The last 40 years prove conclusively that interdiction can't possibly win the war against the cartels. Illegal drugs are more available, stronger, and cheaper than ever. We have encouraged lawlessness and civil strife in every drug-producing nation.

What can we learn from the mess of the 2012 election? Could someone who isn't Nate Silver use past polling errors to make predictions for this next election? It's time to start looking at the old polling data to see what might have gone wrong.

Children are far more sensitive to pollutants than adults. That's why hundreds of doctors signed a petition urging first Bloomberg and now de Blasio not to build a massive garbage site next to an athletic center in Manhattan used by 34,000 city kids.

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In Illinois, people are more likely to end up on food stamps than they are to find a job. Nearly five years since the end of the Great Recession, Illinois is lagging behind the rest of the Midwest in job creation, creating an environment where opportunity and hope for a better future seem out of reach for those who are down on their luck.

The president claims that, despite the provisions of the War Powers Act, his continuing attacks on ISIS have an alternative foundation. On his view, President Bush did all the necessary work a decade ago when he convinced Congress to approve his wars against Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Obama asserts that the language of the Bush-era authorizations is sufficiently broad to support his new war against the Islamic State. This legal claim has been vigorously criticized by constitutional scholars across the political spectrum. But neither the Justice Department nor the White House Counsel has backed up Obama's bare assertion with a serious legal opinion.

Samantha Bornhorst

Environmental laws are enacted to protect public health, to provide clean air and water, to save endangered wildlife, and to protect our public lands for future generations. But these laws mean little if regulations based on them are not enforced or, in this case, are never created in the first place.

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The Secret Service bungles cost the job of the director, ignited loud cries for a total overhaul of the service, and a guarded vote of confidence in the service from Obama. But the problems with the service, and the breeches, are only the tip of the iceberg in assessing the peril to Obama.

For the past week, the commercial arteries of Hong Kong have been clogged with (mostly) student demonstrators clamoring for "democracy." What is the end game here? I predict resolution, albeit one unsatisfying to most Westerners as well as a minority of Hong Kong citizens who aspire an American brand of democracy.

With so many business-hub communities surrounding Seattle (more than a dozen not counting bedroom communities), residents desiring low-cost local services do not have to drive far to find businesses not constrained by the new minimum wage.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution could not have foreseen a time in which technology allowed more than 2.7 billion people to communicate via interconnected digital platforms. Nor could they have envisioned a world in which companies like AT&T;, Comcast and Verizon wield more authority over free speech than a British monarch.

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This Israeli fantasy of making peace with the Arabs without first making peace with the Palestinians has been around for decades. It is, in effect, a desire to turn the Arab Peace Initiative on its head. As is often the case, Netanyahu's clever, but disingenuous, ploys can't stand up in the face of reality.

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It's becoming increasingly apparent some new Koch Brothers are on the loose in Washington. Like the Brothers K, they got rich on filthy fossil fuel revenues, and are using their booty to buy up think tanks, lobbyists and the best law firms. They're tossing some of the nation's top liberal institutions into their shopping carts, too.

Since COP15 in Copenhagen (2009), it has been tough to be optimistic about tackling climate change. However, the tides began to turn in NYC last week, with a very real sense of optimism and unity emerging around the potential of a vibrant, clean, global economy.

I'm a business strategist and from where I'm looking, the game has changed dramatically in the past 50 years. Talent has become the critical force in the economic equation, more important than either raw materials and labor, and a worthy if not overwhelming adversary for capital.

The second week of early voting has ended and 88,371 people have voted in all reporting states, with 31 days to go until Election Day on Nov. 4. Early vote should easily eclipse 2010 in absolute terms, and likely signals higher overall turnout.

When the Secretary of Defense reiterates "no boots on the ground," military families don't breathe a sigh of relief alongside the rest of America. We know too much. Whether the Pentagon calls it a combat mission or boots on the ground won't matter much to those doing the job and wearing the boots.

World War I saw conflict across the breadth of the Middle East, from the Sinai to the Persian Gulf in the south, and in Anatolia and the Caucasus in the north. Conflict also erupted in East, South and West Africa as well as East Asia and the Pacific. The epitaph of world war was well deserved.