“The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow…You Can Bet Your Bottom Billion….” by Marc Pascal On a recent Saturday, I bicycled with my family to the Arizona Biltmore Resort, as it is only a few miles from our rented condominium in Phoenix. As part of this architecturally-significant and very attractive art deco 5-star hotel is a conference center. In this venue was being conducted a day-long public auction of...

Dheeraj Chand has worked in Democratic polling since 2007, prior to which he was a political journalist, high school debate coach, and field operative for Democratic campaigns. His views do not necessarily reflect the opinions of TMV’s editorial board or writers. _______________________________________________ By Dheeraj Chand I’m a little late to the fight between Democratic pollsters Stan Greenberg...

A Rational And Affordable Process To Solve The Nation’s Banking Crisis by Marc Pascal Today all economic and financial experts are essentially baffled on how to proceed in cleaning up the remnants of the Gambling Casino that was once the U.S. banking and financial system. We have zombie banks (BoA, Citigroup, etc.) and a U.S.-owned insurance giant (AIG) that have turned into black holes for taxpayer...

Editor’s Note: The Rush Limbaugh controversy continues to rage with lots of stories in the mainstream media, continued blog posts and major coverage on cable news channels and talk shows of the left and right. The following is an email release from veteran conservative Richard Viguerie. We’re posting it in full here as a Guest Voice due to the interest in this story and because it represents a different...

Arizona: It’s Time to grow up and get our act together by Marc Pascal Arizona’s state and local governments are rapidly disappearing into the desert’s financial quicksand. The state budget for 2010-11 is being drafted by Republicans who for years repeated their empty mantras of “more cut taxes” and “reduce government spending” in response to every situation. Faced with a billion-dollar fiscal...

Mr ‘Total Conservative’ — Interview With Mike Huckabee by Bill Steigerwald Since Mike Huckabee finished third in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, the former governor of Arkansas, author and ordained Southern Baptist minister seems to have found a new career in television and radio. “Huckabee,” his hour-long show on Fox News Channel on Saturdays at 8 p.m. (repeated at 11 p.m.),...

By Jon Powers Jon Powers is the Veterans Program Director for The Eleison Group, LLC, where he is working on developing the outreach efforts of the progressive community to veterans and military families. He is an Iraq War veteran, a former congressional candidate in New York’s 26th district, and a fellow with the Truman National Security Project. ********** When President Obama announced his decision to send...

By SHAUN MULLEN GUEST VOICE It was a wonderful sight: Barack Obama, widely flogged during the presidential campaign for being a foreign policy lightweight and cut-and-run coward, announcing to an auditorium full of cheering Marines that most U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by August 2010 and all of the rest a year later. The choice of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina was no accident. President Bush spoke there...

Zombie Politicians and Zombie Pundits by Marc Pascal Banks that have essentially failed but are provided ongoing capital from public bailouts are referred to as “Zombie Banks.” They are dead but still walk the earth. While we have some of these staggering around in the U.S. right now, over the next year the Administration will eventually put them out of their misery and reorganize them into extinction....

So This Is Socialism? by Marc Pascal The Wall Street Journal laments that “high-wage earners, Wall Street hedge-fund managers, oil-and-gas investors, corporate executives, well-to-do seniors and Washington lobbyists all take hits in President Barack Obama’s budget plan.” Instead, the “budget winners include middle-class families, low-wage workers, lower-income retirees, veterans, preschoolers, college...

Obama: Enabler of the Irresponsible by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown In his inaugural address, President Obama heralded the arrival of a “new era of responsibility.” Apparently, this was a slip of the tongue, really meaning an “era of irresponsibility.” By his actions, Obama is pushing irresponsibility by picking winners and losers, punishing those who have worked hard and saved, while rewarding those who...

By SHAUN MULLEN GUEST VOICE Fear has been the Republican Party’s greatest weapon, and notably so during the Age of Bush: Fear of people with funny names and skin colors. Fear of people who do not worship a Christian God. Fear of people who are not red-blooded Americans. Fear of people who don’t spout patriotic slogans or wear American flag lapel pins. But now the screw has turned and fear has become...

