Web design & hosting: Redesign of my site -- feedback?

Redesign of my site -- feedback?

I'm working on redesigning my website, a political news website called Politinks.com, which I'm transforming into more of a community site.

This is what I have so far: http://www.politinks.com/misc/politinks_mockup.png

If anyone has any reccomendations on how to improve, I'd really appreciate your feedback.

What I hope for it to be is a community where the politically interested can interact through commenting, forums, and their own blogs, with video and an info wiki to be added if it succeeds. The screen shot I linked to is one of the home page, where it all comes together. I'm trying to highlight the news, while at the same time displaying user blog posts to encourage community interaction.

The voting buttons will be redesigned changed (+- instead of just 'vote').

I'm also trying to go easy on the red, white, and blue (the current design is a mess), as I hope to attract an international audience as well as a USA audience.

I'd really appreciate any feedback, so let me know what you think!

(I'm asking for feedback, not really trying to advertise [although I could use more members ;)], so I hope this post isn't against any rules.)