The press is melting; circulation and ads sales at most legacy outlets are steadily falling, and the public trusts the product less and ignores it more. In a recent Gallup poll a record 60 percent of respondents replied “not very much” or “not at all” when asked how much they trusted the news media to […]

A longtime reader writes, largely in response to our essay “Obama’s War on the Young“: You’ve been doing yeoman work charting the pitfalls of government education policy and college policies that seduce ill-prepared kids into a lifetime of debt before they even get to start a family and buy a house. Your articles have been pretty […]

About six weeks from election day, Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” remark has taken center stage in an election campaign heretofore bereft of a whole lot of pizazz (the antics of the long since departed Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann aside). As is by now well known, Romney’s remark divided the nation between the “takers” and […]

A lot has happened since I last reported on my surveillance drone. My fleet has grown to three drones: in addition to the DJI quadcopter, I have a Bixler Sky Surfer equipped with a GoPro camera that can send a live video feed back to a base station. This is what’s called FPV, or “first […]

My friend Nancy Okail, who’s written for us here on these pages, has penned a must-read essay over at Freedom House. Titled “‘Muslim Rage’ and the Politics of Distraction in Egypt”, it’s as good a summary as any as to what’s really behind the recent anti-American violence in Egypt. Hint: it’s not really about that execrable […]

I have not written any satire for this blog so far. Perhaps it is time to make up for this. A witty reader of the blog reminded me of a satire I wrote quite a few years ago and, frankly, had forgotten. I re-read it. It seems to me that it is still quite relevant. […]

None of President Obama’s big policies in the Middle East have worked out as he hoped. That whole “fix the peace process by pushing the Israelis” thing turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. Coming into office, President Obama was sure he’d be able to straighten this out; he’s been the least effective president in […]

The American Interest has reviewed Hungary’s democratic deficit four times this year: Charles Gati’s essay, “Hungarian Rhapsodies”; Francis Fukuyama’s “Do Institutions Really Matter?” and his “What’s Wrong with Hungary?” (these two posts prompted an outburst of some 800 responses, mainly from angry Hungarian readers defending the government of Viktor Orbán and its policies); and finally […]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on two different Sunday talk shows  over the weekend in a direct appeal to the American public for “red lines”—moments in Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon that would trigger an armed U.S. response. Netanyahu’s offensive comes after the White House refused him a private meeting on Iran with […]

It is easy to assume that the future shape of the American health care system will be settled one way or the other by the November election. But in turns out that whatever happens in the election, and subsequently to Mr. Obama’s signature health reform, we will still be far from resolving some basic challenges […]