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Diffusing Racial Dynamite
The conditions appear to have been long set in places like Ferguson, Missouri, where American citizens live together in a city that is made up of two worlds. The prevalence of social media and...
View ArticleCongress Finally Dumped Obama and It's the Best Thing That's Ever Happened to...
For the last six years, Obama's been in a bad relationship. He started off thinking Congress would like him for who he was. He cultivated friendships on both sides of the aisle; he made bright-eyed...
View ArticleMake 2016 About Surveillance
A lot has changed since Edward Snowden lifted the veil on the surveillance of millions of Americans. The NSA no longer enjoys an existence in the shadows, reform has been proposed in both houses of...
View ArticleDosey Doe to War: It Never Gets Old
To understand how unreliable earnest statements of good intentions can be, consider this. Speaking on Veterans Day, November 11, 2014, at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, Defense Secretary Chuck...
View ArticleBlacks and Whites Don't Exist, but Americans Do
Judge W. G. Boshoff: "But now why do you refer to you people as 'blacks'? Why not 'brown people'? I mean, you people are more brown than black."Steven Biko: "In the same way as I think white people are...
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Friday Talking Points -- The Calm Between The Storms
What walks like a duck and quacks like a duck but seems to have serious mobility problems? That's right -- we have entered the season of the lame duck! So far, it's shaping up to pretty...
View ArticleThe Not So Feng Shui of Guns in California
California is a bizarre landscape when it comes to guns. With the approval of Proposition 47's broad swath of reducing penalties for crimes, it's now a mere misdemeanor to possess a stolen gun. On the...
View ArticleEnact the USA Freedom Act
Next week, the Senate is scheduled to take up the proposed USA Freedom Act. It is imperative that the Senate approve this legislation. The USA Freedom Act addresses many of the issues raised by the...
View ArticleG20 Leaders Must Turn the Tide on Inequality and Climate Change
The two great challenges of our time -- inequality and climate change -- are threatening to undermine the efforts of millions of people to escape poverty and hunger. By concentrating wealth and power...
View ArticleArab Americans Getting Ready for 2016
Next week, Arab American leaders and activists from a dozen key electoral states will convene in Washington to map out a political strategy for 2016. Despite the very real challenges facing the leaders...
View ArticleDon't Throw Billions at an Obsolete Nuclear Arsenal
This week Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced the results of two reviews of current practices for maintaining the nation's nuclear arsenal. A hard look at the troubled nuclear enterprise was...
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Did George Bush Really Write That Book About His Father?
All over the country, newspaper reviewers are wasting space reviewing George Bush's biography about his father. Whether they pan it or praise it, they'll say over and over, as Michiko Kakutani recently...
View ArticleHillary, Please Lead on Climate Change
"We don't have time - particularly as mothers -- to wait on anyone else. Delay has a direct impact on the future my children will have - and that's not acceptable to me." -- Letha Tawney This week, by...
View ArticleBypassing Congress
President Barack Obama is the principal political beneficiary of the forthcoming GOP control of both Houses of Congress, for it allows him to triangulate his initiatives and thus bypass both...
View ArticleCommunication
I was listening to a defense expert recently -- everyone who speaks in Washington is an expert -- who kept referring to the AUMF. I missed much of his talk while I tried to remember what those letters...
View ArticleSunday Roundup
This week brought reports that President Obama will soon take executive action to prevent the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants. The news sparked howls of protests from Republicans,...
View ArticleEnd the International Drug War to Control the Afghan Narco-State
The U.S. government has failed to stop the drug trade at home. Washington also has not created a competent, effective, and honest central government in Afghanistan. How effective will Kabul be in...
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This Week in World War I, November 15-21, 1914
Turkish Troops in Persia 1914 The War in Persia In 1914 Persia was an independent kingdom under the Qajar dynasty. Control of Persia had been a subject of intense competition between Russia and Great...
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Our Gentrified Capital
That moment when... You're at a hipster coffee place in a gentrified neighborhood and three local middle school kids walk in, camera in hand, ready to interview you and your fellow coffee-goers about...
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