obama administration

We aren’t proud of this one.

In short, the Obama administration lied.

Two of the top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are calling on former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice to explain an “unusual email” she sent on the day of President Trump’s inauguration.

The new documentary The Final Year records the ups, the downs, the smiles, the frowns of President Obama’s foreign policy advisers during their last months in office. It was made for HBO but it won’t hit the small screen until later this year. For the moment it’s playing in a few theaters in Obama…

At this point, the evidence is irrefutable: The Obama administration got Iran wrong. So did the international foreign-policy establishment. So did the New York Times and nearly every major center-left media outlet in the United States and Europe.

When a fire at an electrical substation knocked out power for half a day at the Atlanta airport recently, airlines canceled more than 1,400 flights and thousands of passengers were stranded. Some sat in the airport terminal in the dark, while others waited on planes out on the tarmac for hours.

Congressional Republicans are calling for answers on the Obama administration's reported efforts to derail an initiative that tracked Hezbollah’s international web of criminal activities, efforts that former officials said were fueled in large part out of a desire to secure the 2015 nuclear deal…

Women are more likely to have been sexually assaulted by the age of 44 if they didn’t go to college, according to a new study from the University of Michigan. The study, spearheaded by sociology professor and researcher William Axinn, found that the risk of “experiencing forced intercourse” is more…

The Obama administration hobbled a covert initiative that tracked Hezbollah’s web of criminal activities, allowing millions of dollars to fall into the hands of the Iran-backed militia, according to a Politico report. Efforts to stymie the initiative, former officials told Politico, were fueled in…

Ned Price is not happy.

On the penultimate day of the Obama administration, less than 24 hours before the president would vacate the White House, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued a press release meant to put to rest what had been a pesky issue for his office. “Closing the Book on Bin Laden:…

"Do we want Iran to have a nuclear weapon or not?" asks Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a video making its way around the Internet. “The answer? No. So why is President Trump trying to make it easier for Iran to get a nuclear weapon?”

"Do we want Iran to have a nuclear weapon or not?" asks Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a video making its way around the Internet. “The answer? No. So why is President Trump trying to make it easier for Iran to get a nuclear weapon?”

By October 15, Donald Trump must decide what to do with his predecessor’s nuclear agreement with Iran. He has felt obliged, against his instincts, to recertify the deal every 90 days, per the requirements of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, Congress’s attempt to supervise Barack Obama’s…

By October 15, Donald Trump must decide what to do with his predecessor’s nuclear agreement with Iran. He has felt obliged, against his instincts, to recertify the deal every 90 days, per the requirements of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, Congress’s attempt to supervise Barack Obama’s…

With the Oct. 15 deadline for certifying to Congress that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Donald Trump is set to deliver a speech next week regarding his intentions. According to a report this afternoon from Adam Kredo at the…

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on September 22 formally rescinded the Obama administration’s commands that universities use unfair rules in sexual-misconduct investigations—rules that had the effect of finding more students guilty of sexual assault. And she appears also to be preparing for far…

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on September 22 formally rescinded the Obama administration’s commands that universities use unfair rules in sexual-misconduct investigations—rules that had the effect of finding more students guilty of sexual assault. And she appears also to be preparing for far…

During the George W. Bush presidency, Democrats were vehement and clamorous defenders of Americans’ civil liberties. They inveighed against the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs as though the agency were spying on ordinary Americans in their homes and generally behaving like the East…

When he won election, Donald Trump—along with his national security adviser Michael Flynn, his all-purpose counselor Stephen Bannon, and, perhaps, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner—was fond of the idea that Russia and Iran, comrades-in-arms in Syria, weren’t natural partners. Flynn was particularly…

When he won election, Donald Trump—along with his national security adviser Michael Flynn, his all-purpose counselor Stephen Bannon, and, perhaps, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner—was fond of the idea that Russia and Iran, comrades-in-arms in Syria, weren’t natural partners. Flynn was particularly…

Last week the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., removed from its website a study absolving the Obama administration of any blame for its inaction in the face of the Syrian genocide. The study had been scheduled for release amid much hoopla at a September 11 event hosted by the U.S.…

President Obama’s former ambassador to Syria said Monday that Bashar al-Assad, cemented by support from Iran, has essentially won the Syrian civil war and will maintain his grip on power.

