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To many on the right, this inequality is a non-issue, and in an abstract sense, I agree. Penalizing people for their success does not help the less successful. But at a time of real sacrifice, it does seem to me important for conservatives not to ignore the dangers of growing and vast inequality - for political, not economic, reasons. And by political, I don't mean partisan. I mean a genuine concern for the effects of an increasingly unequal society.

it increasingly seems wrong to me to exempt the very wealthy from sacrifice, in the context of their gains in the last three decades, if we are to ask it of everyone else. It's not about fairness. It isn't even really about redistribution, as we once understood that from the hard left. It's about political stability and cohesion and coherence. Without a large and strong middle class, we can easily become more divided, more bitter and more unstable. Concern about that is a legitimate conservative issue. And if someone on the right does not find a way to address it, someone on the left may well be empowered to over-reach.

Unless the media and other trusted nonpartisan civil society institutions are forthright in affirming that the 2024 election is not a contest between two politicians, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but a virtual constitutional referendum, Trump could win.

“If Trump wins in November, it will be because of third parties getting a significant number of people,” Trippi argued. “No one who is a MAGA Trump supporter is going to vote for a third party. Most of it comes off Joe Biden.”

Voters said Trump would do a better job than Biden on immigration and border security (57-22); on the economy (55-33); on crime and violence (50-29); on competence and efficacy (48-38); and on possessing the required mental and physical stamina for the presidency (46-23). Note the 23-point gap on that last one.

As Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted Friday:“@realDonaldTrump is now set for war on 3 fronts: political vs Bob Mueller, economic vs China/others on trade, and actual vs. Iran and/or North Korea. This is the most perilous moment in modern American history — and it has been largely brought about by ourselves, not by events.”

While pundits mull whether the cloud of chaos Trump keeps swirling around him is simple incompetence or strategic plotting, The New York Times reported Friday:“Aides said there was no grand strategy to the president’s actions, and that he got up each morning this week not knowing what he would do. Much as he did as a New York businessman at Trump Tower, Mr. Trump watched television, reacted to what he saw on television and then reacted to the reaction.”

This is all gut and instinct. This is all reactionary emoting by a man of poor character, one addicted to affirmation. He desperately needs to be the king-of-every-hill he sees in the mirror: He was the ladies’ man, businessman, smartest man, toughest man. There was nothing beyond him, and he didn’t have to follow the rules, he only had to follow his instincts.

what’s the strategy for politically vulnerable senators who know the facts against Trump are irrefutable, his conduct was impeachable, and that the president has provided no legitimate defense?

There is actually an obvious and possibly accurate defense that no Republican senator dare advance. It goes like this

Trump is so mentally and emotionally defective, he cannot understand the import of his actions or concepts such as right vs. wrong, true vs. false and personal vs. national interests. As for obstruction, his lawyer told him to refuse to give up anything, so he simply took that advice.

There were the staggering early vote totals, with a record 97.6 million people already casting their ballots by mail or in person — a tectonic shift away from one-day voting that has been the staple of the American electoral system — and predictions that the total turnout would break the record set in 2016, when nearly 139 million people voted.

There was the legal wrangling that has been a feature of this campaign even before Election Day, with a federal judge in Texas on Monday rejecting Republican efforts to invalidate more than 127,000 votes that were cast at drive-through locations in a Democratic stronghold.

The coronavirus pandemic, which has left millions unemployed and millions more confined to working or taking classes from their homes, was never far from the surface.

The ugliness of Trump vs. Clinton flatters Obama's legacy

Barack Obama will probably leave office on a high. His weekly average approval rating now stands at 54%. Given the state of the economy and America's troubles overseas, the likely explanation is that voters are contrasting him favorably with the election candidates

One legacy of Donald Trump might be to give Obama a better legacy -- a reminder of the calmer, simpler time that we all lived in 18 months ago.

He tried to articulate the danger in comparing Black Lives Matter to the KKK and asked the important question of “how should black people protest,” which zero percent of angry white people can seem to answer.

What they got to witness was the open-minded discussion they’ve been clamoring for since Trump became President-elect. Fans of erasing identity politics who feel the need to reach across the aisle to white people who have no problem voting for a racist absolutely loved watching this debate. And I’ve seen far too many articles celebrating the back-and-forth as some sort of prototype for future discussion

Tomi Lahren spouted violent propaganda on national television while Noah tried to get her to value his black life. That’s not a healthy debate. That type of conversation shouldn’t be celebrated. And it damn sure isn’t Trevor Noah’s job to convince a white person why he shouldn’t die.

leaders are also uncertain how to deal with a society that is rapidly changing. Many of them are still the members of an old elite, mostly secular and aligned with the Labor Party, that is losing power to more right-wing, more religious Israelis. These leaders feel that part of their sacred mission of guarding the country involves maintaining the standards of morality and integrity that they were taught.

