That the true story of the 2005 massacre of 20 Iraqi civilians, including an elderly man in a wheelchair and women and children, has finally come out because an Iraqi was using transcripts of secret interviews with the Marines involved to cook dinner is a fitting coda to a nearly nine-year war that officially ended today. The events in the town of Haditha in Anbar Province were a horrific aberration, but they are described in dehumanized and almost blasé terms by commanders in the province as,...

Africa is a country. The Taliban rule in Libya. Muslims are terrorists. Immigrants are mostly criminals, Occupy Wall Street protesters are always dirty. And women who claim to have been sexually molested should kindly keep quiet. Welcome to the wonderful world of the Republican Party. ~ DER SPIEGEL Barack Obama, his back to the wall because of a recession he inherited, an opposition party happy to see ordinary Americans suffer, as well as problems of his own making, must believe in his heart of...

As bad ideas go, Newt Gingrich’s challenge to President Obama to meet him for a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates has something for everyone. For Gingrich supporters, it has them chomping at the bit to see the best of the Republican presidential pack as a debater take on a president who pretty good rhetorical chops. For Obama supporters, it raises the prospect of the incumbent disemboweling the challenger over his whackier ideas. For a public exhausted by the never ending Republican debates,...

Newt Gingrich, who is surging in the polls as the Iowa Republican caucuses draw nearer, is proposing a massive tax cut that has gotten much too little attention. That is probably a good thing for the presidential wannabe because it is exactly what most Americans don’t want and Washington can’t afford as it grapples with the aftershocks of the Bush Recession. The tax cuts are aimed at the highest earning households. Most of the lowest income families would get no benefit, while 1 percenters,...

For House Republicans determined to coddle the rich and kneecap the middle class and the poor, it’s a new week but the same old spit. In conceding that the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits be extended for another year, the GOP’s latest spending bill would cut social spending more deeply than is already anticipated under current budget caps and basically put the Environmental Protection Agency out of the business of regulating the environment. The bill would also impose onerous...

Jerry Sandusky leaving the Centre County Courthouse this morning. The disgraced former assistant football coach at Penn State charged with 52 counts of sexually molesting 10 boys he met through a charity he ran, waived his right to a preliminary hearing this morning. As the proceedings began in a Bellefonte, Pennsylvania courtroom, Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer approached the bench and told Judge Robert E. Scott that his client had chosen to waive his right to the hearing. The case will now enter...

These smiling folks are Kathy and Bill Johnson. Bill is a former Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arkansas. Kathy is the freaked out wife of a former Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arkansas. Kathy is freaked out because she learned over the weekend that Bill, who as a Christian conservative had campaigned against same sex marriage, has donated sperm to several lesbian women. The New Zealand Herald reported that while volunteering for earthquake recovery in Christchurch, Bill had used...

Maria Altman: Pursuer of looted paintings. Sai Baba: Whose guru are you? Swami Bahktipada: Naughy swami. Joe Bageant: His last deer hunt. George Ballas: Mr. Weed Whacker. Billy Bang: Viet vet jazz violinist. Daniel Bell: Engaged intellectual. Barry Blumberg: He defeated Hepatitis C. Fred Buckles: Last American WWI vet. Mike Campbell: He stood his ground. Click here to read more.

Mitt Romney with Capital founder William W. Bain Jr. in 1990 As economic flapdoodle goes, the notion that trickle down economics creates jobs and otherwise helps the middle class has been so thoroughly debunked that Republicans have rebranded it as “wealth redistribution.” Still, the Republican message is pretty much the same less than a month before the all-important Iowa Republican caucuses and New Hampshire primary: Thou shalt not criticize the wealthy, let alone make them pay higher taxes,...

The gunshot-riddled body of a Virginia Tech police officer making a traffic stop was not even cold yesterday afternoon before the gun nut lobby rushed in to politicize the tragedy on the campus where a student shot and killed 32 people in 2007. A second person who may be the gunman was found dead in a parking lot about a quarter mile away. First up to the plate was Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, a group that advocates allowing university students to pack heat. In a statement long on depravity...

For the longest time, Gingrich was not really a factor in this race, he was left for dead at the checkout counter at Tiffany’s. ~ DAVID AXELROD It is tempting to argue that the ongoing cage match between Karl Rove and the men who would deny him a Mitt Romney nomination is a battle for the soul of the Republican Party. Tempting but demonstrably false because the party lost its soul years ago and the man most responsible is Rove himself. Rove, who is a terrific tactician but a lousy strategist,...

Supporters of Herman Cain have tried to explain away the implosion of his campaign to a variety of factors, including him being an outsider whose campaign was understaffed, but it should be obvious to anyone with elementary math skills that Cain’s problems began with and his campaign ended over allegations of an extra-marital affair and incidents of sexual harassment that became more credible as his denials became more incredible. Nate Silver, who established himself as the preeminent analyst...

