Free Republic

Israel's Prime Minister has secured a majority of backers in the new parliament and will now be tasked with forming the next government. Israel's ceremonial President, Reuven Rivlin, was meeting Monday with the parties in Parliament to hear their recommendations before appointing who will form the next coalition government. After a resounding election victory for his Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu was assured of getting that nod. It became a formality after the new centrist party Kulanu gave its nod to Netanyahu as well, giving him 61 backers out of the 120 in Parliament.

U.S. News and World Report just published its annual ranking of the top 100 public high schools in America. Arizona punches above its weight on this list. Arizona has less than two percent of the nation’s K-12 students but has three schools on the list: University High School in Tucson, Basis Tucson and Northland Preparatory Academy in Flagstaff. University High is a magnet school and Basis and Northland both are charter schools. Congratulations to all three. Rankings are always subject to criticisms, and these are no exception. For example, many states allow magnet schools to be academically selective, employing admissions...

Susan Lindauer, a former reporter for U.S. News & World Report, whose byline appeared over some 1991 stories about the "Air Sununu" scandal, was arrested and arraigned in federal court in Baltimore on Thursday, charged with various counts related to working for and accepting payments from the Saddam Hussein regime, in violation of working with a terrorist state. In the late 1980s and early 1990s she worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Fortune before jumping to U.S. News in 1990 and then, by 1993, moving into a career as Press Secretary to a series of liberal Democrats: Then Congressmen Peter...

"A danger to democracy is brewing right here in our backyard," writes U.S. News and World Report publisher Mortimer B. Zuckerman in his recent column. By "backyard" Zuckerman is referring to Venezuela and its Castroite president, Hugo Chavez. For years conservatives have been worried about the growing menace of Chavez. But Zuckerman, a centrist Democrat, adds weight to their concerns. Zuckerman blames the situation on "an ill-judged intervention by former President Jimmy Carter," which allowed Chavez to narrowly survive a recall election and enabled him to accelerate "his subversion of Venezuela's democracy by a scummy deal with Fidel Castro. ..."...

Vice President Dick Cheney is on the record. “There is only one way to protect ourselves against catastrophic terrorist violence, and that is to destroy the terrorists before they can launch further attacks against the United States,” he announced during a speech at The Heritage Foundation on Oct. 10. Many people, including New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, disagree. “The war in Iraq and its aftermath have proved that Mr. Cheney was wrong to think that a show of brute strength would deter our enemies from attacking us. There are improvements in Iraq, but it is still a morass,” she...