If the area were on or near the U.S. continental shelf, such data could well provide an enemy with strategically invaluable insights into undersea access routes that could be used to attack some of the millions of Americans who live on or near our coasts.

The object of China's strategy is inexorably to supplant the United States as the world's premier economic power, and if necessary, to defeat us militarily.

To his lasting credit, President Reagan never wavered. He recognized the strategic importance of staying the course, both in terms of denying Moscow the military hegemony it sought in Western Europe and of restoring the will, cohesiveness, and security of the NATO alliance, so badly frayed during the turbulent 1970s.

History demonstrates that previous military drawdowns invited aggression by our enemies. After World War I, America drew down forces until the U.S. Army had fewer than 100,000 men in uniform. That weakness invited Nazi aggression in Europe and the imperial Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.

We don't need new taxes. We need new taxpayers, people that are gainfully employed, making money and paying into the tax system. And then we need a government that has the discipline to take that additional revenue and use it to pay down the debt and never grow it again.

In politics, you have to balance these things: what is good for the country, what is available, and what is possible.

The challenge in working in politics, particularly if you're working for a political party, is that everyone's a messenger.

Modeling was never anything that was a career choice. I did catalog work in Toronto to make money so that I could go to school.