On November 12, 2015, officials in New York and New Jersey thought they had struck it rich. They had arranged a 50-50 deal with the federal government in which the feds would pay for half the cost of a new tunnel under the Hudson River, the renovation of Penn Station, and a lot more.

On November 12, 2015, officials in New York and New Jersey thought they had struck it rich. They had arranged a 50-50 deal with the federal government in which the feds would pay for half the cost of a new tunnel under the Hudson River, the renovation of Penn Station, and a lot more.

This week, the State Department released an annual report on compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The most notable findings in the report, which covers Russia, Iran, and Syria, not surprisingly relate to Syria. The report states unequivocally that the "United States assesses that…

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…

Please see the editor's note at the bottom of this piece.

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…

The Obama administration set up the play pretty perfectly for Team Trump. Student loan policies that disproportionately diminished historically black colleges and universities’ funding and enrollment, and an arrogant posture toward these institutions evident in Obama's public remarks, disappointed…

Top Democratic lawmakers are calling for strong action in response to Iranian ballistic missile activity after Tehran conducted another test-fire over the weekend, its first since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, according to statements provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

In the final week of the Obama administration, the Treasury Department made unannounced payments totaling $375 million to Dow Chemical and Boeing to reimburse the two Department of Energy (DOE) contractors for judgments awarded in the 2016 settlement of a lawsuit dating all the way back to 1990. A…

Less than 24 hours before the official end of the Obama presidency, while White House staffers were pulling pictures off the walls and cleaning out their desks, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) posted without fanfare another installment of the documents captured in Osama…

The Senate's number-two Democrat is facing a flood of phone calls urging him to drop his objection to a bipartisan measure condemning an anti-Israel United Nations resolution, according to a leading pro-Israel group that spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The Trump administration is reviewing the release of millions of dollars for Palestinian projects made by the Obama administration in a last-minute transfer that flouted congressional objections, according to statements provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

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…

Congressional leaders are moving to respond to a last-minute transfer of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority by the Obama administration with a range of measures, including a possible total freeze of funds to the PA, according to senators and other sources who spoke to THE WEEKLY…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior editor Lee Smith, on Obama's abysmal foreign policy record on Israel, Russia, and Iran.

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.

When the secret military documents stolen by former Army private Chelsea Manning were released by WikiLeaks, the official position of the Pentagon was that Manning's illegal actions had endangered the lives of American soldiers.

Top Republican lawmakers are ripping President Obama's last-minute decision to commute the bulk of former Army Private Chelsea Manning's 35-year prison sentence.

The Obama administration's United Nations ambassador used the final major speech of her tenure Tuesday to castigate the Kremlin for eight years' worth of destabilizing activities, warning against another reset with the country amid vows from President-elect Donald Trump to mend relations with…

Congress has limited options for responding to a United Nations Security Council resolution critical of Israel, according to a top Palestinian official who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The Obama administration left top lawmakers, including leaders on the congressional committees charged with overseeing American foreign policy, in the dark about a secret deal to send Iran more than one hundred metric tons of natural uranium, according to statements provided to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state Rex Tillerson denounced the Obama administration Wednesday for a range of moves against Israel and reiterated vows made by the president-elect to bolster relations with the Jewish state.

An assembly of pro-Israel leaders will head to Capitol Hill Wednesday to urge support for measures that call to repeal a recent United Nations resolution and to move the United States embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The Obama administration has one week to hand over all documents involving a United Nations resolution critical of Israel to a congressional committee, amid allegations from Israeli officials that the administration worked behind the scenes to pass the resolution.

The Obama administration misled top lawmakers about the transfer of billions of dollars in assets to Iran, according to sources in and out of Congress who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, and a range of questions remain about the mechanics of the payments.

