What is the Citizens United decision about? The simple explanation of Citizens United is that in January 2010, it alone established unlimited donations for...
Ai Weiwei. If you asked people in China who this person is, few could answer. But the man and his recent disappearance are highly instructive in understanding something very important about China and its future.
The political news is currently fixated on the midterm elections. Which candidates will win? How many seats will the Republicans win from the Democrats?...
In the past two years, Iraq has gradually drifted off of the front pages of most American publications. Public opinion polls indicate most Americans...
Since California has been bogged down in a failed budget and high unemployment, state politicians have been focusing on delaying tax increases and deflecting...
Presidents usually age a lot in office. This is no wonder considering the difficult decisions they need to make. One particularly difficult choice awaits President Obama in Afghanistan. With the rise in coalition deaths, what was once considered a forgotten war has leaped back onto the front pages. Icasualties.org, a site that tracks causalities for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom/Afghanistan, shows that the casualty rates for January, February, March, May, July, August, September and October this year are the highest ever. It is widely accepted that these increased casualty rates suggest that changes to strategy might need to be made. Hence, President Obama must decide how to proceed.
When most people think of pirates, they probably think of recent movies or of a bygone era when wooden ships using sails were attacked by people looking for precious cargo like gold. However, piracy is running strong in the Gulf of Aden – the body of water between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia east of Africa – one of the world's most important waterways. Around 11 percent of the world's shipped petroleum goes through it.
Do you recall the pressure you felt when you took the SAT? It was probably sharp and crushing. However, you may have taken comfort in knowing that your college prospects were only partially dependent on the achievement tests. If you stumbled on those, you could always bolster your grades and extracurricular activities. However, imagine if that test was the only thing that mattered for college entrance. This is the type of pressure students in China face in their high school senior year.
The federal government, the military, the media and the public have largely ignored the war in Afghanistan since the conflict began in 2002. By January of 2003, the Bush administration turned their attention to Iraq and became preoccupied with the logistical and financial aspects of that impending war. Since then, Afghanistan has taken a backseat in importance. Even the death of 500 American soldiers in the region earlier this year wasn't enough to rekindle media interest in the territory.
Liberalism and conservatism are two terms that are often heard during political discourse. However, while presidential candidates talk about all kinds of policy initiatives and philosophical viewpoints, it is rare to hear them refer to themselves, their proposals or their ideas as conservative or liberal.
