Sheriff Joe for governor? A recent Rasmussen Reports poll of possible matchups in the Republican primary next year shows Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio would attract 47 percent of the vote. Treasurer Dean Martin, whose campaign pitch in the past has traded on his familiar name, would come in at 22 percent if he decides […]

The Competing Narratives of Barry and Sarah In the spring of 1964, Sarah Heath, then just three months old, flew into backwater Skagway, Alaska (population 650) aboard a 1930s-era Grumman Goose to start a new life with her parents, brother, and sister. At that same time, in America’s other new outlier state, Hawaii, two-year-old Barry […]

As Bank Failures Rise, F.D.I.C. Fund Falls Into Red The government-administered insurance fund that protects depositors fell into the red for the first time since the fallout from the savings-and-loan crisis of the early 1990s as the pace of bank failures accelerated. The fund had a negative balance of $8.2 billion at the end of […]

The Wilding of Sarah Palin When I was in college, I read a book that changed my life. It was Susan Brownmiller’s tome, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which explained rape as an act of power, not just lust. What I found particularly chilling was the chapter on war — how rape is […]

Obama’s Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it’s not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming. There were only […]

Republican Deficit Hypocrisy The human capacity for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me, so it shouldn’t surprise me that so many Republicans seem to genuinely believe that they are the party of fiscal responsibility. Perhaps at one time they were, but those days are long gone. This fact became blindingly obvious to me six years […]

Why No One Expects a Strong Recovery One of the strongest factors promoting recovery from our 10 post-World War II recessions was an unshakable conviction that, regardless of the immediate trouble, the American economy is fundamentally strong. Based on this underlying confidence, recessions and recoveries roughly conformed to the principle of the bigger the bust, […]

CIA Secret ‘Torture’ Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week. Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a […]

Warlord says don’t send more US troops ‘get Italians to fight’ ONE of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords has urged America not to send more troops, insisting there are enough to beat the Taleban already – if the rest of Nato simply pulled its weight. Ismail Khan, the self-styled Emir of western Afghanistan, and three-decade veteran […]

Washington, D.C. Wins V.D. Triple Crown–Leads Nation in Syphilis, Gonorhea and Chlamydia Rates Washington, D.C., had the dubious distinction of beating all 50 states to post the highest rates in the nation for the sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, according to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and […]