One of the reasons I’m not inclined to give Republican leaders and lawmakers the benefit of the doubt is that they keep grabbing the doubt and hurling it over the cliff, to crash and shatter on the rocks below. If someone had told me, even as recently as the midterm elections, that Republicans in Congress would be spending their time, two years before Pres. Obama runs for a second term, in the worst economy...

On the occasion of his thirty-first wedding anniversary, P.Z. Myers gives us his views on how a secular atheist can be happily married to the same woman for over three decades while Newt “family values” Gingrich is twice divorced and on his third marriage:

What is the greatest moral danger in the US?  Hint; it’s not the dirty f&@king hippies.  A few days ago my friend Shaun Mullen explained why the Catholic Church has no moral authority.  PZ Myers explains how that applies to the Republican Party in this must read post. Today is my wedding anniversary. I’ve been married to the same woman for 31 years, without ever straying. Newt Gingrich has...

I’ve lost 22 pounds since the first of January. Since I have a habit of finding the weight I’ve lost, I’m going to celebrate this achievement while the scale is still cooperating with my efforts. About 7 years ago I weighed 277 pounds. After a prolonged stretch of low-carbing and Taco Bell avoidance, I got my weight down to 237. Since that time, my weight has fluctuated like the tide. Right now I’m...

Fine, I’m talking to the rabbits in my back yard again. The stresses of modern life, social dilemmas and impolite political discourse’ll do that to you. Rabbits are good listeners. They prefer pleasant conversation to confrontation and argument. And, yes, I know they are jackrabbits which are actually in the hare family and not truly rabbits. Lately I’ve adopted the hot tub just off the pool bath as...

With President Obama about to travel to Brazil [March 19], it looks as though Brazil’s new president may be keen to show a change in direction in regard to Iran and the United States. Days ago, off of the radar screen of most of the world, Brazil’s new government took the bold decision to dissociate itself from its past policy of looking the other way when Tehran commits human rights abuses by...

This is Michelle Malkin writing on her website; I am going to quote it in full:

Some have written today about a disgraced former counsel, named Kevin Maher, who is alleged to have made some beastly comments about Asians in Okinawa and Japan. Maher was then also removed from shuffling forward incoming stories for the Japan desk for the State Department, apparently. That this story runs today merits a response, I think. Just this: There is massive regard carried by the masses of Americans...

Rep. Peter King’s congressional investigation into “[t]he extent of radicalization in the American Muslim community and that community’s response” began today with an opening statement by Rep. Keith Ellison (D=MN) the first Muslim American to serve in Congress. His statement speaks for itself.

Is it possible to financially starve Libyan despot Muammar Qaddafi into submission? This editorial from Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland warns that a no-fly zone would lead to another war that the West cannot afford to wage, and that the only way to defeat Qaddafi is massive global cooperation to deny his regime the funds it needs to survive. The Financial Times Deutschland editorial says in part: It’s...

…a Franciscan blessing I hope everyone will appreciate: May God bless you with discomfort. Discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen. May God bless you with anger. Anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen. May God bless you with tears. Tears to shed...

[This post is dedicated to Jerry Remmers. I wonder how Jerry, as a journalist and a person with great empathy, would have come down on this issue. He may have already] Almost a year ago, just as the Snyder v. Phelps case was starting to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, I had strong opinions about this issue. On April 1, 2010, I wrote: Imagine your only son is killed in Iraq or in Afghanistan while...

Scripture reads: “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’ And they were amazed at him.” (Mark 2:17) In the Book of Mark, our Lord Jesus Christ states that there are some decisions that should be properly left to human government and other issues that clearly belong to God. In our system of government in the United States, the principle of the...

You read that title correctly. You are not hallucinating:

Readers will remember the unconscionable appearances by members of a so-called religious group from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, at military funerals claiming that the deaths of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are God’s punishment for America’s acceptance of homosexuality. They show up at military funerals regardless of whether the fallen hero was gay or not. They appear at...

Just when you thought Charlie Sheen was the king of stupid statements. Iran is calling the logo for the 2012 London Olympics racist because they say it resembles the word Zion and thus is offensive to Muslims. I don’t see it but some have said if you read vertical rather than horizontal and if you really squint you might be able to make it out. Then again for Iran to condemn anyone for being racist is...

Has there been, as we have all been told, a ‘revolution’ in Egypt? For Semana of Colombia, columnist Antonio Caballero writes that the only thing which has changed is the person leading Egypt’s 60-year-old military government, and he cites as evidence the apparent satisfaction of President Barack Obama. For Semana, columnist Antonio Caballero writes in part: “Televisions around the...

Is this a seminal moment in human history – beyond which the major powers no longer pay lip service to freedom and human rights, while simultaneously backing friendly dictators? According to this editorial from Russia’s Vedomosti, diplomats will from now on have to recognize that the use of ‘our son’s of bitches’ – as Franklin D. Roosevelt is rumored to have called them...

Whether fundamentalist or not – how grateful are young Arabs for the emergence of Facebook and Twitter – which are, after all, the inventions of America’s open society? Dar al-Hayat columnist Jameel Theyabi writes of the new lease on life social networks have provided young Arabs and their elders, and expresses his deep thanks for these powerful tools that have enabled people to take down...

Now a Texas State representative, Leo Berman, R-Tyler, has joined the “birthers’ movement” and other states by saying that his proposed bill to require presidential candidates to present their birth certificates to the Texas secretary of state is necessary “because we have a president whom the American people don’t know whether he was born in Kenya or some other place.” In a regular column in the...

Sometimes the outrage boileth over and cannot be contained in 140 characters.

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

South Dakota backed off from the proposed legislation to change the definition of justifiable homicide in a way that could have allowed abortion providers to be legally murdered. But now Nebraska is actively considering a similar law — only it’s even worse:

Rick Santorum may or may not be insane, but he certainly doesn’t know anything about history: Rick Santorum launched into a scathing attack on the left, charging during an appearance in South Carolina that the history of the Crusades has been corrupted by “the American left who hates Christendom.” “The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression...

Word coming out today that President Obama has ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. This does not mean they will stop enforcing it (to the degree the federal government has enforced it) but they will no longer argue in favor of the law against lawsuits pending in the 1st and 2nd Federal Districts. I’ve long felt the law...