Berkeley, California, has long occupied a soft spot in the liberal heart. In popular mythology, it's the 1960s birthplace of the free speech movement, in which idealistic young hippies helped push for civil rights and an end to the Vietnam War.
Wednesday seemed to offer a somewhat dispiriting conclusion to what had been a hopeful period for regulatory-reform advocates. Senate Republicans were unable to muster the 51 votes needed to repeal Obama-era rules governing methane emissions that stem from oil or natural-gas drilling. Vice…
Iran continues to boost the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria and act as the leading state sponsor of terrorism even as the nuclear deal temporarily limits the country's ability to build a nuclear weapon, according to a top intelligence chief.
An attempt by Senate Republicans to rollback an Obama-era regulation limiting methane emissions on federal lands failed, but the Interior Department has announced it would review the rule on its own.
China may only be implementing sanctions against North Korea in fits and starts, but it has shown no trouble sanctioning its democratic neighbors, South Korea and Taiwan. South Korea, for the "crime" of trying to protect itself from North Korean missiles—Beijing loathes the THAAD missile defense…
On May 8 President Trump announced his nominees to fill 10 of the 120 vacancies on federal district and appellate courts. All 10 have conservative pedigrees. They were on a list supplied by the conservative Heritage Foundation (the same list from which Trump picked Neil Gorsuch). Or they were…
Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:
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The Republican party's dream of an Obamacare replacement might yet become reality. But the House-passed American Health Care Act is a nightmare: a labyrinth of policy trade-offs and academic ideas the public has resisted entering. It's currently polling in the 30s—a relative achievement, given that…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren analyzes the various reporting regarding the firing of FBI director Jim Comey. What have we learned? Nothing.
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.…
Editor's note: Former Democratic representative Corrine Brown was convicted by a federal jury on 18 counts in her corruption trial Thursday. The 12-term Floridian's prosecution was related to theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fake charity. Most of the counts were related to mail,…
Aetna announced late Wednesday it will withdraw from the last two Obamacare exchange states in which it was still participating, taking one of the nation's insurance giants off the law's markets entirely next year.
Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe was on Capitol Hill Thursday nominally to discuss worldwide threats, but that did not stop him from facing questions about reaction within the bureau to the dismissal of James Comey. McCabe said that the vast majority of FBI employees did not lose confidence in…
Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe said Thursday that the bureau is continuing its work despite the sudden firing of James Comey, and that there have been no attempts yet to hinder the agency's efforts.
Bloomberg is reporting that President Trump is considering former Rep. Mike Rogers to replace James Comey as FBI director. Rogers is a former FBI agent; by the end of his seven terms in Congress he was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Bloomberg's report suggest that Rogers "would…
In the world of politics, perception becomes reality. But when it comes to the prevailing wisdom about the 2016 presidential elections and their likely impact on the 2018 mid-term elections, perception more closely resembles fake news.
There's a scene in the Brock Landers documentary—the movie-within-a-movie tucked away inside Boogie Nights—where Dirk Diggler explains how his work in adult films is actually a public service:
The Substandard discusses Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2—it was great, it was good, it was terrible! JVL gives us a rundown of the Substandard Season One, Sonny's theory on chain restaurants is challenged—by Sonny! Vic's not afraid of "street meat." Plus pizza rankings and a word from our sponsor,…
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The victorious Iraqi troops who greeted us this winter in the newly liberated town of Bartalla on the edge of Mosul seemed so different from those I remembered from the mid to late 2000s that it was hard to believe they came from the same country. These guys were, to put it in American military…
Why did President Trump fire James Comey? The initial explanation offered by the administration on Tuesday night was that the FBI director had mishandled the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server, dating back to a public appearance by Comey back in July 2016—10 months ago. It had…
Save for a few peaceful patches in the commencement program—when the concert chorale sang, when the brass band played, when the the charismatic chaplain called graduates and guests to prayer—students at the historically black Bethune-Cookman University's commencement ceremony on Wednesday clamored…
OK, someone—and the surveillance video shows exactly one man wearing black clothes—hung bananas by strings that resembled nooses at three locations on the campus of Washington, D.C.'s American University during the wee hours of the morning on May 1. The banana-hangings were plausibly a racial hate…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor at large William Kristol weighs in on Donald Trump's firing of FBI director Jim Comey.