In President Obama's first inaugural address in January 2009, he declared, rather grandly, "We'll restore science to its rightful place..." The president has often prided himself on his devotion to science, and earlier this year the White House posted "100 Examples of Putting Science in Its…

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton blasted Barack Obama for his accommodation of Russian aggression over the past eight years and argued that Russia has committed "crimes and transgressions against the United States and our interests" while the administration "looked the other way." Speaking to Tucker…

Majority leader Kevin McCarthy and Foreign Affairs committee chairman Ed Royce announced Monday night that the House of Representatives will hold a vote Thursday on a resolution blasting last month's United Nations Security Council resolution regarding Israeli settlements. The Obama administration…

Russian vilification of President Obama is reaching renewed heights after the president on Thursday ordered a sweeping package of sanctions and the expulsion of 35 Russian officials from the United States, amid mounting allegations of Kremlin-led efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.

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…

The Obama administration announced an amendment to an executive order Thursday that introduces targeted sanctions on Russian assets here in the United States. The sanctions come in response to reported cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other groups by Russian-backed hackers.

In the Obama administration's waning days, global challenges to American interests abound. In Syria, which will be a bloody stain on the reputations of Barack Obama and John Kerry, the killing continues. The effort to free Mosul from ISIS is slowing. The rise of Iranian influence in the Gulf and…

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday his government has "absolutely incontestable evidence that the United States organized, advanced, and brought" an anti-Israel resolution to the United Nations Security Council. In an on-camera statement from Jerusalem, Netanyahu said he would…

Secretary of State John Kerry accused the Israeli government of undermining prospects for a two-state solution Wednesday and defended the Obama administration's decision to allow the passage of a United Nations resolution critical of Israel, underscoring that Israeli settlements "only invited U.N.…

In his Wednesday speech on the Middle East, outgoing secretary of state John Kerry said a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian people was the only way to achieve piece. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, also scolded the leadership of the democratic Jewish state of…

Iran was given secret exemptions allowing the country to exceed restrictions set out by the landmark nuclear deal inked last year, some of which were made public this week by the United Nations nuclear watchdog and others that are likely still being withheld, according to diplomatic sources and a…

When 14 members of the United Nations Security Council voted in 2011 for a resolution condemning the expansion of Israeli settlements as illegal, the Obama administration exercised the United States's veto power to block its passage. Opposition to settlements beyond Israel's borders established in…

American military assistance to Lebanon should be reevaluated in the coming year, top congressional sources and experts tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD, following reports that equipment provided to the Lebanese army had been transferred to the Hezbollah terrorist organization and used to boost the Assad…

It will go down as a classic do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do presidential statement. At a press conference in Berlin on November 17, Barack Obama urged his successor to “stand up" to Vladimir Putin when Russia deviates "from our values and international norms."

As Barack Obama's tenure as president comes to a close, his administration is not backing off the apocalyptic climate-change rhetoric. The same week that the president used executive action to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in federally controlled areas of the Arctic and and Atlantic oceans,…

The Obama administration is facing renewed criticism that it is avoiding confronting Iran over a widening list of the Islamic Republic's sanctions violations and military activities, after State Department officials would not commit to taking punitive action against a top Iranian military official…

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…

Iranian officials are threatening to take action in the event that a controversial jet deal between Boeing and Iran Air collapses. Their heated rhetoric comes amid congressional opposition to the sale and mounting speculation that the deal will become unworkable under the Trump administration,…

On January 12, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivered a speech in Washington, the reverberations of which were felt on the other side of the world. Describing U.S. foreign policy objectives in Asia, a region where both China and the Soviet Union were seeking to spread Marxist-Leninist…

Arizona senator John McCain criticized President Obama's response to Russian attempts to influence the presidential election and doubled down on calls for a congressional select committee to investigate the Kremlin's involvement.

An Israeli advocacy group is seeking to collect billions in terror-related damages from Iran and in the meantime put a hold on the delivery of dozens of Boeing airliners to Tehran, the Associated Press reports.

