When a nation is faced with a fait accompli (such as the existence of millions of illegal aliens within its borders), the prudent and most promising response is to frankly acknowledge the intractability of the situation (and the impossibility of obtaining an ideal solution) and focus its energy and resources on making the best of a bad situation. For anyone to wish for the status quo ante or to excite among the public expectations that such an ideal solution is feasible is disingenuous if not d...

If an individual chooses, of his own volition, to refrain from the use of certain words, phrases, or characterizations that have in the past been part of his or her political discourse, on whom should the responsibility for that constraint — essentially an act of self-censorship — rest? Should the individual himself accept responsibility for actions he takes of his own free will, or should he — in what essentially is an act of self-victimization — seek to blame someone or something else? For m...

“In the era of voting wars, the right to vote is itself subject to continued partisan, regional, and racial conflict.  It is time to resolve the fights and fulfill the promise of American democracy, by joining together in an effort to make the right to vote, at last, a part of our basic covenant as a nation.”  (Jonathan Soros & Mark Schmitt, “The Missing Right:  A Constitutional Right to Vote,” Democracy:  A Journal of Ideas, Spring 2013. It will probably come as a surprise to most Americans th...

Will Rogers’ quip, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat,” at the time he made it, contained as much truth as it did satire and humor.  I cannot know for sure that if Rogers were alive today he would revise his statement in light of current political conditions. However, I can engage in some reasonable speculation, which leads me to conclude that the updated Rogers’ aphorism would be, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Republican.” And, if...

By laying down a “red line,” Pres. Obama probably set himself up to be pushed into taking the first steps to get the U.S. “involved” in what amounts to a civil war in Syria.  United States military support for Syrian rebels, we are told, will include small arms, ammunition and possibly anti-tank weapons.  The Senate’s uber war-hawks, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have been pressing this issue for a while, and I predict they will view the President’s action as a necessary, but insufficient, res...

As a Congressional Research Service report (CRS Report RL32612) characterized the process, the President of the United States is elected “…under a complex arrangement of constitutional provisions, federal and state laws, and political party practices known as the electoral college system.” It is an indirect method of election in which, by constitutional design, the voters do not have the final word on whom the president will be; a group of electors does.  For this reason, and others cited below...

The putative justification for the use of the filibuster in the U.S. Senate is to protect the rights of the legislative minority and to ensure that legislative proposals, especially critical or controversial ones, receive sufficient scrutiny before they are adopted—or rejected if the filibuster is sustained and able to withstand a cloture vote (at least 60 votes, three-fifths of the Senate membership). That is the theory. But, the filibuster also functions in more nefarious ways, such as Strom ...

When I first read the arguments in favor of an individual health insurance mandate advanced by the conservative Republicans who originated the idea, I must admit that their rationale struck me as containing a certain indisputable logic. Yes, you read that previous line correctly.  The health insurance mandate was not an idea that originated with President Obama, nor was it an idea that that came from some liberal Democratic think tank.  In 1989, The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tan...