Horrific images from the aftermath of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria are once again circulating online. The scene of this gassing is the eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus. Both the location and the timing of this apparent war crime are symbolically important. And while the immediate…
Russia, Iran, and North Korea all play a role in the Syrian regime's chemical attacks on its own people.
Hosted by Charlie Sykes.
"I will do such things, what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth."
Museums have traditionally served as repositories for the past. But younger generations are avoiding the chance to slow-walk through history, so museums are exploring new ways to attract visitors.
Plus, why Trey Gowdy hated his time in Congress.
The Trump administration's decision to go after Russian leader Vladimir Putin's inner circle with sanctions is being praised as a long-awaited, highly significant response to the Kremlin's destabilizing activities.
Getting to know Sanderson, Texas, through the way it celebrates Easter.
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"Ura!" tweeted the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta April 5.
Although this magazine has frequently lamented President Trump's tendency to praise Vladimir Putin and his regime in public, we've also applauded the administration for its punitive actions against the Kremlin's dictator. And we've urged the administration to go further by, for instance, listing…
The Trump administration on Friday announced a new set of sanctions against 38 individuals and entities in Russia in response to a "consistent pattern of malign activities" by the Russian government.
For the most part, centrism gets a bad rap.
What has the White House been tellings friendly voices in the media? I explore this in the new issue of the magazine. Here's an excerpt:
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes discusses the embattled EPA chief, the latest on the trade war, our recent editorial on the economy, Charlie Sykes's recent opinion item "The Conscience of Ann Coulter" and the firing of Kevin Williamson.
Be careful what you wish for. Comedian Owen Benjamin spent yesterday on Twitter saying very not-nice things about one of the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. I won't link to them here because this is a family-friendly newsletter, but part of his schtick was taunting that he can't be…
In less than three weeks, the 2018 election will head to Arizona. Republican Rep. Trent Franks resigned late last year amid a scandal involving money, staffers and surrogacy (it's a bizarre story), triggering a special election in Arizona's 8th District. In a normal year, this district would be…
Give her credit: Ann Coulter is a woman of strong convictions. Those convictions may be wrongheaded, bizarre, and even bigoted, but she knows what she believes and is willing to hold Donald Trump accountable. Unless he builds the wall (and not just some candy-ass fence) she's done with him—ready to…
After sleeping in a ditch on US 385, Devon and I biked 30 miles to Marathon, Texas. It was a short distance, and Devon was as cheery to get on the road as he had been the entire trip: "Dude, every day there's a new pain that makes me forget about the old pain." If Devon has taught me anything, it's…
On this latest episode, the Substandard discusses Ready Player One, which all four of them went to see. JVL prefers the book, Sonny prefers the movie, and Vic found all the pop culture references heart warming. Vic also gets a close shave and JVL remembers calling the Nintendo hotline.
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As far as people-watching goes, you could do worse than the third hole at Augusta National. The rope line separating the gallery from the green is to the right of the putting surface, which is also just behind the tee box of the Homeric par-3 fourth. With no sand traps or obstructive trees around,…
Republicans are just over six months away from the 2018 midterm elections, and there's plenty to worry about. Midterms almost always favor the party out of power, and Democratic voters are far more enthused about the election than their Republican correlatives. And although one should never…
The Trump administration is sending the National Guard to the southern border, per a presidential memorandum issued on Wednesday. Citing a "drastic surge of illegal activity on the southern border" including drug trafficking, illegal border crossings, and gang activity, President Trump authorized…
A 12-year-old girl in Baltimore County, Maryland, complained to her teachers, her guidance counselor, and her middle school principal when a boy wouldn't stop harassing her. He leered at her in class, and, she says, touched her out on the playground in a way state law classifies as a sexual…
Silicon Valley has long been the Wild West of capitalism, but we may finally be reaching a point where Congress feels both entitled and justified in starting to regulate monopolistic tech giants. Exhibit A: The announcement Wednesday that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be testifying before…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, senior writer Michael Warren discusses the latest with the Mueller investigation, the latest from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Wisconsin special elections.
Why is Steven Spielberg devoting so much of his time to making cartoons? Ready Player One, his mammoth new movie, is the third film he's made since 2011 using motion-capture animation. The first two—The Adventures of Tintin and The BFG—were simultaneously hyperactive and dispirited. Spielberg is…
The White House said in a statement Wednesday that the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria is approaching completion, but did not indicate any change for the time being in troop levels, despite suggestions to that effect from the president in recent days.
