Every U.S. election is critically important to good governance at all levels, be it local, state or national. However, there’s no denying that our every-four-year presidential elections are particularly crucial, and that’s especially true in recent years when divisiveness and partisanship make it harder for politicians to cross party aisles and work with each other. Elections are also...

Courage to Resist, the support group set up for raising funds in support of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning (the man behind a large number of the recent WikiLeaks documents), has been closed down. “We’ve been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there’s no legal obligation for them to close...

I think someone probably sent this one to me in an email back in 2011. It’s a review of how various figures in popular culture and history might answer the question, “why did the chicken cross the road?” To me it reads a bit like a time capsule at this point. In 2011, Barack Obama...

As I was reading about the life of Nixon speech writer William Safire yesterday, I came across this little piece written by Ted Pease with “Today’s Word” that I knew I had to show here. In my time as a journalist there are things I learned that I MUST pay attention to, like spelling and...

Rachel Maddow, shown filling in for Keith Olbermann on “Countdown” last month. Ms. Maddow will host the 9 p.m. hour beginning Sept. 8. (Ress Greenberg/ New York Times) From Bill Carter at the New York Times: Just in time for the closing rush of the presidential election, MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup,...