Conservatives target their own fringe

Feb 28, 2010 - After months of struggling to harness the energy of newly engaged tea party activists, the conservative establishment — with critical midterm congressional elections on the horizon — is taking aim for the first time at the movement’s extremist elements. The move has been cast by some conservatives as a modern version of the marginalization of the far-right, anti-communist John Birch Society during the reorganization of the conservative movement spearheaded by William F. Buckley Jr. in the 1960s and 1970s. - 0 Comments

America The Faithless

Feb 28, 2010 - Analysis: A week to explain public's lack of faith 2/27/2010, 8:52 a.m. EST LIZ SIDOTI The Associated Press   (AP) — WASHINGTON - To understand why people don't trust institutions-and why America is so disgruntled-look no further than these doings in the nation's capital. At historic Blair House, President Barack Obama, Democrats and Republicans fought about a health care overhaul they've debated for a year. - 3 Comments

Coffee Party activists say their civic brew's a tastier choice than Tea Party's

Feb 26, 2010 -   By Dan Zak Washington Post Staff Writer                                Friday, February 26, 2010   Furious at the tempest over the Tea Party -- the scattershot citizen uprising against big government and wild spending -- Annabel Park did what any American does when she feels her voice has been drowned out: She squeezed her anger into a Facebook status update. let's start a coffee party . . - 40 Comments

I Love Her Deeply But I Cannot Trust Her

Feb 19, 2010 - I recently broke up with my girlfriend for good because I feel like I am prolonging the inevitable painful ending which was destined to one day arrive.  I met her on a dating site in July 2009.  I am an American living in Nevada and she is a South American beauty in Colombia.  A week or so after we met we became friends on Facebook and I noticed on her profile under "relationship status" that she was engaged.  I asked her about this and she said it was simply a mistake and she changed her status to single.  At the end of July she told me she had to go to a remote part of Colombia to be with her sick grandmother and that there was no internet access or cell phone service.  I wondered while she was away for two weeks if this was the truth or a lie.  After being out of touch for two weeks she called me and told me her grandmother was doing well now and she said she missed me terribly.  Fast forward to knowing each other for two months and we were talking over Skype one evening and she said there was something she wanted to tell me.  She dropped the bomb that she is engaged to a man in California.  I appreciated her telling me this information voluntarily, however I felt deceived because she lied to me about this when I first asked her about it.  It also made me question her values if she was engaged to be married and yet seeking people on a dating site.  She explained that she had not seen her fiancee in over six months and she realized she did not love him and this is why she was looking on the dating site.  However, she hadn't told her fiancee she was done with him or looking for another man.  I asked her to be honest with him or I could not continue getting to know her.  She did tell him and broke off the relationship and shortly after this I booked an advanced flight to go meet her in Colombia in late October.  We were both so excited to finally meet as the date was nearing.  However, the week before my flight I received a telephone call from a gentleman who explained he is an American on vacation in Colombia to see his girlfriend who he proposed to a few days earlier and he noticed text messages on her cell phone from me and he wanted to know what our relationship was and if I was going to meet her in Colombia (he got my telephone number from her phone also).  He explained that the two of them vacationed together in Paris the first two weeks of August, which is when she claimed to be with her sick grandmother.  He and I spoke for about five minutes and he gave me his email address.  This gentleman is not the fiancee in California.   He is someone who my girlfriend had met on the dating site and she had told me about him but said they had never met and that he was, more or less, stalking her.  She told me that she had told him she now has a boyfriend (me) and asked him to leave her alone but that he said he was going to fly to Colombia to meet her regardless.  I confronted her over the telephone and explained that this "stalker" telephoned me claiming to be with her in Colombia and claimed to have been with her in Paris when she was with her sick grandmother.  She laughed out loud at this and told me this man is crazy, that she has never met him, that she is not with him in Colombia and that he somehow hacked into her email or cell phone to get my telephone number.  So I emailed this man saying that both of them are calling the other a liar and asked for photographic proof that they have in fact met.  He responded with a number of photographs of the two of them together in Paris... I was crushed.  I called my girlfriend to break the news that I knew she had lied to me and to say goodbye.  She cried and begged and pleaded with me.  She claimed that he came to Colombia uninvited only to sabatoge our meeting one another because he was obsessed with her and she had ended their relationship.  She said he was lying about her being with him; that she was not.  She said she went to meet him at a mall only to prevent him from coming to her home and it was there he proposed and she declined.  She while at the mall she left her cell phone on the table they were sitting at to go to the bathroom and that's how he saw my text messages and got my telephone number.  She said she did not tell me truth about the trip to Paris with him because she did not want to hurt my feelings.  However she never stopped insisting that she was in Paris with him in May, not August, and that she really ws with her sick grandmother.  I was so hurt and angered that she lied to me that I eventually cancelled my flight.  Every day she called and emailed me crying and pleading with me to be with her.  I asked her to stop but she wouldn't.  She said she was deeply in love with me and begged me to come meet her.  After a week of this I eventually broke down and rebooked my flight and went to see her.  I forgave her for lying to me.  We spent a wonderful week together and I fell more in love with her.  During my trip neither of us discussed the issue of the ex boyfriend who called me however this incident permanently scarred our relationship.  It became the focal point anytime we had an argument.  She came to visit me for two weeks over the holidays and I chose not to bring the issue up in order to enjoy our time together, which we did.  However when she returned home we would occassionally argue and I could not help but always discussing the lies with her.  She hated this and said it was the past.  She said she loved me and wanted to get married.  I would think to myself, "How am I going to be successful in a marriage with her if I feel that I cannot trust her?  I love her deeply but I cannot trust her."  I came to regret having gone to visit her.  I thought that I should have stuck with my initial reaction of saying goodbye and cancelling my flight.  Now I am so torn over loving this woman so very much (and she claims to genuinly feel the same about me) and feeling that I cannot believe the things she tells me.  She lost my trust and I just don't believe she will ever earn it back.  For me this doomed the relationship.  Has anyone else had their trust in someone they love destroyed and have the trust redevelop? - 7 Comments

Analysis: Untruths have consequences in politics

Feb 21, 2010 - By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press Writer Ron Fournier, Associated Press Writer – Sat Feb 20, 10:52 am ET WASHINGTON – Conservatives leapt to their feet when Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney declared Democrats the party of "No!" — no to balanced budgets, limits on lawsuits, tax cuts and tough interrogations of terror suspects. But their applause this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference was for an illusion. - 98 Comments

Online dating question great guy, but i think he is lying

Feb 19, 2010 - Hi, I would love some comments on this: I posted a profile online over a week ago. A guy, Bob, messaged me right way, and we have been writing emails ever since. While he may be the most interesting guy on the site to me.. - 5 Comments