U.S. Congress

In the fervor to recognize Abraham Lincoln’s invaluable contributions to the abolition of slavery, his commitment to the rule of law and the constitutional limits on presidential power has been obscured.

I am not, here, interested in debating the specific conditions on our southern border. This is its own crisis. What I am interested in is commenting on why comparing what’s going on down there to the Holocaust is foolish both historically and strategically. For what it’s worth, my objections apply to nearly any comparison made between the Holocaust and a current atrocity—real or perceived.

At this point, it is necessary to discuss the rhetoric utilized by the White House and US Congress regarding Venezuela, compared to how senior US military commanders discuss the situation and the possibility of US military action in the South American country.

Though Mead’s talk was focused on bipartisanship in American foreign policy, he had news for the audience: American foreign policy has rarely ever stopped “at the water’s edge.”

New legislation has been introduced to the US Congress that seeks to stop US weapons from being sold to states that are known human rights abusers or have ties to violent movements.

Americans fought a revolution over the exercise of absolute power. We should think long and hard about resurrecting absolutist tendencies in the modern presidency and how we can put the genie back in the bottle.

The United States’ involvement in two world wars indicates clearly that American isolationism is at a practical end, Reinhold Niebuhr asserts in this article, originally published on April 5, 1943 in Christianity and Crisis. Working toward international integration is a national responsibility – morally and in the interests of security. Alliances depend on the will of their members; it is no different for the United States. Niebuhr also warns of a new danger: a unilateral “imperialist” American military establishment, simultaneously preoccupied with hegemony and unconcerned with the rest of the world.

The sixth round of talks to update the NAFTA will begin later this month in Canada. But Canadian officials are increasingly concerned that President Trump will announce the United States will unilaterally withdraw—either as a negotiation tactic or as a way to shift toward Trump’s favored protectionism. Here is what you should know about the perennially controversial trade agreement.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s Protestant rectitude informs his sense of America’s dutiful vocation in the world premised on: “Liberty, equality, and human dignity.”