In 1990, Secretary of State James Baker had basically had it up to here with the Israeli government. The (George H.W.) Bush administration had been trying to entice Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir into negotiations with the Palestinians but he kept adding new conditions to get the U.S. off his back. To be acceptable to Shamir, […]

Read more

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference, held in mid-March, is four days of shrill, angry, conservative rants. Christopher Preble was this year’s exception. As senior defense analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, Preble is a persistent critic of defense spending that consistently amounts to almost 5 percent of GDP. On the day the president releases […]

Read more

Connecticut enacted a round of gun-control laws last week that are being called the strictest in the country. The legislation, signed by Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, bans more than 100 kinds of firearm, including the semi-automatic “military-style” rifle used to slaughter 20 innocent schoolchildren in Newtown last year, as well as magazine cartridges holding more […]

Read more

For the first time in more than 40 years, a majority of Americans believes marijuana should be legal. In 1969, pollsters found that only 12 percent were in favor of the idea and 82 percent opposed it. Now 52 percent think the so-called gateway drug should be legal and 45 percent say it should not […]

Read more

After hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil leaked from an aging pipeline last Friday, spewing thick black crude onto the green lawns and clean driveways of a housing development in suburban Arkansas, many wondered if the spill’s impact on public opinion might affect the Obama administration’s forthcoming decision on whether to greenlight the proposed […]

Read more