“I think it’s time,” declaimed Rick Perry out of the blue during the Oct. 18 GOP candidates debate in Las Vegas, “for us to have a serious discussion about defunding the United Nations.” No one seconded the notion. Was this the opening round of a Perry effort to boost his flagging campaign by playing an [...]

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is running an extraordinary three-part series on city police violating the laws they were sworn to uphold, ranging from minor offenses to sexual assault, and often getting off with a slap on the wrist or, sometimes, no punishment. The series started Oct. 23; a second article was to appear Oct. 26 [...]

As American troops prepare to head for the exit in Iraq, pundits prepare to critique the war. Let me contribute my two cents worth: the war was a spectacular failure for the vaunted American system of checks and balances. The only checks in evidence were those written to pay for the trillion or so dollars [...]

One of the last great radio and television correspondents, Bob Pierpoint, died Saturday. The following information isn’t all that matters, of course, in the scheme of who a person is or was, but his career statistics are impressive. As CBS White House correspondent Pierpoint covered six Presidents, from Eisenhower to Reagan, 12 national elections, President [...]

Bill Keller, who stepped down recently as head of the news operation of the New York Times, wrote a candid piece about this country’s invasion of Iraq for the Sept. 11 Times magazine that deserves more attention than it received. Keller labels the attack on Iraq “a monumental blunder,” and he is as unsparing of [...]

Texas Gov. Rick Perry put his foot, cowboy boot and all, in his mouth when he declared Social Security to be an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme. Unconstitutional? Social Security has been the law of the land since 1937. It was validated by several of the country’s finest legal minds. If there is ever a high court [...]

If you are a progressive, perhaps you got a “First, fill in your name” email requesting money from Barack Obama back during the ’08 campaign? That artful first person oh-so-friendly email, adroitly and effectively designed to make you feel that, hey, you could walk right into campaign headquarters and get a big fat hug from [...]