Opinion

Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress claim that America spends too much on things like food stamps, welfare, and foreign aid.

Over the next two nights, we’ll see seven Democratic senators (counting Bernie Sanders as the Democrat he effectively is) on the debate stage. Not all of them, of course, are really running for president. The more obscure, the non-frontrunners, may have calculated that the exposure they are getting will set them up for a vice-presidential nod. (Some of the other candidates now polling at one percent appear to be running for a post on the level of deputy assistant secretary for Horseshoeing in the Department of Commerce.) Senators Michel Bennett, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar might well have had Joe Biden’s old job in mind when they declared their candidacies.

An old friend in Monaco, a retired European military historian, sneered at me when I asked about the escalating crisis in the Persian Gulf between the U.S. and Iran—the one that’s pulling in the U.K. and the international community, the one TV analysts say could result in a “ferocious” response from Iran if the U.S. ever attacks.

The stage is now set for a disastrous collision between the U.S.-UK navies and Iran in the busy waters of the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and makes up the world’s major oil choke point, carrying about 30-35 percentof total traded oil. The latest move of the U.S.and UK — to provide “protection” with their warships to merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz — is an assertion of imperial rights over Iran’s territorial waters. In other words, this is what would have been called, in an earlier era, gunboat diplomacy. Iran will not accept this.

In the second round of two-night Democratic debates, a group of 10 candidates took to the stage on Tuesday. Much of the night was spent positioning between the low-polling moderates onstage against left-leaning Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The more progressive candidates and the more centrist were thus unfortunately pitted against each other with the CNN moderator's aggressive framing of issues.

While much of the world now recognises the need for immediate action, there are still those who question the scientific consensus on climate change and deter efforts to tackle it. As might be expected, they have the attention of US President Donald Trump and his Republican administration.

Night one of the second round of Democratic debates, hosted by CNN and held in Detroit, will be a feast for the policy wonks. It always is, frankly, when Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is in the mix. Like a college professor who inspires her students to be their best selves — which was her job before she got into politics — Warren raises the floor for intelligent discourse at these sort of events,  as shown in the first night of debate last month, which was sharper and more policy-focused even during the long stretches when she wasn't talking.

The Christian Right, which has been an integral part of the Republican Party since President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign, is known for its strident support of Israel as well as its belief that fundamentalist Christianity is the only way to escape eternal hellfire and damnation. It’s a bizarre contradiction: far-right white Protestant evangelicals believe that Jews will receive a one-way ticket to hell unless they become fundamentalist Christians, yet they profess to be unwavering supporters of Israel — even going so far as to denounce others as anti-Semitic for not being pro-Israel enough. Journalist Peter Beinart takes a close look at the Christian Right’s supposed love affair with Israel in a thought-provoking piece for The Forward, and he concludes that their obsession with Israel is not rooted in a love of Judaism, but in a white nationalist viewpoint.

In a series of tweets last weekend Donald Trump ramped up his racist attacks on black and brown people, demanding why "so much money" was sent to the Maryland district of Rep. Elijah Cummings, the black Democrat who chairs the House Oversight Committee. He claimed Cummings' district was "the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States."

If the Catholic Bishops, their Evangelical Protestant allies, and other Right-wing fundamentalists had the sole objective of decimating religious belief, they couldn’t be doing a better job of it.

Famed defense lawyer and Harvard legal scholar Alan Dershowitz became difficult to avoid in the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency, appearing on nearly every media outlet that would have him to defend the White House as the furor over the Russia investigation boiled over. But he’s now in the media’s eye for his own conduct rather than his commentary, caught in the deluge of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

In the run-up to 2020, this can’t be said frequently, loudly or clearly enough.