Mississippi governor Phil Bryant would waive certain Obamacare mandates specified in the House-passed health care bill if doing so would improve the state's insurance market, Bryant's office told THE WEEKLY STANDARD on Wednesday.
The Senate Intelligence committee investigation into Russian election interference may face a few procedural bumps but will ultimately be brought to fruition despite the Trump administration's firing of FBI director James Comey, Republican committee members said Wednesday.
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Tuesday at the White House began with an almost unusual stillness, with President Trump having no public appearances on his schedule. Trump met with aides, received his daily intelligence briefing, and tweeted a series of criticisms of his former acting attorney general. A normal morning, really.
In the wake of President Trump's surprise firing of FBI director James Comey, Democrats are redoubling their calls for an independent investigation into Russian election interference, including any potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russi.
President Trump has fired the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In a statement, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said James Comey has been "terminated and removed from office." Spicer also stated that both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein,…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, reporter Alice B. Lloyd discusses her recent story "There Is No Easy Way to Clean Up Obama's Title IX Mess."
Soon after President Trump issued his executive order on "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty," which includes potential "conscience protections" for those with religious objections to certain health insurance mandates, Planned Parenthood issued a press release noting that some "faith…
Dismantling Obama-era over-regulation is supposed to be a top priority of the Trump administration. And few regulations have caused as much consternation as Obama's reinterpretation of Title IX. Alas, no amount of subsequent policy can easily disentangle this overreach from campus life.
In the end, self-interest defeated collective interest. The South Korean presidential election, which concluded Tuesday, featured one strong left-wing candidate, Moon Jae-in, and three credible centrist-to-conservative contenders. (Notably, all three of the center-right candidates professed hard…
In the end, self-interest defeated collective interest. The South Korean presidential election, which concluded Tuesday, featured one strong left-wing candidate, Moon Jae-in, and three credible centrist-to-conservative contenders. (Notably, all three of the center-right candidates professed hard…
A national survey conducted entirely after House passage of the Republican health care bill found that support and opposition to Obamacare is split evenly among Americans.
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It's been telling to watch the a-flutter reaction of liberals to President Trump's April 21 appointment of Sylvia Trent-Adams as acting U.S. Surgeon General after forcing the resignation of Barack Obama's appointee of three years, Vivek Murthy. It's as though incoming presidents are expected to…
You know about the Oscar curse: The notion that winning the Academy Award for Best Actress is great, but often followed by professional oblivion. Is there a New York Times curse as well?
What's going on at the National Security Council? Eli Lake at Bloomberg View reports that President Trump himself has "clashed" with National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster "in front of his staff." And it's not just the president, Lake writes:
Former director of national intelligence James Clapper said Monday that he was not aware of an FBI investigation involving potential coordination between Russia and the Trump team before March, but reaffirmed nonetheless that he had not seen evidence of such coordination.
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Michael Warren discusses his feature profile of Jared Kushner, "The Voice in His Ear."
The Substandard is off to the races in this latest micro-episode, talking all things Kentucky Derby. JVL asks how many mint juleps can one man drink—at a party with kids. Sonny doesn't think horses are athletes. Vic talks about his (genetic?) penchant for gambling and his trip to Churchill…
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…
In March, Arizona became the first state to pass a bill allowing the free flow of medical information between drug companies and physicians. The Free Speech in Medicine Act, which was passed unanimously in both state houses, may seem curiously innocuous: It simply permits pharmaceutical companies…
From the Foundation for Constitutional Government:
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What is the world's most effective weapon? During the First World War, gas killed about 90,000 people. During the Second World War, it was used to kill 6,000,000 Jews. Directly and indirectly, the two atomic bombs killed about 200,000 Japanese; the Japanese used anthrax, cholera and the bubonic…
President Donald Trump will nominate 10 people to federal judgeships on Monday, the New York Times reported Sunday evening. The nominations include five appeals court seats, four district court seats, and a federal clams court seat.
