Political Glance
“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern.” — Henry Kissinger
One of my main points in that article was the extent to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dependent on a coalition that gave important porfolios to political parties with insane ideologies. I instanced Israel Beitenu, the ultra-chauvinist group led by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and the religiously orthodox Shas Party, under the spiritual leadership of deranged Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. “Fringe” though they might be, members of such groups hold key ministries, including the ones that dominate the “settlement” process. Since I last wrote about him, Rabbi Yosef has again been to the fore, blaming the calamitous forest fires in northern Israel on the failure of Jews to observe the Sabbath in the proper way. And the country’s interior minister, a Shas member named Eli Yishai, has rejected offers of fire-fighting equipment from Christian organizations, lest they use the opportunity to seduce Jews away to the worship of the Nazarene.
Elected officials and activists from around the country gathered Monday to bemoan the excesses of political partisanship and seek ways to restore civility and practical solutions to government.
It is often in the excuses and in the apologies that one finds the real offense. Looking back on the domestic political “surge” which the populist right has been celebrating since last month, I found myself most dispirited by the manner in which the more sophisticated conservatives attempted to conjure the nasty bits away.
A pair of conservative groups founded with the help of Republican political guru Karl Rove raised more than $70 million since their inception last spring, making them the undisputed leaders of an onslaught of outside spending during the 2010 midterm campaign, according to new disclosures Thursday.
It's official. The drug industry's chief lobbyists — the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — raised and spent at least $101.2 million in 2009 on advocacy efforts during the contentious health care overhaul debate, according to tax documents the group filed last month.
If the Obama administration was hoping to see hints of bipartisanship from the Hill, it might want to skip over the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The governor-turned-reality-TV-star’s new book dives into feminist history—distorting and misunderstanding it every step of the way. In some ways, it’s a good thing that Sarah Palin calls herself a feminist. It means that, even among conservatives, women’s equality has become a normative position, the starting point for debate.
