Her re-election quest suddenly in jeopardy, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski struggled to avoid becoming the latest incumbent lawmaker to be fired. She fought against a political novice with the backing of Sarah Palin and tea party activists in a stunningly tight Republican primary race.

It is the summer of 2010, and despite some dramatic developments, the almost decade-old Iranian nuclear crisis seems stuck in a predictable rut. The United Nations Security Council has levied yet another round of sanctions and the United States and the European Union have added even tougher measures on their own, but Iran continues to push ahead with nuclear work that raises fears it seeks the bomb. Will anything ever change?

Of all the states to hold primaries yesterday, Alaska was the last to count its ballots, leading most people to go to bed before seeing any results. You can't blame them: The GOP Senate primary race between Lisa Murkowski and Joe Miller, a little-known Tea Party-backed challenger, was supposed to be a cakewalk for the incumbent.  

Substantial energy is devoted from many corners to critiquing America's establishment media, but this 2-minute report from The Onion News Network concerning Time Magazine captures so much of what needs to be said that it virtually renders future critiques -- at least of the nation's newsweeklies, other Time/CNN properties, and most television "news" shows -- completely unnecessary:

Veteran Sen. John McCain sailed to the GOP nomination Tuesday in Arizona over a challenger with tea party support, while political novice Rick Scott pushed past an experienced insider to win Florida's Republican gubernatorial primary as voters split on the merits of establishment candidates vs. outsiders.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has been at the forefront of the fight in favor of religious freedom in lower Manhattan since the beginning of the "ground zero mosque" debate, weighed in on the issue again tonight at the annual Iftar dinner at Gracie Mansion.

Former FEMA Director Michael Brown is taking his Denver radio show on the road for live broadcasts from New Orleans in advance of Sunday's fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

The Obama administration will appeal a court ruling that undercut its efforts to expand stem cell research, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder is asking pointed, provocative questions!

Former Bush administration recess appointee Peter Kirsanow has written what he thinks is a clever post indeed at The Corner, in which he wonders how liberals can possibly claim to love America when vast, huge, massive majorities of Americans hate liberals and everything they stand for.

The dismembered bodies of two men were hung from a bridge Tuesday on a highway leading to Acapulco, the second such discovery in three days in a region where two drug lords are fighting for control of their divided cartel.

This originally appeared on Robert Reich's blog

Jonah Goldberg, whose columns are apparently published in grown-up newspapers for consumption by literate adults, uses today's to expand on a theme that he first toyed with at The Corner last week: Liberals are the real intolerant ones because they make up "Islamophobia" and accuse Real Americans of it.

Blacks talk twice as much as whites on their cell phones, and women talk and text more than men, according to an analysis of wireless bills by the Nielsen Co.

As Republicans attack progressive Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as an America-hating, terrorist-sympathizing secret extremist, folks who aren't currently engaged in exploiting bigotry for profit often point out that Rauf did outreach work for George W. Bush's State Department, working directly with Bush senior advisor Karen Hughes, who was, at the time, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. But it turns out that the people smearing Rauf do not care! Including, it turns out, Ms. Hughes, who claims to not even remember the guy.

America's march to a disastrous war in Iraq began in the media, where an unprovoked U.S. invasion of an Arab country was introduced as a legitimate policy option, then debated as a prudent and necessary one. Now, a similarly flawed media conversation on Iran is gaining momentum.

It's been a rough few weeks for Ben Quayle. The former vice-president's son, one of 10  Republicans vying to succeed retiring Rep. John Shadegg, has been caught up in allegations that he helped launch a raunchy website and widely mocked for a bizarre,  borderline creepy television ad.

Yesterday we reported on the Anti-Defamation League's unusual lobbying effort against a trip to concentration camp sites by a group of U.S. imams and a few Obama Administration officials.

New York Rep. Charles Rangel has shot back at President Barack Obama's recent comment that he "end his career with dignity."

In the best sports movie ever made, "Hoosiers," Barbara Hershey’s character, perhaps the lone resident of hoops-crazed Hickory, Ind., not to have been bitten by the basketball bug, explains the down-side of venerating high school athletes.