Editor-in-chief: David Suissa
May 16, 2019
America is inching closer and closer to war with Iran, but many are concerned that this conflict is something that nobody – not the American people, not the Iranians, and not even Trump—truly wants. So who is driving the conflict?
John Bolton wants the United States to go to war with Iran… everything that the Trump administration has done over its Iran policy, particularly since Bolton became Trump’s top foreign policy adviser in April of 2018, must be viewed through this lens, including the alarming US military posturing in the Middle East of the past two weeks.
President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S. officials. Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran’s leaders.
The goal of U.S. strategy isn’t to start a conflict but to get Iran to stop its terror support and renegotiate the nuclear deal. Mr. Trump has invited Iran to talk anew, and the Europeans can help by joining the U.S. pressure campaign, rather than lobbying Washington to cave to Tehran’s threats. With Iran threatening to leave the nuclear pact, and its companies unwilling to defy American sanctions on Iran, Europe has no reason to mollify the regime.
Alabama has just signed into law the most severe abortion restriction in the United States. The new law criminalizes all abortions in which there is no direct threat to the life of the mother or baby, including incidents of rape and incest. Some pro-choice activists are fearful that this is a foretaste of what America will be like if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court.
It’s time to face facts. A century of evidence from around the world shows that coercive reproduction policies correlate weakly with actual fertility rates. The fact is that women’s decisions about family size are based on material realities. When basic food supplies are scarce (as in Romania in the 1980s), women will risk their lives having back-alley abortions, for fear of lacking the means to care for a child.
…a repeal of Roe would shift the battle from the federal courts to state legislatures, where lawmakers in every state would make their own rules about when, where and under what circumstances women could obtain abortions. States would be free to act because, without Roe, the constitutional right to access abortion would be gone.
The worst thing that could happen to Donald Trump would be for Roe v. Wade to be overturned. Public opinion over abortion rests in equipoise with equal percentages for and against, although with those against more energized. But this week’s poll from pro-Trump Fox News shows that with abortion threatened like never before, 57 percent say of Roe, “let it stand.”
Flouting convention, Elizabeth Warren turned down Fox News’ invitation to participate in a town hall event. Warren called Fox News a “hate-for-profit racket,” but is she shooting herself in the foot by denying herself this platform?
Millions of people need to be persuaded that they deserve something better, that change is possible, and that they are the engine of that change. Demonstrated policy expertise won’t cut it, nor will principled stands against bad actors. What’s most important is speaking directly to working people on the biggest possible platform.
Ms. Warren is not going to change the tone at the right-leaning network by refusing the Fox invitation. Her job — like that of all the Democratic candidates — is to win the race against President Trump by making inroads among at least some of his supporters.
Elizabeth Warren has a plan to deal with Fox News… Again and again, Warren has risen to greatest assault on democracy by a somewhat democratically elected president and a party of oleaginous enablers by not only clearly describing the crisis we face, but also laying out a path through it. There has been no candidate for president in my lifetime who has better matched her country’s needs.
The strength of Israel’s economy depends on the continued thriving of its innovative high-tech sector. Are fears of “brain drain,” a phenomenon in which a country’s best and brightest move abroad for economic opportunity, a genuine threat to Israel’s economic future?
Israel will not remain viable if it does not vastly improve the quality of education it is giving its children… The question is what happens in the aftermath of that crisis. Will we get our act together collectively and just say to hell with all the sacred cows, let’s fix things. Or not? If we don’t, we’re not just going to see a gradual increase in the brain drain. Anyone who has the option of leaving will leave…
People emigrate. In a world where emigration is an available option, the choice to leave one’s country is always there in the background… this situation is not understood by recent Israeli governments, which have been doing everything to drive the best of Israel’s young people away. Government ministers preach hatred of the left – and scorn for the “Ashkenazi elite” is the stuff of which political careers are made.
In contrast to rumors of a “brain drain,” here are the numbers: From 1980 to 2018, nearly 400,000 academics made aliyah and 77,000 left the country, leaving us with a net gain of about 320,000 “brains.” When it comes to returning academics, we see that between 2010 and 2016 some 4,500 people with a Ph.D. or other senior academic degrees returned to Israel. Over half found jobs at universities and the rest went to work in industry or as entrepreneurs.
Ronald Sullivan, a Harvard law professor, will be stepping down from his position on Harvey Weinstein’s legal defense team in the wake of outrage from a contingency of Harvard students. Harvard University, in a controversial move, has sided with the students and has relieved Ronald Sullivan of his deanship of the undergraduate Winthrop house.
The ousting of Ronald Sullivan, the first black faculty dean to preside over a dorm at Harvard, is one of those scandals that aspires to be about everything, and in the process becomes about nothing at all… the Sullivan affair had to be about Weinstein’s civil rights, or about fragile or obtuse college students. Or maybe race. Everyone has a pet issue—except that the issues are not pets, cuddly friends who curl up loyally at the foot of your bed. They are obsessions…
Harvard officials are certainly capable of withstanding student pressure. This time, though, they don’t want to. Some high-ranking administrators have clearly been guided by an affinity for the belief that Mr. Sullivan’s representation of Mr. Weinstein constituted a betrayal of enlightened judgment. Others have simply been willing to be mau-maued.
I am calling for Sullivan to resign from his position as faculty dean of Winthrop House, and, should he refuse, for his removal. I am calling for Harvard to finally address the systemic violence that impacts survivors of sexual assault on campus. I am calling for justice.
Notoriously antisemitic actor/director Mel Gibson will be starring alongside Shia LaBeouf in a film about a wealthy Jewish family called “Rothchild.” The Jewish world is reacting with outrage. Who could have expected otherwise?
Imagine how easy it would have been to not have cast Mel Gibson, who in 2006 told a police officer “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” in a movie called “Rothchild.” Gibson, who before uttering that tasteful remark, was in the same incident recorded — per his arrest report — ”blurt[ing] out a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks about ‘(profanity redacted) Jews.’”
Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic. This isn’t just a guess, it’s actual fact based on things Gibson has said. He’s also a misogynist, racist, homophobe and all around (seemingly) terrible person. Yet he’s still working in Hollywood. Why?!
…We are in the midst of a so-called “cancel culture” and have seen movements like #MeToo take down prominent men in Hollywood (and rightfully so). Yet Mel Gibson is still working. And getting roles. And making movies. And getting Oscar nominations for those movies.
Gibson’s involvement is hard to interpret as anything but a whole other level of provocation, a ludicrous addition to a project that already sounds potentially offensive. The actor and director’s reputation has recovered in Hollywood despite numerous scandals, including a drunk-driving arrest, a racist phone call to an ex-girlfriend in which he drunkenly admitted hitting her, and a plea of “no contest” to a charge of battery.