This is only one example of the dysfunction on the right that winds up playing into the Dems hands. With CFG, Madison Project and Senate Conservatives Fund to do its work both in savaging good GOP candidates and boosting flaky ones, Democrats can focus their funds on hard-to-win swing states and even some long-shot races.

Coleman and his team are completing a major revision of the SAT to be unveiled in January 2014 and launched in the spring of 2015. He wants the test to “propel” students toward deeper learning of real things

That means fewer abstruse vocabulary words (like “abstruse”) and essays that are based on documents so human graders can evaluate the correctness of their writers’ arguments, not just their style.

The U.S. rode to economic supremacy with the world’s highest share of young college grads, but now its percentage of graduates at the typical age of graduation is behind those of Australia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Sweden, and the U.K., the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says.

The message: Real life is messy. You’re not given five answers to choose from. And America shouldn’t depend on something resembling an IQ test to rake geniuses from the rubbish.

The SAT and its rival, the ACT, are part of the problem. Designed to ferret out hidden talent, the tests have become, for some students at least, barriers to higher education. Scores are highly correlated with family income; Harvard law professor Lani Guinier calls the SAT a “wealth test.”

Since the earliest days of the republic, there have been two schools of thought about the merits of sorting students, as recounted in Nicholas Lemann’s 1999 book The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy. Thomas Jefferson, who believed in a “natural aristocracy,” said that in Virginia all w

New Englander Henry Adams was less disdainful of the rubbish. He said Jefferson’s natural aristocracy was no better than regular old aristocracy: “I would trust one as soon as the other with unlimited power.”

The SAT was launched in 1926 as a variant of an intelligence test used in World War I to place soldiers and sailors. Harvard adopted it in 1934.

The University of California long resisted using standardized tests but in 1968—swamped by more qualified applications than it could handle—began requiring applicants to submit SAT scores as a way to screen out lower achievers.

Admissions officers at about 850 four-year colleges now make standardized tests optional for some or all of their applicants

To be less cynical, the tests do stigmatize low scorers and distract people “from what they really need to do, which is mastering academic subjects in their high school,” says Wake Forest University sociologist Joseph Soares, whose school went SAT-optional in 2008.

. For example, the drop-down boxes for security questions aren’t working, which shouldn’t be a traffic-related problem

A new study from the American Action Forum that looks at healthy 30-year-old men finds that underlying premiums for those individuals will increase by an average of 260 percent

In a sense, the AAF study is more relevant to the problem at hand. Obamacare makes healthy people pay more for insurance in order to subsidize sicker people. It makes younger people pay more to subsidize older people. It makes men pay more to subsidize women. It makes everyone pay more to cover benefits, taxes, and fees that consumers might not ordinarily want.

days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores.

eminent scientists now believe the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century

The disclosure comes 11 months after The Mail on Sunday triggered intense political and scientific debate by revealing that global warming has ‘paused’ since the beginning of 1997 – an event that the computer models used by climate experts failed to predict.

The continuing furore caused by The Mail on Sunday’s revelations – which will now be amplified by the return of the Arctic ice sheet – has forced the UN’s climate change body to hold a crisis meeting.

The order reportedly allows the government to collect phone records for any of Verizon’s customers, even if they aren’t suspected of wrongdoing

Experts such as Mr Bellinger have warned Congress in public hearings that unless America sets clear, internationally accepted rules for its own drone strikes, it can hardly condemn Russian or Chinese aerial killings with any credibility

The other reason why they want him to lead America back onto higher moral ground is that they fear for their own reputations, if they lend help to drone attacks

Mr Obama made it clear that drone strikes would continue.

The president spoke of winding down the boundless, militarised war on terror that he inherited. He envisioned using law enforcement, intelligence and foreign allies to contain threats not so different from the ones that America faced before September 11th 2001

a former White House counter-terrorism chief recently appointed to run the CIA, the government would prefer to move away from CIA strikes (which are secret and deniable) towards drone attacks controlled by the armed forces (which would be more transparent). In addition to oversight by Congress, Mr Obama suggested new controls: perhaps a special court with powers to authorise killings, or an independent overseer within the executive branch.

. Since the war on terror has lasted for so long and shows no sign of ending, it was time to “bring in” the American public by explaining the rules for drones, he says

. Other countries will soon have killer drones

Only if America can describe the international legal framework for its own strikes with “specificity” will it be able to shape the new laws of war.

In November Russia sent six warships from its Black Sea Fleet to the Mediterranean in response to the Israel-Gaza conflict. That month the U.S. also began making moves to increase the American military presence in the east Mediterranean.

In May a detachment from Russia’s Pacific Fleet entered the Mediterranean waters for the first time since the Cold War.

at the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending less than 6 million rounds a month.  Therefore 1.6 billion rounds would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years.  In America.

  It is utterly inconceivable that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is planning a coup d’etat against President Obama, and the Congress, to install herself as Supreme Ruler of the United States of America.

There, however, are real signs that the Department bureaucrats are running amok.

Why, indeed, should the federal government not be deploying armored personnel carriers and stockpiling enough ammo for a 20-year war in the homeland?  Because it’s wrong in every way.

