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Culture Rot: Donald Trump Is the Effect, Not the Cause ANDREW MCCARTHY A sick society breeds gutter politics. A few years back, I began reliving, in reverse, the most treasured part of my upbringing. On sunny summer Sundays, my son, age seven and falling in love with baseball, would curl up next to me on the couch to watch the game. The American ritual of a man passing on to his boy not just the national pastime but a cultural heritage; the odd bits of hard-knocks wisdom sprinkled around the infield-fly rule. There was even symmetry across the decades: The...

According to Romney in 2012: Donald Trump has shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works and create jobs for the American people. He’s done it here in Nevada. He’s done it across the country. He understands that our economy is facing threats from abroad. He is one of the few people who stood up and said, “You know what? China has been cheating. They’ve taken jobs from Americans. They haven’t played fair. We have to have a president who will stand up to cheaters. We believe in free trade and free enterprise, but we don’t believe in...

I'm sorry that the crucial importance of Justice Scalia's now-vacant seat on the Supreme Court meant that the heated battle over filling it was already well underway while most of us, reeling from the profound loss, craved a respectable interval to console his loved ones and reflect on his epic legacy.

The latest revelations regarding Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information are stunning. For example, several of the former secretary of state’s “private” e-mails contain national-defense information so sensitive that it is classified at the highest levels. Moreover, classified information so pervades the thousands of pages of e-mails communicated through and stored on Mrs. Clinton’s unsecured, homebrew server system that the court-ordered disclosure process has ground to a halt. Remember, Mrs. Clinton reviewed her e-mails before finally surrendering them to the State Department, and she initially insisted there was no classified information in them. Now, it turns out they were so...

As both Ed and Katie noted this morning, the New York Post is reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's ongoing, expanded probe into Hillary Clinton's potential crimes has turned to the question of how extremely sensitive classified information "migrated" from secure government servers to Hillary's improper, unsecure private server. This prohibited crossover is "specifically forbidden," according to a former CIA official who recently weighed in on the controversy, who added that there is "zero ambiguity" on this point. At this point, we know that federal investigators are looking into habitual, serious mishandling of classified information -- including intelligence that rose to the levels...

From the start, since we first learned about the home-brew email system then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set up for conducting her government business, I've argued that she very likely committed felony violations of federal law. Yet it appears I underestimated the gravity of her misconduct -- ironically, by giving her the benefit of the doubt on a significant aspect of the scheme. When the scandal went public in March 2015, Mrs. Clinton -- already the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee -- held a press conference to explain herself. Among other well-documented whoppers, she maintained that she had never stored classified...

**SNIP** Yet, in reporting the story, the Times' Mark Mazzetti took pains to stress: "The government has said that Mrs. Clinton is not a subject of the investigation." Really? Well, to put it in Clintonian terms: It all depends on what the definition of "subject" is. Though you wouldn't know it from the Times, "subject" is a term of art in criminal investigations. It refers to one of the three categories into which prosecutors fit every relevant actor. Subjects are people whose conduct is being scrutinized and who, depending on what evidence turns up, may or may not be charged....

I appreciate being held in "(otherwise) ...considerable esteem" by Charles Krauthammer. Not only is the feeling mutual; from my end, I would even omit the "otherwise." That said, I am dismayed by his specious response to my legal analysis of Donald Trump's proposed moratorium on Muslim immigration to the United States. I am personally disappointed that Charles has distorted my position, portraying me as a Trump apologist. But that is almost beside the point. His rebuke is counterproductive to the defense of our national security - about which Krauthammer and I both care deeply - because it makes solving a...

She lied to the nation in 2012, and she’s lying again now. You don’t look surprised. ‘We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.” Those words, depraved words, were spoken by then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton, with President Obama by her side, on September 14, 2012. This was at Joint Base Andrews, during the most sacred of rites: the return of the remains of Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, Tyrone...

My weekend column in on the Palestinians’ new intifada, the Obama State Department’s disgraceful response to it, and how Islamists and Leftists continue to push for the “One State Solution”—no more Jewish state—an objective that is helped along by the “Two State Solution” fantasy peddled by the bipartisan Beltway. A related development: A watchdog group, UN Watch, reports that staffers at a major United Nations agency with a long history of encouraging Palestinian terrorism, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), is inciting the latest spate of attacks in Israel. …

It’s ba-aack. The Vacuum, that is. That’s the Beltway fairy tale about how Syria was teeming with secular-democratic Muslim moderates ready and willing not only to topple the barbarous Bashar al-Assad regime but simultaneously to rout al-Qaeda. They were not able to pull off these feats, we’re told, without the massive help that President Obama refused to give them. This default, combined with Obama’s unconscionable retreat from neighboring Iraq while jihadists were on the rise, created a leadership void — the Vacuum — into which the Islamic State (formerly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq...

