against the GOP leadership’s flirtation with immigration…

The Washington Free Beacon, which has broken several scoops related to Hillary Clinton, has been banned from using the Clinton archive at the University of Arkansas:

Vox.com, the fancy new journalism "explainer" website founded by Ezra Klein, is up with a fresh take on the IRS scandal: "The IRS scandal shows the IRS needs a bigger budget." 

White House Secretary Jay Carney has said that the president only learned about the secret waiting lists at VA from the news. However, the Daily Caller has unearthed an Inspector General report proving that members of the administration were aware of the problems as far back as 2010:

Last week, George Will wrote a column about how progressive politics have fomented "rape culture" on college campuses. The column was not well received by some, or even, as a great many of the histrionic responses would indicate, well understood. I received the following press release yesterday,…

Earlier this week, a couple shot two Las Vegas police officers while saying "this is a revolution." They draped the police officers' bodies in Gadsden flags and swastikas, and evidence later emerged they had gone out to support rancher Cliven Bundy. They were also totally out-of-touch with reality,…

The Department of Veterans Affairs has admitted that 23 deaths are linked to “secret waiting lists” for health care and other malfeasance and mismanagement at the agency, though the actual total is probably significantly higher. So far, dozens of veterans have lost their lives. Not a single VA…

Yesterday, the Virginia DMV sent cease and desist letters to popular ridesharing services Uber and Lyft. In neighboring D.C., Uber has run into trouble with regulatory officials multiple times, but this latest move is surprising because Virginia generally has a much more sane regulatory…

It's no surprise New York Times editorials reflexively defend President Obama, but the decision to refocus the blame on Bowe Bergdahl's fellow soldiers for his apparent desertion is pretty astonishing. And yet, here we have the Times is fretting about "The Rush to Demonize Sgt. Bergdahl":

Brandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, sent a number of tweets last night speculating about the motives of American soldier Bowe Bergdahl who was captured by the Taliban. According to Friedman, Bergdahl may have wandered…

Appearing on the Today Show this morning, Chuck Todd reports that, in response to allegations of possible desertion by Bowe Bergdahl, White House sources are accusing the soldiers that served with him of "swift boating." Prior to the allegations made by those who served with Bergdahl, National…

Over at the Washington Post, Greg Sargent reprints President Obama's remarks from a fundraiser Thursday night. They're worth pondering, because the remarks amount to a pretty perfect distillation of Obama's recent fecklessness. Naturally, Sargent is encouraged because Obama is on board with the…

As is well established, I have been less than impressed by the efforts of media "fact checking" organizations. Of these organizations, however, PolitiFact deserves special consideration. Most recently, they were forced to declare Obama's oft-repeated "If you like your health care plan, you can keep…

A new poll suggests that finding employment, particularly for the long-term unemployed, continues to be a struggle for Americans. The poll, conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals, asked questions of 1,500 unemployed adult Americans last month.

Ben Sasse has just won a decisive victory in the Nebraska Republican Senate primary. As of this writing, the race has been called by the Associated Press and Sasse holds a 27 point lead over his nearest competitor, with 79 percent of precincts reporting. Having clinched the primary win, early…

The New York Times is up with a story today, "Tea Party Activists See Own Groups Among Washington Adversaries," about the supposed tension between national Tea Party groups and local Tea Party activists. The lede of the piece involves an anecdote -- and I use that term loosely, as it seems to bear…

Earlier this week, I reported on the absurdity of the open GOP Senate primary in Nebraska. Currently, outside groups affiliated with prominent Republican leaders are flooding the state with dishonest attack ads on the leading Republican candidate in the race, apparently motivated by petty…

Yesterday, I reported on how a super PAC -- Freedom Pioneers Action Network, started by Mitch McConnell's former campaign manager Justin Brasell -- was flooding Nebraska with outside money to take down Tea Party endorsed Senate candidate Ben Sasse. The primary is just a week away and the Sasse…

With the Nebraska Republican Senate primary a week from tomorrow, outside money is flowing into the state to take down the race's frontrunner, Midland University president Ben Sasse. And the provenance of the money attacking Sasse is especially curious--a super PAC with strong ties to senate…

The Washington Examiner is up with a five part special report on "the rise and current decline of organized labor in America: How unions lost touch with the workplace and their own members." It's authored by Sean Higgins, one of the best reporters on the labor beat. Union politics can be…

The Mackinac Center is reporting that the Michigan SEIU has lost more than 80 percent of its members after Michigan passed a right-to-work law. The hemorrhaging membership is the result of the law ending an appalling extortion racket that siphoned taxpayer money to the union and forced thousands of…

Nebraska Senate candidate Ben Sasse has been declared "Obamacare's Nebraska Nemesis,"  and in a new ad Sasse explains why he's personally invested in repealing the law. In 2007, his wife Melissa had an aneurysm followed by an arduous recovery, which left his family with $160,000 in medical bills.…

As far as political odd couples go, it doesn't get any odder than Sarah Palin and Jon Stewart. However, the two have come together to help veterans and have cut an ad in support of ACP AdvisorNet, which helps vets get jobs. ACP AdvisorNet is an innovative idea -- it's a virtual community service…

In a surprising move, the influential Tea Party group FreedomWorks has withdrawn its endorsement of former Nebraska state treasurer Shane Osborn and is now endorsing former Bush administration official and Midland College president Ben Sasse in the GOP Senate primary. According to a statement from…

Nebraska Senate Candidate Shane Osborn is a former Navy Lieutenant Commander who was flying a reconnaissance mission in April of 2001 when the EP-3 aircraft he was flying was struck by a Chinese fighter plane. Osborn managed to land the plane safely, but in Chinese territory. This sparked the first…

For sometime now, even figures that are politically sympathetic to Paul Krugman have been lamenting his abandonment of intellectual rigor and his seeming inability to debate in good faith. At times it seems the only real function Paul Krugman serves any more is, to borrow one of President Obama's…

At Slate, Dave Weigel recently reported that the Democrats have been so successful at demonizing the Koch brothers that party fundraising emails mentioning the Kochs can raise three times as much as the emails that don't. However, attacking the Kochs may not be all that motivating to anyone outside…

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is mad as hell, and it’s not going to take it anymore. This is the third election cycle in a row where incumbent Republicans and the NRSC’s hand-picked candidates have faced stiff primary challenges funded by Tea Party groups. No less than Senate…

The Omaha World-Herald has two big stories up today that might impact the hotly contested Nebraska Republican Senate primary between former Bush administration official and Midland College president Ben Sasse and former state treasurer Shane Osborn. 

Thursday, the Washington Post published a piece titled "The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers."

In the latest issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, which went online early this morning, I have an article about the Nebraska Senate race. In a nutshell, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is trying to give a boost to one of the candidates due to some disagreements with outside conservative…

On May 18, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, will be Barnard College's commencement speaker and will receive the Barnard medal of distinction, the college’s highest honor.

The conventional wisdom in Tinseltown is that the biggest Oscar snub of the year went to Robert Redford, who failed to get a Best Actor nod. The Hollywood legend delivered a highly praised and mostly wordless performance of a man fighting for his life on a sinking boat in All Is Lost. But much…

On December 20, Cover Oregon—one of 14 state-based Obamacare insurance exchanges—began robocalling all Oregonians who had attempted to get health coverage through the state’s new marketplace. “If you haven’t heard from us by December 23, it is unlikely your application will be processed for…

When Anders Breivik went on his shooting rampage in Norway in 2011, he left behind a curious and lengthy manifesto identifying himself as Christian with zionist sympathies. The media focused narrowly on his pro-Israel Christian views when discussing his motivation, even though the addled manifesto…

The Army’s venerable Reserve Officer Training Corps program is finally getting rebooted.

There hasn't been a lot of polling in the Nebraska Republican Senate primary so far, though the four way contest to succeed retiring senator Mike Johanns has been heating up. Today, ConservativeIntel released its poll of Nebraska showing that Shane Osborn and Ben Sasse are in a dead heat:

There hasn't been a lot of polling in the Nebraska's Republican senate primary so far, though the four way contest to succeed retiring senator Mike Johanns has been heating up. Today, ConservativeIntel released its poll of Nebraska showing that Shane Osborn and Ben Sasse are in a dead heat:

Brooklyn

A provision tucked away in a 2008 bill allocated $20 million to create an office at the USDA to inspect facilities that process catfish. Seafood inspections have traditionally been done by the Food and Drug Administration—and if you're wondering why one species of fish needs to be inspected by two…

Following today's annual March For Life in Washington, D.C., Fox News's Brit Hume appeared on Special Report this evening and delivered some stirring remarks about the ongoing travesty of legalized abortion:

Yesterday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported on the New York City human rights commission's dubious case against seven business owners in the Hasidic community Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The commission alleged that these Jewish stores were guilty of religious and sexual discrimination for posting dress…

The New York City human rights commission is putting seven Jewish business owners on trial tomorrow for discrimination in the heavily Hasidic neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Orthodox Jewish business owners' supposed crime? Posting a dress code in storefront windows: 

USA Today reports that in much of the country consumers don't even have the option of purchasing an affordable "bronze plan" -- the cheapest tier of insurance available on the federal exchange:

With all due respect to General David Petraeus, the most influential strategist of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may turn out to be Erik Prince. The fact that Prince has had a huge impact on how the U.S. military operates isn’t necessarily a compliment. The former Navy SEAL is the founder of…

My father emailed out this vignette about Pearl Harbor. After 72-years, the event remains something of an abstraction, but I mark the occasion a bit more solemnly than most. Had a plane landed a few dozen feet more to the left, I might not exist:

As Congress moves ahead with the farm bill -- legislation that has historically been full of (figurative) pork -- there's one really obvious measure that needs to be eliminated. A new program that will require that catfish be monitored by the Department of Agriculture. Catfish, like all fish…

For about a decade now, Jeff Bezos has been swallowing an ever larger percentage of my household’s income. In addition to our buying everything from dish soap to movies online, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com will no doubt be pleased to learn that my wife and I recently started receiving the…

In last week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, I wrote "The Media Kowtow" a feature about how "a hugely influential portion of the American media has vacillated between openly admiring the Chinese government and providing a forum for its apologists." A large part of that story is how China has wooed…

Last week, after the President started receiving a torrent of criticism over his broken promise that Americans who wanted to could keep their health insurance plan under Obamacare, I wrote an item asking the question "Will PolitiFact Ever Correct Its Biggest Obamacare Error?" I noted that the fact…

PolitiFact has a pretty terrible and rather partisan history of Obamacare fact checks. However, there's one, in particular, about Obamacare that remains especially puzzling. It's the "half-true" rating the organization gave when President Obama promised that, If you like your health insurance, you…

The fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy is nearly upon us, so one would expect America's public intellectuals are gearing up to present a series of sober and illuminating reflections about the tragedy's cultural and political legacy.

