By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Delicious irony, perhaps: the tea party has been reinvigorated and reinvented following revelations that its groups' nonprofit status had been singled out and investigated by the IRS. Though a critical news media has tried to purge the conservative, liberty-minded grass-roots movement from the public radar, the tea partyers still push back in huge numbers, and on their own terms. Rush Limbaugh now deems the tea party "fearless."
The last of the college applications have been rewritten, tweaked and polished and at last entrusted to the tender mercies of the U.S. mail or the Internet.
"Waste your vote on me," begs Gary E. Johnson to curious or disenchanted voters everywhere. The Libertarian Party candidate is calling on fierce local fans to amplify his message with grass-roots fervor, a campaign strategy of former presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul.
The cost of a college education has soared far in excess of the cost of health care. This is in spite of -- or, more accurately, because of -- massive government involvement in subsidizing and running schools. On the one hand, we have President Obama, who wants to double down and have Uncle Sam play a larger role in the classroom.
It could be a first in the annals of excruciating politics: the Obama campaign has used the word "damn" in a voter outreach.
The bodacious victory of Ted Cruz in the Texas Republican primary has somehow fired up Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose own right-hand man lost to Mr. Cruz on Tuesday by 14 fat percentage points. But the ever-canny Mr. Perry has ridden the Cruz victory like a bronco, tamed his own presidential disappointment and framed the Lone Star State in heroic terms.
University of Tennessee law professor and blogger Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds begins "The Higher Education Bubble" with a quote and an explanation. The quote is the late economist Herb Stein, father of Ben Stein, reminding us that "something that can't go on forever, won't."
Almost everyone knows the country went through the wringer after the housing bubble burst. Now a new bubble looms before us - the higher-education bubble.
Oh woe is us: "The national mood is a drag on President Obama's re-election prospects," according to Gallup poll analyst Lydia Saad, who says that several indicators could prove "troublesome" come November.
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney turns 65 on Monday. Frequently attired in jeans and shirtsleeves, Mr. Romney is not embracing geezerhood, though he has 16 grandchildren. Neither is Rep. Ron Paul, 76, who would rather be pedaling a Cannondale bike; Rick Santorum, 53, who has a 3-year-old child; or Newt Gingrich, 68, who cultivates the dynamic statesman look with perfectly tailored suits.
As a complex week full of discord looms, consider "President Reagan's Favorite Macaroni and Cheese," a recipe shared by "Mrs. Ronald Reagan, Washington, D.C., Wife of the President" in a spiral-bound community cookbook published by the American Cancer Society's Northern Virginia division in 1983.
"A strong public interest exists in knowing whether the executive in charge of the nations most-watched cable newschannel is acting as a political consultant to a prospective Republican presidential candidate. As journalists, plaintiffs may properly assert that public interest as a basis for obtaining these records."
Vilification has set in: Arnold Schwarzenegger's marital infidelity was politicized the moment the news he fathered a love child with a household employee hit public radar.
It may have looked like boom times for earmarkers in 2006, when they carved out a record $29 billion in projects — but little did lawmakers realize that a perfect storm of events the year before had set the clock ticking on pork.
Capitol Hill insiders say at least 75 percent of lawmakers privately still think earmarking is a correct and proper use of congressional authority. Yet last week, one of the Senate's champion earmarkers, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, hammered home the nail that officially ended the practice — at least for the time being.
"The record of cameras catching terrorists has really been pretty lousy," said Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, in the Herald. "If in fact they caught these guys through the cameras, it's pretty much the first time."
"Bubbles form when too many people expect values to go up forever," Mr. Reynolds says. "Bubbles burst when there are no longer enough excessively optimistic and ignorant folks to fuel them. And there are signs that this is beginning to happen already where education is concerned."
