Nepal provides an important buffer zone between two giant countries – India and China – in the mighty Himalayas. So far this cushion has worked well. But now an intercepted telephone call between a senior Nepalese Maoist leader and an unknown Chinese discussing the use of $6.75m to bribe members of Nepalese parliament to elect a Maoist prime minister, has created a serious controversy, and concerns...

In the battle that ensued the day after September 11, 2001, did the people of the Western World lose something essential about themselves? Claus Hecking of Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland writes that due to a largely conjured-up fear of terror, ‘we are dismantling the foundations of our liberal society.’ For the Financial Times Deutschland, Claus Hecking writes in part: In the United...

In their quest to regain power, have U.S. Republicans gone too far? For Spain’s El Pais, columnist Elvira Lindo laments that while it’s clear ‘the Republican Party has no compunction about making use of lies and prejudice to regain power,’ it is unlikely to be forced to pay for its many indiscretions. For El Pais, Elvira Lindo writes in part: Those who accentuate the divisions between...

Jon Stewart is getting into the National Mall Rally Game by hosting his own Rally To Restore Sanity: “Rational people will gather on the National Mall in DC to spread a timeless message — take it down a notch for America.” The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

I recently came across an interesting book “Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary“, edited by Steven Weisman (PublicAffairs; 671 pages; $35). I came to know Moynihan (better known as “Pat”) as a young journalist when he was the U.S. ambassador in India in the early 1970s. Pat was described as “the nation’s best thinker among politicians since Lincoln, and its best...

Has right-wing firebrand Dinesh D’Souza gone too far by writing that President Obama’s ‘philandering, inebriated African socialist father’ is now ‘setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son’? Columnist Jean-Sébastien Stehli opines for France’s Le Figaro that D’Souza’s analysis is a disgrace, and that it’s...

Today’s US Census report on poverty in the United States is a clarion call to our nation and our elected leaders, says Rev Jesse Jackson. “We in the United States possess the greatest resources and wealth ever known to humankind. So to have over 44 million people — 14% of our population — and 20% of our children living in poverty strains the soul of America. That fully one in four Americans...

Populist movements like the Tea Party are dangerous in times of economic instability.  We have to look no farther than Mussolini’s Italy or Hitler’s Germany to see how oligarchs can encourage frightened masses to revolt.  In the case of the Tea Party those oligarchs are the Koch brothers and their front man Dick Armey.  Historical Sociologist Michael Mann defines Fascism: Fascism is the pursuit...

A Message to Unlikely Voters by Peter Funt When Barack Obama was a state legislator in Illinois he occasionally used the tactic of voting “present” on certain bills because the measures, as written, were flawed and the goal was to get them improved before passage. It worked as a legislative maneuver but was misrepresented years later by political opponents who claimed it was a sign of wishy-washiness....

This was the title of a song copyrighted in 1929 by the composer Milton Ager and the lyricist Jack Yellen as published by EMI Robbins Catalog, Inc. and Advanced Music Corp. The most famous and repeated stanza is the following: Happy days are here again The skies above are clear again So let’s sing a song of cheer again Happy days are here again It was once the unofficial theme song for the Democratic...

Is it time for Muslims to be more tolerant of criticism? Columnist Francois Sergent of France’s Liberation writes that one crazy pastor doesn’t represent the West, and that it’s time for Islam to accept that attacks like his are just a normal part of being one of the world’s leading religions. For Liberation, Francois Sergent writes in part: This man, a huckster of God and not much of...

As the unusual confluence of the Jewish new year, Ramadan and September 11th has come and gone, I’ve been thinking a lot about the direct talks being pursued right now by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But this post is not about the talks’ core issues, as they’re called, or about the fact that the talks themselves are happening. I want to focus on Secretary Clinton and the skills...

A native Oklahoman, 61 year old Elizabeth Warren was raised in a working class family. Her father was a janitor. At 19 she married Jim Warren from whom she would be divorced in 1978. During their marriage she completed two degrees, a Bachelor of Science from the University of Houston and a law degree from Rutgers. She was an editor of Rutgers Law Review and served a prestigious summer clerkship on Wall Street....

Is the United States making a mistake by leaving Iraq to its own devices – and the tender mercies of neighboring countries like Iran? According to columnist Hamid Shehab of Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper, America can stay engaged and help Iraq become an ‘arc of stability,’ or, ‘There will likely be more unhappy surprises putting the United States on the threshold of an era of fragmentation,...

For many years the U.S. Oligarchy has ensured that the American electorate is perpetually faced with a meaningless choice between only two political parties (i.e. Tweedledum & Tweedledee), Independents have deluded themselves into thinking they actually make a difference in our quasi-defunct representational democracy. Third parties have been roundly ignored by the electorate except for a few Presidential...

With these two sentences, Missouri’s state lawmakers have appointed themselves to the position of guardians of the mind of God:

An intriguing new twist on history. Shaun Mullen writes: The revelation that celebrated civil rights era photographer Ernest C. Withers was an FBI informant is being greeted with shock and disbelief. More informed heads like myself are less surprised because J. Edgar Hoover’s agency had hard-wired the entourages of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders with informants. What makes Withers...

Has political correctness, that well-meaning plan to remove negative phrases from common language, led to another kind of extremism? Swiss columnist Patrik Etschmayer writes that banning words has led to a ban on entire debates that in a democratic society, leads to the emergence of fringe groups in power. Highlighting the case of Thilo Sarrazin, who has been driven off the Bundesbank board of directors for...

Bill Schorr, Cagle Cartoons This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited all rights reserved.

Bill Maher tells The Hollywood Reporter he’ll never win an Emmy because he’s an atheist. Hey, some of those nomination came because he is an atheist. Regardless, I think he hasn’t won because he is too religious.

Charles Krauthammer is upset with Sarah Palin for endorsing Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell in Delaware’s Senate race:

Learn From Our Past by Martha Randolph Carr Recently I wrote a column about tolerance toward those of different beliefs whether it’s at Ground Zero in New York City or in our own hometowns. In the column I also made the statement that we didn’t deport Germans during WWII. Thanks to two readers, Art Jacobs in Tempe, AZ and Eberhard Fuhr in the suburbs of Chicago, IL, who were both interred in the 1940’s...

With 39 million members, an operating budget of $1 billion a year and annual lobbying expenditures of $21 million (2% of operating), AARP consistently ranks as one of America’s most powerful interest groups. That seniors vote in greater proportion than most other demographic segments of society adds to AARP’s clout. Founded in 1958 as a non-partisan, non-profit organization, AARP’s ties to Democratic...

In late August, the California legislature overwhelmingly passed amendments to stiffen penalties connected to its current anti-stalking law. You can read the bill here. The objects of the amendments’ affection? Paparrazzi who get too close. Lawmakers had sympathy for the idea that there is such a thing as paparazzi being too close, even to celebrities whom we might think don’t deserve such legal protections...