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Before the upcoming rough and tumble week of political debates, firestorms, memes, falsehoods, truths, insanity, coffee-fueled sermons, drug-induced tirades, and assorted odds and ends, I present the legendary Pat Metheny Group with their classic song “As It Is” (Live) from their 2002 release “Speaking Of Now”. Every time I hear this song, I realize how true the phrase “As It Is”, is! It is what it is. Can it be something else? Maybe so but it always takes...

ATTENTION ALL TMV READERS AND COMMENTERS! There is a serious problem with our 3rd party commenting system (Disqus) in that random comments are being flagged as SPAM and are being removed. I have found those comments and I’m in the process of restoring them. Furthermore I have raised a support ticket with Disqus to get this fixed ASAP. I apologize for all of the confusion and emotion over this issue. Please follow this post for updates. UPDATE: 10/17/2009 @ 11:09AM EDT Comments in the past...

Image courtesy of Chicago Ray Report - http://chicagoray.blogspot.com Ok… Ok… The title is a bit over the top but President Obama is going to be the first U.S. President to appear before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to lobby for the Olympics (via The Huffington Post): WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s decision to fly to Denmark to support Chicago’s Olympics bid elevates the Games to an issue of national importance – and exposes him to political risks as...

UPDATE: According to MSNBC’s First Read, President Obama will be meeting with ALL the players in his Situation Room tomorrow (emphasis mine): Although President Obama has spent so much time and energy on domestic issues in his first nine months in office, last week’s news (Iran and its nuclear ambitions and missile tests, the future of Gitmo’s closure, and Gen. McChrystal’s troop request for Afghanistan) once again proved that foreign affairs could end up defining Obama’s presidency...

Once again Hollywood is on the attack. This time with a “PSA” about Protecting Insurance Companies. Click HERE to view the video via Funny Or Die (a new window will open). NOTE: I didn’t embed the video due the preview slowing down the site. Of course the predictable “Hollywood are a bunch of stupid, clueless, latte liberal elites” (implied not said) from various sources in Right Blogtopia such as Hot Air, Riehl World View, and Michelle Malkin has started. And the...

Asus eBook Reader Amazon and Sony have their eBook readers. Now Asus wants a piece of the action with their cool looking device (from the Times Online – UK): Tech news: For the smarter kind of bookworm Asus, inventors of the netbook, is about to shake up the ebook world with the arrival of the world’s cheapest digital reader By ALEX PELL The world of ebooks is about to start a new chapter with the arrival of the cheapest digital reader on the market. Asus, one of the world’s biggest...

I had a couple of family members work for ACORN several years ago. They both went door-to-door, made signs, etc. But they quit after a year due to “shadiness”. Both of them said there were many good people working for ACORN but there always seemed to be some secrets among the local leadership and special sub-organizations that did weird “things”. I never really followed up on that since honestly I didn’t care much about ACORN. In my black nationalist days, I just...

I am quite pleased at the Tea Party Protest March On Washington turnout yesterday (September 12, 2009). I’ve always been a fan and a lover of the protest and demonstration. I’ve been involved in many throughout my three and a half decades of life, the largest being the Million Man March (MMM) on October 16, 1995. There’s a certain beauty about a protest. Everyone with a singular purpose and expressing themselves. Just a wonderful thing. But enough of my “protest love”....

Here in conservative country (suburban/rural Georgia), roughly 15% of my daughter’s elementary school enrollment (total enrollment: 811) did not hear the speech that President Obama delivered to students today. I got this number from the one of the school’s custodian who I’m friends (he counted 120 children in the gymnasium; where children went who didn’t participate). That percentage could be higher counting in absences. The custodian (who’s been working in this...

My neighbor and I both have daughters in middle school. Both of our daughters came home from school today with a permission slip asking if we wanted our children to participate (or not) in the viewing of President Obama’s “National Address To The Students” on September 11th (school recording it from September 8th). My neighbor walked over to me and said: You got to be kidding me?? We both did not remember a time when we were kids that we needed permission slip to listen to the...

The Associated Press writes yesterday that for the first time in 35 years, Atlanta could elect a white mayor: After 35 years, next Atlanta mayor could be white By ERRIN HAINES (AP) ATLANTA — The city that became a post-civil rights movement emblem of the political power held by African-Americans could have a white mayor for the first time in a generation — a possibility that has some in the black community scrambling to hold on to City Hall. Atlanta Councilwoman Mary Norwood, who is white, is...

Disqus 3 is coming to this blog very very soon with many enhancements to make the commenting experience better and more robust. I will write more about it once Disqus 3 is on TMV. Check out the video below: DISQUS V3 from Giannii on Vimeo.