I don’t remember why I had stayed after my 1 a.m. quitting time as night city editor of the Philadelphia Daily News early on the morning of December 9, 1981, but I do remember that I was talking to Tom Schmidt, the overnight editor, when a message crackled over one of the police radio scanners: “Officer down at 13th and Arch. Send back-up and assistance.” Police Office Daniel Faulkner (photo, right) had stopped a car in Center City driven by one William Cook. According to the...

It should come as no surprise that racial animus was a factor in the historic 2008 presidential election, but until recently it was unclear how many votes Barack Obama lost because he was an African-American. The answer, according to a new study that analyzed data from nearly 200 media markets which included over 99 percent of voters, is dramatic: Racial prejudice cost Obama between 3 and 5 percent of the vote, meaning he would have won between 56.7 and 58.7 percent of the vote if the country as...

The second edition of The Bottom of the Fox: A True Story of Love, Devotion & Cold-Blood Murder is now available on Kindle. From the back dust jacket blurb: Eddie Joubert’s midlife crisis had arrived right on schedule. He fell hard for the Poconos, a resort area in Pennsylvania where he bought a rundown tavern that became a magnet for an eclectic clientele that ranged from world-class jazz musicians to bikers to returning Vietnam War veterans. But the Poconos held a dark secret. When...

Shortly after dawn 70 years ago today, Japanese warplanes launched an attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the largest U.S. military base in the Pacific. Within two hours, they had destroyed or damaged 18 warships and more than 200 aircraft, and killed 2,403 soldiers, sailors and Marines. While contemporary accounts and historians called the attack a total surprise, questions that have never been completely answered soon arose, prompting conspiracy theories, chief among them that President Roosevelt...

I cannot recall a candidate with as much baggage as Newt Gingrich having a real shot at a presidential nomination. Certainly not Bill Clinton in 1992, and you have to go back to Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 to come close. While none of these skeletons in and of themselves might spell electoral disaster, together they provide ample ammunition for Barack Obama and his surrogates. HOUSE CENSURE SKELETON The most damning of Gingrich’s skeletons is his 1997 House censure and reprimand by an overwhelming...

If you, like the DF&C and myself, are semi-vegetarians or you are a meat and poultry eater who is weary of the same old-same old holiday dinner staples of ham and turkey, mashed potatoes, yams and cranberry sauce, you might want to consider Bodega Bay Cioppino, Roasted Potatoes With Figs, and Italian Stuffed Zucchini. These dishes have become great cold-weather favorites of ours and while labor intensive they are relatively easy to prepare, make for great leftovers and can be frozen. I have...

One month ago today, the tranquility of a college campus known in more tranquil times as Happy Valley was rocked to its core with the arrest of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on 40 counts of child molestation and the arrest of the athletic director and a vice president for perjury. After initially dragging its feet, the university’s board of trustees fired legendary coach Joe Paterno and Graham Spanier, the longtime and highly regarded university president. As is often...

Republican congressfolk have stayed unfailingly on message in the run-up to the 2012 election: They vote no on everything that might possibly enhance Barack Obama’s standing even if it means allowing the economy to continue to stagnate and keep millions of Americans to remain out of work. Meanwhile, the Democrats have pretty much flailed, the president’s famous leadership qualities often have been AWOL . . . and the economy continues to stagnate with millions of Americans remaining...

That question is being asked again with the arrest of Patrick Sullivan, a 68–year-old retired Colorado country sheriff, on charges that he tried to exchange the powerful stimulant for sex with a man. The short answer is that the methamphetamine high, among other things, frees users from inhibitions and gives them the ability to screw for all day or even longer. Or so I’ve been told. Sullivan was a lawman right out of the Wild West playbook: A straight-shooting sheriff who was tough...

BE NICE, OKAY?

I have never questioned Herman Cain’s intelligence. He’s obviously got a fair amount of gray matter if he was able to graduate from prestigious Morehouse College, worked as a mathematician in ballistics for the U.S. Navy developing fire control systems, and then made millions by building a pizza empire. What has been clear from the outset of Cain’s improbable “campaign,” which I put in quotes for obvious reasons, is that he never took running for the Republican nomination...

LEW TABACKIN If you’re not an aficionado of jazz, you’ll probably want to skip this post. But if you are, read on and groove to the sounds and sensations of Zoot Fest 2011. Zoot Fest is an annual do in honor of two of the all-time great sax players — John Haley “Zoot” Sims and Alvin Gilbert “Al” Cohn (photo, below left). Long story short, Cohn was among the first of the world-class jazz musicians to move to Delaware Water Gap in the Pocono...

As predicted here in the wake of its 2010 mid-term election gains, support for the Tea Party is falling precipitously and it is dragging down the Republican Party with it only a few weeks before campaigning for the 2012 elections begin in earnest. A Pew Research Center analysis found that the decline is occurring in places not long ago considered Tea Party bastions, while support for the Republican Party has fallen even further as the number of people who disagree with the Tea Party’s goals,...