EDITOR’s NOTE: Due to a technical glitch this was on TMV with the wrong byline for about a minute. We regret the error. As President Obama’s approval numbers tanked again last week, Michael Steele donned a red hat, emblazoned with the logo “Fire Pelosi,” and kicked off a six week bus tour. He was jubilant as he spoke to a crowd in Kansas City, predicting that he and the RNC would send...

Flag-Raising Robester by Will Durst Just when you thought we were settling in for another typical, slow August news month, along comes Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to overturn California’s Proposition 8. The one that banned same-sex marriages. Did you get that? He overturned the ban. Loosed the bonds. Broke the chains. Raised a rainbow flag. And reopened a can of worms the size of the Louisiana...

The above photograph of Aisha is by South African photographer Jodi Bieber for Time. Unusual Choice for Magazine Cover: A Reality Hard to Face/ Speaking to Children About The Cover This week, Time magazine’s managing editor Richard Stengel, blew out all stops for usual old school magazine propriety, and published a magazine cover that, when I saw it at the grocery store last night, I also saw a mother...

I’ll be in Atlanta today for the “Love + Commitment = Marriage” rally. The event is a counter-protest to coincide with the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) Summer for Marriage Bus Tour’s arrival there. You will recognize my partner and me by our t-shirts. They were commemorative gifts handed out at a Renewing Our Commitment ceremony we held for our 10th anniversary celebration...

Dan Froomkin (emphasis mine):

Continuing with our tour of what the rest of the world thinks of President Obama’s declaration of an end to U.S. combat operations in Iraq, this editorial from Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter has one very succinct message for the United States and any nation with similar intentions: learn the limits of military power. The Dagens Nyheter editorial says in part: … the achievements are meager. Few neighboring...

After three months of spewing millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, it appears that BP’s runaway well has been permanently plugged, albeit both BP and the U.S. government won’t claim victory until the relief well is completed sometime this month. We will not know the short and long-term effects of the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history for months, perhaps years. For months,...

The controversy over a mosque in NYC two blocks from 911′s Ground Zero continues to boil — heated up by both genuine issues on each side of the argument and also by those who are transparently pressing hot buttons to get TV ratings or mid-term election votes. One of the many issues at play is the issue of religious freedom. And yesterday a group of rabbis rallied in support of the mosque: Rabbis...

I can’t wait to see what Adolf has to say about this on You Tube: New Jersey parents have lost custody of a son they named Adolf Hitler, as well as daughters Jocelynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie. The Appeals court ruling overturned a family court decision, and found that the parents suffer from unspecified physical and psychological disabilities. Heath and Deborah Campbell were victims of...

I came across this interesting piece at Open Salon. Its title: “Immigration – Another Political Dog and Pony Show” Its opening paragraph: It is Arizona’s history…home of Japanese Internment; site of German and Italian POW camps, and site of the controversial Phoenix Indian School, a government boarding school that suppressed and prohibited Native American culture and language. The article itself is...

Here in the Pacific Northwest it has been cool this year.  Only four days above 90 in July as opposed to 14 last year.  My electric meter is happy but my tomatoes aren’t.  But in the Midwest and Southeast it’s been a different story.  A dangerous heat wave baked a large swath of the nation Thursday from Texas to New York with high humidity making temperatures feel well over 100....

Is the GOP getting some negative feedback on the growing number of Republicans leaping onto the bandwagon to change the 14th amendment so that children born of illegal immigrant children aren’t automatically American citizens? If you look at the top of a room and see a finger raised seeing which way the wind is blowing, it’s often Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s — unless it’s...

The place where the nanny state leads was in display in Oregon, where county health inspectors shut down a lemonade stand run by a 7-year-old. “When you go to a public event and set up shop, you’re suddenly engaging in commerce,” he said. “The fact that you’re small-scale I don’t think is relevant.” Kawaguchi, who oversees the two county inspectors involved, said they...

One standout from all that’s being said in reaction to Judge Walker ruling Prop 8 unconstitutional on both Equal Protection and Due Process grounds comes from Adam Bink: Of course, it’s only judicial “arrogance” or “activism” when they don’t like the decision. District of Columbia v. Heller [link], which struck down popularly supported gun control laws, legislated by the duly elected representatives...

Obviously today’s ruling will bring about cries of judicial activism primarily from gay marriage opponents but also for conservative proponents that see judicial overreach. While comparisons to anti-miscegenation laws have been made by gay marriage supporters, I have seen no one actually compare public opinion during the 60s when Loving v. Virgina legalized interracial marriage across the land to gay marriage...

WASHINGTON — Rather than shout, I’ll just ask the question in a civil way: Dear Republicans, do you really want to endanger your party’s greatest political legacy by turning the 14th Amendment to our Constitution into an excuse for election-year ugliness? Honestly, I thought our politics could not get worse, and suddenly there appears this attack on birthright citizenship and the introduction...

Stop Calling Republicans ‘Hypocrites’ by Tina Dupuy It’s not that Republicans aren’t hypocrites – it’s more the label just isn’t an effective dig. First, hypocrite is a fancy foreign Greek word like amnesty, ethics or Europe – how is that going to appeal to Republicans? Second, espousing virtues you don’t personally have to live up to is basically the point of being a Republican. Talker...

He was born in 1944 near end of WWII right before men and women coming home from one of the most brutal wars that ever was. A ‘tween’ during Korean War. Twelve years old when Hungarian Uprising was broadcast on television for weeks on end in 1956. A teenager during Selma and slaying of civil rights workers, a young man eligible for VietNam War, which was also the first time a war had been broadcast...

UPDATE: If you don’t see the full ruling, it’s because the traffic surge has temporarily taken down Scribd embeds. Here is the full 136-page ruling: Background from the LATimes: [U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R.] Walker, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, heard 16 witnesses summoned by opponents of Proposition 8 and two called by proponents during a 2½-week trial in January. Walker’s...

Close on the heels of the WikiLeaks comes yet another shock for the US Administration. This time from America’s so-called “closest ally in its war against terror” in Afghanistan. In an interview to France-based daily newspaper Le Monde, President Asif Zardari of Pakistan had said, “the international community, of which Pakistan is a part, is losing the war against the Taliban because...

In August 1990, Congress passed a law recognizing a flag that had been adopted by the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia—the “POW/MIA Flag,”—and designated it “as a symbol of our Nation’s concern and commitment to resolving as fully as possible the fates of Americans still prisoner, missing and unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, thus ending...

As an atheist I think all  organized religions are dangerous nonsense.  But some things are more dangerous than others and one of those things is the bru ha ha over the Islamic Community center near ground zero in New York.  Thanks to FOX – the black/brown people are coming to get you network – uninformed white people see all Muslims as evil. An unlikely source, Jefferey Goldberg,...

A major U.S. newspaper has asked immigrant readers to relate their immigration stories and experiences and, in particular, how they have been affected by illegal immigration—in 250 words or fewer. As one of those immigrants—with a story to tell—I have responded. Cross posted from The Huffington Post

Today’s 9-0 vote by New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission against granting historic landmark status to the building near Ground Zero where a Muslim group wants to build an Islamic cultural and community center is a victory for the First Amendment and a rejection of religious bigotry:

Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.