On September 20, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed strict new limits on emissions from coal-fired power plants. Energy industry critics, along with a number of influential unions, were quick to decry them. The regulations would limit carbon emissions for new coal plants to 1,100 pounds…

As soon as I heard about the Navy Yard shooting in Washington D.C. this week I was sickened and appalled. I lived in that neighborhood for over a decade, and coming from a military family, I used venture on to Navy Yard a few times a month to do my banking at the Navy Federal Credit Union branch. I…

A new USA Today/Pew poll on Obamacare is out today. According to the fine print on the poll, "Three years after President Obama signed his signature health care overhaul, Americans are as negative toward it as they have ever been, and disapproval of the president on the issue has reached a new…

On August 22, the New Mexico supreme court unanimously ruled that a wedding photographer broke the law by refusing to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. While gay rights advocates are celebrating this latest in a string of legal and political victories, the outcome of Elane Photography v.…

On August 15, 2012, at 10:46 a.m.—one year ago this week—Floyd Lee Corkins entered the lobby of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. He was carrying a backpack that contained 15 Chick-fil-A -sandwiches, a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, and 100 rounds of ammunition. Corkins has since pleaded…

Today is the one year anniversary of the Family Research Council shooting, when an armed gunman unhappy with the organization's stance on gay issues entered its building in downtown Washington D.C. with the intent of killing everyone in the building. The gunman shot FRC's security guard, Leo…

Last Friday, I critiqued a piece by Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan for inaccurately summarizing the media coverage of the IRS scandal. I encourage you to read both pieces, but in a nutshell Nyhan was arguing that the media had failed to report on new developments since the scandal…

Over at the Columbia Journalism Review, political scientist Brendan Nyhan has a piece dismissing the IRS scandal out-of-hand and gently scolding the media for for acting irresponsibly in their coverage. You get the thrust in the first two paragraphs:

In Sioux City, Iowa, a local pastor is asking for the removal of a newly appointed member of the city's human rights commission. The city council appointed Scott Raasch to the commission, which adjudicates discrimination complaints, on July 8. However, the Rev. Cary Gordon, executive pastor of…

When Prohibition ended in 1933, Pennsylvania governor Gifford Pinchot promised to make purchasing alcohol “as inconvenient and expensive as possible.” To this day, Pennsylvania has some of the most stringent—and absurd—liquor laws in the country. Beer and wine can’t be sold in grocery stores, and…

Fremont, Nebr.

On May 21, liberal columnists Jonathan Capehart and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo were seen heading into the West Wing for a meeting. Just a few hours earlier, it had been reported that Lois Lerner, the bureaucrat at the center of the IRS scandal, would…

The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University is out with a new study on media fact checkers, and unsurprisingly, their results suggest that PolitiFact has it out for Republicans. Dylan Byers at Politico summarized CMPA's findings:

After the IRS revealed it had wrongly targeted hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups, the agency claimed that the misconduct was limited to "low-level employees" in its Cincinnati office. Yesterday, the attorney for Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS’s tax-exempt organizations division, told…

Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for…

Houston

Since the IRS admitted it improperly targeted conservative and Tea Party groups last Friday, journalists have worked tirelessly to expose the full extent of the growing scandal.

Washington is buzzing about the expose this morning by ABC News' Jonathan Karl showing that the White House's Benghazi talking points underwent 12 different revisions and were scrubbed of references to terrorism. The report builds on and confirms the reporting by The Weekly Standard's Stephen…

Philadelphia

As was expected, the Toomey-Manchin gun control amendment to expand background checks for gun purchases failed to get the required 60 votes in the Senate this afternoon. The measure failed 56-44, with four Republicans voting for it -- John McCain, R-Ariz.; Mark Kirk, R-Ill.;  Susan Collins,…

Last month, I reported that Obamacare had stirred up serious buyers remorse among unions who were discovering the law was driving up insurance costs, wreaking havoc with contractual negotiations, and making union jobs less competitive. While Big Labor is lobbying for special Obamacare subsidies and…

The latest round of Pulitzer Prizes is set to be announced this afternoon, and two things can be said about the eventual winners: Some recipents will be more deserving than others, and there will be an excess of self-congratulation. So this is as good a time as any to point you toward WEEKLY…

On March 18, 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a speech on race in America at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center. Though many praised the president for addressing the thorny topic, it’s worth recalling Obama was essentially forced into giving the speech after refusing to distance…

"I heard [Obama] say, ‘If you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ ” John Wilhelm, chairman of Unite Here Health, representing 260,000 union workers, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “If I’m wrong, and the president does not intend to keep his word, I would have severe second thoughts…

On February 17, some 35,000 people showed up for a march outside the White House to protest construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The environmental lobby is going all out to stop the pipeline, which will transport oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries near Houston. In its ongoing…

Federal Times has an alarming report on the state of the federal pension system. Though it's gone largely unnoticed, like nearly every other government-funded pension plan in the country, the unfunded liabilities of federal pensions have increased dramatically over the last couple of years:

Tony Tomelden never wanted to be a First Amendment crusader. A lifelong resident of Washington, D.C., he’s a working-class guy in a town that’s consumed by politics. He runs a bar called The Pug. And it’s not just any bar, it’s the best bar in the city. That may be my opinion, but Googling the…

I think it's fair to say that pro-life activists could not have conceived of a parody of the pro-choice movement this on target—and yet this is an actual ad produced by the Center for Reproductive Rights:

Earlier today, I wrote a lengthy critique pointing out the inconvenient fact that PolitiFact's Lie of the Year -- "The Romney campaign's ad on Jeeps made in China" -- turns out to be true. It involves a lot of complicated back and forth, so I encouage you to read that post if you're not familiar…

Last month, PolitiFact selected its "Lie of the Year." Given PolitiFact's dubious record of singling out Republicans for lying far more often than Democrats, you probably could have guessed the winner of this particular sweepstakes was a Mitt Romney campaign ad:

Yesterday, I criticized a dubious report that Mother Jones did on gun violence. You can read the Mother Jones article here, but at issue was Mother Jones's bold conclusion:

In response to last week's massacre in Connecticut, Mother Jones has put together a "study" on mass shootings that makes a pretty bold claim:

There have been a lot of ill considered articles following the heinous grade school shooting in Connecticut, and I'm afraid this article in the Huffington Post is no exception. The headline, "The Gun Lobby: Why The NRA Is The Baddest Force In Politics," more or less sets the tone. Here's how the…

After writing some impassioned pleas in favor of gun control after the Aurora shooting this summer, Adam Gopnik weighs in on the topic again in the New Yorker. There may be reasons to argue in favor of gun control, but a big problem for those in favor of curbing gun rights is that they often…

Over at Huffington Post, Dan Froomkin has an interview with Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein titled, "How the Mainstream Press Bungled the Single Biggest Story of the 2012 Campaign." It turns out, the single biggest story the media ignored is the fact that Republicans lying liars, to paraphrase the…

The Falkland Islands seem to be popping up in the news a lot in the last month. There was the recent death of Sir Rex Hunt—the governor of the territory during the Argentine invasion—and his obituary must be read to be believed. It's like something straight out of an Evelyn Waugh novel.

Yesterday, Hostess announced that it would be forced to liquidate if it could not get striking employees to return to full production as of today. Among many pro-labor types, this was dismissed as yet another negotiating ploy by management. It wasn't. Hostess is laying off 18,500 workers and…

As people in New York were suffering and hospitals were being evacuated, the New York Times editorial page seized the occasion to score political points: “Disaster coordination is one of the most vital functions of ‘big government,’ which is why Mitt Romney wants to eliminate it.” This was…

Today, Claudia Rosett goes over the timeline following the Benghazi attacks and points to one of the enduring mysteries: Where was the President while the attack was happening?:

When GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced on August 11 that he had selected Paul Ryan as his running mate, the consensus was that he had made a daring choice with a huge risk: being demagogued on Medicare cuts.

Since I've become a pretty outspoken critic of "fact checking", I often get asked if there's any media fact checking efforts I approve of. The short answer is no, not really.

A few weeks ago, I attended a panel discussion at the National Press Club where the heads of all of the major media 'fact checking' organizations participated. (I wrote about the event here.)

A few weeks ago, I inveighed against the increasingly Orwellian psychological tactics being employed by the Obama campaign. It didn't seem like things could get much worse than asking you to upload photos of your personal pledges to the president, and smart phone apps that show maps telling you the…

Via Sean Higgins, the Washington Post has a doozy of a story this morning about the travails of Jesse Jackson Jr. who is battling accusations of corruption as well as dealing with issues related to mental illness. While the Post's article carries a colorless headline, the revelations contained…

The reviews are in from the Obama campaign's ad attempting to make Big Bird a campaign issue this morning, and ouch. Naturally, the Romney campaign has blasted out a smattering of headlines and damning tweets about it from reporters. Even the liberal blog Firedoglake ran with "Obama Ad About Big…

The Obama campaign is out this morning with a sarcastic ad all about Big Bird, mocking Romney for wanting to eliminate the federal subsidy for PBS. The press is already pointing out the Obama campaign is playing "small ball" in the wake of Obama's disastrous debate performance, even as Romney has…

Yesterday, at a rally in Wisconsin, a combative Obama characterized Romney's comments at the debate this way:

Denver

Denver

Denver

Bill Clinton’s address to the Democratic convention is widely seen as a pivotal moment in President Obama’s reelection campaign. It was an undeniably powerful speech, but particularly noteworthy were his remarks about the popular and bipartisan 1996 welfare reform Clinton himself signed into law.…

Yesterday, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. the heads of all of the major media "fact checking" organizations convened for a panel discussion. On the panel were PolitiFact editor Bill Adair, Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler, the Associated Press's Jim Drinkard, and it was…

So if you're politically attuned and on Twitter, you've probably seen these disturbing photos of Obama supporters pledging allegiance to the president of the United States. Supporters write on their hands some value or thought that is allegedly embodied by the Obama campaign. It's the kind of thing…

As much as it's a distraction from some inartful comments Mitt Romney made about taxes, perhaps the media might spend sometime explaining why a Justice Department official just resigned over over a report on the Fast and Furious scandal that led to the death of a border patrol agent:

Buried in a Los Angeles Times report is this nugget:

Yesterday the Obama made a pointed critique of Mitt Romney suggesting that he was unprepared to handle foreign policy because he "shoots first, aims later." This Foreign Policy report of the President trying to walk back his strong statement on Egypt yesterday ought to give pause to anyone who took…

