Ian M. MacIsaac: An Obituary for Santorum and his doomed hell train of a campaign

  On Tuesday, Mitt Romney finally earned a title he has craved since he became the governor of Massachusetts nine years ago: that of the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for president.

  Rick Santorum's effective withdrawal from the primary brings to an end one of the most confusing, frustrating, and truly embarrassing moments in our nation's political history.

  Santorum, for his part, barely even admitted he had lost anything in the concession speech he gave from Gettysburg, Penn.

  "Over and over again we were told, 'Forget it, you can't win,'" the former senator said Tuesday as he quit the race from his home state. "We were winning, but in a different way."

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: GOP presidential primary amounts to little in Alabama

  Last month’s Republican Primary was exciting because for the first time in decades we were relevant in the presidential contest. When our March 13 primary date was set it was thought that the GOP nominee would be in the bag by that time, especially given the fact that a Super Tuesday Primary extravaganza was taking place one week earlier on March 6th.

Richard Schwartzman: A War on us

  Libertarians come to the libertarian movement for a variety of reasons. Some people get involved because of a single issue such as the drug war, or assaults on the Second Amendment, or the confiscatory tax code and intrusion of the IRS (likely the most feared agency in the country’s arsenal of control over its citizens).

  Some of us have a broader or more general base of interest, such as the Bill of Rights taken as a whole.

  I fall into the Bill of Rights category, and I have said for years that the only difference between the United States and every other country has been adherence to those first ten amendments to the Constitution. They are the guarantee, the promise that the government will honor the rights of man, which exist even without government.

How Conservatives are conspiring to disenfranchise millions of Americans

  The right to vote is under attack all across our country. Conservative legislators are introducing and passing legislation that creates new barriers for those registering to vote, shortens the early voting period, imposes new requirements for already-registered voters, and rigs the Electoral College in select states. Conservatives fabricate reasons to enact these laws—voter fraud is exceedingly rare—in their efforts to disenfranchise as many potential voters among certain groups, such as college students, low-income voters, and minorities, as possible. Rather than modernizing our democracy to ensure that all citizens have access to the ballot box, these laws hinder voting rights in a manner not seen since the era of Jim Crow laws enacted in the South to disenfranchise blacks after Reconstruction in the late 1800s.

Michael Josephson: Improve the world — Be nice!

  Marta was a hard-working single mother.  Last week, at church, her minister urged the congregation to improve the world by doing more to help others. He’s got to be kidding, she thought, I can barely make ends meet and provide my children with basic necessities. Still, she felt guilty – “maybe I should be doing more.” So, on the bus to work she started thinking of things she could do to help others but she felt sad and defeated by the idea of adding more obligations to her life.

  Sylvia, an elderly woman, saw the distress on Marta’s face and asked what was wrong. Marta explained her problem.  Sylvia consoled her. “I think it’s enough that you’re a good mother and a good person, but I bet you can find ways to help others more while doing what you already do.”  Marta said. “I sell hamburgers. How can I help others?”

Charles C. Haynes: State lawmakers reignite school wars over religion

  Contrary to culture-war mythology, God is alive and well in many, if not most, public schools.

  Visit almost any school in America and you’ll find students sharing their faith, reading their scriptures, saying grace before lunch and, in high schools, meeting in religious clubs.

  But in a growing number of state legislatures around the country, lawmakers want more.

Gary Palmer: The Facts about charter schools

  By now practically everyone in Alabama has seen, heard or read something about public charter schools. Incredibly, most of what is out there is actually deliberate “misinformation” targeting what can be best described as simply increasing educational options for students. Naturally, the Alabama Education Association is the driving force behind the campaign to discredit educational choice in Alabama.

  The education of Alabama’s next generation is a topic that causes even the most apathetic citizen to pay attention. Public charter schools may well be the only chance we have to change lives for a segment of students who will, without intervention of some kind, drop out of school.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: And there’s Moore…

  In the days leading up to our March 13th Republican Primary it began to appear more and more like we were going to have a spectacular horse race in our presidential preference vote. Tracking polls coming out of the weekend had all three candidates, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, knotted at 31%. The prolonged GOP primary parade had made it to the Heart of Dixie and we were finally finding some relevance in the presidential selection process.

  Alabama became the focus of intense national media attention. Media sources implemented elaborate exit polling during the day Tuesday. By 5 pm with two hours left for voting, CNN was reporting that in Alabama, even more so than in Mississippi who was voting the same day, exit polling was showing an extremely high turnout among voters who identified themselves as evangelical fundamental Christians. They were saying that it was phenomenally high even to a much larger degree than had appeared in neighboring Georgia and Tennessee the week before. This polling data would portend the results that would be revealed later in the night as the votes were counted.

Sally Steenland, Jessica Arons: Contraception is an economic issue

  In the past several weeks, controversy over contraception pushed conventional economic issues from the headlines. For a surprising number of news cycles, birth control pills—and the millions of women who take them—dominated the news, instead of jobs and the economy.

  Many pundits, advocates, and politicians were unhappy with this shift, claiming that contraception was a distraction from the “real issues” people cared about. Even Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, weighed in, saying, “Women care about jobs. Women care about the economy. They care about their children, and they care about debt.”

Wendy McElroy: When did Facebook become Congress?

  A March 23rd headline in the tech zine ZDNet caused a buzz on the blogosphere. It reads, “Facebook: Legal Action against Employers Asking for Your Password.” The article explained, “The social networking giant is considering using the law to protect its 845 million users.” The two legal routes being considered are: (a) getting politicians to pass a law barring employers from this practice and/or (b) suing employers who are asking you for your Facebook credentials.

  At issue are those employers who demand an applicant’s Facebook password as a condition of employment. The password offers the employers at least two advantages. They can check for “dissolute” behavior, such as drunkenness, which is often documented in posted photos; and they can prevent employees from posting negative comments about the workplace or punish those who do.