History was made today as Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in to serve on the Supreme Court, the first Hispanic in history to serve on the court. Here’s MSNBC’s report: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy ABC News has THIS VIDEO (cannot embed). CBS News has THIS VIDEO (won’t embed since it will loop and play over and over) Fox News Video: Reuters: Judge Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in on Saturday as the first Hispanic associate justice on the U.S....

Our political Quote of the Day comes from the Atlantic’s always perceptive Marc Ambinder who offers this perspective on the increasing ugliness of the healthcare Town Hall meetings: There’s lots of lamenting on the left about all the teabaggers showing up and town hall meetings on health care being held by returning members. The right’s all atwitter about organized labor and the left sending people to these meetings. I’m not sure any of it is really bad. Obviously, death threats,...

Our political Quote of the Day comes from Philadelphia Inquirer columnist/blogger Dick Polman on the increasingly tempestuous Town Hall meetings held by Democrats to discuss health care reform and the role of Town Hall meeting protesters and heckers. First, the beginning of his analysis, titled “Goon Power”: I was in college when I first witnessed goon squads in action. Back in those distant days, left-wing radicals would storm into the auditorium and shout down conservative speakers...

When you read THIS about a protester encouraging others to bring guns and also to get violent you have to ask — isn’t it clear where this is heading? And then there’s THIS threat from an apparent protest saying if things keep up the town hall proponents are going to find out about the second amendment. This is a classic escalation. Can’t we just envision the future headline now? Note the role of talk radio hosts (Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh) in helping to get out listeners,...

Now this is a crisis that truly impacts Cuba’s bottom line: Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said on Friday. Officials said they were lowering the prices of 24 basic goods to help Cubans get through the difficulties provoked in part by the global financial crisis and three destructive hurricanes that struck the island last year. Cuba’s financial...

Just to show you what is at stake in the battle against Al Qaeda by not just foreign countries but elements in Iraq that battle it every day, here’s a truly shocking tale via CNN: of a boy who was kidnapped and brutally tortured by unfeeling terrorists: Like many young boys, Khidir loves playing with toy cars and wants to be a policeman like his father when he grows up. But it was his father’s very job that caused the tiny child to suffer the unimaginable. Khidir was just 6 years old...

We have several posts that look at the increasingly ugly health care town halls amid allegations that they are being spurred on by special interests opposed to health care reform and polarizing talk show hosts and often involve the prevention of discussion rather than spirited discussion or debate. To others, the groups genuinely represent anger and frustration at President Barack Obama and his proposed policies. Here’s a You Tube that shows the scene yesterday at a Town Hall for where Rep....

Two new polls are out and neither have good news for President Barack Obama as his Presidency nears the 200 day mark: A CNN poll has him dropping 7 points in a month, to a 56% approval rating while a new Quinnipiac Poll puts him at 50 percent. The big drop? According to CNN the biggest drop and the one that is doing the most damage is amont white male voters — a sign of both the damage Obama inflicted on himself in his initial comments about the Gates affair and what some analysists say is...

Let’s just call it an idea whose time hasn’t come, partially because the comedy timing never came: the Washington Post has (mercifully, thankfully, graciously) pulled plug on Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza’s video “Mouthpiece Theater.” Howard Kurtz’s piece in The Post reports: Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli killed the satirical video series Wednesday after harsh criticism of a joke about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, which prompted him to pull the...

A suggestion to Democrats and Republicans: why not lighten up on the upcoming healthcare reform townhalls? News reports have already explained what will happen: Democrats will be trying to explain their view of healthcare reform and — in the best tradition of democracy — GOPers will try to pack the meetings and in some cases drown out a detailed discussion so there are some conflict-riddled clips showing angry audiences that can be shown on You Tube and on network newscasts. But here’s...

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been sworn in to be Iran’s President again — beginning his second term seen by many in Iran and even more abroad as someone who has been put into power by the country’s power elite via a rigged election. Here’s a Reuters video report:

Our political Quote of the Day comes from the Atlantic’s always perceptive Marc Ambinder who notes how former President Bill Clinton has rebounded and how “those talented Clintons are “defying Expectations Again,” thus providing yet another example of how conventional wisdom often withers when matched later reality. Ambinder recalls two warnings President Barack Obama got from some when he decided to choose then-Senator Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State: (1) Bill...