The most unpredictable presidential election campaign in the history of the Fifth Republic ended with a suitably surprising outcome: For once, the pollsters and the commentators were right. After the confounding of the experts in last June's Brexit referendum and last November's U.S. presidential…
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Michael Warren tells us about the president's most listened-to advisor; Fred Barnes comes by to talk with host Eric Felten about the House vote to repeal and replace (or perhaps just revise) Obamacare. And Garrett Graff, author of the new book Raven…
What does France have against the free press?
North Korea is a notoriously difficult country to escape from, not only because of the physical barriers the country erects along its northern border, but because of a sickening form of hostage-taking: High-ranking officials are not allowed to bring their whole families on overseas postings. That…
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Education policy is prone to extremes. Cozy bipartisan cooperation brought big, messy compromises like the Bush-era "No Child Left Behind." Then, an oppositional fervor stoked by Tea Party-flavored federalism attacked the Common Core, and now bitter battles with big labor consume the school choice…
In the traditions and superstitions of the theater, Macbeth is known simply as "the Scottish play." To refer to it by name would be, for some never-explained reason, bad luck. Yet, as far as oblique references, this one provides a fairly apt summary of the sense of the play. At its heart, it is a…
Monetary policy is on hold: The Fed has set a pattern of interest rate increases and is sticking to it. Fiscal policy is also on hold. Republican scorpions bottled in the House of Representatives are split between deficit hawks and deficit doves, and those favoring a border tax and those joining…
Monetary policy is on hold: The Fed has set a pattern of interest rate increases and is sticking to it. Fiscal policy is also on hold. Republican scorpions bottled in the House of Representatives are split between deficit hawks and deficit doves, and those favoring a border tax and those joining…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, editor at large William Kristol shares his perspective on the House's passage of the American Health Care Act and the road ahead in the Senate for Obamacare repeal.
Endnotes and digressions from the latest show:
So here we are, once again, coming up on the first Saturday in May and "the most exciting two minutes in sports." That phrase is generally attributed to Grantland Rice but it is a paraphrase. He actually wrote, in 1935, that, "Those two minutes and a second or so of derby running carry more…
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As President Donald Trump and House speaker Paul Ryan spoke on the phone Thursday morning, hours before the House would vote on the American Health Care Act, they discussed an idea: If the bill passed, Ryan and a group of House Republicans would travel to the White House for a post-vote statement…
On the day of Freddie Gray's funeral—April 27, 2015, when the city of Baltimore erupted in a wave of violence, crime, and arson—the police force did not employ a single chaplain. In the two years since, they've grown an ecumenical corps of 134 men and women of the cloth who ride along with officers…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, executive editor Fred Barnes discusses the House's passage of the American Health Care Act, and why it was a necessary win for President Trump and the GOP.
House Republicans held together just enough on Thursday to pass their partial Obamacare replacement, a surgically repaired bill that a critical mass of conservatives and moderates blocked until they became more comfortable with the final product in recent days.
In this latest episode, the Substandard discusses box-office bomb The Circle and the techno-thriller genre. Vic loves WarGames, Sonny goes on an Andy Rooney rant against elitist foodies, and Jonathan shares an L.A. story. All on this week's "inchoate" episode of the Substandard!
If James Bennett is remembered for anything, it's the formulation: "Democracy, immigration, multiculturalism . . . pick any two." A lot of people—in America, in France, all over the place, really—have come to see this proposition as reasonably serious.
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Have a question for Matt Labash? Ask him at askmattlabash@gmail.com or click here.
