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Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

The Bloom is off 'Der Rosenkavalier'

Director Robert Carsen's ruins his attempted update with raunchy vulgarity in the third set.

12:02 PM, Apr 22, 2017

By Daniel Gelernter

There is nothing wrong with changing an opera’s setting from what was originally intended. Just keep in mind that the composer and librettist chose their setting for a particular reason, and changing that setting is like changing the key of the mu Read more

Obama's Foreign Policy Failures

Hosted by Michael Graham.

10:30 AM, Apr 22, 2017

By TWS PODCAST

Today in the Daily Standard podcast, editor-at-large Bill Kristol says Berkeley's free-speech failures are giving liberalism a bad name, while Donald Trump's foreign policy is putting many traditional Republicans in a good mood. Kristol also recounts his Coulter-esque experience of getting "pied" by a protester at a small Quaker college, and updates the GOP's prospects for a tough mid-term election. Read more

Prufrock: Cormac McCarthy on Consciousness, and Why We Need Western Civ

9:30 AM, Apr 22, 2017

By Micah Mattix

The best in books and arts from around the web, including: Czeslaw Milosz’s lonely life, Lenin on a train, the joy on indexes, and more. Read more

Art credit: Gary Locke

End of the Honeymoon

6:00 AM, Apr 22, 2017

By Irwin M. Stelzer

The impending end of Donald Trump’s break-in period is as good a time as any to see where he will go from here. Read more

Photo credit: Tasnim News Agency

Iran Wants to Import Tons of Uranium. Opponents of the Nuclear Deal Want the Trump Administration to Say No.

The amount goes beyond what Iran might need to replenish its stocks.

7:11 PM, Apr 21, 2017

By Jenna Lifhits

The Trump administration is facing pressure to definitively rule out a longstanding request by Iran to import 950 tons of natural uranium, according to government sources and proliferation experts who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Tehran has signaled it will petition again for the yellowcake next week at a quarterly meeting in Vienna regarding implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal. Read more

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Clinton's Towering Fiasco

From the May 1, 2017 edition of THE WEEKLY STANDARD

2:01 PM, Apr 21, 2017

By THE SCRAPBOOK

The September 2016 article in Politico championing Hillary Clinton’s use of "data analytics" now looks—how shall we put it?—rather premature.

Politico swooned that computer algorithms "underlie nearly all of the Clinton campaign's most important strategic decisions." Computer guru Elan Kriegel had crunched the numbers for campaign manager Robby Mook, allowing Team Clinton to precisely target her potential voters and thus not waste one dime on appealing to the deplorables.

"Clintonites saw it as their secret weapon in building an insurmountable delegate lead over Bernie Sanders," Politico reported. And come the general election the Clintonistas were downright giddy about the edge Big Data was giving them.

Read more

Photo credit: AP Photo/José Luis Magana

Is Anyone Up to the Task of Aiding Venezuela?

Nicolas Maduro is acting with abandon and without any checks on his power.

11:15 AM, Apr 21, 2017

By John Londregan

Faced with public protest, a shriveled economy, and an international consensus that Venezuela is no longer a free country, one might have expected Maduro to slink out of Venezuela under an assumed name, disguised as the overfed carnival barker he so closely resembles. No such luck. Read more

Substandard Show Notes--Episode 1.24

So Fast. So Furious. Plus: Vic does New York.

11:00 AM, Apr 21, 2017

By Jonathan V. Last

Vin Diesel has long had a rep—maybe unfairly—as being difficult to work with. (John Frankenheimer absolutely trashed him publicly after firing him from the cast of Reindeer Games.) But he's deadly serious about his career and promoting his projects. And this franchise has been his baby. No matter what else he does, The Fast and the Furious will always be his calling card. I doubt he would do anything to mess it up. Read more

Photo credit: AP Photo/Michael Probst.

This Earth Day, Environmentalists Should Be Celebrating. But They Are Not.

Our air is cleaner than ever, but they keep inflating the value of minor gains and demanding higher (and more costly) standards.

10:38 AM, Apr 21, 2017

By Oren Cass

Inside the Environmental Protection Agency there is “disgust and frustration." Outside, activists warn that President Trump's proposal to cut the EPA budget by nearly one-third will "Make America Gag Again." Everyone needs to take a deep breath—of some of the freshest air available anywhere on earth. Read more

Prufrock: Finding Dead Archbishops, the Allure of Shipwrecks, and the Great Depression Revisited

9:30 AM, Apr 21, 2017

By Micah Mattix

The best in books and arts from around the web, including: Oppressive India, our monster obsession, Bloomsbury's defiant conformist, Southern despair, forever Billy Joel, and more. Read more

Photo credit: AP Photo/Gregory Smith.

