Over the weekend, CBS 60 Minutes ran a story about the high profile NSA spying programs revealed by Edward Snowden. It was, to put it plainly, embarrassing. Twitter was ablaze with politicos, wonks, and experts criticizing the CBS report as crude propaganda, a...
As anyone exposed to a whiff of news media knows, Republicans and Democrats are more divided than ever. They just can't come together like they used to, goes the cliché. But this week, they did come together. Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Patty Murray hashed out a...
On Obama's first day in office, he signed an executive order restricting current and former lobbyists from working in his administration. From the very beginning, the President has wiggled around this measure, as people like Tim Carney at the Washington Examiner have...
Last March – before Edward Snowden revealed the NSA’s sweeping collection of phone and other data – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said no such operation existed. Now, a group of ex-national security officials urge President Obama to fire...
Here in Switzerland, the train chugs along nicely between Geneva and Lausanne. The Alpine mountain range desperately fights to make its presence known despite the irritating persistence of low- hanging clouds. A friend had just introduced me to the music of J.J. Cale,...
When U.S. leaders and pundits talk about NATO, they describe it as the linchpin of world security and the manifestation of Western liberal values. In other formulations, the U.S. is graciously bestowing a kind of welfare program to its allies in the form of security...
The House of Representatives is currently considering putting forth a vote on additional sanctions on the Iranian economy. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has declared unequivocally that additional sanctions would mean "the entire deal is dead." Well, that seems...
Last week I drew a comparison between the South African apartheid system that is now the focus of Nelson Mandela's legacy and current Israeli policies toward Palestinians. Obviously, that strikes many in the U.S. as offensive and inaccurate. But, as Israeli activist...
Writing at The Diplomat, Zheng Wang, an Associate Professor of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University and a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, paints a gloomy picture of the recent heightened tensions in the East...
