Not so long ago, when the question was war, the response on Capitol Hill was an automatic blank check.

A largely compliant Congress, and presidents and politicians who were fearful of looking "weak on defense" or "unpatriotic," rubber-stamped massive military spending.

Funny how 10 years, two $1 trillion-and-counting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a budding military engagement in Libya, and a nation mired in unsustainable spending and debt can change what was once a military imperative.

Live racing and training are cancelled today at Churchill Downs, as damage assessment and cleanup continue from yesterday’s storms that caused heavy damage to numerous structures on the track’s backside. A suspected tornado tore through the grounds last evening, damaging or destroying nine barns, a chapel and a dormitory for track workers. 

There's great excitement today among Harry Potter fans.

Author J.K. Rowling has gone on the Web to say that in October a website called Pottermore.com is launching — and that it will be a "safe, unique online reading experience built around the Potter books." It will be the place to buy, for the first time, e-book versions of the Potter series.

William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard, which, together with Fred Barnes and John Podhoretz, he founded in 1995. Kristol regularly appears on Fox News Sunday and on the Fox News Channel.

"As a result, starting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer, fully recovering the surge I announced at West Point."

-- President Barack Obama, June 22, 2011

A man who is about as notorious in Boston as al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden was captured Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif.

James "Whitey" Bulger, a gangster wanted for his alleged role in 19 murders who turned his FBI handlers into informants and is accused of using information he got from them to kill his enemies, had been on the run for 16 years.

John Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin.

Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination for president because grassroots progressives thought he was marginally more anti-war than Hillary Clinton.

After securing the nomination, Obama was elected president.

Good morning.

Reactions are coming in to President Obama's announcement last night that the U.S. will bring about 33,000 military personnel home from Afghanistan by the fall of 2012.

Last night, President Barack Obama announced that he will begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Paresh Nath fears that it might be a long way home for our troops, while RJ Matson thinks that "home" for some of them might not be much different from the war-torn country.

President Obama has studied the life of President Lincoln. In his second inaugural address in 1865, Lincoln spoke of the Civil War, then nearing its end: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in." A section of Obama's speech had a similar rhythm.

The U.S. military is investigating claims by veterans that they buried barrels of a toxic defoliant at an American base in South Korea three decades ago. Agent Orange was used during the Vietnam War, and it's been blamed for a variety of ailments, including cancer and nerve disorders.