We warned Republicans not to fall for this politics of uncorroborated accusation, and perhaps now they understand that they are being played. Women who are abused deserve to be heard, but turning #MeToo into a political weapon undermines that cause. Once Ms. Ford and Mr. Kavanaugh are heard on Thursday, there should be no more delay. Call the roll and vote.

This right here, right now is about men. Men sexually assaulting women, and men normalizing sexual assault… What is fair is to recognize the torrent of horrifying #WhyIDidntReport stories as an epidemic and say, ENOUGH. Enough dismissing women in order to promote men, and enough of making them relive their traumas, again and again so maybe — just maybe — you’ll consider believing them. Memo to the GOP: “Believe women” means treating their stories seriously on the way to seeking the truth. But alas, for that to happen, truth would have to be a goal.

How many more women are Republicans willing to destroy in their desperate attempt to pack the court with another extreme conservative? Clearly, the “Me Too” movement, which has swept most of the country — Wall Street, Hollywood, academia, professional sports, entertainment — hasn’t yet reached Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley or most Republican members of the U.S. Senate. There’s only one reasonable option left: To save the reputation of the Supreme Court and to spare the Republican Party any further embarrassment, Kavanaugh should withdraw his nomination.

Contrary to reports, Rod Rosenstein is still the deputy attorney general… The confusion of the morning appeared a byproduct of two interrelated factors: factionalism within the Trump White House (where different parties selectively leak to influence outcomes) and a scoop-hungry press that relies heavily on these leaks to understand White House court intrigue. One major problem with breathless coverage that is quickly retracted is that it feeds into Trump’s favorite argument that the media is serving up “fake news.”

Whether Trump moves to dismiss Rosenstein on Thursday or a later day, I think a dismissal is more likely to happen now than before the Times story broke — and especially now that the water has been muddied by the resignation stories. Trump can fire Rosenstein and more credibly argue that the firing is not directly tied to Rosenstein’s handling of the investigation into the Trump 2016 campaign’s ties with Russia, even if that’s really why Trump wants to get rid of Rosenstein.

This issue of who, technically, would be in charge of Mueller is an important one, but it’s not nearly as significant as the broader issue raised by Rosenstein’s likely departure. The President is in charge of the executive branch, and Mueller, as the special counsel, is a subordinate in that branch of the government. If Trump is determined to fire Mueller, or to constrict his investigation in untoward ways, he and his advisers will figure out a way to do it. There is little doubt that the President could ultimately find a compliant Justice Department official to carry out his order of execution. In other words, the massacre this week may lead to another, like the one on a Saturday night in 1973 when Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox, the Watergate special prosecutor. This modern version would be an abuse of power of the most profound sort.

On the strategic level, it is likely that Putin – who has the final word on the Russian side – will leverage these serious claims in the Defense Ministry report to demand increased diplomatic coordination with Israel in Syria, and to impose stricter rules for the joint military coordination mechanism between the two countries.

How believable is the report by the Russians? What is clear it that the Defense Ministry has not pointed out the simple fact that the Syrian air defenses were the ones that shot the plane down. It was not Israel… This string of facts which are ignored in the report cast a significant doubt on its validity, but also on the fact that the Kremlin does not want to overstep the mark with Israel. This is also a positive thing for us. While they want to squeeze out of this crisis as much as they can, the Russians will not go too far in directly confronting Israel.

As noted, Israel is concerned that the Iranians will take advantage of this window of opportunity, though it is not yet clear how Israel will respond. The IAF does not need to penetrate Syrian airspace to conduct its attacks. Israel has other means at its disposal, including missiles fired from naval vessels at sea. Regardless, Israel will find it much more difficult now to make any decision about attacks in Syria.

Notwithstanding its repeated vows to the contrary, the primary goal of an administration that has given up on the current Palestinian leadership isn’t to encourage or pressure President Abbas to come to the table. By now, even the Trump team must know that won’t happen. Rather, the objective is to fundamentally reframe the U.S.’s understanding of, and policy toward, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, shifting the focus toward Palestinians’ material, economic concerns while downplaying their political and national ones.

