Why establishment Democrats and Republicans fear Rand Paul

Can the G.O.P. genuinely change its attitude toward minorities and women?

Greece�??s parliament approved an austerity bill, cutting 15,000 government jobs and reducing the minimum wage by 22 percent in exchange for $170 billion in bailout funds from the European Union and the I.M.F. “We must show that Greeks, when they are called on to choose between the bad and the worst, choose the bad to avoid the worst,” said finance minister Evangelos Venizelos. More than 80,000 protesters marched in Athens on Sunday, some of them looting and vandalizing local stores. At least 34 buildings burned, including a Starbucks and an underground movie theater once used as a torture chamber by …

A Christian martyr. Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich released their most recent tax returns. Romney’s showed that he made $21.6 million in 2010, paid taxes at a rate of 14 percent, and gave $4 million to the Mormon church over two years. Gingrich’s return showed that he earned $3.1 million last year and may have cheated on his taxes. Washington PostChristian Science MonitorForbesLos Angeles TimesPresident Barack Obama made increasing the tax rate on the super-rich a theme of his State of the Union address, saying, “Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary,” …

A kinkajou, 1886. Tunisia commemorated the first anniversary of the Arab Spring�??and of the ousting of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali�??by pardoning 9,000 prisoners and commuting 122 death sentences. BBCMyanmar released 651 political prisoners, leading the U.S. State Department to move toward restoring full diplomatic relations with the country for the first time in 21 years.New York TimesNobel Peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei ended his bid for the Egyptian presidency, citing his country�??s military autocracy as an insurmountable obstacle to legitimate elections. “The regime did not fall yet,” he said.Wall Street JournalHundreds of Saudis gathered to protest the killing of a …

A Small Family. Mitt Romney won the first stage of the Republican leadership race, beating Rick Santorum by eight votes, 30,015 to 30,007, in the Iowa caucus. “This has been a great victory for him,” said Romney of Santorum. Michele Bachmann, who had claimed she would stay in the race regardless of the Iowa results, suspended her campaign after receiving 5 percent of the vote.CBSThe 2008 Republican nominee, John McCain, endorsed Romney. “I am confident, with the leadership and the backing of the American people, President Obama will turn this country around,” said McCain. “President Romney,” he then corrected himself. …

A kinkajou, 1886. After weeks of infighting, Congress passed a two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut. House Republicans, who had rejected a nearly identical measure days earlier, were left divided over the stopgap measure, which pitted recently elected lawmakers seeking major reforms against party veterans. “When you start making decisions based on elections,” said Representative Mo Brooks (R., Ala.), “then you run the risk of having the mess we just did.” President Barack Obama also signed into law a $1 trillion spending bill, warning that he reserved the right to challenge certain provisions promoted by Republicans, such as a prohibition …

U.S. military officials declared the end of the Iraq War during a 45-minute ceremony in a fortified compound at Baghdad International Airport. Iraq�??s president and prime minister did not attend, and local reporters were not invited. “To be sure, the cost was high,” said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, “in blood and treasure of the United States and also the Iraqi people.” In Fallujah, Iraqis celebrated by burning American flags. “I lost brothers and many relatives because of American bombs,” said a resident of Ramadi. “I benefited by having a good job and a salary with which I can get whatever …

Weighing the soul, 1875. Russians in nine time zones rallied to demand a revote of their country’s December 4 parliamentary elections, in which the ruling United Russia party won a slim majority. Russia�??s only independent election-monitoring group logged more than 5,000 fraud allegations, while videos posted to YouTube showed stuffed ballot boxes, voting booths supplied with erasable ink, and buses taking people to vote at multiple locations. “If someone writes the phrase �??party of swindlers and thieves�?? on a blog,” tweeted Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, “he is just a fuckface.” As many as 50,000 people protested in Bolotnaya Square across …

A Christian martyr. The congressional supercommittee assigned to devise a plan for reining in the federal deficit failed to reach an agreement, triggering $1.2 trillion in budget cuts that will take effect in 2013, including cuts to defense spending and Medicare. Senate Democrats planned to follow up the failed talks by introducing $400 billion in new spending legislation over the coming weeks, while Republicans indicated that they would try to reconfigure the automatic cuts in order to spare defense programs. “The knives,” said Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), “are over our heads.”Los Angeles TimesThe HillReuters via NBCPoliticoProtesters with the Occupy …

An American cattleman. Three women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which has not gone to a female recipient in seven years. Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, the “mother” of that country�??s rebellion, were recognized by the Nobel committee “for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” Johnson Sirleaf, nicknamed the “Iron Lady,” was lauded by 1984 Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, who celebrated his 80th birthday in Cape Town. “Who? Johnson Sirleaf? The president of Liberia? Oooh,” said Tutu. “She’s …

