When I read this letter for the many-eth time in my life, I see MLK's spiritual discipline, the knowledge of how to go forward in four steps, the leadership, the clear demands, the efforts at negotiation, the spiritual self-examination so one doesnt go off half-cocked caught up in the yelling... and the non violent protest for clear cut goals. When I read Reverend King's … [Read more...] about MLK: “I Have a Dream” is the Imron Chassis, but “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is the Far More Gritty Engine
Quote of the Day: How Obama’s Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics
Our political Quote of the Day comes from Andrew Sullivan, who concludes what I have also concluded: Barack Obama seems to be operating on a different wavelength than many past Presidents so his foes may underestimate him at their peril. I've concluded that when history is written Barack Obama won't be categorized as "another JFK" or like FDR, Harry Truman, or even as his … [Read more...] about Quote of the Day: How Obama’s Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics
A Memory of Martin Luther King
Five years ago, in another political world when Barack Obama was getting ready to run for president, I wrote this: West Side residents of Chicago now have a U.S. Senator who looks like them and it may be, in more ways than one, due to the man whose birthday we celebrate tomorrow. Martin Luther King Jr. preached nonviolence to the oppressed. “Our weapon is love,” he told … [Read more...] about A Memory of Martin Luther King
Did Kansas GOP Leader House Speaker Send Email Prayer Calling for Death of Barack Obama?
How hateful has our politics become? This hateful: An email recently sent by Kansas House Speaker Mike O'Neal (R-Hutchinson) to his Republican colleagues appears to endorse a controversial prayer that some say calls for the untimely death of President Obama. "Pray for Obama. Psalm 109:8." That's the slogan an email from O'Neal refers to, a phrase that's become popular in … [Read more...] about Did Kansas GOP Leader House Speaker Send Email Prayer Calling for Death of Barack Obama?
Keys To The White House
With the primary season underway it is already time for people to speculate the winner in November. Of course this is hardly a new situation; pundits have been trying to predict the outcome of the elections for decades and usually with mixed results at best. In the early 1980's, a political scientist named Allan Lichtman decided to try and figure out a way to predict the … [Read more...] about Keys To The White House
Menendez Relents- Highlights Senate Holds and Blue Slipping
New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez has relented and is no longer blocking the appointment of Judge Patty Shwartz to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. His obstruction was apparently due to Menendez’s antipathy to Shwartz’s long time boy friend, federal prosecutor James Nobile, who had investigated Menendez for possible corruption charges in … [Read more...] about Menendez Relents- Highlights Senate Holds and Blue Slipping
Remembering Dr. King & The Never Ending Struggle For Civil Rights
(PORTIONS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN JANUARY 2007) When I was first cutting my teeth in the newspaper business, my editors sent me out on "house ends," visits to homes where I would interview families of interest because something very bad of interest had happened to them. It was the late 1960s and many of these house ends were the result of the death of a young man, … [Read more...] about Remembering Dr. King & The Never Ending Struggle For Civil Rights
Huntsman To Endorse Romney
AP reports that Jon Huntsman will endorse Mitt Romney for the GOP Presidential nomination sometime Monday in South Carolina. Ironically, the state's largest newspaper, The State, endorsed Huntsman on Sunday. But the unhealthy demand for ideological purity obscures a hopeful fact about the GOP presidential field: There are actually two sensible, experienced grownups. And … [Read more...] about Huntsman To Endorse Romney
Margaret Thatcher Deserves Better
WASHINGTON - This film is dreadful. If the trailer above was actually representative of the final product you would have had something worthy of the woman who ruled Great Britain with an iron will. However, the trailer is not the journey you take with Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in Iron Lady. That the film actually disrespects and marginalizes a woman as large as … [Read more...] about Margaret Thatcher Deserves Better
Book and Audio Book Review: Unmeasured Strength by Lauren Manning