On Tuesday, Mississippi Democratic Senate candidate Mike Espy's campaign released an internal poll showing him in the lead in Mississippi's upcoming Senate election. The headline might sound like good news for Democrats—every candidate obviously prefers to be ahead, and Mississippi is extremely…
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President Trump will attend a private dinner Wednesday night in Washington, hosted by America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC. Also attending the dinner, which is listed on the president's official schedule as an event "with supporters," is House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, the White House…
Here's one more indication the White House's infrastructure proposal is stuck in a ditch: D.J. Gribbin, the National Economic Council's point man on the project, is leaving the administration—for "new opportunities" as a White House official put it. The official added Gribbin does not have a set…
President Trump's use of the presidency to pursue a private vendetta with Amazon is appalling. But that doesn't mean policymakers shouldn't take a close look at the internet giant's power and competitive tactics.
Republicans have been awfully quiet over the last few days, and they probably should have been. The question is why they were so quiet.
Whenever I need to check out of the world, I head to a place called Satan's Creek. I go there to catch-and-release—or maybe catch-and-ogle—God's most perfect creatures: wild brook trout. They come small in these mountain runs. An 11-incher would be considered trophy-size. Still, bringing one to…
In his final public remarks as White House national security adviser, H.R. McMaster offered a stinging rebuke of Russian violations of sovereignty and attempts to sow discord in free societies, activities for which he said the U.S. and its allies must impose higher costs.
The upcoming parliamentary election in Hungary appears only marginally more exciting than the recent Russian presidential election. Although the number of undecided voters is substantial, it would require a minor miracle for the ruling Fidesz Party to be voted out of power this Sunday.
A headline from the blogsite "David Harris Jr." claimed that "David Hogg [was] mocked for giving Nazi/Socialist salute to end march."
To say antisemitism is on the rise in Europe is commonplace. A dismayingly high percentage of Europeans (often in the 40s, according to surveys) believe Jews are too powerful in their countries' governments, too influential in their media, and probably more loyal to Israel than to the countries in…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Jonathan V. Last, Rachael Larimore, and Jim Swift discuss why America fell hard for 16-seed UMBC and Sister Jean's Loyola Ramblers and whether this was the best March Madness ever.
Big Bend National Park is a tough sell because there isn't any one scene or location that's especially notable or so beautiful that it deserves to be your desktop background. But the park does have an overall effect on people that keeps them coming back year after year. I said in the previous entry…
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President Trump's National Security Council will convene at the White House Tuesday. Among the topics up for discussion: the American military's future in Syria, where around 2,000 troops are stationed as part of a mission to contain the growth and influence of ISIS. Syria has been torn apart for…
The basketball term "jump shot" describes the act of a player springing from their toes and flicking the ball toward the rim. Its form was perfected by Ray Allen: body oriented toward the basket with the exactness of a NASA flight path, feet quickly off the ground with token resistance from…
When Terry Bollea walked to the front of the courtroom on the fourth floor of the Pinellas County courthouse on March 7, 2016, he was just a shadow of the man he used to be—the man the world knew him as: wrestling superstar Hulk Hogan. Orthopedic surgeries had reduced his once-plucky stride to a…
The Russian Cultural Center, which sits in a restored mansion on a quiet, leafy block in Washington's Kalorama neighborhood, hosts language classes, lectures, and concerts with the stated goal of maintaining positive relations between Russians and Americans. For the second time in five years, it…
The tenor saxophone has always been seen as jazz's muscle instrument. It so often provides the brawn of any ensemble's attack. Were we to contextualize this particular make of horn in sports terms, it would be the home run, the slam dunk, the slap shot.
Amtrak ends charter rides. Did you know that you can hitch your own train cars to an Amtrak train? Granted, not many among us have privately-owned rail cars, a novelty for the richest among us, but some do. Anyways, this practice, the Wall Street Journal reports, is going bye-bye:
For the past week, Trump's approval rating in the RealClearPolitics average has hovered close to 42 percent. That's an improvement from early March, when the average briefly dipped below 40 percent. FiveThirtyEight didn't shift as much in that interval, but its aggregate shows that Trump gained…
What better time to cover satirical news than in the immediate wake of April Fool's day?
Big Bend National Park is one of the largest, most biologically diverse parks in the country—and you've probably never heard of it. Stuck all by its lonesome in the bendy part of southwest Texas, along 118 miles of the Rio Grande river, Big Bend is famously isolated and inaccessible. Out of all the…
In this latest micro episode, Sonny and Vic discuss one of their favorite shows, The Americans on FX. As the show enters its final season, Vic and Sonny look back on what makes it compelling television. It is also a JVLess episode because of schedule conflicts, but the gang should all back on…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Charlie Sykes talks to deputy online editors Jim Swift and Chris Deaton about the president's Easter message ("NO MORE DACA DEAL!") and advertiser boycotts.
