For those who may have been distracted by the Republican nomination race, the first potentially armed conflict since the Thatcher years between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands – known by Latin Americans as the Malvinas – is brewing. Unfortunately, according to columnist Gilson Caroni Filho of Brazil’s Opera Mundi, the United States, even if it doesn’t recognize British...

An obvious yet often overlooked persective on the Guantanamo Bay prison is that of Cuba itself – where the prison is located. Will Cuba ever get Guantanamo Bay back from the United States? And what does Havana do with the $4085 Washington sends it every month to lease the land that the base is on? According to Enrique Milanés León of Cuba’s state-run Juventud Rebelde, ending Washington’s...

Dear Vice President Gore, et al. I’m concerned. More than concerned, in fact: deeply troubled. How can I say this, diplomatically? Hmmm. Your new news  shows look like crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And by “look” I mean the physical plant that serves as a backdrop for your hosts. They are an embarrassment, and, much as I’d like to be a fly on the wall for the sessions in which your “look”...

In South Carolina, predictions of Mitt Romney being favored to win in part because women would go for him over Newt did not materialize. And to be clear, we’re not talking the gap between how men versus women vote for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich. We’re talking about the gap between who women prefer between the two candidates. This time around, in Florida, people seem much more certain that this...

No GOP slugfests for the next three weeks—-how will we get through the month? Sunday Gingrich gave us some venom to go, in the parking lot of a Florida mega-church with a Starbucks in the lobby, tagging Mitt as a “pro-abortion, pro-gun-control, pro-tax-increase moderate from Massachusetts” with “money from Wall Street” to spread lies about him, “as big an outrage as I’ve...

Has American society given up one of its foundational principles – that anyone who hunkers down and works hard can make it? Columnist Reymer Kluever of Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung explains President Obama’s State of the Union change in political tact by pointing out that since the 1970s, the United States has become one of the least fair industrialized countries in terms of tax policy...

Of course two people — even if they were once on the same ticket for president and vice president of the United States — can, three years later, change some of their views and root for and endorse different candidates in the GOP presidential primaries. It happens to the best of us, and in the best of families, including husband and wife — just look at James Carville and Mary Matalin … Thus...

Why is Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’ proving to be the longest and most deadly battle in the nation’s history? Columnist Luis Javier Garrido of Mexico’s La Jornada outlines in great detail how the companies and government agencies which are supposed to battle narco-trafficking are proving so profitable, neither governments nor the companies they pay wish it to end. For La Jornada,...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is continuing in his evolution as a conservative candidate most appealing to those who idolize conservative talk shows and as a candidate who most reflects those in the GOP who seemingly seek a smaller tentby making it clear those who don’t fit a rigid ideological profile need not attempt entry. His two latest endorsements are sure to be (additional) baggage for him...

Ghosts of GOP past are rising from political tombs to sound alarms about Newt in the White House even as the last Florida debate has him on the defensive about the past and future. Gingrich fails in his attempt to use Wolf Blitzer as the kind of tackle dummy he made out of CNN colleague John King in South Carolina, while 1996 candidate Bob Dole is joined by Tom Delay, Ann Coulter, Elliott Abrams and other Conservatives...

Like much of the rest of the world, German commentators have been captivated by the death-match between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. And opinions seem almost unanimous. Echoing the views of just about everyone we’ve seen, columnist Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger of Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes that whether Gingrich wins the nomination or not, he cannot be good for the party or...

How bad is the damage Republicans are doing to one another in the Republican primaries? This editorial from Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel outlines why, at least from outside the United States, it looks like reelecting Obama may turn out to be a cake walk. The Der Tagesspiegel editorial starts out this way: Mitt Romney, the favorite, is tottering. But who can replace him as President Obama’s opponent?...

It turns that now it has been proven and Newt Gingrich has admitted he was wrong about the witnesses he had to rebut his ex-wife’s allegations and ABC’s response to his purported offer to bring them foward. A slight inaccuracy — but, hey, it allowed him to puff up his big melodramatic moment against the press and hit that good, old hot button that helped him with the South Carolina primary....

…is the GOP Congress as the President does a deft job of trying to reboot his final year with small unilateral steps to get around the pachyderm squatting on the path to economic recovery, leading up to a plea for bipartisan cooperation on larger issues that hits a blank wall in the faces of McConnell, Boehner, Cantor and their Tea Party obstructionists. Without explicit blame, Barack Obama (the man knows...

Mike Keefe, Cagle Cartoons This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Hamburg, Germany: Preventive Detention Controversy Splits Politicians and City Residents A ruling in spring 2011 by the German Constitutional Court enables dangerous criminals in preventive detention to return to living “a normal life”. And that includes having a place to stay, becoming part of a new neighbourhood. German politicians now have a burden on their hands and residents have serious safety concerns....

In the wake of a relatively brisk, civilized debate, ringmaster Gingrich is complaining about losing his rabble-rousing rights. Reacting to NBC’s control of the kind of whooping and cheering that went on in South Carolina, Newt’s morning-after regret is that “I wish in retrospect I’d protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong. And I think he took them out of it because...

There are a couple of observations I have been meaning to make about Mr. Gingrich’s “magnificent, bold and fearless” debates performance. On the first observation, New York Times’ David Firestone beat me to the punch and I am glad because he elucidates it much better than I ever could. Firestone ascribes a lot of Gingrich’s “successes” in the two previous South Carolina debates to the (red-meat)...

Now that future Presidents Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have had their say, a person named Barack Obama, who claims to hold the office, will face TV cameras tonight with what purports to be a State of the Union address. Fact-checking of Gingrich and Romney eliminates many of their more stimulating claims, reducing Mr. Obama to such boring proposals as refinancing for homeowners in trouble, tax breaks for companies...

During the 1960 campaign, JFK said he felt sorry for Nixon: “It must be hard getting up every morning and having to decide who you’re going to be that day.” Now, Mitt Romney’s authenticity problem is front and center. Wobbling into a belated release of some tax returns for whenever, he is, like Nixon back then, still trying to create a real person Republican voters can believe in. The obvious answer...

No matter where in world one looks, incredulity and wonder seem to be the reactions people have to the political resurrection of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. In this latest critique, columnist Thomas Spang of Austria’s Nachrichten advises Mitt Romney to get off the stick or be swept away by the voter rage being so well-harnessed by Gingrich, who Spang refers to as a ‘hypocritical moralizing...

Back in September of 2009, I started one of my several articles on the Afghanistan War as follows: As the fighting in Afghanistan intensifies; as that war claims more and more casualties; and as critical decisions loom on national objectives, strategy and corresponding troop levels and deployments there, the debate also intensifies. As the war has continued unabated and has indeed claimed more and more young...

In South Carolina, Prof. Gingrich combined theology with science: When a snake, i.e. the media, drops a bitten apple on you, deflect it back and reverse the momentum of your campaign. Not quite Sir Isaac’s formulation, but Dr. Karl Rove, Newt’s former colleague at Fox University, validates the theory, “John King couldn’t have set up the question in a more positive way for Gingrich to just nail it and...

My blood is still boiling. My outrage is not your usual Internet-induced or Internet-encouraged outrage. My outrage was so great I could not write about it. But I’ll let THIS LETTER speak for me. And I’ll say: “Ditto.” Ditto to what the column says. Ditto to his reccomendation to the newspaper publisher. I worked for several newspapers over the years as a contributor and as a full-time...

Talk about your mixed messages being sent. Former Congressman, Speaker of the House and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich won the female vote in South Carolina, according to exit polls and despite reports to the contrary, just the day before, of a significant gender gap that should have helped former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, if it really existed — which it...