A needed song for our times comes from another time: “Put On A Happy Face” from Bye Bye Birdie. NOTE: OK, so we couldn’t get Dick Van Dyke — but in the You Tube below you can watch Steven and Sara Brattman lip syncing it: And if the lyrics didn’t get through to you with that rendition, here are Gail Farrell, her husband Ron Anderson, and their friend Michael Redman singing it (with show stopping harmony) in a 1981 TV show:

It’s Barack Obama’s 48th birthday today — and here are some poignant thoughts by someone who I read everday. I thank God that he’s alive.

Has the tide shifted in the upcoming Senate vote for Cash For Clunkers? There are now rumblings that it has or, at the least, is starting to turn. Here’s one via Reuters: U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, told Reuters that the Senate may vote as early as Wednesday to approve a $2 billion extension of the popular cash-for-clunkers consumer rebate program to spur automobile sales. Stabenow said she was “pretty optimistic” that the chamber would approve the additional...

Why don’t I just copy this first sentence and repaste it every week? But here goes: Just when you thought bar on American early 21st century political “debate” has fallen about as far as it can go, you’re wrong. Read this about where we are in terms of discussing serious issues. There’s even a guide for those who want to drown out the discussion and “polarize” — but that isn’t my word: now READ THIS.

Some women got revenge on a philanderer. No, this isn’t quite as winceworthy as the story of John and Lorena Bobbit, no matter how you slice it. But be forewarned: you may be glued to your computer if you GO TO THIS LINK (adult material).

Is Iran’s theocracy imploding? Jamsheed Choksy — Professor of Iranian Studies and former Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Indiana University, and a member of the US National Council on the Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities — makes the case that it is in this MUST READ on RealClearWorld. Here’s a small part of the beginning: Swept up by revolutionary fervor in the late 1970s, many Iranians assumed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a pragmatist....

THIS JUST IN!!! Obama’s real Kenyan birth certificate has been discovered! OOPS…Wait a minute…Or has it? The birthers, a growing movement of GOPers who are trying like crazy to find something — anything — to delegitimize Barack Obama’s election and presidency while being fanned on by increasingly paranoid talk show hosts such as Glenn Beck and some Republican politicians, are at it again. There is THIS BIG NEWS! about a birth certificate proving Obama was actually...

Get ready for Iran to be in pitchforked into the headlines this week as the regime there prepares to get — and to receive — a double whammy. And there could be a triple whammy, too. First whammy: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be inaugurated as President, even though the legitimacy of his vote is now seen in almost the same light as the rigged elections that kept Iraq’s Sadaam Hussein in power. Second whammy: the an double-intent move, the regime will put the country’s top moderate...

The killing of two gay teenagers in Tel Aviv has come as a shock to many as other gay clubs are now being warned to be vigilant. Here’s a good Reuters report via You Tube:

The two networks’ bigwigs huddled – -and in the end it seems as if Fox News O’Reilly “won” in his ongoing feud with MSBNC’s Keith Olbermann. UPDATE: Read Glenn Greenwald’s take on this and its significance (which most assuredly will spark some debate in comments…)

Some heartfelt advice to Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza, two excellent journalists who now seem to be aspiring satirists: Don’t quit your day jobs. Before you put up a You Tube that makes a comedian with flop sweat look like Chris Rock (and doesn’t enhance your image as journalists) you might want to consider THIS, THIS, THIS, or go to this guy for some coaching (as I did). If you don’t, you will continue to produce unfunny humiliating embarrassing reputation-destroying uneven...

If a new Kos/Research2000 poll is correct, the Republican party — the once-proud party of thoughtful, policy-oriented conservatives such as Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan – could be morphing into the “birther party.” Why does this matter? Because there needs to be at least a modicum of consensus in American politics and the birthers — egged on by conservative talk show hosts such as Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity (who still can’t stop talking...

As we’ve noted here, as President Barack Obama continues to stumble (not having political Congressional on-board numbers to pass healthcare reform as he previously described it plus the foot-in-mouth entry into the African-American professor versus white cop case which led to a beefest yesterday between the three at the White House) his once lofty poll numbers have starting going south — ending up now approximately where they were on election night. But do the polls tell the whole story?...