Although there are almost daily mass murders by terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, who could have anticipated that a U.S. Army major would fire on his fellow soldiers, murdering 13 and wounding 30 others, at Fort Hood in Texas?

It's a terrible thing for anyone to want a job and not be able to find one. We have been laboring painfully under conditions lately in which unemployment has run at 9.8 percent. But now there's worse news: The latest jobless figure is a shocking 10.2 percent!

Despite President Barack Obama's promise not to add "one single dime" to "any" taxes paid by families making under $250,000, ObamaCare medical reform proposals in Congress would impose tax hikes on the middle class and even the poor.

News of the misuses and abuses of the $787 billion "stimulus" keeps rolling in, and here is one that is as outrageous as any we've seen.

Aside from assuring the general safety of our people, there is no greater local interest than to provide opportunity and achievement for our schoolchildren.

Estimates vary on just how much each job "created or saved" by the $787 billion "stimulus" has cost. Lawmakers and the Obama administration have repeatedly said the stimulus -- approved almost exclusively by Democrats in Congress early this year -- was the most practical way to grow jobs and "get America back to work."

It is proper for Congress to legislate a national "debt limit" to curb excessive and irresponsible spending. The trouble is that Congress never means it.

It is very bad news that unemployment in our country is around 9.8 percent. (Practically, "full employment" would be only about 5 percent.)

With the federal government $11.9 trillion in debt, with many Americans maxed out on credit cards and owing lots of other money, and with the economy staggering, it is certainly proper that the Federal Reserve has decided not to raise its "bank lending rate" beyond a very low 0.25 percent. That means many banks may charge interest rates of about 3.25 percent.

As a matter of hospitality, the United States warmly welcomes the heads of state of friendly foreign nations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for instance, properly received respectful treatment on her recent trip to Washington.

It is often said that, in the final analysis, “all politics is local.” But there sometimes are peculiar crosscurrents that make a difference.

Atlanta has a tradition since 1973 of electing black candidates for mayor of the big capital of Georgia. But this year there was — and still is — a question.

Most people feel that sexual matters should be “private.” Most people believe that marriage is a voluntary legalized union between “one man and one woman.”

New Jersey politics is never pointed to as a good example of American democracy. New Jersey is liberal, with frequent corruption, and is strongly Democratic in politics.

President Barack Obama won in Virginia last year. Liberal political influence has been oozing out of Washington into neighboring Virginia. But having seen a year of the Obama administration, Virginia independents in large numbers joined Republicans Tuesday to give conservative former state Attorney General Bob McDonnell a nearly 2-to-1 victory over liberal Democrat Creigh Deeds in the contest for Virginia’s governor.