It shouldn't take the popularity of Jordan Peterson or the presidency of Donald Trump to tell us masculinity has been in a bad place. Better evidence abounds. Look no further than long term demographic decline concurrent with the culturally ascendent denial of gender differences. Or consider the…
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The international effort to punish Vladimir Putin for the March 4 attempt to assassinate Sergei Skripal and his daughter is an enormously encouraging sign that free nations are at last turning against the Kremlin and its dictator. Britain has expelled 23 Russian diplomats from their posts in the…
What should be done about human gene editing? Should it be used by scientists to help parents voluntarily choose to have the best possible children, leading to an all-around improvement in the gene pool? Or would such efforts render people with disabilities "unfit" for the human germline, further…
Before heading to church on Easter Sunday, President Trump took to Twitter to complain about America's "dumb immigration laws," saying he was no longer interested in making a deal with Democrats to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and threatening to end the North…
In 2001, Australia's governing coalition, led by John Howard's Liberal party (who are, in fact, the country's conservative party) looked set to lose its majority. The opposition, led by the Labor party, had been leading in the polls for most of the year.
The Trump era, if nothing else, has shown that ideological alignments can be fluid and inconsistent. So fiscal conservatives can find themselves backing massive deficits, while evangelicals hand out mulligans for presidential payoffs to porn stars. But even by those fluctuating standards, the…
It's the first day of March Madness and I'm at a community center playing volleyball.
The key to reading history of Nazi Germany, a wise professor once explained to me, is to attempt to understand the logic and mentality of those who embraced the Nazi movement without ever losing sight of what an ultimately absurd and fundamentally evil project theirs was. This is the approach…
We don't hear much from Donald Trump about the stock market these days. Odd, that. There was a time when he took credit for its spectacular rise after his election. "The reason our stock market is so successful is because of me. I've always been great with money." Perhaps he has been absorbed with…
How did your team do on opening day? Well, I hope. My Cleveland Indians weren't able to pull out a W in Seattle. But here's a neat story for you I heard yesterday as I was driving home: Michaela Murphy's hilarious tale about her unsupervised childhood trip to the 1981 All Star Game at old Cleveland…
Life has become immeasurably better since one of my very best friends Devon Powley rode into town, ready to bike with me through the toughest section of this whole trip: Big Bend National Park. He flew from Washington, D.C. to El Paso, took a train to the neighboring town of Alpine, and finally a…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Adam Keiper and Stephen White join to discuss his recent article The Pope's Mess, a review of Ross Douthat's book about Pope Francis. Later, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift discuss the battle royale inside the West Wing to replace Hope Hicks, and host Charlie Sykes…
Former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele used to be Mr. Chatty when it came to the allegations of Russia-Trump collusion he had assembled. In the months before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Steele talked with the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Yahoo News,…
The departure of Hope Hicks, the single most trusted aide to President Trump, from the White House Thursday has left two voids in the West Wing. The first is as just about the only person around him who can give an unvarnished opinion to the president—and be heard and taken seriously. This position…
On Thursday, March 29, Ben Carson found himself in the news again. This time the problem wasn't his purchase of an expensive dining hutch (for which the housing secretary received condign criticism, including from this magazine) or his aim of shortening his agency's garbled mission statement (for…
President Trump traveled to Ohio Thursday to give what was supposed to be a speech touting his administration's infrastructure plan, as the White House attempts this week to refocus on infrastructure for the umpteenth time since Trump's inauguration. But that effort ran aground Thursday for the…
How Kirk Gibson inspired a bunch of future Nationals fans. Since it is Opening Day, we're going to have a few baseball stories. This one from 2016 by Rudy Gersten is worth checking out. It's about Kirk Gibson's's famous 1988 World Series home run, a ball that hit Gersten's aunt Pamela, a fact they…
Russia is expelling 60 U.S. diplomats and closing the American consulate in St. Petersburg in what the Kremlin described as a tit-for-tat response to the Trump administration's expulsions of Russian operatives earlier this week.
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Charlie Sykes talks to reporter Andrew Egger about the demise of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, President Trump's new-found feud with Amazon, and Egger's recent profile of Missouri Senate candidate Josh Hawley.
The road from Van Horn to Marfa, Texas, is unbelievably boring. I woke up from a night in a highway motel that involved multiple trips to the McDonalds next door and A Perfect World on cable, and went straight back to—you guessed it—McDonalds. Holding my second McGriddle in one hand and my phone in…
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On this latest episode, the Substandard discusses the Tomb Raider reboot and video games that become movies—are they ever any good? Sonny ranks the good ones. JVL gets mistaken for a grandfather and Vic thinks his blood test results are fake news.
President Trump announced on Twitter Wednesday afternoon that he was firing Veterans Affairs secretary David Shulkin and plans to nominate Admiral Dr. Ronny Jackson to head the department. Shulkin is the third Trump Cabinet official to be fired.
On Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un paid a surprise visit to Beijing. It was his first time out of his country since well before he became Dear Respected Leader in 2011. Kim arrived in an armored train, met with Chinese president Xi Jinping, and the two appeared in a series of photo-ops…
As all doomsday cults eventually learn, you can predict the end of the world only so many times before everybody stops listening to you.
The other day on the Daily Standard Podcast, we mused about whether we could recognize an historic turning point at the time it was happening. Usually, we have to wait for historical perspective to distinguish world-changing moments from the usual alarms and blips of the news cycle.
Is there a hole in our justice system where corruption is allowed to fester? Yes.
Everyone knows that President Trump is historically unpopular and his low approval rating is putting Republicans in real danger of losing at least the House in 2018. At this point, that's old news.
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday on Twitter that he intends to replace Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, bringing a long-expected end to the embattled secretary's administration post.
How to win a trade war. (Hint: the winning move is not to play, per War Games.) Over at FiveThirtyEight, there is a fun game letting you conduct your own trade war. Enjoy!
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Charlie Sykes talks to John McCormack about the latest cover story in THE WEEKLY STANDARD about the potential of a 2020 independent presidential bid by Ohio governor John Kasich.
As special counsel Robert Mueller prepares for a potential climactic interview with President Trump, his team continues to bore into potential links between Russian intelligence and Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. In new court documents filed Wednesday, Mueller is asserting the…
After a whirlwind visit to Casas Grandes and Colonia Juarez on the Mexican side I crossed back into El Paso late Friday night to pick up my bike from the mechanic. I still had a few hours of daylight, so I set off immediately for Clint, Texas, a small farming town 20 miles outside El Paso. It was…
Mao Zedong characterized the relationship between China and North Korea as that of "lips and teeth." His point was that the lips provide a buffer to the teeth: Without them, China would be dangerously exposed. Despite the occasional toothache, that relationship has endured. China is North Korea's…
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Russia continues to face international backlash following the assassination of a former spy and his daughter in the United Kingdom earlier this month. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that more than 25 countries have now expelled Russian intelligence agents "hiding under diplomatic cover" since…
Russia continues to face international backlash following the attempted assassination of a former spy and his daughter in the United Kingdom earlier this month.* Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that more than 25 countries have now expelled Russian intelligence agents "hiding under diplomatic…
What if there were no polls?
Athens
23 Years Later, Man Returns to Groundskeeping Job With White Sox. This Chicago Tribune story about Nevest Coleman's wrongful conviction is heartbreaking. For a man so wronged, it's heartening to see that the White Sox were eager to offer him his old job back.
The Trump administration’s decision to expel dozens of Russian intelligence officers from the United States earned bipartisan approval this week, with some of the president’s toughest congressional critics praising the move while calling for further action.
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Jonathan V. Last and Jim Swift discuss whether it's time to regulate Facebook, and Bill Kristol drops in to discuss the 2020 presidential elections. Will there be a third-party challenge?
"I have come to Albany mad as hell about Republicans, and I have come to Albany mad as hell about Democrats," said Cynthia Nixon in a speech in Albany Monday. Knowingly or not, she was quoting the movie Network, a dark 1976 satire of TV's corrupt command of America.
"Are you a missionary?" one of my fellow passengers asked. It was a pretty smart bet. We were bumping along on a bus ride south from Ciudad Juarez, and I was headed to Nueva Casas Grandes, a tiny town that looks big in comparison to its neighbors Colonia Juarez and Colonia Dublan, the last two…
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The Commerce Department announced Monday night that the administration would reinstate the question of citizenship for the 2020 census, a contentious move President Donald Trump’s Justice Department has urged since the early days of his presidency.