How ironic that, with all the offensive things Donald Trump says, it is something he did not say that is breaking the outrage bank. Trump is under fire for failing, at one of his campaign events, to refute an overheated audience member who asserted that President Obama is a Muslim and was not born in the United States. Trump did not make these claims or concur in them. He simply decided it was not his job to defend Barack Obama from claims that Obama himself has played no small part in provoking. Trump, instead, ignored the allegations and went on...

Your article would post as follows: Obama, Ayers, and PLO supporters toast Edward Said’s successor, but the press doesn’t think it’s quite as newsworthy as Sarah Palin’s wardrobe. Let’s try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor … who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches...

‘Why on earth would Republicans do that?” That is a question I’ve been asked at least a dozen times since illustrating that the GOP has played a cynical game in connection with President Obama’s Iran deal. “Follow the money” is a common answer to questions about political motivation. It may not explain everything in this case, but it is certainly relevant. This spring, Republican leadership colluded with the White House and congressional Democrats to enact a law — the Corker-Cardin Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act — that guaranteed Obama would be authorized to lift sanctions against Iran (the main objective...

Why on earth would Republicans do that?” That is a question I’ve been asked at least a dozen times since illustrating that the GOP has played a cynical game in connection with President Obama’s Iran deal. “Follow the money” is a common answer to questions about political motivation. It may not explain everything in this case, but it is certainly relevant. This spring, Republican leadership colluded with the White House and congressional Democrats to enact a law — the Corker-Cardin Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act — that guaranteed Obama would be authorized to lift sanctions against Iran (the main objective...

In Senator Ted Cruz’s excellent Senate floor speech against President Obama’s catastrophic Iran deal, he urged Republican leadership – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) – to reject the claim that Congress must vote on the deal in the next few days. He is absolutely right. By the unambiguous terms of the Corker law, the period for congressional review of the Iran deal has never begun because Obama has failed to provide the entirety of it.

In my weekend column I offered a concrete plan to undermine President Obama’s atrocious Iran deal. It is an easy one, because all that the Republican-controlled Congress has to do, if it really wants to derail this thing, is follow the law that they wrote and Obama signed, the Corker law — the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, sometimes also known as “Corker-Cardin,” after Senate sponsors Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and Ben Cardin (D., Md.). Sadly, in another iteration of the anger that is the wind beneath Donald Trump’s wings, many readers insist that GOP leadership has no...

The review process under the Corker law never began — by the law’s own terms. To undermine President Obama’s atrocious Iran deal despite the Republican-controlled Congress’s irresponsible Corker legislation, it will be necessary to follow, of all things, the Corker legislation. On Wednesday, Barbara Mikulski became the 34th Senate Democrat to announce support for the deal, which lends aid and comfort to a regime that continues to call for “Death to America.” Under the Corker Roadmap to Catastrophe, Mikulski’s assent ostensibly puts President Obama over the top. After all, the legislation sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker...

The very existence of her illicit server means she broke the rules. Every time the State Department pulls out a new fistful of Hillary Clinton e-mails like Richard Dreyfuss yanking a license plate out of a shark’s belly in Jaws, someone declares that there’s “no smoking gun!” I’ve written before about how shouting “There’s no smoking gun!” is a non-denial denial. Ask a cop. When a murder suspect immediately exclaims, “You have no indisputable evidence I murdered my boss!” instead of, “I didn’t do it!” it’s a good sign that the suspect thinks he covered his tracks, not that he’s...

By lying and withholding information about the agreement, he gives aid and comfort to America’s enemy. The president “must certainly be punishable for giving false information to the Senate.” One can imagine hearing such counsel from a contemporary United States senator on the receiving end of President Obama’s “full disclosure” of the nuclear deal with Iran. But the admonition actually came from James Iredell, a champion of the Constitution’s ratification, who was later appointed to the Supreme Court by President George Washington. Iredell was addressing the obligations the new Constitution imposed on the president in the arena of international affairs....