…to read THIS POST below about how TMV got a letter from Dick Cheney, inviting him to dinner in Washington, D.C. We’ve updated the post, if you read it when it was first posted late yesterday. Did you know that Dick Cheney wants to honor TMV? Go to the link and read that post.

Our occasional linkfest that helps you get good reading of ALL viewpoints. Links are NOT selected because of or limited to one viewpoint — and don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of The Moderate Voice or its independent-thinking co-bloggers. TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO PROTECT INTERNET FREEDOM: Mike Krempasky is continuing his bipartisan, nonideology battle to make readers and bloggers aware of possible upcoming FEC rules changes that could drastically change Internet freedoms. The comment...

I just I opened my mailbox And do you know what I found? Vice President Dick Cheney has invited me to “join President Bush, Laura and the entire Republican Congressional leadership as they gather on the evening of June 14th here in Washington D.C…” ME. The Moderate Voice. A little Jewish guy from Connecticut whose claim to fame is writing a blog that infuriates liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats and proctologists. I’m also a ventriloquist, but they couldn’t...

The GOP may have a new worry: signs business groups may be feeling ignored as the party’s higher-ups put a premium on catering to social conservatives. In a way, what the GOP faces is like the classic three person-friendship: a triangle could start to form and one person feels edged out as two friends focus on each other. That seems to be what the GOP is facing now, according to the Washington Post: John M. Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan who now heads the National Association...

Here is a MUST VIEW for anyone interested in yesterday’s deal by moderates to head off the nuclear option in the Senate. THIS LINK will take you to Crooks And Liars, the rapidly growing liberal video/commentary website, which will then give you a chance to see a VIDEO from a show on MSNBC’s Connected Coast-To-Coast this morning. In it, you’ll see two bloggers, Crooks And Liar’s own John Amato and Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff, squaring off and talking about how the right/left...

There’s been a good deal of drama surrounding Iran over the last couple days. To begin with, the country’s Guardian Council barred reformists from running in the upcoming presidential election. Then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, possibly fearing a widespread electoral boycott and protests, ordered the Guardian Council to reconsider letting the top two reformist candidates run. Finally, the Guardian Council backed away from its initial ruling and is now allowing Mostafa Moin...

…that the Republicans are not the only ones pandering to their “base”, and they are not the only ones exhibiting hypocritical behaviors. In my considered opinion, neither major party in the United States is truly worthy of holding and wielding the power that our system grants to the Presidency and the Congress. We deserve better, and as I have said often on Random Fate, we should demand better. Until we do, however, we will be stuck with the hypocritical panderers we now have. Isn’t...

You have to take a lot of the reports about the hot-on-the-trails manhunts of top terrorists with a huge grain of salt because they don’t often pan out — but the latest report on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi makes sense. The report: he’s injured. Why it makes sense: by all accounts he is the target of a monumental manhunt, second only to the hunt for Osama bin Laden himself. The AP reports: Al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq, blamed for numerous terror attacks on U.S. and Iraqi targets, said...

We know that Star Wars is a great movie, etc. and etc. and some people say seeing it is something to die for but some fans honestly take things too far: Two Star Wars fans are in a critical condition in hospital after apparently trying to make light sabres by filling fluorescent light tubes with petrol. A man, aged 20, and a girl of 17 are believed to have been filming a mock duel when they poured fuel into two glass tubes and lit it. The pair were rushed to hospital after one of the devices...

Here they are. Read these and your life is complete! Time’s The Complete List — the 100 all-time top movies. And Blogebrity: The List. Find out who the blogging celebrities really are (and, alas, The Moderate Voice is a nobody which is what his relatives have told him for years, too..)

We will be posting. But TMV was up late, late, late last night on our post on the compromise on the nuclear option. New posts will start appearing here throughout the day. So check back! And make sure you read our post on the compromise since it has quotes from weblogs representing all points of view (we encourage you to read the original posts, using the links, and the trackbacks on that post).

