Republicans

The Scrapbook has had occasion to complain from time to time about the way in which journalists in the mainstream news media use the terms “conservatives” and “Republicans.” “Conservatives” hold this loathsome opinion, they might write, or “Republicans” are doing that bizarre thing, but when you…

Ex-NFL receiver Anthony Gonzalez’s impressive political debut in the suburbs of Cleveland, Akron, and Canton.

Republican Will Hurd will serve a third term.

A fun look back at a district-picking game

The tribalization of conservatism.

Aggression in the pursuit of policy victories is no vice.

This is normal. Everything is fine.

A muted reaction to Helsinki from the GOP Congress.

In a potential Trump-Putin meeting, senators would want the president to talk about Syria, Ukraine, and election meddling.

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

Officials also staged “roadshows” encouraging foreign financial engagement with the Islamic Republic.

Greitens, Trump—and us.

Tributes to cancer-stricken Arizona senator dominate Freedom Award dinner.

Six thoughts about Georgia’s 6th congressional district:

During a recent Seattle City Council meeting, member Tim Burgess sought agreement on a juvenile justice issue by noting that "even some of our Republican friends" favor criminal justice reform. Council member Kshama Sawant, a socialist, stood to oppose what she saw as Burgess's unfounded claim, the…

In mid-December, Jeb Bush announced his intention to explore a presidential bid. If he runs and wins the Republican nomination and then the election, he will be the third President Bush in 25 years. That unprecedented prospect has left many wondering: In a republic like ours, is it proper for one…

Asked why Virginia has become a Democratic state or at least is Democratic-leaning, former governor Jim Gilmore had a one-word answer: "Fairfax."

There's an untold story from the 2016 election that should encourage Democrats and worry Republicans. It happened in Houston, the nation's fourth largest city in population and the hometown of former President George H. W. Bush. To be precise it's Harris County, Texas—which consists mostly of…

George Kennan concluded his famous 1947 article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct," which laid the groundwork for the doctrine of containment at the beginning of the Cold War, with this peroration:

George Kennan concluded his famous 1947 article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct," which laid the groundwork for the doctrine of containment at the beginning of the Cold War, with this peroration:

Top Republican lawmakers are praising the Trump administration for levying a crop of sanctions on Iran after the country conducted a ballistic missile test Sunday, hailing the move as the beginning of a tougher posture toward the Islamic Republic.

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.

There would seem to be three possible outcomes for the Republican nominating process. Each has (more or less) a historical precedent.

With Super Tuesday now behind us, 15 of the 50 states have voted. If this were the Indianapolis 500, only 150 of the 500 miles would now be completed. Donald Trump has won won a plurality of the vote in 10 of the first 15 states—while Ted Cruz has won a plurality in 4 and Marco Rubio in 1—but the…

Donald Trump tightened his grip on the Republican presidential nomination by dominating Super Tuesday. But his prospects of defeating Hillary Clinton in the general election are fraught with new trouble.

Only 75 people came out to hear Chelsea Clinton condemn the Republicans for being racist, homophobic, and sexist. Clinton called this election the most important one of her lifetime.

Over the course of the last 48 hours, the Rubio campaign pulled one of the great head-fakes in recent political history by telegraphing that they weren’t at all interested in attacking Donald Trump at tonight's debate.

As Donald Trump tries to notch his third win in a row in Tuesday's Nevada caucuses, his two chief challengers for the Republican nomination appear to be more concerned with fighting it out for second place.

There seem to me to be two dominant scenarios for what happens next in the Republican presidential race. For now I'll just sketch them out, in the interest of stimulating thought and commentary rather than asserting a conclusion.

It was a wild and woolly debate, with lots of arguments worth commenting on and exchanges worth evaluating. But as is sometimes the case in these debates, only one statement really mattered.

There wasn't much to like in last night's Republican debate in Greenville, South Carolina. I doubt if many people came away from the two-hour squabble feeling better about the GOP or its presidential candidates.

Donald Trump got everything he wanted in New Hampshire primary—and a whole lot more. He's not only a stronger frontrunner in the Republican race than ever; he's now in the driver's seat on the road to the presidential nomination.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie went after Florida senator Marco Rubio in Saturday's Republican debate:

Watching the Republican debate tonight, I couldn't help but think,

Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, the scandal-plagued long time mayor of Providence, Rhode Island has died. He was 74. A Republican-turned-Independent, Cianci had recently proposed to his girlfriend.

