Eric Alterman : Call it 'Craven News Network'

  It’s no simple matter to sum up all that’s wrong with the “thinking” that characterizes contemporary news coverage. But if I had to pick a potent symbol of just how rudderless are the allegedly “responsible” media executives making the decisions about who and what constitute “news” these days, I’d have to go with CNN’s decision to carry Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

  Remember, Rep. Bachmann is just a mere member of the House of Representatives. She was actually rebuked by her own party when she ran for a leadership position in the current congressional class. She has no standing whatsoever to represent anything other than a majority of her Minnesota district to the rest of the nation. And yet CNN decides to treat her rant as an alternative State of the Union because the Tea Party—representing fewer than a fifth of the nation’s views according to most polls—anointed her as its spokesperson. To get a liberal equivalent of Rep. Bachmann, CNN would have had to turn over their cameras right afterward to Ward Churchill.

Gary Palmer: Reagan was the right man at the right time

  February 6th, 2011 will mark the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan, the man who restored our faith in America and in ourselves. Reagan had great confidence in the American people - our common sense, our common decency, our resiliency and our ability to always rise above difficult circumstances.

  In his acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican National Convention, Reagan called on the people of America to help him renew the American compact and return to the core values so important to the founding of this nation. Reagan said, "I ask you not simply to "trust me," but to trust your values - our values - and to hold me responsible for living up to them." He called for a renewal of the American spirit that he said knew no bounds, the spirit that he had seen all over America that was "... ready to blaze into life if you and I are willing to do what has to be done."

Gene Policinski: New governors stumble over First Amendment

  What’s in the gubernatorial water supply out there, when it comes to matters of the First Amendment?

  Just 45 words setting out five essential freedoms as part of the Bill of Rights, the amendment has been around for — as of next Dec. 15 — 220 years. But several newly inaugurated state leaders have stumbled in word or fact over how to live up to that guarantee of our basic rights.

  Alabama’s new Gov. Robert Bentley, minutes after being sworn in, told a church crowd on Jan. 17 that non-Christians were not his brothers and sisters — creating concerns that non-Christians wouldn’t receive equal treatment from state government. Two days later, he met with leaders of other faiths and then told reporters that “if anyone from other religions felt disenfranchised by the language, I want to say I am sorry. I am sorry if I offended anyone in any way.”

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Alabama's two most powerful politicians

  When I am an old man and reminisce and recant stories of years gone by with any young folks who will listen to stories that old men generally tell over and over again, I will love to tell them that I lived during an era when the two greatest Alabamians of their professions lived.

  A hundred years from now and probably for eternity, no person will ever rival the supremacy of Paul “Bear” Bryant in college football nor George Wallace in Alabama politics. Their feats, accomplishments and records speak for themselves. They will never be matched. God simply sat down one day and said, I’m going to make the greatest college football coach in history and the greatest Alabama politician in history and I’m going to send them down to Alabama to live in the same era. I was fortunate enough to know both of them and actually got to know Wallace very well over the last 30 years of his life.

Ian MacIsaac: Bolivia mounts a new campaign to legitimize coca amid wave of anti-U.S. sentiment in South America

Article 384 of the Constitution of Bolivia:

  The State shall protect native and ancestral coca as cultural patrimony, a renewable natural resource of Bolivia's biodiversity, and as a factor of social cohesion; in its natural state it is not a narcotic. Its revaluing, production, commercialization, and industrialization shall be regulated by law.

NOTE: Bear with me here; I’m a history major. A subject as both literally and intellectually foreign as Bolivia (at least for us stuck here under the Great American Information Bubble) needs some context. Let’s go back a few thousand years for just one minute.

Eric Alterman: The Gift who keeps on giving

  Sarah Palin is the gift who keeps on giving. Think about it. Palin holds no public office. Her political experience includes, exclusively, a term as a small-town mayor and an unfinished, albeit scandal-ridden term as governor of America’s least populous state. Her educational background includes attendance at six different schools merely to earn a bachelor's degree. Despite having run for vice president—in what John McCain’s top advisers later admitted was a desperation move—she has never participated in a full-fledged press conference with members of the national media. She communicates almost exclusively via 140-character pronouncements on Twitter, updates on her Facebook page, and brown-nosing interviews with the likes of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck on Fox, from a studio the network built for her in her home. And yet she is by far the most written about, talked about, and most definitely muttered about woman in America.

Senator Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches # 1232

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The very sound of the name raises powerful images in our minds. The images vary from person to person and group to group. But each is powerful in its own way. I also have my images.

  One of the enduring images for me came at the end of the Selma to Montgomery March on March 25, 1965. Some of us students from Talladega College stuffed ourselves into a Volkswagen Beetle and journeyed to St. Jude just outside the City of Montgomery to join the last leg of the March. We marched from St. Jude to Dexter Avenue, but we were so far down the street we could not see Dr. King’s facial features as he spoke. But I still have a powerful image of the moment.

Gary Palmer: Republicans can use Senate rules to force vote

  Now that H.R. 2, the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), passed the House of Representatives, the nation's attention will turn to the Senate. If there is to be a repeal vote before the 2012 election, Republicans must be willing to use the rules of the Senate to force the issue.

  When bills are passed by the House, they are sent to the Senate for consideration. When the bill is received, it is referred to a committee. Brian Darling, the director of government relations at The Heritage Foundation, recently explained in his blog that in order to force a Senate vote on the House bill, two procedural steps must be taken.

Reece Rushing: President Obama outlines vision for regulation

  President Obama yesterday issued a new executive order and several other directives to help ensure that regulation is cost-effective, evidence-based, and transparent to the public. He announced his plan in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

  This effort mirrors recommendations provided by the Center for American Progress. It also draws a useful contrast to congressional conservatives who are taking aim at new safeguards to protect public health, safety, the environment, and the country’s economic well-being.

Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Bentley and beyond

  Those of us who are over 50 years old have witnessed and been a part of one of the most profound and dramatic changes in American political history. The total transformation of the South from an all Democratic region to an all Republican enclave is remarkable to say the least. Fifty years ago we were referred to as the Solid South because we were solidly Democratic. We are still labeled as the Solid South, but today it is because we are the most reliably Republican part of the country.

  This time 50 years ago there was not one Republican U.S. Senator from the South. Today, the 10 Deep South states have 20 U.S. Senators and 19 out of those 20 are Republican. The only Democrat left is Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.