MSNBC's political commentator, Chris Matthews, in 2008 was so attracted to a political speech of  incoming President Obama, he said, "a thrill is going up my leg."  Last night, on his "Hardball" show,  Matthews lost his enthusiasm, sounding more like a conservative than the liberal that he is, saying: "Obama doesn't like dealing with other politicians--including his own cabinet,  members of Congress, either party."   "....doesn't like the press.  He likes to write the speeches, likes to rewrite what Jon Favreau and others wrote for the first draft." << MORE >>

The White House is finally releasing about a hundred pages of e-mails between the State Department and some of the top people in the Central Intelligence Agency.  These e-mails show strong disagreements on what to release and what to withhold from the public on the day of the attack,  September 11, 2012, a 9-11 anniversary.  According to administration officials, General David Petraeus, the CIA director at the time of the attack, disagreed with his deputy, Michael Morell who deleted warnings of extremist threats in Benghazi.  If true, this substantiates the White House excuse that it was just ... << MORE >>

It's getting a lot like Watergate with Nixon firing staff members in an attempt to rise above the din.  It didn't work then.  Will it with President Obama?  IRS acting commissioner Steve Miller took Wednesday night's hit accepting his resignation at the request of the president.  Miller, a 25-yerar IRS vet is blamed for being over-aggressive when taking on Tea Party groups.  The resignation isn't much punishment for Miller as he has told the IRS he was planning to leave the Obama administration in early June.  The ex-acting commissioner goes before the House Ways and Means Committee ... << MORE >>

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^{The headlines are gone; the passengers are back home in their various states, but like a bad seed the Triumph can't stop getting into more trouble.  The Carnival cruise corporation nightmare on the high seas had 42-hundred passengers adrift for days in the Gulf of Mexico.  While waiting for help the passengers dined on smelly food to the stench of leaking raw sewage last February.  A towline broke extending the nightmarish existence a few more days.  While Carnival PR pumped out propaganda, management was enjoying the Miami Heat in the air conditioned ...}

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Wal-Mart refuses to cooperate with a growing list of retail clothiers who have signed on board this week to a safe building code for the thousands of factories where much of our clothing is manufactured. Instead Walmart claims it would have factory monitors determine the safety of the 279 Bangladesh factories it has under contract.  While arguing Walmart knew of no orders at the collapsed Rana Plaza which crushed 11-hundred workers 2 weeks ago, The Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity presented papers and pictures documenting the opposite.   The papers handed the New York Times show a ... << MORE >>

The Bangladesh building collapse is a wakeup call for retailing giants. Nickel and diming isn't as important to the world's customers as retailers thought just a month ago.    The body recovery operation continues as the count passes one thousand-one hundred.  Lead by Swedish retailer H&M and Zara, the Netherlands C&A, British Primark and Tesco, PVH, the parent of Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Izod, and the German retailer Tchibo all agreed today to sign a binding commitment to contribute toward fire and building safety at the Bengladesh clothing factories.  There ave been many fires and building ... << MORE >>

The Internal Revenue Service exuberant attack on the conservative Tea Party is the tip of the iceberg.  The probe by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration shows the IRS was also going after those conservatives concerned about government spending, debt or taxes, and backers of "make America a better place to live,"  The president in his midday news conference said he's going to get to the bottom of the IRS violation of singling out members of the opposition party,  but the story seems to be getting ahead of him with these new disclosures.  The president's spin ... << MORE >>

The mercurial Pakistanis have done it again.  In a land where dictators regularly change places with democratically-elected parliamentarians, ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif is about to once again take control of the government following a second military coup that ousted him from power 14 years ago.  In between is the 2007 Benazir Bhutto assassination which was being investigated by Chaudhry Zulfiker Ali, until he was assassinated last year.  The former dictator the US dealt with during the Afghan war, Pervez Musharraf failed in a recent takeover attempt and was placed under house arrest.  This weekend's election attracted ... << MORE >>

Monsanto doesn't have the government control over those countries that it does here in the United States and Canada, so citizens of those countries, including China, Russia, India and all the major nations in Latin America are freed from Monsanto's bullying practices such as now endured by little Vermont where the seed giant threatens to sue each and every adult in the state if Governor Peter Shumlin dares sign a bill that would require GMO (genetically modified organisms) food labeling.   The  cozy White House-Monsanto relationship started back in the Bush and Clinton years, but the man ... << MORE >>

It's easy to be reminded of the Nixon White House unable to shake Watergate from its doors when looking at the present Obama White House unable to slam the door on the never-ending Benghazi problem.  In both cases, the presidents were pleading in vein to get back to governing. Today's distracting news is that US diplomat Gregory Hicks, the number 2 man in Libya at the time of the Benghazi killings of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 other Americans, is now claiming he's been told to take a desk job or leave the State Department.  Hicks says ... << MORE >>