If tonight’s debate presented an opportunity for Jeb Bush, John Kasich, or Dr. Ben Carson to get back into the race, it hasn't worked out that way. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie all have presence tonight – an intensity and urgency that suggests they know they're in the…

The Republicans are back onstage in a debate that presents some interesting strategic opportunities.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will host "poverty fighters" for President Obama's State of the Union Address. The speaker will also host Little Sisters of the Poor and a "Hero in the Balcony" at the Capitol on Tuesday.

Tom Nichols has a thoughtful and pretty persuasive piece over at the Daily Beast arguing that Trumpmania is the direct consequence of the militant PC radicalism that has infested American society over the last decade or so.

Bill Kristol joined L.Z. Granderson, Mary Bruce, and Matt Dowd this morning on ABC's This Week:

Lindsey Graham may have been approaching zero in the polls when he bowed out of the race for the Republican nomination Monday, but his exit, and the aftermath, are noteworthy for a few reasons.

When the Democrats passed Obamacare (without a single Republican vote), part of how they were allegedly going to pay for it was through a "Cadillac tax" on expensive employer-based insurance. Yet, this week, many Republicans are working with Democrats to delay or even repeal this tax. For three…

This is the moment I want to see from one of the Republicans facing off against Donald Trump Tuesday night:

If you were to acquire political information only from former and current officials of the Obama administration, you would think the Republican party is borderline seditious. President Obama himself regularly castigates Republican motives as un-American. Last week, in a typical tweet aimed at…

Texas senator Ted Cruz kicked off Thursday's Republican Jewish Coalition presidential forum in Washington with a speech filled with applause lines that revved up the crowd.

Last week, the best and worst of Donald Trump were on display within about 48 hours of one another.

I'm ready to concede that Donald Trump is the most anomalous figure I've seen in presidential politics. He has defied the laws of electioneering so many times-reversing his favorable-unfavorable numbers despite universal name identification; thriving in the wake of incidents that would have sunk…

An audience member at a Memphis rally for Hillary Clinton Friday fainted during the Democrat's speech. After Clinton asked for someone to help the supporter, she joked, "I thought it was the talk of Republicans that might have done it."

If Donald Trump supporters haven’t abandoned him yet, there’s little reason to believe they’ll do so now. But it’s worth laying out a slice of what it is they’re defending, what it is they’re excusing, and what it is they’re encouraging. Let’s review the past 72 hours of crazy with Donald Trump.

It’s a rare debate where no one comes out feeling like they won. Some thoughts on how the field performed:

Going in, Chris Christie was the guy to watch at the undercard debate. He’s moving in New Hampshire, he handled his relegation with grit, and people are finally starting to see what a talent he is.

At some point, the most obvious explanation is rope-a-dope. 

Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and pal of the Clintons, has taken it on the chin again.

President Obama inserted himself into the 2016 Republican presidential primary last night in New York City.

In January 2011, we at TWS had the notion that it would be good to defeat President Obama in 2012. And so in a blog post we asked the sensible question: " Wouldn't it be easier just to agree now on a Ryan-Rubio ticket, and save everyone an awful lot of time, effort, and money over the next year and…

The Republican candidates for president were remarkably unified in the (few) policy preferences they espoused at their debates on Wednesday night. All support cutting taxes and reducing regulation, and all oppose crony capitalism. The candidates may be remarkably diverse in terms of ethnicity and…

Boulder, Colo.

Boulder, Colo.

Tonight’s debate showed that the GOP field is smaller than it looks. Technically, there are still fourteen people running, but the winnowing is far along. We probably have a final six and possibly a final four.

The Bush hit on Rubio was obviously premeditated, so it wasn’t gaffe or a mistake. It was a revealing measure of his political talent and judgment. Let’s count the ways in which it was strategically ill-conceived and tactically incompetent:

In the undercard Republican debate on CNBC, Lindsey Graham bemoaned politicians who lie for political points:

In a lot of ways, tonight’s Republican debate looks like the lowest-stakes of the three debates so far. We know what the candidates all look like in a debate setting; we know which lanes they're each slotted into. And while there will be ten candidates on stage, the field really isn't that big…

The Florida Republican party has released video of Hillary Clinton supporters being unable to name an accomplishment of the former first lady, senator, and secretary of state. To make matters worse, the supporters the Florida GOP interviews are at a Clinton campaign event.

