This is the sixth year that I am kicking off a new year with a post on the overall state of affairs in the U.S. Some three of these posts riffed on the cowardice of our political elite while a fourth was on what I called The End of an Error, the merciful conclusion of the eight-year Bush-Cheney interregnum, which was as visceral an example of cowardice masquerading as courage seen in my lifetime. And so looking...

Sometimes, albeit rarely, politicians speak truths. They don’t mean to do so, but the words come tumbling out. And so it was with House Majority Leader John Boehner, who in his last press conference of the year following the House’s reluctant passage of the extension of pay roll tax deductions and unemployment benefits, spoke the following truth: “Sometimes it’s hard to do the right...

WASHINGTON — Four years ago this week, a young and inspirational senator who promised to turn history’s page swept the Iowa caucuses and began his irresistible rise to the White House. Barack Obama was unlike any candidate the country had seen before. More than a mere politician, he became a cultural icon, “the biggest celebrity in the world,” as a John McCain ad accurately if...

The new year brings news of a 16-year-old girl named Heaven Chamberlain, arrested with Occupy the Caucus protesters in Des Moines along with her mother. Heaven, detained once before at an Occupy rally in October, says her rap sheet is like lines on a résumé (“It shows that I’m active with the community and that I care about people’s opinions”) and that she plans to run for president in 2036 after a...

Rep. Ron Paul continues to zoom in the polls in Iowa, although the latest news is that as he undergoes more scrutiny former Sen. Rick Santorum is picking up steam and he is stalling. But the bottom line is this: Paul has a solid organization in Iowa so the polls could be misleading. On the other hand, an allegation that continues to dog him are accusations that in the newsletters under his name that he claims...

Here’s a collection of the best political cartoons of the week.

Has America’s political system now become so broken with two major political parties that indulge in politics, polemics and legislate almost by rote that the country desperately needs a new centrist party? The idea has come up over the years and analysts — speaking from the conventional wisdom — have usually labeled it a pipe dream. But the idea is becoming more popular than ever as many Americans...

Brian Fairrington, Cagle Cartoons Frequently Asked Questions About the Iowa Caucuses Raging Moderate, by Will Durst Q. A little help here. Exactly what are the Iowa Caucuses? A. The Iowa Caucuses is a method of choosing a presidential nominee. Held every four years. Usually in Iowa. Q. Why is it so important? A. Number one in the batting order. Opening stanza of an epic poem. The recorded preamble to the Republican...

Is Rick Santorum about to pull of yet another surprise in the battle for the 2002 Republican nomination? A? A new poll finds him surging — which could be bad news for Rep. Ron Paul and perhaps even former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: The Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa Poll shows a surprise three-way match-up in contention to win the Iowa Republican caucuses: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Santorum,...

Actually, Glenn Greenwald’s rant is much deeper than a discussion of Ron Paul, which is why I’m suggesting that you read it. He opens with criticisms of our presidential election season which reflect my core beliefs: America’s election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state. The worst attributes of our political culture — obsession with trivialities,...

Some years ago, particularly after the 1963 assassination of President John F.Kennedy was accurately predicted by psychic Jeane Dixon (but some say her prediction was exaggerated), the mainstream media and tabloids had a field day with end-of-the-year predictions. Sometimes these predictions were silly and didn’t come true. But sometimes they were spot on. It’s much harder to find lists of predictions...

No, her campaign is not officially over since this guy has not sung, but if it isn’t now in the tea leaves that Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s campaign is going nowheresville, it is in the coffee grinds: EARLY, Iowa – During a swing through a conservative pocket of the state Friday, with only four days before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus, Michele Bachmann visited a local restaurant to discover only a handful...

