The Senate Report on CIA Torture and Why We Speak Out
It's been five years since the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence embarked on the most comprehensive review of the CIA's former detention and interrogation program following the September 11,...
View ArticleLibertarian Purists: Libertarian on Everything -- Except Liberty
The American Liberty movement is no longer nascent. Its mainstreaming is under way, as evidenced by this article in the New York Times -- the paper that (almost) defines the American mainstream --...
View ArticleAn Ungrateful Nation
Only one day a year we set aside for our veterans. We sing their praises for bravery and patriotism. Then we turn back to our everyday lives and take for granted what millions of men and women have...
View ArticleLaboratories-of-the-States: The Good... and the Bad
Will a few states rule the United States? Or fundamentally change it? And if so, who are the winners and losers? Depending on your point of view, this "laboratory-of-the-states" business is good news...
View ArticleLobbying for the Arts
Arts Advocacy Day 2014 is next week (March 24-25). But what to advocate this year? More money? Always nice. More prestige? That, too. The argument I would put forth to artists and art organizations...
View ArticleOne Year Later, Same Old Party
After the 2012 election, the Republican Party was at a crossroads. They had just lost two presidential elections in a row -- but not only that, they had only won a popular majority in a national...
View ArticleClosing the Employment Gap for America's Largest Minority Group
While it never received the attention that came with the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act nearly a quarter century ago, the changes to the rules implementing Section 503 of the...
View ArticleNorthern Irish Travel to D.C. to Advocate for Colombian Peace and Cease Fire
One of the most underreported stories in the U.S. is the ongoing Colombian peace process. That the Colombian government and FARC rebels may be nearing a settlement to end the 50-year-old conflict in...
View ArticleIs Crimea Obama's Fault? Why Deterrence Failed in Crimea
Russia's military occupation and unrecognized annexation of the Crimean Peninsula underscore its willingness to defy the threats and demands of the United States. Why has American deterrence been so...
View ArticleThe Culture Gap
Wisconsin Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, who chairs the House Committee on the Budget, ran into strong headwinds this week when he made comments regarding the culture in our inner cities. During an...
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In the Age of the Selfie, Privacy Still Paramount
As Americans and people around the world grow increasingly wary of the U.S. government's mass surveillance program, it is our obligation to speak up. As a former prisoner of conscience in South Africa...
View ArticleWest Virginia's Only Billionaire Calls for End to Negativism
Jim Justice, West Virginia's only billionaire, and owner of the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulfur Springs -- doesn't like it when the rabble go "negative." In particular, he doesn't like the...
View ArticleFrom Crimea to Clearwater, It's All Obama's Fault
From Crimea to Clearwater, Florida, the message is clear: every setback to U.S. or Democratic Party interests is Barack Obama's fault. I've been very disappointed in Barack Obama's presidency, but the...
View ArticleGive the Crimeans What They Want
On Sunday, March 16, it became apparent that Nikita Khrushchev made a grave mistake when he reapportioned the Soviet Republics in 1954 and included the Crimean Peninsula as part of the Ukrainian Soviet...
View ArticleThe System Is Not Broken, but Maybe Some of Us Are
It used to be if you worked for a company for 20 or 30 years you would retire with a pension and health care. For the rest of your life. It was the deal we made with employers. You give us a job. We...
View ArticleFree Higher Education Is a Human Right
Social progress is never a straightforward, linear process. Sometimes society struggles to recognize moral questions that in retrospect should have seemed obvious. Then, in a historical moment,...
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Paul Ryan and the Inner City American Dream Deferred
Paul Ryan's statement last week was a marker of more than a personal political misstep. It was an indicator of a belief system that we as a nation have progressed beyond the consequences of our...
View ArticleToomey Votes to Take Away Paychecks, Except His Own
I am finding it hard to understand why some Republican members of Congress who voted for the shutdown and who promised to give up their paychecks have reneged on that promise. Among them Senator Pat...
View ArticleCan We Make Environmentalism a Centrist Issue?
For decades, thinkers on the left have wondered why the working class regularly votes against its own interests, upending what Marx believed would be an inevitable march from democracy to socialism. In...
View ArticleRussia's Powerful Media Bubble
Watching Russian media has been a sobering experience lately. Over the past month, a tidal wave of patriotic enthusiasm for the aggressive assertion of Russian power in Ukraine has saturated nearly all...
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