EDITOR’s NOTE: This column was put on a timer. Due to a technical glitch the PROPER byline that was set up did NOT appear when this first went on the site for the first 90 minutes. Although this does say “Guest Voice” on top, it did NOT show the byline of Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr. It is now fixed. TMV regrets the error. WASHINGTON — The strangest aspect of the debate...

How Not to Get the Swine Flu Raging Moderate, by Will Durst Well, look at the time. Aren’t we expecting the Return of the Bride of the Son of the Swine Flu pretty soon? That’s right. It’s Baaaaack and this time, it’s personal. Scientists predict the virus will be worse this swing through the Northern Hemisphere, but come on, no matter how bad it gets, it’s still not going to be 1919. After all, our...

Guest post by Jessie Daniels Jessie Daniels is a principal of the Truman National Security Project and is currently an independent writer living in New York City. Most recently, she conducted research on future security challenges and multilateral response at the International Peace Institute in New York. Prior to that, she worked for four years as a national security legislative aide to U.S. Senate Majority...

Guest post by Frankie Sturm and Matt Rhoades Frankie Sturm is communications director at the Truman National Security Project and a free-lance journalist. Matt Rhoades works on Operation FREE for the Truman Project, where he is an intern. ********** Operation FREE, a coalition of national security experts and military veterans, has been a leading voice in arguing that climate change and an out-dated energy policy...

Let’s Make a Deal: Beltway Edition by Michael Winship If you ever needed proof that Washington is governed by the Golden Rule – the one that says, he who has the gold, rules – you only have to look at the wagonloads of cash being dumped by big business into crushing President Obama’s domestic agenda. Good gosh, how the money rolls in. And I’m not only talking about the millions...

Stream of Consciousness Saturday by Rick Moran A lot of things have happened this week that have entered the airy cavity sitting atop my neck and floated around waiting to be recognized as conscious thought. I can imagine all these little snippets of inner dialogue waiting patiently in line, bitching about how slow a goose I am at moving them from the dark of my subconscious where they effect my thinking in...

Guest post by Devin Stewart Devin Stewart is Director of the Global Policy Innovations program at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. In this capacity, he edits Policy Innovations and directs several projects on business ethics, trade, and media. He is also a Truman National Security Project fellow. Previously, he was Assistant Director of Studies and Japan Studies Fellow at the Center...

Guest post by Jonathan Powers Jon Powers is the Chief Operating Officer of the Truman National Security Project. He is a veteran of the Gulf War and the founder of War Kids Relief. He was previously Veterans Program Director at the Eleison Group, where he worked on outreach efforts by the progressive community to veterans and military families. This post, co-written with Jon Soltz, was originally published at...

Guest Post By Malia Cohen History shows that every generation has a mission. Some rise to the challenge nobly as the Greatest Generation rose to the challenge posed by the Great Depression and the rise of fascism. Others muddle through, as did the Silent Generation of the 1950’s who largely maintained the comfortable status quo they inherited from their parents. There comes a rare time, however, when a...

Guest post by Michael Lieberman Michael Lieberman, a Truman National Security Project fellow, is an associate at Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Washington D.C., where he works on international regulatory and compliance issues. He was previously a law consultant at The Asia Foundation. (The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.) In a recent piece, Stephen Walt takes...

The Failure to Administer Justice — Another Lockerbie Tragedy by Michael Reagan At a time when civilized nations are continuing to wage a collective and challenging fight against terrorist organizations, and the rogue nations that harbor them, this week’s release by Scottish officials of one of the masterminds behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing constitutes a major setback. Just as importantly, it has...

Guest post by John Malone John Malone, a VP/Senior Analyst with John S. Herold, an energy investment research firm in Connecticut, is a Truman National Security Project fellow. In the world of renewables, most of the attention is on the wind and the sun. Geothermal power just hasn’t gotten the same respect. That could be changing, as both the Obama Administration and Silicon Valley are considering the...

Guest post by Frankie Sturm Frankie Sturm is communications director at the Truman National Security Project and a freelance journalist. Ed. note: As part of our ongoing relationship with the Truman National Security Project, I’m pleased to announce that we’ll be cross-posting some pieces from Operation FREE, a new initiative that seeks to raise awareness about the links between climate change, energy,...

Guest post by Peter S. Henne Peter S. Henne is a Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project and a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. Last Friday, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge revealed the obvious — that the George W. Bush Administration had pressured him to raise the terror alert level in advance of the 2004 elections. This is significant for many reasons, but what...

WASHINGTON — Try a thought experiment: What would conservatives have said if a group of loud, scruffy leftists had brought guns to the public events of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush? How would our friends on the right have reacted to someone at a Reagan or a Bush speech carrying a sign that read: “It’s time to water the tree of liberty”? That would be a reference to Thomas...

Guest Voice posts do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of TMV or its many writers. A Modest Proposal, 2009 Edition by Ed Morrissey I have discovered an unfair disparity in access to a vital resource based on the economic condition of the consumer. This disparity is not just egregious, but it threatens the very core of our American way of life. People routinely get denied adequate and competent service...

Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of TMV or its many writers. Healthcare, Chess and Unintended Consquences by Average Joe In the flap over an Op Ed article penned by the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey rehashes a right wing idea I blogged about after the CPAC convention in March. This idea has been widely touted as one of the conservative alternatives to any Democratic plan to overhaul...

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the past we ran a line about Guest Voice posts not necessarily representing the opinion of TMV or its writers. But after we ran many Guest Voice columns by conservative talk show host Michael Reagan (whose posts we run usually once a week from Cagle Cartoons), liberals, moderates etc. we felt it wasn’t necessary to run that line at the top anymore. However, a reader now says this...

America’s Wounded Warriors — Honor, Courage and Sacrifice by Michael Reagan This past week, I was fortunate to play in the Wounded Warrior charity golf tournament. This commendable project aims to raise awareness and enlist the support of the public’s aid for severely injured service men and women while at the same time creating an environment of support which allows these injured heroes to recuperate...

Aung San Suu Kyi, 64, Burma’s popular leader under detention for years, once said that “it is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it…” Now, the Myanmar or Burmese military junta has further extended her house arrest by 18 months. Ms Suu Kyi’s 18-month sentence will prevent her from taking any direct part in the next year’s scheduled general...

Change We Can Believe In? by Ruth Marcus Washington Post Columnist WASHINGTON — Candidate Barack Obama offered a lofty vision of how his White House would operate. When the details of health reform were being hammered out, he vowed, “We’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments...

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the younger sister of the late President John F. Kennedy who founded the Special Olympics and promoted it to the very depths of her soul, has died at 88. As someone who used to write obituaries as part of my stint as a staff reporter on two newspapers (the old Wichita Eagle in Wichita, Kansas and the San Diego Union in San Diego, CA) I know full well the “boilerplate” obits...

So all it took to get two American journalists “convicted” of espionage home was Bill Clinton’s star power? Kim Jung Il just wanted to feel that we felt that North Korea is important enough to send a world-famous, charismatic former President of the United States there to pick up Laura Ling and Euna Lee from the ball and bring them home in his coach?

Dear Readers, Today Joe Gandelman wrote about the ongoing issue of uncivil discourse, “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….” In that exact vein, here is a Guest Voice by Elijah Sweete, a lawyer of many decades...

Time For A Little Honesty From Public Option Supporters by Jonathan Wells As the Senate wraps up its business and the House heads home for vacation, the debate over health care reform continues. Central to the Democrats’ selling of their health care proposal is the notion that their “public option” won’t lead to government takeover of health care and won’t lead to the destruction...