In the current conflict with Iran, the opening of a Houthi front is pure von Clausewitz. Iran knows the war is deeply unpopular in the United States and that the midterm elections are approaching. Iran sees that there is a large element in the Democratic party and a smaller one in the Republican party that is so obsessed with using the war to tar Donald Trump with its failure that they will go to extraordinary lengths to try to ensure that happens.
One would think that the antidote to a sabotage of the economy and power of the US is a heavy dose of truth-telling, but the Democratic party in this election cycle went the opposite direction. The “Big Lie” left amplifies socialism, class warfare and crass bigotry via the megaphones of Democratic candidates and progressive initiatives across the nation and here in Colorado.
In the current election cycle, Democrats seem to think that relentless, socialist, AIPAC- and Israel-bashing, which anyone who is not stupid understands is politically sanitized anti-Semitism, will win them elections. The people of Colorado urgently need bipartisan cooperation and compromise to create fair water policy. We most definitely do not need more grandstanding and populist pandering.
Independence Day is observed in the wrong month. Celebrating American independence on July 4 fails to appreciate that the document promulgated by Congress on that date was actually signed in …
Rahm Emanuel will never be president of the US. That was true even before his perfidious appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher in which he turned his back on a lifetime of support for Israel in the vain hope that he might somehow gain favor with the ascendant hate-fueled base of the Democratic party.
Wars are unpredictable. It’s part of what makes war so dangerous. Nothing goes exactly according to plan, especially in the absence of a plan. With strategic carelessness, outcomes of wars are reduced to games of chance, or opportunities for those who are prepared to take advantage of them. Every war exposes fools and foolishness in preparation, execution and aftermath. Wars also reward the cunning.
Last month, in an apparent oversight, the 92nd Street Y in New York did not invite me to deliver its State of World Jewry address. Instead, they went with Bret Stephens of The New York Times. Although he’s also a very good choice, I feel obliged to remedy the shortcomings in his presentation.
I’m right a lot. I know that can be frustrating for those who disagree with me and I feel for you, but such is life, as they say. Of all the columns I have written, the one that has elicited the most direct and consistently critical feedback was one in which I was as right as I have ever been. Sorry critics. Back in September I professed my Bo-lief. Cynics have chided me for months.
For the most part, we assume that a communal understanding of right and wrong will ensure that those social standards fit within a range of acceptable behaviors, guaranteeing the opportunity for all to survive and thrive as human beings. But what happens if that communal understanding begins to break down?
We need to move beyond governing by Tweet. It may be that the ability of the people of the US to evaluate public policy has been stunted by the lead-based paint of social media, but before we collapse into a full-blown idiocracy, we need to demand that elected leaders speak in complete sentences and paragraphs. “Going viral” is valuable if your primary goal is to garner attention by doing something moronic, but smart people need to remember that viruses are often dangerous and should take care before spreading them.
My home is not typically a social hub, as I am known to share my opinions as readily and as fiercely in private as I do in this space. The …
I believe with perfect faith that although he may tarry, the Denver Broncos quarterback will come. In fact, he is here. That’s right, I am a Bo-liever and I trust in Bo-ses to bring us to the Promised Land.
The Epstein Files. It is just so deliciously ironic that what most threatens Donald Trump’s standing with his base is a conspiracy theory that he would like to debunk. Trump’s political rise and endurance is built on a foundation of getting a large number of people to buy into nonsense. He was an Obama birther, accused Sen. Ted Cruz’s father of conspiring to assassinate JFK, depicted hordes of illegal immigrants swarming the country, inflated crowd sizes, downplayed Covid, stoked anti-Fauci and anti-vax sentiment, claimed fraud in the 2020 election, and fraud in 2024 until he won.
Zionism is a compromise. Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, is a Biblical, religious concept with variously defined boundaries. In Genesis 15:18, G-d’s covenant with Abraham included territory from the “River of Egypt to the great river Porat.” The “River of Egypt” is sometimes said to be the Nile and sometimes it is the Wadi el-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula, while the river Porat is the Euphrates. In Exodus 23:31, the borders are from the “Sea of Reeds” (Sinai Peninsula) to the “Sea of Philistia” (Mediterranean Sea) and from the “desert” (Negev) to “The River” (Euphrates). The State of Israel, in contrast, is substantially smaller. Why? Because Zionism is a compromise.
On my first night of the graduate tax program at DU, our assignment was to memorize a set of percentages used in the Internal Revenue Code for a variety of credits and tax benefits. On the second night, there was a roomful of befuddled accountants and lawyers who went hunting for categorical rules of thumb that would be easier to remember for the exam.
I know that the first question that comes to mind for readers of this column is, “what did Jordan think about Coachella?” Have no fear, I am indeed aware of the spat between Green Day and Charlie XCX over the latter’s contention that she should have been the headline act over the former.
Accountability is not the enemy of freedom. It is its greatest ally. That truth is being taught to Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel Columbia student spokesperson currently facing deportation for “activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” (Section 1182(a)(3)(C) of the United States Code).
President Trump, free from the curse of self-awareness, proposed that the entire population of the Gaza Strip be relocated to other places so that a “Riviera” could emerge under new US “ownership.” Unsurprisingly, his proposal was met with opposition, both principled and reflexive, that swiftly condemned his idea as “immoral.”
The ceasefire agreement with Hamas has been characterized as a “deal with the devil.” Of course it is. If they were angels there would be no need for a deal.
Netanyahu’s enemies have been trying for a year to tar him with responsibility for Oct. 7 while he has been just as busy deflecting blame, but the truth is that when every potential successor is equally tainted, will the Israeli electorate in the end choose to stick with the man who laid low Hezbollah and Iran?
Donald Trump managed to win every swing state while increasing his share of votes across demographic groups that Democrats perceived as belonging to them. That did not happen because Democrats were too far left on immigration or too far right on foreign policy. It happened because an overwhelming majority of the American electorate thinks that Democrats are fundamentally wrong about their core belief that the government can provide meaningful solutions to the problems they face every day.
Longshots are called longshots for a reason. The smart money is always on the shorter odds where the payoff is less, but so is the risk. Of course, gambling is about taking chances, and it would be foolish to ignore the fact that sometimes the longshot hits. Betting on a longshot just because the odds are high is equally foolish, but understanding why the odds are high is the key to mitigating risk in pursuit of a big win.
As the yahrzeit of those who were murdered on Oct. 7 approaches, I am unable to fathom where in my soul there might exist a wellspring of forgiveness. No one is asking, mind you. There is only the unrelenting burden of anger and anguish wrought over the last year and it feels as if there can never be any release by granting forgiveness when those who should seek it from us are far too busy celebrating Jewish suffering and lusting for more. Yom Kippur is coming, and I wonder, if I had the capacity to forgive, to whom would I grant it?
If politics is anything, it is the art of using context and subtext to signal messages while saying as little as possible. If they could, politicians would never say anything directly at all. They prefer leaving voters to try to divine meaning from the context and subtext of political posturing while politicians themselves hope their messages are sufficiently vague to ensure that everyone thinks they heard what they wanted to hear.