As the Chicago Teachers Union strike heads into day three, perhaps you should get to know the the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, Karen Lewis. She's the one currently demanding the nation's highest paid teachers get a 19 percent pay increase. I should mention that despite Lewis being an…

Over at Red State, a blogger makes a note of an incredible Washington Post fact checker column yesterday. The column ostensibly fact checked a series of claims made by pro-life groups criticizing Obama on his abortion record. I don't want to get into all of the back and forth because it involves…

Georgia Congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis just gave a speech at the Democratic convention attacking voter ID laws. A recent New York Times/CBS News/Quinnipac poll asked voters about voter ID laws in three key swing states and found the following result:

The Associated Press ran a fact check on Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic convention last night that contained the following section:

Charlotte

Start counting Pinocchios. Sandra Fluke began her speech at the Democratic National Convention tonight by claiming that there were no women on the congressional panel on religious liberty that she was turned away from testifying at. Here's what she said:

Here's video of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose ability to tell the truth has been challenged in recent days, being interviewed by CNN. She insists that "there wasn't any discord" during the now infamous voice vote at the convention today over whether the platform language would…

CHARLOTTE—It's been raining every afternoon here during the Democratic convention, but from talking to the locals here in Carolina, short afternoon showers are pretty common this time of year. One imagines that way back when Democrats booked the 74,000 seat Bank of America stadium for Obama's…

Charlotte

Here's the hottest petition on Change.org—and the Facebook group has 22,000 members and growing:

Dave Weigel, who's already in Charlotte for the Democratic convention, is checking out the swag available and came across this Obama calendar being sold. He posted some photos of the calendar over at Slate, and I encourage you to take a look. To be clear this is not official campaign merchandise,…

If you want a near perfect encapsulation of how the Obama campaign is leaning on incompetent partisans masquerading as "independent" media fact checking organizations to do their dirty work, I strongly encourage you to read today's article in the New York Times, "Obama Team Sharpens Attacks on…

Last night, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan told the Republican convention, "College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”

Spirit of America is a wonderful charity that helps provide equipment—or whatever else is needed—to help American soldiers complete their mission in Afghanistan. We last wrote about their successful campaign to raise money to get cleft palate surgery for two Afghan children, and WEEKLY STANDARD…

Over at Harper's, Jack Hitt has filed a report from the RNC convention, "A Troubling Chant on the Convention Floor." According to Hitt, nativist Republican delegates started chanting "USA! USA!" in response to a heavily accented speaker from Puerto Rico. Of course, racism had nothing to do with it,…

Yesterday, I wrote a lengthy blog post taking PolitiFact to task for their shamelessly skewed "fact checks" on the Romney-Ryan health care plans. And as it happens, I woke up today and National Review has an excellent editorial on the same topic. It's worth reading in full, but this part was as…

Today brings us a Bloomberg column from Michael Tackett, "Hero Reagan’s Compromise Would Collide With Tea Party Certitude." It's rather unfortunate this particular talking point keeps making the rounds, as it requires arguing alternate history. Further, asserting that Ronald Reagan is significantly…

Perhaps if we all ignore PolitiFact, they'll go away. But for the time being, the supposedly independent organization continues to crank out skewed and partisan work. There's no better example of this than the the current jihad the "fact checking" organization is waging against the Romney-Ryan…

Philadelphia

Blogger Tom Maguire flags this passage in yesterday's New York Times:

This is an actual article from GQ. There's no point in reading it, because the headline says it all:

It was reported this morning that weekly jobless claims are up for the second straight week, and this week's unexpected increase exceeded analysts' expectations. The numbers (372,000 jobless claims last week) don't suggest that the next unemployment report will be awful, but it's a safe bet that…

I know those of you masochistic enough to pay close attention to media fact checkers aren't going to be surprised by this, but Media Trackers, a nonpartisan watchdog, combed through the personal Twitter feed of PolitiFact Ohio writer Tom Feran and found he's a pretty vocal liberal. You can review…

Yesterday, after witnessing Paul Ryan make an electrifying campaign stop in Colorado, I made the case that his campaign skills and force of personality could turn the election. Well, I stress again that it's too early to get cocky, and Ryan still has a lot to prove. But when campaigns are clicking,…

The Associated Press came out with a lengthy and extremely tendentious "fact check" regarding the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate. I am on record as deploring the media fact checking phenomenon in pretty strong and detailed terms. And this fact check was so…

Lakewood, Colorado

Philadelphia

The Obama campaign is known for leveraging its robust online following for all it's worth -- even when it appears to cross the line, such as in 2008 when the campaign accepted untraceable donations over the internet. More recently, the campaign released a mobile app that allows you to see which of…

The Chick-fil-A controversy has no doubt been polarizing in some corners of the country, but the undeniable success of yesterday's nationwide rally to support the fast food chain means we're likely to remember August 1, 2012 as Silent Majority Day.

Over at National Review Online, George Mason law professor Eric R. Claeys has a very interesting and lengthy piece on how constitutionalists should view Obamacare after the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the law:

Now that—perish the thought—it looks increasingly possible that Barack Obama might lose in November, it's only natural that speculation about Democratic possibilities for 2016 is starting to ramp up. Yes, there's the obvious caveat that the Democratic nomination is probably Hillary Clinton's for…

Last week, California taxpayers, already accustomed to economic doom and gloom, received an astonishing piece of bad news. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) had posted a 1 percent return on its investments over the previous year. The California State Teachers’ Retirement…

Yesterday, Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod claimed that the campaign wasn't worried about the damage being done by the president's "you didn't build that" remarks. Today, Gallup notes the following:

It's no secret that things are not going well for the Obama campaign. The President has been forced to veer to the left on gay marriage, immigration and a host of issues to shore up his base. And even as unemployment is ticking ominously upward, gaffes and ill thought out statements on the…

Last week, reports emerged that Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy had condemned gay marriage. It's no secret that the company is run by devout Christians, but this still caused an uproar. Boston's mayor threatened to deny the company business permits, celebrities condemned the company, and the…

From the Times's write-up of the poll:

Here's how the Los Angeles Times handled the Romney campaign's critique of Obama's suggestion that business owners "didn't build" their companies:

Just when you thought the state of California couldn't possibly receive any more bad economic news:

My wife called me from the pediatrician’s office to tell me they were concerned our youngest daughter might have cancer. A short while before, I’d been playing with her when I’d noticed a small lump on her neck. Her annual check-up was approaching, and I told my wife to ask about it. There was much…

The Wall Street Journal published a stunning story this morning, reporting that new analysis shows union political spending is about four times higher than previously thought. Moreover, union political spending now exceeds direct donations: 

Following the president's push for a tax increase earlier today, GOP super PAC American Crossroads is blasting out this Bloomberg article from last month noting that Obama's proposal wouldn't just be a tax on wealthy individuals -- it would be tantamount to a pretty significant tax on businesses as…

Following last week's bipartisan vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for withholding details about the Fast and Furious scandal, more revelations keep coming, well, fast and furious. Senator Chuck Grassley recently released a memo that shows that details of the Fast and Furious…

The recent congressional ire over the Obama administration's suspiciously convenient national security leaks reminded me of an unusual bit of political trivia: Defense Secretary -- and prior to that, CIA head -- Leon Panetta is the prime suspect in one of the most notorious political leaks of all…

Here's a fun exercise in compare and contrast. Here's Michael Barone's latest column:

The Romney camp sends out a list of today's headlines. It's just their way of saying good luck with that economic speech tomorrow -- it sure looks like the president is going to need it:

I really don't know where the editors at Politico get off suggesting that the Washington Post and New York Times might be out to get Mitt Romney. I mean, who wouldn't knock on doors in La Jolla, California and write a politically loaded story where his neighbors sound off with quotes like this:

While all eyes were on Wisconsin last night, few people noticed that public sector unions were also being targeted in California last night. Residents of both San Diego and San Jose voted to rein in exorbitant public employee retirement packages by huge margins:

Earlier this year, I wrote a detailed chronicle of Portland, Oregon's quest to make San Francisco look like a relative bastion of political sanity. Well, the hits keep on coming. The city is now proposing to protect the identities of citizens who rat out neighbors who fail to compost properly: 

If you haven't already, go ahead and add Mark Steyn's latest column to your weekend reading assignments. This might be the ur-Steyn column in that the effervescent and witty prose makes the message that we are well and truly doomed palatable; it explains European politics in a concise and…

In case you missed it, in her column today Maureen Dowd is starting to wonder, is Obama necessary?:

Remember folks, Mitt Romney is an out of touch rich guy who just can't relate to the struggles of ordinary Americans:

This morning Politico made the worst mistake a mainstream media outlet can make—acknowledging the blindingly obvious truth there is a pronounced media bias against Republicans, specifically Mitt Romney. Predictably, there has been some circling of the wagons. Woe be unto us if the the defenseless…

Politico's Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen have a story this morning that looks at media coverage of the candidates in the election thus far, "To GOP, blatant bias in vetting":

Is it possible for New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg to be considered both a fascist and a national laughingstock? We're about to find out:

Spirit of America is a fantastic charity that raises money to help provide whatever American troops overseas need to complete their mission. Recently, they raised the funds necessary to pay for the cleft palate surgeries of two Afghan children at the request of U.S. special operations soldiers.

