David Broder doesn’t get a whole lot of respect in the blogosphere. In more than one case, Border has been viewed as some what bland and grey with his calls for bipartisanship. But of course, Broder has been a reporter for a long time, longer than some of us (myself included) have been alive. He remembers when politics wasn’t as nasty as it is now, and remembers when politicians of all stripes...

The deluge of first 100 day evaluations of President Barack Obama has begun, but one of the most interesting discussions came on Meet the Press with istorian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Newsweek Editor John Meacham. A counter cultural presidency? The leadership of patience? A dangerous expansion of the federal government? A President who paces himself and replenishes his spirit? And what does a recent poll say?...

Not surprisingly, President Obama’s approval numbers on the 100th day are very high. At 68%, the latest CBS/NYT poll shows widespread support for President Obama as a person, and the job he is doing. When you remove the Rasmussen daily tracker, which skews negatively for Obama for some reason, Obama’s

What would the first 100 days of President John McCain’s presidency likely have looked like if the Arizona Senator — sometimes at much at odds with his own party as with the Democrats — had won the Presidency? Walter Shapiro, writing on Salon, gives you his always perceptive take. (Shapiro was a great columnist on USA Today some years ago and now Salon regularly runs his stuff. He is a MUST...

Is Obama A Leftist? Socialist? Moderate? Or What? E.J. Dionne, Jr. has an analysis that seems to hit it on the head: How many ironies can a single presidency engender? Barack Obama is a detached man who has inspired fierce loyalties, and a cool man who has aroused both warm feelings of affection and a fiery opposition. He loves to engage conservatives, yet few of them have chosen to engage him. He is seen as...

A week after Miss USA runner-up Carrie Prejean started a national conversation about whether it’s wrong to say something plainly, with no shades of nuance – “I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman,” the verbal version of the Prop 8 vote tally and our president’s personal belief – Prejean’s preamble is still drawing harangues over its accuracy....

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. -Martin Luther King Jr. In reading some of the blogs as of late, it might seem that moderate or progressive Republicans are finally getting some love. The recent speeches by Meghan McCain and former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt, have given people the impression that maybe, just maybe, that those in the upper...

A publication called Grist is reporting that the swine flu outbreak may have been triggered by poor hygienic practices at the Perote, Vera Cruz, Mexico hog farming facilities of Smithfield Farms. Smithfield Farms is the “world’s largest hog producer and pork packager”:

Greg Miller reports in today’s Los Angeles Times that, for all the time and effort the CIA spent asking the OLC for legal cover to carry out new and/or escalated forms of torture, almost no effort was made to inquire into whether the techniques being used were actually effective (emphasis mine):

The stock market in the first quarter of this year has gone up a whopping 23 percent. In this same period, however, the actual economy hasn’t improved at all. In fact it’s getting worse by almost any meaningful, real life measure, though the worsening may have slowed a bit. An economy that’s not improving. An economy just getting worse a bit slower. Yet we nonetheless have this huge stock...

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that President Barack Obama’s approval rating a healthy 69 percent as he maintains solid support from his winning coalition — but the partisan divide is intensely sharp over the controversial release of Bush era interrogation memos that raise the issue of torture. Barack Obama’s performance in the first 100 days of his presidency draws strong public...

This is definitely a new era. Whoever would have thought you would hear people diss “fact-based journalism” — or that we’d even see that phrase? But the dissing, and existence of that phrase do exist: 21st century America is moving into a new age where many people will often only go to websites with which they totally agree, listen or watch left and right wing talk shows that already...

Our political Quote of the Day comes from Shane Murphy, the second-in-command aboard the American merchant ship seized by Somalian pirates. When the ship’s first in command was freed by Navy Seals most Americans of both parties cheered and put politics aside, but conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh had a different reaction. From The Huffington Post: “It feels great to be home,” said Murphy...

As a person of faith who serves in the Army National Guard, and as a student and teacher of history and political science, I am profoundly aware of the need for a strong, effective national defense that has its foundation on solid moral principles. The phrase “For God and Country” sums up my internal view of the loyalties I hold dear. The torture memos that were made public over the last two weeks...

It’s infuriating, but it’s entertaining, to watch the same people who spent the better part of the last eight years using lies, secrecy, deception, political maneuvering, and outright intimidation to run a global torture regime on foreign alleged terrorists, alongside a domestic illegal surveillance program on U.S. citizens, pen op-eds in major media outlets attacking Congress for not doing enough to stop...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation always does their dirty work at closing time on Friday. That way they have all weekend to figure out what is going on, get things in order so Joe and Jane Average can get their bills paid on Monday, and Wall Street has 2 days to sort through the carnage. Last night, the FDIC shut down four banks in four different states. That brings 2009′s running total to 29...

Yes, there’s something unseemly about someone in this day and age defending the use of torture. Perhaps even grotesque. Officially sanctioned torture, after all, is closely associated with the Spanish Inquisition, and with activities by regimes headed by Stalin and Hitler. The efforts of former Vice-President Dick Cheney to justify its use by a country that has always officially damned the practice may...

In his weekly You Tube/radio address, President Barack Obama calls for fiscal discipline and says his administration plans to take steps to institutionalize it: 4/25/09: Your Weekly Address from White House on Vimeo. ABC News’ Jake Trapper puts this address into perspective noting that the Obama administration is now coming under fire:

Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant John Cole, The Scranton Times-Tribune These cartoons are copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The nation’s financial markets collapse has introduced to the public new games the institutions played in pursuit of the almighty buck. One under the radar is auction-rate securities. “Auction-rate preferred securities is the largest largest fraud ever perpetuated by Wall Street on investors,” said Harry Newton, a private investor who operates the AuctionRatePreferreds.org website. “It...

We each make assumptions about who we are, what we’re about. And sometimes, those assumptions change over time. Between voting age and late 2006, my running assumption about my own politicalness was that I was more Republican than anything else. Since late ’06, with a few fluctuations in between, I’ve consistently felt more Independent than Republican. The latter was validated when I looked...

A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that the bulk of Americans have concluded that President Barack Obama has met or exceeded expectations in his first 100 days: President Obama begins the second 100 days of his presidency with 56% of Americans believing he has done an excellent or good job thus far, and only 20% saying he has done a poor or terrible job. According to the new USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted April...

Word is coming out of Albany that Jim Tedisco, facing a growing deficit in the results of the March 31 special election – may concede defeat to political neophyte Scott Murphy today. A finish line could be in sight in the race for the 20th Congressional District. With the numbers not looking good for Republican Jim Tedisco, sources tell Capital News 9 that Tedisco could concede to Democrat Scott Murphy...

Amid continuing signs that the Republican party is stuck and unable to chip away at President Barack Obama’s election winning and potentially political-support sustaining coalition, once again the question has arisen: Doesn’t the GOP need its moderates? To hear some conservatives say it, No way. Moderates are described as wishy washy, people who don’t have the clarity of vision to take a...

Marcy Wheeler has Part 1 of Norah O’Donnell’s take-no-prisoners interview with Liz Cheney: And here is Part 2: