Just to illustrate what happened Conservatives came into campaign with 143 seats, they will now have 165-168 NDP came into campaign with 36 seats and will end with 105-110 (tripled their ranks) Liberals came into campaign with 77 seats and will end with 25-30 (cut by 2/3rds) Bloq Quebecois came into campaign with 47 seats and will end with 3-5 (cut by 90%) So the Liberals and BQ suffered massive loss, the NDP and Conservatives had big wins. NDP is probably the biggest story of night, going from 4th...

His body has been consigned to the sea but how will we deal with his legacy? For years now, the corporeal Osama has been like one of those aging celebrities on reality TV and game shows popping up to reprise his latest and greatest hit on 9/11. His irrelevance has been monumental. What needs attention now is the hole he left in the American psyche that has been growing and festering for almost a decade now–gaslighting us into self-destruction, a term to describe intimidation and psychological...

This is a telling interview with one of Osama bin Laden’s wives, by Khalid Nasr in March 2002. (Islam allows up to four wives. bin Laden possessed all four.) This was carried by Guardian UK only 6 months after the bombing of the Trade Towers, Pentagon, and one hijacked plane was diverted by passengers away from bombing the White House and was taken down into a woods. And here is an important ‘first witness” document, Indicating a classic psychological pathology in bin Laden, who...

Just another Orwellian move by the nut from the North.

A second extensive round-up from Watching America.com Al-Jazeera, Qatar Spain’s Osama Legacy “The bombing of Madrid was the most significant attack on the West since 9/11. In the immediate aftermath, it changed Spanish government policy. It also changed the way people felt about their security. Travellers around Atocha believe the death of bin Laden won’t change it back. ” Al-Jazeera, Qatar Death of Bin Laden Arab News, Pakistan Victory for Justice “A powerful symbol...

Continuing with our global roundup of reaction to bin Laden’s death – does the apparent demise of Osama bin Laden signify the death knell of Islamist Jihadism? For Spain’s El Pais, columnist Liuis Bassets writes that President Obama has not only assured is own reelection, he has given what has been called a ‘war on terror’ its crowning achievement. For El Pais, Liuis Bassets writes in part: After several sad months lacking in global leadership and strength from Washington,...

Here’s a sampling of English-language articles concerning Bin Laden’s death, from around the world, taken from Watching America.com, the aggregator and translator of foreign news and views about the USA. Watching America is starting to post at speed now, so check throughout the day. National Post, Canada Obama Strikes a Blow Against Duplicity in Pakistan “Time and time again, Obama has defied the chorus of voices pleading that he pussy-foot his way through Pakistan’s duplicity...

This, for one:

He even used her as a human shield.

While Osama bin Laden may have been killed yesterday afternoon, was the movement he spawned already dead? As part of our coverage of the global reaction to the terror master’s demise, for Brazil’s Folha, columnist Sergio Malbergier writes that he bin Laden died first with the Arab uprisings, and died again yesterday. For Brazil’s Folha, Sergio Malbergier writes in part Far more than the Quran, Facebook is what has captured the attention and guides young Arab revolutionaries today. In...

And so the day finally arrived — the day many sadly felt they would never see: the day that it was announced that Osama bin Laden, CEO of Al Qaeda, but in the end a mass murderer who will likely be ranked in the same category as Adolf Hitler despite the way he marketed his organization with religious rhetoric — is finally dead. Over the years, people on the right and left essentially felt he’d be caught or killed if hell froze over. Now it has. And now the question remains: will...

Word just coming in that the Navy Seal who killed Bin Laden was named Ralphie…. I’ll be here all week folks….

WASHINGTON – Did Joe Scarborough really say that Obama’s “own base” was against targeting Osama bin Laden? The ideological nitwittery is staggering. Eli Lake tried the same tactic on Twitter today, this was my response. How quickly people, even supposed astute political observers and analysts, forget the words of Candidate Obama: “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.” – Candidate Barack...

