At the start of the New Year, the Pentagon announced it would make cuts to its expenditure over a 5-year period. Then, just a few days later, Robert Gates publicly stated that the U.S. would make efforts to counter China’s military build-up, by continuing to invest in technologies of its own. At once, I was … Read more
His shackles clinked across the courtroom floor as he paced anxiously in front of the jury. He spoke passionately. Desperately. Loudly. Josh Matthews was on trial for murder. In that opening statement he told how his mother had hit him over the head with a soup ladle when he was in 4th grade. He told … Read more
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is a racist, an ultra-nationalist, and at times an all-around national embarrassment. But he might be onto something. A longtime advocate for Soviet immigrants in Israel, Lieberman (nicknamed Yvette) rose to political prominence by translating the country’s million-strong bloc of Russian speakers into a base for his right-wing Yisrael Beitenu … Read more
Harvard University’s Institute of Politics has announced the selection of six individuals who will serve as Resident Fellows during the 2011 spring semester. The group is made up of two former United States Representatives, three former political advisors from United States governmental offices, and a former speechwriter from the Bush administration. According to Eric Andersen, … Read more
Of course our world, on balance, would be a safer place if we controlled our guns better, made them harder to acquire, harder to fire, and easier to track, etc. But in a multicausal world such as our own, we don’t actually have to choose, as Sandra does, between access to guns and political vitriol when … Read more
Much hullabaloo has been made in the last two weeks over the state of the 112th Congress and how it can possibly operate without political gridlock. By popular media’s account, a three-way Western-style showdown between Speaker Boehner, Leader Reid, and President Obama is all but imminent. In the words of William A. Galston, a senior … Read more
Upon coming to from a nitrous oxide-induced coma this Monday, my dental surgeon told me that I’d been babbling endlessly about Lebanon as my wisdom teeth met their end. Such is the life of a Middle East political columnist. Any other week, this anecdote would have been fruitless. I don’t pontificate about Lebanon all that … Read more
By now, everyone in America has heard of the January 8th shooting of Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords as well as nineteen others in Tucson, Arizona. This horrible tragedy should be bringing Americans together in sympathy and solidarity against the horrors of gun violence. Instead, it has simply sparked useless accusations about incendiary political rhetoric. I’m a … Read more
In a recent CNN blog post, Princeton professor Julian E. Zelizer contends that a complete overhaul of the filibuster in the U.S. Senate would be an appropriate Congressional response to the gridlock and perceived obstructionism of recent years. Citing the 60-vote cloture threshold as immune from the crosshairs of Senate Democrats when they push for filibuster reform … Read more
I’m having trouble deciding what I think about this latest scandal on the left — Obama’s appointment of Bill Daley to Chief of Staff. And I must say, to my dismay: Sandra’s piece — her first for the HPR! — did not give me many answers. Rather than argue she preferred to insinuate. Daley worked at a bank! … Read more