That’s what many defense experts are saying about the two-year budget deal that’s being cut by congressional leaders and the White House.  Byron Callan, longtime analyst for Capital Alpha Partners, which provides research to financial firms, rates the prospective deal as “defense positive.”

That’s what many defense experts are saying about the two-year budget deal that’s being cut by congressional leaders and the White House.  Byron Callan, longtime analyst for Capital Alpha Partners, which provides research to financial firms, rates the prospective deal as “defense positive.”

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the Republicans' good week.

Vice President Joe Biden seemed to contrast himself with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in remarks today at the White House:

Debates produce winners and losers. And CNN, known to some as the Clinton News Network, saw to it the biggest winner was the Democratic contenders as a group. Recall that when CNN staged a Republican debate, most of the questions were aimed at getting each candidate to attack the others, producing…

A new poll by Fox News finds Donald Trump remains the leader of the Republican pack. Trump holds 24 percent of the vote, but is in a virtual tie with Ben Carson, who is getting 23 percent of the vote. 

It has been clear for some time that Republicans need just two things in order to repeal Obamacare—a winning alternative and political willpower.  The jury is still out on how much of the latter the party possesses.  But when it comes to uniting around a well-conceived alternative that can pave the…

With crime rising in America and police increasingly under siege, many Senate Republicans have decided it’s a good time to liberalize federal sentencing policies—and to do so “quickly.”  One has to wonder at Republicans’ timing.  At what would appear to be a Richard Nixon or Rudy Giuliani moment,…

The latest Pew poll shows that Jeb Bush has fallen to 4 percent in the Republican field. Donald Trump leads the field with 25 percent; Ben Carson is at 16 percent.

The Republican congressional leadership has been nominally--but sometimes it seems only nominally--committed to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a conservative alternative.  Now one of the two leading candidates for House majority leader—the number-two position in leadership—is Dr. Tom…

At the beginning of a five-hour committee hearing on Tuesday with Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards as the sole witness, Chairman Jason Chaffetz made a surprising announcement. The Utah congressman and oversight committee chairman said he wouldn't focus on the undercover investigation…

Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke preview their new book, Jack Kemp: The Bleeding Heart Conservative Who Changed America, in today's Wall Street Journal:

It’s hard to exaggerate how shocking it is that Scott Walker is out of the 2016 race on September 21.

Jake Tapper and CNN pretended during the Republican presidential debate that Obamacare doesn’t exist.  But Republican voters won’t follow suit.  Instead, they are likely to cast their votes largely based on who looks most committed to repealing President Obama’s tenuously perched signature…

Say what you will about the Romney 2012 campaign, but Stuart Stevens is bright, perceptive, and candid—always worth listening to. So I was struck by his observation about Donald Trump during the course of an interview with New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman: “For Donald Trump to win, everything we…

Top Chris Christie donor Ken Langone made the case this morning on CNBC that Carly Fiorina is only doing well in the presidential race because she's a woman. "She's done nothing of any consequence in business," said Langone, a founder of Home Depot.

We heard today from an experienced campaign hand whose judgment we at TWS have come very much to respect:

This was a debate I thought would never end. It lasted for three hours and seemed like longer. We even learned from each of the eleven Republican presidential candidates whose face should be on the $10 bill. No blood was spilled, metaphorically speaking. There were no losers.

Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is "thrilled" the Republican debate is drowning out the Democratic primary. The DNC chair made the comments today on MSNBC:

Hillary Clinton is not so interested in debating her Democratic primary opponents, but her campaign wants voters to watch the Republican debate tonight on CNN.

It's fight night again and if the second GOP debate is anything like the first (no guarantees on that, by the way) then whatever happens tonight will shape the next several weeks of the race.

