"The Disappearing Black Middle Class" ran the headline over the Chicago Sun-Times story. And the statistics from the Economic Policy Institute were indeed sobering.

By refusing to accept tax increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, Republicans are behaving like "fanatics," writes David Brooks of The New York Times.

As President Bush prepared to invade Iraq in September 2002, the head of his economic policy council, Lawrence Lindsey, publicly estimated such a war could cost $100 billion to $200 billion.

"The opponents (of same-sex marriage) have no case other than ignorance and misconception and prejudice."

Centuries before William James coined the phrase, men have sought a "moral equivalent of war," some human endeavor to satisfy the jingoistic lust of man, without the carnage of war.

In deciding to pull all of the 30,000 troops from the surge out of Afghanistan, six weeks before Election Day 2012, but only 10,000 by year's end, President Obama has satisfied neither the generals nor the doves.

"Is our children learning?" as George W. Bush so famously asked. Well, no, they is not learning, especially the history of their country, the school subject at which America's young perform at their worst.

Is there any redeeming social value to the tawdry tale of Anthony Weiner?

In 1918, the United States proved militarily decisive in the defeat of the Kaiser's Germany and emerged as first power on earth.