 President Obama has an opportunity, now, to live up to some of his rhetoric by helping the federal government set a noble example in a matter very close to his heart (and that of his Progressive base), one not inimical to the Bill of Rights: gun contro

The federal government can (for a nice change) begin practicing what it preaches by controlling itself.

police have yet to identify him. The mystery man slipped away into the darkness while police arrested the suspected criminal, who was later charged with fraud-related offenses and handling stolen goods.

The Russians have shut off all co-operation that uses American money, including on health care, civil society, fighting human trafficking and drugs, and dismantling unconventional weapons.

All this, according to Mr Pushkov, ends an era when Russia looked to the West as a model. Some Russian deputies have even suggested fining cinemas that show too many foreign films, or banning foreign words. A new law makes it treasonable to provide consultancy or “other assistance” to a foreign state directed against Russia’s national security. “The government’s policies are driving Russia into isolation,” says a Western diplomat.

For instance, the Kremlin has banned American couples from adopting Russian orphans, depriving many children with severe disabilities of the chance of a decent life.

. The trigger for the new anti-Americanism was the street protests against the Duma election in December 2011, which the Kremlin blamed on America. Falling popular trust in the Kremlin, worries about capital flight and the economy, and an antagonistic urban middle class have led Mr Putin to resort to nationalism, traditionalism and selective repression. Unable to stoke ethnic nationalism for fear of igniting the north Caucasus again, he has instead taken aim at the West and Western values.

As Mr Pushkov tweeted, “Stalingrad was not only a breaking point in the war, but also in the centuries-long battle between the West and Russia. Hitler was the last conqueror who came from the West.”

A few years ago, such comments came only from right-wing nationalists. Now they belong to the mainstream.

the Kremlin has imposed its traditionalist agenda on Russian society by prosecuting Pussy Riot, the punk singers who performed obscenely on the altar of Russia’s main cathedral, by banning the promotion of homosexuality and by blocking the American adoptions.

Yet it has not boosted Mr Putin’s popularity or restored trust in his presidency. Indeed, the numbers seeing America as a friend, not a foe, have risen in the past year, according to a Levada opinion poll. One explanation for this might be growing mistrust of the Kremlin. That is what made Soviet propaganda ineffective 20 years ago. Russian society also seems to have limited enthusiasm for the growing political role of the church.

The irony is that the Kremlin’s anti-Americanism reveals not its independence but its reliance on America as an enemy. The real casualty may be Russia itself.

French armored vehicles moved into position on Tuesday at the town of Niono, 190 miles from the capital Bamako

Guillaud said French military strikes were being hampered because militants were using the civilian population as a shield.

Republicans say they plan to use the occasion to demand deep federal spending cuts, with House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) insisting on a dollar reduction in federal spending for every dollar increase in the nation’s borrowing limit.

But the White House says President Obama will not negotiate this point, because the debt ceiling represents a limit to obligations that Congress already has promised to pay. “What he will not do — as he has made clear — is negotiate with Congress over Congress’s sole responsibility to pay the bills that Congress has already incurred,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday. “Nobody forced Congress to rack up the bills that it incurred. And it is an abdication of responsibility to say that we’re going to let the country default and cause global economic calamity simply because we’re not getting what we want in terms of our ideological agenda.”

Gurrola was arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon, Lowe said.

. Across the Rust Belt, unions’ clout has been crumbling — even in Michigan, where a referendum to enshrine collective-bargaining rights in the state’s constitution was soundly defeated in November. Anti-union forces sensed weakness, and the state’s Republican-controlled legislature pushed a package of right-to-work bills.

The term “right to work,” coined by foes of union influence, is somewhat misleading. It has little to do with whether workers are eligible for employment. Instead, it restricts unions’ ability to require employees to pay union dues if they work for a unionized employer. Unions argue that anyone who benefits from union representation should foot his or her share of the cost, while proponents of right-to-work legislation counter that right-to-work laws mitigate costs for employers, boosting the state’s ability to lure potential business and create jobs.

In 2010, union workers made an average of 28% more per week than non-unionized workers, according to a study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

On a trip to a Detroit factory on Monday, Barack Obama told autoworkers that right-to-work was a political tactic masquerading as economics. “What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money,” Obama said.

. More than 10,000 people thronged the capital in Lansing on Tuesday, brandishing signs like “Kill the Bill” and “One Term Nerd” and locking arms in a tense standoff with baton-wielding police decked out in riot gear. According to reports, pepper spray and tear gas were deployed against a handful of protesters, some of whom tore down a tent outside the capitol belonging to the Koch-funded conservative organization Americans for Prosperity

“I think it’s important to make a distinction with Wisconsin and Ohio,” Snyder told MSNBC on Tuesday. “That was about collective bargaining. That was about the relationship between employers and unions. This has nothing to do with that. Right-to-work has to do with the relationship between unions and workers.” And while the Badger and Buckeye State bills targeting public-sector unions, Michigan’s legislation deals with both.

As the backlash builds, Michigan is about to find out how tough their nerd can be.