By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
The United States and Israel raised hopes Thursday for a restart of the Middle East peace process, despite little tangible progress so far from U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry's 2-month-old effort to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
The United States and several key allies sought Wednesday a strategy to end Syria's civil war, their united efforts unable at the moment to stem the Assad regime's military gains and Washington still unwilling to join those providing the rebels with lethal military aid.
Former IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman's testimony that he deliberately kept himself in the dark about the tax service's brewing scandal runs counter to the responsibilities of agency heads regardless of whether they are political appointees, some government analysts said.
Lawmakers are seeking to prohibit the United States from removing missile defense equipment from East Asia, even if the threat posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea is eliminated.
The U.S. ambassador to India is urging business executives to press politicians to lift trade barriers and encourage foreign investment to raise the country out of the grinding poverty that infects most of its 1.2 billion people.
The Obama administration responded cautiously to the very public detention, then release by Russian authorities, of an American diplomat accused of spying in Moscow, saying that the U.S. remains committed to close relations with Russia and downplaying the possibility of retaliation against Russian intelligence agents in the U.S.
In a letter written Friday and released to the public Monday, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle expressed concern to Secretary of State John F. Kerry over "harassment and abuse" that Chinese authorities are believed to be inflicting on family members to Chen Guangcheng, a blind Chinese activist living in the United States.
As he struggles to find momentum in his second term, President Obama is setting a dubious record for the slowest pace in assembling a new Cabinet.
Parents whose spouses flee overseas with their children called Thursday for the federal government to put sanctions on countries that don't help get those children returned, saying it should be considered a human-trafficking issue, not merely a family dispute.
Clear signs are emerging for the first time indicating that China is responding to U.S. pressure to help modify belligerent behavior by Beijing's fraternal communist ally in North Korea.
President Obama's health care law may be a partisan flash point on Capitol Hill, but unique factors have forced it to play a supporting role in spring campaigns to fill empty seats in Congress.
There are many examples of waste, theft and misuse of our military aid to countries such as Egypt and Pakistan. Much of this misuse has been recorded by the State Department.
Raising the stakes in the high-profile clash with congressional Republicans over last year's terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, a person familiar with the State Department-chartered inquiry said investigators talked last year with CIA personnel who were on the ground during the attack and were briefed about the CIA's activities at their secret base in the Libyan city.
The Obama administration found itself in the cross hairs of mounting Republican frustration Tuesday over national security policy, with particular focus on unanswered questions surrounding the Boston Marathon bombings last month and the terrorist attack last year on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Massachusetts has a deep blue tint when it comes to politics, but the GOP vowed Wednesday to make the most of the special election to fill the state's Senate seat previously held by Secretary of State John F. Kerry.
"I know this region well enough to know there is skepticism, in some quarters there is cynicism, and there are reasons for it," Mr. Kerry told reporters. "There have been bitter years of disappointment. It is our hope that by being methodical, careful, patient — but detailed and tenacious — that we can lay on a path ahead that can conceivably surprise people and certainly exhaust the possibilities of peace."
"That's what we're working towards," said Mr. Kerry, who met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later Thursday in Ramallah on the West Bank.