The I.D.F.’s top brass is troubled by signs that the Israeli public is less committed to keeping a high moral standard when fighting battles than it used to be

In remarks on Holocaust Remembrance Day, General Golan said that he sees similarities between Nazi Germany of the 1930s and Israel today when it comes to “signs of intolerance and violence.”

Thomas Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” described by one French newspaper as a “a political and theoretical bulldozer,” defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism.

He contends that capitalism’s inherent dynamic propels powerful forces that threaten democratic societies.

Capitalism, according to Piketty, confronts both modern and modernizing countries with a dilemma: entrepreneurs become increasingly dominant over those who own only their own labor

When King Salman became Saudi Arabia’s ruler this year, few people expected much change. He was 79 and reputedly in ill health

But since taking the throne in January, Salman has shaken up Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy and the royal family’s succession plans.

He has launched a bombing campaign against Shiite rebels in Yemen and increased support for rebels in Syria, signaling a more assertive role for an oil-rich kingdom that traditionally relied on the United States for security. Salman’s goal, analysts say, is to guard Sunni Muslims against what he sees as the growing influence of Shiite Iran.

At least 45 Iraqi police officers have been killed in an attack by Islamic State (IS) militants in Anbar province, security officials say.

Anbar has been the scene of fierce fighting between pro-government forces and IS militants in recent weeks.

Security forces reportedly regained control of the facility from IS several days ago and were using it to launch operations aimed at cutting IS supply lines from Samarra, in neighbouring Salahuddin province, to Anbar.

Its fall was a massive blow to the Iraqi army, to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and to the US, who had encouraged his policy of relying on the official armed force

Their action so deep inside the Sunni heartlands would raise fears of sectarian repercussions.

But Sunni opinion is deeply split and troubled. Many are greatly concerned about the penetration into their areas of the Shia militias

Grass-roots conservatives and liberals may resent it, but many analysts — including me — argue that the outcome of presidential nominations is shaped or even decided by party elites.

India is enjoying an extended economic boom, with near double-digit growth. But the benefits have not been equally shared, and southern India has rocketed far ahead of much of the rest of the country on virtually every score — people here earn more money, are better educated, live longer lives and have fewer children. A crucial factor is the collapse of the caste system over the last half century, a factor that undergirds many of the other reasons that the south has prospered — more stable governments, better infrastructure and a geographic position that gives it closer connections to the global economy.

“The breakdown of caste hierarchy has broken the traditional links between caste and profession, and released enormous entrepreneurial energies in the south,

This breakdown, he said, goes a long way to explaining “why the south has taken such a lead over the north in the last three decades.”

"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied... Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings,

legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care that their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind

if subdividing property is not sufficient then “ to tax the higher portions of property in geometric progression as they rise” might help.

what Thiessen articulates is, in many ways, more disturbing. What we are talking about is a system of violence and torture against whole swathes of prisoners to turn them into wreckages lacking human autonomy. The idea is that this makes them more likely to tell the truth because they have lost the will to resist. So Gitmo is really a camp designed to destroy human beings, not merely detain them, which was what Abu Ghraib revealed.

Are all detainees at, say, Gitmo subject to these techniques routinely? That would be the natural inference. If this is how torture was used, isn't it light years' away from the initial "ticking time bomb" scenario - in fact, a complete rebuke to such a scenario?

And if the torture creates a broken soul that cannot lie, why do the torture defenders acknowledge that KSM lied to them long after the torture - which is what allegedly tipped them off to the salience of previous intelligence about the alleged courier? If he had been broken into compliance, why on earth did they believe he was lying?

the ever-expanding number of houses the size of Hyatt resorts rising in the most expensive precincts of Los Angeles

“Twenty-thousand-square-foot homes have become teardowns for people who want to build 70-, 80-, and 90,000-square-foot homes,” Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz said. So long, megamansion. Say hello to the gigamansion.

Why are people building houses the size of shopping malls? Because they can. “Why do you see a yacht 500 feet long when you could easily have the same fun in one half the size?”