Kelly Jane Torrance
Kelly Jane Torrance is deputy managing editor at The Weekly Standard. She previously served as film critic of The Washington Examiner. Her work has also been published in, among other venues, the Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Diego Union-Tribune, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, New York Sun, and New Criterion. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from the University of British Columbia.
Stories by Kelly Jane Torrance
Curling Is Cool, Fool
Watching Team USA take the gold in the quadrennially popular sport.
1:50 AM, Mar 09, 2018
Being a writer-editor-pundit in Donald Trump’s Washington is a 24/7 job. In the last year, I’ve had countless nights of missed dinners and lost sleep, along with a few canceled concerts and ruined respites. But there was one mission from which not even a Trump tweet starting a nuclear war could keep me: I flew 18,000 miles to watch Olympic curling. Really. Admittedly, the trip would have had me well placed if war did break out. The 2018 Olympic Winter Games were held in Pyeongchang (the outdoo Read more
Why They Fight
It's not just the economy, stupid.
4:00 AM, Jan 05, 2018
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement the West made with Iran in 2015 looked like a godsend for the mullahs’ regime. In exchange for suspending its nuclear weapons program for a decade, the ostracized Islamic Republic received $1.7 billion in cash and the promise of billions more as companies in the United States and Europe rushed to make their own deals in the country with economic sanctions lifted. But the accord that former president Barack Obama and his secretary of state Read more
Iran-Iraq War on the Kurds
Washington abandons an ally.
3:30 AM, Oct 20, 2017
Iraqi prime minister Haider Al-Abadi took to Twitter on October 13 to dispute rumors that his forces were mobilizing to take over areas under the control of Iraqi Kurds, particularly the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. “The fake news being spread has a deplorable agenda behind it,” he wrote. As with most deployments of the term, “fake news” meant “news I don’t like.” Just three days later, Iraqi and allied militias took Kirkuk by force. There were casualties on both sides, though it’s not clear how man Read more
Afghanistan and Its Neighbors
4:00 AM, Aug 25, 2017
Seven months after taking office, President Donald Trump finally announced how his administration plans to fight the longest-running war in American history. “My original instinct was to pull out—and, historically, I like following my instincts,” Trump told the nation in a prime-time address outlining his strategy for Afghanistan. But after studying the situation—and weeks of dithering in the face of vicious infighting on the subject among his staff—he came to understand why withdrawal wasn’t wi Read more
Tortured by 'Moderates'
Iran's dissidents deserve a hearing
2:20 AM, Aug 11, 2017
Hassan Rouhani was sworn in for his second term as president of Iran on August 5, surrounded by fresh flowers, fervent followers, and around 500 foreign officials. Representatives of the United Kingdom, France, the United Nations, and the Vatican rubbed shoulders with the Syrian prime minister, Hezbollah second-in-command Naim Qassem, Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader and FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list member Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, and murderous Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. The Westerne Read more
Misreporting Iran
The 'moderate' is also a liar with blood on his hands.
2:30 AM, May 26, 2017
Complaints of media bias seem to be reaching a fever pitch—from conservatives and liberals alike. Right-wingers accuse a broad swath of the press of trying to undermine the presidency of Donald Trump. Left-wingers lament the airtime and credence outlets give to Trump supporters. Both groups object to what the media report and how they report it, but they point fingers at different culprits. Neither seemed to notice last week that one big story was narrated the same way by virtually every outlet: Read more
Canadian Defense Minister Calls Intel Relationship with U.S. "Extremely Solid"
Harjit Sajjan dispels notion that Trump's sharing of information with Russian leaders has caused concern within the Anglophone world.
4:20 PM, May 23, 2017
Ever since the Washington Post reported last week that President Donald Trump disclosed classified information in his meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, commentators have been debating how the revelation might affect intelligence gathering and sharing among America and its allies. The data Trump divulged about ISIS plans to use bombs concealed in laptops had come from an ally—Israel, as we now know—that hadn't given permission to pass it on to the Russians. Some expert Read more
Meanwhile, Up North
In the race to lead Canada's Conservative party, it seems the talk always returns to Trump.
