The Republicans, it is said, absolutely must pass a massive tax bill by Christmas, in order to have some major accomplishment to show for 2017, the first year in which they control all branches of government. Having apparently failed in their seven-year campaign to deprive some 20 million Americans of health insurance, they dare not fail in their Scrooge-like campaign to transfer billions of dollars to the ultra-rich.

Elected at an age when most French politicians are still building their careers, either in government or in their local constituencies, Macron saw an opportunity to step in at a time when the electorate appeared especially disillusioned. 

The US has plenty of experience with irresponsible tax cuts. Yet its leaders seem not to have learned their lesson. Should Republicans secure the legislative victory they so desire, the entire country – with the exception, perhaps, of the wealthiest few – will lose.

"This story is revealed in remarkable tranche of records declassified on Tuesday by the British Security Service, better known as MI5, about a major Russian spy network that operated in Britain in the post-war years, known as the Portland Spy Ring."

Though President Trump says he is not convinced that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine said Monday that he and his colleagues on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which is probing the matter, have “no doubt whatsoever” of Moscow’s involvement.

The Foreign Service, our country’s irreplaceable asset for understanding and interacting with a complex and dangerous world, is facing perhaps its greatest crisis. President Trump’s draconian budget cuts for the State Department and his dismissive attitude toward our diplomats and diplomacy itself threaten to dismantle a great foreign service just when we need it most.

Audio recording of a November 21, 2016 MEI Book Talk with Nader Hashemi, University of Denver; Danny Postel, Northwestern University; and Paulo Gabriel Hilu Pinto, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil, on their new book Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East.