Columbia's disgrace  —  There is a suicidal mania that grips elite opinion in the United States.  It is exemplified nowhere better than in our elite educational institutions.  Today, for example, Columbia University has issued the following statement to its alumni:

Donors Stir 'Bundling' Questions  —  Clinton Campaign Vows  —  To Check Contributions  —  Solicited by Supporter  —  BRISTOW, Va. — When Hillary Rodham Clinton held an intimate fund-raising event at her Washington home in late March, Pamela Layton donated $4,600, the maximum allowed by law …

New al-Qaida video released  —  CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri said the United States was being defeated in Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts in a new video released Thursday, the latest in a series put out by the terror network.  —  The video came days …

Longer Leaves for Troops Blocked  —  Senate Republicans yesterday rejected a bipartisan proposal to lengthen the home leaves of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, derailing a measure that war opponents viewed as one of the best chances to force President Bush to accelerate a redeployment of forces.

McCain seen struggling to raise money  —  Sen. John McCain's recent "no-surrender-in-Iraq" campaign tour generated enough press buzz for a slight bounce in the polls, but donations continue to head south, along with his prospects of becoming president, some Republicans say.

Taxing the Hand That Feeds Us  —  REPUBLICAN presidential candidates can't get elected without owning the tax issue.  So far, the current crop is giving it away.  —  A huge reason for Ronald Reagan's popularity was his cutting of all income-tax rates and ending of "bracket creep," …

Obama's Return to Message of 'Change'  —  Over the next few months, there will be hundreds of television ads run by the candidates for president and scores of interest groups hoping to influence the primary and caucus electorate.  —  But no ad may be more important — both literally and figuratively …

Free trade must be fair trade  —  In baseball, if the pitcher on one team must throw off of a mound 90 feet from home plate while his opponent is allowed to stand 30 feet closer, that is an uneven playing field.  —  And if the umpire refuses to enforce any of the rules of the game, you have an all-around flawed process.

Fears of dollar collapse as Saudis take fright  —  Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East.

Terror Watch: A Secret Lobbying Campaign  —  The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to know about  —  The nation's biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with the White House, have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve …

Darth Cheney  —  "You can always tell when the Republicans are getting restless, because the Vice President's motorcade pulls into the Capitol, and Darth Vader emerges," Clinton said just now at Town Hall in New York.  —  "I'm not invited to their meetings and I don't know what he says or does," she said.

Pants Update: The Dry Cleaners Shuts Down  —  Roy Pearson, the D.C. administrative law judge whose $67 million lawsuit against his neighborhood dry cleaners turned into a worldwide lesson in how one obsessed person can hijack the American legal system, lost his case in court …

I Don't Support the Troops..oops, there, I said it  —  This has been digging at me for, oh, about 4 years now.  I have been hesitant to express this thought, in comments sections and in discussion with other people about the Iraq quagmire for fear of, I don't know, being called mean.  Or, un-American.

The Pied Piper of Crawford  —  The bizarre and dishonest National Intelligence chief, Michael McConnell, is back up on the hill pushing for a permanent expansion of the warrantless wiretapping law he browbeat the congress into passing last August.  Only this time making sure that his former …