It was a little skirmish in a summer of big political battles. But the defeat of the DISCLOSE Act, a modest campaign finance reform measure pushed by President Obama and the Democrats, might have lasting importance. If Congress can’t even require transparency of the corporations that fund our elections, what hope is there of diminishing the power of money in ... Read More
Sometimes the only way to properly criticize someone with ridiculous views is to quote them at length, and then, channeling Seth and Amy from “Saturday Night Live,” say with as much surprise and disdain as one can muster, “Really?!” I found myself saying “Really?!” a lot this morning when I read Rachel Wagley’s “defense of manliness” in the Harvard Crimson. ... Read More
Turning from the coca fields to the cocaine market While anti-drug policy rarely makes headlines in American politics today, the issue dominates politics in Colombia. The South American country is a hotbed for cultivation of the coca plant, the key ingredient in cocaine production. As of 2007, the Office of National Drug Policy reported that 167,000 hectares of the country’s ... Read More
A closer look at shifting power dynamics in Iran The election crisis in Iran this summer riveted the world with scenes of dramatic demonstrations and a brutal crackdown that left hundreds dead. But the aftermath of the elections marked a subtle shift in the regime’s power structure: the ascent of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a central political ... Read More
Obama’s education plan Speaking at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in March, President Obama called for reforming American education with the goal that we “once more [become] the envy of the world.” The president’s ambition is reflected in his proposed five-year, $2.5 billion Access and Completion Incentive Fund, which aims to create reliable pathways to college graduation for students ... Read More
Georgia’s troubles in the aftermath of the Ossetia conflict The South Ossetia conflict last August was a tragic farce that ran its full course in barely a week, inviting paraphrasing Porfirio Diaz’s saying about Mexico; poor Georgia, so far from God and so close to Russia! In days, it re-established Russian superiority in the Caucasus and ignominiously ended the Bush-era ... Read More
Reconciling perceptions and realities of economic mobility in America
Judicial experience and Supreme Court nominations
