When looking ahead at the next year, pundits turn into prognosticators. Bloggers covering all sorts of topics and industries are now giving their predictions for what's to come in 2010. Conventional wisdom says to go the conservative route with these choices in order to avoid looking foolish when none of your projections pan out. At the same time, there's a key difference between picking things that are realistically possible and those that are already on the road to happening. I've assembled my favorite predictions covering a variety of fields and what's supposedly in store for the near future: (more...)

Liberal blogger and Firedoglake publisher Jane Hamsher has come under heavy fire for an appearance on Fox & Friends in which she promotes a petition to kill the current health care reform bill. Liberal critics paint her as a "useful idiot" being exploited by the right, and point out Hamsher's own distaste for those on the left who appear on Fox. Hamsher has responded to the criticism, but she'll have to convince a tough critic: Jane Hamsher from July. That Jane Hamsher seemed to have a different set of priorities. (more...)

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When Joe Lieberman dramatically declared that he would support a GOP filibuster on the healthcare reform bill currently making its rounds in the Senate, he must have known that he'd be subjecting himself to serious criticism from some quarters. Not surprisingly, one of those quarters was MSNBC's prime time lineup. Last night, both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow blasted Lieberman, portraying him as a pawn of the insurance industry and a traitor to his former party. (more...)

video John McCain said today of President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize that, "As Americans, we're proud when our President receives an award of that prestigious category...Americans are always pleased when the President is recognized by something on this order." According to Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney on Fox News Sunday — not quite. (more...)

"We were teenagers, and now we're the man." That was how DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas described the nearly 2000 activists gathered in Pittsburgh for the 2009 Netroots Nation convention. Billed on its website as "the most concentrated gathering of progressive bloggers to date,"  this year's Netroots Nation is the fourth conference of its kind. It began in 2006 as the YearlyKos convention, and adopted a new name in 2008 to reflect its expanding membership and influence beyond the pages of DailyKos. The 2009 conference is the first without a cadre of primary contenders to invite and the first to deal with reality of being a movement billed as the political establishment. The event regularly attracts progressive power players and up-and-comers alike, with former Vice President Al Gore making a surprise visit last year, while 2007 drew eight major Democratic Presidential candidates for a blogger-moderated debate. This year brought former President Bill Clinton, Governor Howard Dean and Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett as featured speakers - but while the tradition of high-profile politicos in attendance continues, the focus of the conference has definitely taken a turn from its election-driven roots. (more...)