Christie on Trump's claims about New Jersey after 9/11: 'I don't recall'  —  Chris Christie does not remember the 9/11 attacks the way Donald Trump remembers them.  —  At a rally in Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday, the Manhattan business mogul recounted how he saw “thousands of thousands of people …

Beyond Distrust: How Americans View Their Government  —  Broad criticism, but positive performance ratings in many areas  —  Overview  —  A year ahead of the presidential election, the American public is deeply cynical about government, politics and the nation's elected leaders in a way that has become quite familiar.

Health Reform Lives!  —  To the right's dismay, scare tactics — remember death panels? — and spurious legal challenges failed to protect the nation from the scourge of guaranteed health coverage.  Still, Obamacare's opponents insisted that it would implode in a “death spiral” of low enrollment and rising costs.

Poll: Trump retakes lead, Cruz surges in IA; Rubio second in NH  —  Donald Trump has returned to the lead in Iowa while Ted Cruz has now surged past Ben Carson into second place.  Carson has slipped from a first-place tie into third.  —  While Iowa's Republicans generally feel Trump is ready …

Donald Trump says maybe Birmingham protester ‘should have been roughed up’  —  Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Fox News on Sunday morning that a Black Lives Matter protester thrown out of his Birmingham rally perhaps deserved to be “roughed up” for being “obnoxious.”

Telling the Truth About ISIS and Raqqa  —  On Saturday night, five young Syrians slouched into a dive bar in New York and ordered drinks.  When the bartender asked if off-brand vodka was O.K., they had to smile.  They were all exiles from Raqqa, the provincial city in northern Syria that ISIS …

The Opportunist  —  On the morning of October 10th, Marco Rubio, Florida's junior senator, mounted a small stage at the Elks Lodge in Boulder City, Nevada, a popular retirement spot near Las Vegas.  In his twenties, as an obscure Republican state legislator, Rubio exhibited such innate political skill …

Anti-Muslim Is Anti-American  —  There seems to be no bottom to the cesspool of Islamophobic rhetoric coming from Republican candidates.  —  The tone of anti-Muslim musings post-Paris attack has become so poisonous that it cannot portend anything positive.

In U.S., 51% Say Government Should Ensure Healthcare Coverage  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. adults are slightly more likely to say it is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure all Americans have health insurance coverage (51%) than to say it is not the government's responsibility (47%).

The GOP-ISIS nightmare coalition: Islamic extremists and the anti-immigrant right have the same goal — the death of democracy  —  Terrorists and the far right both see democracy as a decadent failure; at least ISIS admits they want to destroy it  —  Amid all the terror and panic …