I continued to be infuriated by the invocation of the summary execution of Moammar Gadhafi as a “foreign policy success” for the Obama Administration. Among the other reasons, it was pretty clear that the Libyan rebels and their allies didn’t solely execute Gadhafi and treat all their other perceived adversaries with dignity and respect. And [...]

Russ Feingold, author of the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Relief Act of 2009, has responded to the news that President Obama sent 100 combat-equipped troops to Uganda last week. I said I would follow up on that, so here it is: The author of that legislation, former Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., told [...]

One of the newest governments in the world, the Transitional National Council, again came up for criticism by Amnesty International for systemic detainee abuse. The report provides evidence of arbitrary detention and abuse of thousands of people in Libya over the past several months. Amnesty calls the lack of oversight a stain on the new [...]

Obama’s speech on the Arab uprising was delayed, apparently because of late rewrites. And I think that’s apparent in the text, which is a real tightrope. There’s a tension to fit all of the past and present actions of the United States in that part of the world under one coherent theme. The President spoke [...]

Labor unions are not happy with the “action plan” that is seen as a precursor to a free trade agreement with Colombia. Scores of labor organizers have been attacked and even killed in Colombia over the past several years. And the AFL-CIO and other unions simply find the deal insufficient. “The action plan does not [...]

The Egyptian military would like you to know that they appreciate the revolution and the sale of little Egyptian flags and everything, but if you think you’re getting them out from running the economy, you’re nuts. The Egyptian military defends the country, but it also runs day care centers and beach resorts. Its divisions make [...]

Egypt’s military dissolved Parliament and suspended the Constitution today, meeting two key demands of the protesters in Tahrir Square. The military said they would hold onto power for six months, or until elections were held. Constitutional changes would be offered in a referendum. Nobody really knows where this is going to lead in Egypt, much [...]

In a small reversal from comments earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged for an end to violence in Egypt, though she made that statement about both the government and protesters. As protests against the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak raged for a fourth straight day, Clinton said the U.S. is “deeply [...]

I’ll add another thing missing from that big piece on jobs and the Obama economic team – anything on China beyond a sentence or two about competitiveness and losing ground. That’s a story in itself – take a look at this story from last week on a solar panel maker moving their operations to China [...]

To say that China’s reaction to one of its countrymen winning the Nobel Peace Prize was less than celebratory would be an understatement. After all, he does sit in a jail 300 miles outside of Beijing. Beijing warned the decision could harm ties with Norway – where the awards are based – and summoned Oslo’s [...]

In gay civil rights news, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request from opponents of the district’s same-sex marriage law to force a city-wide referendum on it, citing the human rights directive in the city charter: Opponents had wanted to challenge a law that took effect in Washington in March allowing same-sex couples [...]