“The Taksim excursion park protests cut across the clichéd secularist-Islamist divide that dominates the western image of Turkish politics. They give voice to widespread frustrations with the prime minister’s arrogant and dismissive treatment of all forms of dissent. From his pro-business urban development projects to his Syria foreign policy to his daily pronouncements on public…

“Today’s report from the Social Security Trustees shows that our Social Security system has a large and growing surplus. Unlike the banks, which nearly brought the economy to ruin, Social Security didn’t need a bailout. Its surplus has grown year after year, even during the Great Recession. The result of decades of foresight and planning,…

“The Manning trial is occurring in the context of perhaps the most repressive atmosphere for free press in recent memory. It was bad enough that the Obama administration prosecuted twice the number of whistleblowers than all prior administrations combined. Then it went after logs and records of journalists and publishers: AP; Fox reporter James Rosen;…

If Congress chooses for once to exercise proper oversight, Comey should be asked all the hard questions as to why he ultimately signed off on the Bush administration’s warrantless monitoring; its torture program and its indefinite detention policies. Because Obama has just given a speech, interpreted by many as saying it’s time to turn away…

“Rene Gonzalez, one of the Cuban 5, was released in October 2011 but had to remain in the U.S. for three more years under supervised probation. Just recently, in a two-week authorized visit, due to the death of his father, Gonzalez was allowed to stay in Cuba after renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Incarcerated since 1998,…

“Genetically engineered trees would be grown for biomass — in other words, to burn for fuel. One problem is that this will likely result in farmers growing more such trees and growing less food. Another major concern is that genetically engineered trees are perennials. So, unlike annual food plants that we could choose to stop…

“Buried within the fine print of the 2014 Obama budget is a startling bit of history-changing policy. The government, the administration says, should consider selling off the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the nation’s largest publicly operated — that is, ‘socialist’ — institutions, and the largest public power provider in the country. … “Most Americans…

“The ‘war on terror’ was built on two tiers of grief. Momentous and meaningless. Ours and theirs. The domestic politics of grief settled in for a very long haul, while perpetual war required the leaders of both major parties to keep affirming and reinforcing the two tiers of grief…. The first years of the 21st…

“The Constitution’s makers deplored the combination of legislative, executive, and judicial powers in a single branch as the very definition of tyranny. President Obama thus shoulders a heavy burden in seeking to explain how his playing prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner to kill any citizen or non-citizen anywhere on the planet justified by his secret…

“Companies like Apple are fond of saying that they don’t break the law, but it’s an empty argument since they are largely responsible for what the law says, since big companies have such an influence over malleable tax law. And of course, slave owners made the same arguments in the 1850s, factory owners using child…