It was certainly quite a jolt to pick up my Wall Street Journal and see this big headline smack in the middle of Page One: Taliban Now Winning. The article is based on an interview with US commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The very first words in the story are, The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, But no matter how hard you look, you won’t find...

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the younger sister of the late President John F. Kennedy who founded the Special Olympics and promoted it to the very depths of her soul, has died at 88. As someone who used to write obituaries as part of my stint as a staff reporter on two newspapers (the old Wichita Eagle in Wichita, Kansas and the San Diego Union in San Diego, CA) I know full well the “boilerplate” obits...

It has been a tempestuous 2009 and so the question comes up: if you use polling as a key indicator, which politicians are now more popular and unpopular than then were six months ago? Daniel Stone at Newsweek’s The Gaggle blog lists some of them. In a nutshell: President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Ted Kennedy are down. Stone then asks: ” But has anyone been able to cash in...

Is it incumbent on the West to ‘help’ Russia overcome its past of self destructive behavior and global domination? According to André Fontaine of France’s Le Monde, if President Obama’s vision of a ‘strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia,’ occupying ‘its rightful place as a great power’ were to come to pass without that – we’re all in trouble. In...

A couple of weeks ago, Time Magazine’s cover story was “The Final days of Bush and Cheney.” It was a fascinating, intimate look at what TIME’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel himself describes as “The tale of the rift between George W. Bush and Dick Cheney…an inside look at the complex relationship that shaped so much of this decade.” The special report also tells us “why...

Our political Quote of the Day comes from Philadelphia Inquirer columnist/blogger Dick Polman on the increasingly tempestuous Town Hall meetings held by Democrats to discuss health care reform and the role of Town Hall meeting protesters and heckers. First, the beginning of his analysis, titled “Goon Power”: I was in college when I first witnessed goon squads in action. Back in those distant days,...

Leon Panetta, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, wrote a positive, forward-looking Op-Ed in the Washington Post this past weekend. It was titled, “Congress and the CIA: Time to Move On.” In his Op-Ed, Panetta rightly commends the men and women of the CIA for the crucial work they are doing to protect our country—for being “America’s first line of defense.” Panetta...

Baitullah Mehsud, 35, chief of Pakistan’s Taliban umbrella group, Tehrik-i-Taliban, was killed in a CIA missile strike inside Pakistan. Pakistan’s foreign minister says intelligence sources have confirmed Mehsud’s death, reports Voice of America. Pakistani intelligence officers said that the militant commander, blamed for dozens of suicide bombings, including the fatal attack against the former...

We have several posts that look at the increasingly ugly health care town halls amid allegations that they are being spurred on by special interests opposed to health care reform and polarizing talk show hosts and often involve the prevention of discussion rather than spirited discussion or debate. To others, the groups genuinely represent anger and frustration at President Barack Obama and his proposed policies. Here’s...

Lilly and Ludwig Friedman on their wedding day, Jan. 27, 1946. Introduction: I received this touching article via e-mail a couple of months ago. A note at the end of the e-mail says: In MEMORIAM – 63 YEARS LATER It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews,...

FOR THOSE WHO CAME, BUT COULD NOT STAY While you and I were being born, growing “in the little bread oven”… as it was often said back then… there were other little babies across the world, suddenly thrust into real ovens, and they were not allowed to grow any more. Don’t tell me that that is the past and none of our concern. This is in cellular memory, and we are here to make certain that...

Although it didn’t make much of an impact in the United States, Vice President Joe Biden’s recent interview with the Wall Street Journal has gotten tongues wagging in Russia’s media as well as the Kremlin. It’s fair to say that the vice president has hit a Russian nerve. In this article from Russia’s Izvestia newspaper, political scientist Georgiy Bovt exhorts his countrymen not...

Way back in January, 2009, I started posting on the F-22 Raptor program, on how, “One of the first weapon systems-related decisions the Obama administration will have to make is whether to purchase additional Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptors, after the last one of a 183 aircraft order has been delivered.” Already back then, the F-22 issue, and those of related weapon systems, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,...

If these affidavits, filed in federal court yesterday by two former Blackwater employees, are true, the founder and owner of the biggest security contracting company in Iraq during the previous administration  is not just a felon, but a psychopath:

I have been a vocal critic of the previous administration—as I am beginning to be of this administration—for what I believe is a shameful lack of recognition for the valor and heroism of our brave troops who have been fighting and sacrificing, oftentimes with their lives, in the hells of Iraq and Afghanistan. In turn, I have been criticized for “meddling in the business of the President, Congress...

So all it took to get two American journalists “convicted” of espionage home was Bill Clinton’s star power? Kim Jung Il just wanted to feel that we felt that North Korea is important enough to send a world-famous, charismatic former President of the United States there to pick up Laura Ling and Euna Lee from the ball and bring them home in his coach?

Linda Douglass, the White House communications director for health care reform, gives the facts in response to the current GOP dirty war against Pres. Obama’s health care reform package.

As a Vietnam War era veteran, I received most of my higher education using the (“old”) G.I. Bill—with extensions—and with the help of other military educational programs and assistance. So, on Monday, I was delighted to hear President Obama welcome the extension of GI Bill education benefits to our post-9/11 veterans with these words: While so many were reaching for the quick buck,...

by Walter Brasch It isn’t unusual that the Republican party is anti-union. It isn’t even unusual that the Republican National Committee sent to its base a loaded questionnaire with blatantly leading and highly biased questions. But it is unusual that the party that claims to ally itself with homeland security has not-so-subtly attacked the firefighters and police who responded to 9/11. The...

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

Almost five years into the Afghanistan war and three years into the Iraq war, something started to nag at me, something just didn’t seem right. In spite of the high number of casualties (killed in action and seriously maimed and wounded); in spite of the heroic deeds we knew our brave troops were accomplishing; and in spite of the importance of those wars to the security of our country, a woefully small number...

It’s ‘Victory Day’ again in North Korea – or to be precise, the ‘Day of Victory in the Fatherland Liberation War,’ over the United States and United Nations. For those who have wondered how Pyongyang has come to call the 50-year standoff a ‘victory,’ South Korea’s Daily North Korea, staffed by people who have escaped the land of Kim Jong-il and work to...

UPDATE: J POST: Three people were killed and 14 people were wounded – two seriously, three moderately and the rest lightly – in a shooting at the Bar Noir, a center for youth run by the Tel Aviv gay community, on Saturday night. ============================================================== Ynetnews: 2 killed in Tel Aviv shooting GLBT activist says shooting that killed 2, wounded 10 at gay community...

In my post yesterday ( “A Great Navy Tradition On Display at Bath Iron Works Tomorrow, August 1), I wrote that, today, at the Bath Iron Works, in Bath, Maine, the Navy planned to christen its newest Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, named after Medal of Honor recipient Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham. Scanning for news reports on the christening ceremony this morning, I searched the New York Times files for “Bath...

This week’s New Republic has a great feature on Leopold Munyakazi, a Rwandan exile and American college professor accused of initiating a mass murder during the genocide in 1994. NBC is going after Munyakazi as part of a new series focused on war criminals living in the United States. For NBC, it’s a simple, compelling story about good vs. evil: After class, a swirling retinue of about ten cameramen,...