Columns

Consider it an illegal fringe benefit for illegal immigrants. Today, 12 states allow individuals who are in the United States illegally to pay the same in-state tuition rates as legal residents of the state without providing the same rates to others in the country who are here legally.

The House of Representatives and Senate will start this week off slow so members of Congress can prepare to attend the annual Christmas Ball at the White House Monday night.

For anyone who has lived with or been around mental illness -- and who has not -- "Melancholia" is a must-see movie.

The joys of Christmas do not include coping with crowds at shopping malls or wracking your brains trying to figure out what to get as a gift for someone who already seems to have everything.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind about Newt Gingrich, as he leads in polls for the Republican presidential nomination nationally and in Iowa and South Carolina, and may be threatening Mitt Romney's lead in New Hampshire.

LOS ANGELES -- In 1941, Carl Karcher was a 24-year-old truck driver for a bakery. Impressed by the large numbers of buns he was delivering, he scrounged up $326 to buy a hot dog cart across from a Goodyear plant. And the war came.

WASHINGTON -- It's Iowa minus one month, and barring yet another resurrection, or something of similar improbability, it's Mitt Romney versus Newt Gingrich. In a match race, here's the scorecard:

One question I sometimes have been asked in this presidential campaign goes something like this: Why does Mitt Romney sound so corny?

WASHINGTON -- When the Democratic National Committee circulates an ad attacking Mitt Romney even before the Iowa caucuses -- and long before his presidential nomination is clear -- one can be fairly certain that Romney is considered the greatest threat to a second Obama term.

News that two major labor unions will co-opt an Occupy protest in Washington next week solidifies two facts about the waning protest movement: it is an entirely ordinary function of left-wing activism, and it is wholly unserious about addressing special interests influence over the political process.

Now that Newt Gingrich has become the latest in a series of Republican front-runners, he is getting the kinds of scrutiny and attacks that have done in other front-runners.

What should be done about income inequality? That basic question underlies the arguments hashed out in the supercommittee and promises to be a central issue in the presidential campaign.