Is inflation in this country well under control? You might think so if you listen to what’s coming from the Fed on the subject, or even from Paul Krugman, whose analysis of economic matters I usually find quite perceptive. Unfortunately, however, inflation here is not well under control when you look at it more closely and distinguish between “bad inflation” and “good inflation”...

Even before the humiliating failure of North Korea’s Taepo Dong-2 missile launch, the regime there was already considering the possibility of failure and whom to blame it on. Well, not exactly. The paranoid leadership apparently entertained the possibility of the “U.S., Japan and the ‘group traitors’ running South Korea” intercepting the rocket, and promised an ‘Unimaginable and Miserable Punishment’...

The Real Ike by Richard Cohen Washington Post Columnist One day in 1967, Dwight D. Eisenhower came to New York for the opening of an exhibit of his paintings at the old Huntington Hartford Museum on Columbus Circle. Ike, like Churchill, was an amateur painter and, like Churchill, was more ambitious than talented. Ike’s paintings were simple farm scenes and the like, and you would think therefore that...

Was Fox News Pulling for Romney? by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown According to the RealClearPolitics website, Newt Gingrich recently told a Tea Party meeting in Delaware, “I think Fox has been for Romney all the way through. In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than Fox this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of Fox, and we’re more likely...

Will the Summit of the Americas, to be held in Colombia this weekend, call for drug decriminalization? Columnist Julio E. Mayaudon of Venezuela’s El Carabobeno writes that despite all the evidence supporting an orderly decriminalization, an alliance of sorts between the U.S. and more authoritarian states will doom plans for legalization: The U.S. opposes it, preferring to put the burden on producing...

Welcome to the Etch-a-Sketch. Now, if you’re paying attention, you just learned the Achilles heel of the Romney campaign. If you haven’t been paying attention, that’s YOUR Achilles heel, which they intend to exploit. I speak of course, of Ann Romney’s dirty crack.

Did you know that working moms who don’t watch Fox are socialists? Neither did I. But then I asked some folks on Twitter, who were beating up on a friend of mine who is a left of center lady, not unlike myself, and was on Fox this morning (the national cable version, not the local), if they could link to the clip about which they were razzing my friend, since, being a working parent, I don’t watch...

The Rich Are Different from You and Me – They Pay Less Taxes by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship Benjamin Franklin, who used his many talents to become a wealthy man, famously said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But if you’re a corporate CEO in America today, even they can be put on the back burner – death held at bay by the best medical care money can buy and the latest in...

UPDATE: The feud continues. The man — the Daily News called him a “Cry Baby” back in 1995 — who “closed down the government because Clinton made him sit at back of plane,” now has an even more devastating revenge in store for Fox News. Jeremy Peters over at The Hill informs us that Gingrich and Callista will be sitting at CNN’s table, not Fox, at the White House Correspondent’s dinner. Referring...

Beleaguered Syrian cities, including Idlib, Homs, Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, Aleppo and Damascus, have enjoyed about ten hours of relative quiet so far on Thursday as President Bashar al-Assad’s gunmen silenced their weapons. But concern is rising that both sides are using the lull to restock and resupply to fight more fiercely within days or even hours. The ceasefire is already starting to look like an opportunity...

Could this be the dawn of a new era in the battle against illegal drug use? According to columnist Cristina de la Torre of Colombia’s El Espectador, for the first time in the 40-year history of the drug war, a ‘third way’ is being considered by leaders planning to attend the Summit of the Americas in Colombia next weekend: instead of a ‘shooting war,’ a ‘preventive war’. For...

Time passes and takes with it those who can bear witness, reality becomes history, but in the deep well of national memory, the past holds lessons for the future. On this day 67 years ago, I was in uniform in a sleeping bag on a German farmhouse floor when someone shook me awake to whisper, “Roosevelt is dead.” At 21, I was part of a generation that could remember no other president. FDR had been sworn into...

UPDATE 3: How nice: Hilary Rosen has apologized for her comments about Ann Romney and some conservatives now attack her for raising children as a lesbian. This is a classic case where a Democrat put her foot in her mouth, gave an issue to GOPers and some on the GOP side overreached and undermined an issue handed to them on a silver platter. It’s another example of how partisans and ideologues escalate...

Consider it now officially on. President Barack Obama has sent the following fundraising email which shows how the Dems will frames the election; Friend – We now know who our opponent is. But what we’re really fighting against is what our opponent has pledged to do if elected. He would shower billionaires with more huge tax breaks, oppose setting a timeline to bring our troops home from Afghanistan,...

By WALTER BRASCH She quietly walked into the classroom from the front and stood there, just inside the door, against a wall. I continued my lecture, unaware of her presence until my students’ eyes began focusing upon her rather than me. “Yes?” I asked. Just “yes.” Nothing more. “You shouldn’t have done it,” she said peacefully. I was confused. So she said it again, this time a little sharper. “Ma’am,”...

Is there a king-sized political summer for independents at the end of Maine’s long season of Snowe? Those who believe our two political parties are increasingly predictable, non-and-counter productive and rhetorically toxic may have reason to hope. The eyes of independents are on Maine and the Senate bid of former independent Governor Angus King, who’s running to replace disgusted-with-the-partisanship,...

WASHINGTON — Rick Santorum’s departure from the presidential race could not come soon enough for Mitt Romney. In proving himself more tenacious than anyone predicted, Santorum dramatized one of Romney’s major problems, created another, and forced the now inevitable Republican nominee into a strategic dilemma. Republicans may condemn class warfare, but their primaries turned into a...

Sorry to bother you, Mr. B. But something happened this morning I thought you should know about. What is it Selig? A leak in the piping? I hope my Stall #8 hasn’t been flooded. No, sir. Nothing that serious. It was just that guy who came by this morning. I don’t know who he was, but he said he was here to install gun mounts over the sinks and toilet bowls. Oh that. No need to worry. He was authorized....

A semi-respectful period of time has passed since Rick Santorum cited the ongoing illness of Bella, his three-year-old daughter in bowing out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. With wishes for a long and happy life to Bella and with all due respect to the Santorum family, this is about as cowardly an end to a presidential campaign that I can recall. Bella has been chronically ill since...

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.