Think Tank West

The U.S. is not yet out of Iraq, but American forces have pulled back from Iraqi cities.  Iraq’s future increasingly is in the hands of Iraqis.  And most Iraqis appear to be celebrating. Reports the Washington Post: This is no longer America’s war. Iraqis danced in the streets and set off fireworks Monday in impromptu [...]

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The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to decide in its current term the campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Instead, the Court issued an order that the case should be reargued. The parties in the reargument should address the question of whether the Court should overrule two of its earlier decisions. [...]

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Washington’s willingness to toss security guarantees about the globe like party favors has encouraged other nations to do little for their own defense.  From the European, Japanese, and South Korean standpoint, why spend more when the Americans will take care of you? But it looks like Australia takes a different view, and is willing to [...]

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Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is just the latest democratically elected Latin American leader to violate his country’s constitution in order to achieve his political goals. Both he and the practice of democracy in Honduras are now paying the price. The removal from office of Zelaya on Sunday by the armed forces is the result of [...]

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The media discussion of events in Honduras is remarkably confused. Here’s CNN: The president of the U.N. General Assembly scheduled a noon session Monday to discuss the situation in Honduras, following a military-led coup that ousted the sitting president. and Micheletti, the head of Congress, became president after lawmakers voted by a show of hands [...]

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Fed Chairman Bernanke’s term as Chair ends in January 2010. So far President Obama has offered Bernanke praise for his performance, but little else. After last week’s House Oversight Committee hearing focusing on Bernanke’s role in Bank of America’s purchase of Merrill Lynch, it is now readily apparent that the Chairman has few supporters on [...]

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The Obama administration performed another Friday afternoon Guantanamo news dump last week, indicating that it will probably maintain administrative military detention of combatants under a forthcoming executive order. This is unnecessary executive unilateralism. As Benjamin Wittes and Jack Goldsmith point out in today’s Washington Post, this is a debate that ought to be held in [...]

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Ricci is a victory for merit over racial politics—which is appropriate given that the ruling overturns a lower court panel that included Sonia Sotomayor. In the blockbuster decision we’d been awaiting all term, the Court reached the correct result: The government can’t make employment decisions based on race. While the city’s desire to get more [...]

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In its opinion today in Ricci v. DeStefano, the Supreme Court came down solidly for upholding the equal protection of the law. The political implications of this decision for the Sotomayor nomination are several, but her refusal to wrestle with the important issues at stake and to side summarily with the city, together with her [...]

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There is no official word on this yet, but according to Inside Higher Ed the Obama Administration is putting the finishing touches on a proposed “National Skills College” that will include federally designed — and owned — courses: The funds envisioned for open courses — $50 million a year — may be small in comparison to [...]

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