2:15 AM, May 19, 2017
Ottawa Last week in Washington began with reports that the president might have shared sensitive classified information with Russian officials and, after other shocking revelations arrived daily, sometimes hourly, ended with talk that the United States' chief executive could be pushed out of power in a national security scandal. Just across the border to the north, meanwhile, a man who had already suffered such a scandal—and admitted to wrongdoing—was enjoying increasing influence and could be Read more
RIP, Tea Party: 2009-2017
The anti-establishment movement embraces big government
3:25 PM, Mar 01, 2017
Some heretofore-skeptical commentators are declaring that February 28 is the date Donald Trump truly became president of the United States. That might signal some good news, but it was closely followed by bad: March 1 could go down as the date of death of the Tea Party movement in America. The day after President Trump made his first address to Congress, I received an email with the subject line "PRESS: Tea Party Responds to President Trump's Address." Here's the email in its entirety: Sa Read more
Absolutely Adequate
The Ab Fab ladies are back and on the silver screen.
8:00 AM, Jul 24, 2016
With the United Kingdom thrown into chaos after last month's Brexit vote—the pound plunged, Scotland suggested secession, the elites lost it—it's reassuring to learn there's one thing you can count on: Eddy and Patsy are still showing us that "politically correct" can be not just a way of speaking but a way of life. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie hits U.S. theaters this weekend, 24 years after the original sitcom premiered on the BBC and introduced us to best-friends-forever Edina Monsoon an Read more
Bro Trudeau
Hot in Washington, chilly in Canada.
12:35 AM, Mar 18, 2016
As Donald Trump racked up victory after victory on (the first) Super Tuesday, it wasn’t just within the campaigns of his Republican opponents that you could find desolation and despair. In the four hours after results started coming in at 8 p.m., web searches across the country on variations of "how to move to Canada" rose 350 percent. Google first reported the query hadn't been so popular since George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, but by the next day, the company tweeted, "Searches for 'Move Read more
The Trudeau Restoration
Canada veers left.
12:00 AM, Nov 02, 2015
Richard Nixon visited Canada just once during his presidency. He’s also been dead 20 years. But he was about the only person to correctly call last week’s Canadian election. On April 13, 1972, at a state dinner in Ottawa, where he addressed Parliament and signed the Great Lakes Treaty, Nixon raised his glass to Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s 4-month-old son. “Tonight, we’ll dispense with the formalities. I’d like to toast the future prime minister of Canada: to Justin Pierre Trudeau.” For much o Read more
Canada Leads on Opposing Iran Deal
4:32 PM, Aug 14, 2015
President Obama claims, as Bill Kristol noted in his editorial in the latest issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, that no country in the world has expressed opposition to his deal with Iran, with the exception of Israel. But that's not accurate. Canada, the United States' biggest trading partner—and, traditionally, its closest ally—has made it clear it wants no part of an agreement normalizing relations between Iran and the West. When details of the agreement were released last month, Canada's for Read more
Back to Basics
The right way, and the wrong way, to begin the journey.
12:00 AM, Jun 16, 2014
Charles Murray was invited to speak in April at Azusa Pacific University about this, his latest book. The event had been scheduled for months, but two days before Murray’s appearance the president of Azusa Pacific canceled it, writing to the American Enterprise Institute (where Murray is the W. H. Brady scholar) that “I realized we needed more time to prepare for a visit.” What had frightened the president? Advice to work hard, eschew the allures of fame and fortune, cover any visible tattoos? P Read more
A Different Kind of Gas Shortage
The politics of helium
12:00 AM, May 05, 2014
At a Harris Teeter in suburban Washington, what used to be Harry’s Balloon Corral is, to young eyes, disappointingly empty. The grocery store has posted a notice explaining why. Children accustomed to alleviating the boredom of the weekly trip to the supermarket with the serious task of keeping a helium-filled balloon from floating out of their reach aren’t likely to understand it, however. “Due to a national helium shortage, we are currently unable to offer Harry the Dragon balloons to our cust Read more
Alexandros Petersen, 1984-2014
Kelly Jane Torrance on The Most Interesting Man in D.C.
12:00 AM, Feb 03, 2014
The last time I heard from Alex, he emailed from Kabul. “Our lengthy discussions about your trip to St. Petersburg were apt, because you are like Russia: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” As was not uncommon with an email from Alex, I didn’t quite know what to say, so I didn’t respond right away. Then I lost the chance. Two days after he sent the note, Alex was dead. And I soon realized that Churchill’s famous words applied quite aptly to the man who’d quoted them. On Friday, J Read more
Keystone Kops
12:00 AM, Sep 30, 2013
It's not often officials from the nation’s largest business lobby and an AFL-CIO-affiliated union speak to one another, let alone work together. But last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and North America’s Building Trades Unions held a joint press conference on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring oil from Northern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. Nearby that same day, exactly five years after Trans-Canada Corp. applied for a permit to build the pipeline, the Hou Read more
‘Tempest’ for Moderns
Sandy was not the only storm to arrive in Manhattan.
12:00 AM, Nov 12, 2012
New York A premiere at the country’s foremost opera company always meets with a certain level of excitement. But the man in the orchestra section two seats past me became positively giddy as he scanned the program notes before the curtain rose on The Tempest late last month at the Metropolitan Opera. He first nudged his wife, informing her that the work they were about to witness was of recent vintage. Then he discovered that its composer was still alive. Finally, to his utter astonishmen Read more
Letting the Rabble Off Easy
The Iranian Revolution, according to Ben Affleck.
12:00 AM, Oct 29, 2012
Hollywood loves to think of itself as socially significant. But given how long it can take to finance a film—let alone make one—it’s exceedingly rare for its products to be attuned to the zeitgeist. So it’s fortuitous for the makers of the new movie Argo that its depiction of rioters storming a U.S. embassy might be mistaken for footage from the evening news. At the same time, current events make the movie’s implication that the Americans were kind of asking for it all the more unsettling. Read more
Insight Hollywood
Won’t Back Down’s Lance Reddick has something to say, on- and off-screen.
12:00 AM, Oct 15, 2012
Halfway through what feels like the usual interview with a Hollywood entertainer in town to promote a new work, I’m stopped short. Lance Reddick had discussed the television work that made his name—roles on the gritty HBO series Oz and The Wire , then the mind-bending cable shows Lost and Fringe —and his longstanding desire to move into film. He noted, like many actors before him, that he became a producer to create the parts no one was asking him to play. Then, explaining why he thoug Read more
Freedom Fighter
Peter Lougheed, 1928-2012.
12:00 AM, Oct 01, 2012
A cerebral law professor takes his progressive ideas into politics and inspires a personality cult that catapults him to the highest office in the land. Encouraged by the heady mixture of popularity and power, he makes an unprecedented move to abuse his authority. It guts the federalism on which his nation was founded—but who can stop him? One man: a brash lawyer who declared the region he led would go on strike before it would submit to unconstitutional bullying. That isn’t wishful thinking Read more
Desperate Democrats
12:00 AM, Sep 10, 2012
A sea of signs proclaiming “We Built It” revealed the battle cry of last week’s Republican National Convention. We don’t need to wait for Los Angeles mayor and convention chair Antonio Villaraigosa to bring his gavel down in Charlotte on Tuesday to know the Democratic theme. It’s been clear for months: Republicans are waging a “war on women” and only Democrats can end it. Three days after Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin elaborated on his bizarre belief that women’s bodies block concepti Read more
Music Man
Kelly Jane Torrance praises the Lord.
12:00 AM, Aug 20, 2012
Jon Lord began life—his public life, that is—as a rock god. He ended it as a composer of classical concertos. The time I met him, both strands of his work entwined with memories of mine. It was his first career that dominated the obituaries when Lord died last month at 71. He was a founder of Deep Purple, once designated the world’s loudest rock band by The Guinness Book of Records , and the songs he wrote in the 1960s and ’70s inspired the genre of heavy metal. But even as he was writing th Read more
Beware of the Media
2:45 PM, Jun 15, 2012
New York City It's good to be reminded of just how big the disconnect can be between reporting and reality: Don't believe everything you read in your morning newspaper. I was outside the Plaza Hotel last night when I re-learned this lesson. It was shortly after Barack and Michelle Obama arrived to speak to the less-than-1-percent who'd paid $10,000 a plate to attend a fundraiser hosted by Sex and the City creator Darren Star. It was the president's second campaign stop of the night: He Read more
A Mutually Beneficial Relationship
This White House and the fashion industry seem to have a symbiotic relationship – one in which each raises money for the other.
5:30 PM, Jun 14, 2012
New York City The Obamas are here to attend two campaign fundraisers this evening. The most fashionable one is at the home of Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, who's known more these days as a fashion icon than an actress. Advertising for the event included a short YouTube video of Vogue editor Anna Wintour encouraging the sort of people with whom she normally wouldn't make eye contact to enter for a chance to win two seats at Parker's table. In truth, this is the sort of ev Read more
Portland Pounces On Groupon
Oregon city stopping citizens from saving money in tough times.
2:40 PM, Apr 26, 2012
As Ronald Reagan famously quipped, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I'm here to help.’” Portland, Oregon, though, really is here to help. The problem is that the city hasn’t created laws to benefit Portlanders—it’s created them to benefit one specific industry, at the expense of every consumer in the area. The Portland city council two years ago put in place regulations that force limousine and sedan services to charge a $50 minimu Read more