The economy has been staggering, with stagnant or no growth, for several years, after a financial crisis. Loud complaints have been raised against Wall Street financiers and the concentration of great wealth in few hands. Rapid technological development is generating massive economic change, with many old-line jobs vanishing. Majorities disapprove of the Democratic president, as they had of his Republican predecessor.
The presidential nomination process has a history of being fuzzy. For much of the nation’s political existence, starting in the 1830s, national party conventions selected nominees for the highest office in the land. At these events, the oft-used term “smoke-filled rooms” described the sometimes behind-the-scenes activity that led to the final selection of a nominee. Sometimes this person was an obvious, well-known national figure; other times, an unexpected, relative unknown captured the nomination.
Because the crime rate is zero, the potholes are all fixed and homelessness has been completely eradicated, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio now has time to focus on what really matters to Big Apple taxpayers:
“Two Corinthians 3:17,” said Donald Trump, misstating the traditional way American Christians most commonly refer to the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.
You would have thought Mr. Trump had slandered a disabled minority, based on the horrified and merciless reaction from the press.
Hillary Clinton: "Of course we want to raise the minimum wage!"
The race for president is accelerating in high gear, or, rather, the races for president -- in the Republican and Democratic parties, in the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary and primaries and caucuses to come. How's it going? Let's look at these separate races.
After months of watching all sorts of political polls, we are finally just a few weeks away from actually beginning to see some voting in primary elections. Polls let people vent their emotions. But elections are held to actually accomplish something.
Is the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, a RINO -- a revolutionary in name only?
In his final State of the Union speech Barack Obama made at least a few bows toward the idea that America is an exceptional nation, an idea he once derided by saying, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks" -- this was before their fiscal crisis -- "believe in Greek exceptionalism." We remain exceptional, he said in Tuesday's speech, as the world's strongest nation militarily and because we're doing better economically than most other large nations.
To awaken Thursday to front-page photos of U.S. sailors kneeling on the deck of their patrol boat, hands on their heads in postures of surrender, on Iran's Farsi Island, brought back old and bad memories.
What is there to add about Donald Trump that has not already been said? The political world has moved from disbelieving that he would even follow through and become a candidate, to expecting him to wither on the vine as more conventional choices gained steam, to accepting his nomination as a distinct possibility, to speculating that he will go all the way and defeat Hillary Clinton in November.
In the commercial that President Obama released prior to his final State of the Union address, Obama said he would tell Congress how "optimistic" he is about America's future.
Ka-ching! Wednesday's Powerball jackpot soared to $1.5 billion as get-rich-quick mania seized America this week. But you don't need to wait for the drawing to know who'll score the royal payoff.
Even at the end of seven good and prosperous years, a president’s final State of the Union address is a tough act. There is no one left to blame. By this point in a presidency, he owns the current state of the union.
The Census Bureau has delivered its annual Christmas gift to demographic junkies: its estimates of the populations of the 50 states and the District of Columbia for mid-2015.
Three weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, and clarity emerges.
In recent years, a small but growing number of people have advocated a convention of states to propose amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The reaction to the proposal has been hostile, out of all proportion to either the originality or the danger of such a convention.
Rough and tumble. Hammer and tongs. In the race for this year's Republican nomination, Donald Trump has not hesitated to attack and ridicule many of his opponents, and some of them have teed up attacks on him, only to hold back when they seemed to help rather than hurt him.
For Xi Jinping, it has been a rough week.
Panicked flight from China's currency twice caused a plunge of 7 percent in her stock market, forcing a suspension of trading.
The CW on New Year's Day Has Often Been Wrong