Here’s what I’d like to hear from each of the Republican presidential candidates in tonight’s nationally televised debate:

So far, the Republican presidential contest has been light on Obamacare, with Scott Walker — who has essentially championed the 2017 Project’s “Winning Alternative to Obamacare” — providing a noteworthy exception.  Since Obamacare is the biggest issue of Barack Obama’s presidency, why are most GOP…

I've suggested before that 2016 is beginning to look more and more like 1968. This is true in terms of the presidential contests—on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders is Eugene McCarthy, Hillary Clinton is Lyndon Johnson, Joe Biden will be Hubert Humphrey, and (the big question!) Elizabeth Warren…

Hillary Clinton compared Republican views on federal funding for abortion and elective contraception to the views of terrorists. Speaking in Cleveland Thursday, Clinton criticized Republicans who want to limit federal funding for abortions as wanting to deny "access to health care."

Chuck Grassley, the dean of the Iowa congressional delegation, recently sent out a fundraising letter/poll to Iowa voters. (He's running for his seventh six-year term in the Senate in 2016.)

With South Carolina removing the Confederate flag from its capitol grounds, state and local Democratic parties seem to have developed an urge to purge. Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports on an effort to get rid of the party’s founders:

Donald Trump says he wants to talk about issues.

Republicans have been slow in recognizing the real damage Donald Trump is doing to their party.  The harm is not to the party’s image.  What Trump has done is exacerbate the increasingly bitter rift between the party’s leaders and its grass roots.  He’s made the GOP’s future dicey.

Carly Fiorina explained on Fox News Sunday this morning that the presidential "race has just gotten started." And she is ready to go:

President Obama is doubling down on his comparison of Republicans to hardliners in Iran. In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, Obama says, "What I said is absolutely true factually."

Last night’s debate in Cleveland won’t change the course of the Republican presidential race. But it’s likely to affect individual candidates and how they’re viewed. Some gained, some faltered, some were unaffected.

Cleveland 

If anyone believed Donald Trump would be any different in Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, they were dead wrong. The Donald was his boastful, pugilistic, funny, and entertaining self, starting from the very first question of the night.

President Obama is responding to the Republican presidential debate by asking Democrats to give his party money. 

Best debate ever, right?

Carly Fiorina was the clear winner in a dull and relatively uneventful undercard debate Thursday evening. The former Hewlett Packard CEO was the most composed and effective of the seven candidates taking the stage in Cleveland, getting off a few memorable lines and detailed policy proposals.

Carly Fiorina tried to inspire the nation with a rift about how America is "being crushed by the weight, the power, the cost, the complexity, the ineptitude, the corruption of the federal government." She promised to fix that:

On Thursday, Sergio Gor, the communications director for presidential candidate Rand Paul, tweeted a picture of what appears to be another presidential candidate's closing statements that he says were left in the hotel printer:

Tonight is fight night and it could be the first inflection point we've seen in the race since June, when Donald Trump began his rise. In 2012 not every debate mattered, but the ones that did mattered a lot: Gingrich's rise came through the debates and Perry's collapse began not with his memory…

A new OpinionSavvy/InsiderAdvantage poll shows Donald Trump doing better in the South than he is nationally. In Georgia, The Donald’s 30 percent is nearly double his closest competitor, Jeb Bush (17 percent), Ben Carson’s at 10 percent, and the rest of the field is single digits—or zero, as in the…

In his speech today at American University on the Iran nuclear arms deal, President Obama asked for critics to evaluate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on its own merits. “Unfortunately,” said Obama, “we're living through a time in American politics where every foreign policy decision is…

President Obama said that Iranian hardliners are "making common cause with the Republican caucus" in a speech today in Washington, D.C.:

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, as well as Martin O'Malley and Ben Carson, will speak today at the National Urban League Conference in Florida. 

The Jeb Bush campaign announced today that the candidate's son, George P. Bush, will file his father's S.C. presidential paperwork.

Louisville

Donald Trump suggested that illegal immigrants with "merit" should be offered some sort of deal. "I'm a believer in the merit system," Trump said on a phone call this morning with MSNBC. "If somebody's been outstanding, we try and work something out."

President Clinton's former labor secretary, Robert Reich, has some good things to say about Republican presidential candidate John Kasich. Some good things, but not many.

That Donald Trump was supported by 24 percent of Republican voters in the Washington Post/ABC News poll on presidential candidates isn’t the most worrisome number for the GOP.  Even scarier is the devastating role that Trump would play as an independent or third party candidate.