“The surgery was a success. We removed a large, cancerous tumor. Osama bin Laden is dead.” Did you get all the cancer? “No, but we did remove a substantial part. However, we know that there are other tumors, there are other cancerous cells still actively at work.” Will we be able to remove the rest of these cancerous cells? “Maybe, but we will have to use many different experimental, highly dangerous, not yet proven procedures and techniques. You see, these cancer cells quickly...

Radley Balko, a senior editor for Reason magazine, makes a persuasive case that Osama bin Laden met his goals: in other words, he “won.” In The Looming Tower, the Pulitzer-winning history of al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11, author Lawrence Wright lays out how Osama bin Laden’s motivation for the attacks that he planned in the 1990s, and then the September 11 attacks, was to draw the U.S. and the West into a prolonged war—an actual war in Afghanistan, and a broader global war with Islam. Osama...

According to an AP report, it’s a match: the DNA test showed it was Osama bin Laden’s body to a 99.90 percent certainty.

Gary McCoy, Cagle Cartoons This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved. [Editor's Note: A truly funny cartoon, but in reality Trump's reaction has been quite responsible JG.]

Here’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement about the killing of terrorist-chief Osama bin Laden yesterday in a special ops operation by Navy Seals in Pakistan. Here is some of CBS News’ report on Clinton’s comments: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday that the killing of Osama bin Laden offered a clear message to al Qaeda’s Taliban allies in Afghanistan: “You cannot wait us out, you cannot defeat us, but you can make the choice to abandon...

Osama Bin Laden is found in a Pakistan mansion and killed as Americans at home spend an hour sweating out a “national security” announcement while watching “Celebrity Apprentice” or preparing for bed. For the old, anxiety arises with the memory of another Sunday night when President Kennedy interrupted TV schedules to reveal missiles in Cuba and that the U.S. would block all shipments to the Caribbean island. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, a death notice takes on all...

Taylor Jones, Hoover Digest This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

ABC News has this must-view exclusive report on the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. This includes photos from inside the compound, including bin Laden’s blood stained room: Some highlights from their news story: The U.S. team was on the ground for only 40 minutes, most of the time spent scrubbing the compound for information about al Qaeda and its future plans. So this was literally a pre-emptive strike as well as an operation to end his career as the world’s most famous currrent...

Paul Zanetti, Australia This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

When one takes most any day in history and looks at the overall picture, one sees that nations and individuals are like floating islands, coming near one another, colliding, pushing away, perhaps building bridges across their divides, sometimes not for a long long time. Here are some. There are many more. 2011 Osama din Laden dead 2010 A car bomb is discovered and deactivated in New York City’s Times Square 2003 President George W. Bush declares that ‘major combat operations’ in...

The death of the most notorious terrorist the world has ever seen . . . will allow the door to open more widely to the tolerance, modernism, and pragmatism that is so badly needed and so long awaited in a part of the world where despair, corruption, brutality, and fanaticism have laid waste to so many generations. ~ LAWRENCE WRIGHT As defining moments go, it was huge. Barack Obama, the president that his foes still insist is weak on defense and foreign policy, has accomplished in one bold stroke...

An aide to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld broke the news that Osama bin Laden was dead — on Twitter. And an IT guy in Pakistan unknowingly live-tweeted the attack. Follow along (at Storify) to see how the story played out on Twitter. This is what it means to have the real-time web plus a networked world citizenry. And today, Twitter is still a relatively niche communications tool. Imagine what life could be like in 5-10 years. No more secrets?

Here’s the video and transcript of President Barack Obama’s announcement that Osbama bin Laden was killed — a milestone one L.A. radio newsman likened to finding out Adolf Hitler had died: And this is the transcript of an announcement many Americans had dreamed of hearing: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible...

This is President Bush’s statement about President Obama’s call to him tonight: “Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude. This momentous achievement marks a victory for America,...

this is from one of my friends in New York City near 2 am in the morning just now re news that Bin Laden is dead. It appears from the emails I’m receiving from the east coast in large numbers, many there have not yet gone to sleep. This news has been poignant for many many there. “….it is good – very – that finally he was found and dealt with in the right way …it sounds like very careful work was done, and for quite a long time, to get to this point. Not to...

