Are Democrats Ceding the Center to Trump?

Since the Democratic debates in June, the tide seems to have receded for the party and its presidential hopefuls. In new polls, only Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump comfortably. The other top-tier candidates -- Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, and Mayor Pete ...

Is Putin Right? Has Liberalism Lost the World?

"The liberal idea has become obsolete. ... (Liberals) cannot simply dictate anything to anyone as they have been attempting to do over the recent decades." Such was the confident claim of Vladimir Putin to the Financial Times on the eve of a G-20 gathering that appeared to validate his ...

War With Iran Would Become ‘Trump’s War’

President Donald Trump cannot want war with Iran. Such a war, no matter how long, would be fought in and around the Persian Gulf, through which a third of the world's seaborne oil travels. It could trigger a worldwide recession and imperil Trump's re-election. It would widen the "forever war," ...

Are Abortion & Gay Rights American Values?

"My religion defines who I am. And I've been a practicing Catholic my whole life," said Vice President Joe Biden in 2012. "I accept my church's position on abortion as ... doctrine. Life begins at conception. ... I just refuse to impose that on others." For four decades, Biden backed the Hyde ...

Do Trump’s Hawks Speak for Trump?

For a president who his office by denouncing the Middle East wars into which George W. Bush and Barack Obama plunged the nation, Donald Trump has assembled the most unabashedly hawkish conclave of foreign policy advisers in memory. And he himself seems to concede the point. If foreign policy ...

Has the Day of the Nationalists Come?

A week from today, Europeans may be able to gauge how high the tide of populism and nationalism has risen within their countries and on their continent. For all the returns will be in from three days of elections in the 28 nations represented in the European Parliament. Expectation: ...

Who Wants This War with Iran?

Speaking on state TV of the prospect of a war in the Gulf, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei seemed to dismiss the idea. "There won't be any war. ... We don't seek a war, and (the Americans) don't either. They know it's not in their interests." The ayatollah's analysis -- a war is in ...

Strait of Hormuz

Is Bolton Steering Trump Into War with Iran?

Last week, it was Venezuela in America's gun sights. "While a peaceful solution is desirable, military action is possible," thundered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "If that's what is required, that's what the United States will do." John Bolton tutored Vladimir Putin on the meaning of ...

Joe Biden

Biden Plays the Race Card

As he debated with himself whether to enter the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination, Joe Biden knew he had a problem. As a senator from Delaware in the '70s, he had bashed busing to achieve racial balance in public schools as stupid and racist. As chairman of Senate Judiciary in the ...

The Democrats Divide on Impeachment

The release of the Mueller report has left Democrats in a dilemma. For consider what Robert Mueller concluded after two years of investigation. Candidate Donald Trump did not conspire or collude with the Russians to hack the emails of the DNC or John Podesta. Trump did not distribute the fruits ...