United States

President Donald Trump’s speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on 6 April had commentators wondering if a concerted effort by the right to increase Jewish votes for Trump in the next election would be successful. This hand-wringing happens every four years and little changes. (More…)

When a small group of University of Arizona students protested a visit by the US Border Patrol on March 19th, they used a confrontational approach developed by activists in the 1960s. Seeing that the officers were speaking to students in a classroom while dressed in uniform and carrying firearms, they began to loudly declaim their outrage, calling them the “Murder Patrol”, (More…)

Teeth have been gnashed and garments rent across the liberal world ever since the release of the special counsel’s report. For more than a year, American liberals had been living in hope and expectation that Robert Mueller would deliver unto them a magic bullet, a neatly packaged means of removing the stain on the national escutcheon that Mr. Trump represented. (More…)

News broke late Friday that Robert Mueller had finally delivered his report on the investigation into Donald Trump’s electoral campaign. No one but the report’s authors and the Attorney General’s office knows what’s in it, but ignorance never stopped an American from sounding knowledgeable. (More…)

In 2014, a low-ranking Democratic Party official in New York City’s borough of Queens expressed sympathy with Palestinians during Operation Protective Edge, a move one party functionary called “touching the third rail” of local politics. (More…)

The House of Representatives, it was announced on Thursday evening, passed a resolution condemning “all forms of hatred.” On its face, there is much to recommend this. Who, after all, is not against hate? (More…)

I grew up in football house. A lot of Americans say that as a way of conveying their family’s love for the game, but I mean it more literally. My dad played for ten years in the NFL, most of it for Pittsburgh Steelers, where he was part of a team that won four Super Bowl rings. (More…)

In a recent piece for LobeLog, I touched on the overtly racist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party in Israel. Ever since it became clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was going to do everything in his power to ensure that they joined with HaBayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) party to secure a few more seats for his next far-right coalition, there has been widespread condemnation of the party. (More…)

San Francisco, April 2008

Every weekday morning, I watch the news as I pick up our bedroom before heading off to work. Last Friday was no different. (More…)

The signs that the wheels are coming off the empire are all around and, contrary to what you may have read, Marie Kondo’s lack of English has nothing to do with it. (More…)

Could there be a more fundamentally depressing thought than that the Democratic Party might somehow contrive to run Joe Biden for president in 2020? Yet, even in the season of change that has seen an unprecedented number of women (and women of colour) elected to Congress, it remains the case that the indefatigable Mr Biden is a leading contender. (More…)

A large number of chickens have been coming home to roost lately. Most prominent among them are those associated with Mr. Trump’s much vaunted negotiating skills. But across the political spectrum, the consequences of the decisions made by past selves are emerging to shape the present. (More…)