“No matter his intentions, the Bloomberg campaign’s reliance on his personal wealth threatens America’s democratic institutions at a time when those institutions are already profoundly weakened.” Vanessa Williamson argues that Bloomberg’s charitable giving to traditional power-brokers and political insiders undermines the elections process.  

On Valentine’s Day in 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt meeting with Saudi King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud on the USS Quincy signaled the dawn of what is now the longest U.S. relationship with an Arab state. Bruce Riedel reflects on this meeting and the state of the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia today.

Writing in response to a recent David Brooks essay in The Atlantic, Richard Reeves says it’s time to move beyond the concept of the “traditional nuclear family.” Instead, we should focus our attention on the quality and quantity of our relationships, whether they are our blood or not.