White House chief of staff John Kelly is telling staffers at the National Security Council that their jobs are, for a time, secure as John Bolton transitions into the role as national security adviser. No position is permanently guaranteed, but fears of a purge on the NSC, Kelly has indicated, are…
It’s not often that the head of a federal agency asks Congress for less money than the agency received the year before. So infrequent is it that one might reasonably assume the circumstance would generate some hint of intellectual curiosity on the part of reporters and politicos. If an agency head…
“Believe me,” said—well, not really “said,” but posted—Mark Zuckerberg. Raising Chico Marx’s old question, Who are you going to trust, me or your lying eyes?
'Grandma Torino' Pleads Guilty. In Macon, Georgia, a grandmother pled guilty to shooting a teenager in the head. Why? Because he supposedly threw rocks at her house. My old college professor Chris Lawrence has dubbed her "Grandma Torino", after the movie she apparently didn't watch, of course.
Two weeks after Hillary Clinton sparked an uproar by blaming backward-looking voters in middle America for her 2016 election loss, Republicans are already laying plans to turn her remarks into a major campaign talking point. Missouri Senate candidate Josh Hawley on Monday released two ads tying…
On this latest micro episode, the Substandard celebrates a Duke-less Final Four. JVL and Vic are rooting for the Ramblers and love Sister Jean—Sonny, less so. Vic recounts punishment by the nuns at his grade school.
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Jonathan V. Last and Michael Warren discuss the 60 Minutes interview of Stormy Daniels, March Madness and why Duke losing is good for America, the Russia investigation, and JVL's night at the Playboy Mansion.
Kim Jong-un cut a cosmopolitan figure as a youth—Swiss finishing schools, trips abroad with his dictator dad—but he's turned reclusive as he's ruled North Korea. Indeed, he hasn't departed his country once since assuming the throne.
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I hate instant replay. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
The much-hyped 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels aired Sunday, and did not reveal much more than we already know about the alleged brief sexual relationship between the porn actress and Donald Trump a decade before he became president. Daniels, who signed a non-disclosure agreement about the…
This weekend, hundreds of thousands of young people participated in the “March for Our Lives” in Washington, D.C., the culmination of efforts by student activists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who had survived the recent shooting that claimed 17 lives.
After months of attempted negotiations, the Department of Education has retracted privileges its union employees once enjoyed, saying the union “acted in bad faith” by refusing to broker an agreement with the agency.
Atlanta
After threatening to veto a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill before a midnight government shutdown deadline Friday morning, President Donald Trump ultimately signed the measure, citing national security concerns.
Citibank has announced a new “U.S. Commercial Firearms Policy” a move it descries as a direct response to recent gun violence. At the same time, Citibank claims this new policy is “not centered on an ideological mission to rid the world of firearms.” The measures that Citibank is instituting are no…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, editor at large Bill Kristol discusses why he's a little nervous about John Bolton as National Security Advisor, what the next two months will mean for U.S. foreign policy with a new secretary of state and NSA, and his most recent column on why he is still a…
Early in March, the Congressional Progressive Caucus met in Baltimore for its Strategy Summit 2018. Participants came from a wide range of liberal, progressive, and left-leaning groups and included individuals such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Women's March co-founder Linda Sarsour,…
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Arizona senator John McCain is asking the president’s pick for CIA director to expand on her involvement in the agency’s enhanced interrogation program, amid adamant objections to her nomination from one other Republican lawmaker.
I wish Ruth Marcus had come to the birthday party Wednesday night.
President Trump threw a potential wrench into congressional budget discussions Friday morning, threatening to veto the omnibus package that Republican leaders pushed to his desk just hours before to avoid a government shutdown.
Long before John Bolton was named Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser, the president often trusted the Fox News contributor over his own national security team. On July 17, when President Trump reversed himself at the last minute on his plan to recertify the Iran deal, it was thanks to an…
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will be swapping out national security adviser H.R. McMaster for former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, known Russia hawk, come mid-April.
Long before John Bolton was named Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser, the president often trusted the Fox News contributor over his own national security team. On July 17, when President Trump reversed himself at the last minute on his plan to recertify the Iran deal, it was thanks to an…
When is a steel tariff not a steel tariff? How about when it exempts two-thirds of steel imports?
The Facebook Apology Tour. Earlier this morning I joined our managing editor Christine Rosen on the Daily Standard Podcast to discuss the Zuckerberg walk of shame. Do have a listen! Some supplementary reading: Nick Gillespie at Reason makes the same point I do about regulating FB, and over at the…
The House Intelligence Committee voted on party lines Thursday to begin the declassification process for a GOP-led report that Republicans say caps the panel’s yearlong investigation into 2016 Russian election interference.
The March 7 acquittal by a New Haven jury of a suspended Yale student on charges of raping a classmate has been much lamented on campus and in the national media. But a review of the evidence shows that the trial was fair, the defense was ethical, and there was much more than a reasonable doubt…
Lawmakers in the House, racing a government shutdown deadline, voted 256-167 to pass a $1.3-trillion omnibus spending bill on Thursday afternoon, less than 20 hours after its 2,232 pages of legislative text were first released.
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, managing editor Christine Rosen and deputy online editor Jim Swift discuss Facebook's apology tour, the coming trade war, and the Trump-Biden boxing match.
There may be no better showcase for the sociopolitical contortions our culture’s made in the last two decades than what the #MeToo ethic makes of the campus novel Blue Angel, by Francine Prose. Recently adapted—honestly but shallowly—into a movie starring Stanley Tucci under a toupee, the limited…
During a televised hearing before the Homeland Security Committee last week on natural disasters in 2017, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama made a joke that thousands of people online perceived as a racist jab.
I am not typically late for things. Except, one morning in March of last year, I was running late to a doctor’s appointment for my wife and me. She was already there, having let me sleep in since I had been up late the night before. Not for work or anything. But to watch Team Israel in the World…
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In this latest episode of the Substandard, Sonny reviews The Death of Stalin, a movie Vic did not see because he refused to pay for parking. The return of Jony Ive is met with skepticism. Recriminations are launched, profanities are hurled. It's the crankiest Substandard yet!
Everyone has heard the story. Early this month, former GRU officer and British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, England. Twenty-one other people, including police officers who had intervened, received medical treatment and as…
Imagine: A high-level political consultant admits he mined Facebook data to target likely voters in swing states. He says he helped “build this thing called targeted sharing” that “allowed us to use Facebook to persuade people.” Cambridge Analytica? No, that was Democratic strategist Jim Messina,…
The spectacular rise of Jordan Peterson has caught much of the world flat-footed. Discussions of the psychology professor from the University of Toronto tend to focus on the enormous popular movement his lectures have spawned, rather than the actual ideas presented in the lectures themselves. As a…
President Trump is planning to announce a new round of tariffs on Chinese imports Thursday as the White House continues to crack down on what they term unfair Chinese trade practices and intellectual property theft. “Tomorrow the president will announce the actions he has decided to take on USTR’s…
Nebraska Republican Ben Sasse on Wednesday slammed the White House’s refusal to condemn the fraudulence of Russia’s election, describing the dodge as a break “with basic American moral tradition.”
Vice President Mike Pence’s daughter Charlotte wrote—and his wife, Karen, illustrated—a children’s book about the family bunny Marlon Bundo. It’s not Beatrix Potter or Watership Down. But it’s on time for the Easter theme, charmingly illustrated, and needless to say well-intentioned. Who doesn’t…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, staff writer and elections analyst David Byler breaks down the Illinois primary elections, and looks ahead at the primary elections.
On his website, John Laurits (a self-identified communist based in Oregon) claimed that there is “no evidence” that Russia was involved in the poisoning of former Russian spy and double agent, Sergei Skripal.
For decades, Ohio has been a political bellwether—a quadrennial swing state that often voted for the winning presidential candidate. But in 2016, something odd happened—Ohio jerked sharply to the right, giving now President Trump an eigh-point win despite his two-point national popular vote loss.…
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On Tuesday, Illinois’ incumbent Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, barely won renomination for his 2018 re-election bid. He defeated Jeanne Ives, a state legislator who was challenging him from the right, by only three points in the state’s primary. That’s not a great showing for Rauner – incumbent…
There are two ways of looking at Brexit. One is confusing, the other is clear, and both are true. Many people in Britain would prefer not to look at all at Brexit. They would prefer to undo it by calling a second referendum, or contriving a slow legislative throttling that, like the assassination…
Congressman Dan Lipinski beat back a primary challenge Tuesday night from liberal activists who targeted the Illinois Democrat mainly because of his anti-abortion views and votes.