After the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sparked national outrage by telling Boeing that it could not open a factory in a right-to-work state, there's little evidence that the board has been chastened. The latest news is that a recent decision to allow unions to hold "quickie" elections to…

The Washington Post's Mitt Romney was a teenage bully story has caused a lot of media thumbsucking today. However, questions about the story itself keep emerging. The Post acknowledges that one of the major sources for the story was an Obama campaign volunteer in 2008. Beyond that, the paper's been…

Bloomberg reports that Biden went to Obama yesterday morning to apologize for painting him into a corner on gay marriage:

The president has already admitted Biden 'got out a little bit over his skis,' on the issue. But Politico reports that the White House is fuming that Biden's errant remarks in support of gay marriage forced the president's hand. Not only that, Biden's getting the credit for the president's change…

Capital New York quotes Jon Cooper, a gay Obama bundler, on the president's decision to renounce his opposition to gay marriage:

Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, releases his new book The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise today. As you may have guessed from the title, the book is sort of the inverse version of The Road to Serfdom. Given all that is going on…

Talks between the Newspaper Guild of New York and the New York Times have been heated. In late March, the union forced the paper to drop its proposal to extend the workweek at the Times to 40 hours​—​any work over 35 hours and the paper has to pay overtime. The Times’s management bitterly noted…

"The value of an industry is inversely proportional to the number of awards it gives itself,” humorist and blogger David Burge recently quipped. Naturally, the occasion for this remark was the announcement of the 2012 Pulitzer Prizes. While the Pulitzer committee did recognize some worthy…

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren finds herself in a bit of a quandary. In the mid-90s there was a minor kerfuffle over the lack of diversity on Harvard Law's teaching staff. At the time, 54 of Harvard Law's 71 professors were white males. There was not a single minority female on…

In today's New York Post, Benjamin Sasse and Charles Hurt report that the White House is again playing politics with Medicare. Obamacare guts Medicare Advantage, the popular market-based program to get Medicare coverage. (And it's very popular -- the program had 5.3 million enrollees in 2003, and…

Any hope that the media might fairly and responsibly cover the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin was effectively doomed the moment Al Sharpton descended on Sanford, Florida, and started holding rallies with the victim’s family. Recall that Sharpton once said of Clarence Thomas’s…

I don't know why GOP candidates haven't made more out of the ongoing investigation into the Fast and Furious scandal, but it looks like Ted Cruz, who's running for a Senate seat in Texas, is looking to make an issue out of it:

Maureen Dowd weighs in today to decry the "Phony Mommy Wars" over Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen's attack on Ann Romney. I know what you're thinking: If anyone is qualified to call a cancer-survivor "phony" for her decision to stay at home and raise five boys—it's the author of Are Men…

The Romney campaign is none too happy with PolitiFact at the moment, issuing a blistering response to a recent fact checking item on a campaign talking point. As a response to Democrats' "war on women" rehetoric, the presumed GOP presidential nominee's press secretary pointed out that under Obama's…

Last year, in an article for THE WEEKLY STANDARD I discussed the growing number of existential threats to unions. One of the major challenges facing unions is that their multi-employer pension plans are deep in the hole, and the problems were being masked by accounting standards that allowed them…

Last year, in an article for THE WEEKLY STANDARD I discussed the growing number of existential threats to unions. One of the major challenges facing unions is that their multi-employer pension plans are deep in the hole, and the problems were being masked by accounting standards that allowed them…

Robert Samuelson has a strong column today on how one of the biggest obstacles to Social Security reform might be psychological. Though FDR's original vision for the program was a "contributory pension plan" and most Americans are still under the the impression that this is what it is, the reality…

After weeks of high gas prices, President Obama is on the defensive about his energy policy. On March 15, he justified his administration’s high-profile green energy failures by invoking a predecessor’s alleged skepticism of innovations: “Rutherford B. Hayes reportedly said about the telephone:…

Over at Washington Monthly, Kathleen Geier writes about how The Ethicist columnist at the New York Times magazine is promoting an essay contest where readers argue that it is, in fact, ethical to continue eating meat. Only it seems that Geier is not amused about who is judging the contest:

Last week, the New York Times reported that “labor leaders say they will mount their biggest campaign effort, with far more union members than ever before—at least 400,000, they say—knocking on voters’ doors to counter the well-endowed ‘super-PACs’ backing Republicans.”

The Energy Information Administration—a federal agency—just released a report titled, "Sales of Fossil Fuels Produced on Federal and Indian Lands, FY 2003 Through FY 2011." The Institute for Energy Research summarizes the report's major findings:

Taken at a gas station within walking distance of the White House:

New York Times: "President Pushes to Add More Credits for Hybrids"

Boston Globe: "Brown’s resurgence in polls has shaken some of party’s confidence in Warren"

Philip Klein: "Don't underestimate Romney's Virginia win"

Michael Barone: "Obama kicks can down road on Iran, entitlements"

It's understandable if you who haven't jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, but please know that it's good for one thing. The conversational, off-the-cuff nature of medium is very good at exposing the limits of one's knowledge. Case in point: Here's Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas reacting to Rick…

John Yoo: "Obama's Contraception Mandate Won't Survive Strict Scrutiny"

Allahpundit: "Barbara Bush: Let’s face it, this is the worst campaign ever"

Jonathan Collegio: "Who’s the Biggest ‘Outside Group’ in the 2012 Elections? Big Labor"

Ricochet: "Newt Explains the Facts to David Gregory"

I keep expecting America’s trendsetters to get over Portland, Oregon, but the odes to the City of Roses just keep on coming. The Portland tourism board could compile an impressive anthology of the New York Times’s recent coverage of the city, most of which couldn’t be more fawning if it were…

Washington Free Beacon: "Veteran of the Charlie Sheen media campaign joins Team Obama"

Politico: "Newt Gingrich: Fire Steven Chu over gas price remarks"

James Lileks: "The Toll"

Ross Douthat: "What Mitt Lost While He Won"

Sean Trende: "Odds of a Brokered Convention Are Increasing"

Oh boy. House Republicans should do their best to get Holder in front of a camera whenever they can. He's really his own worst enemy:

The Guardian has a fascinating piece on "The Arab world's first ladies of oppression," and how the wives of Arab dictators have served as objects of scorn in the Arab spring: 

New York Times: "Romney Claims Victory in Michigan and Arizona"

Derek Thompson: "The Collapse of Print Advertising in 1 Graph"

In this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD I have a long feature on how America's hipster theme park Portland, Oregon, destroyed its infrastructure and jobs base in order to indulge a bizarre obsession with public transportation and other cultural fetishes. Among other things, I noted that the…

The Hill: "TransCanada Corp. to begin construction of Keystone pipeline"

This may come as a shock to many pollsters and much of the press corps, but public opinion is a little more complicated than randomly calling 1,000 Americans, asking them a dubiously worded question about a complex political issue, and reporting the aggregate results.

Nate Silver: "The G.O.P.’s Fuzzy Delegate Math"

Washington Post: "Rick Santorum winning more support from Republican women"

Our old friend and Washington Free Beacon editor Matt Continetti is arguing persuasively that Obama's 2012 campaign apparatus is pretty rusty:

WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Jeffrey Anderson chats with Wall Street Journal about Rick Santorum's record, and makes the case that Santorum was one of the most fiscally conservative Republicans in the Senate. Watch it here:

Tom Maguire: "Politico Sends In The Clowns"

Sharyl Attkisson: "Second gun used in ICE agent murder linked to ATF undercover operation"

Big Journalism: "OWS Letter to the Editor in USA Today: We Will Storm Wall Street With Guns"

Rich Lowry: "The Effrontery of Rick Santorum"

New York Times: "Peter Gleick Admits to Deception in Obtaining Heartland Climate Files"

Politico: "Worry over Mitt Romney sparks talk of Tampa"

The Hill: "Paul Ryan: Obama contraception ruling reveals ‘paternalistic, arrogant’ attitude"

Yuval Levin: "White House: Freedom is Dangerous and Wrong"

Business Insider: "Ron Paul Is Secretly Taking Over The GOP — And It's Driving People Insane"

John Merline: "Obama Budgets Show Weak Recovery Behind Big Deficits"

Before I explain why PolitiFact is once again being deliberately misleading, grossly incompetent, or some hellbroth of these distinguishing characteristics, you'll have bear with me. Part of the reason PolitiFact gets away with being so shoddy is that it counts on its readers believing that it can…

BuzzFeed: "Is Romney Going To Run Out Of Money?"

Politico: "Payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits: Congress nears deal"

Associated Press: "US bishops fight birth control deal"

Hot Air: "No money for D.C. voucher program in Obama’s gigantic new budget. Meanwhile, White House to boost subsidies for Chevy Volt"

The New York Times: "In his new budget blueprint, President Obama is proposing to tax dividends of the wealthiest taxpayers as ordinary income subject to their top income-tax rate"

Tom Maguire: "Their gist seems to be that the 'less government' crowd is a bunch of hypocrites, but there is a glaring problem with their numbers."

Martin Taylor, chairman of Syngenta and a former chief executive of Barclays, has written a thought provoking article about the perilous state of the European economy in the Financial Times. He observes that while most of the world is quick to blame bankers, the problem is also that European…

The Wall Street Journal: "Santorum Gets Spirited Reception at CPAC"

Mitt Romney's speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference today was a step in the right direction for the candidate on many levels. He tacitly acknowledged that he wasn't steeped in conservative ideology at the same time he paid homage to it, noting that growing up he would have mistaken…

Jake Tapper: "Policy and Politics of Contraception Rule Fiercely Debated Within White House"

Politico: "Joe Biden, Bill Daley warned of contraceptive backlash"

ABC News: "Senate Democrats Say Obama ‘Reinforced’ His Stance on Contraception Mandate at Democratic Retreat"

New York Times: "Obama Tries to Ease Ire on Contraception Rule"

I've already written at length on the major media's "fact checkers" and, alas, it's a never ending game of whack-a-mole to point out the absurdity of the arguments employed by these self-appointed guardians of veracity.

Michael Barone: "A good night for Rick Santorum"

Byron York: "Santorum good day could scramble race again"

Ramesh Ponnuru: "Obama Health Rule an Affront to Religious Groups"

Margie Omero: "Questioning the Question Order in the Latest Horserace Poll"

At National Review, Quin Hillyer argues that conservatives should be taking a hard look at Rick Santorum because he's "a true conservative and he can win." In particular, Hillyer argues Santorum's personal appeal is underrated and could prove decisive when it comes to electability:

The Hill: "Dick Armey: Gingrich campaign turned into 'first-rate vendetta' against Romney"

Last Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder was called to testify before Congress. His attitude toward  his questioners was by any measure unbecoming of his office. At one point he actually demanded he be “given some credit” for his performance as attorney general. Though, bad as that outburst was,…

Yuval Levin & Ramesh Ponnuru: "Romney vs. Obamacare"

Ross Douthat: "Government and Its Rivals"

If you weren't able to watch today's congressional hearings with Attorney General Eric Holder on the Fast and Furious scandal, here's a taste of what it was like. Two American law enforcement agents are dead, and despite bearing a significant measure of responsibility, the Justice Department has…

Eric Holder is currently getting grilled on Capitol Hill over the Fast and Furious gun running scandal. But the family of slain border patrol agent Brian Terry isn't waiting around for the Attorney General to come clean about the role the government played in Terry's death:

Associated Press: "House votes to keep pay freezes for federal workers in place"

Real Clear Politics: "Dem Congressman: West 'Not Representative Of African-American Community'"

There's a very curious op-ed in The Los Angeles Times today by Rosa Brooks, who is identified as "a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and a fellow at the New America Foundation." She has a curious and disagreeable premise:

According to the Associated Press, Governor Mitch Daniels just signed legislation making Indiana a right-to-work state:

John McCormack already wrote a blog post below about Mitt Romney's unfortunate comment that he's "not concerned about the very poor," astutely noting that the candidate's remark "isn't merely tone-deaf, it's also un-conservative."

