Bill Day, Cagle Cartoons For a women’s magazine editor of half a century ago, the Planned Parenthood-Komen Foundation ugly furor recalls the time from introduction of the Pill when women, no matter what their circumstances, were without safe, reliable birth control and, before Roe v. Wade, had the choice of bearing unwanted children or being butchered by back-alley abortions. From the start, those new alternatives,...

The GOP Soap Opera Raging Moderate, by Will Durst It’s been more exciting than a zip-line over crocodile-infested streams watching the Republican reality TV show currently playing across the nation. Specifically talking about their grueling marathon gladiator contest where the last person voted off the island becomes Red American Idol and wins the opportunity to oppose Barack Obama in the grudge match...

Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News Pundits had been predicting it would happen but you can’t obscure the real impact: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won big in the Nevada caucauses yesterday — further consolidating his candidacy, after a gaffe-peppered week adding to the positive image of someone who’s on a political roll, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s candidacy continues...

By now most readers know my (changed) position on the Afghanistan War. I have expressed concern among other about rampant corruption and backstabbing at the highest levels in the Afghanistan government, incompetence of and disloyalty among its military and police and continuing human rights violations. I have mourned our casualties and fretted about our huge financial costs. But — perhaps insensitively...

John Cole, The Scranton Times-Tribune Is Newt Gingrich going to make a major announcement? Will he announce that he’ll drop out after all? This item from the National Journal suggests something a bit unusual might be in the works — and soon: Instead of the traditional election night party, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will hold a press conference after the Nevada Caucus on Saturday, raising...

Senator Orrin Hatch has sometime defended injecting religion in politics. But not in an election year — if it involves a Democrat.

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune The GOP: Preaching the Prosperity Gospel by Tina Dupuy One of the richest men in the country, ranking in the 0.006 percent of Americans, likes to accuse the President of creating an “entitlement society.” Mitt Romney, the heir apparent, next in line GOP nominee … is against entitlement. When I hear “entitlement society,” I think “country club.”...

Savaging Newt by Michael Reagan I am somewhat mystified — and dismayed — by the spectacle of a lot of so-called conservatives who weren’t around in the 1980s dropping Ronald Reagan’s name to promote themselves while they go about slandering Newt Gingrich who, like my dad, was there in the ’80s and ’90s and also helped him elect more Republicans than anyone else in recent...

Political talking heads on cable such as MBNBC’s Joe Scarborough expressed shocked at this New York Times piece that ran January 28 which basically had a bunch of unnamed sources trumpeting how former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s advisors were so smart and shrewd in turning Romney’s seemingly bumbling campaign around, starting at the last Florida debate. Scarborough and others argued...

Susan G. Komen Sadness By Doug Bursch I have a right to be sad. . . Pressure from the right, Pressure from the left. Nothing left unsaid. Everyone vilified, marginalized, and suspect. I suspect it will not get better, Until we all get our pound of flesh. Tearing the world apart, With our grand vision of a perfect nation. So much malignancy as we seek the cure. Doug blogs and tweets fairlyspiritual

John Cole, The Scranton Times-Tribune This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Which political party is more exciting? Apparently the Republican Party.

I always believe in disclosure in all but the most private affairs, so I open this by disclosing that it is my plan to vote for Newt Gingrich in the Republican primary in Michigan this month, but to (probably) vote for Barack Obama in November–a major shift for me since I’ve voted for the Republican nominee in every election since 1996. Since 1984, my first year as a voter, I voted Mondale (D), then...

The reversal of field today by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation on its decision to terminate funding to Planned Parenthood clinics is doubly heartening. This is because a grave injustice has been corrected and it was corrected to a substantial degree by the pushback by many thousands of people who vented their displeasure with Komen on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, the first such instance in the U.S....

The damage that House Republicans have done to their party brand and their chances to take back the White House and Senate is incalculable, but like the last person in the room to get a joke, they finally appear to be wising up. I have spent a good deal of time — usually while sitting on the porcelain throne or chasing the lawn mower around the back yard — trying to fathom why the likes of House...

In Washington, the President affirms his humility at a National Prayer Breakfast to be followed by ego gone amok in Las Vegas as Donald Trump, after hinting for days he will endorse Gingrich, bestows his grace on Romney. Here is a contrast in current American culture between the place of the Cross and the Double-Cross as Barack Obama underscores “Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto to whom much is given, much...

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

Five reasons why Donald Trump is a joke — five cartoon reasons, via Daryl Cagle HERE.

WASHINGTON — I wish Mitt Romney’s cavalier dismissal of poverty in America could be chalked up as just another gaffe, but it’s much worse than that. The Republican front-runner seems dangerously clueless about the nation he seeks to lead. When I first heard the now-famous quote — “I’m not concerned about the very poor” — I thought it might be fodder for...

Microblogging in China: Unstoppable!? by Stephanie Kopf There is a special beauty to blogging. It unleashes a feeling almost akin to reverence. We live for exchange and communication, for feeling connected. Now maybe more than ever before. Each in our different ways, but still, I do believe it’s there in everyone. There is something indescribably thrilling about this mix of freedom of expression and responsibility...

Warren Buffett’s complaint about his secretary paying more in taxes than he does is having a global ripple effect. According to columnist Helena Garrido of Portugal’s Jornal De Negotios, the debate on tax fairness in the United States should be food for thought in Portugal, where the economy is in a tailspin and thanks to widespread tax evasion and tax avoidance, tax revenue has plummeted. For the...

Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The conventional wisdom has it that Mitt Romney mopped the floor with Newt Gingrich in Florida, and while I do not share the view that his was a come-fr0m-behind victory, Gingrich’s collapse was pretty amazing. But the victory in the fourth primary-caucus go round of the year further confirms that Romney is a candidate at odds with himself and very much at odds with the today’s Republican Party...

FINAL (SURPRISE) UPDATE: Well, the Huckster — as my favorite talk show host refers to him — has endorsed Mitt Romney saying that Romney is ”not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country we all love.” According to Seattlepi.com: Romney said he was honored to receive the endorsement, but hoped even more to win the endorsement of Nevada voters. The state holds presidential...

NANCY BRINKER KOMEN The Susan Komen-Planned Parenthood debacle is a defining moment for women’s rights in America. As Taylor Marsh writes, it is an egregious example of liberals being asleep at the wheel, but it is much, much more: It is a watershed event in the politicization of women’s reproductive rights in an era in which the Republican Party is doubling down on denying women virtually all...