The Truman National Security Project bills itself as “the nation’s only organization that recruits, trains, and positions a new generation of progressives across America to lead on national security.” The following essay (the first in a series for TMV) is from Robin Walker, a Project fellow. As with other “guest voice” posts, this and future contributions from the Truman Project...

Who Invented The Automobile? by Kathy Gill At the risk of sounding like President Clinton, it depends in large part on how you define “automobile” and “invention.” In his State of the Union speech last night, President Obama indirectly and incorrectly asserted that the automobile was invented in America: I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it....

That Racist New York Post Dead-Monkey Cartoon by Daryl Cagle All the pundits are talking about the recent cartoon by the New York Post’s Sean Delonas, showing a chimp shot by two policemen who say, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” The prevailing view among the bloggers and talking-heads is that the cartoon is a racist depiction of Obama as a monkey....

LET’S GROW UP AND RAISE TAXES by Marc Pascal The first of several stimulus packages has just passed but it is just the beginning of our efforts to address our immediate and long-term economic problems. After 2010, the federal operating budget will face trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. They have to be addressed for the long-term prosperity of our country and our future credit-worthiness...

On Capitol Hill, Money is the Root of All Hypocrisy by Michael Winship The great movie comic and professional curmudgeon W.C. Fields once said, “You can fool some of the people some of the time – and that’s enough to make a decent living.” Watching the news from Washington unfold this week, the truth of the late comedian’s words never seemed more right. The antics of the august...

By SHAUN MULLEN GUEST VOICE No action taken during the Age of Bush may have provoked more outrage than the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in holding alleged terrorists indefinitely and prosecuting them before military tribunals. But there is an historic precedent dating back to Abraham Lincoln, of all presidents, and the infringements of the Great Emancipator on civil liberties arguably were greater...

Where the Money Isn’t by Michael Reagan Willie Sutton is wrongly believed to have said he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is.” He never said that, and anybody who says it now would also be wrong. A bank’s principal function is twofold — to be a depository for their customers’ money and to make profits by lending money and charging interest on the loans. Thanks to a process known...

FOR GOD’S SAKE, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY – LET’S GET RID OF “QWERTY”!! by Marc Pascal Why do computers still have keyboards? They represent a quaint vestige of their predecessor typewriters that were invented 130 years ago. The “qwerty” keyboard was patented by Christopher Latham Sholes under U.S. Patent #207,559 issued on August 27, 1878. The original patent did not even include separate...

By SHAUN MULLEN GUEST VOICE At the core of the tiresome argument over whether Americans are center-right or center-left that is currently raging following the passage of President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package is the belief of conservative pundits that the liberal-left is incapable of leading because Americans are deeply traditional and therefore only believe in Republican values. Beyond...

In case you haven’t heard, Congressional Republicans think tax cuts would be far better to dig the United States out of its financial mess than a stimulus package that spends big bucks. In this Guest Voice post, humorist Will Durst gives you his take on it. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers. Tax-Cut Zombies from the Planet No! Raging Moderate, by Will Durst It...

So the economic stimulus is going to be posted online. Is that innovative? Proof of a more transparent government? Not so fast, write author Martha Randolph Carr in this Guest Voice post. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers. Talk to Us by Martha Randolph Carr The idea that posting the entirety of the $789 billion dollar 2009 American Recover and Reinvestment Act or...

Is President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan which now seems destined to pass with little GOP support a solution or likely to be part of a future problem? Is it a symbol of democracy in action, or symptomatic of the demise of the concept of the Republic as it has long been understood? In this Guest Voice conservative talk show host Michael Reagan argues that it’s cause for mourning rather than celebration....

So what’s bipartisanship really all about and what has President Barack Obama really been trying to say about it? In this Guest Voice post, AverageJoe looks at these issues. Guest Voices posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its readers. The Stimulus, Right Wingers, Left Wingers, Obama And Bipartisanship by AverageJoe Principle was sited as the left and right wingers did battle on the...