The U.S. State Department updated its travel warning for Ukraine this week, backing off a recommendation that U.S. citizens currently in Crimea and the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk leave the area. The warning posted Wednesday advises U.S. citizens "to avoid all travel to" those regions of…

On January 12, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivered a speech in Washington, the reverberations of which were felt on the other side of the world. Describing U.S. foreign policy objectives in Asia, a region where both China and the Soviet Union were seeking to spread Marxist-Leninist…

The closing reports on the Obama administration's drug policy were delivered this week. Drug-induced deaths for the year 2015 were reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on December 8, and the youth school survey of drug use for 2016, Monitoring the Future (MTF), was just released by the…

A 10-year extension of long-standing Iran sanctions will become law without President Obama's signature, in an apparent symbolic move after both chambers of Congress passed the package by a near-unanimous margin.

A veteran intelligence official slammed the Obama administration for ignoring a range of Iran's destructive activities in order to preserve the nuclear deal, and advised the incoming Trump administration to harshly retaliate against Tehran's illicit pursuits.

The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights may not last long in Trump's America, its employees and advocates fear. The transition's stated intention to "streamline the department," coupled with a stated goal to overturn Obama-era executive overreaches, spells trouble for the department's…

Top Democratic lawmakers are challenging the Obama administration's decision to keep a range of unclassified documents related to the Iran nuclear deal away from the public eye, amid mounting calls from Trump insiders and Republican lawmakers urging the incoming Trump administration to release the…

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday ripped last summer's landmark nuclear deal with Iran and said he would work with president-elect Donald Trump to remedy its shortcomings.

Senate Democrats and Republicans voted overwhelmingly to renew sanctions on Iran for 10 years Thursday, despite attempts by the Obama administration to stymie Congress.

The Obama administration's income-driven repayment program will cost more than twice as much as the Department of Education initially thought it would, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

The Obama administration has determined that enabling the sale of aircraft and other materials to an Iranian airline sanctioned for ferrying weapons on behalf of Iran's military does not undermine its foreign policy goals, according to communications with Congress obtained exclusively by THE WEEKLY…

Iran will likely use the Obama administration's final weeks to try to procure nuclear-related materials in violation of last summer's landmark nuclear deal, a top lawmaker told the THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The election of Donald Trump signals bad news for the Iran nuclear deal, Barack Obama's signature foreign policy initiative. Calling it "the worst deal ever negotiated," the author of The Art of the Deal has threatened to tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on day one of his presidency.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog may have delayed releasing a report which revealed that Iran has again violated last summer's landmark nuclear deal amid efforts by the Obama administration to protect the deal, a top nuclear expert told THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The election of Donald Trump signals bad news for the Iran nuclear deal, Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy initiative. Calling it "the worst deal ever negotiated," the author of The Art of the Deal has threatened to tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on day one of his presidency.

Charles Krauthammer writes in his syndicated column Friday about the United Nations's cultural agency's recent decision to condemn the state of Israel—and the Obama administration's apparent acquiesence to the global campaign by nations hostile to Israel against the United States's strongest ally…

An investigative article in the Sunday, October 23, Washington Post detailed the Obama Justice Department’s actions to hamper the Drug Enforcement Administration's aggressive efforts to stop the deadly diversion of pain medications. The article draws on testimony from multiple sources indicating…

The United States will harshly retaliate against any bank or company caught doing business that involves sanctioned Iranian entities, despite a recent announcement from the Treasury Department that had been broadly interpreted as loosening American sanctions against previously prohibited…

New figures released by the Census Bureau Thursday show undergraduate and graduate enrollment at colleges and universities dropped 1.2 million—or 6 percent—from 2010 to 2015. The drop accompanies an overall decrease in school enrollment at all levels from 78.6 million to 77.1 million during the…

The Obama administration won't provide Congress with a range of details about a recent announcement that cleared the way for doing business with Iran, including Iranian firms controlled by sanctioned military and terrorist groups, according to congressional sources and experts who spoke to THE…

While serious foreign policy debate, like any kind of serious policy debate, has been virtually absent in this election, not talking about problems doesn't make them go away. In fact, the world has gotten much more dangerous under President Obama, and dealing with it will be a key challenge of the…

House speaker Paul Ryan has issued a statement condemning President Obama's decision to lift trade restrictions with Cuba, the Carribbean island nation still controlled by Fidel and Raúl Castro's Communist regime. Obama announced Friday the United States would be lifting the limits to importing…

The Obama administration is manufacturing a crisis with Israel in anticipation of a post-election diplomatic push targeting the Jewish state, and this past week launched a series of broadsides criticizing the Israelis through the media and in press briefings, according to congressional sources and…

Hillary Clinton doesn’t want to talk about Obamacare, but her husband clearly feels no such reluctance. Bill Clinton—who has his finger on the pulse of public sentiment to a greater degree than either President Barack Obama or Hillary—spoke rather freely about Obama's signature legislation early in…

"You put the 'B' in LGBT"—these lyrics from a song performed in the White House last week encapsulate the message of the third annual Bisexual Community Briefing hosted by the Obama administration.

