Scott Walker's abrupt withdrawal from the Republican presidential race Monday afternoon shows how different, in ways noticed and unnoticed, this campaign cycle is from those of recent years.
Whatever else it is, the Republican presidential contest has become a full employment act for reporters and analysts. With the largest (though gradually shrinking) field of any major party in U.S. history and a Republican electorate that appears mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore, the GOP caravan is careening down the highway with drivers hurling insults at one another and racing recklessly to get into position for the voting that begins in a little over four months.
Speaking under the hateful gaze of Che Guevara in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution — a shrine to ruthless communism — Pope Francis scolded us to “serve people, not ideas.”
There's only one time when you can depend on the chronically backlogged, recklessly inefficient Department of Homeland Security to perform smoothly: election season.
Government wants you to think it helps you at every turn. Every time you make a decision, a purchase, government wants to be there, looking essential.
Pope Francis has created political controversy, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor. We can no doubt expect more of the same during his visit to the United States.
As the 2016 presidential selection process proceeds, there is increasing evidence that the political patterns we have grown used to, that we have come to consider permanent, might be suddenly changing.
You would think that a groundbreaking TV show for women hosted by women would do its best every day to respect and uplift women.
Of all the stupid things people say while talking about politics, the one whose stupidity never ceases to astound me is that we're all out of room for new immigrants.
Haven't the nativists ever flown cross-country? Grab a window seat! If America has anything, it's space.
Human beings are hard-wired to protect young children. That's the easiest explanation of the rush of Europeans -- especially, but not only, elites -- to welcome huge numbers of refugees after publication of the picture of a dead three-year-old boy on a Turkish beach.
Oh, this is schadenfreude-licious. Outspoken celebrity Democratic activist/donor Matt Damon opened his mouth and let the truth about the left's superficial commitment to "diversity" slip out.
It was a debate with winners (certainly Carly Fiorina) and losers (sorry, Scott Walker). Mainly, though, the Reagan Rumble reinforced the strengths and weaknesses that voters already associate with each of the candidates. Already, millions tuned in mainly to cheer for their current choice.
In this presidential cycle, voters in both parties, to the surprise of the punditocracy, are rejecting experienced political leaders. They're willfully suspending disbelief in challengers who would have been considered laughable in earlier years.
You have run a near-flawless campaign.
At every turn, your originality and unpredictability have outsmarted the most highly touted minds in the political world today. Every time they count you out, you gain 10 more points in the polls. It is, as you yourself might say, a-MAAAAAAAAZ-ing.
In a country with more than 300 million people, it is remarkable how obsessed the media have become with just one -- Donald Trump. What is even more remarkable is that, after six years of repeated disasters, both domestically and internationally, under a glib egomaniac in the White House, so many potential voters are turning to another glib egomaniac to be his successor.
On the anniversary week of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Obama is rolling out the welcome mat to tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees. What could go wrong?
Some time in the early evening of Wednesday, London time, Queen Elizabeth II broke a record: she became the longest-serving monarch in British history, beating her great-great-grandmother Victoria's reign of 63 years and 216 days. She is also, at 89, by a solid stretch the longest-lived British monarch.
You may not like ex-Vice President Dick Cheney and you may not miss former President George W. Bush but you have to give them credit. They did not do things halfway.
