While Israel’s deadly raid on a flotilla of civilian vessels trying to break the blockade of Gaza and deliver emergency aid has been a public relations disaster for the Jewish State, Le Figaro columnist Pierre Rousselin writes that it also presents monumental problems for the Obama Administration – one being, ironically, persuading the U.N. Security Council to approve of sanctions against Iran. As...

If this is true, it is so wrong on so many levels it makes the head spin:

I just turned on my computer and saw the news about Israel’s attack on the Palestinian aid flotilla, which according to the AFP report (the only one I’ve seen so far) killed at least eight activists on the ship.

Israel seems determined to give the lie to its own repeated claims that the embargo the IDF has been maintaining in the Gaza Strip for years now is not a form of siege warfare which, although not subject to any legal sanctions in ancient times, is now proscribed by international law.

On the one-year anniversary of the day that Dr. George Tiller was murdered by Scott Roeder, in an act of domestic terrorism motivated by a fundamentalist religious ideology, Ali Frick of Think Progress asks us to remember the core value at the heart of Dr. Tiller’s work — that women are trustworthy adult human beings who are capable of making their own moral choices. Why is it so important to remember...

It never fails to amaze me, no matter how many examples I see of it, how the same individual can proclaim, from one side of his mouth, his pious belief in the “sanctity of human life” and the importance of fostering a “culture of life” when it comes to “innocent, unborn children” — and from the other side of his mouth, compare living human beings to oil gushers.

The German torpedo that sank the U.S.S. Dorchester plying the icy waters of the North Atlantic in February 1943 didn’t know or care that among its 672 casualties there would be four U.S. military chaplains (all U.S. Army lieutenants): a Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi and two Protestant ministers. After giving their lifejackets away to other soldiers, “the four chaplains” were last seen standing on the...

Before anyone finds it and discloses that my material isn’t original, I confess that I found this Biblical perspective on immigration while perusing the “On Faith” section of WAPO. Not generally inclined to religious musings, this passage from Leviticus caught my attention. When a stranger dwells among you in your land, do not taunt him. The stranger who dwells with you shall be like a native...

The woman was 11 weeks pregnant and the nun recommended she be allowed to have an abortion in a Catholic hospital because she had been advised by her doctor that she would die without one. Underlying this already very disturbing news item is a broader issue of how differently the Catholic Church hierarchy treats (women) nuns and men (priests) when their actions are inconsistent with official Church teachings,...

Don’t ya just love Nevada? Governor Jim Gibbons and Senator John Ensign are both hip deep in sex scandals. Harry Reid’s about as popular a scorpion in a swimming pool. But, the fun has just begun. Here come the Republican challengers for Reid’s seat falling all over each other with, oh let’s be kind, “interesting” ideas. First there’s Republican front runner, Sue Lowden. The former state party...

Not One of the Ten Commandments Are in the Constitution by Tina Dupuy There are no democratically elected leaders in the Christian bible. I know – it’s shocking. But, if you catch the rhetoric pertaining to the US Constitution, you’d think the Ten Commandments are its bullet points. They’re not. The whole idea of a representative democracy (a Greek word) comes from Ancient (think then-solvent) Greece....

The recent nuclear deal brokered with Iran by Turkey and Brazil has caused alarm not only in the United States and Europe, but in the Arab oil states. According to this article from Kuwait’s Al Qabas, Arabs are concerned that once the pressure is off of Iran over its nuclear program, it will then be free to pursue many of its other foreign policy goals in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and the Persian Gulf. For...

Is there some moral equivalency between Iran’s arrest of film director Jafar Panahi and America’s relentless pursuit of Roman Polanski? According to this article by Franck Nouchi of France’s Le Monde newspaper, the two cases have an important thing in common: both men have been ‘gagged’ because of their ‘art.’ For Le Monde, Franck Nouchi writes in part: In Iran and...

Despite the last-minute return of Thomas Jefferson to a list of political philosophers whose ideas were influential in the founding of the United States, the religious extremists on the Texas School Board of Education took care to obscure his influence on making the concept of a “wall of separation” between church and state one of the bedrock principles in American life. Among the many appalling...

WASHINGTON — A fall from grace of the sort experienced recently by Indiana’s Mark Souder typically brings smiles to the faces of liberals weary of moralistic religious types who preach one thing and do another. But I took no pleasure in Souder’s resignation from Congress last week after it was revealed that the conservative evangelical Republican had an affair with a part-time staff member....

Peter Beinart’s long and thoughtful article in the New York Review of Books has received quite a bit of notice in the blogosphere — and I will point to a few of what I consider the most interesting commentaries shortly. But first, I want to flag one paragraph near the beginning of Beinart’s piece (and especially one sentence in that paragraph, which I have bolded) that struck me quite forcefully...

We are approaching Memorial Day and I probably will not post until then. On Memorial Day we will be remembering all military men and women who have given their lives for our country. An e-mail and a link to a PowerPoint presentation I received from a relative, however, poignantly took my thoughts to others—civilians—who have died as a result of a cruel war that also involved the genocide of innocent...

According to columnist Breno Altman of Brazil’s Guia Global, what frustrates Western countries most is not necessarily the nuclear deal with Iran brokered By Brazil and Turkey, but the emergence of new diplomatic world powers not under “imperial” control. Altman writes that the U.S. and its ‘subservient European associates” can’t tolerate “the formation of alliances...

Has the ground just shifted under the planet’s diplomats? According to this article by columnist Semih Idiz of Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, the nuclear deal Turkey and Brazil have brokered with Iran may be a model for resolving problems the major powers have long failed to correct. Giving just a hint of Turkish displeasure with Brazil and lauding Ankara’s diplomatic breakthrough with Iran, columnist...

History as seen through the eyes of social conservatives is being rewritten by the Texas Board of Education for school textbooks. Among the changes: Although one of the country’s founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson’s contributions are short-changed because he advocated separation of church and state. George Wallace marched along side Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as sort of the great white hope in the...

In his “Top of the Week” editorial a week ago, after a brief history of NEWSWEEK’s ownership and after unemotionally stating that “NEWSWEEK was going to be sold,” editor Jon Meacham turns melodramatic, even effusive: There is a place for NEWSWEEK in some form in a fragmented culture… The moment of focus may be fleeting, but there are fewer and fewer common denominators left in American life, and...

My opinion of the Tea Partiers resembles my opinion of Sarah Palin. I’m not naturally attracted to either, but their critics seem so closed-minded that I’ve become deeply skeptical of any of the charges leveled against them. Case in point is the standard liberal assertion that the Tea Partiers are conspiracy theorists and crypto-racists. John Judis makes the case for that point of view in an essay...

Once again, Iranian diplomacy has proven itself a formidable opponent. To international surprise, Iran has signed a deal with Turkey and Brazil that is likely to weaken America’s drive to have harsher sanctions imposed on Tehran. According to Le Figaro columnist Pierre Rousselin, President Obama has the credibility to mount a counter-move – and now would be the time. For Le Figaro, Pierre Rousselin...

It means Islam. It means Muslims. It means that an Arab-American woman from Dearborn, Michigan, who wins the Miss USA beauty pageant contest gets called “Miss Hezbollah” for the sole reason that her family comes from Lebanon:

Our political Quote of the Day comes from law professor Jonathan Turley who has a great post (with quotes from bloggers and a blog commenter) on how some conservatives are in an uproar over Miss Michigan Rima Fakih, 24, becoming the first Arab-American to win the Miss USA Pageant. His post must be read in full but here’s our Quote of the Day: … The extreme right has gone ballistic –painting Fakih...