Despite the lofty title, in A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership James Comey comes across in turns petty, smug, sanctimonious, bitter, and most of all, pandering. Comey feeds the rubes exactly what they paid the carnival sideshow barker in front at Barnes and...
Kurd Election Official Assassinated; 10 Killed in Iraq
Diplomacy, Hope, and Inspiration in Korea
History will be made this week with the summit meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. With a second summit between Kim and President Donald Trump looming in four to six weeks or so, it's tempting to look past this first...
War and the Separation of Powers
A popular way to begin the first day of class in constitutional law in many American law schools is to ask the students what sets the U.S. Constitution apart from all others. Usually, they answer that it's the clauses that guarantee the freedom of speech, privacy and...
Rand Paul, Pompeo, and the Koch Connection
Among the least convincing explanations ever: Sen. Rand Paul's rationalization for changing his vote on the Pompeo nomination. When pressed, the Senator admits there were no real promises made, just a “general” sense that “we’re going to see less of these wars” after...
VP of Iraqi Olympic Committee Kidnapped; 13 Killed in Iraq
Unknown assailants wearing military uniforms kidnapped Bashar Mustafa, vice president of the Olympic Committee in Iraq and head of the Boxing Federation, at a fake checkpoint near Mussayab. At least 13 people were killed, and seven were wounded in recent violence:...
The Ghost of Herut: Einstein on Israel, 70 Years Ago
Albert Einstein, along with other Jewish luminaries, including Hannah Arendt, published a letter in the New York Times on December 4, 1948. That was only a few months after Israel had declared its independence and as hundreds of Palestinian villages were being...
Just When You Thought ‘Russiagate’ Couldn’t Get Any Sillier…
April 20 is cannabis culture’s high holiday, and the Democratic National Committee celebrated it with fervor this year: Blaze up, get silly, file a bizarre lawsuit accusing the Russian government, Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and transparency...
What Will Weapons Inspectors Find in Syria… and Does it Matter?
Inspectors from the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have finally arrived in Douma, Syria, to assess whether a gas attack took place earlier this month. It has taken a week for the inspectors to begin their work, as charges were thrown back...
Some Lives Matter (More Than Others)
Why does the U.S. president feel inclined to attack Bashar al-Assad’s forces only in the case of chemical attacks – as opposed to more frequent conventional bombings – and why do the lives of Syrian (but not Yemeni) children matter enough to warrant missile strikes?...


