I was pleasantly surprised to be invited to the White House jobs summit last Thursday, where I got to watch President Obama engage with about 130 people off the cuff. And I was reminded, first hand, what drew so many of us to the promise of this remarkable outsider -- the decency, the intellect, the idealism, and the evidently progressive impulses. I came away even more bewildered and dismayed at the reality that this president, who could have been such an insurgent at a moment demanding insurgency, has been so utterly captured by the Wall Street elite, the health insurance industry elite, and the military elite.
Right now we are trapped in a dangerous cycle: borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf, and then burn it in ways that destroys the planet. Every bit of that has got to change.
Curbing piracy and making it easier to visit our country are straightforward and immediate ways to spur long-term job growth. The decline in foreign visitors has probably cost the country around 245,000 jobs. Piracy has cost another 375,000.
Afghanistan is in urgent need of the basics for survival in one of the poorest countries on Earth -- seeds, fertilizer, roads, power, schools, and clinics -- much more than it is in the need of another 30,000 troops.
The best thing that can happen to the Democrats for the long-term in 2010 is to lose just enough seats that a) it won't impact their majority, but that b) the Republicans will think they won big.
We need to start imagining and preparing for a global, coordinated economic transformation on the scale of a world war -- not only to restore jobs, but to restore means of making a sustainable living to everyone on Earth.
Anti-abortion groups are working to torpedo all health reform if they cannot impose their religious strictures on those who follow other religious teachings. Do the moral views of other religions not matter?
On December 3, we found out that we'd been published in the Wall Street Journal. Well, sort of. Many of our words made it into an online column -- but our names were nowhere to be found.
The Bo-Tax is being touted as a way to help solve the health care budget crisis, presumably because a very small percentage of cosmetic procedures are covered under some insurance plans (unfortunately, not mine).
This historic health care plan designed to improve Americans' lives and make them healthier and safer could, for women facing an unintended or dangerous pregnancy, deny them access to the care they need.
My intention was not to suggest anything about Jay Nordlinger's sex life or bathroom habits. I've never even met the guy. My point had nothing to do with his sexuality. My point was that he can't write.
The health care reform bill now being debated in the Senate must include a provision that sets a minimum medical loss ratio to keep insurers from gouging consumers and leaving patients without the care they need.
Today, Starbucks is conducting a live, world-wide sing-along that will span across multiple countries, languages and time zones, featuring artists from around the world singing "All You Need Is Love."
Is the American system due for a major overhaul? Three pillars of American life are cracking, along with the beliefs that hold them up.
America does not lack food nor do we lack public food and nutrition programs. Kids who are hungry in America are hungry because they lack access to such programs. That is a solvable problem.
In a few days Obama will travel to Oslo, Norway to accept the Nobel Prize. One cannot help but feel, on the heels of this new Afghanistan stance, that he'll be coming into town for his peace prize with guns blazing.
This is not the time or place to instigate a new battle over reproductive rights. Families and businesses who are getting buried under the weight of the cost of health care deserve better.
President Obama will face an intriguing dilemma in international protocol during his Oslo trip, concerning the bow. Immediately before the Nobel ceremony, he will have an audience with King Harald V, of Norway.
Networks tied to Rick Warren's mentor have played a major role in organizing and inspiring Ugandan legislation that would mandate the death penalty for homosexual acts.
The public option was never a coherent, well-defined policy tool. It's an amorphous concept that stands as a symbol of reform and as a perceived anecdote to the greed and callousness of the insurance industry.
Every time I look at George's mechanically reproduced signature, I'm reminded that insurance companies are people, too.
Recent restatements of policy from high-ranking administration officials flatly contradicts what Americans heard the president declare last Tuesday at West Point.
When I first heard that my brother, his girlfriend and their friend had been detained in Iran I felt my heart sink. More than 100 days later, I still get that feeling each morning.
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