Last night I attended the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony and it was nothing short of fabulous! The St. Louis Symphony is one of the great symphonies in America and every bit of it's excellence was...
The Governor of Maine issued a somewhat lengthy statement* today upon signing Marriage Equality into law in the great state of Maine. But near the end, in two short paragraphs, the statement lays out everything anyone really ever needs to...
Here at the much vaunted and quite synthetic 100 days milestone we will be peppered with all sorts of analysis about what the President's performance thus far "means." All of it will be little more than junk food for your...
President Obama's morally indefensible decision to block investigations and prosecutions of those in the American government who planned and carried out torture both at home and abroad is a clear and disgraceful obstruction of justice. When Republicans obstruct justice, Democrats are...
The President today did a good thing by releasing the Bush regime's "torture memos". Sadly, at the same time he also chose to avoid doing what he was elected to do: bring change to the country. Instead, he chose, once...
As today's front page at TPM makes clear, the executive branch of government cannot wield the sort of police state powers it has unlawfully and unconstitutionally claimed for itself without abusing those powers over and over again. You can find the story...
Bill Maher interviewed the incomparable Gore Vidal this past week on his show on HBO. Vidal's wit and brilliance are still there despite his advancing age and obvious physical infirmities (he was in a wheelchair). Seeing this great man for...
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/political_opinion/Obama_is_Frittering_Away_the_Rights_We...'; You may have noticed in yesterday's news that Eric Holder, on behalf of the President has ordered the Department of Justice (once again) to continue defending indefensible and quite criminal and unconstitutional activity on the part of...
Why haven't we seen more of or heard more from Prof. Wm. Black of the University of MO, Kansas City on TPM? There may have been some mention of him, but there hasn't been a whole lot or else I...
In an article linked to on the TPM front page, yet another oh so smart guy, Jonathan Cohn, writing in The New Republic amazingly reveals his insightful discovery in a piece titled "The Single Biggest Issue that Could Undermine Reform". http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/archive/2009/04/01/the-sing... Along with everyone...
With the government moving in and essentially acting as a new majority stockholder would act after a takeover, by demanding all kinds of changes in the auto companies in return for their investment, including the immediate removal of a...
In the past day or two you may have seen in the headlines that John Hope Franklin died. His death is even noted on the TPM front page. He lived a long and extremely productive life. He was, in my...
Two simple and short items here. 1. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being worst and 10 being best) how would you rate the President's performance at the Press Conference? 2. Using the same scale, how would you rate the...
On TPM's front page, in a post headlined "Just What is a Bonus?" reader TR points out that a big part of the outrage on the part of the public is that people commonly see a "bonus" as a reward...
Whatever you may think of the individual decisions he made, President Truman stood his ground with the Soviet Union in Greece, in Berlin, and he acted decisively in Korea. It was clear that he was in command. President Kennedy stood...
I just saw this AP article on the predictable metamorphasis of the insurance industry and how they are now suddenly and miraculously making themselves into something they are not: organizations interested in providing the best health care possible to the...
LIke, I think, everyone else, I was delighted to see John Stewart put the screws to Jim Cramer as he did last night. He was reasonable, prepared, made his points clearly and without the use of any ad hominem attacks. ...
Departing just for a moment from politics, what do you think about this year's nominees and their chances on Oscar night? In my opinion, this really was one of the best years for films in a very long time. The...
