Senate leaders appeared ready to delay intensified sanctions targeting Iran while President Obama seeks a deal to roll back that country’s nuclear program, although several warned not to yield on demands that Iran end its uranium enrichment. In comments after the meeting, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Corker…
Janet Yellen’s hopes of becoming the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve got a boost on Thursday when she sailed through her Senate confirmation hearing with only mild questioning from some of the Fed’s fiercest Republican critics. Yellen, the U.S. central bank’s current vice chair, brought a calm and confident demeanor to the Senate…
An array of liberal Jewish groups lauded the U.S. Senate for passing a bill that would extend to gays federal anti-discrimination protections. “Today’s bipartisan Senate passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is an overdue and historic accomplishment in our nation’s effort to end workplace discrimination for the LGBT community,” Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of…
Democrat Cory Booker, the charismatic mayor of Newark, was the unofficial winner of a New Jersey special election on Wednesday, handily defeating a conservative Republican to fill the state’s vacant U.S. Senate seat. Booker, who had been heavily favored in polls, defeated conservative Republican Steve Lonegan, a former small-town mayor, according to tallies published online…
There is no such thing as an easy vote in the current U.S. Senate, but Janet Yellen should have a relatively smooth path to confirmation if she is nominated by President Barack Obama to head the Federal Reserve. Obama is expected to announce his decision in coming weeks and a White House official has said…
It’s hard to know exactly how to respond to Vladimir Putin’s op-ed essay in Thursday’s New York Times. On the one hand, polls show that most Americans agree with his call to avoid American military engagement in Syria. On the other hand, very few of us want to come out and agree with Putin. Apparently…
Harry Reid, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, compared Syrian President Bashar Assad’s alleged chemical weapons attacks against his citizens to the Nazi gas chambers. “Millions and millions of civilians and prisoners of war were murdered by gas in Nazi death camps, Treblinka, Auschwitz. ‘Never again,’ swore the world. Never again would we permit…
The Daily Beast just posted a magazine-length article by yours truly looking back at the Chuck Hagel confirmation battle and the role (or lack thereof) of the Jewish community and the notorious “Israel lobby” in the affair. What’s surprising about the whole affair, on close reexamination, is how absent the Jewish advocacy community was from…
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