Ames, Iowa

Speaking today in Iowa, Donald Trump attacked John McCain for being a former prisoner of war. Watch here:

Before we begin discussion of Donald Trump, we must start with Kevin Williamson's epic burn from a few weeks ago, because it's the truest thing you've ever read:

Carly Fiorina accused Hillary Clinton having "blood on her hands" for her handling of the Benghazi terror attack that killed four Americans:

Waukesha

Milwaukee

Jeb Bush will no longer be talking about Donald Trump. Bush made the comments to Fox News' Bret Baier, in comments that aired today on Fox News Sunday:

When Scott Walker formalizes his presidential run Monday with a long-anticipated announcement, he will have at his side a seasoned veteran of Republican politics and an architect of the modern conservative movement. THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that Walker is expected to name Michael Grebe as…

The mainstream press corps and (at least privately) many Republicans officeholders have adopted two seemingly irreconcilable positions.  They claim Obamacare is politically toxic for Democrats yet is somehow immune to repeal by Republicans (even after President Obama leaves office).  A recent piece…

It’s the summer of 2015, and the left is on the march. Or perhaps one should say—since the left presumably dislikes the militarist connotations of the term “march”—that the left is swarming. And in its mindless swarming and mob-like frenzy, nearly every hideous aspect of contemporary leftism is on…

Chris Christie will officially announce he's running for president on Tuesday, but the New Jersey governor has released a video suggesting he's certain to make the bid. Watch the 2-minute spot titled, "Telling It Like It Is," here:

Republican Jim Jordan went on Fox News this morning to discuss the fact that Republicans in the House of Representatives are considering impeaching the head of the IRS, John Koskinen:

Bobby Jindal's chief strategist, Curt Anderson, describes the Republican presidential candidate's announcement video as "very different." Anderson says, it's "not just another melodramatic saga of mush like most of them are."

The Millennial Task Force, a group convened by the House Republican Policy Committee, held its first hearing this week to discuss one of the biggest challenges for the Republican party in the 2016 election: securing the millennial vote.

The top Republican in the Senate is applauding President Obama after the passage of the trade bill.

Bobby Jindal is getting ready to announce that he's running for president of the United States. He appeared this morning on Fox News:

Speaking at the historically black Texas Southern University earlier this month, Hillary Clinton gave a fiery speech on voting rights. She accused Republicans of spearheading “a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our…

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, promises that "the American people are going to see a very different candidate" this time around. He made the promise this morning on Fox News Sunday: 

Donald Trump puts his chances at becoming the next president of the United States at "10-20 percent." He made the comments in an interview with Bloomberg News:

Jeb Bush has released the following excerpts of his campaign announcement expected later this afternoon:

On MSNBC today, Washington Post reporter Janell Ross hinted that Jeb Bush was covering up a major family scandal -- but she offered no proof or explanation for her comments. Even the MSNBC host made an effort to distance herself and her network from the Post reporter's comments.

House majority leader Kevin McCarthy laid out the Republicans' game plan for trade votes this week. In short, the memo sent out late last night details the rule votes will be held today, Thursday, and final vote is slated for Friday.

Tom Cotton is headed to Iowa. This weekend the freshman Republican senator from Arkansas will be a featured speaker at a Republican presidential candidate gathering in Boone, Iowa. 

Jeb Bush, a probable Republican presidential candidate, got feisty in an interview with Fox News's Neil Cavuto earlier today in Florida:

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is running for president of the United States. The New York Times reports:

Jeb Bush is underwater in a new poll of likely Republican caucus goers. The poll, which finds Scott Walker leading, was conducted by Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the 2016 presidential race and why Democrats will pay a price for Hillary's early dominance. 

In a 41-second video that's set to be released later this morning, the Republican National Committee is using a populist message to hit Hillary Clinton for "hypocrisy."  

Bobby Jindal is forming a 2016 presidential exploratory committee. The Louisiana governor made the announcement in a press release from advisor Timmy Teepell.

A liberal political action group has produced an ad and fundraising campaign that claims "Republican cuts" to infrastructure spending and Amtrak funding have "killed again." The Agenda Project Action Fund, which has been behind such campaigns as the ad featuring a Paul Ryan look-alike pushing an…

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina was asked this morning on CNBC how she's different than Jeb Bush. "Everything about me is different," said Fiorina. 