Marion Le Pen caused a minor scandal when when she appeared at CPAC last month. Matt Schlapp insisted that she was “a classical liberal.” Others suggested that the Le Pen family and the National Front represented something very different from classical liberalism. At the very least, Marion Le Pen…
Liberals love the First Amendment’s “freedom of speech” clause. They rightly remember their forerunners—liberal journalists, civil rights activists, religious and political dissidents—and venerate the constitutional right that eventually vindicated these brave citizens. Yet it’s striking how often…
The newest member of Donald Trump’s legal team, Joseph diGenova, has lately been appearing on cable news to blast the Mueller investigation as part of a “brazen plot” to “frame” the president—revenge of the Swamp and the Deep State, if you will. But earlier this month diGenova was yukking it up…
After President Donald Trump congratulated Russian leader Vladimir Putin on his re-election during a phone call Tuesday, some Republican senators questioned the wisdom of commending an autocrat whose election they see as fraudulent. Others brushed it off as a diplomatic nicety.
A group of moderate Republicans was pushing this week to include legislation for “stabilizing” Obamacare within a spending bill that funds the government beyond its latest shutdown deadline of Friday night. The lawmakers’ proposal contains new money subject to abortion funding restrictions—a…
"Toys R Us’s baby problem is everybody’s baby problem" Was it really private equity that did in Toys "R" Us? Or was it demographics? That's what Andrew Van Dam argues at the Washington Post:
Ben Carson, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, pinned the blame for his department’s purchase of a $31,000 dining room set for his office on his wife and staff. In testimony before the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday, Carson also said the reason he authorized the purchase of new…
Top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian election interference on Tuesday marked the end of a critical portion of their probe focused on election security, and offered up a preview of the panel’s recommendations to counter foreign meddling in the midst of the 2018…
At oral arguments Tuesday for the case NIFLA v. Becerra, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court seemed skeptical about the constitutionality of a California law that requires pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to advertise for "free or low-cost" government-funded abortions.
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Sonny Bunch discusses his cover story on the end of the golden age of television with host Charlie Sykes and Books & Arts editor Adam Keiper.
By January 2009, nearly a half century had passed since the Soviet Union sent cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit. In the midst of the handoff from the Bush administration to the Obama administration, a member of the incoming transition team at NASA, frustrated by how static the agency had become,…
Amazon opened its first bookstore in the Washington D.C. area last week, a real brick-and-mortar storefront on ritzy M street in Georgetown, and is attracting the kind of attention you would expect. “An Amazon bookstore? What the hell?” one woman exclaimed to her friend, stopping for a double-take…
An omnibus funding bill is facing delays in Congress ahead of a Friday government shutdown deadline, with lawmakers scrambling to answer a number of open questions in the $1.3 trillion package related to border security, infrastructure projects, and gun violence prevention measures.
President Trump on Monday unveiled new plans for programs to combat America’s opioid epidemic, including educational campaigns, an anti-drug advertising blitz, and harsh new penalties for drug dealers. “Defeating this epidemic will require the commitment of every state, local, and federal agency,”…
Public officials tend to spend too much money on themselves and their offices. It’s an unfortunate part of the human condition—by definition public officials spend resources that don’t belong to them, and so they will often spend more than they have to. Media allegations of excessive spending by…
Correction, 3/20/18: The piece originally stated that at the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, "Israel took over the Palestinian territories." During the Six-Day War, the territories in question belonged to Jordan, not "Palestine." The piece has been updated accordingly.
During the Cold War, American intelligence efforts were divided. The NSA, FBI, CIA, and other groups functioned in an atmosphere of both cooperation and competition—“coop-tition”—to keep an eye not just on the Soviets but on each other. We didn’t put our eggs in one basket, to borrow a phrase.
As Congress faces another deadline to pass a spending bill or risk the third government shutdown in three months, lawmakers see an opportunity to advance gun violence prevention measures that have previously stalled in Congress.
What's in the most recent issue? Editor in chief Stephen F. Hayes is here to show you what is in this week's issue.
In this latest micro episode, the Substandard recaps the NCAA history-making defeat of 1-seed UVA at the hands of 16-seed UMBC. Sonny remains stoic, unfazed, and indifferent, despite being a UVA alumnus. (It helps that he really is not a fan of college basketball.) JVL asks Vic how Georgetown did.
Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe—sacked on the eve of his retirement after allegedly leaking information to a reporter and then misleading investigators about it—has acquired a pair of wildly divergent reputations. In Trumpworld, McCabe is a hack whose partisan actions during the Clinton…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, senior writer Michael Warren discusses President Trump's tumultuous weekend: from the firing of Andy McCabe to his resulting tweets.
Only tennis die-hards pay attention to “Next Gen” tournaments—ATP events specifically for under-21 players—but if you had been at the Next Gen finals in Milan last November, you might have noticed something unusual: There was no one making line calls during points; the only official on court was…
"What would a Das Kapital look like if written today?" may sound like a query that is more than a tad contrived, but in the hands of Rupert Younger and Frank Portnoy, who posed the question in a remarkable piece in the Financial Times recently, the conceit actually works quite well.
