New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s press conference on Thursday, called to deal with revelations that members of his staff ordered lane closures on the George Washington Bridge last year to punish the Democrat mayor of Fort Lee for failing to
Twenty minutes before a scheduled press conference, the New York Times reports that the U.S. Attorney will open an investigation into allegations that aides to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ordered lanes closed on the George Washington Bridge as a form
It has been clear to many observers that Chris Christie’s bullying tendencies were going to be a political problem. This reporter discovered first-hand that Christie does not handle opposition well, even when he is clearly in the wrong. I concluded
Brooke Baldwin, host of CNN Newsroom, seemed unimpressed Wednesday with the revelations (or lack thereof) in Gabriel Sherman’s unauthorized biography of Fox News chief Roger Ailes, The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News–and
Gov. Jerry Brown’s most formidable opponent as he heads into his 2014 re-election campaign may be the high-speed rail project that he has enthusiastically supported. Republicans have warned for years that the cost of the train, which aims to reduce
The Chinese Xinhua news agency reports that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry proposed to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that Israel accept 80,000 “refugees” from the 1948 war as part of a final peace settlement. Kerry recently completed his tenth
The New Republic’s Isaac Chotiner leapt to defend President Barack Obama yesterday over reports that the new book by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, paints the president as aloof from his commanders
The Israeli government has repeatedly raised the issue of Palestinian incitement against Israel and Jews with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The Palestinian Authority not only tolerates private, unofficial expressions of hatred, but actively endorses the same sentiments through
The Obama administration is very sensitive about its record on fighting terror. President Barack Obama ran for re-election in 2012 on the strength of the Osama bin Laden raid, and the fight against terrorism is one of the few areas
Even as President Barack Obama attempts to argue for extended unemployment benefits (in defiance of the evidence that longer benefits produce higher unemployment), there are signs that the U.S. economy is finally poised to begin a real recovery. The dollar
As Secretary of State John Kerry continues to press Israel to make additional concessions for the sake of peace, a senior Palestinian official has reiterated what clear-eyed observers have known for years: that the Palestinian Authority has no intention of
Journalist Wendy Lee of local public radio station KPCC reported Monday that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who represents Hollywood and much of west Los Angeles, has written to the Tribune Company, demanding that it provide him with documents about the
A short film dramatizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is drawing traffic at Upworthy. In the film, “No Way Through,” by the left-wing outfit Ctrl.Alt.Shift, a man hits a woman with his car, calls for an ambulance, then is forced to drive
Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon reports that three Democrats–Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)–had invited a “representative of a human rights group headed by a designated al Qaeda terrorist” to brief
In a development possibly related to the “polar vortex” that is currently bringing record low temperatures to the Midwest and the Northeast United States, and which in turn is possibly related to global climate change, surfing conditions in the area
Amidst the general frenzy about this week’s deep freeze in the Midwest and Northeast, it is worth remembering that this is not the first time the region has been this cold. It happens from time to time. It’s called winter.
It might seem odd, in the midst of the deep freeze and the snowstorms that have gripped the Midwest and the Northeast, but New Jersey and Illinois also charge their residents the highest and second-highest property taxes in the nation,
President Barack Obama has made extending unemployment benefits his #1 policy priority for 2014, in service of his attack on inequality. It is a theme that served him well in his 2012 re-election campaign. Republicans are responding by demanding budget
Secretary of State John Kerry, on his tenth visit to the Middle East in a quixotic attempt to urge a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, cited the Vietnam War as an example of how old foes can reconcile.
News broke late last week that Islamists had seized control of two western Iraqi cities, Fallujah and Ramadi. U.S. forces suffered hundreds of dead and wounded in battles against Al Qaeda for control of these cities during the Iraq War.
President Barack Obama’s “birthday present” to his wife–an extended vacation in Hawaii while he returns to Washington–violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. It is, in part, a “gift” from taxpayers to the First Lady, since the
President Barack Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha left their vacation in Hawaii on Saturday, but left First Lady Michelle Obama behind on the islands, according to news agency reports. The president reportedly let his wife stay on in Hawaii
The American left, we are told by the sympathetic New York Times, is watching the mayoralty of Bill de Blasio with great interest and excitement. The Times says that New York’s new mayor will create a “closely watched laboratory for
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist group that plays a large role in Lebanese politics and is propping up Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, has been moving advanced missiles from Syria into Lebanon, according to U.S. officials interviewed by the Wall Street
While the rest of the country struggles with record cold, large snowfalls and more winter misery to come, California is facing a severe drought that may lead to the renewal of water rationing in the rich agricultural region of the
After toasting the New Year at a farm in the starkly beautiful wine country near Cape Town, we arrived back in the city to see Table Mountain illuminated (finally!) from below–and a ring of fire on neighboring Devil’s Peak. The
The past two weeks in South Africa have provided an opportunity for me to catch up with local politics. From afar, it has often looked quite petty, as personality conflicts and the peculiar Kremlinology of the ANC capture national attention.
My friend Vicky Ntozini was a successful township entrepreneur until she was murdered last year by her husband. After reading online that her children were still running her bed and breakfast in the sprawling township of Khayelitsha, I decided to
On Friday evening, I visited a cousin whose home was a regular refuge for me during my seven years here in Cape Town. He and his family live in a delightful house that they built themselves in the windy neighborhood
In this morning’s Cape Times, Minister Trevor Manuel–formerly the well-regarded Minister of Finance under Thabo Mbeki, now serving in Jacob Zuma’s cabinet–published an op-ed that fully repudiated the views expressed earlier in the week by the ruling party’s provincial leader,
At a dinner party last night, a black acquaintance ribbed me about my former boss, Tony Leon, who once led the Democratic Alliance (DA) from political obscurity to opposition dominance. Why was Tony involving himself in party affairs, this gentleman
Boxing Day, December 26, is traditionally a day for black and “coloured” (i.e. mixed-race) South Africans to head to the nation’s beaches. That tradition has remained strong, twenty years after apartheid, even though the segregation laws that helped foster the
Cape Town’s summer weather brings hazards in the form of the southeast wind, which spreads fires quickly. In addition to the brush fires–some natural, some human-caused–that tear across the landscape, there are also shack fires that can devastate the city’s
For only the second time in eight days, the infernal southeast breeze that blusters throughout the Cape Town summer has stopped for a few hours, allowing the heat of the early morning to sink in. It is early Christmas Day,
It’s been four years since I spent time in Cape Town, and seven years since I came back to the U.S. The city has come a long way since then. Amidst stories of crisis and decline in the country as
South Africans are up in arms about their national cricket team’s decision, with victory within reach, to accept a draw with the visiting Indian squad rather than risk a loss, which would have put the two-match series out of reach.
One of the top news stories in South Africa this week has been the controversy over new allegations that Nelson Mandela received training from Israel’s Mossad spy agency–albeit inadvertently–when he received military training in Ethiopia in 1962. After the then-banned
In Monday morning’s Cape Times, Songezo Mjongile, the provincial secretary of the African National Congress (ANC), took to the op-ed page to defend the Times‘ firing of editor Alide Dasnois. His article ran alongside that of a “Black Consciousness” professor,
While in South Africa, I’ve been enjoying Anton Harber’s excellent Diepsloot, an exploration of life in a teeming informal settlement north of Johannesburg that did not exist when Nelson Mandela was freed from prison but has since become one of
Press freedom has been a major issue in post-apartheid South Africa, especially since 2000, when President Thabo Mbeki and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) launched a campaign against the media, accusing it of racism. In fact, the media’s main