PRESS ROOM

As the House impeachment saga unfolds in frantic and dramatic fashion, it’s easy to forget the spark that instigated the proceedings began with something as pedestrian as political donations opening the door to lobbying on behalf of foreign interests.

Untold amounts of foreign donations are flowing into America's political system, with little accountability or limits.

Economic sanctions are a central instrument of U.S. foreign policy. They are a tactic short of war designed to shape the behavior of real and perceived U.S. adversaries, from Russia, to Venezuela, to Iran, to North Korea. But as a new report commissioned by Korea Peace Now has documented, broad-based sanctions can be every bit as deadly for vulnerable populations as war itself.

Since President Trump took office, the lobbyist Michael Esposito has been wildly successful, turning a family business that once focused on municipal transportation issues into one of the fastest-growing lobbying firms in Washington.

In this episode of Straight Talk Africa host Shaka Ssali explores the significance of the First Russia-Africa Summit that took place in Sochi on October 23rd and 24th. His guests are Temi Ibirogba, Program and Research Associate of the Africa Program at the Center of International Policy, Richmond Danso, Doctoral Candidate and Teaching Associate at the Department of Political Science of Howard University and James Jonah, Former United Nations Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs.Take a look and let us know what you think.

In July 2017, we began a polling project to measure public confidence in government institutions on national security matters on an ongoing basis. This post provides our data for the third quarter of 2019 (June-September). It includes public perceptions of government institutions and of the two major political parties’ handling of national security, the public’s comfort with intelligence authorities, and public perceptions about the president’s handling of key national security issues and ongoing military operations.

Untold amounts of foreign donations are flowing into America's political system, with little accountability or limits. Although election experts say it's impossible to accurately estimate the extent of foreign financial influence over U.S. elections, many agree it has increased substantially since a landmark Supreme Court ruling nearly a decade ago opened the flood gates.

Lobbyist Michael Esposito has made a fortune during the Trump presidency, while boasting personal connections with the president and his advisers, the Washington Post reports.

Additionally, regarding the Western defense production industry’s sales of arms to the Gulf Arab States, a report authored by William Hartung of the US-based Center for International Policy found that the Obama administration had offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, military equipment and training during its eight-year tenure.

The Heritage Foundation released its 500-page index of military strength this week. Unfortunately, what it achieves in length is undermined by its stale and unpersuasive assumptions. As usual, Heritage gives all of the military services low marks. While there’s always room for improvement, the Heritage methodology seems arbitrary at best, and misleading at worst. The biggest complaint in the index is that America’s military is a “one-war force” that could not win simultaneous wars against Russia and China. But the two-war standard is a convenient myth that has historically had more to do with justifying high Pentagon budgets than it has with any rational assessment of the primary security challenges facing the United States and its allies.

Bankers, politicians and CEOs from around the world are set to flock to an annual Saudi Arabian business meeting this week, in part rehabilitating an event that was blackballed last year after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The proposed defense budget for 2020 is $716 billion an increase of about 5 percent from 2019 to 2020 or nearly 11 percent of the requested funds. This amounts to about $76 billion