A New Beginning for Georgia
With the surprise election of billionaire Bidzina Ivanashvili, Georgian Dream presents an alternative to standard second-world power transitions.
On the Newsstand:Georgia
Super Tuesday Results Roundup
The HPR recaps Super Tuesday and what it means for the Republican Party.
Georgian President Vows “No Wine For Russia” at IOP
Well, not completely. But Mikheil Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, did boast yesterday that the wine produced in Georgia is simply so good (thanks to his free market reforms) that he hopes the Russians continue their embargo, because to sell it on the Russian market would be a waste – the Russians, he explained, will drink just about anything. If ... Read More
Fights over Federalism
States gaining voice on drug laws When Richard Nixon declared a “War on Drugs” in June 1971, he had little idea that he was also engaging Washington in a war with the states. In the decades since, the federal government has frequently asserted its primacy over the states on drug laws, despite the opposition of states-rights proponents. California began ... Read More
Business Rules
The U.S. Supreme Court may be about to render the most important business decision of the decidedly pro-business Roberts era, but one might not know it from the details of the case. The plaintiff is a small conservative advocacy group, not a major corporation; the focal point is a corporate-funded anti-Hillary Clinton documentary that was banned by the FEC, as ... Read More
Worst-Case Scenarios
Lessons from Hurricane Katrina, and where we stand today On Aug. 29, 2005, one million people were displaced overnight when Hurricane Katrina assaulted the Gulf Coast. “We plan for what we’ve experienced, but you don’t even begin to understand [a worst-case scenario] until it is upon you,” Marty Bahamonde, a FEMA employee who took refuge in the Superdome along with ... Read More
Risky Business
The problem of too-big-to-fail “Greed is good,” said Gordon Gekko in the iconic 1987 film Wall Street. Yet while such attitudes may have contributed to economic growth in some sectors, now national and international economies are experiencing a recessionary hangover. The causes of the worst financial crisis since the Depression are many and it is likely that we will debate ... Read More
Blind Justice?
The Supreme Court’s decisions last term reveal a trend toward color-blindness Two cases decided by the Supreme Court earlier this year demonstrate an ongoing, if cautious, conservative march towards a new constitutional order with regards to race. In the case of Ricci v. Destefano, a divided Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to throw out the results of a promotion ... Read More
In Need of Assistance
Reforming foreign aid at home In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush made a sweeping commitment to global economic development. In early 2002, he declared, “We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror. We fight against poverty because opportunity is a fundamental right to human dignity.” Development was to be a vital ... Read More
Georgian Reflections
The EU has faulted both sides in the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict for violations of international law. Russia, unsurprisingly, broke international law by its invasion of Georgia and its attacks on Georgian civilian infrastructure. Though if that’s against international law, color me confused as to nations are supposed to fight wars and if any of them have ever done so. The ... Read More
Defending the Defense
Russia’s campaign against missile defense in Europe Ballistic missile defense — once derided as “Star Wars” by critics — is finally coming into its own as a major component of the geopolitical landscape in Europe. The extreme difficulty of hitting an intercontinental ballistic missile traveling at Mach 25 with a counter-missile, which experts say is like shooting a bullet with ... Read More
More Secretary than General?
Ban Ki-moon’s first two years at the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has cultivated many nicknames over the course of his long and illustrious career as a diplomat. As the foreign minister of South Korea, he was called Ban-chusa, a moniker meaning both “bureaucrat” and “administrative-clerk.” His colleagues in the ministry praised him for ... Read More
Showdown in Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankan government is about to liquidate the last remaining holdout of the Tamil Tigers. Their stalemate of a year ago has been broken, and the Tigers are down to apparently a mere four square miles on the coast of Sri Lanka. With fifty thousand civilian hostages being used as human shields, it’s hardly surprising that the Sri Lankan ... Read More