A week ago in the pages of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, I wrote about the special congressional election in Oregon's first congressional district. The Republican candidate, businessman Rob Cornilles, appeared to have forced Democrats into making millions in ad buys, suggesting it was close race. However,…

Phil Klein: " Romney aces Florida test"

Washington Examiner: "Holder's fantastical claim about 'Fast and Furious'"

A reporter for the Arizona Republic notes that the state's Republican legislature is set to outdo Wisconsin with their attempt to curb public employee unions. According to the report, the bill would:

Via Real Clear Politics, Democratic party spokesman Brad Woodhouse makes a bizarre assertion in response to Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus comparing Obama to the captain of a wrecked Italian cruise ship:

Today's Wall Street Journal takes a look at Bobby Jindal's education reform proposals and concludes that the Louisiana Governor's is actually making a serious attempt to challenge the public education monopoly:

BuzzFeed: "Not President Obama's Most Empathetic Moment"

Daily Caller: "DOJ dodges, won’t say if Holder knew ‘Fast and Furious’ gun killed border guard"

Buzzfeed: "Romney, Eyeing Blowout, Keeps Foot To Newt's Neck"

Lake Oswego, Oregon

Thomas Friedman, apparently trying to top his many previous attempts to convincingly demonstrate coherence is just beyond his grasp, opens his column today thusly:

At Forbes, David Shaywitz has a column on why excess medical regulation is harmful, and it's one of the best things I've read on the topic:

Jonah Goldberg: "Obama’s Vision for a Spartan America"

Bloomberg recently ran a great series on the challenges to expanding America's manufacturing sector that's worth reading in light of the president's State of the Union rhetoric on jobs. It opens with this distressing anecdote:

After Daily Caller blogger Matt Lewis eviscerated a harsh Reuters story on Florida senator Marco Rubio, the wire service was forced to make five corrections.

It's regularly been pointed out that the average compensation—that includes pay and benefits—for federal workers is now double the private sector average. Defenders of federal employees have routinely insisted that this is an unfair comparison. Well, Andrew Biggs, the former Social Security…

Michael Barone: " The JAX attax"

Washington Times: "Issa calls for second prosecutor to testify about ‘Fast and Furious’"

First Read: "Santorum hints at leaving FL before Tuesday primary"

Joel Kotkin: "The Last Patrician: Romney Falls From Favor as America Loses Faith in Old Money"

Michael Barone: "Lots of military; one sentence on Obamacare"

Obama's State of the Union might be most notable for what was not said. There were 44 words dedicated to health care reform. There was no mention of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka stimulus bill.

Fox Nation: "WHO'S GREEDY? Obama Gave 1% to Charity, Romney Gave 15%"

Jonah Goldberg: "Most Boring Guy Wins Most Boring Debate?"

The Hill: "Christie: Gingrich 'embarrassed' GOP"

Solyndra, the bankrupt solar panel firm at the center of the Obama administration's green energy loan program scandal, still owes U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. So why is it destroying millions of dollars in saleable assets? CBS San Francisco reports:

A lot of people are buzzing about this blog post by Tom Bruschino, assistant professor of history at the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Bruschino was contacted by PolitiFact and asked to weigh in on Mitt Romney's claim that "Our navy is smaller than it's…

Politico: "New York Rep. Maurice Hinchey to retire, sources say"

Rich Lowry: "‘Dude, Where’s My Lifeboat?’"

Washington Times: "Conservatives feud over Santorum endorsement"

CNN: "Poll: Obama tied with Romney & Paul in November showdowns"

USA Today: "Martin Luther King papers go online"

Fox News's Bret Baier tweets:

If in recent years it seems as if Newsweek has been descending into self-parody, it's still hard to imagine that this is real:

Newt Gingrich unveiled today what has to be one of the sillier ads of the campaign, accusing Mitt Romney of—quelle horreur!—speaking French:

CNN: "Romney back on top in new CNN national poll"

Buzzfeed flags this passage from Michael Hastings new book The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan. It seems that as a Presidential candidate visiting Iraq, Obama didn't exactly make enough time to welcome and thank the troops:

The Hill: "Poll: Romney slipping in South Carolina, holds just two-point lead over Gingrich"

Kevin WIlliamson: "Obama: Incompetent or Evil?"

Over at The Washington Examiner, Stephanie Hessler, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a former constitutional lawyer for the Senate Judiciary Committee, examines Obama's recent recess appointments. The appointments have been controversial because they didn't occur when the Senate was…

New York Times: "Advisers Work to Put Positive Spin on Romney’s Career in Corporate Buyouts"

Nate Silver: "Romney Looks Strong in South Carolina and Beyond"

The Associated Press:

Associated Press: "Romney sweeps NH to cement top status; Paul second"

ABC News: Romney's still the clear frontrunner in New Hampshire

Via the twitter feed of Lachlan Markay, somebody at the Post is either having some fun, unburdening their guilty conscience, or perhaps a little bit of both:

ABC News: "Supreme Court Hears Messy Texas Redistricting Case"

The Daily: "Liberal diatribe on the financial crisis and tea party needs reality check when it comes to austerity that wasn’t"

Just how fluid and crazy has this GOP primary been? Well, the latest poll from Public Policy Polling contains a startling development:

Washington Times: Tony Blankley, 1948-2012

Jake Tapper: "Rick Santorum Says by the Time He Had Campaign Cash, All the N.H. TV Time Was Bought Up"

Via the Washington Post:

Nate Silver: "Perry, Perry, Quite Contrary"

First Read: "Here come the attacks on Romney"

At National Review Online, Artur Davis takes a look at the electability of the GOP contenders after Iowa. The conventional wisdom is that this issue is a big advantage for Mitt Romney, but Davis isn't so sure that Santorum can't defy expectations:

Austin Ameican Statesman: "Perry stays in presidential race, says it 'wasn't a hard decision'"

James Pethokoukis: "January Surprise: Is Obama preparing a trillion-dollar, mass refinancing of mortgages?"

Ben Smith of BuzzFeed, formerly of Politico, drops this scoop:

James Novogrod of NBC tweets some developments this morning suggesting that Bachmann's out:

Associated Press: "Gingrich hits Romney, says he'll continue to fight"

David Brooks: "Workers of the World, Unite!"

So, uh, George Packer at The New Yorker wants to give Republicans a piece of his mind:

ABC News: "Romney in Iowa: ‘We’re Gonna Win This Thing’"

The Hill: "On eve of Iowa vote, Santorum focusing attacks on Romney"

In today's Observer, Nick Cohen argues that the West has a duty to intervene in Syria to stop atrocities by Assad's regime:

Karl: "A Holiday Gift from Ron Paul"

SaintPetersBlog: "Latest Florida poll: Mitt Romney 27%, Newt Gingrich 26%; no one else in double digits"

Oh Schadenfreude, you capricious sprite:

Los Angeles Times: "Ron Paul: Sanctions against Iran are 'acts of war'"

CNN: "Romney's Iowa confidence grows"

From the Associated Press:

CNN: "Romney on top, Gingrich fading & Santorum rising in Iowa"

Politico: "Mitt calls Newt ballot fail 'more Lucille Ball' than Pearl Harbor"

Charles Krauthammer: "The GOP’s payroll tax debacle"

National Journal: "House Republicans Agree To Payroll Deal"

National Journal: "McConnell Breaks With Boehner, Says House Should Pass Payroll Extension"

Politico: "Payroll tax cut: GOP frosh dig in hard"

Wall Street Journal: "The GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco"

The Obama campaign would very much like for you to start a new holiday tradition–haranguing your Republican relatives about voting for Obama. Nothing creepy here, nosiree:

New York Times: "New Focus on Incendiary Words in Paul’s Newsletters"

Politico: "Will Ron Paul kill the caucuses?"

So the liberal punditry woke up today to find that PolitiFact has declared the "Lie of the Year" to be Democrats's claim that Paul Ryan's budget will "end Medicare" or "end Medicare as we know it." They're having quite the collective freakout—see Paul Krugman, Jonathan Chait, Matt Yglesias, Brian…

Andrew Stiles: "House Republicans Postpone Payroll Tax Vote"

Robert J. Samuelson: "Bye-bye, Keynes?"

Buried in a recent New York Times profile of Attorney General Eric Holder is this revealing tidbit:

Nancy Pelosi, who's been much criticized recently for using her political clout to enrich herself, doesn't appear to be too worried about crony capitalism: 

Washington Post: "In Iraq, sense of relief is chilled by political crisis"

If you’ve ever found yourself engaged in a futile, one-sided argument with a politician on your TV screen, you’re hardly alone in your frustration. However, if you’re inclined to jot down such intemperate outbursts, and have the chutzpah to charge people for your services​—​you might have what it…

There are going to be a lot of institutional GOP folks doing a spit-take over this:

From the Associated Press:

If you're looking to commemorate Václav Havel's death you could do worse than read this piece by Anne Appelbaum on the famous Czech from THE WEEKLY STANDARD archives, "Rebel with a Cause: Vaclav Havel from dissident to president." It's a warts-and-all assessment, but Appelbaum notes that Havel's…

MY FIRST encounter with Christopher Hitchens was a memorable one. It was February 2004, my girlfriend and I were in the elevator at Hitchens’s Dupont Circle apartment building. We’d come from a swank affair at the Hilton hotel nearby, and had been invited to an after party in the apartment of a…

...I highly recommend starting with this Vanity Fair piece where Hitchens confronts the consequences of his support for the Iraq War, and in the process pens a moving tribute to a fallen soldier:

New York Times: "U.S. War in Iraq Declared Officially Over"

Christopher Hitchens, arguably one of the most rhetorically gifted writers in the English language and occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor, has passed away at age 62. I say "arguably," because if there's one thing he was good at, it was provoking arguments over his very public opinions on…

Newt Gingrich recently attacked Mitt Romney for "bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain Capital"—a charge the former Speaker walked back earlier today. Nonetheless, Romney was asked about it at the debates. Romney defended his business experience, noting that Obama…

Your Paul Ryan-Ron Wyden Medicare Round-up: Josh Barro urges "On Medicare, Save Money Now"; Ben Domenech has "Eight Answers from Paul Ryan"; Phil Klein discusses "Ryan's bombshell Medicare compromise"; and James Pethokoukis on "My Q&A with Paul Ryan on his new Medicare reform plan."

If you haven't already, please excuse the shameless self-promotion and read my story in THE WEEKLY STANDARD on the media establishment's obsession with "fact checking." Therein I note this pernicious trend highlights the media's general bias and incompetence in roughly equal measure. 

