The White House’s struggles to negotiate an off-ramp in Iran are a reminder of how crucial skilled diplomacy can be. Yet the State Department appears intent on purging and politicizing the ranks of the nation’s top envoys. Congress has a duty to push back.

Out of 195 ambassadorial postings around the world, more than 110 sat empty as of ...Read more

Remember when our president attacked a female journalist for asking uncomfortable questions with a casual, sincere, "Quiet, piggy"?

That was five months ago, a lifetime in the chaos of the Trump administration, but it was a telling moment about how not just our president but those crafting his policy view women and their place in society. Hint:...Read more

There are two open secrets in college admissions. First, admissions is not a meritocracy based on academic achievement. Second, the factors used in “holistic” admissions (essays, teacher recommendations, etc.) do not predict a student’s success in or after college. “Holistic” admissions originated a century ago to perpetuate exclusion,...Read more

If you’ve ever expressed even a passing desire to visit Disneyland in Anaheim, California, or Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, you may have had friends who raised their eyebrows, groaned or even sneered.

The heart of their criticism isn’t just that they think Disney is for kids, or that it’s so prohibitively expensive. It’s what I...Read more

Congress is now being asked to pause data center construction. In March, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced a bill to halt the buildout of the infrastructure that makes advanced AI possible. The framing is familiar: the pace is too fast, the risks too great, the window to act too narrow. The only path forward is to preserve ...Read more

When the Trump administration launched the war in Iran a month ago, higher oil and energy prices were surely expected, yet there was a positive feeling that the U.S. economy was strong and vibrant enough to keep running smoothly. Like a family planning a long road trip in a sturdy seven-seat SUV, it believed the economic engine was serviced, ...Read more

The scariest thing I read this weekend was not about gas prices, although $4.29 a gallon for regular was nearly enough to make me do a Tiger Woods and flip my SUV.

(Too soon?)

And, no, the scariest thing I read wasn’t about the “massive” military bunker President Donald Trump was designing under what used to be the White House’s East ...Read more

President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening offered the nation a defense of America’s offensive against Iran, assuring the country the mission will end “very shortly.” Had he opted for inaction like all his predecessors, he said, the “most violent and thuggish regime on Earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion...Read more

It was obvious what kind of official U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi would be in the second Trump administration about 12 years before she joined it, long before Donald Trump came down the golden escalator. Bondi took thousands of dollars in Trump campaign donations in 2013 as Florida’s attorney general and then promptly shut down an ...Read more

With the ouster of Pam Bondi, the Senate gets a do-over in confirming an attorney general. Let’s hope it demands one who won’t thumb her nose at the independence the Department of Justice has enjoyed for decades.

President Donald Trump fired Bondi Thursday after little more than a year on the job. In many ways, Bondi had done everything ...Read more

Does artificial intelligence herald soaring prosperity or mass unemployment, political breakdown and Orwellian subjection? Nobody, not even AI, can honestly say.

Forced to guess, I’d predict some of both. The point is, the outcome isn’t predetermined. What happens depends on choices that we humans (for the moment) will be making.

...Read more

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, wants to be president of the United States. He might be better off first attempting to address the many festering pathologies that he has helped create in his own state.

Over the past decade, California has lost nearly 10 million residents to other states. Most are fleeing the oppressive tax and ...Read more

South Asia has had three youth-led revolts and three changes of government — and still has three countries with problems that haven’t changed a bit.

In February, Bangladesh’s electorate gave Tarique Rahman, exiled in London for 17 years, a sweeping mandate; and in early March Nepalis voted overwhelmingly for Balen Shah, previously a ...Read more

Pam Bondi ranks among the country’s worst attorneys general, but it appears she was fired for not being bad enough.

President Donald Trump’s displeasure didn’t owe just to her embarrassing bungling of the Epstein files. By many reports, he was livid over her lack of success in prosecuting his enemies.

The list is long: Former FBI ...Read more

President Donald Trump gave his first prime-time address to the nation laying out his goals in the war on Iran more than a month into the conflict. Better late then never, we suppose.

Alas, we don’t have any clearer idea of how the president intends to achieve those goals than we did before the speech.

Will we allow Iran to keep its weapons-...Read more

President Donald Trump said this week that he is strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO. This isn’t the first time he has lambasted the defensive alliance. For what it’s worth, Congress passed a law in 2023 explicitly preventing a president from unilaterally withdrawing from the bloc. But whether or not the United States ...Read more