The apparent euphoria erupting throughout the United States tonight — a celebration of the death of Osama bin Laden — seems strangely misplaced. His life had nothing to do with our invasion of Iraq and has nothing directly to do with our presence in Afghanistan. His death is not V-Day, it does not end our military operations there. In fact, as the State Department announced via a press release: U.S. citizens traveling or residing abroad should be alert to the potential for anti-American...

On the tv news tonight, a fire fighter from New York on the scene at 9-11 says somberly and without joy, that ‘today is a good day. ‘A New Yorker elder at Ground Zero says in his Irish-tinged voice, ‘Thank the Lord this has happened though we still feel pity for the families’. Another New York firefighter who has joined the cheering crowds in New York, says, ’9-11 was an act of war that took 323 of my firefighter brothers. 9-11 changed our lives in horrible ways,’...

President Barack Obama announced tonight from the White House, while hundreds of cheering Americans were gathering outside, waving flags and singing patriotic songs, that Osama bin Laden, the master terrorist and master brain behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed more than three thousand Americans was killed in a courageous U.S. CIA-military-led operation in Pakistan. Justice has finally been done. Read more here

As several of my colleagues have already reported, Osama Bin Laden is finally dead. There will be plenty of ink (or around here I suppose electrons) will be spilled over the topic in the coming days I’d like to ask for what may be impossible. Don’t turn this into a political thing. We don’t need anyone on the left talking about how Obama did what Bush did not. We don’t need anyone on the right talking about how Obama is faking it or is in on some conspiracy. We found and defeated...

UPDATE: Government officials say that following Muslim ritual, the body of Osama bin Laden has been given to the sea. In Muslim faith, as in many other faiths’ rituals, burial is most often within 24 hours of death, after body is washed and ritually ministered to. Meanwhile on another front, apparently a small crew of Navy Seals had dropped from the sky and rappelled down the walls of the huge mansion compound bin Laden was hiding in along with his ‘youngest wife’ and various...

The networks interrupted regular programming about a half hour ago. Pres. Obama is soon to make an announcement that Osama bin Laden has been killed and is in U.S. hands. According to CBS News, this story has been confirmed, and they are just waiting for Pres. Obama to make his announcement. CBS also reported that bin Laden was shot in the head, which obviously would indicate that he was killed at close range, and not from a drone. I don’t know if this last has been confirmed, though.

Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

I’ve never started a post with a certain, expressive phrase used by some other bloggers, but everything does have its time so here goes. It turns out Donald Trump found the White House Correspondent’s Dinner “inappropriate” and felt there were too many jokes aimed at him by President Barack Obama and Seth Meyers. So (here goes the phrase): BWWAAHHHHHHH! Who could ever think of possibly wounding the feelings of Trump, who has hurled insults and innuendo at Rosie O’Donnell,...

A little Sunday break from politics. Advertising has come a long way.  Today it is mostly on television complete with special effects.  It wasn’t always that way. The above was taken in NW Portland in the mid 70s. This one in Winthrop, WA – 1983. Now this is art! Click on picture for larger image. Images © 2011, Ron Beasley

The contrast between the way we approach national security and defense in the United States and the way we approach public education could not be more stark. This is not just a matter of budget allocations. It’s about the paradigm we use to evaluate the effectiveness and success of our military missions, versus the paradigm we use to evaluate the effectiveness and success of public education in this country. Dave Eggers and Ninive Clements Caligari address this contrast in a must-read op-ed...

To the few remaining Dutch survivors of the Holocaust and to the descendants of the more than 100,000 Dutch Jews who were murdered by the Nazis during World War II, this Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Day) could be a particularly poignant one. You see, het Nationaal Archief (The Netherlands’ National Archive) announced a couple of weeks ago that it has compiled, from previously sealed archives on war collaborators, extensive information about the arrests and deportations to Nazi concentration camps...

