It’s Monday, May 18. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: the architect of a genocide who died without facing justice. How teachers’ unions became political big spenders. Did MAHA just sink a senator? Plus: Michael Shellenberger joins Conversations with Coleman.
But first: the Jewish prosecutor yanked from a case against campus protesters.
Last week, I got a video call from Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeffrey Rosen. It was late, and he looked tired. When I asked how things were going, Rosen smiled wanly. Earlier this month, a judge removed Rosen from a high-profile case because he had been a vocal opponent of antisemitism.
Rosen’s father emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust to seek a better life in America. He achieved that in Los Angeles, and for decades, it felt as if the family had escaped forever the backwardness of the Old World. That started to change when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. In June 2024, anti-Israel protesters broke into the president’s office at Stanford University. Rosen and his team were tasked with prosecuting them.
But now Rosen has been barred from finishing that job.
I wanted to talk to Rosen about what has happened to him, and about how much the world that Rosen thought he knew, the world that his father created here in America, has turned dark and uncertain.
—Peter Savodnik
How Teachers’ Unions Became Political Big Spenders |
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Teachers’ unions have long said that their top priority is advocating for the rank and file, from pay and pensions to working conditions in the classroom. But a new report accuses the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA) of putting politics first. Frannie Block reports exclusively on the findings, including that only 9 percent of the NEA’s disbursement budget in fiscal 2025 was spent on activities directly representing its members. | | |
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A Genocidaire Has Escaped Justice |
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Félicien Kabuga was an architect of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed almost a million Tutsi. He died on Saturday after being held in custody for over five years. He had been declared unfit to stand trial due to dementia. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, a former United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide, explains how Kabuga managed to evade justice, and what is lost when we do not hold monsters like him to account. | | |
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Did MAHA Just Sink a Senator? |
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Donald Trump never forgave or forgot that Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was one of seven Republicans in the Senate who voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trial after the 2021 attack on the Capitol. On Saturday night, Trump got his revenge at last: Cassidy was trounced in his primary race. Tanner Nau explains how the president was helped by the MAHA movement, which spent big on Cassidy’s challenger. Read his piece for a look at whether MAHA will be a force to be reckoned with this cycle. | | |
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Michael Shellenberger on the Psychology of Left-Wing Violence |
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Michael Shellenberger is the author of “San Fransicko” and “Apocalypse Never,” a former progressive activist, and one of America’s most prominent nuclear energy advocates. As Coleman Hughes, Shellenberger also is “a rare public figure who actually evaluates and sifts through the evidence of conspiracy theories on a case-by-case basis.” Listen to their discussion of everything from Shellenberger’s political journey to what he makes of the Jeffrey Epstein saga. | | |
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