The result of the Russian election was no surprise, and neither is the list of foreign leaders who lined up to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his victory.
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Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker said on Sunday that he expects President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in May if progress is not made to fix it by then.
Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, was fired on Friday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions had received a report from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General following a probe into McCabe’s conduct while he served in the FBI. McCabe, who took over as…
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,” wrote Shakespeare. Although the odds that President Trump was reminded of that observation when re-reading The Tempest must be regarded as low, they are somewhat higher that he might at one time have stumbled across the modern variant, about…
Over at the Washington Post, opinion columnist Ruth Marcus reports something remarkable: Early in the Trump administration “senior White House staff members were asked to, and did, sign nondisclosure agreements vowing not to reveal confidential information and exposing them to damages for any…
Happy Friday! We have a lovely new issue out, with the cover story by former TWSer, current Free Beacon bigwig, and Weekly Substandard podcast co-host Sonny Bunch. It’s about the abundance of television #content available to people in the present day. Will any/much of this content endure, or is…
Talk about a Friday news dump: Chopsticks III, the “How Can Be Lounge,” a Portland, Oregon, karaoke institution will close this weekend, it was announced on Friday. (“How can be” was not a Mickey Rooneyism circa Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but a phrase uttered by proprietor David Chow.) It’s another…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, senior writer Michael Warren discusses the recent tumult and turnover in the Trump administration: From the end of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's tenure, to the Pompeo shuffle, and importation of CNBC's Larry Kudlow to replace Gary Cohn.
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The opening shots in the battle over Gina Haspel's nomination to lead the CIA badly missed their target Thursday, when ProPublica corrected a report that featured a number of false allegations about Haspel's involvement in the CIA's enhanced interrogation program. Senator Rand Paul, who repeatedly…
Republicans in Congress appeared open to President Donald Trump’s proposal to use the death penalty to crack down on drug dealers on Thursday night before the expected release of the president’s long-awaited opioid plan.
President Trump is moving closer toward shaking up his administration in a big way, according to sources familiar with his thinking. The Washington Post reported Thursday night that Trump had decided to fire H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser. Shortly after the story broke, White House…
Nowadays the term “fake news” is usually associated with politics, but it’s worth remembering that no field is immune to the spread of misinformation. And pop-science journalism is at least as prone to distortion as political coverage, especially when simplistic headlines are exaggerated on social…
In the “fake news” business nothing spreads misinformation quite as well as a ridiculous headline. They’re perfect for ginning up inquisitive clicks with the almost-money-back guarantee that the reader won’t get past the lede.
I don't want to grow up... But poor Geoffrey the Giraffe will have to, as Toys "R" Us bids adieu after a 61-year run. (Bankruptcy is causing them to close all of their stores.) I loved TRU as a kid, and my first and only magazine casual has a tie-in. Alas, all good brands eventually die. Something…
It's been a tumultuous year for the digital currency markets. Now that we're a few weeks away from tax day, a friendly reminder: Don't forget your digital currency trades!
The United States does not have a "bloody nose strategy" for a limited preemptive strike against North Korea, the top commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific said Thursday.
Speaking at a Republican fundraiser Wednesday in Missouri, President Donald Trump criticized Japan for unfair trade practices, and offered this example:
California senator Dianne Feinstein is calling on the CIA to release documents detailing the involvement of Trump’s pick for CIA director, Gina Haspel, in the agency’s detention and interrogation program.
One of the great legislative challenges of history, from the Hittite abominations to the regulation of internet porn, has been anticipating the latent evils unleashed by man’s ingenuity. Now, child sex dolls—robots engineered to warm to the human touch and disturbingly lifelike in their…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Jonathan V. Last and Christine Rosen discuss the recent uproar over a dog who died on a plane, the natural end of Theranos, and the PA-18 special election.
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Who poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia?
In this deadly serious episode, the Substandard discusses Death Wish, the original versus the reboot—Sonny gives the latter a million stars (another reviewer liked it too). JVL reminds us of the general awfulness of the 1970s, but at least there was Charles Bronson. Plus Vic weighs the sin of…
Rejected by more than two dozen publishers in the early 1960s, A Wrinkle in Time was itself a work of its own time and entirely out of time—a sophisticated and original intellectual coming-of-age story featuring speculative science fiction, anti-Communist dystopia, and Christian hermeneutics. There…
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