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Once you become Chicago's mayor — or one of its alderman, for that matter — getting reelected is ordinarily a fairly easy proposition. The scheduling of Election Day, the fourth Tuesday in February in an off year, is deliberately designed to generate a low-turnout result. Incumbents' well-oiled political machines turn out their old reliable voters, while to have any kind of chance, challengers…

Wow, that's pretty impressive sourcing. Alarm bells are ringing among liberals in the media that Wisconsin governor and unflappable conservative Scott Walker could well pose a problem for Hillary Clinton's (second) presumptive coronation as president.

In an almost completely expected decision, the Department of Justice yesterday announced that it "found insufficient evidence to pursue federal criminal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman for the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, 2012." In reporting on the announcement, Jennifer Kay and Eric Tucker at the Associated Press were predictably selective in recounting the details…

On Friday, Jim Kuhnhenn at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, seemed to enjoy President Barack Obama's rant against Republicans and others grossly dissatisfied with the economy's performance on his watch. He described Obama as "taunting Republicans" in his speech at the Democratic Party's winter meeting in Washington. The wire service itself seems less enamored of Kuhnhenn's…

In his Friday Washington Post column, Dana Milbank accused Scott Walker of "cowardice" which "ought to disqualify him as a serious presidential contender." Walker's alleged "cowardice" was his failure to disown the following remark made by New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani: “I do not believe that the president loves America.” Last time I checked, Rudy's entitled to his opinion, and Walker's…

On February 12, in a report on inventories, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger referred to an economist who believed, in Crutsinger's words, "that the economy expanded at a 2 percent annual rate in the final three months of the year (2014)." That result would be a fairly significant downward revision to the 2.6 percent rate the government estimated in late January. The next day,…

Earlier today, Thaddeus Murphy was charged in U.S. District Court in Colorado in connection with an attempted January bombing in Colorado Springs. The targeted building houses that city's chapter of the NAACP, a barber shop — and, apparently at one time, a tax accountant's office. Quite a few people leaped to the conclusion that the bomb had to be meant for the NAACP, even though, as syndicated…

Earlier this week I noted an excellent piece in The Atlantic examining the very real Islamic theological underpinnings that drive ISIS from the inside-out. Now The Daily Beast is taking President Obama to task for his "tap-dance around whether ISIS is 'Islamic' or not."

Politico's Mark Caputo is reporting tonight that Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz "offered to change her position on medical marijuana if a major Florida donor recanted his withering criticism of her." Now that there's a serious charge that the congresswoman pays more attention to those who shout the loudest instead of sticking to whatever core principles she…

Time magazine editor-at-large and global-warming alarmist Jeffrey Kluger called on Facebook today to censor users who promote criticisms of vaccines, commonly known as anti-vaxxers. While Kluger is absolutely right to note that Facebook would be well within its rights to do so and that private-party censorship is not a First Amendment free-speech issue, Kluger's paternalistic lecturing and the…

Several outlets have looked over the Facebook posts of Craig Hicks, who was indicted Monday for the February 10 murders of three Muslims in North Carolina. Hicks's alleged murderous motivation appears to have had nothing directly to do with religion, but instead is said to have involved "a dispute over parking spaces at the condo community where Hicks and two of the victims lived." Whether we…

On it's Facebook page today, NBC News is promoting a campaign-style animated ad hitting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over a household-expense scandal.

In London, England earlier this week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker delivered a speech about global trade at the Chatham House think tank. Given that the group's mission is "to help build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world," and that it encourages "open debate and confidential discussion on the most significant developments in international affairs," it seemed a reasonable…

What an ironic title New York Times op-ed columnist and former editorial page editor Gail Collins used — "Scott Walker Needs an Eraser" — in her February 13 opinion piece blasting Wisconsin's Republican governor. In her nitpicky, selective mind, Walker must already have an eraser, one that's so powerful that it could reach back to the year before he became Badger State chief executive and…