A Christian martyr. Two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, were killed by a CIA drone in Yemen. Awlaki, a cleric whose speeches purportedly inspired young Muslim radicals, had been added to the CIA�??s list of terrorist targets in early 2010. According to the U.S. government, Awlaki, who has never been tried or convicted of a crime in the United States, directed several failed terrorist plots. Khan, who edited a jihadi magazine, was never an official U.S. target. “Make no mistake,” said President Barack Obama, “this is further proof that Al Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe …

Mahmoud Abbas went before the United Nations General Assembly in support of Palestine�??s bid for UN membership, saying his was a “defenseless people, armed only with their dreams, courage, hope, and slogans.” “Yeah,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his UN address. “Hopes, dreams, and 10,000 missiles.” Abbas returned to cheering crowds in Ramallah, though some Palestinians were skeptical of his quest. “We are not against a peaceful solution, but we don�??t believe it,” said one West Bank resident.BBCUnited NationsUnited NationsNY Times In what it called an expression of Islamic mercy, Iran released a pair of American hikers detained …

A kinkajou, 1886. A Second World War�??era military plane crashed into a group of spectators at the Reno National Championship Air Races in Nevada, killing 10 people, including Jimmy Leeward, 74, who became the twentieth pilot to die at the event since it began 47 years ago. “It looked like just someone sprinkled Legos in every direction,” said one witness. National Transportation Safety Board investigators refused to speculate on what brought down the plane, which was built in 1944 and had previously crashed in 1970. “Our job is to identify what caused this accident,” said NTSB member Mark Rosekind, “so …

The United States observed the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. Thousands of mourners gathered at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Relatives and loved ones read out the names of the victims, bagpipers played, and six moments of silence were observed, one for each airliner and one for each of the twin towers. President Barack Obama visited all three sites in the course of the day. In New York City, he read from Psalm 46, and former president …

An earthquake with a Richter magnitude of 5.9 and an epicenter in Mineral, Virginia, shook much of the East Coast, and Irene, a Category 1 hurricane, made landfall in North Carolina and continued up the Atlantic seaboard, killing at least 38 people in 10 states. The unusually large and slow hurricane caused an estimated $7 billion in damages, mostly due to flooding, and left millions of people without power. In Tuxedo Park, N.Y., Irene pushed at least 15 heating-oil trucks into the Ramapo River, spilling large amounts of fuel into the water. “An environmental disaster is floating down the river,” …

An American cattleman. Violence broke out between Israel and Gaza following an ambush near the Egyptian border that killed eight Israelis, six of them civilians. After retaliatory air strikes killed an estimated 15 people in Gaza and militants fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel, Hamas declared that all Palestinian groups had agreed to a cease-fire, including the Popular Resistance Committees, which claimed responsibility for further rocket attacks a few hours later. “If they will cease fire, there will be a cease-fire,” said Israeli president Shimon Peres.APThe Libyan forces who have been trying since mid-February to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi gained …

A kinkajou, 1886. A cholera epidemic struck refugees fleeing a famine in southern Somalia that has killed an estimated 29,000 children so far. Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu reported 181 deaths as well as symptoms in more than 4,000 people, three quarters of them under the age of five.New York TimesIRIN NewsActivists said that Syrian government forces had killed at least 50 people in five cities, antigovernment militias in Libya advanced into the cities of Zawiya and Gharyan, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against such social injustices as inadequate housing, despite government approval of 1,600 new units in an …

A kinkajou, 1886. Democratic and Republican leaders concluded a week of fierce debate by agreeing on a “framework” deal to resolve the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis. Were the House and Senate to approve the deal, the ceiling would be raised for the seventy-ninth time in fifty years, increasing in the near term by $900 billion alongside an immediate $917 billion cut in federal discretionary spending. A bipartisan committee would be convened to seek ways of reducing the deficit by at least an additional $1.5 trillion in the next decade. The provisional agreement was reached only two days after the House passed …

A Christian martyr. An Afghan police officer assassinated Ahmed Wali Karzai, half brother of president Hamid Karzai and the de facto governor of Afghanistan�??s Kandahar region, whom U.S. officials suspected of having connections to the opium trade. During a memorial service for Karzai at a local mosque, a suicide bomber detonated explosives hidden in his turban, killing three. Another suicide bomber killed a close aide to President Karzai. The United Nations reported that the first six months of this year have been the deadliest for civilians in Afghanistan since the U.S. invaded in 2001, and NATO representatives held a private …