On March 15, US Senator John McCain (R-AZ) revealed just how ridiculous the American political establishment’s reliance on Vladimir Putin as boogeyman has become.McCain, seeking the Senate’s unanimous consent to advance a bill supporting admission of the...
Shurat HaDin versus Facebook: Vexatious Litigation as Warfare
Shurat HaDin, Israel Law Center, characterizes itself as a non-governmental organization “at the forefront of fighting terrorism and safeguarding Jewish rights worldwide.”On July 10, the organization filed a federal lawsuit on alleged behalf of the...
Hillary Clinton: More Equal Under the Law Than Others
In his July 5 press briefing, FBI director James Comey spoke 2,341 words explaining his decision not to recommend criminal charges over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to transmit, receive and store classified information during her tenure as US...
Got Milked? US ‘Defense’ Spending 2017
“The White House said Tuesday [June 7] that President Barack Obama will veto the Senate’s version of the annual defense policy bill,” Richard Lardner of the Associated Press reports. Why? Lardner cites provisions that would prevent Obama from...
Muhammad Ali: A Profile in Moral Courage
“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong – no Viet Cong ever called me nigger.”With those pointed words, Muhammad Ali explained his opposition to the US war in Vietnam and justified his refusal to submit himself to the draft. He declared...
Paris: No Grave Too Warm for the Political Class to Dance On
For a columnist or pundit, there’s no greater temptation than to get something written – Quick! Now! – about the latest, greatest, deadliest catastrophe. After all, if it bleeds it leads.I felt that urge the night of the Paris terror attacks. For...
They Want to Talk About Israel. OK, Let’s Talk About Israel.
In The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam quotes US president Lyndon Baines Johnson on his desired qualities in an assistant: “I want loyalty! I want him to kiss my a– in Macy’s window at high noon and tell me it smells like roses.”Nearly...
Twenty-Five Years Later: A Look Back at ‘The Other Good War’
On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, a tiny Persian Gulf emirate. Three days later, US president George HW Bush fielded questions from reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. The key line from, and substance of, those remarks: “This will not...
Yes, Mr. Waldman, the Iran Nuclear Negotiations Are Munich in 1938
Paul Waldman nay-says comparisons of the Lausanne nuclear talks to UK prime minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler with respect to Czechoslovakia ("No, the Iran nuclear negotiations aren't Munich in 1938," Washington Post, April 1).I get where...
ISIS and Ukraine: They’ll Say Anything
When I tuned in to US president Barack Obama’s televised speech on his plans for war against the so-called “Islamic State,” I expected exactly what we got — a bland sundae of pseudo-patriotic drivel topped off with some whipped cream of big...
