Republicans seem to be pulling away in the race to win a majority in the U.S. Senate. At least this week.
In mid-September, several polls seemed to be going the other way. The well-informed Washington Post analyst Chris Cillizza wrote that for the first time in this election cycle, odds favored the Democrats keeping their majority.
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Thirty years ago, a college kid in Kentucky was caught growing marijuana plants in his closet. That turned him into a convicted felon, and though he's been on the right side of the law ever since, he still can't vote. On any job application, he must check the box next to "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"
All this misery for growing a plant whose leaves the past three presidents admit having smoked.
We know this story because Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky keeps telling it. That a Southern Republican probably running for president is condemning such prosecutions as unfair speaks volumes on the collapsing support for the war on marijuana -- part of the larger war on drugs.
Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.
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The race for the Senate is perceptively moving in the Republicans’ direction, but not so dramatically that we’re ready to call the race definitively for them.
While we’ve long said the 2014 map and midterm dynamics make a GOP takeover of the Senate a probable outcome, there are just too many close races left and more than a month to go, when big gaffes, unexpected legal actions, and national events can potentially flip a Senate seat or two.
Americans now face beheadings, gang warfare, Ebola, ISIS and a new war in Syria. It's natural to assume that the world has gotten more dangerous. But it hasn't.
People believe that crime has gotten worse. But over the past two decades, murder and robbery in the U.S. are down by more than half, and rape by a third, even as complaints about "rape culture" grow louder.
John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on Fox News and author of "No They Can't! Why Government Fails, but Individuals Succeed." For other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.
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MOBILE, Ala. -- It's been noticed by just about everyone except what we call the "liberal establishment" that of the eight Senate seats now up for grabs, four are in the South -- Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina. H. Brandt (Brandy) Ayers, the publisher of The Anniston Star in Alabama, has certainly noticed the neglect. And boy, is he frustrated.
Ayers is both a staunch liberal and Southern to the core. If the Democratic Party wants to establish a healthy dialogue in the Southern states, he told me, it has to first say, "We like you." Liberals can't just sigh at the troublesome region's sharp move right and say, "That's a Southern thing."
President Obama's speech at the United Nations last week was "an important turning point in American foreign policy -- and in his presidency." That's the verdict of Brookings Institution scholar and former Clinton White House aide William Galston, a Democrat who has not been an unqualified admirer of this Democratic president's foreign policy.
Whether Obama's decision to launch air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Khorasan terrorists is a turning point, it was at least a move in the direction of a tradition in American foreign policy that has been conspicuously lacking in his administration.
Last week, the voters of Scotland, in a heavy turnout and from age 16 up, decided not to disunite what has been arguably one of the most successful and beneficial nations over the last 307 years, the necessarily clunkily named United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
It was a relatively close-run thing: 45 percent voted for an independent Scotland, just 383,000 fewer than voted for Scotland to remain part of the now-not-necessary-to-be-renamed UK.
It shouldn't be this way, but the well-to-do tend to dominate public conversations in this country. The result has been a national preoccupation with the comfort, safety and psychological health of children like theirs -- that is, children who go to college.
Thus, the students' problems get customized attention. Government asks: How can we protect women on campus from sexual assault? How can we stop students who drink too much or are "underage"?
It's hard to believe that sexual predators roam more freely at the dorms than in society at large. Or that there's more drunkenness around student hangouts than at working-class bars
The national numbers indicate that Republicans should be on the verge of big House gains. But a district-by-district analysis suggests a different story.
As the Republican right's fear swells in advance of Hillary Clinton's anticipated presidential campaign, conservatives' feverish smears increasingly resemble the desperate gambits of a certain Wile E. Coyote. The latest episode in their cartoonish crusade appeared in The Washington Free Beacon, which headlined "The Hillary Letters" the other day with an ominous subhead: "Hillary Clinton, Saul Alinsky correspondence revealed."
Democrats often call themselves "pro-choice." Republicans defend "freedom." Unfortunately, neither party really believes in letting individuals do what we want.
When Democrats say they are "pro-choice," they are talking about abortion. Some act as if a right to legal abortion is the most important freedom in America.
The low point of the Obamacare debate -- and there was much probing of the floor -- had to be the "death panel" charge. It was the creepiest in a volley of lies aimed at killing health care reform.
What was the fuss about? A proposal to pay doctors for time spent talking to patients about the kind of care they wanted in their last days. Such conversations would be entirely voluntary.
What should we do about immigration policy? It's a question many are asking, and some useful perspective comes from an article in Foreign Affairs by British-born, California-based historian Gregory Clark, unhelpfully titled, "The American Dream Is an Illusion."
If the latest polls are accurate, most voters believe that Republican politicians deserve greater trust on matters of national security. At a moment when Americans feel threatened by rising terrorist movements and authoritarian regimes, that finding is politically salient -- and proves that amnesia is the most durable affliction of our democracy.
Which of our two great political parties is the stronger? Maybe it makes more sense to ask which of the two is weaker.
Mark Sanford's heralded engagement to Maria Belen Chapur is apparently over. The rep from South Carolina released the news to America through a Facebook post. That's how Chapur found out, too.
Another week is down the drain in the race for the Senate, and while our overall outlook is unchanged — a five to eight seat gain for the GOP — some of our ratings are in need of adjustments.
One of these comes as a surprise, as Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) is proving to be quite resilient.
Conservatives rightly point out that America is a nation of laws. No one should be exempt. That's why many oppose amnesty and other paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are here now.
"If they want to be in America," the argument goes, "they ought to return to their own countries and apply for a visa legally. America should not reward law breaking."
That sounds sensible -- but what happens when the immigrant does that, goes to the U.S. embassy and says, I'd like to work in America legally?
The tea party mantra, "I want my country back," resonates with many. The racial undertones can be ugly (as well as pointless). But the longing for an economically secure America centered on a strong middle class is on point and widely shared.
Older and mostly white members of the far right tend to see themselves as model Americans who worked hard, saved up and played by the rules. They may have done all the above, but many also have no idea of how easy they had it.
Iraq, immigration, inversion. On all three of the issues referred to, President Obama finds himself forced by events to do something he dislikes -- and he's in trouble with much of his Democratic Party base for doing so.
