Hillary Clinton not comfortable in her own skin  —  Hillary Clinton walks through a paneled doorway and onto the set of “The Colbert Report.”  A grin splits her face.  She puts her arms out and rocks them up and down as if she were a mechanical toy.  —  Stephen Colbert is stunned.  Shocked.

PLATON  —  I am staying at the Hotel Metropol, a whimsical sand-colored monument to pre-revolutionary art nouveau.  Built during the time of Czar Nicholas II, it later became the Second House of the Soviets after the Bolsheviks took over in 1917.  In the restaurant, Lenin would harangue …

America Is Not For Black People  —  The United States of America is not for black people.  We know this, and then we put it out of our minds, and then something happens to remind us.  Saturday, in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo., something like that happened: An unarmed 18-year-old black man …

U.S. Could Use Ground Troops to Aid Rescue of Iraq Refugees  —  EDGARTOWN, Mass. — A senior White House official said on Wednesday that the United States would consider using American ground troops to assist Iraqis in rescuing Yazidi refugees if recommended by military advisers assessing the situation.

How Libertarians Snookered The New York Times Magazine  —  Anatomy of a journalistic train wreck.  —  Shares  —  The premise underpinning Robert Draper's New York Times Magazine cover story on the “Libertarian Moment” is that libertarians offer the cure for the Republican Party's political difficulties.

Police Fatally Shoot Man in South L.A.; Family Members Say He Was Lying Down When Shot … Family members said Tuesday that a 25-year-old man was complying with police orders when he was fatally shot by LAPD officers in the Florence neighborhood South Los Angeles.

RNC Condemns AP Exam's ‘Radically Revisionist View’ Of U.S. History  —  The Republican National Committee on Friday denounced the College Board's new framework for the AP U.S. History exam for its “consistently negative view of American history.”  —  The committee adopted a resolution during …

Fox doc steps up FLOTUS grilling  —  Fox News psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow does not think that First Lady Michelle Obama is a fit role model on fitness, calling the first lady “two-faced” on Wednesday.  —  “I do dislike hypocrisy and I really do believe that people speaking about diet …

Lauren Bacall Dies at 89; in a Bygone Hollywood, She Purred Every Word  —  Lauren Bacall, the actress whose provocative glamour elevated her to stardom in Hollywood's golden age and whose lasting mystique put her on a plateau in American culture that few stars reach, died on Tuesday in New York.

Calling All Sad Clowns  —  I put a disclaimer at the front of my Robin Williams post today, cautioning that my very quick look at the guy's political comedy was a sidebar of a sidebar.  Despite that, I've gotten some irritated email and tweets asking why I wrote a “takedown” of a dead guy and “politicized” his death.

Florida man accused of killing his roommate asked Siri where to hide the body, court hears  —  US police say a Florida man accused of killing his roommate asked Apple's digital assistant Siri for advice on hiding the body the day the man went missing.  —  Pedro Bravo, 20, is accused …

Hanabusa to sue Office of Elections to push back Puna election date  —  With power and communications still out in some Puna neighborhoods, Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa says that now is not the time to hold an election.  —  Hanabusa, who trails Sen. Brian Schatz by 1,600 votes …

Hillary Clinton Doesn't Have A Problem On Her Left  —  Hillary Clinton's recent hawkish comments about foreign policy, in which she expressed some disagreements with President Obama, have inspired reporting and speculation that liberal Democrats will grow disillusioned with her ahead of a possible presidential bid in 2016.

Childhood Lead Exposure Causes a Lot More Than Just a Rise in Violent Crime  —  Jessica Wolpaw Reyes has a new paper out that investigates the link between childhood lead exposure—mostly via tailpipe emissions of leaded gasoline—and violent crime.  Unsurprisingly, since her previous research …

Who rules America?  —  A shattering new study by two political science professors has found that ordinary Americans have virtually no impact whatsoever on the making of national policy in our country.  The analysts found that rich individuals and business-controlled interest groups largely shape policy outcomes in the United States.