Well, Scott Rasmussen's been busy since he stepped off THE WEEKLY STANDARD cruise last week. Take a breath:

The Washington Examiner comes out today and, in a bit of a surprise, endorses Mitt Romney for president:

CNN: "Obama, Dems drop millionaire surtax to pay for payroll tax cut"

My better half stumbles across some interesting reports from people in New Hampshire:

George Will: "Newt Gingrich commits a capital crime"

According to the latest Gallup poll, support for Newt Gingrich has dropped from 37 percent to 31 percent in just the course of a week. He still maintains a comfortable lead over Romney, whose support has held steady at 22 percent in Gallup's poll. However, the rapid drop suggests that maybe some of…

Jonah Goldberg: "Newtzilla to the rescue"

The Hill: "Dem lawmaker blasts ‘Professor Obama’ as arrogant, alienating"

Politico: "Romney: Newt's the front-runner"

John Merline: "The Richest 1% Get $10 Billion A Year From Uncle Sam"

First Read: "Gingrich opens up big leads in South Carolina and Florida"

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, who's responsible for breaking much of the news in the Fast and Furious scandal, has yet another new scoop. New emails point to a possible motivation for why the Justice Department was handing over thousands of guns to Mexican criminal gangs—they were going to use the…

The Hill: "Huntsman skips Trump, will debate Gingrich in unmoderated format"

The GOP members of the Joint Economic Committee respond to today's unemployment numbers:

Jake Tapper: "Gingrich Tells ABC News: ‘I’m Going to Be The Nominee’"

Politico: "Romney preps Gingrich attack"

Peter Schweizer's book, Throw Them All Out, has been a topic of much discussion in Washington, in no small part because of shocking details about how congressmen trade stock based on their private knowledge of how legislation will affect markets. Amazingly, this is completely legal. As I put it in…

Jim Geraghty: "Newt Gingrich Said What?"

Joel Gehrke: "Tina Brown: Professor Obama 'doesn't like his job'"

At the American Spectator, Joseph Lawler draws attention to this Kathleen Parker column about Mitt Romney's pro-life conversion:

And to think that Attorney General Eric Holder is getting testy about congressional calls for his resignation. After all, the Justice Department has nothing to hide, right?:

Nate Silver: "The Buyer’s Remorse Primary"

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the death of The Beatles's George Harrison. To mark the occasion, you would do well to read Andrew Ferguson's story on George Harrison's religious faith in the Novemember 21 issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Here's the opening:

Time: "Christie to Obama: 'What the Hell Are We Paying You For?'”

James Pethokoukis: "Income inequality myths: No, the rich didn’t steal all the money"

Over the weekend, The New York Times published a book review of some new volumes on the history of the KKK. The author, Ohio State University professor Kevin Boyle, begins the review thusly:

Former LAPD detective and bestselling novelist Joseph Wambaugh notes that UC Davis officials are "negotiating a price with the Kroll security firm in New York for none other than former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton to fly West and tell us what went wrong on the day that students were pepper sprayed." In…

Financial Times: "The eurozone really has only days to avoid collapse"

Thankfully, most Americans were probably too busy with the holiday to read the preposterous editorial yesterday in the New York Times. The Grey Lady examined the Solyndra scandal and concluded Republicans are really off base for having the temerity to complain about throwing taxpayer dollars down a…

Via Hot Air, here's the latest ad to come from MSNBC's ballyhooed publicity push. Those on the left like to disdain Fox News, but their chief alternative is a network that's hired a former cocaine dealer and agitator of race riots to deposit nacre like this before the porcine trough of the…

Real Clear Politics: "Gingrich May Have Inside Track on Palin's Endorsement"

Watts Up With That?: "Climategate 2.0 emails – They’re real and they’re spectacular!"

It's hard to say what's taken so long for a GOP presidential candidate to start talking seriously about the Fast and Furious scandal. One, it's an outrageous and appaling scandal that appears to have led to the deaths of American law enforcement agents. Two, there's no better example of Obama…

Washington Post: "Bloomberg rebukes Obama over collapse of debt talks"

New York Times: "The Deficit Deal That Wasn’t: Hopes Are Dashed"

Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen: "The Hillary Moment"

Prominent Democrat and presidential campaign consultant Bob Shrum has an, uh, interesting column in The Week defending former Goldman Sachs CEO, U.S. senator, and New Jersey governor Jon Corzine. As you might also recall, Corzine has been in the news lately because his latest Wall Street venture,…

Washington Post: No health care rationing here. Move along.

CBS New York: "OWS Protesters Chant ‘Follow Those Kids!’ As Small Children Try To Go To School On Wall Street"

Peter Suderman: "CBO on the Stimulus: 'A net negative effect on the growth of GDP over 10 years.'"

Washington Post: A picture is worth 1,000 words and... CAN'T UNSEE

Tim Cavanaugh: "NYT Defines Obamacare Success: Fewer Options, but Better Coordinated"

The American, the online magazine of the American Enterprise Institute, has an article that's an absolute must read on the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Obama's decision to postpone a decision on building it until after the next election has been in the news a lot lately, but precious little of that…

Washington Post: "Supercommittee members face rising pressure from all sides"

Fox News: "Panetta Warns of Smallest Air Force Ever if Deep Defense Cuts Made"

And all this time you thought freedom was just another word for your right to defecate in public. Less than a day after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg finally cleared out Zucotti Park, a New York judge has handed down a ruling that threatens to finally end the "occupation" of Wall Street:

Dealbook has a jaw-dropping report on how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lets billionaire investors duck transparency:

Sean Trende: "What's Behind Obama's Uptick in Job Approval -- and Will It Stick?"

Justin Timberlake: "My Night At The Marine Corps Ball"

Jammie Wearing Fools: "Biden: First Guy We Called for Economic Advice Was Jon Corzine"

There are a number of bizarre schemes unions have used to coerce dues out of public funds. For a long time, I thought the most appalling example was a Michigan scheme where the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees held a sham vote-by-mail…

Alan I. Abramowitz: "Why Barack Obama Has a Good Chance of Winning a Second Term"

The Hill: "Obama officials to delay Keystone pipeline, likely until after election"

Associated Press: "Obama donor discussed solar loan with White House"

Aaron Blake, a reporter who blogs at the Washington Post's political blog, tweets:

ABC News: "Obama Administration to Delay New 15-Cent Christmas Tree Tax"

Today's Wall Street Journal has a good piece by Philip K. Howard summarizing how corrupt many public employee unions have become. It starts by discussing the recent $1 billion fraud case at the Long Island Rail Road workers union:

David Kahane: "The Cold Civil War"

Associated Press: "Appeals court upholds Obama health care law"

Politico: "Cain emails his list: 'Media obsessed' with harassment story"

Politico: "Allred: Cain offered client 'his idea of a stimulus package'"

Ross Douthat: "Our Reckless Meritocracy"

New York Times: "As Regulators Pressed Changes, Corzine Pushed Back, and Won"

Earlier this week it was reported that the White House considered a last-minute taxpayer bailout of Solyndra, the failed solar panel maker that received a $529 million loan guarantee. One of the more interesting aspects of that deal—which would have had taxpayers purchasing as much as 40 percent of…

New York Times: "Pro-American Militia Members Die in Blast in Iraq"

Pajamas Media reports on the Herman Cain scandal and then makes retractions.

I know what you're thinking. But he did everything right!:

Via the Twitter feed of Fareed Zakaria, a brief snapshot into the terrifying future of higher education. Currently, more American students are majoring in visual and performing arts than engineering:

Washington Post: "Obama administration considered bailout for Solyndra days before bankruptcy"

Fox News: "Arizona Sheriff Says 2 Guns Found in Bust Linked to 'Fast and Furious'"

Thankfully, at least one man in the federal government has been awfully busy on behalf of the American taxpayer:

Though the Obama administration labor department had already stopped enforcing the requirement that union bosses fill out LM-30 forms listing potential conflict of interests, now we get word that the Obama administration is rolling back the relevant regulations altogether. However, the announcement…

Capital New York: "Bloomberg: ‘Plain and simple,’ Congress caused the mortgage crisis, not the banks"

Classy as ever, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has been down in Florida campaigning for the President's reelection:

Those on the left are wont to complain that government employees are under assualt these days because GOP politicians are going after public sector unions and generous deals they've leveraged through collective bargaining. The standard defense of civil service workers is, yes, they might have good…

New York Daily News: "At Occupy Wall Street central, a rift is growing between east and west sides of the plaza"

Well, now we know the reason for the Friday night news dump. When the Obama administration finally announced that they would be launching an independent review of Department of Energy loan guarantees, they were likely trying to get out ahead of this:

Politico: "Exclusive: Two women accused Herman Cain of inappropriate behavior"

Maria Bartiromo asks Nancy Pelosi a few pointed questions on the oppressive regulatory environment. The minority leader says she has no problem with the National Labor Relations Board's decision to tell Boeing it can't build a factory in South Carolina:

Politico: "George Will column on Mitt Romney: 'Has conservatism come so far ... for THIS?'"

The White House is just now getting around to seriously addressing the Solyndra scandal:

The Hill: "Boehner: 'Great concerns' Obama is exceeding Constitution"

Fox News: "Muslims say crosses at Catholic University Violate 'Human Rights'"

This is starting to become a familiar refrain:

Via Josh Trevino's twitter feed, I see that Michael Moore has another screed about Occupy Wall Street up at Daily Kos. These things are usually best ignored, but this bit where Moore defends his sizable personal wealth is priceless:

The Washington Post has a rather loaded story this morning on page A3 about Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla. -- "Marco Rubio on national ticket could be risky bet for Republican Party":

CNN: "GOP rejects Dems offer in 'super committee,' negotiations 'deadlocked' over taxes"

The Hill: "Romney rushes to clarify his comments on union bargaining legislation"

New York Times: "New Poll Finds a Deep Distrust of Government"

One year ago today, President Obama said the following:

Rick Perry:  "My Tax and Spending Reform Plan"

Financial Times: "Europe is now leveraging for a catastrophe"

Foreign Policy: "How the Obama administration bungled the Iraq withdrawal negotiations"

Huffington Post: "Steve Jobs Biography Reveals He Told Obama, 'You're Headed For A One-Term Presidency'"

Financial Times: "Greece approves austerity bill on first reading"

USA Today: World Series game one is tonight -- play ball!

