While the American media's interest in Asia seems solely focused on the recovery efforts of Flight 370, China is once again expanding its sphere of influence by holding multi-national joint naval drills at the end of this month. The People's Daily News has reported that ships from 4 countries have already arrived, with officers from over 20 nations expected to participate.

Esquire and NBC places this number at 51 percent. A Gallup poll finds that only 34 percent of Americans self-identified as moderates in 2013.

Remember when Vladimir Putin was a land-grabbing nationalist dictator who invaded Georgia? This was before he was our strategic partner who shocked the world by being a land-grabbing nationalist dictator who invaded Ukraine. That was in 2008.

To All Candidates for Secretary of State,

As co-chairs of the Independent Voter Project, we are respectfully requesting that all of the candidates for secretary of state decline to participate in the Sacramento Press Club event scheduled for Wednesday. The Press Club has chosen to deny David Curtis, a Green Party candidate, the right to participate in this debate.

On FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s website, he recently predicted that the GOP will win the U.S. Senate, and retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Due to President Obama’s lagging popularity and the GOP’s more viable candidates, Silver’s research forecasts that Republicans are favored to win at least 6 seats in the Senate alone.

Editor's note: This article, originally published on April 22, was updated on April 25, 2014. The initial article had Ret. Staff Sgt. Dean Graham's name as Alex Graham. The article has been corrected.

On Monday, April 21, a federal appeals court ordered the release of key parts of a memorandum detailing the justification behind targeted drone strikes against people linked to terrorism, including U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. The 3-judge panel from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed to reverse a lower court's decision by ordering the DOJ to release this information.

There is no doubt that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has had a rocky roll-out. Delays, computer glitches, frustrations over coverage, gaps in coverage depending on residency, and general political malaise have given the program a very murky and pessimistic start.

In 1946, after winning control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate for the first time in 14 years, Republican legislators set about establishing term limits for the office of President of the United States. The Twenty-Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed and later ratified largely because of the unprecedented four-term presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

As the Republican Party seeks to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014, an Illinois district that favors Democrats could eventually become more competitive.

Illinois' 8th Congressional District, which encompasses parts of Cook, Kane, DuPage, and Lake Counties, is a district that was redrawn after the 2010 census to favor Democrats.