This is definitely not a category to which I have the energy to do justice. There are other politically-oriented blogs not annotated here listed on the Blogroll, and a few of these sites in turn contain extensive like-minded blogrolls of their own. These are simply the ones to which I tend to turn each day, starting at the top.
Also recommend subscribing to the following daily e-newsletters:
Danny Schecter’s News Dissector
Tom Paine
TomDispatch
Sam’s Smith’s Progressive Review is a one-man assault on all that’s pernicious in contemporary American politics. Sam’s a saint—he’s been at this as long as anyone, having begun his reporting career in 1957 and started the parent of version of PR in 1964. In between—well, you can read a schematic bio on the left-hand column, but you’ll want to read his memoirs, also available on the site. How the man remains hopeful after all he’s seen is beyond me, but he is, and we owe him for that.
Znet. Hands-down the best leftwing aggregation of news and opinion on the Web. Encyclopedic in scope, the taxonomy is explained here.
Cyrano’s Online Journal aggregates some top notch blogs, as well as linking to some great writing you might not stumble upon elsewhere. From the [in]famous (Zizek, Joe Bageant) to the obscure, the site is steadfastly contrarian and downright sane. There’s a LOT folded in here, including Jason Miller’s sharp anticonsumerist critiques on Thomas Paine’s Corner, the polito-cultural Tant-Miex, with a special section devoted to Bob Dylan, and plenty more.
The Southern Poverty Law Center features a daily blog called Hatewatch–a regularly eye-opening set of news stories concerning the misdeeds of the haters–the racists, homophobes, and religious bigots currently being courted so asidiously by John “Intelligent Design” McCain..
Orcinus is written by D. Niewart and Sara Robinson. And I do mean written. These folks go after their subject in real depth, often turning stories into running series. They’re featured on many a blogroll for good reason.
The Angry Arab is a Lebanese-born and internationally educated gadfly and professor at CSU. His sidebars demonstrate a particular abhorrence for “Mother” Theresa and Chicken McNuggets, but it’s his daily commentary on all things middle-eastern that make him well-night invaluable. Especially if you’ve developed a degree of fluency in Lebanese politics, which would appear to be a lifelong study. A unique and often delightfully eccentric perspective–with the requisite and justifiable anger.
University of Michigan History Professor Juan Cole’s Informed Comment is must reading, every day, for an analysis of the news from Iraq. Guy knows his stuff and stands his ground; cf. the recent dust-up on Iranian President Ahmadinejab’s “Israel must case to exist” comment.
Talking Points Memo is the daily blog from high-caliber reporter and analyst Josh Marshall . Josh is nothing if not tenacious. A bit wonky—you have be a real junkie to want, say, your Abramoff fixes day-in, day-out, updated every few hours, but this is the place to turn for the details the major news media lacks the time, the space, and, all too often, the interest to report. To better understand how Washington works—and doesn’t—check him out. Daily.
Ahhh, The Rude Pundit. A rancorous combination of Thomas Nashe, Thomas Paine, Larry Flynt, Rabelais and Jonathan Swift, this scatologically-impelled genius says what many of us think in the terms we refuse, out of a basic sense of decency, to express them. The Rude Pundit is constrained by no such bounds. You think you loathe Dick Cheney? You haven’t SEEN loathing till you’ve seen the Rude one loathe Dick Cheney. But don’t look to be part of the discussion: TRP would have you have you know that “Mostly, the Rude Pundit doesn’t give a shit what you have to say…” This, by the way, is not for everyone. It may in fact be the most obscene blog on the Web, and makes the excesses on Wonkette look like My Pet Goat. You have been warned.
BagNews Notes subscribes to the picture-worth-a-thousand-words theory. Analyzes the day’s news by way of artfully deconstructing photos culled from the daily media mix.
Author and celeb-friend Arianna Huffington’s Huffingtonpost mixes up the significant with the pseudo-meaningful, but who deosn’t crave a splash of ephemera with our daily soup of dismal? It’s worth taking the time to explore the web site’s taxonomy, which is complex yet eminently useful; each “featured post” (left-hand column), for example, provides links to related news stories and related columns. Homepage also includes an excellent set of links to columnists–prominent among them Hollywood glitterpeople, because, face it, George Clooney and John Cusack have a way of breakin’ it down that Zbigniew Brzezinski doesn’t– and an extensive blogroll. You don’t really want to be caught going on about Darfur at your next cocktail party without having read Mia Farrow’s HuffingtongPost blog commentary on the same.
Busy, Busy, Busy is a blog for all you busy, busy, busy people out there, because, you know, what with work, and the kids, and updating your own blog, who has the time to do much online but check the scores and the obits? Here’s where you get the ten-second hilarious and spot-on summaries of loopy right wingers. Too busy to read Boot, Krauthammer, Coulter, and Brooks? We are too, so we’re indebted to Elton Beard for his efforts.
Labor issues are dissected daily on Nathan Newmans’ Labor Blog . If you’ve so much as a passing interest in this crucial arena–this deosn’t apply to Clinton supporters, of course–this is your front page.
If you’re up at night fretting over the finer points of Constitutional Law, be sure to check out SCOTUSblog (that’s “Supreme Court of ….), brought to you by “the nation’s only Supreme Court litigation boutique.” A hell of a way to make a living, no? These lawyers are probably too smart for their own good and making way more money than they should be engaging in some nefarious matter or other—they’re LAWYERS, after all!–but we all profit from these daily digests.
