Veteran Roger Ailes Expert Gabriel Sherman wrote last week about the most distasteful aspect of this two-part Fox News debate on Thursday: the fact that Roger Ailes is essentially winnowing the Republican field down to 10 candidates at his own whim: As everyone knows by now, Fox has said that only 10 of the 17 … Continue reading The Roger Ailes Primary

If you're a fan of morbid humor, you undoubtedly took some notice back in early July, when Secretary of Defense Ash Carter testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Carter told the committee that, so far, the half-a-billion-dollar US effort to train a force of vetted, moderate Syrian rebels, the centerpiece of America's plan to … Continue reading Nobody could possibly have seen this coming

LobeLog has really been blanketing the coverage of the opposition to the Iran deal this week, so if you're interested you should check out a few of their recent pieces. Ali Gharib, for example, had a lot of fun picking apart Leon "why is this man still getting paid writing gigs" Wieseltier's anti-deal argument (assuming … Continue reading Here’s your “opposition to the Iran deal” update

Potentially huge progress has been made in terms of developing an Ebola vaccine: When Ebola flared up in a village, researchers vaccinated all the contacts of the sick person who were willing – the family, friends and neighbours – and their immediate contacts. Children, adolescents and pregnant women were excluded because of an absence of … Continue reading Good news on the Ebola front

Let me say upfront that of all the announced 2016 candidates, I identify most closely with Bernie Sanders at this point. I know this because I am a reasonably thoughtful adult human being who is pretty well-informed about politics and about my own political preferences, and also because every time I take one of those … Continue reading Bernie Sanders needs some better answers

Grotesque: A one-and-a-half year-old Palestinian infant was burned to death and three of his family members were seriously wounded late Thursday night after a house was set on fire in the village of Douma, near Nablus. According to reports, settlers were those who set the house on fire after targeting it with firebombs and graffiti. The … Continue reading By all means, let’s keep giving these guys more settlements

Robin Wright, one of the best Western journalists out there when it comes to reporting from inside Iran, has a new piece in The New Yorker today on the common Iranian chant, "Death to America." If you are unfamiliar with Iran and perhaps troubled by their use of this chant, or perhaps you're a Republican … Continue reading If you’re worried about Iranians chanting “Death to America,” I found something for you to read

So the Taliban officially acknowledged that Mullah Omar is, in fact, no longer among the living, though one wonders how long they've been trying to Weekend at Bernies this whole thing, if the reports that he died two years ago are accurate. He's reportedly been replaced (though again, when he was actually replaced is an … Continue reading Meet the new Taliban boss (?), Akhtar Mansur

This whole "today in Middle East history" thing that I do is a little bit of a cheat, since most events in the Middle East at least from the founding of Islam have been happening, officially, on the Islamic (Hijri) calendar, which is a lunar calender and thus never quite lines up with the Western … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: Happy birthday Baghdad (762)