With a Public Policy Polling survey showing him just one point behind frontrunner Newt Gingrich in Iowa and a Rasmussen poll placing him just four points behind Gingrich for second place in Iowa, Ron Paul arrived at a campaign stop in Manchester, New Hampshire., Wednesday afternoon with plenty to be cheerful about.

At least four members of the five-person paid staff of the Michele Bachmann presidential campaign in New Hampshire have resigned, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported Saturday morning, but apparently someone forgot to tell the candidate.

It was mid-February 2002, and after a full year as America’s most powerful and controversial Vice President and five months of operating out of any number of undisclosed locations, Dick Cheney was pleased to be back home among kindred spirits. No, he was not with hunting or fishing buddies in Wyoming or even in Texas, rubbing shoulders with the honchos of Halliburton. He was in Washington, D.C., delivering an address to the Council on Foreign Relations, with chairman and founder David Rockefeller himself in attendance.

A building superintendent in New Brunswick, New Jersey, opened an apartment door and was startled to find terrorist literature strewn about on a table and a computer and surveillance equipment in the next room. He immediately called 911, and police and FBI agents rushed to the apartment, arriving in time to meet its mysterious occupants — a secret team of intelligence officers from the New York City Police Department.

Republican firebrand Sarah Palin tore into Barack Obama, the "permanent political class, " and unnamed practitioners of "crony corporate capitalism," but made no mention of her  yet undeclared candidacy for President during a 40-minute speech at a Tea Party rally in Indianola, Iowa, on Saturday. But on another of her frequent visits to the state whose caucuses begin the delegate selection for the party's national convention, the  former Alaska Governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate sounded very much like a contender for the top of the ticket 2012, as she widened her attack to include Republicans as well as Democrats and offered a five-point plan for revitalizing America.

Ron Paul wants to make it quite clear that he has never accused Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke of treason. He has merely accused him of counterfeiting, which is a different crime altogether.

A headline on the Politico website told the story — or, more accurately, the part of the story Politico and much of the rest of the news media want told: "Michele Bachmann wins Ames Straw Poll, Tim Pawlenty gets third."

In this year’s summer of discontent, as the nation faced a possible government shutdown in the battle over the debt ceiling, presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty was assuring voters he could handle such a crisis when his turn came. As a former Governor of Minnesota, he has, as they say, been there, done that.

Michele Bachmann is hoping to become the first presidential candidate to go directly from the House of Representatives to the White House since James Garfield made the leap in 1880. But a rapid climb up the political ladder is nothing new for the third-term Congresswoman who has gone from defeated school-board candidate in Stillwater, Minnesota, to top-tier presidential candidate in a mere 12 years.

Amid all the sound and fury and the "high noon" drama surrounding the debt-limit deadline and the passing of a deficit reduction measure this week, one discomforting fact emerged: Federal spending will continue to increase and the national debt, now approaching $15 trillion, will grow, not shrink, over the next 10 years.