The 9/11 of American Diplomacy

Not since Leon Trotsky began publishing the secrets of the Romanov archives in 1918 has there been a more devastating leak of diplomatic documents than this week’s WikiLeaks dump. The Romanov files contained the secret treaties the imperial Allies had signed to carve up the Hohenzollern, Habsburg and Ottoman empires after a war fought “to […]

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Seven Years of Bad Policy: Government Maintains Offshore Drilling Ban

As the rest of the world continues to drill off its respective coasts, the United States is heading in the opposite direction. The Obama Administration announced that the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts will not be part of the government’s 2012–2017 Outer Continental Shelf program, effectively banning drilling in those […]

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It Is NOT a Tax Cut

The “Bush Era Tax Cuts” are no longer “Tax Cuts.” In 2001 and 2003, the Congress approved a reduction in tax rates to spur the economy. The deal was, they would expire at the end of 2010 unless they were affirmatively extended. Let’s go to the calendar: 2001 was nearly 10 years ago. 2003 was […]

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‘Do it for Dmitry’ Is Poor Policy

In his latest Los Angeles Times article, Doyle McManus identifies President Obama’s attempts to sell New START, the nuclear arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia, to the Republicans in the Senate as “increasingly desperate.” Indeed, the Administration’s arguments for ratifying the treaty have evolved from claiming that the accord is a modest treaty […]

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The Importance of Ryan-Rivlin

The political ground has been shifting rapidly ever since the American people delivered a vote of no confidence on the current direction of public policy when they went to the polls earlier this month. Nowhere is that shift more evident than in the recent release of a bipartisan plan to dramatically reform the nation’s health […]

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