The Republican National Committee will release a web video later today that frames the Clintons as out of touch with everyday Americans. Another theme of the Republican ad is that the Clintons are willing to say just about anything, regardless of the facts.

Carly Fiorina announce on Good Morning America that, indeed, she is running for president of the United States:

Hillary Clinton has been an international celebrity for a quarter-century, and since Bill Clinton left office, the two of them have monetized their worldwide renown to a mind-boggling extent. In her last official filing for the State Department, Clinton listed her net worth as between $5 and 

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has voted to confirm Loretta Lynch to be the next attorney general. 

Nashua, N.H.

If there is anything that liberals and Big Business can seemingly agree upon, it’s that we don’t need an approach to immigration that benefits Main Street.  It remains to be seen whether anyone running for president will seize this opening and buck the liberal-corporate consensus, but in the…

Look, this is happening. It's a thing. Remember the jokes that started in 1992 with "two Clintons for the price of one"? Remember the incredulity of people in 1999 when it was quietly suggested that the first lady of the United States might decamp to New York and place a Senate seat into her carpet…

Miami

The Republican National Committee is kicking off a paid online ad campaign just ahead of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign announcement. Clinton is expected to make the much anticipated move as early as this weekend.

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a possible Republican presidential candidate, made the case that immigration policy should "protect"American workers and wages. Walker made the comments in an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity:

Vice President Dick Cheney had harsh criticism for President Barack Obama in an interview last night with radio host Hugh Hewitt. 

Rand Paul argued for immigration reform in an interview tonigth with Fox News's Sean Hannity:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz welcomes his "good friend" into the presidential race.

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal talked about religious liberty on NBC's Meet the Press this morning:

Last week, to much fanfare, Glenn Beck declared that he was leaving the Republican party and becoming an independent. During a Tuesday night appearance on the O’Reilly Factor, Beck explained his decision thusly:

Charles Krauthammer articulated a major hurdle that Ted Cruz will face as he runs for the presidency:

The Wall Street Journal editorial board greets the announcement of Ted Cruz’s presidential candidacy by taking the Texas senator to task for, of all things, being too much like President Obama.  The Journal notes that both men decided to launch a White House run as a 40-something first-term senator…

Ted Cruz announced at Liberty University in Virginia that he's running for president of the United States. Here's video:

If you’re an establishment Republican, ripples of doubt are intruding on your normal placid contentment.

"A matriarchy is a social organizational form in which the mother or oldest female heads the family. .  .  . It is also government or rule by a woman or women,” runs the entry in Wikipedia, adding helpfully that it can be a description for a society in which “the culture centers around values and…

It's official: Ted Cruz is running for president. He made the announcement shortly after midnight on Twitter. "I'm running for President and I hope to earn your support!"

President Obama uses his Nowruz statement to speak directly to the Iranian people. In doing so, he compares Iranian hardliners to those Americans who are skeptical the president's deal with Iran will prevent the rogue nation from getting nuclear weapons capability. 

Politico reports:

The Republican National Committee has released this web video, hitting the White House, the State Department, and the Clinton campaign for avoiding questions related to Hillary Clinton's exclusive use of private email to conduct official business:

Did Rand Paul just declare his presidential candidacy? In a recent tweet he calls himself a "candidate."

Jonathan Karl of ABC News reported this morning that Speaker of the House John Boehner will announce an "investigation next week into Hillary Clinton's email practices as secretary of state."

After Gov. Scott Walker's performance today in New Hampshire, he was greeted by throngs of supporters (and members of the press), who wanted to shake his hand and ask him questions.

A group of nearly 50 Republican senators have written a letter to Iran to explain how the U.S. Constitution works. The letter is "An Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

A top defender of Hillary Clinton, former White House special counsel Lanny Davis, said on MSNBC that "everything" on Clinton's private email servers should be available to Republicans in Congress. Davis made the comments in response to a question about how Clinton can put the questions about her…

Scott Walker has had a pretty good run as of late. He’s made some new friends and wrong-footed the right enemies and became, in fairly short order, a leader among the pack of Republican politicians running for president.  Perhaps even the leader. 

