King Abdullah II of Jordan has made his national security advisor the new prime minister and mandated a crackdown on Islamic terrorists: CNN: Jordan’s king urges war on Islamic militancy

If you put together today’s AMERICAblog post on Samuel Alito’s membership in a Princeton alumni group which sought to keep out women and minorities with the recent Diane Rehm Show interview with Professor Jerome Karabel, a sociologist who details the history of admissions policies at Harvard, Princeton and Yale, you see an very unflattering picture of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and homophobia...

If it had turned out that the defendant was a major stockholder in Sinclair Broadcasting, then there might have been a problem with this guy on the jury: BOSTON –Sen. John Kerry’s public profile and prosecutorial past didn’t spare him from performing that most mundane of civic responsibilities — jury duty. Kerry was not only chosen this week to sit on a jury in Suffolk Superior Court,...

Self-styled “King of Pop” star Michael Jackson may have beat it out of the United States to live in Bahrain after being found not guilty of child molestation charges but ANOTHER self-created controversy has now placed him smack in the middle of a public relations debacle: anti-Semitic remarks, sparking calls from Jewish groups for an apology. This new controversy will likely get great play in newspapers...

Hey, Michael, TMV is one of them. The noses of some of us may be big but at least they’re not taped on. TMV thanks Sploid for the tip.

Our Around The ‘Sphere linkfest shamelessly renamed to exploit a holiday. Links are from DIFFERING viewpoints and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Moderate Voice. Thanksgiving Is A Holiday Where People Put Aside Politics. Right or wrong? WRONG. The PC Police never rest… Will Conservatives Abandon The Republican Congress? Bull Moose outlines an intriguing scenario. What The Democrats Are...

A revolution has started in Europe, and before long it’s bound to hit the United States’ shores: consumers can now buy toilet paper in basic black: Portuguese paper producer Renova introduced its line of black toilet paper in Spain and Portugal earlier this year and has just put it into French shops, a company official said today. “The intensity of the interest in this product we got from all...

When you look at the crises facing this White House and the bitter, raw controversy over the Iraq War the question becomes: what can the White House say to make its case better on issues? A new Harris poll gives the answer: it may not be able to say much at this point — since a huge chunk of the American public doesn’t believe it anymore: A majority of U.S. adults believe the Bush administration...

I wonder why there hasn’t been more discussion of Ariel Sharon’s incredible decision to leave the Likud Party and form a new centrist party. A day-after update is here. A case can be made that Sharon should have won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. He certainly was more deserving than ElBaradei and the IAEA. And, for what it’s worth, he was my pick. But this latest move could permanently restructure...

Starring Tom “Hammer” DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and a cast of corruption. From The New York Times: “Michael Scanlon, former aide to a powerful congressman and onetime partner of a wealthy lobbyist, pleaded guilty today to a federal conspiracy charge as part of a deal in which he agreed to cooperate with an investigation into possible wrongdoing by some lawmakers.” Coming soon to a courtroom...

Well, it wasn’t a vast left-wing media conspiracy after all… CNN anchor/reporter Daryn Kagan: “I have come back into the control room because we want to explain something to you that happened on this newscast yesterday. During our live coverage of a speech by Vice President Dick Cheney there was a technical malfunction, you’ll see it here. It involved a switcher, something we call a...

Wizbang is once again taking nominations for best weblogs. CLICK HERE and you can nominate the weblog of your choice. TMV was unofficially launched in Nov. 2003 and officially on Jan. 1 2004. Last year won Best Blog in the 2500-3500 weblog category. It has grown since then. Visit Wizbang since they’re still taking nominations for various categories, and you can nominate your favorite blogs. Nominations...

Visit The Carnival of The Liberated HERE.

We have some great writers over at Donklephant, and this one continues to impress with his thoughtfulness. Cicero pens some particularly moving thoughts on divorce and loss. A must read and a break from your typical political blogosphere fare. UPDATE: Woops, I linked to the wrong post. I’m such a putz. Fixed now.

Scary or inevitable? You be the judge…

Iraqi leaders are calling for a timetable to withdraw our forces. Good or bad? My thoughts are over at Donklephant.

And they have a good reason. You see, the ad isn’t correct. The ad says that as an appellate court judge, Alito has “ruled to make it easier for corporations to discriminate … even voted to approve strip search of a 10-year-old girl.” Referring to a document Alito wrote in 1985 while seeking a job in the Reagan administration, it quotes him as saying that “the Constitution does...

What happened 10 days after 9/11? The answer may shock and surprise you.

Last year I watched Control Room, the documentary on the Middle Eastern news provider Aljazeera that Donald Rumsfeld inferred being in the right place at the wrong time (i.e. they’re tipped off by terrorists). I don’t know about Rumsfeld’s assertions, but one thing is certain after watching the movie: these people are human and fragile, as one of their correspondents died in a bombing attack...

The New York Times: WASHINGTON (AP) — Identified in new court documents as ”Representative No. 1,” Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio has become the poster boy in the Jack Abramoff bribery probe, a beneficiary of trips, tickets and campaign donations, allegedly in exchange for official acts.

Ohio GOP Congresswoman Jean Schmidt became an unending video sound-bite loop when she read a message she said was from someone in the military calling Rep. John Murtha a “coward” for calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Anyone but someone who fell off a turnip truck could see that Schmidt had absolutely no problem delivering this message, which was couched in enough “plausible deniability”...

Yesterday was the 42nd anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s murder. Most baby boomers can remember where they were (yours truly had just finished a speech in an unsuccessful run as Treasurer for the Amity Jr. High School student council, when a teacher got up and made an announcement — and everyone gasped, filing out of the auditorium quietly). People often wonder what JFK would have done with some of...

You KNEW it HAD to happen: a site has been started to formally start a deathwatch for Pajamas Media. Read the introductory post HERE (some highlights below). Why did you KNOW it had to happen? Because the way it was set up has apparently irked so many writers of weblogs that an idea that was touted as something that could revolutionize the Internet has gotten out of the starting gate with hideous image problems,...

Some have it, some don’t…