It can happen. Miraculous resurrection can sometimes emerge from unspeakable tragedy. On Sept. 11, 2001 Lauren Manning, senior vice president and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment bank which had several floors of offices in the World Trade Center, was on her way to work and getting ready to enter the elevator at the North Tower when the 9/11 terrorist attack punched … [Read more...] about Book and Audio Book Review: Unmeasured Strength by Lauren Manning
Moving Obama to Europe
WASHINGTON -- This is what progress looks like for a president named Barack Hussein Obama. Not so long ago, many in conservative and Republican ranks were eager to paint him as an alien creature far removed from American life as most Americans understand it. A determined cadre insisted Obama was not even eligible to be president, claiming he was born outside the United … [Read more...] about Moving Obama to Europe
Remember Not to Pee
This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. … [Read more...] about Remember Not to Pee
South Carolina: Then There Were Five … (UPDATED)
UPDATE: As expected, Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah formally announced that he is ending his Republican presidential run “with a call for party unity, asking the five candidates he leaves on the field to end their negative ads and chastising President Obama for engaging in ‘class warfare.’” More from the New York Times: “This race has degenerated into … [Read more...] about South Carolina: Then There Were Five … (UPDATED)
Huntsman To Drop Out; Will Endorse Romney
Reports breaking this evening that Jon Huntsman will drop out of the 2012 Presidential race and endorse Mitt Romney for the nomination. I can't say I am surprised but I am disappointed that such a well qualified candidate could not proceed in the increasingly narrow Republican party. … [Read more...] about Huntsman To Drop Out; Will Endorse Romney
Is This Land Made for You and Me? (Guest Voice)
Is This Land Made for You and Me? by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship The traveling medicine show known as the race for the Republican presidential nomination has moved on from Iowa and New Hampshire, and all eyes are now on South Carolina. Well, not exactly all. At the moment, our eyes are fixed on some big news from the great state of Oklahoma, home of the legendary … [Read more...] about Is This Land Made for You and Me? (Guest Voice)
Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC Ad: Mitt The Ripper
From the Super PAC now headed by Jon Stewart, Attack In B Minor For Strings, "If corporations are people, then Mitt Romney is Mitt the Ripper." Watch: The ad is narrated by John Lithgow, who won an Emmy for his role as a family man serial killer in season 4 of Dexter. The note and press release from Jon Stewart, who took over Colbert's Americans For A Better Tomorrow, … [Read more...] about Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC Ad: Mitt The Ripper
"Europe" is a Dirty Word in the United States
Mitt Romney's Anti-European rhetoric is stronger than the Anti-American statements by leading German politicians in the last few election campaigns. Romney seems to assume that Republican voters are so stupid, uninformed and Anti-European that he can get their votes with scaremongering. His Europe bashing seems to be his response to the criticism of his "socialist" … [Read more...] about "Europe" is a Dirty Word in the United States
Mitt Romney and Al Gore: Separated at Birth?
...He claimed that he didn’t seek reelection as Massachusetts governor because “that would be about me” — as if running for president, which he did instead, was a gesture of sacrifice and altruism. Romney, the conservative writer Jonah Goldberg argued this week, has an “authentic inauthenticity problem.” And that is precisely why his struggle is so familiar. He is … [Read more...] about Mitt Romney and Al Gore: Separated at Birth?
The Dream That Came True
WASHINGTON -- He would be an elder statesman now, a lion in winter, an American hero perhaps impatient with the fuss being made over his birthday. At 83, he'd likely still have his wits and his voice. Surely, if he were able, he would continue to preach, and to pray -- and to dream. For the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., dreaming was not optional. It was a requirement of … [Read more...] about The Dream That Came True
L.A. Confidential For Real: The Bizarre & Twisted Tale of ‘Black Dahlia Avenger’
GEORGE HODEL AND ELIZABETH SHORT Sixty-five years ago today, a 22-year-old beauty by the name of Elizabeth Short was found brutally slain in a vacant lot at 39th and Norton streets in Los Angeles. Her body was cut in half at the waist with surgical precision, her face and breasts slit, and there was a large gash where her vulva should have been. She had been drained of … [Read more...] about L.A. Confidential For Real: The Bizarre & Twisted Tale of ‘Black Dahlia Avenger’