We all suspected this was the case, but you're always surprised when one of the most powerful Democrats in the country just comes out and demonstrates the extent to which his party is beholden to public sector union campaign cash:

In yet another classic Obama administration Friday night news dump, the administration abandoned the CLASS Act last week. The progam was a major component of the Obamacare law, intended to address long-term care issues. While long-term care costs are a significant problem, the CLASS Act was a…

The Hill: "Immigration sparks war of words between Romney, Perry at debate"

New York Times: "Massachusetts Tries to Rein In Its Health Cost"

Last week, Senator Jon Tester, D-Mont., forcefully condemned business that have dealings with Iran. Not surprisingly, Tester used the issue to zero in on Koch Industries. Since the Koch brothers are patrons of many conservative and libertarian causes (at least when the DSCC isn't begging Koch for…

Last week, the Obama administration essentially admitted that the CLASS Act, Obamacare's long-term care program, was actuarially unsustainable and announced they would cease implementing it. The CLASS Act was said to be responsible for more than half of the deficit savings that the health care bill…

Rupert Murdoch: "The Steve Jobs Model for Education Reform"

John Merline: "The Austerity Myth: Federal Spending Up 5% This Year"

The Hill: "Obama wants $35 billion for teachers, first-responders first"

Last week, the Rick Perry campaign announced with great fanfare that the Texas governor had raised $17 million for his presidential campaign in the July-September quarter. That’s more than any other GOP hopeful, and since Perry was a recent entrant to the presidential race, he raised that sum in…

Politico: "Geithner: Action against Wall St. coming"

Criticizing a company for doing business with Iran is perfectly valid. However, it appears that the objections of Senator Jon Tester, D-Mont., regarding this issue aren't quite as principled as they might appear. Tester recently put up this press release on his website:

ABC News: "President Obama Phones Speaker Boehner; Gets an Earful"

Conn Carroll: "Will Friday clean-up end Occupy Wall Street?"

The Eugene Register-Guard reports:

New York Times: "U.S. Challenged to Explain Accusations of Iran Plot in the Face of Skepticism"

The New Republic: "Protests and Power: Should liberals support Occupy Wall Street?"

Will it turn out worse than Solyndra?:

James Taranto: "The Left's Nervous Breakdown"

Michael Barone --  " Mitt Romney sounding presidential at Dartmouth":

The Hill: "Dems scramble to save face on jobs bill"

Those of you who live outside the Beltway probably aren't terribly familiar with Federal Times. It's a weekly newspaper that covers the happenings at federal agencies directed mostly at an audience of federal employees and federal managers.

New York Post: "Aimless Obama walks alone"

Congressman Paul Ryan is the latest guest on Uncommon Knowledge, the long-running interview program hosted by former Reagan speechwriter, Ricochet.com founder, and Hoover Institution research fellow Peter Robinson. The topic is how to fix the American health care system, and the two happen to get…

Philip Klein: "Reid rewrites Senate rules with shocking move"

Following my report yesterday about CBS News Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson being unavailable for interviews after angering the White House and Justice Department, Tommy Christopher at Mediaite reports that Attkisson has responded on Twitter:

Kevin Williamson:  A (Steve) Jobs Agenda

Yesterday, CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told radio show host Laura Ingraham that the White House yelled and swore at her over her reporting on the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal tied to the deaths of two U.S. law enforcement agents. Attkisson also revealed that she'd also…

David Brooks: "In Defense of Romney"

The Fast and Furious scandal, in which the Justice Department knowingly gave Mexican criminal gangs thousands of guns, just keeps escalating. The latest development centers around whether or not Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about having knowledge of the controversial gun…

Over the weekend, Bloomberg Markets magazine published a lengthy investigative piece about a French subsidiary of Koch Industries that supposedly conducted illegal business with the Iranian government. The report further insinuates an ensuing cover up.

Mark McKinnon: "Chris Christie's Best Reason to Run"

Hot Air: "Obama: Are you better off than you were four years ago? I guess you’re not"

Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that a Texas hunting camp with a racially-charged name, which was painted on a rock on the property, had been leased by Rick Perry and his family. The property had long been known by that name, even before the Perry family had anything to do with it.

New York Daily News: "700 arrested at Occupy Wall Street protest as demonstrators and NYPD shut down Brooklyn Bridge"

Last December, U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered in a firefight with three Mexican nationals in Arizona. Two guns recovered at the crime scene were traced back to an ongoing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) investigation, informally known under the code…

Jonathan Last: "The Wisdom of Juice-Boxers"

If you're in Washington, D.C. on Monday, October 3, e21 and the Manhattan Institute are sponsoring a can't-miss event with Peter Thiel, one of America's foremost tech entrepreneurs:

Jim DeMint: "Venture socialism: Obama agenda is about shoveling cash to cronies"

iWatchNews: Solyndra and "Bundlers on the inside"

Via Ramesh Ponnuru's twitter feed, comes this ABC News article where the White House finally admits that Obamacare raised the cost insurance premiums:

Earlier this year, Wesley J. Smith reported in THE WEEKLY STANDARD on the drive among environmentalists to make "ecocide" an international crime:

Your chart of the day:

Over at Forbes, Frank Miniter argues that "'Fast And Furious' Just Might Be President Obama's Watergate":

Despite the growing Solyndra scandal, yesterday the Department of Energy approved $1 billion in new loans to green energy companies -- including a $737 million loan guarantee to a company known as SolarReserve:

Well, sort of. Before I get to Krugman, a little relevant context.

Talking Points Memo: "FBI Arrests Man For Plotting To Attack Capitol, Pentagon With C-4 Loaded Remote Controlled Planes"

New York Times: "As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe"

The Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) new media policy rightfully has journalists up in arms:

Wall Street Journal: "The Truth About Who Fights for Us"

Fox News: "Sources: Christie Definitely a 'No' for 2012"

Well, I suppose we should give Governor Perdue credit for thinking outside the box:

Despite the repeated attempts to wish away the Solyndra scandal, it appears to be getting bigger. Today, the Los Angeles Times informs us key White House personnel raised concerns the Department of Energy loan program that gave Solyndra $535 million was poorly conceived and managed long before the…

Bloomberg: "Senate Votes to Avoid Shutdown, Provide Disaster Funds"

Los Angeles Times: "White House lawyers could try to speed up or slow down the process of seeking to have the Supreme Court decide on the constitutionality of the president's healthcare law."

There's been a lot of speculation about whether Chris Christie will decide to run for president now that Rick Perry is slipping in the polls. This report from former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean might be the most concrete evidence yet that Christie may run:

Last Friday, I noted that the Obama administration FDA was set to carry out a ban on asthma inhalers over environmental concerns because the propellant in them contains greenhouse gases. I thought that this was notable given that the Obama administration had recently stopped itself from…

Associated Press: "Obama Tells Blacks to 'Stop Complainin' and Fight"

Richmond, Virginia

Politico: "Texas toast? Rick Perry worries GOP"

Remember how Obama recently waived new ozone regulations at the EPA because they were too costly? Well, it seems that the Obama administration would rather make people with Asthma cough up money than let them make a surely inconsequential contribution to depleting the ozone layer:

Telegraph: "David Cameron: world on brink of new economic crisis"

Washington Post:

Spectator: "The great euro swindle"

I don't think I could possibly overstate how excited liberal 'netroots' are about this clip of Harvard Professor and Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren that's making the rounds. I know Warren has a long history of being fawned over by liberals, but read the comments section at any one…

Washington Post: "Solyndra employees: Company suffered from mismanagement, heavy spending"

Phil Klein: "House investigators rip Solyndra execs"

When it rains at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it pours. It's hard to imagine worse news for the president than the slew of polls today. This morning, Obama's overall favorability rating went underwater in the Real Clear Politics average. Then Gallup noted that for the first time a majority of…

Earlier this morning, I noted that for the first time more Americans had an unfavorable view of the President than a favorable one. Well, here's some more bad news from the latest Gallup poll that's likely to reverberate around the White House:

Per Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics, "There goes the White House's last good talking point: Obama's favorability rating goes under water in RCP Average":

Hot Air: "Report: At least 200 murders in Mexico now linked to Fast & Furious weapons"

The Atlantic: "Chart of the Day: 'Buffett Rule' Wouldn't Bring In Much Revenue"

Sometimes in politics appearing guilty can have more consequences that actually being guilty (though the two frequently are related). And this latest development in the Solyndra scandal certainly looks bad:

Multiple times in recent weeks, President Obama has justified the need for higher taxes by saying that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Of course, this is a preposterous talking point (especially since Buffett owes hefty amounts of back taxes going back nine years). This…

David Brooks: "Obama Rejects Obamaism"

Phil Klein: "Obama reaches out to liberals with budget plan"

Over at Reason, Tim Cavanaugh observes that the few defenses being mounted for loaning failed solar company Solyndra $535 million in stimulus funds are really, really wanting. "Democrats appear to be backing into a strategy of vilifying the company (previous efforts to blame perfidious China and…

Bloomberg: "Obama Deficit Plan to Call for $1.5 Trillion in Higher Taxes"

At last week’s Republican debate at the Reagan Library, a long-simmering Texas political feud made its grand entrance onto the national stage. Politico’s John Harris asked GOP presidential frontrunner and Texas governor Rick Perry about his former political adviser Karl Rove’s recent statement that…

Washington Post: "U.N. showdown over Palestinian statehood tests limits of U.S. influence"

Washington Post: "Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer receives Medal of Honor"

Hot Air: "Harry Reid: We’ve, er, got some other stuff to do before we get around to that jobs bill"

The Obama administration is now pushing a rather dubious defense for handing out $535 million in stimulus funds to the now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. They're blaming Bush:

Telegraph: "Libya could fall into hands of extremists, Nato warns"

Two big stories are out tonight on the blossoming scandal involving failed solar panel company and stimulus funds recipient Solyndra. First, the Washington Post reports that the White House pressured the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to speed up the approval process for Solyndra's $535…

Just this morning, White House adviser David Axelrod went on network television and laid down an ultimatum about the president's jobs bill:

Bloomberg: "Obama Team Backed Solyndra Despite Concerns"

Phil Klein: "GOP debate winner: 'None of the above'"

Hot on the heels of this morning's announcement of former Minnesota governor and former presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty's endorsement of Mitt Romney, the Perry campaign pulls out the stops to make sure they don't get one-upped ahead of tonight's debate:

New York Times: "Standing Side by Side at Ground Zero, Bush and Obama Mark Crucial Moment"

Well, this is awkward. Despite $535 million in government loans and the White House touting Solyndra as an example of how the $800 billion stimulus bill was helping create jobs, everyone in the following video is now unemployed:

Politico: "Eric Cantor: We'll pass some of Obama's jobs proposals"

The AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka, a man not known for his grasp of nuance, just released the following statement to commemorate 9/11:

CNN: "Officials confirm 'credible but unconfirmed' 9/11 threat"

President Obama's jobs speech tonight outlined a wish list of $450 billion in infrastructre spending, tax cuts, tax credits and a host of other goodies. Up front the president made a bold promise about the cost of the bill: 

Hot Air: "It begins: Romney, Perry clash over jobs"

Yesterday, over at the Washington Post, Greg Sargent accused "Tea Party conservatives" of having a "ridiculous hissy fit over Jimmy Hoffa:"

Wall Street Journal: "Infrastructure Likely Part of Obama Jobs Push"

Wall Street Journal: Latest Fast and Furious development -- did ATF sanction dealing grenades to Mexican cartels?