The Clinton campaign said Hillary Clinton agrees with vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine's controversial statement Tuesday that the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement eliminated Iran's nuclear program.

The Obama administration gutted an international ballistic missile embargo on Iran as one of several concessions made when the Islamic Republic released four American prisoners in January, Iran experts tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD. This has triggered criticism that the administration misled Congress…

As reported, the White House Friday struck "Israel" from a press release concerning the location (Jerusalem) of the memorial service for former prime minister Shimon Peres. But the White House has not always been so successful in "correcting" what it apparently believes is an error. A July 2015…

From the Washington Times:

Back in the 2004, a brash state senator from Illinois lit a fire at the Democratic National Convention with his soaring rhetoric. One of Barack Obama's goals was to deliver a message of unity during a divisive campaign season, a message that Americans were more alike than they're dissimilar:

Top senators fired back at the Obama administration on Tuesday after the State Department shifted blame to Congress for the collapse of a U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire in Syria. The back-and-forth in Washington comes as the State Department refuses to rule out further talks with Moscow despite a…

The Obama administration wired almost one million dollars to an Iranian bank account in Europe last July, months before making a separate $1.7 billion payment to Iran that officials say had to be made in cash. The administration also withheld some details of the wire payment from Congress and…

In December of 2015, Congress did something rare: It passed a law, with bipartisan support, that President Obama signed and conservatives are championing. The Every Students Succeeds Act, known as ESSA, rolls back federal authority in local schools and limits the reach of the secretary of…

A Democratic lawmaker on Wednesday criticized a $1.7-billion payment the Obama administration made to Iran earlier this year, suggesting that the administration ignored a law that prohibits such payments to Iran until claims against the country from American victims of terror had been "dealt with…

Top Obama adminstration officials have characterized the threat from climate change as "more terrifying" and "more potentially destructive and destabilizing" than a host of other threats, including terrorism and diseases like Zika and Ebola.

The Obama administration did not inform key lawmakers that it had wired millions of dollars to Iran through the formal financial system, even as President Obama and other administration officials publicly defended using cash for a controversial $1.7 billion payment to Iran by saying that wiring…

The White House press secretary said Monday the United States is in a "narrative fight, a narrative battle" with the Islamic State terrorist group. Josh Earnest, speaking with CNN host Chris Cuomo about the recent bombings in New York and New Jersey as well as the stabbing attack in Minnesota over…

The Obama administration used a bank to pay for a multi-million dollar purchase of nuclear-related material from Iran, undermining the government's claim that an unrelated $1.7 billion payment to the Islamic Republic had to be made in cash, according to a top lawmaker and congressional sources who…

As Barack Obama prepared to enter the final year of his presidency, he sat down for an interview with Olivier Knox to discuss a bold new policy change. He had announced a year earlier that the United States would be ending its decades-long isolation of Cuba and seeking rapprochement with the…

Lawmakers intend to grant Israel aid on top of a multi-billion dollar package struck between the nation and the Obama administration, ignoring an agreement Israel made with the United States to refuse any additional funds from Congress for two years.

The Obama administration failed to inform a number of Democratic lawmakers that a $1.7 billion payment the U.S. sent to Iran earlier this year would be made wholly in cash, according to senators who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD Wednesday.

The politics of funding a divided federal government has always pitted administrations against Congress, but according to House speaker Paul Ryan, the Obama administration is taking it to new levels.

The United States paid Iran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year, most of which was taxpayer money, around the same time that the Islamic Republic released several American prisoners, as first reported by the Associated Press.

