Are Americans becoming more libertarian on cultural issues? I see evidence that they are, in poll findings and election results on three unrelated issues -- marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage and gun rights.

In these circumstances most Americans seem willing to accept NSA surveillance programs that, if ungentlemanly, are not illegal.

Barack Obama's appointments of Susan Rice as national security adviser and Samantha Power as ambassador to the United Nations have naturally triggered speculation about changes in foreign policy.

Now, with just two World War II veterans in the House, the Greatest Generation is finally passing on into history.

Detroit, once one of the nation's most vibrant cities, faces imminent bankruptcy. That's the headline from the report last month of emergency fiscal manager Kevyn Orr, issued 45 days after he was appointed this spring by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to take over the city's government.

A thoughtful reformer targets the traditional rules of an aging institution that has retarded progress in the past. Time to modernize those rules, the reformer says, and prevent obstruction in the future.

There is one problem with the entirely justified if self-interested media squawking about the Justice Department snooping into the phone records of multiple Associated Press reporters and Fox News's James Rosen.

Would you like to have a "skinny" health insurance policy? Probably not. But if you're employed by a large company, you may get one, thanks to Obamacare.

Chilling effect. That's the term lawyers and judges use to describe the result of government actions that deter people from exercising their right of free speech.

What do the Benghazi cover-up and the IRS scandal have in common? They were both about winning elections, under false pretenses.

What were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton thinking? Why did they keep pitching the line that the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans started as a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim video?

Markets work. But sometimes they take time.

Many loud voices in the debate over immigration have been insisting that effective border enforcement must precede any steps that legalize the status of current illegal immigrants.

Blinking at the evidence that Syria has crossed what he called a "red line," Obama may be hoping to avoid getting bogged down in a military quagmire there. But weakness is provocative, and appeasement can lead to a wider war.

"What difference, at this point, does it make?" That was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's angry response to a question about the State Department's account of the attack on the Benghazi consulate where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were murdered on Sept. 11, 2012.

Tomorrow, the George W. Bush Presidential Center will be dedicated at Southern Methodist University in Texas. It's a good time to look back on the performance of the 43rd president, who has been almost entirely missing from the public stage these past four years.

Chaos. Things seemed to be spinning out of control on many fronts this week.

"More tears are shed over answered prayers," the 16th century nun St. Teresa of Avila is supposed to have said, "than over unanswered ones."

"Without legislative language," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy declared in a statement March 20, "there is nothing for the Judiciary Committee to consider this week at our markup." The subject of the statement was immigration legislation, and his irritation was understandable.

"Divisive." That's a word that appeared, often prominently, in many news stories reporting the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.