Politics

If you’re convicted after spending a reported $30 million on legal fees to keep from going to jail, it makes sense to go all in and take your case all the way up to the Supreme Court. It paid off for Jeffrey Skilling, who prevailed in challenging the constitutionality of the legal doctrine used to…

President Barack Obama has a terrible dilemma in Afghanistan. The surge isn’t working. His ostensible partner in Afghan president Hamid Karzai is sickeningly corrupt. His team on the ground is bickering. His top general, Stanley McChrystal, has been fired for the vulgar rant that he and his staff issued on the record for Rolling Stone…

On occasion, life can be so simple: Trash-talking the boss in public means that you get fired for it. Ill-considered action leads to swift and painful consequences. The fact that you’re a military man who signed up to follow the orders and the lead of the commander in chief makes his decision to fire you…

by Courtland Milloy Imagine that the inauguration of President George W. Bush had sparked an explosive rise in African-American militia groups. Suppose thousands of heavily armed black men began gathering at training camps in wooded areas throughout the country, devising military tactics for “taking back their country” after what they believed was an electoral coup.…

I know what you are thinking: that General Stanley McChrystal’s comments—quoted in the upcoming edition of Rolling Stone—stem from disrespect for President Obama because the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is a racist that doesn’t want to serve a black president. You immediately came to mind when I heard this. And, no, I’m not referring…

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has offered his resignation to the president, who has accepted it. After a couple of days filled with criticism and controversy caused by a candid new Rolling Stone magazine profile posted online, the country’s top military leader in Afghanistan resigned. The article included quotes by McChrystal and his closest aides making disparaging comments about President…

President Barack Obama is reigning in insurance companies with a Patients’ Bill of Rights. The New York Times reports that a study from Health Care for America Now revealed that the increase in premiums far exceeded normal medical inflation costs. Premiums increased 97 percent from 2000 to 2008 while medical costs only increased 39 percent.…

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has vowed to keep the handgun ban in place, especially after the bloody weekend that the city had. 54 people were shot over the weekend, resulting in 10 deaths and numerous injuries. Several of the victims killed were teenagers and a baby was grazed by a bullet during this murderous…