How Mitt Romney suckered Gingrich in Florida

"In Spanish bullfights, the picadors torment the bull by sticking darts into his shoulders. Enraged, bleeding, frustrated and in pain, he lowers his head, snorts, paws the ground and charges straight at the matador, oblivious to the sword awaiting him behind the red cape. That’s about what Romney did to Gingrich in the January primaries."

Increasing Diversity May Make Western States Bluer

A report on population shifts predicts how recent changes will affect political races.

Country-club GOP establishment lays down the law

At some country-club golf course recently, Speaker Boehner, Haley Barbour and the Bain Capital and banking wings of the GOP probably devised the plan that is now under way: Ron Paul, get on the program behind Mitt and stop talking down wars. Sarah Palin, stop referring to the GOP establishment as Stalinesque. Tea Party members: shut up and get behind the former liberal governor of Massachusetts. Conservative movement, cool it. So what if our nominee was the godfather of ObamaCare?

What Romney Must Do to Win in November

Satisfy the base, reach to the center—that dance will be hard

Super PACs helping Republican candidates close in on Obama

Dan Eggen and T.W. Farnam / WashPost

Fresh disclosures reveal key advantage to GOP: Cluster of groups that can raise unlimited money.

Website allowed terrorists to come together to plot carnage

The terrorists who were plotting to blow up the London Stock Exchange and the US Embassy had made contact with each other through websites which included instant messaging site Paltalk.

The Florida primary was ugly, unfair and probably fatal for Newt Gingrich

"Here’s the takeaway statistic from yesterday’s Florida primary: Mitt Romney spend $15 million on ads, of which only one was positive. And it was in Spanish."

Fox News Marks a Decade at No. 1 in Cable News

The network, which at first had to pay cable systems for distribution, unlocked a formula that reached out to viewers who believed the established television news media tilted left, and offered a different view.

Gingrich vs. Romney: Whose website got the most hits?

Up until mid-January, Gingrich was clearly leading in online hits from Floridians. It wasn't until the week of Jan. 15 that Romney started to take the lead.

Why American 'democracy promotion' rings hollow in the Middle East

Egypt's crackdown on Republican and Democratic organisations is hardly surprising: they're widely seen as stooges of US empire

"The IRI is an international arm of the US Republican party, so anyone with the stomach to watch the Republican presidential debates might doubt whether this would be a "democracy-promotion" organization. But a look at some of their recent adventures is enough to set the record straight: in 2004, the IRI played a major role in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Haiti. In 2002, the head of the IRI publicly celebrated the short-lived military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Venezuela. The IRI was also working with organizations and individuals that were involved in the coup. In 2005, the IRI was involved in an effort to promote changes in Brazil's electoral laws that would weaken the governing Workers party of then President Lula da Silva."

Imperial errors cost US the Middle East

Designed to demonstrate the United States' post-Cold War military dominance and create a foothold in the Middle East, nine years later the 2003 Iraq invasion achieved the opposite. The US's biggest error was not drawing from colonial Britain's playbook. Rather than "regime change", free elections and withdrawal, Washington should have rebadged the existing regime and refused to leave.

The brain-dead GOP

Richard Cohen

The party has only itself to blame for rejecting reason.

"The Republican establishment acts as if this season’s goon squad of presidential candidates has come out of nowhere, an act of God — a tsunami that hit the party and receded, leaving nothing but nitwits standing. In column after column, conservative commentators lament the present condition, but not their past acquiescence as their party turned hostile to thought, reason and the two most important words in the English language: It depends."

Analysis: Gingrich's campaign is dead

However, Gingrich can still make a mess of Mitt Romney's coronation as GOP nominee.

"decapitated chickens flap about awhile before succumbing to the obvious"

Claims of Drudge bias are unfounded

Despite unfair rumours of Romney bias, The Drudge Report remains the king of conservative websites

Matt Drudge is the Howard Hughes of the Internet. Like Hughes, he lives in splendid isolation, communicating only through a small group of trusted friends. Like Hughes, his influence has quietly helped shape Republican politics for a generation. But while the eccentric Hughes used money to put his pals in the White House, Drudge has always relied on blogs and Tweets. The Drudge Report, which started life as an emailed gossip column, now receives millions of unique visitors per month. One study found that it drives more traffic than Twitter and Facebook combined.

U.S. officials see growing threat of attack from Iran

 Iran well prepared for the worst

Iran has been preparing for a possible military confrontation with the United States for decades and instead of engaging in a direct military competition, which would be pitting its weaknesses against US strengths, it has developed an asymmetric "hybrid" strategy that mixes advanced technology with guerilla tactics to deny US forces access to bases and maritime freedom of maneuver.

The G.O.P.’s Own 1972

Falkland Islands: Royal Navy sends warship as tensions rise

HMS Dauntless will set sail for Falklands in coming weeks armed with battery of missiles that could "take out all of South America's fighter aircraft let alone Argentina's," according to one Navy source.

"It can shoot down Argentine fighters as soon as they take off from they bases," said another Navy source. "This will give Buenos Aires serious pause for thought."

The end for Gingrich?

Dana Milbank

"But Gingrich is going down in his own style, leaving fabrications, insults and scorched earth all the way from Miami to Pensacola."

Who in God’s Name Is Mitt Romney?

Frank Rich

Back in the thick of the 2008 Republican presidential race, I asked a captain of American finance what he had made of Mitt Romney when they were young colleagues at Bain & Company. “Mitt was a nice guy, a smart businessman, and an excellent team player,” he ­responded without missing a beat. Then came the CEO’s one footnote, delivered with bemusement, not pique: “Still, whenever the rest of us would go out at the end of the day, we’d always find ourselves having the same conversation: None of us had any idea who this guy was.”