On Thursday, 26 European Union member states plus the EU will sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Although the treaty ostensibly deals with counterfeit physical goods, it includes provisions related to digital goods. The Treaty was negotiated in secret; it began during the Bush Administration and was finalized under the Obama Administration. In October 2011, these eight countries signed: Australia,...

…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...

From @LOLGOP: America. Where evangelicals & casino moguls unite to help a thrice-married disgraced-politician-turned-lobbyist lecture us on morality. In other GOP news, CNN calls Florida a dead heat while the NYT suggest Newt Gingrich has peaked.

Awkward Family Photos: Mitt Laundry by Tina Dupuy Mitt Romney’s hurdle in winning the love/respect/admiration/fear of his party can be summed up in one photo. It was taken by his son, Tagg (doesn’t Sarah Palin have a kid with that name?) and put on Twitter this week. It’s of Romney and his wife Ann, presumably in a hotel basement, side-by-side pouring detergent into washing machines. Mitt is...

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

Yes that day has arrived and I never thought it would (although years ago I did do a serious, stand-back and analyze review of one of her earlier books). Our political Quote of the Day comes from Ann Coulter’s new column where Coulter, who is aggressively supporting former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican nomination, makes the case for GOPers for picking Romney and not former House...

Could Florida have a wild card? Several news stories are now suggesting that the Latino vote could save former Massachusetts Gov, Mitt Romney in Florida’s upcoming Presidential primary. And, indeed, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has an ad up that accuses Romney of being anti-immigrant in an effort to make inroads into that vote. But the latest is that Gingrich has pulled the ad after many of the state’s...

WASHINGTON — It was to be expected that in the course of his State of the Union address, President Obama would mention the killing of Osama bin Laden, whose death represented the culmination of the battle against terrorism that began on Sept. 11, 2001. Far less expected was Obama’s use of the bin Laden episode to present a community-minded worldview that contrasts so sharply with the highly...

Bill Day, Cagle Cartoons Newt Gingrich continues his campaign to brand (and not without reason, actually) former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney a — get ready, hide the kids from this word, hope it won’t get this site deleted from the Internet — moderate (there I said it). And it may well work in Florida but the Republican Party could be facing some real collateral damage come November: Once...

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...

Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

For the first time in his presidency, Barack Obama was able to deliver a State of the Union address last night with the economic and political winds at his back as the lingering aftershocks of the recession ebb and Republican infighting diminishes the party’s chances of taking back the White House. Obama’s approval ratings are identical to those of the Great Conservative God, Ronald Reagan,...

DEBBIE BOSANEK (LEFT) BEFORE THE SPEECH Debbie Bosanek, secretary to mega-investor Warren Buffett, had stayed out of the limelight despite being the poster lady for President Obama’s tax proposals, but she took a star turn last night as she sat with first lady Michelle Obama during the State of the Union Speech. Bosanek, who has worked for Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for 37 years and has been his...

WASHINGTON — When the polls closed in South Carolina on Saturday, I happened to be in a Charleston hotel lobby where elegantly dressed couples were filing past on their way to a black-tie event. A woman stopped and asked whether I had heard anything about the results. “Newt’s winning big,” I said. The woman’s face fell. “But if Newt wins,” she lamented, “then...

If you’re interested in my liberal take on Obama’s speech, see here. Suffice it to say that while I generally agree with most of his various policy proposals, I think it’s by far the worst State of the Union address he’s given. There’s no vision, no philosophy, nothing. Expect possibly for populist economic nationalism. And that’s just delusional, a clear refusal to see how...

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star LIVE STREAMING VIDEO OF STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH BELOW: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Here is some live blogging of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. This will not be as extensive as the live blogging we do here on primary debates. The first part will give you a CNN summary. Live blogging is underneath....

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

TMV Assistant Editor Pat Edaburn wrote HERE about his growing conclusions that State of the Union addresses are increasingly meaningless. He is not alone in that perception: Public Notice/Bankrupting America now has a video that calls out Presidents of both parties for making empty promises during their State of the Union addresses on fiscal discipline. There are partisans of both parties who won’t like...

This is a repost of my commentary from last year on the State of The Union speech. this year of course we will have a slightly different take because of the campaign aspects to the address. Both President Obama and Governor Daniels are likely to add more rhetoric and a bit more of a partisan tilt to their speeches. But overall I think the commentary stands As we move closer to the time for the State of The Union...

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)...

It is beyond obvious that the Republican establishment, or what remains of it, is absolutely in shock over the possibility of Newt Gingrich winning the presidential nomination but is not firmly committed to Mitt Romney, the one man many pundits say might give President Obama a run for his money. But how to quantify this? The inestimable Nate Silver writes in The New York Times that the best way to do this is...

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...

House Majority Leader John Boehner is under attack from fellow Republicans for capitulating to the White House and his Senate peers on several key deals, under attack from voters for refusing to play ball on legislation to stimulate the economy and create jobs, and faces the prospect that a Newt Gingrich candidacy would jeopardize the GOP’s House majority. Yet he blithely predicts that the party will...

As Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich tear away at each other — claiming that each benefited mightily from the government they both claim to despise — Lawrence Martin reminds his readers that there used to be a Republican president who consciously sought a middle way: Dwight Eisenhower, Martin writes, didn’t become a Republican until 1952, the year he campaigned for the presidency. He had never been...