Looters in Loafers  —  Last October, I saw a cartoon by Mike Peters in which a teacher asks a student to create a sentence that uses the verb “sacks,” as in looting and pillaging.  The student replies, “Goldman Sachs.”  —  Sure enough, last week the Securities and Exchange Commission accused …

Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor  —  The People and Their Government  —  By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days.  A new Pew Research Center survey finds a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government …

LEAVE THE 19TH AMENDMENT ALONE.... I like to think I can take a joke, and appreciate political commentary intended as humor, but this item from Thomas Mitchell, editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, wasn't amusing.  The headline read, “Time to repeal the 19th Amendment?”

Tancredo: Send Obama ‘back’ to Kenya  —  Former congressman Tom Tancredo's speech at the National Tea Party was a misstep that gave organizers their only lasting, negative coverage.  At a Sunday afternoon tea party rally in Greenville, S.C., where he was the keynote speaker, Tancredo stepped in it again.

Obama's health reform isn't modeled after Heritage Foundation ideas  —  Think tank analysts usually brim with pride when the president of the United States goes around claiming that his policies are based on their work.  But when President Obama tries to sell his health-care law …

Crist pulls ads; LeMieux dismisses indy talk  —  The Marco Rubio campaign says Charlie Crist has halted all its TV advertising in the Orlando and Tampa Bay markets where the anti-Rubio spots were airing.  That's presumably a sign that Crist has decided to marshal his resources for later or perhaps drop out altogether.

World warming to US under Obama, BBC poll suggests  —  Views of the US around the world have improved sharply over the past year, a BBC World Service poll suggests.  —  For the first time since the annual poll began in 2005, America's influence in the world is now seen as more positive than negative.

2 al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders killed, prime minister says  —  BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced Monday that the two leaders of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq have been killed.  —  In a televised news conference, Maliki said Abu Ayyub al-Masri …

Airlines condemn ‘European mess’  —  The body that represents the world's airlines, IATA, has criticised Europe's governments for the way they closed air space because of volcanic ash.  —  The head of the airline industry body, Giovanni Bisignani, told the BBC:"This is a European embarrassment and it's a European mess".

White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S.  —  When President Obama took the stage in Cairo last June, promising a new relationship with the Islamic world, Muslims in America wondered only half-jokingly whether the overture included them.  After all, Mr. Obama had kept his distance during the campaign …

North Carolina Democrats' votes against health care push labor to form party  —  RALEIGH, N.C. — A political rebellion is brewing inside an old funeral home near the state Capitol here.  Frustrated liberals and labor organizers are taking aim at the Democratic Party, rushing to gather enough signatures …

Op-Ed Contributor: Violence Is Unacceptable in a Democracy  —  FIFTEEN years ago today, the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City claimed the lives of 168 men, women and children.  It was, until 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in United States history.

Hill's aides in ‘bully’ crystal  —  WASHINGTON — Politically connected staffers in Hillary Rodham Clinton's State Department twisted arms to steer a $5.4 million contract for crystal stemware to a tiny interior-design firm without putting it out for bid — a move that shut out a well-known …

David Gregory: “No, I won't fact check my guests and you guys can't make me...” A time line.  —  David Gregory, the host of NBC's Meet the Press, has painted himself into a strange corner with his assertion that there's no need to fact check what his guests say on the air because viewers can do that “on their own terms.”

Time's Klein: Beck, Palin Potentially Committing Sedition against U.S. Government; Heilemann Adds Limbaugh  —  Liberals are all too often eager to charge conservative personalities of using hyperbole to gain a political advantage, especially when it contradicts their world view …