Senate moderates from both parties have pulled a political magical rabbit out of a hat, brokering a deal that will, in effect, kill — for now, at least – attempts to ban the filibuster on judicial nominees. It’s an incredible accomplishment, given what was facing this group of Democrats and Republicans just today: Working not-so-quite-behind the scenes to cut a deal and being denounced as either traitors or weak principled politicos because they — unlike some on the right...

Unless there’s a surprise, Senate moderates appear not to have succeeded and the countdown has begun on the “nuclear option” to ban the use of filibusters on judicial nominees — with Senator Bill Frist even dramatizing the situation by bringing in bed cots. NOTE: THERE HAS BEEN A COMPROMISE. See our detailed post on the compromise — which includes a BIG blog opinion round up — by CLICKING HERE. We will leave this post up due to some of the points made that...

When a blogger does an original Q&A or piece of reporting on his or her blog they needed to be applauded….read…and CLONED. Once again, The Talking Dog has an original Q&A. And, as in the case of our co-blogger Jonathan Singer when he does his superb original Q&As on his site Basie!, TTD asks a series of well-thought out questions and gives readers unedited, unmanipulated answers from the news source. Why is this important? Because the strength of blogs can also be their downfall....

First, Dan Rather was encouraged to move up his retirement plans and leave CBS Evening News. But he still had his weekday 60 Minute Slot. But now CBS has cancelled that slot. So the question becomes, what should you replace it with, and what kind of program would work in primetime? Guess who has offered to help CBS with these questions?

Guess where it is? Were you right or wrong?

…and is exposing the complete debasement of both sides, regardless of their motives.

Howard Dean as Democratic National Committee chairman went through that modern baptism of fire known as a sit down interview with Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet The Press yesterday, drawing mixed reviews. He touched on a wide variety of topics, and you can read the full transcript yourself by clicking on the link above. How did he do? It seemingly depends, first of all, on whether you like and agree with Howard Dean to begin with. But some video snippets will help you decide. The video site Crooks...

Believe it or not, everything after this amusing run-on sentence in blog film critic Jeremiah Lewis’ review of Revenge of the Sith is fairly restrained and informative. But not as funny: I remember when Space Balls was the best Star Wars parody around. RotS (which, by the by, does) is sure to win the title with its monumentally bad dialogue, the rather silly, pre-cloaked and face masked Lord Vader who has taken the Oedipal thing way too far, a Yoda who spouts Yodified versions of sentences...

Due to an emergency here, our posts will start later today than usual — and this situation may remain in effect for the rest of this week. This merely means that most of our posts will be on the site starting around 6 a.m. San Diego Time — which is 9 a.m. on the East Coast. Usually we have some on by 12 midnight East Coast/Powerblogs time which is 9 p.m. out here. But due to some problems we’ll probably unable to hold to that schedule this week. This does NOT mean we won’t...

File this one in the Amazing But True Story department: it turns out that sex offenders have been getting Viagra — paid for by the state — in New York State over the past five years. Late night comedians will have a field day with this story (is this to keep them at the top of their form?) but it’s a very serious subject. The AP: Scores of convicted rapists and other high-risk sex offenders in New York have been getting Viagra paid by Medicaid for the last five years, the state’s...

I mean, we’ve all just dreamed of a musical comedy where a key part of the show is someone saying “You’re fired.”

Thousands of Iraqi Sunni leaders have gathered in an effort to form a true opposition to the fundamentalist Shi’ite regime and affect the formation of Iraq’s new constitution. I take a look at the particulars — it seems some guarded optimism may be due.

A female veejay on a hugely popular music channel in Kabul was found shot to death, two months after her show was cancelled on the eve of its national launch. Mullahs had been highly critical of the station, Tolo TV, “for broadcasting music, naked dance and foreign films, which are against Islam and other national values of Afghanistan,” but were most opposed to Shaima Rezayee’s show Hop. And you thought censorship on American television was resurgent: The information ministry...

What happens when you provide a topnotch action movie with a story people want to follow and state-of-art special effects? You have the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Click here for the latest on the records its shattering…and a link that shows you what they cut out from the original script.