February 2012 will mark the 40th anniversary of former President Richard Nixon's historic Cold War visit to China. Nixon's trip produced the Shanghai Communique, a diplomatic statement in which both the U.S. and a still very red Communist China agreed to establish a political relationship based on something more than ideological antagonism and frozen or unfinished wars (North Korea and Taiwan) that... Read more.

According to The New York Times, the American Constitution is losing popularity with people around the world. "The Constitution," writes Adam Liptak, "has seen better days ... its influence is waning." Liptak points out that in 1987, over 160 of the 170 countries on Earth had cribbed from the Constitution — but today, few countries do. Why? Liptak suggests, quoting Professor... Read more.

Our republic as our Founding Fathers created it is under assault from extremists outside our country and anti-constitutionalists inside our country. Combine that with the flailing American economy and global markets and you see that Western civilization is on the brink, as experts and all the GOP presidential candidates agree. President Barack Obama has tried and failed miserably to fix our economy,... Read more.

Once the presidential nomination process is settled — and Lord knows that day can't come fast enough — Republicans will get back to doing what they do best, getting on Barack Obama's case. Incredibly, though, they'll have to do it without one of their most potent arguments. The Republican candidate, after all, can't effectively attack what he supports. Today both leading contenders for... Read more.

As God's instrument, Moses parted the Red Sea. Well, it appears President Obama has a different idea. With a wave of his hand, he's going to reunite our bitterly divided political waters on the hottest of hot-button issues. Don't get me wrong; Obama's conscious effort to divide Americans on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion and wealth for political purposes is alive and thriving. That's a separate... Read more.

Two of three judges on a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Tuesday found Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Judge Stephen Reinhardt stipulated that the ruling skirted the larger issue of whether same-sex couples have a right to marry. That's a shame, because at least an equal-right-to-marry claim makes for a clean argument. Reinhardt praised himself for overturning Prop. 8 on "the narrowest... Read more.

My first marathon was New York in 1992. I trained with a group for months but had never gone a full 26.2 miles before the start of the race. Turns out that's something you ought to do. The New York marathon is a wonderful event — well planned, well laid out and with great crowds. We took a bus over to the start on Staten Island, where tens of thousands of runners gathered. After over an hour... Read more.

There's a very troubled company out there called U.S. Government Inc. It's teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. And it badly needs to be taken over and turned around. It probably even needs the services of a good private-equity firm, with plenty of experience and a reasonably good track record in downsizing, modernizing, shrinking staff and making substantial changes in management. Yes, layoffs will... Read more.

Appearing alongside CIA Director David Petraeus before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said of Iran: "We don't believe they've actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon." Before the hearing, as James Fallows of The Atlantic reports, Clapper released his "Worldwide Threat Assessment."... Read more.