At yesterday's oral argument in King v. Burwell, the solicitor general made a surprisingly partisan quip about Congress. It caught many commenters' attention, including law professors Michael Greve and Josh Blackman. As the transcript reads:

Roger Williams, a two-term congressman from the Dallas suburbs and longtime GOP fundraiser, will be the new chair of the House Conservatives Fund, a federal political action committee that’s been practically dormant for several cycles. The 65-year-old Williams, who cut his political teeth as a…

We've just finished tabulating the results an online poll conducted during the last week of WEEKLY STANDARD readers. They were given a chance to let us know who would be, as of now, their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices for the GOP presidential nomination. We want to thank the 3,700 readers who…

Democrats have not had to answer for the actions of Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who offered to change a policy position in exchange for not being criticized, and threatened to paint President Obama as anti-Semitic and anti-women). Or for the Bill, Hillary, and…

Fred Barnes, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

The Republican National Committee will release a web ad today that hits Hillary Clinton for "hiding" and for "infighting and "backstabbing" in Hillaryland. The ad draws a parallel between the mistakes Clinton made last time she unsuccessfully ran for president in 2008 to how her unnanounced 2016…

The Republican National Committee is looking for Hillary Clinton. Which is why, according to a memo they've sent to the press, they're asking, “Where’s Hillary?”

Marco Rubio told radio host Hugh Hewitt that Jeb Bush entering the presidential race doesn't hold him back from running:

Barack Obama told Republicans that they should not risk "national security" over their disagreements on the president's executive amnesty.

Congressional Republicans can reasonably be accused of prioritizing issues about which middle-class voters care little. The president can reasonably be said to have his priorities perfectly in order, with counterproductive proposals that won’t achieve them.

Hugh Hewitt scoops that Mitt Romney will not run for presidenti n 2016. Here's Romney's statement, via Hewitt:

The first ad making the case for Scott Walker for president of the United States, from his newly formed committee called Our American Revival:

New Jersey governor Chris Christie spoke earlier today at Rep. Steve King's Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines. Christie may well have been the 2016 presidential candidate at the confab with the reputation for the most moderate conservative views. But while at first he was greeted with very modest…

News today came that Marco Rubio looks likely to run for president. What to make of this?

Having followed Romney around in both 2008 and 2012, I was always convinced that the odds of him running in 2016 were high. For one thing, the man has a decades-long history of running for office, over and over, even after voters reject him. He’s a career politician without a “career” in politics.…

Republicans have been tripping over one another to slag President Obama’s tax proposal, made in his State of the Union address, to repeal the step-up in basis on inherited wealth and use the revenue it would generate to increase the child tax credit and pay for free community college. While it’s…

President Obama taunted Republicans with an off the cuff remark:

President Obama talked about spending a lot of money tonight -- on preschool care, community college, new infrastructure, and a variety of tax preferences for middle- and lower-income earners. All financed by new taxes, primarily on the wealthy.

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, will give a major foreign policy address next week in London. According to early excerpts of the address, Jindal will use the speech to bash Hillary Clinton, the likely 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, and…

As the new Congress settles in under Republican control, it can be easy to forget that Republican control of the House of Representatives is a relatively novel concept. Until Newt Gingrich's revolution swept the party into power in 1994, the GOP was accustomed to permanent-minority status.

It’s us against them—an American economy on the upswing vs. a global economy that definitely is not. Last year the U.S. economy added almost 3 million jobs, the largest number in fifteen years. The headline unemployment rate is down to 5.6 percent, and the so-called U-6 unemployment rate, which…

Fred Barnes, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Mike Huckabee signed off his final Fox News show by saying he's thinking about running for president. "Stay tuned," Huckabee said, alluding to his possible entry into the Republican field.

Mike Huckabee kicked off his final show on Fox News with a lesson on governing -- and a warning:

While the controversy surrounding House GOP whip Steve Scalise continues to simmer, a 2002 press release (first uncovered by John Sexton) by the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO) promoting the May 17-18 "workshop" to "train future civil rights activists" fails to mention…

On domestic issues, President Obama rarely leads and doesn’t like to negotiate. In his first two years in office, he didn’t have to do either. He was spoiled by having overwhelming Democratic majorities in the Senate and House. And he hasn’t gotten over it yet.

Nicholas Stern is one of the world’s über-environmentalists, the author of the famous Stern Review, a 700-page study released by the British government in 2006, which concluded, “Climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent response.” Eight years on, Stern professes himself…