Donald Trump and Jared Kushner do not represent something entirely new in the American government’s approach to Israel and Palestine. Rather, they represent the grotesque exaggeration of features that have long been present. They are the Clinton, Bush and Obama Middle East teams as seen through a funhouse mirror. They constitute the reductio ad absurdum, the end of the line. They represent the reductio ad absurdum of what might be called “dealism.” Dealism is the belief that brokering an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is little different than brokering the sale of a building.

We’re again at a fateful moment. For the Palestinians, it’s choose nihilism or pacifism. For Israel, it’s choose separation from the Palestinians or get bi-nationalism or apartheid. For Jared and Donald, it’s either be serious — and be ready to take a tough stance with all parties, including Israel — or stay home. Making progress toward peace requires telling everyone the truth, twisting everyone’s arms and not letting any party drive drunk. Not ready for that? Then stick to building condos and golf courses.

When no one is in earshot, some United Nations officials are even willing to consider the possibility that the disruptions caused by the Trump administration could do some good. But nearly two years into his presidency, Mr. Trump remains for much of the world a source of bewilderment… Mr. Trump’s decision to conduct a session of the Security Council this week, which is his right as leader of the country that currently holds the body’s rotating presidency, already has been a source of anxiety and confusion.

For years the US could force nations that wanted our support to make large weapons purchases or grant us unique concessions. No more. Especially after the trade wars, tweets and tough telephone calls, their price will be high, if not stratospheric. The fear remains that [Trump] will lead the world into an even worse place. Trump may well dominate the headlines out of the UNGA. As the photo of Chancellor Angela Merkel looming over him at the G7 summit illustrated so well, he is far less likely to dominate or direct the debate. His sideshow may prove to be a distraction, but it will do little to change the clear power shift taking place.

This week at UNGA, there are no publicly planned meetings between Palestinian officials and Mr. Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley… A handful of Trump administration officials staunchly oppose wasting precious time on trying to secure a meeting between Mr. Trump and Abbas. “Well the question is, do they want to met with us?” said an administration official when asked if there were any planned meetings with Palestinians this week. “I don’t think so.” This standoff has delayed the rollout of any peace plan.

It’s hard to see this as anything other than Wall Street betting that marijuana will soon be fully, or at least mostly, legal in America. And it’s hard to see the specifics of most of these bets as anything other than foolish… Tilray is based in Canada… In America, marijuana use is legal to varying degrees in some states, but remains illegal nationally. That means any American company that invests in marijuana runs the risk of bringing down law enforcement’s wrath. Tilray and other Canadian firms (like Canopy Growth) have no such problems. But trace the saga of Tilray’s rise, and it’s pretty clearly about American enthusiasm.

None of this is easy to justify based on Tilray’s actual business. The company currently loses money and generates little revenue—last quarter, it brought in just more than $9 million. Meanwhile, the DEA only granted it the right to provide cannabis for a single clinical trial at UC–San Diego involving 16 patients. That’s good news for the industry as a whole, since it suggests the U.S. government is loosening its attitude on medical research—but it’s hard to say exactly what this coup means for Tilray in particular over the long term. And it certainly doesn’t justify why, for a brief moment, it had a higher market capitalization than American Airlines, CBS, or Clorox. “It’s insane. It makes no sense,” Alan Brochstein, a marijuana-industry analyst and founder of New Cannabis Ventures, told me.

Investors of a certain age look at the movement in cannabis stocks ー led by Tilray’s 1,000 percent gain since its July IPO ー and can’t help but draw parallels to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and early aughts… As for Tilray, which has become the de facto poster child for the weed-as-bubble theory, the stock’s wild movements ー as illustrated on Wednesday when it had to be halted five times in an hour for volatility, rising more than 90 percent and giving back all those gains before closing up nearly 40 percent ー have more to do with the fact that there are relatively few shares of the company available.