Today marks the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and US entry into the Second World War. Sadly we are quickly approaching the time where we no longer have living survivors and Pearl Harbor may gradually become an abstract historical event rather than a true harsh experience. Whenever I think of the attack I am reminded of one of the more impressive stories of the day. At the time the attack began...

Parker, Florida Today This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Expect to hear it called class warfare, but President Obama talked about the economy on Tuesday and told his audience in Osawatomie, KS that supply-side (“trickle down”) economics and a simple ‘let the market take care of things’ philosophy have “never worked.” Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few...

Anyone who has dealt with kids as a teacher or performer will tell you this: they can be brutally honest. And she recently got a dose of the reality of the impact of her polemics and a bit of truth. The Daily Beast best explains the set up for this video: Michele Bachmann’s had plenty of uncomfortable moments on the campaign trail, but wait until you see this: At a South Carolina book signing, an 8-year-old...

Does the global “Occupy” movement reflect the very best of Western dedication to social and economic justice – or is it just a craven reflection of a civilization in moral decline? Columnist Iulian Leca of Romania’s Voxpublica writes that juxtaposing the mad rush for Black Friday shopping bargains against images of the protests exposes the ‘Occupiers’ as no better than the...

In “The Iraqi Phoenix Rises Again,” I described how the once proud and powerful Iraqi Air Force(IqAF) — at one time the sixth largest air force in the world — was decimated as a result of both the 1991 “Persian Gulf War” (Operation Desert Storm) and Saddam Hussein’s desperate concealing, disassembling and “stashing abroad” of its remaining aircraft before the 2003 U.S. invasion of...

A few nights ago, as I was watching It’s a Wonderful Life for about the twenty-third time (I’m still not sure if partial viewings count toward the total), I paid special attention to the part where George Bailey finds himself in Pottersville. This nightmarish sequence, lovingly arranged by George’s guardian angel, has burned itself into our collective memory. Today it seems more relevant than...

Thinking about Newt is exhausting—-all those policy reversals, all that profiteering from disguised lobbying, all that adultery while impeaching Clinton, all those crackpot gimmicks posing as intellect. Yet, there are many hands on both sides of the political spectrum to do the heavy lifting of deconstructing him. Maureen Dowd takes a whack at it: “His mind is a jumble, an amateurish mess lacking impulse...

All the most media exposed candidates for GOP POTUS are over age 50, some like Newt, only a couple years shy of 70 years of age. Only 11 out of 44 Presidents have been under age 50, tilted strongly toward the aging and the elderly. There’s a saying that old dogs in fading power try to diminish and hold power away from the strongest of the dogs… which are not the elderly, rather the young who are...

Look for Newt in coming days to bring up his old ideas in borrowed sequins: WIDEspread orphanages for children, work/labor programs for poor children, “Newt’s plan for the improvement of poor people” to the tune of huge amounts of money in the Federal and State budgets that are already overwhelmed… and others of his oddly stentorian-gleeful workhouse-like throwbacks to a Dickensian’...

HONG KONG — China has to find a way to continue its rapid growth without choking to death. Literally. When I landed in Beijing last week, the sky was a brownish miasma through which distant landmarks were only faintly visible. The moment I stepped outside the city’s vast international airport, I noticed an acrid hint of burning coal in the all-too-palpable air. The next day, when I went to...

Part ii. [part i. is here: 'Selling the New Nixon, part i.'] According to one account, Stanley Kubrick had to fly somewhere and bought a copy of B.F. Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity at an airport for something to read. When he finished, he was apoplectic. Skinner believed that we could obtain “proper” social behavior by conditioning, as they’d proven in rats, and not have to mess...

The criticism expressed by the pundits of the slate of Republican presidential wannabes has been quite fierce — from the Left and from the Right. Judging from the muted, lethargic responses by Republicans — sometimes even agreement — including here at TMV, one would think that the GOP, this time, has decided to “Send in the Clueless” — or at least the “cynics” — to, first,...

One month ago today, the tranquility of a college campus known in more tranquil times as Happy Valley was rocked to its core with the arrest of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky on 40 counts of child molestation and the arrest of the athletic director and a vice president for perjury. After initially dragging its feet, the university’s board of trustees fired legendary coach Joe Paterno...

Shame is dead or at least comatose as two public figures refuse to retreat into embarrassment over mounting evidence of their sexual misconduct. A would-be leader of the Free World, Herman Cain is surrounded by barbecue, bunting and bands in announcing “suspension” of his campaign after “continued hurt caused on me and my family” by numerous charges of harassing women as well as a long-term extramarital...

Calls for the legalization of drugs are coming from the strangest places these days – like from the president of the world’s leading cocaine exporter. Columnist Antonio Caballero of Colombia’s Semana writes that while he may be ‘the most submissive servant of the United States among world leaders,’ Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has done something not even Washington’s...

It’s been slightly more than three years since President George W. Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) into law (October 2008). TARP authorized $700 billion to bail out the financial sector, a Congressional effort to forestall another Great Depression. Most American think TARP was too large and that the money was wasted. Unfortunately for President Obama, 1-in-2 Americans think TARP...

Staunch Conservative George Will has not been a shrinking violet when it comes to showing his disdain for pizza-king-turned-presidential-pretender Herman Cain. But this morning, on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour, he held nothing back. After comparing Santorum favorably to Cain, Will launched right into the GOP presidential campaign process and specifically into Cain’s “disrespectful approach...

By TMV commenter Cjjack… Okay, I wasn’t going to do this, but I’m feeling a little sorry for the GOP today. I’m going to help them out, by assisting them in writing the application for the 2016 Presidential campaign. In honor of Cain’s recently deceased candidacy, there are 9 questions. (There could be more) Here goes: “Dear 2016 Presidential hopeful, Thank you for your interest in the Republican...

American citizens are celebrating in the streets as their government snatched final victory in the War on Terror on 1 Dec. 2011 — through a maneuver that used legislative brilliance rather than bullets. The moment of victory came when 61 senators passed a version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2012 that allows the indefinite military detention on American soil of American citizens...

Addressing supporters at an event that was supposed to open his new campaign headquarters in Atlanta, Herman Cain announced that he will suspend his campaign for the GOP Presidential nomination. He was very critical of the news media for “spinning stories that are unproven” and discussed the pain and anguish the stories have caused for him and his family. He also took responsibility for any mistakes...

Here’s a place where undying Cain supporters — those who don’t give a hoot about what several women have claimed he has done to them — can give him “encouragement;” can “show their support,” can “communicate their prayers;” can tell him why it is so important for him to stay in the race and become our next president; can trash the Left for “trying their best to discredit him because...

Joe covered this below but here is my take: Just when you thought the Republican primary couldn’t get any more ridiculous it did.  How do you say clown show? This is how – Trump to Moderate Republican Debate. It’s officially a reality television Republican primary now. Donald Trump is pairing up with Newsmax, the conservative magazine and news Web site, to moderate a presidential debate in Des...

Republican congressfolk have stayed unfailingly on message in the run-up to the 2012 election: They vote no on everything that might possibly enhance Barack Obama’s standing even if it means allowing the economy to continue to stagnate and keep millions of Americans to remain out of work. Meanwhile, the Democrats have pretty much flailed, the president’s famous leadership qualities often have been...

Is Iraq in for a re-eruption of the kind of ethnic and religious strife it experienced during the height of the U.S. occupation? For Iraq’s Al Iraq News, Dr. Fadhil Al Badrani warns his countrymen that unless Iraqi leaders ‘review their political inclinations and renounce their differences,’ those fearing a U.S. pullout – and those celebrating it – will end up as ‘wood’...