Your Brain on Drugs: Neuroscientists Narc on Legal Marijuana

The unknown, or ignored, risks of THC endanger adolescent brain development.

6:30 AM, Apr 21, 2017

By Alice B. Lloyd

That heady scent of open-air pot-smoking is just another sign of springtime come to D.C. nowadays. (Move over, cherry blossoms.) But what is legal marijuana doing to the brains of teenagers who use it? Read more

Photo credit: AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev

Trump Changes His Tone, If Not His Policy, On Iran Deal

Trump's First 100 Days: The president is cryptic on North Korea and ambitious on health care.

5:00 AM, Apr 21, 2017

By Michael Warren

Officially, the Trump administration certified this week that Iran has complied in the strictest terms with the requirements of the nuclear deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. But as President Donald Trump indicated in a Thursday press conference with Italian prime minister Paolo Gentiloni, the United States government is hardly pleased with the regime in Tehran. Read more

Mainstream GOP Looks For 'Trump Strategy' As 2018 Fears Loom

Hosted by Michael Graham.

6:10 PM, Apr 20, 2017

By TWS PODCAST

Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Steve Hayes talks about Republican politicians struggling to craft a "Trump Strategy" for the 2018 cycle. Are the tight special-election races a bellwether for the mid-terms? And how should traditional conservatives campaign for an electorate that seems more loyal to party than political principles? Read more

Photo credit: Olivier Douliery/Abaca/Sipa via AP.

Tillerson Slams Nuclear Deal after State Department Certifies Iranian Compliance

A proliferation expert suggests the certification was made to comply with law and avoid a crisis while reviewing its Iran policy.

12:35 PM, Apr 20, 2017

By Jenna Lifhits

The secretary of state complained about the deal's limited scope and eventual sunset date and said the Trump administration is conducting an exhaustive review. Read more

Photo credit: CampusGrotto/Flickr.

Even Harvey Mudd, a Math and Science College, Has Surrendered to the Social Justice Movement

Shifts in the student population and the curriculum have changed the historically male technical school.

10:35 AM, Apr 20, 2017

By Alice B. Lloyd

Demographic overhaul, racial grievance, and disagreements about a burdensome workload boiled over when the student paper published a leaked internal report on March 24—a two-year-old self-study the college commissioned from the Center of Inquiry at Wabash College in Indiana to survey attitudes about student work. Read more

The Substandard Gets Fast and Furious

10:19 AM, Apr 20, 2017

By TWS PODCAST

In this latest episode, the Substandard discusses The Fate of the Furious and the ever-expanding franchise. JVL delivers a Fast and Furious exegesis and rankings. Sonny says to “just look at the pictures like a child." Vic compares it to the Emmanuelle series. Plus the Best and Worst of the Substandard—a clip-job special! Read more

Prufrock: The Best Shakespeare, Medieval Antibiotics, and the Tragic Story of Bellevue

9:30 AM, Apr 20, 2017

By Micah Mattix

The best in books and arts from around the web, including: The rise of the Tudor merchant adventurer, Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, dispatch from the doomsday community for the rich, and more. Read more

Art credit: Gary Locke

How the Trump Administration Is Working to Clean Up the Messes It Inherited

President Obama tried to sneak in a bevy of restrictive regulations on his way out the door.

8:50 AM, Apr 20, 2017

By Charles Sauer

Like a bachelor before a date, the Obama administration rushed around during the transition hiding dirty laundry for the incoming administration. Read more

Photo credit: AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici.

About That Phone Call to Erdogan …

The outrage generated by Trump's gesture is really indicative of the damage Obama did to American Middle East policy.

7:48 AM, Apr 20, 2017

By Lee Smith

Set aside for a moment the issue of election fraud. It's important to examine what Turkish voters are thinking. Read more

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Charles Murray Defended By ... The New York Times?

7:00 AM, Apr 20, 2017

By Jonathan V. Last

I draw your attention to the New York Times, which earlier this week ran…wait for it…a devastating attack on the students and faculty at Middlebury. Read more

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