Heroes are hard to come by. With the death of Lt. General Hal Moore last Friday, the loss is particularly acute given his extraordinary leadership skills. There are two types of heroes, those who demonstrate physical courage in the face of extreme danger, and those who reveal moral courage – the fortitude to stand by your principles no matter the...

While President Trump’s Executive Order imposing a temporary travel ban may be decided by the Supreme Court, one argument that might be used to defend the president’s action may come from a portion of a 1944 decision. Not long after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing that all individuals of Japanese ancestry,...

I’ve written about Edward Snowden twice before, (Citizen Who?, Mar. 5, 2015; and Revisiting Snowden, Jan. 3, 2014). A former NSA contractor, Snowden was responsible for leaking thousands of classified documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill. In Revisiting Snowden, I wrote, “Both The New York Times and Britain’s Guardian newspapers offered editorials in support of clemency...

Since President Trump signed an executive order (Jan. 27), temporarily banning all travel from seven countries and suspending immigration of refugees from Syria to the U.S., much has happened in one week. Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen: “These countries,” the BBC News reports (Jan. 30), “were already named as ‘countries of concern’ after a law passed by...

Since last Friday (Jan. 27), when President Trump signed an executive order banning travel from seven countries for at least the next 90 days, this website has received a higher than usual response rate, largely due to a commentary I wrote last year. (Comments to this post are now closed.) Fact-Checking a Reader (Jan. 20, 2016), was written in response...

In the Tom Hanks Cold War drama, Bridge of Spies, U.S. attorney James Donovan is assigned to defend known Russian spy Rudolf Abel. After predictably losing the case, Donovan persuades the judge to give Abel a prison term instead of a death sentence. At some point in the future, Donovan reasons, the Russians may capture an American and Abel could...

On Friday (Jan. 27), President Trump followed through on one of his signature campaign promises. One year ago, this month (Jan. 20), I wrote about candidate Trump’s planned Muslim ban (Fact-Checking a Reader, which has elicited additional response since Friday). Here’s what Trump originally called for as stated in a campaign press release dated December 7, 2015: “Donald J.  » Read...

While President-elect Donald Trump announced that his sons will run his company but make no new foreign deals, problems already exist. “At the Wednesday press conference where Mr. Trump described the company’s new structure,” The Wall Street Journal writes (Jan. 14), “he also said he had turned down $2 billion in property deals in Dubai to avoid any possible ethics...

Last week, President-elect Donald Trump held his first press conference since being elected. While the meeting was supposed to allow Mr. Trump to lay out his proposal on how he will unravel himself from his many conflict of interest issues, the conversation quickly turned to an intelligence briefing for Mr. Trump – specifically a 2-page synopsis of a 35-page report...

No one in modern American politics has used social media to influence an audience better than Donald Trump. His tool of choice: Twitter – the technological equivalent of a 1770 broadside. Long before he ran for president, Trump would use social media to preen before a television appearance. “Be sure to tune in and watch Donald Trump on Late Night...