Foreign Affairs, the banner publication of the Council of Foreign Relations, carries in its March-April 2012 issue, an interesting article on religion and politics in the United States. It is by two prominent political scientists, David Campbell (Notre Dame) and Robert Putnam (Harvard). Their title is “God and Caesar in America: Why Mixing Religion and […]

When horrible things happen, like the terror attack on a Jewish school in southern France on Monday, our emotions churn and sometimes get the better of our capacity for reason. One commentator, an old friend who will remain nameless, blames the slimy subterranean anti-Semitism of contemporary Europe––much of the time masquerading in anti-Israel drag––for supplying […]

The conventional wisdom today holds that deep splits between conservatives and liberals have paralyzed the United States government. The country needs major changes, fast, writers like Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum say in their recent book That Used to Be Us, but polarized politics have stopped change dead in its tracks.Actually, the situation is a little […]

The Washington Post is following a story that will sound all too familiar to many Catholics: the sexual abuse of young children in Baltimore’s Orthodox Jewish community. In the new documentary, Standing Silent, Phil Jacobs, himself a victim of sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, has set out to chronicle the stories of similar victims […]

[iframe src=’https://apps.the-american-interest.com/campaign/index-embed-320.php’ width=’100%’ height=’430px’]Our electoral map, updated above with the latest data, shows that President Obama is in a pretty good position for re-election at the moment. This partly reflects the recent economic improvement, as well as public discontent with the GOP. It is also due to the fact that the Republican candidates have been […]

Via Meadia commented this morning on Jeffrey Goldberg’s report that senior Israeli officials are increasingly confident of the success of an attack on Iran’s nuclear program. Goldberg is one of the top American reporters on Israel and the Middle East, and his column appeared after he spent last week in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. His reporting should […]

Salman Rushdie issued a battle cry in Delhi this weekend. The NYT has a story on his speech, his first in India since he was forced to cancel a trip to the Jaipur Literary Festival because of death threats: There is a cultural war being waged in India today against freedom of speech, he [Rushdie] […]

Greens often hold up China as a model for smart policy because of things like its investments in solar power and high-speed rail. Via Meadia is now waiting for greens to celebrate the newest energy initiative to come from the People’s Republic: fast track frack. Bloomberg reports: China pledged to prioritize land approvals for shale-gas exploration, allow […]

Italy is not a good place to be young and, not surprisingly, there aren’t that many young Italians coming along. ISTAT reported in January that youth unemployment now stands at an astonishing 30.1 percent, a record high for the country. Rather than striking out on their own, young Italians are increasingly living with their parents […]

The most important piece of journalism out this morning is from Jeffrey Goldberg: a week of shuttling between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, meeting with current and former Israeli defense and security officials and intellectuals has convinced this experienced and well sourced reporter that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak believe that an […]