In an op-ed at the Atlantic Council, former ambassador Frederic C. Hof condemns President Barack Obama's "passivity" during the bloody conflict in Syria, both on the battlefield and before the public eye, for the sake of preserving the Iran nuclear deal.

Many Obamacare supporters have been taking solace in their belief that Aetna's recent decision to pull out of all but four government-run exchanges was a result not of Obamacare's slow-motion death spiral but of Aetna's playing politics with the Department of Justice, which has blocked the…

In an interview last week for his new book The Iran Wars, Jay Solomon of the Wall Street Journal told Andrea Mitchell that Iran in 2013 had threatened to pull out of nuclear talks if the United States hit Bashar al-Assad’s forces over the Syrian dictator's use of chemical weapons. The Obama…

"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" was President Barack Obama's signature catchphrase he used to sell the Affordable Care Act to the American people. Now Obamacare's flagship website, healthcare.gov, no longer even addresses the issue.

In an article Monday in the New York Sun, Claudia Rosett may have found one of the missing links in the Obama administration's Iran ransom story.

The Obama administration is refusing to provide documents to lawmakers seeking details about a controversial $400 million cash payment the U.S. made to Iran in January, according to exchanges viewed exclusively by THE WEEKLY STANDARD and congressional sources.

Less than two months after Iran received $400 million in foreign currency in January, the world's top state sponsor of terror acquired another $1.3 billion in cash from the United States, based on statements of U.S. government officials.

The Defense Department has transferred 15 detainees—12 Yemenis and 3 Afghan citizens—from Guantanamo to the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon's web page says nothing about the risks the detainees pose beyond the fact that the transfers supposedly "took place consistent with appropriate security…

The Obama administration's latest assault on for-profit colleges—a broadened borrower-defense-to-repayment rule from the Department of Education—could have quite a few collateral victims. First of all, the rule is broad enough to rain down costly lawsuits on traditional, nonprofit colleges as well…

Al Qaeda operatives based in Iran worked on chemical and biological weapons, according to a letter written to Osama bin Laden that is described in a new book by a top former U.S. intelligence official.

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.

Hillary Clinton was stunned Monday when a small business owner told her that the cost of her health insurance had increased nearly two fold.

Today at the joint press conference between President Barack Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro, the pair took questions from the press.

It was a great year for the Obama administration’s foreign policy .  .  . says the Obama administration. The State Department even created a new hashtag to celebrate the White House's annus mirabilis—#2015in5Words. "Protecting Arctic Climate and Communities" and "Protecting Health of Our Ocean" are…

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…

Coming soon to a girls' locker room in a high school near you: the Obama administration's transgender gendarmes.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has a habit of trying to have it both ways on the Iran nuclear deal

Arkansas senator Tom Cotton will place a hold on three ambassador nominations until the Obama administration agrees to investigate and discipline officials within the Secret Service over a leak of private personnel information about a sitting congressman.

The State Department released another tranche of emails from Hillary Clinton's private server Monday evening. While messages between Clinton and other State and administration officials concerning the most interesting and consequential subjects (like the Benghazi attacks) were heavily redacted,…

When the secretary of state says, as John Kerry did last week in his Senate testimony, that the Obama White House is “guaranteeing” Iran won’t have the bomb, you can be sure that—well, you can be pretty confident that he doesn’t mean it. And that someday soon he’ll pretend he never said it.

A former Obama administration official says Hillary Clinton should release her private email server to the public.

The Obama administration is funding a provision of the Affordable Care Act unconstitutionally and against the decision of Congress, a Republican House member says. Peter Roskam of Illinois joined Fox News's Greta van Susteren Thursday to talk about the details of his findings in an oversight…

The United States Army has charged Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and "misbehavior before the enemy." Bergdahl allegedly abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was held captive by Taliban-aligned forces for nearly five years before the Obama administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban…

The Obama administration appears to be moving toward a shift in its relations with a foreign ally, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has nothing to say. White House officials have been suggesting the United States may not continue support Israel from charges and attacks by international…

The Justice Department will bring criminal charges to Democratic senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey. CNN reports:

A federal judge in Texas issued an injunction Monday to halt the implementation of a December executive order by President Barack Obama on immigration. The Associated Press reports:

The Obama adminstration begins its three-day summit on countering violent extremism with a "roundtable discussion" Tuesday afternoon led by Vice President Joe Biden and including "representatives from cities working to address the spread of violent extremism." President Barack Obama will join the…

Last week’s announcement that the White House intends to restore normal diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba is part of Barack Obama’s larger project to overturn what he perceives to be wrongheaded, or at least outdated, foreign policies. From Obama’s perspective, the Cold War…

A senior White House official says the implementation of President Obama's executive order on immigration is "well underway" and that the administration would "proceed" regardless of congressional efforts to block the order.

Last week, the Obama White House finally clarified its Middle East policy. It’s détente with Iran and a cold war with Israel.

President Obama's former defense secretary, Leon Panetta, called for a White House shake-up this morning on CBS:

The Obama administration and the State Department have responded to multiple reports of Americans attempting to join ISIS, the Islamic terrorist group, by setting up a social media campaign called "Think Again, Turn Away." The effort includes a Facebook page and a Twitter account designed to…

Eric Holder, the attorney general and one of President Obama's longest serving cabinet members, will resign. NPR reports:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the supposed "good failure" the Obama administration is touting in their failed effort to save the late James Foley, who was brutally killed by ISIS.

The new inquisitor has just been appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to “investigate” Israel’s conduct of Operation Protective Edge, following in the footsteps of Richard Goldstone, who famously, incompetently, and unjustly “investigated” Israel's 2009 Operation Cast Lead. The new Goldstone—an…

As the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) capture territory and establish a caliphate stretching across the now-eradicated Syria-Iraq border, hard-won gains secured with American blood and treasure are being lost. We are watching the rise of potentially the gravest threat to…

The last question asked at Monday night's closed-door briefing of members of the House of Representatives was a simple one: Who made the decision to transfer five top Taliban officials held at Guantanamo Bay to Qatar in exchange for the return of the Taliban's lone American POW, Army sergeant Bowe…

From 2005 through 2008, legal scholars and Democratic politicians heaped relentless scorn upon the Bush administration for arguing that the president's constitutional commander-in-chief powers superseded statutes that might limit his discretion. And so it is quite interesting to watch the Obama…

Several men who served with Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan say Bergdahl deserted in 2009 before being captured by the Taliban. Bergdahl's release this weekend as part of an exchange with the U.S. for five top Taliban operatives who were being held in Guantanamo Bay has prompted those…

Democratic senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana is in a tough reelection battle because of her support for Obamacare. So its not surprising her latest TV ad focuses on the one high-profile fight she's had with the Obama administration, over oil and gas exploration. The 60-second spot features people…

Former CIA deputy director Mike Morell, who also served a stint as acting director of Langley, is testifying before House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence today. The hearing focuses on the Obama administration’s response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on Iran, its nuclear program,  reports the President might visit there, and how the GOP can reach younger voters regarding the Obamacare debacle.

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the repeated "pivots" by President Obama to the economy that appear not to be doing any good.

Andrew Marshall, the longtime director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, has had a number of titles conferred on him over the years. A 1999 profile in Washingtonian magazine dubbed him “the most influential policy maker you have never heard of.” Others of us who have known him over the…

Fewer than 50,000 Americans have signed up for private health insurance plans via healthcare.gov, the federal insurance exchange website that opened on October 1. The Wall Street Journal reports:

An organization representing Louisiana parents shouldn't be allowed to intervene in a federal lawsuit against the state's school voucher program, the Department of Justice said in a response to a motion requesting legal intervention. The Louisiana chapter of the Black Alliance for Educational…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the shutdown and the Republicans' position in resolving Obamacare, funding the government, and the debt ceiling.

