John Birch Society

(Newser) - The paranoid fringe of the American right has become mainstream to an extent unthinkable even when the John Birch Society was at its peak, writes Thomas Frank. Historian Richard Hofstadter's landmark 1965 The Paranoid Style in American Politics seems more relevant than ever, Frank writes in the Wall Street Journal....

(Newser) - Mitt Romney tried to unburden himself of some left-wing baggage in a talk-radio interview this weekend—but the National Review’s Mark Hemingway says he may have gone too far. In praising the work of W. Cleon Skousen, his former BYU professor and an “all-around nutjob," Romney may...