In a wide-ranging interview with Alex Pareene of Salon.com, Libertarian Party candidate for president Gary Johnson said the Republican Party's platform plank on immigration "borders on racist." The former border-state governor spoke of a radical "disconnect" between the rhetoric and reality on illegal immigration. 

Chiefs of police and other law-enforcement personnel have often argued and testified against the passage of "Stand Your Ground" laws that say non-criminals in public places are not required to retreat, but have a right to use deadly force to defend themselves or others from anyone threatening them with death or serious injury — despite the consequences.

The chairman of the Republican Party's Platform Committee said Sunday that the GOP is a "pro-life party" that takes no stand on whether there should be a "rape exception" to restrictions on abortion or abortion funding. The pro-life plank adopted by the committee made no mention of exceptions, a point host George Stephanopoulos raised on ABCs This Week with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who  chaired the proceedings of the Platform Committee last week.

Neil Armstrong was a quiet hero in an age of antiheroes. In an era that made cult heroes of amoral spies and cops who broke the rules, of James Bond and Dirty Harry Callahan, Neil Armstrong was the engineer who peacefully conquered a remote outpost of "the Last Frontier."

Executives of the historic firearms companies on America's East Coast may not all be young men, but they might want to follow Horace Greeley's advice, anyway. They may want to go west if legislators pass laws that would limit their sales while driving up their costs.

A circuit court judge in Virginia ordered the release on August 23 of Brandon J. Raub, a Chesterfield man held involuntarily as a psychiatric patient at the Salem Veterans Affairs hospital in Virginia over anti-government postings on his Facebook page.

Ten Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Thursday filed suit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton, claiming selective enforcement of the nation's immigration laws are forcing them to break the law and ignore their duty in the deportation of Illegal aliens, Fox News reported.

In a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay of the "Gitmo Five," information about the imprisonment and interrogation methods used on the defendants remains classified "Top Secret," prompting their defense attorneys and others to argue that and other secrecy requirements undermine the defendants' right to a fair trial.

Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter called on Mitt Romney Wednesday to come forward with his own plan for ending the war in Afghanistan. While in Israel last month, Romney told ABC News he supported the Obama plan to have all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but did not agree with the plan to remove 23,000 of the current 100,000 troops in that country by this September 30.

Even as Mitt Romney and a host of other Republicans leaders were urging Rep. Todd Akin to drop out of the Missouri Senate race, the national party's platform committee approved a pro-life plank August 21 that more closely resembled Akin's position than Romney's on the controversial issue of abortion.