Politics & Current Affairs

“To put it bluntly, the bean counters are out of their depth.” David Rieff says insistence on strict accountability in foreign aid programs means losing hearts and minds in Afghanistan.

Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower differed in their view of the military. Kennedy advocated American dominance; Eisenhower, a more limited force. In which direction are we headed?

“Sometimes it is possible to do good only in secret.” Princeton’s Peter Singer believes that complete transparency is utopian, but that a more transparent world is generally desirable.

It’s been over 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell, yet the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO), a military group which was originally created to defend Western Europe from Russia, […]

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s call for the exhumation and reburial of the French-Algerian writer Albert Camus in Paris recalls Molière’s burial, which became a divisive political issue.

While no American representatives were reported in attendance, a recent meeting of the world’s far-right political parties in Tokyo demonstrates that fear and violence know no borders.

“Needless to say, it is not just the financial crisis that gets reduced to rash hyperbole.” A sociologist asks why our political discourse is often reduced to platitudes (it’s not because we’re dumb).

“The Democratic Party has moved to the left even as its take from financiers has soared,” says a new book on politics. Slate replies that a Democratic move to the right better explains the donations.

“Is a strategy of killing off Mexico’s drug kingpins really viable?” ‘Yes’, says a researcher at the University of Mexico, but only because political will to legalize and regulate drugs is lacking.

“America has always been the country in the world with more protection for speech,” says legendary First Amendment Lawyer Floyd Abrams, adding, “there’s really an astonishing, a breathtaking degree of […]

Ohio State University law professor Douglas A. Berman says everyone affected by society’s laws ought to have a right to vote—even if they have to mail in their ballot from […]

Legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein says that he’s not as concerned about the state of investigative journalism as some of his contemporaries are—in fact, he thinks that newspapers like the […]

Granting same-sex couples access to marriage would be far better if that access came from elected institutions rather than from the courts, says Steve Chapman at The Chicago Tribune.

“Utah may offer a better model than Arizona for dealing with illegal immigrants.” In the wake of a federal challenge to Arizona’s newest immigration law, Utah is looking for middle ground.

I think Elena Kagan will be an outstanding Justice, not just because of her outstanding (and underrated) technical abilities—as I’ll mention shortly, I think the Court as a group is […]

The United States continues to be a nation of immigrants.  An estimated 11 million undocumented people live in the U.S., and thousands more migrate legally: Roughly 140,000 employment-based and 480,000 […]

In light of yesterday’s decision by the Federal District Court in San Francisco to strike down a ban on same-sex marriage in California, why not ask the question: How does […]

The Senate’s effectiveness is plagued by antiquated rules, fundraising pressures, ideological aides and an omnipresent media. The New Yorker says a once-great body is crumbling.

As marijuana legalization moves closer to being a legitimate political topic, the issue could divide the Tea Party along its libertarian and social conservative lines, says The Atlantic.

Imagine that the Journal ofHypochondriacal Cardiology reported that the incidence of fatal strokes aboard cruise ships was five times the national average.  Should we conclude that the boat trips were […]

Marriage rates for educated women are falling in cities because there aren’t enough available men.

Critics who say WikiLeaks has blood on its hands over the release of Afghan war logs are hypocritical because they ignore the actors who more directly split Afghan and coalition blood.

Elizabeth Wurtzel says cynics should embrace the Ground Zero Mosque as a bargaining chip: evidence of America’s tolerance to be held up as proof positive of our goodwill.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), visited the Big Think offices today to talk about veterans issues and the announced drawback from Iraq. Rieckhoff stressed […]

The 75th anniversary of Social Security provides a moment to strengthen young people’s awareness of the program so they will be more active in supporting its reform.

The thirteen-story, $100 million Islamic center and mosque planned for 45-47 Park Place, two blocks north of the World Trade Center site has stirred a swell commentary across the U.S., […]

“The conservative movement, once about finding meaning in private life and public service, has undergone a shift toward demagoguery and hucksterism,” says a former National Review editor.

“Two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, chaos prevails in Dagestan, primarily because of the activities of radical Islamists.” The region is impossible to govern, says Spiegel.

The secret military reports leaked by WikiLeaks demonstrates that while official strategy is to empower Afghanis to run a modern country, the Afghans treat foreigners as the true power.

“Looking around the United States in the summer of 2010, hysterical moral panic seems an apt description of our fevered political condition.” A columnist on our nation’s current “moral panic”.