Assad’s fall is undeniably worth celebrating — it’s a rare unifying force for a deeply fractured country. But after decades of oppression and 14 years of war, it will take much more to heal these wounds and guarantee a new era of freedom, justice, prosperity, and reconciliation. More
Lame duck senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema cast decisive votes against Biden’s NLRB nominee, Lauren McFarren, ensuring that the Democrats will not secure control of the national labor regulator through 2026 and handing Trump effective control of the board when his term begins. The petulant Sinema, who hadn’t cast a vote since 11/21/24, seemed to enjoy making a final twist of the knife. More
As the rebel forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Syria Liberation Committee) seized Damascus, Syria’s capital, on December 7, 2024, the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad boarded a flight to Moscow, Russia. It was the end of the rule of the Assad family that began when Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000) became president in 1971, and continued through his son Bashar from 2000—a 53-year period of rule. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which seized Damascus, was formed out of the remnants of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra (Front for the Conquest of Syria) in 2017, and led by its emir Abu Jaber Shaykh and its military commander Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. More
A key question here is whether the destruction that Trump will rain on wage earners, while at the same time nurturing dividend recipients, will dampen the passion of the former for Trump. Counter-passions may erupt. Donald Trump isn’t playing paddle ball with us. His is a knife fight in a phone booth (the last one on the planet) politics. Reason isn’t in there. Historical parallels of reason evacuated, or gone mad, reveal the extreme potentialities of the politics of passion. More
