Did it ever cross your mind that one company could be behind the demonization and political polemics that now make up such a great part of American politics? My most recent Cagle.com column is an exclusive interview with a man who influences what so many Americans say, hear and think in today’s politics. Here’s the beginning of it: An office located in a tiny building in Oriskany Falls, New York...

‘We know all Muslims are not responsible for 9/11. We know our feelings are not completely rational. But they are our feelings. So we ask you to build your mosque elsewhere, because that is the sensitive thing to do.’

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

The title quote is from Kevin Drum’s commentary on Paul Krugman’s latest column about the conservative resistance to not extending the portion of former Pres. George W. Bush’s tax cuts that go to the wealthy:

Refugees are persons seeking refuge in a foreign country from war or persecution or natural disaster. I have seen the anguish, the fear, the sadness, the total dependence and vulnerability in the faces of hundreds of South Vietnamese refugees. It is a sight, a feeling, an emotion that stays with one forever. It is because of such past experiences that refugees—whether fleeing war or violence; ethnic,...

Each of us is instructed by the events and experiences of our lives. In Part I of “Newbie and the Snake” I related the events of last Friday where talking to a rabbit grazing in the yard saved my wife from a painful snake bite and a trip to the hospital. Since then I’ve had the weekend to ponder whether there are broader lessons in this account or perhaps, less grandiosely, a reminder of a lesson long...

Ok, some of you won’t believe this is a true story. All I can do is tell you that it is, that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction, and ask you to believe. Let’s set the scene. The patio at our home is large area, covered in natural slate. It faces east with a grand view of Black Mountain in the desert community of Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s a covered patio with two doors, one off the kitchen...

Andy Ostroy in HuffPost:

First – a special note. I am no longer “Elrod” (at least on TMV). I am Aaron Astor and I have been for about 37 years and 2 weeks. Anyway… A few years ago I visited a friend of mine who lived about five blocks north of Ground Zero. He lived in a building with many residents who still suffer from 9/11 syndrome, which is a byproduct of the nasty construction material (including asbestos)...

by Walter Brasch A federal grand jury last week indicted retired pitcher Roger Clemens on charges he lied to Congress. In February 2008, Clemens, a seven time Cy Young winner, voluntarily met with a House committee and testified he didn’t knowingly use steroids or human growth hormones. The only evidence against Clemens appears to be the testimony of his former trainer, Brian McNamee, who claims to have...

Chalmers Johnson has led an interesting life. Trained as an political scientist with a special interest in Asia, he was a strong Anti-Communist, who worked as a consultant for the C.I.A. and supported the War in Vietnam. During those years, he wrote, he was irritated by campus antiwar protesters, who seemed to me self indulgent as well as sanctimonious and who had so clearly not done their homework [on the...

Australia’s ruling Labor party, led by Julia Gillard, and the opposition Liberal party, led by Tony Abbott, have failed to get a clear majority in the Parliament, for which elections were held Saturday. Both parties would now be wooing four Independents and one Green party member for support to gather the required majority to form a government. However, the final election outcome would be known in another...

Wait! You mean it’s not true that corporate CEOs are waiting to get that gold-plated affidavit from Pres. Obama that he will stop making them feel so uncertain with all that scary talk about climate change legislation?

I heard a warning deep within – we usually do, when something worse than we can imagine is stalking us, and set to pounce. Fate’s way of beating us in a fair fight is to give us warnings that we hear, but never heed. ~Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram The last few days I have been talking about the economic fate of the American worker and how that relates to our current economic woes. My partner over...

Generations of Americans have to take it on faith that wars can be won. Not since V-J Day in 1945 has there been dancing in our streets and strangers kissing in joy and relief. With the mission in Baghdad far from accomplished, the last U.S. combat troops leave behind 4415 dead, billions of dollars spent (or stolen) and come home to a nation that is much less safe or united after seven years of sacrifice. As...

Remember when, during the early days of the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon developed and handed out to our troops sets of playing cards to help identify and capture (or kill) the 55 most-wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s regime—including Saddam himself? Each card of this set of “personality identification playing cards” was printed with the name of the wanted person, a picture of the person or...

Living in a ‘Post-Racist’ Society by Tina Dupuy The MSNBC documentary series Lock Up ran a story earlier this month about a Maricopa County Jail inmate charged with identity theft named Cecil Kunkel. The 29-year-old Kunkel has a swastika tattooed on top of his “skinhead.” He’s covered in “white power” slogans and imagery. The only ink-free spot on him is an empty space in the shape of another...

Petula Dvorak at the Washington Post takes us back to 2002, “a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, with the horror and disbelief of that terrible day still very fresh in our minds,” when “right next to the spot where 184 people lost their lives in the Pentagon, the military opened a sanctuary where Islam could be celebrated.” She tells us that this sanctuary is not two blocks away, not...

Continuing with our coverage of the global reaction to the proposed Muslim community center/mosque near Ground Zero in New York, this article by columnist Matthias Gierth of Germany’s Rheinischer Merkur calls for cooler heads and eventual approval of the project, in order to prove al-Qaeda’s claims about the ‘godless West’ wrong’ – and prevent the terrorist group from using...

Where were you on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her front seat on a bus to a white woman in Montgomery, Alabama? Or on February 19, 1942, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066?

Glenn Greenwald nails it about Howard Dean’s radio interview yesterday, in which he told WABC’s David Goodman that Cordoba House, the Islamic community center planned for construction two blocks from Ground Zero, is “a real affront to people who lost their lives” on 9/11:

I have been remiss, and I apologize. On Monday, I wrote about a series of five articles being published by the Stars and Stripes on the occasion of the ongoing withdrawal of our combat troops out of Iraq. I highlighted the first set of articles and listed the topics of the remaining four sets of articles, and I said, “Interested readers will find daily updates and links to this series of articles here at...

My fellow CWRU alumnus and TMV co-blogger Jill Miller Zimon from Cleveland, OH sparked some thoughts way out here in Phoenix, AZ. She’s concerned about alleged gender bias of the Cleveland Plain Dealer – a decrepit rag of a newspaper if there ever was one – with respect to political endorsements being subtly biased against women – somehow, even if unintentional. You should read her post just a few...

Anastasia Pantsios, a lifelong journalist, does a great job in Ohio Daily Blog‘s post, “A Disturbing Pattern” with the subject of how the Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s primary endorsements for 12 newly-created elected positions read as gender-biased reviews though the motivation seems unintentional. But just because there is no intention does not mean that there is no bias. It should be revealed...

In Part I, the history of the First Amendment’s prohibition against the establishment of religion or abridging the free exercise thereof was examined. With today’s more literal reading of the First Amendment, incorporating religious tolerance, Part II examines a) what constitutes a church for constitutional and regulatory purposes, b) the RLUIPA and c) the impact of the First amendment and RLUIPA on attempted...