Sometimes a little historical context can put current events in perspective. Two weeks after the fall of Kabul, the United States successfully extracted over 120,000 Americans and Afghans from the capital. But thirteen American servicemen and women were killed in a terrorist attack during the high-risk mission to protect the ongoing airlift. Two weeks after […]

It’s amazing how America’s national security landscape changed in just four years. With the Islamic State on the ropes after the fall of Mosul, in February 2017 defense expert Andrew Exum proclaimed, “Donald Trump will defeat ISIS and it will mostly be due to the work of his predecessor.” But with Trump’s successor just weeks […]

After this week's testimony in the impeachment hearings, the contours of President Donald Trump's abuse of power for personal advantage have become crystal clear. Trump violated U.S. law when he solicited the interference of a foreign power in an American election. Looking ahead to 2020, Trump demanded the new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announce an […]

Mitt Romney has never missed an opportunity to be an opportunist. Romney the leveraged buyout pioneer took advantage of the U.S. tax code to pocket tens of millions of dollars from investments in companies that failed. Mitt the mythical Massachusetts moderate transformed himself into the "severely conservative" 2012 presidential nominee by turning his back on […]

The United States was the world's lone "hyperpower" when President George W. Bush launched his disastrous and unnecessary war with Iraq in 2003. An economic and military hegemon unchallenged by any single enemy or collection of rivals, the U.S. could and did act with impunity in swiftly toppling Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad. But even […]

Here are some friendly words of advice to my Republican friends eager to regurgitate Donald Trump's talking point about the Democratic Party being "anti-Jewish." Before you hold up Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar as the poster child for anti-Semitic tropes, note that Trump himself already occupies that space. After all, he told those "good negotiator" […]

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was back in the headlines this week--not for any particular wisdom regarding authoritarian regimes and movements she shared with the House Intelligence Committee, but for this: "I personally owe an apology to now-Senator Romney, because I think that we underestimated what was going on in Russia. I was on […]

On June 4, 2014, Donald Trump as usual was apoplectic. His fury that day was ignited by word that President Obama had authorized the exchange of five Taliban prisoners for Bowe Bergdahl, the Army sergeant held captive in Afghanistan since 2009. So Trump took to Twitter to ask, "Are you allowed to impeach a president […]

Fearing the prospect of large Democratic gains in Tuesday's midterm elections, Donald Trump has been serving a steaming buffet of hate with something to please everyone in his xenophobic base. Some 3,500 Central American migrants--most of them women and children--trudging through Mexico hundreds of miles from the U.S. have been transformed by the president into […]

Many Congressional Republicans were shocked--SHOCKED!--this week at Donald Trump's humiliation in Helsinki. Like the rest of the world, they watched in real time as an American president kowtowed on foreign soil to a dangerous adversary of the United States. Siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the repeated conclusions of the unified American intelligence community […]