The candidate’s son Matt steps into a brouhaha by answering a question about his father’s refusal to release tax returns by being flip about Obama’s birth certificate. Bad move. The elder Romney has a valid Michigan birth certificate, but there is also the question of a death certificate, officially stamped on his passport (“He is dead”) by the French police after a lethal auto accident while...

by Walter and Rosemary Brasch In January 2009, with a new president about to be inaugurated, we wrote a column about the stories we preferred not having to write, but knew we would. Three years later, we are still writing about those problems; three years from now, we’ll still be writing about them. We had wanted the U.S. Department of the Interior to stop the government-approved slaughter of wild horses...

A new NBC Poll shows the growing political drama shaping up in Iowa in the race for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul are in a near tie — and once-politically-hot former House Newt Gingrich is dropping so fast that you could swear he had been talking about a “nahn nahn nahn” plan. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas...

If Mitt Romney wins in Iowa next week, he could find nipping at his heels still another challenger. Two weeks ago, in post-debate stupor, I woozily compared the GOP race to an action movie: “If the Great Screenwriter in the Sky is following the…plotlines, after all the car chases, explosions and reversals, the eventual nominee is clear: Rick Santorum. He’s been a bit player who has never had a big...

A new poll shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is headed for a big win in New Hampshire — as other polls show in surging in Iowa and nationally. Unless there is yet another abrupt reversal in trending in the battle for the 2012 Republican nomination, it may turn out that the original belief of Romney’s “inevitability” will prove true. Mitt Romney holds a commanding lead in the...

When Texas Governor Rick Perry couldn’t remember the third government agency he would eliminate should he become president, one could chalk that up to “well, everybody has a mental freeze once-in-a-while.” When Perry couldn’t remember the name of a Supreme Court Justice or made a mistake in the number of judges on that Court, one could say “well, we all make mistakes.” But what does one...

If I were a Republican this coming election year … I would vote for Rick Santorum because of his views on gays and lesbians and gay marriage, his promise to reinstate “don’t ask, don’t tell” and his stance on singling out Muslims for extra screening at airports. I would vote for Ron Paul for wanting to eliminate almost all of government, income taxes, the IRS and for declaring MEDICARE,...

Breaking up is hard to do, but much more expensive in today’s Hollywood than rural Georgia of three decades ago. Mel Gibson is finally divorced from his wife of more than 30 years and mother of seven children after turning over an estimated half of his $850 million in movie earnings. At the same time, the nation’s other Lethal Mouth seems to have been lying about his first divorce three decades ago as CNN...

I’ve spent most of my adult life (unlike many of my generation, I could both drink and vote at age 18) being wary of single-issue politics. However, as the parties have become increasingly indistinguishable from one another once they get into power, making a decision based on a single issue may not be as much of a cop-out as I used to think. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has been portrayed as opportunistic...

According to two “evangelical” Iowa pastors, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum are being pressured to collaborate: one should bow out and endorse the other. “Otherwise, like-minded people will be divided and water down their impact,” said Rev. Cary Gordon, a Sioux City minister. He said he asked Santorum several weeks ago to consider exiting the race but has since endorsed the former...

Greetings, students. I hope you all have a copy of your syllabus. Yes, you are in the correct classroom. This is Hypocrisy 101 at Political University. Last year we dealt with the TelePrompter issue and how Sarah Palin was blasting President Barack Obama for using a TelePrompter and many conservative talk show hosts did, too. But then she wrote notes on her hand and she and the talk show hosts pretended that...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — No matter what happens in Iowa, Mitt Romney has a safety net in New Hampshire. And that could rank as the year’s most perilous sentence. Why shouldn’t Romney be surprised in the state that temporarily derailed Barack Obama’s supposedly rapid march toward nomination four years ago? Hillary Clinton humbled many a pundit here in 2008, reason enough to challenge...

How sorry is the present state of Iraq – and how bitter do some Iraqis feel about the consequences of the U.S. invasion and withdrawal? For Iraq’s Azzaman, columnist Fateh Abdulsalam accuses President Obama of brazenly using the Iraq withdrawal to his political advantage and leaving the country ‘with a government reveling in the joys of its own corruption and the opportunistic use of the symbols...