Sikander Hayat's America

There are more than 300 million people in America, yet the same two families keep popping up when it comes to picking a president. The possibility of a Bush-Clinton matchup in 2016 is increasingly plausible. After months of hints and speculation, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush last week said he's actively exploring a bid for the Republican nomination. And while Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn't revealed her intentions, she's seen as the odds-on favorite for the Democratic nomination. Between them, the two potential rivals have three presidents and a U.S. senator in the branches of their family trees. And three governors, as well. Why are these two families so dominant in modern politics? It turns out that even though Americans profess to reject dynasties, in politics they're quite comfortable with familiar names. And a famous name can bring a candidate instant brand recognition, important fund-raising connections and a ready network of political contacts. It

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — I SPENT this semester teaching creative writing at Lehigh University. I’ve been a soldier, a police officer and an interrogator. So hearing students call me “Professor” and assigning homework was a significant change of pace. But the course’s title, Writing War, kept me from straying too far from the memories that have haunted me over the last decade. I am grateful to Lehigh for the opportunity to teach the course. The school’s willingness to put a veteran in the classroom is the very thing this country needs to be doing in order to collectively process what the last 13 years of war have wrought. But teaching a class about war reminded me daily that I am no college professor. I was an interrogator at Abu Ghraib. I tortured. Continue reading the main story RELATED IN  OPINION Editorial: The Senate Report on the C.I.A.’s Torture and Lies DEC. 9, 2014 Here Come the Torture Apologists DEC. 9, 2014 Torture and Responsibility DEC. 9, 2014 Op

RIOTS are rarely so widely anticipated. By 8pm on November 24th, when the prosecutor in Ferguson, Missouri, announced the grand jury’s decision not to charge a police officer with a crime for shooting an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, cops in riot gear were already in place and barriers surrounded municipal buildings. Mr Brown’s parents and Barack Obama called for calm. Yet soon America’s TV screens were full of burning police cars, crowds coughing on tear gas, and young black men throwing bricks and smashing shops. America’s history of racial injustice looked as potent as ever. That would be the wrong conclusion to draw. Looking back at the riots in Los Angeles in 1992 that followed the acquittal of four white police officers who had savagely beaten a black motorist, Rodney King, a lot has changed. America has a black president. The LA riots, which left 53 dead, happened in one of America’s great cities, and sparked violence in others. This time the focus was a struggling

Earlier this month the Pentagon released a devastating assessment of its own management of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. The report, authored by two widely respected former four-star officers, judged that America’s  nuclear weapons  complex — particularly the personnel who operate and maintain it — is near its breaking point, worn down by years of neglect, lack of funding and unnecessarily invasive and inquisitorial screening of employees. This malaise has been exacerbated by bouts of apathy and even hostility on the part of prominent voices in and out of government: The prevalent attitude is that there are more important national security priorities and, among some, that nukes are useless and should be left to rust. The situation is considerably worse than we thought — even worse than in 2007 when it was revealed that the Air Force had inadvertently transported six live nuclear weapons from North Dakota to Louisiana. Last week a senior Pentagon official claimed in a background br

Obamacare: One Punt After Another  - Nather & Kenen,  Politico The GOP's Health-Care Ideas Deficit  - Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine Pressing the Panic Button on Obamacare?  - Yuval Levin, National Review A Year After Newtown, Gun Carnage Continues  - Michael Cohen, Guardian 96% of Americans Are Wrong About Congress  - David Harsanyi, Federalist Why Obama's Political Survival Matters  - Steve Erickson, Am. Prospect GOP on Track to Gain House Seats  - David Wasserman, Cook Political Report N.C. Shows Why Voting Rights Act Is Still Needed  - Ari Berman, The Nation Linda Tirado's Far From Accurate Poverty Tale  - Cathy Young, RCP North Korea: "Richard III" With Nukes  - Gordon Chang, The Daily Beast Tech :  Google's Road Map to Global Domination  - Adam Fisher, NY Times Religion :  If Christians Flee the Middle East...  - Archbishop Sako, Reuters Energy :  Mexico Enters a New Era  - The Daily Bulletin, RealClearEnergy Science :  Ja

Obama the Oblivious  - Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post Obama Should Govern in Poetry  - Timothy Egan, New York Times IRS Targeting, Round Two  - Kim Strassel, Wall Street Journal Megyn Kelly, FOX News's Brightest Star  - Dan Zak, Washington Post It's Wrong to Insist Jesus Was White  - Jonathan Merritt, The Atlantic North Carolina's Choice: Can Kay Hagan Survive?  - Manu Raju, Politico Obama's Not Finished, But Dems May Regret It  - John Podhoretz, NY Post Republicans Buck the Purity Police  - Dana Milbank, Washington Post GOP Gives In to Defense Lobbyists on Sequester  - Philip Klein, DC Examiner The Budget Deal & Defense: A Positive Step  - Max Boot, Commentary Republican Dysfunction Is Here to Stay  - Josh Kraushaar, National Journal Dems Face a Day of Obamacare Reckoning  - Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal Republican Hypocrisy on Health Care  - Ezra Klein, Washington Post Please Pray for Me... I Am Losing My Insurance  - Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit The App

In John Whitehead’s chilling new book,  “A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State,”  there is a photo of a young Rev. Martin Luther King being arrested by two police officers. The photo is not unusual for the era of the Civil Rights Movement, and we are now decades removed from the incident. Yet it is jarring when one thinks on it for a moment: An American citizen, peacefully protesting legitimate injustice, is hauled off to jail. In the classic human justification, it happened to “him.” This is the essence of Whitehead’s book, and the fairly famous libertarian exposes a growing police state in this country that is flat-out scary. That doesn’t mean we should avert our eyes, however – just the opposite. An interesting quote that opens Chapter 10 (“Dominate. Intimidate. Control.”) comes from passengers’ rights advocate Kate Hanni: “They’re trying to scare the pants off the American people that we need these things. … Fear is a commodity, and they’re selling it.