Empire Notes, written by Rahul Mahajan, is erudite stuff provided by an erstwhile NY instructor who has been to Fallujah twice and knows whereof he speaks. First-rate analyses of international relations. I’ll leave it at that; it’s is hard to make funny where Fallujah is concerned.
Jerome Armstrong’s MyDD takes poliwonkdom to the edge. Suberb coverage of electoral politics on a federal and state level, district-by-district. Excellent list of poll sources on the left-hand menu. Armstrong is a frequent contributor at Kos, and collaborated with Markos “DailyKos” Moutsilis Zuniga on Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Centered Politics. If you’re a campaign junkie, this should be a daily feed.
Kos himself made the big time when David Brooks wasted an entire NYT Sunday editorial column trying to enrage the Citizenry by charging Kos with Behavior of a Scandalous Nature. It fizzled–granted, a characteristic trait of Brooks’ editorializing. DailyKos actually began as a venue in which Ex-Marine Zuniga posted a few of his own rants—sound familiar?—and now it’s grown up a bit, so much so that it’s always among the top five blogs as ranked by Technorati. Zuniga is not only a blogger, but a Blog Theorist (see entry for MYDD, above; see his interview in Kline and Burstein’s book Blog! , 41-49). His masterstroke was in assembling a wicked smart community, the self-described “Kossacks,” who contribute religiously to the open threads as well as creating their own online “diaries.” They contribute more than their opinions: DailyKos is also a dominant fundraiser among the Netroots, having pulled $1.4 million during the ’96 midterms for distribution among congressional candidates running in tight races. When the primaries began, sentiment on the site seemed to be trending Edwards’ way; sadly, anyone whom the media and moneybags dismissed outright as a non-serious contender receives the same treatment on Kos. From an ideological perspective, on the plus side, Kos and his tribe are unabashedly wedded to the self-proclaimed “progressive” wing of the Democratic party. On the downside, Kos and his tribe are unabashedly wedded to the self-proclaimed “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party. By the way, the site also features the remarkable dKosopedia, an encyclopedia of American politics running to around 8,000 articles. That alone will cover a multitude of sins. All in all, DailyKos is the site I most hate lovin’; thoroughgoing shills for the Democratic Party that continues to disappoint these same loyalists, there is nonetheless so much damn good information provided by so many people willing to do the spadework on so many otherwise ignored issues that I find it absolutely essential reading everyday; and while I find Kos’ airy dismissal of anyone working outside–or, yikes against!– the Party to smell ever so faintly of the Comitern, he’s smart, committed, goodhearted, and tough.
Whereas Kos turned his little corner of the Web into an empire, Philly’s Atrios has been content with maintaining the popular Eschaton as a simple blog. A smart and devoted coterie of commentators keeps this place vital. Someday, mark my words, they’ll outgrow their odd fascination with the Democratic Party.
We appreciate the way Team Agonist distinguishes between “News Digest” reports and “Diary” entries. Not that we want to miss either. We’d like a team ourselves. We are tired of doing this on our lonesome, all the while relying on the royal “we” to create the appearance of a busy newsroom. Or anarchist drum circle. Or balding, paunchy middle-aged ex-radicals sitting round the kitchen table drinking Wild Turkey and doing lines. Or however the hell you picture us. I mean me.
Washington Insider The Decembrist–not to be confused with the The Decembrists, or the original Decembrists for that matter–regularly posts longish—relative to blogging, anyway—thoughtful pieces.
Max Blumenthal takes his cameraman along to various right-wing conferences; the results speak for themselves. In between, he offers some sound thinking on the role of the Jewish-American-Leftist. A thoughtful guy with a good sense of humor.
Axis of Logic is a team of young (?) contributors from around the globe who offer commentary on … just about everything.
Dissident Voice comprises radical views on current crises written by the kinds of people who’ve taken a journalism course or two.
On CounterBias, academics square off against the right in uncharacteristically non-academic style.
Kos’s Pastor Dan hosts the popular Street Prophets web site.
NOT-SO-BLOGS
The American Friends Service Committee belies any stereotype of Quakers as quivering wallflowers. This group has long taken the lead in organizing antiwar demonstrations, and the site, devoted to traditional Quaker ideals, applies the same to various world issues. (Not technically a blog, but I want to plug them where I can. Their ongoing quiet unyielding public demonstrations against the war in Boston are genuinely inspiring).
Since the 1950’s, Dissent has been a leading voice of the Left: self-critical, and not bound to any particular subject or style. The nicely laid-out web site is a pleasure. So’s the writing. Always something herein to provoke and entertain. Also, again, we’re moving from away from any limiting notion of what makes for a “blog”….
Counterpunch.org is the online incarnation of Alexander Cockburn’s Counterpunch newsletter. Leans very hard left. The writing ranges from AC’s own always delightfully energetic attacks on the status quo to sometimes screechy rants, but the contararian views which are Counterpunch’s stock in trade merit a glance daily.
Corporation Watch is a model of a whistleblowing site—very well resourced and referenced articles cataloging a multitude of corporate crimes that don’t make the papers. Does a great job on war profiteering. You’ll emerge unsettled.
At Dollars & Sense, a very smart team writes on economic justice and related issues. Astute and well-researched articles by folks who know their public policy but who don’t slide easily into wonkihood. Only a few articles are available online (search the archives), but you’ll want to subscribe to the magazine.
Infoshop gives ya a good introduction to historical and contemporary anarchist theory and practice. Includes a library, FAQ, wiki, and store.