Hello readers. Disqus (our 3rd party commenting system) has been having some difficulties with spam filters and their databases. As a result, a large number of legit comments have been flagged as spam. We are in the process of un-marking those legit comments (not too fast and not too slow but tedious enough). Disqus is actively working this issue and it’s getting better. So if your comment doesn’t appear immediately, please don’t leave another one. It may have been marked as...

Hello TMV readers. There will be some downtime on the site starting at 11pm EST/8pm PST today. The site needs some general housekeeping and behind-the-scenes updating. You may see a maintenance screen or an error message for about 90 minutes max (hopefully less than that). This work should improve overall site response time and eliminate some non-functioning, search-related ads that cause site slowdowns. Thank you for your continued support and patience. - The Moderate Voice Editorial Staff and...

Back on October 16, 1995, I attended the Million Man March (MMM) organized by Nation Of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan. While I wasn’t a supporter of the Nation Of Islam, I was very curious about the entire event. Hmm… A million black men pledging to be better husbands, fathers, leaders, etc? What’s not to like about that? Sure Minister Farrakhan was/is controversy personified, but I was looking at the big picture. And I’m glad I went. While the media and pundits...

Curse that Lex Luthor, dreaded leader of the Legion Of Doom. We have been duped into electing two of his most powerful villains to the Office of the Presidency: Joker The Black (aka President Barack H. Obama) and Bushitler (aka former President George W. Bush). Oh you dastardly man Lex Luthor. The cunning, the scheming, the twisted plots within plots that you conceived to bring such darkness to the Land Of Opportunity. Oh Lex Luthor, you are an evil one! Did you use your mind control ray to...

For those of us who love our Blackberry devices (my Blackberry Storm has made me too organized) and love blogging, Wordpress has given us another reason to love our Blackberries even more: WORDPRESS FOR BLACKBERRY! Yes it is public beta mode right now, still in development, and has some bugs but I have to say one word: COOL! Yeah yeah… I’m displaying my inner geek (well protected in the body of an offensive lineman with all the aggressiveness therein). But the inner geek as won the...

Mark Steyn has an interesting take on Sarah Palin’s resignation as Alaska’s governor. His last two paragraphs has some very good points: Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to – what’s the word? – “empathize”? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig...

From the “Keep On Keeping The Bad Bad Leadership Forever And Ever And A Day And Then Some With Sugar On Top Extra Onions and Anchovies” department, Detroit Councilwoman Monica Conyers, wife of Representative John Conyers, will resign July 6th after accepting cash to vote in favor of a Houston, Texas company getting a lucrative sludge treatment contract: Detroit (WWJ) — Effective July 6, Monica Conyers will resign her seat on the Detroit City Council. The 44-year-old Conyers, the...

Kimberley A. Strassel at the Wall Street Journal writes about the growing number of skeptics on “human caused global warming”: Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.”...

Hello TMV readers and welcome to the new look. As you can see, it looks totally different from the previous site. First and foremost, I need to give credit to Nick at Elegant Themes for the awesome design. This is one of his stock designs (customized by yours truly). Without him, this redesign wouldn’t have happened. Here are the changes and explanation: 1. Removal of the large “The Moderate Voice” graphic and replaced with stylized text. 2. All posts are now in excerpt format....

NOTE: THERE ARE UPDATES TO THIS POST AT THE END. PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO THEM IF YOU’VE ALREADY READ THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION. Hello Readers. Those who are regular or semi-regular visitors to The Moderate Voice know very well that we have gone through various site design changes. The current design (spearheaded by myself, TMV Managing Editor Pete Abel, and Nicasio, LLC.) has worked well but is outdated in many respects. It doesn’t allow for additional, newer content to be added easily...

As announced by fellow TMV colleagues Holly Robinson and Pete Abel, President Barack Obama has selected federal judge Sonia Sotomayor as his pick for the Supreme Court (Politico story here). As soon as the announcement came, text messages and e-mails started flooding to my Blackberry from various family and friends. What amazed me was how these pro-Obama, black and brown Democrats weren’t happy. Here are some excerpts from e-mails and texts: “Obama has made it soooo easy for the GOP!” “Now...

The most groundbreaking part of my journey from the far, far vocal left to the center-left is my attitude toward our American soldiers. Where I once railed against our soldiers in blind, unfocused fury (which still bothers me to this day), I now deeply respect their service to our country. And when I think of those who paid the ultimate cost, it makes me think about how they “stuck to it” to the bitter end no matter the situation. I used to feel that I should join the Armed Forces...