In Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power, Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick promise to pull back the curtain on what they believe is among the most important dynamics underlying today’s politics: the pro-Israel lobby’s alleged control over American foreign policy. However, they ultimately come up short. Rather than embrace the topic’s […]
A student raises her hand and asks a question into the microphone. The woman on the screen in front of them pauses, blinks, and answers. The classroom falls quiet as Holocaust survivor Sonia Warshawski describes what she lived through in her own words. For a moment, it feels as if she is sitting with the […]
Some years ago in New Orleans, I learned a word in an antiquarian bookshop, one of those places organized according to the idiosyncratic style that was no doubt an outward physical manifestation of the proprietor’s own mind and memory. On a small shelf just inside the door was the label “Crime, Murder, & Rascality.” The […]
I like my heroines with a spiky side. Think Sarah Palin in camouflage and a ball cap, hunting caribou in Alaska, or Annie Oakley’s petticoat gently brushing against twigs and bushes in her native Ohio as she walked through the woods, shooting squirrels through the head. I like my heroines with a heaping portion of […]
I served 22 years as a U.S. Marine and fought in three wars. The oath I took was not to a party. It was to the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That oath does not expire when the uniform comes off. Anyone who claims to support veterans and to honor the […]
At 1:42 a.m., a message appeared in a Snapchat group of 57 fraternity brothers at Cornell University. We have now learned that a 20-year-old woman was heavily intoxicated at the frat house and, as the lawsuit alleges, unable to give consent. The message that went out to the group described her in crude, dehumanizing terms […]
Here’s what usually happens at lunch with an old friend. I sit down across the table from the old friend, we make the usual “Hello, how are you? What’s new? This traffic, huh?” small talk, and I remove my phone from my pocket and place it face down on the table, usually directly across from […]
The Army is a great teacher. I’m not merely referring to the way the service trains a man to fire weapons or arm landmines, or the way the Army might teach a soldier never to drink Afghan moonshine. (A valuable lesson. Just trust me on that one.) I’m referring to the life lessons the military […]
In a video posted on Oct. 3, President Donald Trump unveiled his October surprise, doubling down on his pledge at last month’s GOP midterm convention to give every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress in November’s midterm elections. Trump dubbed these payments the “Trump dividend,” channeling the same business […]
A retired California government employee collected nearly half a million dollars in pension payments last year. The system paying him is $153 billion short...