Peter Broelman, Australia This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Here’s the full video of President Barack Obama’s comedy routine at the 2011 White House Correspondent’s dinner. The parts that are getting the most buzz is his satire video using The Lion King, his pointed references to the implosion of the birther issue in both jokes and graphics and his pointed barbs aimed at Donald Trump who was in the audience as a guest of the Washington Post (a controversial move on the part of the Post). To use comedy language that is now taboo in politics,...

In the LaLa Land for Historical Ignoramuses in which Michele Bachmann resides, the loss of six million Jewish lives — as well as millions of gypsies, homosexuals, Catholics, and many other disfavored groups –  is analogous to Americans’ (supposed) loss of “economic liberty” (defined by Bachmann as eliminating Medicare and Social Security for the elderly and disabled, and requiring the wealthy to pay income taxes in order to fund these, and anything else that helps what...

In most elections, politicians pump up small differences into “issues” to distinguish themselves from the other guys. That won’t be a problem next year, as two contrasting visions of America emerge in a contest between President Obama and an unknown Republican who will embody theirs. In 1960, there was a big debate over what to do about two small islands, Matsu and Quemoy, between mainland China and Taiwan. Nixon accused JFK of weakness by being unwilling to use nukes to defend...

And, from 2008, here’s someone loaded with talent: then 10 year old Kayla Starr:

A truly touching story and one which shows just how special those who serve us are and how much they deserve our respect.

Here’s a video showing President Barack Obama joking about the controversy over his birth certificate at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. Obama’s comedic timing is getting better and better. This was delivered like a pro:

Sounds like he took on both sides, which is something I can appreciate.

Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, was officially designated as a day of observance by the Israeli Knesset in 1951 and is an internationally recognized day to remember, honor and memorialize the more than six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. The date corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar and marks the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Because the actual date of Yom HaShoah falls on a Sunday—May 1—this year, in Israel it will...

In an unconfirmed Libyan government report, a NATO airstrike purportedly killed Moammar Gadhafi’s youngest son and grandchildren but the dictator himself survived. The attack came hours after Gadhafi had called for negotations, a call many increasingly distrust given his not-so-trusthworthy record. Reuters reports: The youngest son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and three of his grandchildren were killed in a NATO airstrike, the government said early Sunday, NBC News reported. Gadhafi and...

The full statement is on her official website, but the site server is down at the moment (presumably it was overloaded by the mountains of angry protests that followed her comments in Oklahoma’s state house yesterday). Right Wing Watch quotes from her statement of “apology.”

That is the theme of this guest piece at Think Progress by climate scientist Brad Johnson (emphasis in original):

Our political Quote of the Day comes via Australia’s Herald Sun on the story of a boy who lost his mother but grew into a young man who had some of her best attributes — and some of his own as well: If Diana’s funeral was probably the worst day for the royal family since the abdication scandal in the 1930s, then William’s wedding might be its best since his grandmother’s coronation in 1953. The motherless boy has grown into a quietly impressive young man, as Australians...

With the Trump uproar, and long form birth certificate release by his O’ness, sucking all the air out of the room, Part III of the Arizona Circus was held until there was a clearing in the blather before posting. For those waiting with breathless anticipation (both of you), here it is. Sideshow: The Birther Booth Since birtherism has already been mentioned, let’s return to the sideshow with a visit to the Birther Bill Booth. Yesirree, Arizona became the first state to pass a Birther Bill requiring...

The world must be ending. Or is it that Donald Trump is becoming a consensus builder? I agree with Glenn Beck. On Beck’s radio show he decimates Donald Trump because of his use of the F-word throughout a public recent speech — yet another attempt by Trump to lower the bar on American discourse which is down so far that it is close to striking oil. Here’s the segment: Aside from this independent voter (and I suspect MANY others), Donald Trump is accumulating quite a non-fan club...

Birther Bozos Need a New Nose Raging Moderate, by Will Durst Goaded into action by a nattering of numbskulls, Barack Obama finally released the long form of his certificate of live birth from the state of Hawaii, and hopefully threw the last shovel of dirt onto this inception nonsense; but the suspicion is, no, probably not. As we speak, vanquished Birther Bozos are crawling out of the crypt searching for a new nose to wear. First the short form, now the long form, soon they’ll want to see the...