Summary: Tea Party-backed lawmakers are not exempting the military’s multibillion-dollar budget from spending cuts in a time of war. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 23, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the death of two U.S. soldiers in southern Afghanistan brought to at least 22 the number of American service members killed January 2010, compared with only 14 for the whole of January 2009. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, militants ambushed Pakistani security forces at checkpoints in two regions close to the Afghan border, sparking gunbattles that left 22 insurgents and two troops dead.
Summary: Despite a recent upsurge in threats and violence by far-right groups and loners, the Homeland Security Department appears gun-shy about reporting or monitoring the trend too closely. Domestic security and counterterrorism officials say that even though, in light of recent events, a controversial report issued a year ago by Homeland Security about a “resurgence” in far-right radicalization and recruitment appears well informed, if not prescient, the Department has done nothing to re-issue the report or update it. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 17, 2009, Aubrey Immelman featured abstracts of research projects on the personality characteristics and leadership style of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin, conducted at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics under his direction.