For a while now, Obama's been mentioning in speeches that there are free-trade agreements that need to be ratified as away to create jobs and spur growth... while blaming Republicans for the hold up. Today, Mitch McConnell blasts Obama in the Washington Post for his blatant dishonesty on the issue:

WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Ron Radosh, one of the top anti-communist scholars in the country, reports this bombshell about one of America's most popular furniture brands:

Associated Press: "Libyan rebels round up black Africans"

Seth Mandel: "Obama: I’m Done Working with Congress"

Via Greg Hengler, it's always fun to watch when when one of America's most disingenuous commentators mans up and admits the guy he's been defending for years is kind of an empty suit. Mmm, that's some tasty crow:

And the hits just keep on coming. This is not the kind of news that is going to help the Obama administration in the midst of a jobs crisis:

WEEKLY STANDARD contributors Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz write in today's Washington Post that as in the wake of Libya, President Obama appears to have grown more comfortable projecting American power. As such, "Syria will be his real test. The arguments for supporting Syrian protesters…

New York Times: "U.S. Is Set to Sue a Dozen Big Banks Over Mortgages"

Politico: "W.H. furious over speech delay'"

Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research (WPA) has a very interesting analysis of Obama's polling numbers. When it comes to judging how Obama's approval ratings predict his reelction chances, WPA describes issue this way:

Washington Post: "Coincidences don’t happen in presidential politics. Ever."

So, uh, this exists. From the press release: 

Damon Root: "Michael Lind: Libertarians "Apologize for Autocracy" and "Side with the Confederacy"

Reuters blogger and WEEKLY STANDARD contributor James Pethokoukis takes a look at Jon Huntsman's recently unveiled tax plan, and by golly, it might be the first thing about his candidacy that generates real excitement:

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has just released an important new study on the hiring practices of firms that used stimulus funds. It's fairly comprehensive, based on over 1,300 surveys of managers and employees. There's been very little good empirical data on the stimulus thus far,…

Politico: "Rick Perry panic fires up the left"

Navy Times: "Petraeus shedding military uniform to head CIA"

The Daily Caller reports that Rick Perry's opposition to liberal health care reform wasn't always so pronounced. In 1993, he wrote a letter commending her health care reform efforts:

Today, in the Post Dana Milbank makes a fairly bold assertion:

Jonathan Last: "Romney’s 'Core Constituency'”

Ross Douthat: "American Theocracy Revisited"

The MacIver Insitute in Wisconsin put together this video about a union protest of a school in Wisconsin where Governor Scott Walker recently made an appearence. The building was vandalized, and the head of the exemplary school understandably worries about what example this protest sets for the…

Jonah Goldberg wrote a column about the recent attacks on Rick Perry, arguing that identity politics on the right are "intensely wearying" and "conservatism needs to spend less time defending candidates for who they are, and more time supporting candidates for what they intend to do." Of course,…

Toby Harnden: "Perfect Storm of Hype: Politicians, the media and the Hurricane Irene apocalypse that never was"

There's an entirely absurd op-ed by Georgia Congressman John Lewis in today's New York Times about voter ID laws. You can probably guess where this is going, but here goes:

New York Times: "C.I.A. Demands Cuts in Book About 9/11 and Terror Fight"

Ace of Spades: "Bill Keller Of The NY Times Wants His Readers To Know Most Of The GOP Candidates Are Crazy Religious Nuts"

Big Labor is finally getting tired of being led on by Democrats. Politico reports:

NBC News: "Cheney: My book will have ‘heads exploding’ in D.C."

Politico: "In money race, it’s advantage Democrats"

Guy Benson: "BREAKING: Obama Administratrion Clarifies Biden Remarks, 'Strongly Opposes' China's One-Child Policy"

ABC News: Earthquake!

While his critics have been eager to dismiss the Texas Governor as anti-science, the The New York Times takes a look at an upcoming electronic book, "Rick Perry and His Eggheads: Inside the Brainiest Political Operation in America." The book's author shows Perry's approach to politics is at once…

Walter Russell Mead: "W Gets A Third Term In The Middle East"

Philo Klein: "Is Obama's 'specific' plan now just an outline?"

So the media is abuzz today that Mitt Romney has plans to tear down his 3,000 square foot beach front home in La Jolla, California and replace it with an 11,000 square foot home. (Note NPR's sarcasm about the matter.) Yes, this doesn't exactly scream "man of the people" and these kinds of splashy…

Good news, reproductive rights advocates and neo-Malthusian environmentalists! Vice President Joe Biden has no problem with the government forcibly sterilizing people and compelling abortions. From his remarks at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China yesterday discussing the U.S. debt:

At The Witherspoon Institute, a think tank founded by Princeton Professor Robert P. George and devoted to discussing ethics in the public square, Public Discourse editor Ryan T. Anderson kicks off a new series of essays designed to inform the discussion of the upcoming presidential election:

New York Times: "Rebels Pour Into Central Tripoli Square"

Dan Foster: "Space Aliens Are Probably Progressive Liberals"

When even the New York Times is forced to confront reality, you know things are bad:

Washington Times: "Obama to deport illegals by ‘priority’"

Max Boot: "Obama’s 'Smart Power,' Not So Smart"

New Hampshire Journal: "Poll: Romney rocks, Perry pops, Bachmann doesn’t bounce"

Byron York: "Black caucus: Tired of making excuses for Obama"

Wall Street Journal: "Two Democrats Survive Recall in Wisconsin"

CBS News: "Clinton: US using 'smart power' for Libya, Syria"

Since embarking on a taxpayer-funded campaign tour of the Midwest, Obama has already compared his plight to Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. and blamed his troubles on "bad luck," as if the president's policies had nothing to do with the current predicament. 

Byron York: "Obama: I reversed recession until 'bad luck' hit"

Apparently, there was a kerfuffle earlier today because Rick Perry said the following: "If this guy [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke] prints more money between now and the election ... I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we -- we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas.…

One surefire way to tell that Rick Perry's entry into the presidential race is having a big impact is the sheer number of hit pieces that have been written against him in a 48-hour period. (See here, here, here, here...I could go on.)

Los Angeles Times: "Gallup: Obama job rating sinks below 40% for first time"

New York Times: "Obama Urges Voters To Scold Republicans"

Michael Barone: "How Iowa's Straw Poll Can Lead to the Presidency"

TWS: Wisconsin Republicans beat back Big Labor in recall elections.

A major scandal amoung influential Democrats just broke, and so far it appears to be flying under the radar. Stephen Losey at Federal Times has the scoop.

The Daily Caller: "Researchers: Obamacare cost estimates hide up to $50 billion per year"

A lot of people are talking about this piece, "What Happened to Obama?" by Drew Westen in the New York Times, as it seems to encapsulates a lot of liberal anger at the president. This bit from the piece warrants special comment:

New York Times: "Second Recession in U.S. Could Be Worse Than First"

Lately there's been a spate of businessmen loudly complaining about the burdensome regulatory climate of the Obama administration. Fortunately, there's at least one highly experienced businessman in the Senate that feels their pain. Until he was elected last fall, Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson…

Hot Air: "Jay Carney: 'The White House doesn’t create jobs'"

There's a fascinating story over at The Hill that was published yesterday, "How John Boehner escaped disaster." I don't think we should get ahead of ourselves here, but certainly there's a storyline emerging here that when it comes to the art of the deal, Boehner is one of the more capable…

George Will: "The debt deal and Obama’s 2012 problem"

Talking Points Memo: "Pelosi: My Deficit Committee Members Will Oppose All Entitlement Benefit Cuts"

James Kirchik: "Why Islamist terror dwarfs Breivik's brand: Almost nobody supports 'Christianist' violence"

Much to the frustration of the press corps and the country at large, President Obama went nearly a year without giving a press conference at a time when the country was in a rather precarious state economically and politically. Lately, however it seems that Obama has decided that the debt ceiling…

New York Times: "Giffords’s Return Marks Moment of Unity in Divided House"

Politico: "Biden: Tea partiers like 'terrorists'"

Yesterday, the Associated Press dropped what's known in journalism parlance as a "thumbsucker" on the Norway shootings. It's a piece that's awfully heavy on analysis and short on the necessary facts to justify said thumbsucking. THE WEEKLY STANDARD makes a cameo here, selectively quoted and used as…

Talking Points Memo: "Reid Agrees To Major Debt Limit Deal — Here’s What He’s Signed Off On"

Reuters: "Growth anemic, debt row poses recession risk"

The Hill reports that the Congressional Budget Office has scored the Boehner debt ceiling plan as reducing the deficit more than Harry Reid's plan -- and that's without resorting to gimmickry regarding assumptions about war spending:

New York Times: "Boehner, Short of Support in House, Delays Debt Plan Vote"

Associated Press: "A federal wildlife biologist whose observation that polar bears likely drowned in the Arctic helped galvanize the global warming movement during the last decade was placed on administrative leave while officials investigate scientific misconduct allegations."

Fox News drops this big revelation following the arrest of Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo, a Muslim soldier at Ft. Hood in Kileen, Texas this morning:

Despite many, many promises to the contrary, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reports that Obamacare will pretty substantially increase out of control health care spending:

Despite Nancy Pelosi's obsession with political language, the former Speaker never seems to be able to contain herself from tossing off bits of rather embarassing hyperbole:

Keith Hennessey: "Why I support the Boehner bill"

Washington Post: "U.S. officials believe al-Qaeda on brink of collapse"

Michael Barone picks up on a pretty startling political trend — the youth vote is drifting away from Obama:

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the ATF's "Fast and Furious" or "Gunwalker" scandal, which appears to reach the highest levels of the Justice Department. Read the whole magazine article here, but the short version is that the Justice Department knowingly allowed thousands of weapons to fall in the…

Washington Post: "House Republicans delay vote on Boehner debt plan"

Reuters: "A small majority of economists -- 30 out of 53 -- surveyed over the past two days said the United States will lose its AAA credit rating from one of the three big ratings agencies -- Standard & Poor's, Moody's or Fitch."

Ben Smith catches a Navy Times report that Capt. Wade Sanders -- best known for vouching for John Kerry's dubious war record and introducing the candidate at the 2004 convention -- has been stripped of his Silver Star by the Navy:

Oregon Congressman David Wu has just resigned. Dave Weigel has his statement: