Congress has passed and the President will sign a new hate crimes law named after Matthew Shepard. The law would broaden current laws to include attacks based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender identity or mental or physical disability. Current laws already allow federal jurisdiction over crimes based on race, color, religion or national origin. The bill would also lift a requirement that a victim...

James Ray who has a mega-spirituality business that revolves around ‘wealth getting,’ held a retreat in Arizona two weeks ago. For reasons not clear, he allegedly built an ungodly large 20×20 “sweatlodge,” and purported to be copying Native American sacred practices. He crammed 50 people into that skeletal structure covered by plastic tarps, and then, with the rocks smoking hot...

Note: I originally published this post about 6 months ago and hoped that perhaps as time passed it would become outdated. I don’t mean to suggest that anyone in the GOP or conservative movement leadership was going to listen to lil ol me, but that perhaps they’d change their minds after failures. With a decent chance for the GOP to lose two key races in NY and NJ next week I thought it was worth...

The Samaritans were a despised and denigrated tribal group in ancient times. Yet, who was it who had the eyes to see, the heart to act when all others avoided the battered and ran away? It was a Samaritan. As the ancient story is told… a poor soul lay by the side of the road, beaten to a bloody pulp. Men of the priestly classes crossed to the other side of the road to avoid helping the bleeding man....

Democrats and the Administration are test-flying all sorts of behind the scenes tax increases to pay for healthcare reforms. Or else they claim that proposed Medicare savings will pay for expanding coverage to uninsured people and increasing patient rights on existing health insurance policies. After 30 years of bipartisan tax cuts and bipartisan spending increases, I don’t take either party seriously with...

That is part of a very interesting conversation that TPM’s Brian Beutler had with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

Just a couple of stories that came across my desk that I thought were interesting. In Northern California near the town of Fort Bragg a dead blue whale has come ashore. Sadly it appears that the noble creature was struck by a ship that was mapping the ocean floor. It does not appear that the ship was to blame, the odds of such a collision happening are pretty small and it is sadly just something that happens....

I really didn’t think the old geezer had it in him:

It was a busy weekend and I’d like to give people at the Moderate Voice a heads up on some of what we’ve been covering. From Pakistan’s The Nation Newspaper, the editorial headlined Hillary Clinton Should Mind Her Own Media! attacks the secretary of state for criticizing Pakistan’s media coverage of the huge U.S. aid bill to that nation. Then for Pakistan’s Pak Tribune in an...

I wouldn’t have even noticed this article from Peter Singer at the New York Daily News today had I not heard about it on both CNN and MSNBC first. (The frequently preachy Mika Brzezinski was going off on yet another tangent about how there should be a tax on red meat to offset the damage that diners are doing to themselves and the health care system. None of this seems to encourage her to want to tax her...

Texas, the Eyes of Justice Are Upon You by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship On October 13, we lost a resolute champion of the law, a man who left his impact on the lives of untold numbers of Americans. His very name made his life’s work almost inevitable, a matter of destiny. William Wayne Justice was a Federal judge for the Eastern District of Texas. That’s right, he was “Justice Justice.”...

Has Malaysia gone Islamic? Maznah Mohamad, visiting senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, looks at the issue on RealClearWorld. Here’s how he begins his piece: In Malaysia’s current political climate, it is no longer possible to distinguish Islamic radicals from Islamic moderates. Despite official boasting about the country’s diverse...

This stems from a discussion I was having with a friend of mine. Obviously the ideal concept is for all people to live in free and democratic societies. But we have enough trouble managing one here, where we’ve had centuries of democratic concepts both in the US and in the UK. Even there it took centuries of effort to transition from the absolute monarchy system to various forms of representative government. But...

Are the nation’s fiscal, economic, military, political and social challenges setting us up for a Military Coup? Will the U.S. Military Industrial Complex, acting through our Joint Chiefs of Staff or some other high-level corps of U.S. Military officers, and supported by a variety of angry business leaders and extreme conservatives be so resentful of any changes to our national priorities that they would encourage...

Just talking myself through the news of the day. Again. the way one does in a trauma/ triage situ. Most minds dont follow a straight path when learning the news. They veer into old memories. They look for patterns. They try to understand, so they can see, what can be done to help. Today, I’m saying to myself… Don’t go numb like it’s the farm report, pork bellies up, oats and soy down. Don’t...

As we noted two weeks ago, there has been considerable speculation that CNN’s Lou Dobbs is seeking to jump ship to Fox Business News — speculation that increased after he met with Fox News chief Roger Ailes. The latest development: Not if Fox’s Geraldo Rivera has anything to do about it. Geraldo even reportedly called Ailes who he says assured him it ain’t gonna happen (which does not...

A Saudi Arabian court sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes because she worked for a television station that aired the sexual confessions of a Saudi man, she and her attorney said today. The Reuters news agency said the woman, who requested only her first name used, was unaware her Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. did not have proper authorization to operate in the Islamic kingdom. “The verdict was just...

The wages of sin are unreported. -Unknown — Cross-posted between Random Fate and The Moderate Voice. — Technorati : quotes Del.icio.us : quotes Zooomr : quotes Flickr : quotes

The question, which came from a reporter for the right-wing Internet publication CNS.com:

What’s the Obama administration’s problem with Fox? asks Joe Klein:

Among those things I am involved with is suicide prevention. A friend in our local coalition forwarded this third and final piece in a fascinating series about predators. The whole series is worth a read, but these final paragraphs are what she highlighted for us: Today, in many parts of the world, the human being most likely to cause your violent death is: you. Yes. You are the person most likely to kill yourself...

Pie-throwing TV Golden Age comedian Soupy Sales has died at 83 — one more tidbit of news that signifies an end of an era for Baby Boomers but also the end of a personal story about an entertainer who had a rare gift: he did a show ostensibly aimed at kids that was loved and adored by many teens, college age kids and adults. And his adult fans included some of the biggest movers and shakers of show biz...

Gary McCoy, Cagle Cartoons This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Just watch this video of 4 Year-Old hip hop dancer Miles Brown on the Ellen Show: Of course hip hop music is popular with ALL ages. Here’s a senior choir performing a medley of hip-hop:

The newest critique against the Federal Government limiting executive salaries in companies that it has essentially saved from liquidation or in which it holds a major ownership interest, is that it will cause a brain drain of the best people to other companies. I have one response to such a meritless argument: Bullshit. Some of our private sector oligarchs are so narcissistic, greedy and arrogant that they...