The New York Times on Sunday featured a fascinating interview with President Obama conducted by columnist Tom Friedman. In the U.S., most analysts focused on the President's salesmanship of the just-concluded Iran nuclear deal and the "Obama Doctrine" behind it. But in Israel, left and right alike zeroed on President Obama's pledge that "if anybody […]

Just in time for Easter, Republican White House hopeful Ted Cruz (R-TX) has declared his ticket for 2016 will be the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Of course, the players in his Trinity have been updated. In his announcement address at Liberty University two weeks ago, Senator Cruz recounted his father's "come to […]

If being a neocon means never having to say you're sorry, then being an accessory to a world-historical mistake must grant you some kind of magical immunity. So it would seem after reading Bush administration stenographer Judith Miller's revisionist history on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. In mea non culpa "The Iraq […]

If nothing else, you have to give Indiana Republican Governor Mike Pence credit for going big. In April 2007, Pence defended Big War, comparing his heavily guarded tour of Baghdad to visiting "any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime." Four years later, then Rep. Pence took on Big Debt, declaring of the government, "Shut […]

When it comes to the Iranian nuclear program, the United States is rapidly approaching a point of no return as the P5+1 talks are coming down to the wire. But if the negotiations in Geneva fail or if their opponents in Congress succeed in blowing them up, leaders of both U.S. political parties will have […]

Indiana Governor Mike Pence is not the first Republican to use the First Amendment as a weapon to deny equal rights for some Americans. And Pence won't be the last conservative caught in the blowback from civil rights groups, corporate leaders and even some Christian churches. That's because as marriage equality continues to win in […]

Last week, House and Senate Republicans unveiled their respective budget resolutions for fiscal year 2016. As a quick glance at the documents shows, what is old is new again for the GOP. Each claims to balance the budget within 10 years. Despite the national debt's share of GDP forecast to remain stable over the next […]

Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin created quite the uproar when he condemned Senate Republicans for sending Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch to "the back of the bus." But Durbin didn't need to reach all the way back to Rosa Parks in 1955 to denounce the GOP's grotesque obstructionism. The story of Judge Michael Mukasey in […]

Monday, March 23 isn't just the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act. The day also marks five years since then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) promised the GOP response would be "'repeal and replace,' 'repeal and replace.'" But with the possibility that a Supreme Court ruling in the King v. […]

Whatever happens in Tuesday's elections in Israel, Americans will have learned two valuable lessons. For starters, when it mattered most on U.S. policy towards Iran, Republicans supported a foreign leader over the President of the United States. Just as important, when that leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, declares, "Israel has no better friend than the U.S and […]