If you're looking for a handy guide to the blame game over the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Vox has a helpful primer to "how the US, its allies, and its enemies all made ISIS possible." Zach Beauchamp's list of the guilty--the United States, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and his sectarian […]

The past week has been very kind to Texas Governor Rick Perry and the Republican Party. That might sound like an odd statement to make after one of the GOP's 2016 highest profile White House hopefuls was indicted for abuse of power back in the Lone Star State. Nevertheless, there are three reasons to believe […]

The gruesome murder of American reporter James Foley was horrific enough, but now right-wing bloggers and conservative commentators seem determined to make it more grotesque still. With word from ABC News that the Obama White House was aware that ISIS was threatening to kill Foley and fellow journalist Steven Sotloff in retaliation for American air […]

Former Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords passed away Monday at the age of 80. President Obama eulogized Jeffords, whose departure from the GOP briefly handed control of the Senate to the Democrats. "Whatever the issue - whether it was protecting the environment, supporting Americans with disabilities, or whether to authorize the war in Iraq - Jim […]

With tensions still running very high in Ferguson, Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon ordered National Guard units to the area in an effort to restore calm--and confidence--in the community. It would be hard for the Guardsmen to do worse than the local police, whose heavy-handed, confrontational tactics and shocking insensitivity only served to incite conflict. And […]

These things happened in the United States this year. An unarmed man was killed by police, supposedly for stealing some cigars. Those who took to the streets simply seeking truth, among them some looters, were denounced by some conservatives and an entire news network as "thugs" and "lynch mobs." Just months earlier, a Nevada tax […]

With the word that NBC correspondent Chuck Todd will replace David Gregory as the host of the withered carcass that is Meet the Press, the chattering classes left and right are offering their advice on reanimating the corpse of the once-proud Sunday talk show. Ultimately, though, there is only piece of guidance for the Beltway's […]

"Israel has no better friend than the U.S.," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed to a joint session of Congress in 2011, "and the U.S. has no better friend than Israel." As recent events have once again confirmed, Bibi is only half-right. As the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, Netanyahu's government not only worked around the […]

Over just the last few weeks, three unarmed African-American men have been killed by police. After the Michael Brown was gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri, President Obama urged all Americans to "remember this young man through reflection and understanding" and to "comfort each other and talk with one another in a way that heals, not […]

Watching Rick Perry 2.0 get Biblical on his audience this weekend in Iowa has some conservatives seeing starbursts again. "Dressed all in black, Governor Rick Perry took the podium at the Family Leadership Summit and quoted the book of Isaiah," Breitbart News gushed. "Here am I, send me!" he said. Now, if this riff sounds […]