Romney trounces Perry in Michigan straw poll; Rubio the pick for VP  —  MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. - In a rout, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney trounced Rick Perry and the rest of the GOP field to win the National Journal Hotline/National Association of Home Builders Straw Poll …

Obama Tells Blacks to ‘Stop Complainin’ and Fight  —  In a fiery summons to an important voting bloc, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and “put on your marching shoes” to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.  —  And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too.

Wall Street protesters cuffed, pepper-sprayed during ‘inequality’ march  —  Scores of protesters were arrested in Manhattan Saturday as a march against social inequality turned violent.  —  Hundreds of people carrying banners and chanting “shame, shame” walked between Zuccotti Park …

Left Behind: How Democrats Are Losing the Political Center  —  If you don't think ideological perceptions matter in American politics, you need read no further.  If you do and you're a Democrat, there's something to worry about.  Even as the terms of the political debate in Washington …

Whatever Happened to the American Left?  —  Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown, a co-editor of Dissent and the author of “American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation.”  —  SOMETIMES, attention should be paid to the absence of news.  America's economic miseries continue …

Justice After Troy Davis  —  IT'S easy to see why the case of Troy Davis, the Georgia man executed last week for the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer, became a cause célèbre for death penalty opponents.  Davis was identified as the shooter by witnesses who later claimed to have been coerced by investigators.

Tysons Corner: The building of an American city  —  Imagine, it's a shivery January morning in 2014 and you are riding one of the first of Metro's Silver Line cars to Tysons Corner.  —  After you step aboard downtown, the train runs west out of the District and into Arlington County.

Small Donors Are Slow to Return to the Obama Fold  —  They were once among President Obama's most loyal supporters and a potent symbol of his political brand: voters of moderate means who dug deep for the candidate and his message of hope and change, sending him $10 or $25 or $50 every few weeks or months.

In Arizona, Complaints That an Accent Can Hinder a Teacher's Career  —  PHOENIX — When Guadalupe V. Aguayo puts her hand to her heart, faces the American flag in the corner of her classroom and leads her second-graders in the Pledge of Allegiance, she says some of the words — like allegiance …