Most publicists would kill to have three–quarters of The Washington Post’s Style section front devoted to their client. That’s the part of the newspaper devoted to A–list celebrities, arts and leisure and, when Style is lucky enough to happen upon a scandal, salacious details of the doings of the mighty.

Amid all the heated cross–currents of debate about the National Security Agency's massive surveillance program, there is a growing distrust of the Obama administration that makes weighing the costs and benefits of the NSA program itself hard to assess.

Civilization as we know it is coming apart according to the editorial board of The New York Times. This is how last Thursday’s lead editorial addressed the failure of the states to expand Medicaid, even though the federal government is willing to pick up 100 percent of the costs of the expansion for the next few years:

President Obama's belated acknowledgment that Syria's regime has used chemical weapons effectively forced his decision on Thursday to arm the opposition. Whether Mr. Obama's U–turn alters the conflict's course is a different question. One thing seems certain: Russia's support for Bashar al–Assad remains unwavering. It should make for an interesting G–8 meeting on Monday and Tuesday in Northern Ireland.

Two recent newspaper editorials illustrate the double–mindedness some feel about President Obama's decision to provide small arms and ammunition to Syrian rebels.

Somewhere in the vast expanses of North Dakota's Bakken shale formation, the idea that the United States would run out of oil came to end. Surging shale oil and natural gas production has turned conventional wisdom on its head about the nation's energy future.

Supreme Court: A 7–2 high court majority blocks states from displacing the status quo that makes voter fraud easier than credit card fraud. Federal law is helping noncitizens unconstitutionally vote liberals into power.

Klaus, former President of The Czech Republic, talks about the European Economic integration. Not a good idea in the beginning and certainly not today. The one interesting thing he said is that you can't force economics through politics. Economics are economics and they are like the laws of nature. bbm

In Detroit, more than a half–century of Democratic rule has taken the ultimate toll. On Friday, Kevyn Orr, the emergency fiscal manager appointed March 1 by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, announced that the city intends to default on approximately $2.5 billion in unsecured debt. That default is detailed in a 128–page restructuring report aimed at preventing the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history. “We have to strike a balance between the legacy obligations to our creditors and our employees and retirees and the duty as a city to 700,000 residents for lights, police, fire, emergency management, cleaning the streets,” Orr told reporters.

You’d think when the Huffington Post’s top writer on finance writes about the tax code, he’d understand at least how the tax code works. But in an age when “finance” editors, like the HuffPo’s Mark Gongloff, are demonstrably anti–business, pro–Occupy and work as shills for progressive ideas, facts take a back seat to ideology, outrage and agendas.

The revelation last month that IRS officials had routinely targeted conservative organizations for excessive scrutiny is now a major political scandal, and rightly so. When you have federal agents asking citizens about the content of their prayers and investigating breakfast conversations hosted by an 83–year–old grandmother, it is a sign the federal government is far out of control.

The most widely feared consequence of global warming appears to be sea level rise (SLR). Environmental advocacy groups are polluting the airwaves and internet with lurid images of flooding of Bangladesh and Pacific islands, and raising the specter of hundreds of millions of environmental refugees. Even sober scientists, while not endorsing such obvious scare stories, predict an acceleration of the ongoing global rise, which a system of tidal gauges places at about 18 cm (7 inches) for the past century, Other scientists stoutly maintain that there has been no acceleration—even during the strong global warming of 1920–1940.

Environment: Apparently President Obama will announce yet another set of policies next month aimed at mitigating global warming. But why? The enemy he promises to fight simply doesn't exist.

The firestorm of media coverage over a whistleblower’s revelation—that the National Security Agency (NSA) likely has been monitoring the telephone calls of most Americans and is likely reading some Americans’ emails, photos, and other electronic data without a search warrant when trying to catch suspected terrorists (a program called “Prism”)—has become muddled by pundits conflating the two distinct agency efforts.

Two years ago, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, warned that the American people "will be extremely surprised when they learn how the Patriot Act is secretly being interpreted."

The Iranian people have once again shocked the world by electing moderate cleric Hojjat al–Eslam Hassan Rouhani, a candidate that in the days running up to the vote virtually no one believed could be elected. Forced to choose between theoretically legitimizing the Islamic Republic system by participating (in order to support the candidate that best represented change), or abstaining in protest (and in doing so acquiescing to four more years of the status quo), the people overwhelmingly came out for change. Rouhani received over 18 million of the nearly 37 million votes cast; Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf was a distant second with 6 million votes, and the candidate labeled by many in the West as the frontrunner in the lead up to the election, lead nuclear negotiator Said Jalili, was third with just 4 million votes. The official national participation rate was reportedly 72.7%.

Rohani replaces Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who served in this position since the 2005 election. His disputed reelection in 2009 sent millions of young Iranians to the streets in protest. Rohani is indeed “moderate” in the sense that he cannot be worse than his predecessor, reputedly one of the militants who held U.S. diplomats hostage during the Carter presidency.

Elections: Iran–watchers and, for that matter, Iran's voters, were ecstatic at the surprise election of an apparent moderate to Iran's presidency Friday. But hold the celebration: Hassan Rowhani still answers to the mullahs.

Many Iranians are pinching themselves and smiling uncontrollably after Hassan Rowhani’s victory in the June 14 presidential election. The purple–clad campaigners for Rowhani (or Mohammad Reza Aref, who stepped aside for Rowhani a few days before the balloting) still taste the bitterness of 2009, when their call “Where is my vote?” met with the full force of the regime’s security apparatus. They knew that reform–oriented candidates do better when 65 percent or more of eligible voters participate. But on election day the Rowhani backers were justifiably wary that large segments of the electorate would simply stay home, whether because they were convinced that the result was preordained or because they were just tired of unfulfilled promises of hope and change.

Around this time two years ago, Barack Obama delivered a prime time speech in which he told viewers waiting for him to shut up and make way for American Idol, “We have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times… America, it is time to focus on nation–building here at home.”

Writing recently in the Los Angeles Times, Gordon Chang and retired Adm. James Lyons pointed with alarm to China's naval expansion.

There's a fundamental conflict at the heart of the Senate debate over the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill. Most Republicans believe a policy to integrate 11 million currently illegal immigrants into American society must be conditioned on stronger border security and internal enforcement. Most Democrats don't. At bottom, that's what the fight is about.

In what could neutralize a key Obama administration weapon to sue home lenders for discrimination, the Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a case challenging the use of a questionable civil–rights theory.

President Obama's Father's Day speech included one provocative, yet very declarative, sentence: "We should reform our child support laws to get more men working and engaged with their children." Obama didn't elaborate, but we can build on what he said because, yes indeed, child support laws urgently need "reform."