Columns

WASHINGTON -- Amid all the dark news from Afghanistan, every now and then a sliver of light slips through the cracks. Afghanistan, it turns out, is rich in minerals. Trillions rich. It's going to become the Saudi Arabia of lithium, they say. Thanks to vast stores of that resource, plus iron, copper, cobalt and gold, this impoverished, war-torn nation could become a wealthy nation.

WASHINGTON -- Under the current imperfect administration of the Universe, most new ideas are false, so most ideas for improvements make matters worse. Given California's parlous condition, making matters worse there requires ingenuity, but voters managed to do so last Tuesday.

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Stranger than South Carolina's politics is the nearly nativist pride many take in its nastiness. Not the good folks of the Palmetto State, but rather the politicos who work diligently to manipulate the sort of voters who, for example, would elect Alvin M. Greene to the U.S. Senate. Who? Good question.

I'm going to exercise a new freedom with polling. I'm going to take advantage of my experience with a nonpartisan polling firm to ask Americans some hard-hitting questions that can't in fairness be asked by that nonpartisan firm. So today I'm introducing the first "Towery Poll" of national issues. That means I don't have to worry if some Democratic polling expert likes it or not!

WASHINGTON -- In announcing the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, President Obama stressed not once but twice Iran's increasing "isolation" from the world.

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon doesn't want it. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says it's unnecessary. Former President George W. Bush was against it, as is Barack Obama, who has threatened to veto a defense authorization bill that includes it.

Republicans are encountering some speed bumps on what they hope is the road to victory in the November elections. Their candidates for Republican open Senate seats in Ohio and Missouri are running no better than even in recent polls. The independent candidacy of Gov. Charlie Crist is threatening Marco Rubio's bid to hold the Republican Senate seat in Florida.