Category: Politics

Below is the letter that I enclosed in this year’s Christmas cards.

With the holiday season fast approaching, I hope this letter finds you well.

It’s quite unlike me, but this year I’d like to talk a bit about my work.

My current job involves

I, like most others, thought that Hillary Clinton will defeat Donald J. Trump with a comfortable margin on election night.

I was clearly wrong, but before getting into the why, permit me to start with what I got right.

In the footnote to my pre-election perspective, I noted how the conventional wisdom focusing on the Democratic Party's

Donald J. Trump is president-elect.

Much like me, you are probably stunned with this statement and are still unable to comprehend how this is so.

One thing is for certain, though. What you witnessed last night was fury in ways previously unseen.

Consider: only 37% of the voters believed that Donald Trump was qualified for the presidency

No, I'm not voting for Donald Trump, but I hear the anger, loud and clear.

That's what I have to say about the presidential election this year, and I urge everyone to have the same attitude.

The reasons I cannot vote for Donald Trump hardly require rehashing.  I find troubling his views on Muslims, immigrants, foreigners and women, just to

I have had enough of reading about liberal college students on liberal college campuses complaining about their liberal sensitivities being offended.

These people are not entitled not to be offended.

The reason I know this is because if they have such an entitlement, so do I, and if I were to have such entitlement, the very people who

I have a suggestion for those who are politically interested: surround yourself with people who are disagreeable.  Surround yourself with a lot of them.

That means that if you’re in college, odds are you should be seeking people who go to meetings of College Republicans (yes, those people exist, in surprisingly large number).  If you’re a working

I think principles in politicians matter, and I simply don't see how anyone who shares this commonly-held view can support and vote for Willard Mitt Romney.

Mind you, it takes a lot, I mean a lot, for me to be offended by a politician for his perceived lack of principles.  I'm far more sensitive than most to

These days, one of my greatest frustrations is with people who complain about politicians.  This essentially means that I'm frustrated with almost everyone I know.

I'm frustrated because I find most people's view towards politicians to be rather irresponsible.  Americans live in a democracy, governed by the persons they themselves elected.  The people in government who

The 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution all started with a C paper.

It was 1982, and the constitutional debate du jour was the Equal Rights Amendment, which was intended to guarantee equal rights for men and women.  The amendment passed both houses of Congress in 1972 and was given to the states to ratify

In the winter of 2005, Michael Sessions decided to run for the mayor of his hometown.

The city of Hillsdale, located in the Southern part of the state of Michigan with a population of 8,200 and known for being the home of Hillsdale College, had been hit hard by the downturn of the automobile industry

8/10

"The Ides of March" (2011) requires an expensive buy-in.  By that I mean, the film asks the audience to accept several rather implausible scenarios.  The upshot is that the film is worth the price, because the pay-off is very satisfying.

On April 27, 2011, residents of Franklin Lakes will go to the polls to elect new school boards and approve or disapprove the school budgets.  For the first time in two years, the election is competitive.  While it is cutting it close, it is not too late to get an absentee ballot.  I cannot think

This blog has a no politics policy, but there is an exception once every year before the elections.  One of the things that always stuck with me as a political scientist wannabe is the need to make electoral predictions so I can be held accountable for the analysis I make about elections.  Political analysts excel

In 2003, conservative commentator Billy Krystol spoke at Boston College and foretold the rough road ahead for the Republicans by astutely observing, "There's nothing more difficult than being in power."

The flip side is equally true: there's nothing easier--and more irresponsible--than not being in power.  This is a lesson the just-resigned Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama

A couple weeks ago, my high school buddies came over to my apartment, one of them kindly pointed out that he can see my office from my window, then tried to persuade me for hours on end that I should write about politics in my blog.  His point, as I understood it, was that no

I don't get it.  Not in the way I don't get art or in the way I didn't get Modern Algebra.  I can't even comprehend what it is that I need to comprehend.  I am so confused, for the first time in my life, I am at a loss for words.

Barack Obama won the Nobel

I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

I have gone  through five years of grammar school, three years of middle school, four years of high school, four years of college, three years of law school and nearly two years of work experience.  I have stayed consistently in one side of the political spectrum.  I studied

On April 21, 2009, residents of Franklin Lakes will go to the polls to elect new school boards and approve or disapprove the school budgets.  While it is cutting it close, it is not too late to get an absentee ballot.  I cannot think of a more important election than those that involve the future

Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire withdrew his nomination as President Obama's Secretary of Commerce.  The new president's first month in office has been quite bumpy, with the Commerce Secretary's job increasingly turning into a cursed cabinet post. As rough as it has been for the president, I am still withholding judgment on the Obama

I like President Bush. I will miss him greatly. Read about my personal affection for the president.

While I was in Japan, I read a story along these lines about Australian sailors' efforts to stop Japanese whaling practices and an editorial in a newspaper by an European objecting to how Japan is raping their seas.

I can think of no issue that pisses me off more than the Western objection to Japanese whaling,

I have many liberal friends, an inescapable consequence of attending a post-secondary education institution in Boston, pursuing a post-college degree in Boston, and obtaining a professional job requiring a high degree of education in New York.  While I obviously don't share most of their viewpoints, they and I have one thing in common:  we all

The New York Times, which my family stopped subscribing to years ago for obvious reasons, never ceases to amaze me.

This article on Barack Obama's "role" in the downfall of Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich just may be the most far-fetched article I have read from the Times in a while--and that's quite a statement. 

My dad sent a random e-mail yesterday, reminding me  of the series of unfortunate events that have been taking place:

1) The Yankess did not make the playoffs; 2) The Patriots, sans Brady, is mediocre at best ten months after blowing the Super Bowl; and 3) The GOP got whacked earlier this month.

I also reminded him that the

If this CNN article is correct, California Supreme Court is going to review, and likely overrule, Proposition 8 which amended the state constitution to ban same sex marriage.

As a social conservative, where I stand on this issue is hardly clouded in secrecy.  But the degree to which what the California Supreme Court is going to

There was a time when I considered a career in politics, but no longer.  It is, by far, without a doubt, the most thankless job in America, and the world.  Who praises politicians?  I do (in general) because I'm a politician apologist, but this is a club with fewer members than my other club, "The

Since this is a popular game among political scientists (and an important one at that; too many poli sci people comment on the aftermath as if the result was a foregone conclusion without any accountability of being held to a prediction), I shall throw in my two cents.

At this juncture, it's fairly clear--and personally, depressingly

I like to cut to the chase and believe, in general, that getting to the heart of the matter, in the most simplistic form, identifies the problem, which is the first step towards finding a solution.

I find what triggered the current financial crises, the subprime mortgage, to be a relatively simple issue.  Of course various