Republicans are adding another $8 billion over five years to their health bill to help Americans with pre-existing medical conditions pay for insurance, the latest such supplement designed to stop moderates and a few skeptical conservatives from bailing on the legislation.
Jean Stein, author and editor, took her own life earlier this week when she leapt from the balcony of her Upper East Side apartment. Friends described her as depressed. She was 83, and leaves behind her two daughters, Wendy vanden Heuvel, an actress and producer, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor…
On April 20 I posted about what I called a "simmering, occasionally boiling cauldron of ethnic self-pity, social-justice terrorism, whines about homework, and calls for the abolition of free speech" at the five ultra-elite Claremont Colleges in Southern California. I focused on news accounts about…
Today on the Daily Standard podcast, senior writer Mark Hemingway talks about how newly minted New York Times columnist Bret Stephens trolled the left on climate change.
Amid a tense Democratic debate over whether pro-lifers have any place inside the party, Nancy Pelosi delivered a blunt message to her fellow Democrats: Trump won because of the party's rigid stance on abortion and other social issues.
FBI director James Comey stood by his October decision to inform lawmakers that his agency had discovered new emails linked to the Hillary Clinton investigation, an event that Clinton and her allies continue to charge swayed the election at the last minute. Comey testified Wednesday before the…
In the contemporary campus climate, that lovely stretch from the latter half of April to the first blush of May is also controversial commencement speaker season. The most contested, in a year in which her raked-over confirmation proceedings garnered outsize news coverage, will probably be Betsy…
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What's the holdup? Deputy national security advisor K.T. McFarland is waiting to leave the White House to prepare for her new assignment as the U.S. ambassador to Singapore. An administration official confirmed back on April 9 that McFarland, a veteran of the Reagan administration who was a Fox…
On Tuesday, the Heritage Foundation's board of Trustees unanimously "asked for and received the resignation of Jim DeMint as president and CEO of the organization," according to a statement from board Chairman Thomas Saunders. The statement blames DeMint for unspecified "significant and worsening…
The latest version of the American Health Care Act continued to leak GOP support on Tuesday, as Republicans stumbled to defend critical details of the bill that Democrats and outside groups have effectively defined as dangerous to sick consumers.
Two prominent Republican senators are exploring a variety of options to push through a Russia sanctions bill as soon as possible, after Senator Bob Corker said Monday that the sanctions are on hold for now.
Colonel Bruce Hampton, a four-star general of the South's jam band scene, contemporary of the Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead, influence and mentor to blues artists, occasional actor and constant character, passed away early Tuesday in Atlanta after collapsing onstage during a concert celebrating…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Daniel Krauthammer discusses his cover story "What Makes America Great?"
Despite decades of public campaigning, steady increases in penalties, and even the advent of ride-sharing apps, some 10,000 Americans are killed each year by drunk drivers. These are preventable deaths, each one an outrage and a tragedy. The Washington Post, for its part, has therefore…
It's widely accepted that traditional colleges and universities are ripe for some kind of disruption.
Top Republican senators advised the president on Monday to be cautious about meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, after he said in an interview that he would be "honored" to meet with Kim "under the right circumstances."
As the Trump administration scrambles to tamp down reports (via the New York Times) that the National Security Council and the State Department were caught flat-footed by President Trump inviting Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte to the White House, details included in the State Department's…
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Lawmakers will likely consider an Iran sanctions bill in coming weeks but will not do the same for a Russia sanctions bill, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told reporters Monday.
Last week, the New York Philharmonic presented Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto as part of a wide-ranging program under visiting Belfast-born conductor Courtney Lewis and pianist Jonathan Biss.
If the House of Representatives ends up passing a new version of the American Health Care Act in the next couple of weeks, Republicans can thank the White House—for staying mostly out of the way. While both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence continue to speak with both House…
This post has been updated for clarity and to reflect that the location of the event was changed from City Centre Doha to Intercontinental Doha. After publication, the event was moved once again, as we reported here.