The term "witch hunt" comes from a sad episode in American history where early settlers in Salem, MA became obsessed with the notion that there were witches among them. They were certain that they were the cause of any calamity that befell them. Surely their new home in the new world was blessed by God and anything that interfered with that must be the work of the devil? And so they held "trials" in which anyone accused of being a witch had to prove that they weren't. The proof generally meant dying.

Throughout our history, this sort of behavior has occurred again and again, with the term "witch hunt" being applied once the reality of the paucity of evidence has become clear. It happened during the McCarthy hearings, it happened during the Clinton "Whitewater" investigation, and it is happening now during the Benghazi "investigation. There isn't any real evidence - it's just people who want something to be wrong digging until they can find something - anything - to hang around the neck of their target. For President Bill Clinton, that became a stained blue dress.
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64 comments (Latest Comment: 05/10/2013 23:38:30 by Raine)

Some days there is a dearth of interesting news, and other days there is a plethora. The last couple days has been more of the latter. Several stories are worthy of discussion and possibly a deeper evaluation within the context of other events, but I am not going to do that today. Instead, I present several topics, and leave it to you to continue the discussion in the comments.
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81 comments (Latest Comment: 05/09/2013 01:19:10 by wickedpam)

From NPR:
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95 comments (Latest Comment: 05/07/2013 01:28:26 by Raine)

Ah, spring at last!

'tis been an unusual winter around these parts. Lest we forget, it was calm and mild up through the holidays and into January. But then a series of storms nailed us just about every weekend through late January and February.
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2 comments (Latest Comment: 05/05/2013 02:29:40 by Raine)

Almost a decade ago, author Thomas Frank wrote "What's the Matter With Kansas?". It described how a formerly populist-democratic state in the midwest slid into a conservative backwater. Using emotional social issues, voters were turned away from "elitist" liberals and voted against their own economic interests. That has happened time and again in southern and midwestern states.

Arizona is another one of those states. From its inception until the late 1940s, it was primarily a Democratic state. Since then, however, the only time the state voted for a Democratic president was in 1996 (Bill Clinton). Unlike Kansas, however, they have become known for their extreme conservative state laws that induce incredulous jaw-dropping gapes every time, with the outside observer certain that this was the furthest they could possibly go.
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78 comments (Latest Comment: 05/03/2013 03:02:09 by livingonli)