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is continuing his public campaign against the Obama adminstration and its lawsuit halting the state's public school voucher program. In a new ad airing on TV in Louisiana, Jindal criticizes the Department of Justice's suit, saying the federal government "wants to run…

Anyone following the news even casually last week surely noticed the long parade of Obama administration officials trotted out before the cameras to insist their boss, the president, has always understood the serious and ongoing threat presented by al Qaeda and its affiliates—emphasis on…

During his speech on the economy last month in Galesburg, Illinois, Barack Obama suggested Washington should stop focusing on an “endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals.” He repeated the line about “phony scandals” in another speech on July 25 and in his weekly…

Lately, the Obama administration has taken to referring to "phony scandals" that have distracted Washington from the important issues--namely, the White House's domestic agenda. But a new poll from Fox News shows that the majority of Americans believe each of the four of the administration's…

The Washington Post editorial board criticizes the Obama administration's dereliction of duty on defense spending:

On Friday, the State Department announced that 21 diplomatic facilities (now updated to 22), from North Africa through the Middle East and into South Asia, are to be closed this weekend in response to an al Qaeda threat. The State Department’s travel alert warned of “terrorist attacks…possibly…

Earlier this week, Texas senator Ted Cruz pledged to block State Department nominees until the federal agency filled the vacant inspector general position. Almost two days later, the State Department nominated Steve Linick for the position, which has been vacant for nearly 2,000 days.

It's a well-known fact that on most college campuses, supposedly havens of academic freedom, you really have to watch what you say.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Thomas Donnelly, Resident Fellow and Director of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute on his forthcoming editorial on the conflict in Syria.

A new poll from CNN demonstrates that Americans say the continuing investigations into two scandals that have arisen in the last week are important.

Most Americans say that the issues being raised by congressional hearings into the Benghazi terrorist attacks and the revelations that the IRS unfairly targeted conservative groups "involve serious matters that need to be investigated." According to a new poll from Gallup, 69 percent of those…

Ron Fournier, writing at National Journal on the growing Benghazi scandal:

House speaker John Boehner is criticizing the White House's reaction to the revalations, first reported by Stephen F. Hayes for THE WEEKLY STANDARD, that the administration's talking points on the terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last September were altered. From a press release…

And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? They were, those people, a kind of solution. How many times in the last century have these concluding lines of C. P. Cavafy’s famous 1898 poem, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” been quoted? How many modern intellectuals have pondered the…

The United States Senate voted 94 to 3 to confirm one of its own, John Kerry of Massachusetts, for the office of secretary of state. Republicans John Cornyn and Ted Cruz (both of Texas) and James Inhofe of Oklahoma were the only senators to vote against Kerry's nomination to succeed Hillary Clinton…

CNN host and British national Piers Morgan ginned up controversy earlier this month when he criticized American gun laws and berated a gun rights advocate in an on-air rant following the shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. Since last Friday, nearly 75,000 Americans have signed an online…

November 6 is not only Election Day, it's also the eight-week anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

After more than two weeks of obfuscation and misdirection from the Obama administration, the American public is coming to understand what the U.S. intelligence community learned in the 48 hours immediately following the September 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Among the…

Andrew Stiles of the Washington Free Beacon reports that the national security advisor to the president, Tom Donilon, is double dipping:

The Obama administration set forth its demands of Iran in advance of this past weekend’s negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program. The New York Times reported on April 7 (emphasis added):

The politicization of intelligence by the Obama administration continues apace. 

Last week, Syrian security forces withdrew from Zabadani, a town near Damascus where defectors from the army and other antiregime elements had been exchanging heavy fire with the army. In Lebanon, some democracy activists believe that an opposition victory in a major Syrian city will energize…

You can criticize Barack Obama—and fear not, I’m about to—but he has been a consequential president. Obamacare, his signature domestic accomplishment, is a substantial step toward the government-run health care program that Democrats have long desired. It may be hard to get rid of, even with a…

Is it possible that the people who run the Obama administration aren’t as smart as we’ve been led to believe?

Politico reports:

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the Department of Energy has approved loan guarantees for two solar energy projects:

On July 28, the Treasury Department designated six al Qaeda operatives involved in shipping money and men from the Persian Gulf to senior al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The move targets a node of the global terror network that is critical to its overall strength, freezing any of its…

The Obama administration is after your Lucky Charms, or at least your children’s. The public comment period closed on July 14 for a set of “voluntary” guidelines for the marketing of food to children. If adopted, these rules will transform the advertising of breakfast cereals.