Our second political quote of the day comes from Republican David Frum: Contra Rush Limbaugh, history’s actual fascists were not primarily known for their anti-smoking policies or generous social welfare programs. Fascism celebrated violence, anti-rationalism and hysterical devotion to an authoritarian leader. To date, the Obama administration has fallen rather short in these departments. Perhaps uncomfortably...

This is a (very) lightly modified version of a letter composed at my house this weekend. The only changes are the removal of my personal information and the name of the company. FWIW — I thought very hard about going Galt with the whole credit card industry. Still thinking about it, in fact… ***** August 15, 2009 To: My (former) Credit Card Services Company Re: Your response to the Credit Cardholders’...

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...

The title is actually a recent headline from the New York Times for an article discussing what some U.S. college graduates are doing faced with a dismal domestic jobs market. In fact, this might be a solution to America’s more-than-likely future jobless recovery and our growing inability to create worthwhile new jobs. The U.S. today has now fewer jobs than it did in 2001, and that doesn’t even include...

Our political quote of the day comes from Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham who looks at how the left and right over the years — and particularly this year — have hurled charges of being-like-the-Nazis or being-like Hitler. First, he gives examples of the overripe and polarizing polemics on both sides, and then he writes this: Now the subject of President Obama’s health-care plan has given us yet...

Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Some critics of current Democratic healthcare reforms falsely assert that a public option entity would kill competition within the U.S. private health insurance market. This claim begs several questions. Is the private health insurance market really competitive? Should it even be based on free-market principles? Several studies have shown that in most cases across the U.S. just one or two private insurance...

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...

Jeff Ely at Cheap Talk: At Legoland, admission is discounted for two-year-olds. But a child must be at least three for most of the fun attractions. At the ticket window the parents are asked how old the child is. But at the ride entrance the attendants ask the children directly. The parents lie. The children tell the truth.

Sean Hannity, one of the conservative commentators on Fox News I usually find repugnant, deserves credit for calling national attention to a tragic scenario that is playing out in California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley. The nation’s largest bread and fruit basket is experiencing a third year of drought made worse by severe cutbacks in imported water because of federal protection of an endangered...

After months of a bigger-than-life presidency, Barack Obama is being cut down to size–by the enormity of an economic crisis, by orchestrated fear of Change as a reality rather than an idea and by exhaustion of the hope and idealism he stirred up during two years of campaigning. But behind the falling poll numbers and raucous town halls, something else may be going on. “Health Debate Fails to Ignite...

Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of TMV or its many writers. Un-American? Protests are as American as Apple Pie by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown Un-American, disruptive, distorters of truth, manufactured outrage, Astroturf, hired guns, and Nazis are all terms used by President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and their liberal allies to disparage those who are speaking out at healthcare town hall meetings. Rather...

Jeff Parker, Florida Today This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

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...

We just HAD to spend all that money on the stimulus plan. We all know this, because if we didn’t we would have been thrust into the worst economic disaster since the great depression. Heck, maybe worse! There were flying monkeys reported in many parts of the nation and nary a ruby slipper in sight. As our friend Yid with Lid reports, initial reports of the demise of the United States economy may have been...

My friend Maurice and me were talking about the high cost of health care and ways Congress is searching to reduce the inflationary spiral dealing in the trillions of dollars neither one of us could truly comprehend. “How about hospitals refusing treatment for illegal Mexican workers?” Maurice asked. “No,” I opined. “The courts have ruled everyone is entitled to emergency trauma...

I have, as Bruce Springsteen would say, living proof:

We can fix that problem. First, watch Katy Abram (the woman who told Arlen Specter that she didn’t want the U.S. turned into Russia) being interviewed by Lawrence O’Donnell. Abram appears very nervous, and rightfully so, because she reveals the cavernous depths of her ignorance every time she opens her mouth. And mind you, this is with an interviewer who, although he is asking good, substantive questions,...

I wouldn’t go as far as comic/satirist Bill Maher saying the American public is stupid. Rather, a large percentage is gullible as we have seen time and again on the town hall video clips Congressmen are conducting this August recess. Wrote Maher in The Huffington Post: I’m the bad guy for saying it’s a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government,...

I know that I’m late to the ‘cash for clunkers’ debate/discussion, but this is insane: We give a guy $4500 of taxpayer money to trade a truck getting 15 mpg for one getting 17 mpg?

As the economy stabilizes, or appears to, with the prospect of a rebound on the horizon, if still a long way off, a major concern is that any genuine recovery will be largely a jobless one, with unemployment remaining high even as other economic indicators show improvement. This may not be the case, however. As Jon Chait noted at The Plank, citing the WSJ, the job losses have been largely service-relative, not...

One of the most loosely used words in current American political discussion and screamfests (the two are not always the same) is the word “lie.” A difference of perspective and an actual lie are not the same thing. So what are the actual “lies’ in the healthcare debate? Watch this CNN report on rumors about healthcare reform that are being spread as fact — not just on the Internet...

A week ago, in “The F-22 Program Cancellation: The Aftermath,” we discussed the recent cancellation of the F-22 Raptor program, and the potential impact on national security and on the aerospace defense part of the economy. Potential, because it is still too early to evaluate any concrete impact in either area. That doesn’t mean that aerospace defense and economic experts haven’t expressed...

I just got back from a very short trip to the UK to attend the wedding of an old classmate. One thing that struck me while I was there was the complete unpopularity of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The polls show Labour trailing the opposition Conservatives by as much as 15 points, with less than ten months to go until the next election. In the old British colony now known as the United States, we seem to take...

The emerging narrative in a lot of the major press coverage of heatlh care reform is that President Barack Obama has lost control of his message, which is why he was out on the hustings today at a town hall meeting. But now The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder writes that he now senses a slight relief at the White House. Why? Because, according to Ambinder, there’s a growing feeling that the Republicans...