The seesaw verdicts of the polls continue in Iowa. The latest CNN poll in Iowa fits in with the new tone coming from the camp of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: a seeming sense of relief plus a belief that their candidate will prevail in Iowa — and in the end. The new poll puts Romney in the lead, former House Speaker Gingrich fading faster then the impression a customer makes at Tiffany’s...

This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The New Year of 2012, a general election year, will be a year when the fortunes of political parties and politicians will rise and fall; it will be a year of unprecedented social and ideological confrontation; most important, it will be a year when “we the people” once again have the opportunity — the obligation — to make necessary adjustments or corrections to the course of our society,...

It sounds like over Christmas Texas Gov. Rick Perry paid a visit to Mitt Romney’s or Newt Gingrich’s flip-flop outlets: Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry on Tuesday declared that had undergone a “transformation” and no longer supported abortion in cases of rape or incest. During a campaign event in Iowa, Full Faith Christian Center pastor Joshua Verwers noted that Perry used to believe...

A new poll shows Rep. Ron Paul continues to significantly surge in Iowa and has taken the lead – raising the real prospect that if trending continues he could be the winner of the Republican Iowa causes which would further add to the media narrative that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney can’t close the deal and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is on the quick descent as weighty baggage pulls...

Reading bloggers’ own favorite posts of 2011 is a reminder of how much political and social sanity has been lost in this Tea Party world. Satire and rage abound. Yet it’s cathartic to read these notes in a bottle from survivors and realize we are not alone in this shipwrecked world. Such comfort is provided by keeping alive a tradition started by the late Al Weigel, who wrote brilliantly under the nom...

Vladimir Putin seems to be battening down the hatches instead of showing more flexibility in the face of the massive prodemocracy protests since the rigged December 4 elections. In the latest protests in Moscow and several smaller cities on December 24, an estimated 120,000 middle class Russians braved icy weather carrying anti-corruption banners and chanting “Russia without Putin”. On December 27, Putin...

The imagery of Newt Gingrich’s veracity keeps getting worse and worse as does his refurbished image in general. And today it’ll take another big hit because former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney: With just a week to go before the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney said Newt Gingrich’s failure to qualify for the Virginia GOP primary ballot indicated a disorganized campaign effort. “I think he compared it...

Randy Schultz, writing for the editorial page of the Palm Beach Post, doesn’t see dissatisfaction with the major parties as a uniter of independent voters. He’s got some interesting observations here about the need for organization — the “volunteers who staff phone banks, stuff envelopes and drive voters to the polls,” the stuff of electoral politics in America. But unity? In my...

Now that we have pulled out of Iraq — on a schedule negotiated by the Bush administration — and as instability and violence are on the increase there — as we feared they would — the very same chickenhawks who got us into this mess are now rearing their heads to blame Obama — as we knew they would. They are now saying the same they would have said if we had pulled out of Iraq six...

Despite recent unrest over the rule of Vladimir Putin and the perception that the recent Duma elections were rigged in favor of his party, many Russians regard him as a hero that has protected the nation from Western interests seeking to undermine Russian influence. For the Komsomolskaya Pravda, columnist Dmitry Voskoboinikov writes that whatever warts Putin and Russia may have, at least they aren’t being...

Is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s once-dead-once-surging campaign for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination on the descent again? When taken together a series of news stories and developments suggest his chances of winning the nomination could be dwindling. In politics it isn’t true that “I don’t care what you say about me as long as you spell my name correctly.” Gingrich...

In the residue of Christmas spirit, an attempt to understand what’s behind a toxic cloud that the Tea Party has cast over American government all year: Yes, the economy has been bad, and many of us have been hurting—-from young people without jobs to the retired with no increases in Social Security and no place to earn interest on their life savings. Yes, bailouts and stimulus have been very costly yet still...

Why We Need Better BS by Tom Purcell Here’s something we can do with less of in 2012: BS. It’s all over television, in magazines and in newspapers — and even in our serious papers, such as The New York Times. It is spouted by politicians and pitched by product spokesmen. Modern life is manufacturing an unprecedented amount of it. BS “is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone...

I need to warn you that what follows may be a bit confusing. It sure as hell confused me over a decade and more. But it’s timely for “Boxing Day” and if it scores a knockdown, that’s great. A TKO or KO would be better, but we takes what we can gets. [h/t to Jan C. for the link that started this descent into the "Political Cesspool"] Note the use of “parasites” below, cribbed...

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” –James Madison, The Federalist Papers Madison would have been appalled at the incoherence of much of the legislation enacted by Congress in the modern era. While the body of these bills is generally voluminous,...

Arranging smooth successions has been the bane of despots since the dawn of history – and today’s North Korea is a perfect example. Does the death of Kim Jong-il mean the beginning of the end of the Kim dynasty? Columnist Sohn Gwang-joo of South Korea’s Daily North Korea explains why contradictions in the system coupled with the inexperience of the country’s new despot make it highly...

Is America’s fear of terrorism putting a chill on essential scientific research? For Italy’s La Stampa, columnist Piero Bianucci warns that the White House, in an unprecedented move to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on an even more deadly form of bird flu, has persuaded science journals Science and Nature to censor themselves, undermining the free flow of information that scientific...

A new New Hampshire poll has good news for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, not-so-good-news for former House Speaker New Gingrich and good news for Rep. Ron Paul: Romney is ahead and Paul is rising: Newt Gingrich’s surge has slowed and Ron Paul has gained momentum, but Mitt Romney remains the clear front-runner in New Hampshire with a little more than two weeks until the nation’s first primary, according...

Our political Quote of the Day comes from ex-GOP Presidential contender and Fox News hit political personality Mike Huckabee on his fellow GOPers and Barack Obama: Asked whether he second-guessed himself over his decision not to run for president, Huckabee really went for it. “Republicans can’t decide what they want to be when they grow up,” he said, adding, “I know they want to beat Obama, but in the...

By not definitively repudiating newsletters that went out under his name that had racism or political Twilight Zone-ish ideas to the media’s satisfaction, Rep. Ron Paul has let the newsletters and his critics define him. The issue is is lingering out there, becoming a field day for cartoons and — if he wins Iowa — and low hanging fruit for late night comedians. For instance, Crooks & Liar’s...

The U.S. P0stal Service is financially going postal. John Avlon, writing in The Daily Beast, notes that it faces a grave crisis and there si a chance that the Christmas of December 2011 could one day soon be looked back as the Good Old Days — when there was more extensive service than during the rest of the 21st century. In fact, Avlon writes, the Postal Service’s survival could be at stake: A...

WASHINGTON — At a moment when the nation wonders whether politicians can agree on anything, here is something that unites the Republican presidential candidates — and all of them with President Obama: Everyone agrees that the 2012 election will be a turning point involving one of the most momentous choices in American history. True, candidates (and columnists) regularly cast the impending...

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

Not really.