People Who Use Drugs Need to Be Treated With Dignity
In the days since the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, like many others I am reeling from the shock of losing an actor with profound mastery for his craft. He was compelling to watch -- an...
View ArticleAlaska Next State to Vote on Legal Weed
The Alaskan Secretary of State's Office has certified that over 30,000 valid signatures from 30 of 40 House districts have been collected to put a marijuana legalization initiative on the August 19...
View ArticleTarget Hearing Highlights Need for Congressional Action on Data Breaches
To listen to some House Republicans at the Target hearing Wednesday, and the Senate Republicans on Tuesday, one would be forgiven for thinking that the massive data breaches experienced by customers of...
View ArticleWhat Chris Christie Should Have Said to Save His Career
The Two Minutes, Rather than Two Hours, That Would Have Restored His Brand Assuming that the Governor did, indeed, know more than he said he knew during his famous two-hour press conference, this...
View ArticleObama and Karzai Sparring in Afghanistan
It is hardly a secret that U.S. relations with Afghanistan are at a low ebb, just when the U.S. needs the cooperation and support of the mercurial Afghan President Hamid Karzai to effect an orderly...
View ArticleThe Dangers When a President Writes His Own Laws
When President Obama used his State of the Union speech to threaten Congress with executive orders to bypass the legislative process, he outraged many members of both parties for blatantly defying the...
View ArticlePolitical Strategy or Malpractice to Immigrant Communities?
Anibal Fuentes is a Chicago day laborer who may only have a few weeks left in the country. Early one morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents pounded on his door. They arrived saying...
View ArticleIn Pursuit of Peace in the Middle East -- Neither Palestine's Agent Nor...
I shall be ever admiring of the Jewish people, even if being "God's chosen" has been far from easy. The Jewish people have survived with faith, intelligence and courage the world's worst manifestation...
View ArticleDe-Demagoguing the Pipeline: A Televised White House Summit
Anyone who has run an organization with multiple stakeholders knows that the process of coming to a decision can be as important as the decision itself. No organization has as many stakeholders as the...
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Insanely Early 2016 Speculation (Hillary Clinton Edition)
Yes, it is insanely early to be speculating about 2016. This, however, is not going to stop me from doing so. In fact, I am somewhat late to this particular party, since we've all been seeing a spate...
View ArticleWith AIPAC's Power in Doubt, Is Peace With Israel Now Possible?
On Feb. 3 The New York Times ran an article that would have been hard to imagine just a few years ago. Under the headline "Potent Pro-Israel Group Finds Its Momentum Blunted," the Times' Mark Landler...
View ArticleReagan, Sochi, and What America Is All About
The nice coincidence of Ronald Reagan's birthday and the opening of the Olympics reminds me of a wonderful story daughter Maureen Reagan told me in Reykjavik, Iceland. We were there in October 1996, on...
View ArticleRepublican Senate Candidate Shows His "Respect" for Women
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan has an interesting way of showing "respect" for women. For the past two weeks, Anchorage Assembly member and stalwart women's advocate Elvi Gray-Jackson...
View ArticleAll The Way With NPP
Why are young Americans so turned off politics? According to a recent Harvard poll, half of Americans under 30 believe "politics today are no longer able to meet the challenges our country is facing."...
View ArticleOur Taxpayer Dollars: Going to Waste and Wealthy Corporations
Let's help our budget crises by continuing billion-dollar handouts to huge, profitable agribusinesses. Apparently, that's what Congress thinks. Congress just passed a Farm Bill that will put taxpayers...
View ArticleHillary and Her Critics -- Here We Go Again
It seems the pundits and polls in our town and on cable TV looking to fill the time can't get over the apparently irresistible temptation to blame Hillary Clinton for ... well, just about everything....
View ArticleNYC's Holidays for Muslims Could Be Unconstitutional
The separation of church and state is an important civics lesson that many of my Muslim friends on Facebook are ignoring as they celebrate Mayor Bill de Blasio's decision to declare school holidays on...
View ArticleKeystone XL's Northern Leg: A Fracked Oil Pipeline Along with Tar Sands
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog On January 31, President Barack Obama's U.S. State Department released its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the northern leg of TransCanada's proposed...
View ArticleShe's Stupid, and She's a Liar
That is what Chris Christie called Bridget Anne Kelly, his former deputy chief of staff; that is what he called Ms. Kelly in a nationally televised press conference, when the governor sought to prove...
View ArticleWomen Are Getting the Job Done
When Senator Barbara Mikulski first came to the Senate in 1987, it was a pretty lonely place for women. There was only one other female senator, and there wasn't even a women's bathroom near the Senate...
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