Not so superpowerful: Obama, Xi talk but the days of grand summits are past

Not so superpowerful: Obama, Xi talk but the days of grand summits are past

Sol W. Sanders   There was less than met the eye at the two-day summit of China’s Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama. Neither party was in a position to tackle the growing list plaguing the relationship between the superpower and the superpower-wannabe. That might or might not have been a product of their particular […]

Loser: Socialist Francois Hollande picked the wrong time to win the presidency

Loser: Socialist Francois Hollande picked the wrong time to win the presidency

John J. Metzler PARIS — Just a year after the Socialist Party regained the presidency, the winner and unassuming new occupant of the Elysee Palace (White House) Francois Hollande, may have wished he was still in the political opposition. After all, it is easier after to critique than to govern, especially in a country battered […]

Who is Samantha Power? What Americans should know about their new UN ambassador

Who is Samantha Power? What Americans should know about their new UN ambassador

Wesley Pruden A deep bow to our “friends” in the Middle East no longer satisfies Barack Obama’s White House. His new ambassador-to-be to the United Nations has a better idea. Samantha Power thinks the president should take a deferential knee. (It worked for Al Jolson, paying tribute to Mammy.) Mzz Power is nothing if not […]

Oklahoma survivors remind U.S. of its founding spirit, now banished in D.C.’s ‘golden ghettoes’

Oklahoma survivors remind U.S. of its founding spirit, now banished in D.C.’s ‘golden ghettoes’

Sol W. Sanders   A couple of decades ago when that temple of conspicuous consumption, Neiman Marcus, opened another store in metropolitan Washington, my old friend and astute political observer, the late Nat McKitterick, warned me we were lost. For it was about that time when “a political class” was becoming apparent in the nation’s […]

How much longer will nation’s top law enforcement officer be above the law?

How much longer will nation’s top law enforcement officer be above the law?

Jeffrey T. Kuhner Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has disgraced his office and engaged in a systematic abuse of power. He has also lied under oath. He can no longer remain as our nation’s chief law enforcement office. If anything, he should be facing criminal prosecution for numerous misdeeds. Mr. Holder is in trouble. […]

Into the breach: UN peacekeepers mostly succeed in a dangerous game

Into the breach: UN peacekeepers mostly succeed in a dangerous game

John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Peacekeeping is fraught with risk, but it is also filled with promise, stated UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “Our Blue Helmets bring hope to millions of people in some of the most troubled parts of the world,” advised the Secretary General in a somber ceremony honoring fallen peacekeeping troops, […]

Money can’t always buy Bloomberg love

Money can’t always buy Bloomberg love

Wesley Pruden Michael Bloomberg obviously knows a lot about making money, even about the politics of Manhattan, where his money speaks in the loud and unctuous voice liberals love. But he doesn’t know diddly about life where the rest of us live it. He threw a tantrum after Barack Obama’s gun-control bill crashed and burned […]

Woe is not us: From one new energy revolution (shale gas) to another (fire ice)

Woe is not us: From one new energy revolution (shale gas) to another (fire ice)

Sol W. Sanders   As the shale gas revolution begins to ripple through, reordering the world economy, another fossil fuel revolution is in the offing which will again torpedo most conventional wisdom concerning energy. So-called “peak oil”, the end of petroleum exhausted by expanding consumption and diminishing discoveries, the love story of environmental fanatics, has […]

From Nixon’s historic opening to the new U.S.-China world order: Now what?

From Nixon’s historic opening to the new U.S.-China world order: Now what?

John J. Metzler NEW YORK — Dr. Henry Kissinger called for the United States and China to collaborate on a new global order, and a groundbreaking new report, “U.S.- China Economic Relations in the Next Ten Years,” underscored the deepening commercial engagement between the two Pacific powers. Indeed with President Barack Obama meeting his Chinese […]

The game of chicken over Syria with dangerous consequences

The game of chicken over Syria with dangerous consequences

Sol W. Sanders   That loud noise you hear now coming out of the Middle East is the sound of a frighteningly dangerous game of chicken between Russia and Israel [and inferentially the U.S.]. Last minute pleas by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Soviet President Vladimir Putin delivered at Sochi on the Black Sea […]