Politics

Some readers can’t figure out why I said over the weekend that my first reaction upon hearing of Justice Scalia’s death was fear for the country. Really? they ask, not unreasonably. He was only one justice on a court of nine, and when you think about it, he was on the losing side of the high-profile issues that religious and social conservatives most care about (that is, abortion and marriage).

Well, I’ve thought about it, and here’s why I still believe my gut reaction was valid. In fact, I believe it now more than I did over the weekend.

Richard Haass warns against “Brexit” and makes an unusually frank admission about why he hopes it doesn’t happen:

Even worse, it is highly probable that Americans advocating for a reduced US role in the world would seize on Brexit as further evidence that traditional allies were not doing their fair share, and that a US facing growing deficits and massive domestic needs should not be expected to make up the difference.

Senior Israeli officials have called for the partition of Syria along sectarian lines. As reports accuse Israel of supporting Takfiri militants wreaking havoc in the Arab counrty, the director general of Israel’s Intelligence Ministry Ram Ben-Barak, says the proposed breakup was “the only possible solution” to the conflict in Syria Press TV reports: “I think that ultimately Syria should be turned into regions, under the control of whoever is there – the Alawites where they are, the Sunnis where they are,” Ben-Barak told Israel’s Army Radio on Sunday.

Submitted by Jesse via Jesse's Cafe Americain blog,

"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises.