Commentary: Obama, Congress must fill lower federal court openings

Now that the 112th Senate has convened in the 2012 presidential election year for its second session, this is an ideal moment to analyze lower federal court judicial selection. | 02/09/12 15:23:55 By - Carl Tobias

Truly revolutionary: Arabs speaking well of Israel

With violent political winds battering their Arab neighbors, Israelis have watched with a mixture of nervousness and hope, wondering what the changes will mean for them. Will the end of dictatorships mean a better chance for peace and good relations, or will they usher in even more instability and insecurity? | 02/09/12 13:42:00 By - By FRIDA GHITIS

Birth control rule goes too far

The following editorial appeared in the Kansas City Star on Wednesday, Feb. 8: | 02/09/12 10:21:29 By -

Commentary: Romney's win with Florida's Hispanic voters will be tough to duplicate

A kind word of advice for Republican hopeful Mitt Romney: Don't read too much into your impressive victory among Hispanic voters in Florida's primary. You will face an uphill battle to emulate it among Latino voters nationwide. | 02/09/12 06:01:12 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Thanks to Citizens United, big donors are throwing their weight around

Unless you're steeped in Idaho politics, you've probably never heard of Frank VanderSloot. But the wealthy Republican businessman and people like him around the country are wielding outsized influence on the 2012 presidential election. | 02/09/12 06:06:32 By - Dan Morain

With friends like Egypt

The following editorial appeared in the Kansas City Star on Tuesday, Feb. 7: | 02/08/12 11:46:31 By -

Commentary: Mexico's drug cartels have expanded beyond drugs and guns

A bit of respect, please, for the drug cartels. For their ingenuity, technological shrewdness, and ability to adapt their products and services to a changing marketplace.

It's a perspective missed by both Democrats and Republicans. Politicians of both parties are too busy grandstanding about "securing" or "fixing" a border they fail fully to understand. | 02/08/12 06:11:29 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Time to give school lunch guidelines a new twist

I recently told a friend something about her son that my son had told me years ago.

When both our sons were in middle school, my friend would painstakingly prepare nutritious, well-rounded and, she thought, tasty lunches for her son to take to school. Each day, according to my son, this young man would throw away most or all of the healthy lunch his mother had lovingly prepared and get french fries, pizza or something from the vending machine instead. | 02/07/12 06:03:40 By - James Werrell

Commentary: Kansas' schizophrenic immigration policy

Duck if you're headed into the state of Kansas. Mixed signals are flying fast.

On the subject of undocumented immigrants, officials are all over the place. The secretary of agriculture wants to put them to work. The secretary of state wants to deport them. The governor vows to eradicate child poverty while taking food aid from the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. | 02/07/12 06:03:05 By - Barbara Shelly

Commentary: Kansas has no excuses for food stamp debacle

Kansas is running out of excuses. Social and Rehabilitation Services officials are digging in their heels, defending a change in how food stamps are allotted.

Kansas used to handle the benefits in a morally responsible manner. Now, hundreds if not thousands of U.S.-born children have been severed from aid. | 02/06/12 12:22:43 By - Mary Sanchez

A $1.2 billion mystery

The following editorial appeared in the Kansas City Star on Friday, Feb. 3: | 02/06/12 11:07:18 By -

Commentary: So much for capping CEO salaries

Homeowners suffering the consequences of the crash should take a deep breath, and consider what the CEO of one of the biggest recipients of a taxpayer bailout considered a hardship. | 02/06/12 06:02:06 By - Dan Morain

Commentary: Income tax inequality debate is fueled by fairness, not envy

I will spend much of this weekend taming the beast that is my income tax folder, a multi-pocketed file with such handwritten labels as Office Supplies, 1099 and Charity. I keep detailed documentation in order to take every deduction available. Like Mitt Romney, my husband and I will pay Uncle Sam what we owe him but not a penny more come April. | 02/06/12 06:06:01 By - Ana Veciana-Suarez

Commentary: Proving the recession could have been worse is hard to do

My 95-year-old dad interrogates me in the colder months of every year about two small, bullet-shaped devices on the front end of my car.

They are high-pitched whistles called "deer alerts" made to keep deer from jumping in front of passing cars on area highways. They come in handy starting in the fall during deer mating season. | 02/06/12 06:00:24 By - Lewis W. Diuguid

Commentary: Federal Reserve deserves closer scrutiny

Breaking news: When it came to the collapse of the bubble that touched off the 2008 meltdown of the U.S. economy, the Federal Reserve was a placid herd of clueless blockheads. Less than two years before the housing market turned kamikaze, Fed officials were gathering around conference rooms congratulating one another on what a genius job they were doing managing the economy. | 02/05/12 06:00:20 By - Glenn Garvin

Commentary: Our disappearing civil liberties

Spot quiz: What do South County home-school parents, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the American Civil Liberties Union, accused terrorists at Guantanamo, and the U.S. Supreme Court have in common?

Answer: They all are worried that the United States Constitution is in danger. | 02/05/12 02:06:17 By - Bob Cuddy

Commentary: Looking beyond annual homicide numbers

A recent report by the Violence Policy Center has reconfirmed what most of us already know: Black people are killing black people at astounding rates.

In 2009, African-Americans made up 13 percent of the population and 47 percent of homicide victims, according to the latest FBI data available analyzed in the report. | 02/04/12 06:31:28 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Obama's corporate tax charade

I read President Obama's State of the Union address last week. It started out in the usual way, but on Page 2 I perked up. This was right after the part where he talked about Master Lock and bringing jobs back to the United States. | 02/04/12 06:35:55 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: Foreign policy football

Foreign policy is the sensitive and sometimes explosive way we interact with the other 200 countries in the world. It should be a thoughtful, reasoned and passionate defense of American values while showing respect to our allies and firm logic to our enemies. | 02/03/12 14:14:14 By - Ben Barber

Commentary: Lou Dobbs' 'activist judges' rant becomes Daily Show shtick

I'm still perplexed about what Texas redistricting case Lou Dobbs was talking about.

On Monday night, Dobbs took a Jon Stewart metaphor about wealthy people "gerrymandering" themselves into continued prosperity and veered into spouting "facts" about Texas redistricting that were -- to put it politely -- totally fabricated. | 02/03/12 11:40:14 By - Linda P. Campbell

Komen's cutting Planned Parenthood funds was a mistake

The following editorial appeared in the Kansas City Star on Thursday, Feb. 2: | 02/03/12 11:23:31 By -

Commentary: Is it time to give political debates a rest?

Televised candidate debates have become the marquee spectacles of presidential campaigns. By the time Republicans vote in the Florida primary, candidates seeking the party's presidential nomination will have debated 19 times since May. That's 30-some hours of live national TV, plus untold hours of recap, recrimination and chatter spun off by the events. | 02/03/12 06:01:58 By - Edward Wasserman

Apple must set a higher bar for worker safety

The following editorial appeared in the Sacramento Bee on Tuesday, Jan. 31: | 02/02/12 08:47:33 By -

Commentary: Big business courts undocumented workers for a reason

All of us benefited from the work and toil of Luis Martinez, until the day they called the cops on him and he found himself in a New Mexico jail facing deportation.

His 34-year-old life of family and industry was shattered, everything he had worked for gone. | 02/02/12 06:04:41 By - Marcos Breton

Commentary: Who will be the new moon ambassador?

To paraphrase Jackie Gleason's legendary TV character Ralph Kramden, "To the moon, Newt!"

What a crazy week, with the four Republican amigos zipping from coast to coast in Florida, promising everything from covert toppling of two octogenarian Cuban dictatorial brothers, a colony on the moon to inspire young people to dream again (oh, so retro Kennedy) and a talented new First Lady who would entertain dignitaries with her piano-playing and French horns (Camelot Part II on Geritol or Viagra?). And all that barely covers what former U.S. Speaker Newt Gingrich was saying. | 02/02/12 06:06:20 By - Myriam Marquez

Commentary: Taiwan should get OK to buy F-16s

Vice President Joe Biden is in Fort Worth today for two private fundraising events for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.

Given that Tarrant County ranks second only to Orange County, Calif., for its deep-red Republican hue, there probably wasn't a need to book the convention center. | 02/01/12 11:59:14 By - J.R. Labbe

Rough seas

The following editorial appeared in the Miami Herald on Tuesday, Jan. 31: | 02/01/12 08:36:49 By -

A sensible road map to a more agile defense

The following editorial appeared in the Kansas City Star on Tuesday, Jan. 31: | 02/01/12 08:36:31 By -

Obama's proposal for Senate votes on judicial nominees deserves bipartisan approval

The following editorial appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Tuesday, Jan. 31: | 02/01/12 08:35:53 By -

Commentary: 'Anti-immigrant' label on Romney won't disappear

Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich, under pressure from his party's establishment, pulled a Spanish-language ad in which he had accused his rival Gov. Mitt Romney of being "anti-immigrant." But was the ad really unfair? | 02/01/12 06:10:08 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Righting the wrong of eugenics

I thought I was unshockable. I thought I had heard, seen or studied most all of it: man’s inhumanity to man. Some of it resides on the periphery, stuff that occurred before I was born such as the atrocities of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. History is rife with those instances and more, but there are also modern examples: The Bosnian war in 1992 between ethnic Serbs, Muslims and Croats, or the 1994 Rwandan genocide where Hutus killed an estimated 500,000 to 1 million Tutsis. The ongoing strife in -- you name the Middle Eastern country -- between Sunni, Shia, Israeli and Palestinian. | 02/01/12 06:06:03 By - Charles E. Richardson

One year after Tahrir Square

Egyptians are sweeping up in Tahrir Square after celebrations marking the first anniversary of the Jan. 25 launch of their revolution. In a few days, on Feb. 11, they will mark another milestone, one year since hundreds of thousands of protesters toppled President Hosni Mubarak, who had held power for almost 30 years. | 01/31/12 08:42:19 By - By FRIDA GHITIS

Commentary: It's Mitt's assertion that he is not anti-immigrant that is repulsive

The squawking heads were all in such a rush to declare Mitt Romney the winner of the debate on Thursday night that they forgot to listen to what he actually said.

Romney, in parrying Newt Gingrich's charge that he is the most anti-immigrant candidate, forcefully declared: "I'm not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. My wife's father was born in Wales. They came to this country. The idea that I'm anti-immigrant is repulsive." | 01/31/12 07:05:52 By - Dennis Jett

Commentary: Hurricane-force windbags take aim at Florida

I figured out what the Florida primary reminds me of: a hurricane. | 01/31/12 06:35:11 By - Dave Barry

Commentary: Newt may be the Democrats' dream candidate

If you're a Democrat, here's what you're thinking before the Florida's Republican primary:

Pinch me. | 01/31/12 06:02:03 By - Carl Hiaasen

Commentary: A slim hope for justice in the housing crisis

Before they proceed with their latest housing crisis task force, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ought to sit down with Jose Rodriguez. | 01/31/12 06:10:47 By - Dan Morain

Israel's future: Risks or opportunities?

As Israelis look at developments around them, they have reason to be concerned. Hezbollah in the north is arming itself, while Hamas in the south is a constant threat. Bashar al-Assad is butchering his Syrian countrymen, and one wonders whether it's worse for such a bloody dictator to remain in power amid a fragile stability, or for him to go, opening up a Pandora's box as in Iraq. | 01/30/12 08:37:17 By - By URI DROMI

Commentary: Gingrich reminds me of the angry George Wallace

It was the summer of 1982, and I was in Jasper, Ala., a gritty mining community northwest of Birmingham.

George Wallace was on the campaign stump, working successfully to become Alabama's governor for the fourth time. He was paralyzed -- wheelchair-bound thanks to Arthur Bremer's failed assassination attempt a decade earlier. | 01/30/12 06:03:55 By - Chuck Williams

Commentary: Three female regulators' warnings about financial crisis were ignored

More people in positions of power — government regulators, especially — should have foreseen the subprime financial crisis coming.

Three regulators did indeed ring warning bells — at the right time, in the right places, and loud enough for other banking and financial system overseers. All three were women: Brooksley Born, Sheila Bair and Susan Bies. All three were ignored. | 01/30/12 06:06:04 By - Keith Chrostowski

Commentary: Newt Gingrich and the politics of racial resentment

I got my first job when I was 12. The deacons at my church paid me $2 a week to keep it swept and mopped.

So I do not need Newt Gingrich to lecture me about a good work ethic. In this, I suspect I speak for the vast majority of 39 million African Americans. | 01/29/12 06:08:13 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Paterno's legacy isn't one of shame

For Jerry Sandusky, accused child molester, a day in court still awaits.

But for Joe Paterno, a judgment of another sort came last Sunday.

And who are we to assume we know exactly how that went? | 01/29/12 06:21:35 By - Gil LeBreton

Commentary: Is GOP wary of Newt going rogue?

Fellow Republicans are fretful indeed these days, with the race for the presidential nomination having turned into what a few commentators have called a "circular firing squad." The question, after Newt Gingrich's take-no-prisoners, brawling win in the South Carolina primary, is not just, "Who will win?" but "Will the nomination be worth having?" We will tell you now that it will be, as you shall see from our optimistic prognostication. | 01/28/12 06:00:18 By - Jim Jenkins

Commentary: Taking the 'Red Scare' off the law books

Last week's hearing on Washington state House Bill 2251 didn't take long, a few minutes to explain that it was a simple bill to repeal a law ruled unconstitutional nearly four decades ago.

But you don’t have to read past the bill's title to know this isn't just any other law.

"An act relating to subversive activities." | 01/28/12 06:02:22 By - Peter Callaghan

Commentary: We can't ignore North Korean suffering

If North Korea's unending economic failures did not exact so great a price in lives — more than 1 million deaths from starvation in the '90s, with a repeat of that calamity now impending — the country would be a tragicomic cartoon. | 01/28/12 06:40:47 By - C.W. Gusewelle

Commentary: The movie of Joe Paterno's life

I frequently contemplate death. It’s a hazard of my chosen profession and the result of being part of a family that has seen death come in too many ways to ignore. | 01/27/12 12:27:11 By - Issac J. Bailey

Commentary: The drug war next door shouldn't be ignored

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama talked about the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, but didn't say a word about a war that is taking place next door, and that is killing more people than the others: the drug-related war in Mexico and Central America. | 01/27/12 11:18:04 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: 'Birthers' nonsense sets Georgia up for ridicule — again

We will risk the fairly safe assumption, as this is being written, that Air Force One did not make an appearance at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport sometime Thursday. | 01/27/12 09:09:35 By -

Commentary: The Santorum look

To: Rick Santorum

From: Campaign Consultancy, Inc.

Subject: Losing the Sweater Vest | 01/27/12 06:03:11 By - Terry Plumb

Commentary: Our glorious right of free speech

Last weekend, somewhere between another round of Falconless NFL playoffs and “Big Bang” reruns, a gravelly voice came from the TV set reciting lines from Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” It might even have been a recording of Frost himself; I really don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to. I wasn’t watching PBS, so hearing classic American poetry on the tube was a little surprising. | 01/27/12 06:03:02 By - Dusty Nix

Commentary: Asking the tough questions about class mobility in America

Being born rich doesn't make you evil, just as living in poverty doesn't make you lazy.

Working within the current design of our capitalist system to earn millions is not a sign of immorality any more than not dying rich is indicative of a laissez-faire attitude. | 01/26/12 06:00:49 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: A 1949 Harry Truman speech that rings true today

In the interest of sharing something that I ran across while looking for something else, I found a speech that President Harry Truman delivered on Nov. 3, 1949, in St. Paul, Minn.

I offer it under the rubric: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” | 01/26/12 06:06:49 By - Bill Morem

Commentary: Thanks to Gingrich, Washington state's caucuses might be relevant

Newt Gingrich has accomplished something I didn't think was possible.

I don't mean his return from the political graveyard to win the South Carolina Republican primary on Saturday, as significant as that is. | 01/25/12 06:16:28 By - Peter Callaghan

Commentary: Despite ban, those big Burmese pythons are here to stay

Now that federal regulators have outlawed the importation of humongous, gator-eating pythons, all Floridians can breathe a grateful sigh of relief. Finally we are saved from this insidious reptilian plague!

Sorry, but no. We might as well try to ban fleas. | 01/25/12 06:04:01 By - Carl Hiaasen

Commentary: Hearing the outraged voices of the poor

Peter De Vries, who wrote for The New Yorker, said reality is what won't go away no matter how hard you try to make it go away. For Americans in 2012, what won't go away is the growing income disparity between rich and poor and the decline in American social mobility. | 01/25/12 06:00:36 By - Michael Carey

Commentary: Paula Deen may just be the perfect pitchwoman for diabetes

Don’t expect Paula Deen to go cold turkey on the hoecakes.

If she did, she wouldn’t be Paula Deen. And her ardent fans — people who stand to learn from her newfound health challenges — would disengage. | 01/24/12 06:01:32 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Strip Club's 'I Have A Dream Bash' a moment when reverence died

You might call this a requiem for reverence.

It seems that one Jeffrey Darnell Paul, a graphic artist from Miami Beach, had been tasked with creating a poster for a strip club’s so-called “I Have A Dream Bash” last week in apparent “honor” of the Martin Luther King holiday. So this genius concocts an image of the nation’s greatest human rights leader holding up a fan of $100 dollar bills like some low rent “playa” while a scantily-clad woman looks on. Paul, let the record show as African Americans duck their heads in mortification, is black. | 01/24/12 06:02:14 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Remembering Joe Paterno

The pain and suffering are over for Joe Paterno. | 01/23/12 13:59:53 By -

Commentary: A world without Twinkies?

Some say that in the event of a nuclear holocaust, the only survivors would be cockroaches. I am confident, however, that Twinkies also would survive, providing the roaches with something for dessert. | 01/23/12 06:11:10 By - James Werrell

Commentary: Religion only seems important to Americans in an election year

The public prominence of faith during a presidential campaign is akin to Iowa's re-emergence as a state that matters once every four years.

People don't talk much about it the rest of the time. Could be because religion, like the Hawkeye State, isn't that important to most Americans. | 01/23/12 06:00:25 By - J.R. Labbe

Commentary: Getting 'those people' to straighten up and fly right

The General Assembly is back in session, thank the Lord; now, we'll have some protection against Those People.

Take, for instance, the bill Republicans have introduced to require drug tests for anyone applying for unemployment checks. We certainly don't want to give taxpayers' hard-earned money to some druggie just because he's out of work. | 01/22/12 06:36:08 By - Terry Plumb

Commentary: 'God particle' comes with a steep pricetag

Science never was my strong suit. But I do have to confess some interest in the pursuit of what’s popularly called the God particle, much to the dismay of particle physicists who prefer the term Higgs boson. | 01/22/12 06:29:41 By - C.W. Gusewelle

Commentary: Haiti's ingrained suspicion of international 'help'

Two years after the earthquake that shattered its buildings and soul, Haiti has grown sick of compassion.

Citizens, nations and charities responded quickly after the Jan. 12, 2010, quake that claimed 250,000 lives and left more than a million persons homeless. Non-governmental aid organizations rushed in with medical supplies, food and water, and tents. Their trucks and tents still crowd the landscape. And that’s become a problem. | 01/21/12 06:35:49 By - Barbara Shelly

Commentary: Want shovel-ready investment? Try spending on defense

President Obama just ordered massive cutbacks in defense spending, eventually to total some $500 billion. There is plenty of fat in a Pentagon budget that grew after 9/11, but such slashing goes way too far. | 01/21/12 06:12:02 By - Victor Davis Hanson

Commentary: Gingrich should learn that the poor already work hard

I wish Newt Gingrich had met Kendra Keel.

Gingrich, the Republican presidential candidate who has shot up in state polls before Saturday’s crucial S.C. primary, and Keel, a founding member of the Myrtle Beach group Mothers Against Violence, both attended Monday’s King Day breakfast and community awards banquet. | 01/20/12 14:42:43 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: An off the record meeting for 500 journalists?

A day after the Democratic National Convention Committee reiterated that Charlotte's gathering would be "the most open and accessible in history," 500 media representatives were given a tour Wednesday of their September digs. | 01/20/12 13:34:18 By - Mark Washburn

Commentary: The stained-glass ceiling halted Perry's presidential run

When hillbilly bandleader W. Lee "Pass the Biscuits, Pappy" O'Daniel quit the U.S. Senate in 1948, he promised to go home.

"I might start a fiddle band," he said. | 01/20/12 07:36:18 By - Bud Kennedy

Commentary: War and brutalized consciences

Nearly 30 years ago Greg told me how it was, cutting the ears off dead men. I had sought out Vietnam veterans to interview for a story about a pop song that was inspired by the war — 19 by Paul Hardcastle. Greg gave me an earful.

I think of Greg whenever it is time to pass judgment on the things soldiers do. | 01/20/12 06:03:25 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: GOP candidates are bashing capitalism

The symbol of the Republican Party is the elephant, and in popular lore, the elephant never forgets. But this year, some key GOP figures forgot things they were supposed to know. | 01/20/12 06:08:31 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: Will Colbert Nation make its point about super PACs in S.C. primary?

What's more likely to call attention to the outrage that is the super PAC: a bunch of Occupiers showing up at federal courthouses Friday — or Colbert Nation upending Saturday's South Carolina Republican primary by voting for Herman Cain? | 01/19/12 07:35:34 By - Linda P. Campbell

Commentary: Haiti isn't trendy but it's the real news

The news of the day is burning with big questions:

Who’ll be the next head coach of the Dolphins? Why is Rosie O’Donnell killing hammerhead sharks? Is Khloe Kardashian really a Kardashian? | 01/19/12 06:00:52 By - Carl Hiaasen

Commentary: Could Libertarian Gary Johnson shake up the presidential race?

A candidate from the Southwest looks like a shoo-in for the fall ballot. But he won't be a Texan, or named Perry or Paul.

Three weeks after he declared himself "liberated" from Republicans, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is proving that you can quit and still get ahead. | 01/19/12 06:00:55 By - Bud Kennedy

Commentary: Media must be transparent on campaign spending

The most squalid and anti-democratic element of the U.S. electoral system is its insatiable appetite for money, vast rivers of money. It transforms our leaders into supplicants, required to contort themselves and their policies to please rich patrons. Current spending forecasts for all candidates in the 2012 races run as high as $8 billion. | 01/18/12 06:08:38 By - Edward Wasserman

Commentary: Obama needs to look towards Latin America

It's no big secret that the United States has lost some economic and political clout in Latin America over the past decade, but United Nations economic projections for 2020 should set off alarm bells in Washington D.C. | 01/18/12 06:00:12 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Ron Paul is the great contrarian

Does Ron Paul matter?

The Texas congressman doesn’t have a chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination. In fact, it’s looking like no one does against Mitt Romney. | 01/17/12 06:00:15 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Colbert's super PAC shows political spending is so sad it's funny

Stephen Colbert is making a mockery of political spending in the 2012 election. This seems to be the only sensible response. Mocking is what's called for. | 01/17/12 06:11:36 By - Tommy Tomlinson

Commentary: Jim Crow is alive and kicking

I have something for you.

In June of 2010, I wrote in this space about a book, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, which I called a "troubling and profoundly necessary" work. Alexander promulgated an explosive argument. Namely, that the so-called "War on Drugs" amounts to a war on African-American men and, more to the point, to a racial caste system nearly as restrictive, oppressive and omnipresent as Jim Crow itself. | 01/17/12 06:04:15 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: South Carolina as a GOP model for the nation?

The broad concepts the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination will tout on the stage at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center Monday night have been preached for almost a quarter of a century in South Carolina.

Taxes are low. Labor unions have been defanged. | 01/16/12 14:53:39 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: Iran gives the West a gift

The most recent threat by Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz and choke off the flow of the world's oil supply, while frightening to some, really represents a golden opportunity. | 01/16/12 13:56:27 By - Paul V. Kane

Commentary: The spirit of MLK lives in Occupy movement

If Martin Luther King Jr. were somehow able to attend Lexington's annual celebration of his birth Monday, where would he spend his time? | 01/16/12 13:06:25 By - Tom Eblen

Commentary: Is MLK a safe icon or radical organizer?

It’s a case of mistaken identity.

At last count, 893 streets in the United States (and another two in Puerto Rico) have been renamed for Martin Luther King Jr. | 01/16/12 07:13:34 By - Fred Grimm

Commentary: Peering into the 2012 economical crystal ball

Every year at this time we peer into the murky future, bracing ourselves. We grasp for answers and make predictions.

We can show great confidence in our predictive powers, delivering sensible judgments so people think we’re smart. Or we can be provocative. | 01/16/12 06:00:54 By - Keith Chrostowski

Commentary: For S.C. GOP primary, forget Romney and bring on Ric Flair

After watching Newt Gingrich’s concession speech in Iowa, I can’t wait for the GOP presidential debate that will be held at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center on Jan. 16. He tore into Mitt Romney, who won the Iowa caucuses by eight votes over Rick Santorum in the closest race there ever, as all of the cable news networks carried his remarks live. | 01/16/12 06:00:06 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: Wounded warriors get help from therapy horses

War Horse, director Steven Spielberg's movie adaptation of a children's book, is a fictional story about an unbreakable bond between a young military man and his horse. But true stories about horses and warriors are being written right here in North Texas, and lives are changing through the therapeutic benefits of the relationship that can develop between the two. | 01/15/12 06:19:35 By - J.R. Labbe

Commentary: We must help returning troops forge a future

Anne Pritchett hangs out where good people gather to try to shape America into the better country that it has always promised to be.

The end of the war in Iraq and the return home of U.S. troops in December led me to find a safety pin she had given me at a 2006 peace rally near the Plaza. Such keepsakes symbolize what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would’ve loved in his lifelong civil rights efforts for peace, nonviolence and love. It’s what we’ll celebrate in honor of the Jan. 16 holiday for King’s birth. | 01/15/12 06:41:55 By - Lewis W. Diuguid

Commentary: South Carolina is ready for glare of GOP's spotlight

The Palmetto State dodged a bullet last week when Texas Gov. Rick Perry surprised political observers by saying he would remain in the hunt for the GOP presidential nomination. | 01/14/12 06:04:40 By - Terry Plumb

Commentary: The Republican party can't make up its mind

Republicans love to invoke Ronald Reagan and for good reason. He won the White House by unseating an incumbent president, not easy to do. But in this race, none of the candidates has managed Reagan’s signature political feat. | 01/14/12 06:08:41 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: Santorum's straw man on gay marriage

We gather here today to parse the meaning of "boo."

Not "boo" as in the greeting of ghosts and goblins but, rather, "boo" as in the chorus that drowned the bigot Rick Santorum last week after he defended his opposition to gay marriage before an audience of college students in Concord, N.H. Santorum took the same header into non sequitur and illogic that gay marriage opponents often take, i.e., if we legalize this, then we must also legalize polygamy. | 01/13/12 06:00:17 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: FBI's definition of rape aligns stats with real world

Last week, the FBI’s crime database joined reality.

The agency issued a new definition for the crime of rape, rectifying a policy more than 80 years behind the times.

The old definition had long contributed to skewed data and damaging attitudes. | 01/13/12 06:08:33 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Hispanic voters will be Romney's biggest problem

Republican hopeful Mitt Romney will have two big problems if, as expected, he clinches the Republican nomination for the November election: his business background and Hispanic voters.

While most of the media focus on the first, Romney’s biggest problem will be the second. | 01/12/12 14:11:19 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Federal court keeps Oklahoma from discriminating against Muslims

Thank goodness for Oklahoma.

Every time Texas begins to feel like some remote backwater -- say, during a presidential campaign -- Oklahoma is right there to make Texans feel downright civilized. | 01/12/12 06:01:53 By - Bud Kennedy

Commentary: Santorum stumbles over food stamps stereotype

Unfortunately, I’m never amazed at what can come out of a politician's mouth. The latest non-surprise flowed from the lips of former Sen. Rick Santorum as he campaigned in Iowa. | 01/12/12 06:00:41 By - Charles E. Richardson

Commentary: Iran's Ahmadinejad's Latin American 'tour of tyrants'

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad will be visiting Latin America this week for the fifth time since 2007 — as often as U.S. presidents over the same period, and visiting more countries than them. He must have powerful reasons to spend so much time in the region. | 01/12/12 06:07:24 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: In breast cancer battle, exercise can save lives and dollars

In the battle against breast cancer, there's one self-defense tool that every woman should be wielding. Exercise. And with the direct national cost for breast cancer care in the United States at $16.5 billion yearly, we need to be instituting public policies and community strategies that help ensure that she can. | 01/11/12 06:02:26 By - Helen Durkin

Commentary: There's nothing like the printed word

What the world is today, good and bad, it owes to Gutenberg. So said Mark Twain in 1900 about the man who invented the printing press. What would the American novelist say today?

Does print have a future? | 01/11/12 06:18:29 By - Mike Tharp

Commentary: Romney will win Florida ... unless manatees grow wings

Florida is being overrun by pundits and pollsters in advance of the upcoming Republican presidential primary.

The national media's mission in the weeks ahead is to inject the Florida primary contest with high drama and suspense. In reality, the race is easy to call. | 01/11/12 06:06:48 By - Carl Hiaasen

Commentary: Occupy Washington fights the cold

Early in the pre-dawn hours of Jan 5, Park Police went from tent to tent in the freezing night to wake up sleeping Occupy Washington protestors at Freedom Plaza, a block away from the White House. But they were not about to evict the 100 people camping there for three months hoping to "get big money out of politics" as they say. | 01/10/12 12:48:56 By - Ben Barber

Commentary: Paul is picking up evangelical voters from Perry

Once, he led a prayer rally called The Response.

Now, Gov. Rick Perry is The Reject. | 01/10/12 11:43:41 By - Bud Kennedy

Commentary: Voter ID laws and life in the margins

You have no driver’s license because you have nothing to drive. You have no passport because you’ve never been out of the country. You have no other photo I.D. because you have no bank account. You work and get paid under the table, a wad of cash sliding from hand to hand. | 01/10/12 06:00:11 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: U.S. citizens can force Congress to change

New Year's is a day for hope and optimism — two words rarely associated with the U.S. Congress.

Americans' disenchantment with their elected representatives is nothing new. "There is no distinctly native American criminal class, except Congress," Mark Twain wrote more than a century ago. | 01/09/12 06:02:22 By - Tom Eblen

Commentary: Romney might wish to decline Haley's endorsement

Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney would have been better off had he won the endorsement of President Barack Obama instead of S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley. | 01/09/12 06:07:52 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: Iraq shows limits to U.S. powers

A few days after the final U.S. troops trekked across the Iraqi dessert and into Kuwait to end an almost 9-year-old war, an arrest warrant was issued for Sunni Vice President Tariq al Hashimi, which, according to various reports, means a potential major fracture of that fledgling government. | 01/08/12 06:53:00 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: Ron Paul may be consistent but that doesn't mean he's right

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson, meet Ronald Ernest Paul. He is the very soul of a foolish consistency. Meaning that he is willing, often to a fault, to follow his ideology to its logical and most extreme conclusions. | 01/07/12 06:23:03 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Sheriff Joe Arpaio may have failed at fighting crime

In the end, it may be children that finally rid Arizona of the bullying tactics of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The adults there certainly haven’t been able to do it.

Many regard the longtime sheriff of Maricopa County as a disgrace to the badge he wears. Others, particularly conservatives, can’t get enough of his antics. Everyone from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has sung his praises. They like his brashness. He makes inmates wear pink underwear, prisoners live in tent cities and Latinos tremble. | 01/07/12 06:27:24 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Mixing supply-side economics and abortion

Abortion battles are usually fought over heated moral and political arguments. So it’s worth noting when a health economist applies the laws of supply and demand to abortion in red states like Kansas, and comes up with predictions about where abortion politics are taking us. | 01/06/12 06:11:42 By - Alan Bavley

Commentary: Re-envisioning capitalism

Over the past few months, I’ve been participating in some rigorous back-and-forth with defenders of capitalism, including business professors and relocated retirees who happen to be former executives of major corporations. They first and foremost believe in capitalism and free enterprise. (Let’s pretend for a second that the current tax structure and other policies don’t distort the market in favor of the wealthiest among us and we really are dealing with a true form of free enterprise.) | 01/06/12 06:08:35 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: Send in the pythons to eat the politicians

Job-killing government regulators are at it again. Now they want to take away our beloved pythons.

Well, to be clear, not my beloved python. I’ve never been quite comfortable with the idea of a pet that would devour me without compunction. (I’ve enough trouble maintaining personal relationships with cold-blooded humans.) | 01/05/12 13:47:11 By - Fred Grimm

Commentary: Newspapers are transforming, not dying

We live in turbulent economic times, and the TNT isn’t immune from those forces. But I’m reminded again of the resilience of this hybrid print-digital-mobile news and advertising company that sails under The News Tribune banner. | 01/05/12 06:02:16 By - David Zeeck

Commentary: In the Americas, 2012 will be a wild year

Every year brings about changes, but 2012 is likely to be an especially eventful one in the Americas: there will be elections in the United States, Mexico and Venezuela, as well as other news events that could change the political map in the region. | 01/05/12 06:11:22 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Let's get rid of the State Department

A favorite talking point for politicians these days is that the deficit is too high. Here is a suggestion that will reduce the deficit and the size of government, not raise taxes and greatly improve national security: close the State Department. | 01/04/12 06:03:17 By - Dennis Jett

Commentary: Media should be exposing Iraq War’s years of ineptitude

The U.S. war in Iraq ended just before Christmas, and if you blinked you probably missed it. TV news coaxed some seasonal sentiment out of the troops getting home for the holidays, but the Sunday-morning talk shows — where news of consequence is usually autopsied — barely noticed. | 01/04/12 06:15:48 By - Edward Wasserman

Commentary: Why the GOP needs Ron Paul

Ron Paul is wacky, won't win the Republican nomination and must be giving Republican leaders a splitting headache.

It's not so much that the Houston-area congressman opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Or that he believes the Civil War was a waste and that slavery could have been ended by buying slaves and setting them free. Wouldn't that have been a bailout for slave owners? | 01/03/12 12:05:46 By - Dan Morain

Commentary: Getting America back to work is challenge for 2012

2011 will be remembered as the year Americans woke up to the harm of growing disparities in wealth and income. The challenge of the new year is to begin reversing the trend of inequality. This isn’t a call for “class warfare,” but rather an alarm to the middle class that it needs to look after its own interests. | 01/03/12 07:22:45 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Even I coulda been a contenda in GOP field

If nothing else, the presidential candidates who dominated the news in 2011 brought an old guy a new revelation. Made me feel like Brando. Made me feel like shouting from the waterfront, “I coulda been somebody.” (“Instead of a bum, which is what I am.”) | 01/02/12 06:54:02 By - Fred Grimm

Commentary: 2012 will be anything but boring in the Americas

Every year brings about changes, but 2012 is likely to be an especially eventful one in the Americas: there will be elections in the United States, Mexico and Venezuela, as well as other news events that could change the political map in the region. | 12/29/11 06:00:00 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Israel faces a threat from within

Over the six decades since its founding, Israelis have faced, and continue to face, countless threats to their country’s survival as the democratic state of the Jewish people. | 12/28/11 06:03:36 By - Frida Ghitis

Commentary: Looking for the perfect president

I waited lackadaisically through the fall for that bolt of lightening that would make it clear which Republican candidate was best suited for the presidency. But the days between now and Jan. 21 began to dwindle, and still nothing more than a general feeling. | 12/28/11 06:06:21 By - Cindi Ross Scoppe

Commentary: Ban cell phones while driving? That law would be violated a lot

Maybe this is what they call “cognitive dissonance.” Or maybe it’s just plain old hypocrisy. But up to a fairly obvious point, the proposed law against using cell phones while driving is something nobody can rationally or credibly dispute. | 12/27/11 06:00:29 By - Dusty Nix

Commentary: 2011 offered very few great, historic moments

I knew 2011 was going to be one of those years when I wrote a column saying that $80 billion of proposed federal bailout money to the U.S. Postal Service was a useless subsidy to “a dying ink-on-paper technology in an electronic world.” | 12/26/11 06:02:54 By - Glenn Garvin

Commentary: No Child Left Behind has turned schoolkids into commodities

Compared to modern school kids, I was a downright worthless student.

I don’t mean worthless as a pejorative. (My father would have used a more colorful term to characterize my scholarly pursuits.) But worthless as a commodity. Us kids at Montrose Elementary School weren’t making anyone rich. Not like today’s pupils, particularly those in Florida, who’ve become valuable cogs in a burgeoning industry. | 12/26/11 06:07:14 By - Fred Grimm

Commentary: Holiday songs to fill your days with fa la la

Let's all get into the Holiday Spirit, as expressed by the festive song heard so very often on the radio at this time of year: Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock! Jingle bell . . .BANG. | 12/25/11 06:08:46 By - Dave Barry

Commentary: Where have all the candy canes gone?

I swear, I thought the reader was talking about a former very popular stripper at Brothers III.

I heard, "What happened to Kandi Kane?" when what he said was, "What happened to candy canes?" | 12/24/11 06:04:35 By - Barry Saunders

Commentary: A cherished Christmas memory

Favorite Christmas memories are as varied as the people who experience an event that becomes permanently fixed in the mind.

Mine happened in December 1999, and it involved simple words on a piece of paper. | 12/24/11 06:33:05 By - J.R. Labbe

Commentary: A Christmas box full of youthful memories

This Christmas, I am doing something different for gifts. Some gifts, anyway. I have a suitcase of letters from my college years and the years immediately after, the mid and late '60s. I am sending them back to the people who wrote them -- when I can. | 12/24/11 06:48:42 By - Michael Carey

Commentary: Bah, humbug to this 'War on Christmas' stuff

The annual controversy surrounding greetings for this season, "Merry Christmas" vs "Happy holidays," is enough to make me say, "Bah, humbug!" | 12/23/11 06:01:38 By - Bob Ray Sanders

Commentary: President Obama shouldn't denigrate the wealthy

So President Barack Obama will rest his re-election hopes on class warfare. After his speech last week in Osawatomie, Kan., no other conclusion is possible. The astonishing message: Achieving success and wealth in the United States is vaguely disreputable. | 12/23/11 06:14:19 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: Wounded Warrior Project helps veterans to keep on winning

A war is over, but not the pain. "When you lose both legs, you think you can't do anything," said Dan Nevins, an Iraq war veteran with a story to tell.

"The wounds last a lifetime." | 12/22/11 14:17:51 By - Bud Kennedy

Commentary: Don't dilute child labor laws

This year in Missouri, a legislator proclaimed the state’s child labor restrictions “so over the top” and proposed allowing children of any age to work unlimited hours.

State Sen. Jane Cunningham’s bill created a kerfuffle. She eventually pulled back. | 12/22/11 06:07:53 By - Barbara Shelly

Commentary: We could use an Archie Bunker again

Where is Archie Bunker when you need him?

The reactionary, bigoted curmudgeon of the hit sitcom “All in the Family” was one of the key cultural touchstones of the 1970s. A buffoon, to be sure, Archie was also a readily identifiable American type, the self-pitying white man ill at ease with recent changes in the social order. But because Archie was also portrayed with depth and sympathy, the laughs at his expense helped the audience come to grips with the turmoil they felt wrestling with their own biases and those of family members. | 12/22/11 06:07:11 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Our debate over Iraq has been quieted by 9 years of war

After this past weekend’s rather quiet end to the war in Iraq, it is kind of hard to remember how loud we were at the start.

The last detachment of American troops left early Sunday under a cover of darkness. Reporters on the ride into Kuwait described the troops as proud but also relieved, marking the significant moment modestly. | 12/21/11 06:12:18 By - Peter Callaghan

Commentary: When it comes to Egypt, will Washington get it right?

Voters in Egypt, the largest, most populous Arab country have just completed the first round of elections since overthrowing their long-time dictator. The results are as demoralizing as they were predictable: Some two-thirds of voters chose members of Islamist parties to represent them in parliament. | 12/21/11 06:03:13 By - Frida Ghitis

Commentary: Why Newt Gingrich is pledging to be faithful to this wife

I was out shopping recently when I bumped into a respected member of this community who is also a longtime Baptist minister. | 12/21/11 06:04:59 By - Merlene Davis

Commentary: Kim Jong Il's North Korea was absurd, cruel, tragic and dangerous

As if the world did not face enough uncertainty at the end of 2011, we received the news on Sunday night that North Korea’s Kim Jong Il died. As is common for the sadly surreal nation, the information came wrapped up in confusing and absurd nondetails, with reports indicating the 69-year-old died of exhaustion on a train. | 12/20/11 12:10:54 By - Frida Ghitis

Commentary: Ron Paul — the other GOP candidate from Texas

To some folks he's like the doddering old uncle who was locked in the basement too long -- the Walter Mitty of the presidential campaign. | 12/20/11 06:03:02 By - Bob Ray Sanders

Commentary: What if Congress' salary was tied to our debt levels?

Comes a provocative idea from across the Atlantic — France, no less. It’s an idea born out of frustration over Europe’s unsustainable public spending and debt crisis. It could just as well be applied in the United States. | 12/20/11 06:01:12 By - Keith Chrostowski

Commentary: Marine Corp brass did a disservice to Dakota Meyer

The Marine Corps has done a disservice to its most recent recipient of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for bravery in combat. | 12/19/11 06:24:27 By -

Commentary: Ike wouldn't like today's GOP

Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller and Dwight Eisenhower must be spinning in their graves. They have to be wondering just how their party has degenerated into the midget of the month club. | 12/19/11 06:05:43 By - Dennis Jett

Dave Barry's holiday gift guide

The holiday season is a time of traditions. Here in America, the most popular holiday tradition, observed by millions, is to celebrate the birth of Jesus by going to a Walmart at 4 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving and getting into fistfights over steeply discounted TV sets. | 12/19/11 06:02:06 By - Dave Barry

Commentary: Usually, you already have what you need

After I moved into my dream house a dozen Christmases ago, I rushed to the tree lot by the old non-denominational church and I bought the tallest, thickest and most beautiful tree I could wrestle away from the throngs of merrymakers trying to beat one another to the perfect tree. | 12/19/11 06:12:51 By - Fabiola Santiago

Commentary: Remembering Iraq's mass graves

As U.S. forces leave Iraq, let us not forget that one reason troops were sent there to kill and to die was to end 20 years of mass slaughter by Saddam Hussein’s forces, a mission that has been accomplished. | 12/18/11 06:29:04 By - Ben Barber

Commentary: We're ignoring a national threat

A dangerous enemy threatens America. This threat is hard to confront, because it does not represent any one government and is not in any one location; it operates in smaller cells all over. If not stopped, it is sure to inflict violence on the country, decimate cities and alter our way of life. | 12/18/11 06:26:14 By - Taylor Batten

Commentary: Scrooge for president

The contest for the Republican presidential nomination took an interesting twist today when a surprise conservative candidate immediately shot to the top of national polls. | 12/18/11 06:31:48 By - Terry Plumb

Commentary: Will GOP take a chance on Gingrich?

Newt Gingrich’s presidential bid seemed improbable from the beginning, and in the early weeks he did his best to make it more so. One of his first decisions was to take some time off for a vacation cruise. Then he popped up on “Meet the Press” to bash the House GOP’s Medicare reform as “right-wing social engineering.” | 12/17/11 06:15:30 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: Rise of the jellyfish

It was the invasion of the surreal: thousands and thousands of gelatinous sea creatures, with their dangling venomous tentacles, overwhelming the cooling canal of the St. Lucie nuclear power plant, washing up against the turtle protection nets, clogging the intake screens. | 12/17/11 06:26:45 By - Fred Grimm

Commentary: Dakota Meyer's heroism didn't need embellishing

You might hope, after the tragic Pat Tillman fiasco, that government and military leaders had learned some painful but lasting lessons about bogus accounts of combat operations, and the heroism that brave Americans often display under the most terrifying of circumstances. Apparently not. | 12/16/11 13:29:10 By -

Commentary: Did Obama find his campaign groove in Osawatomie?

Almost everyone agreed that President Barack Obama’s speech last Tuesday in Osawatomie, Kan., was — at six minutes short of a full hour — too long. | 12/16/11 06:10:47 By - Steve Kraske

Commentary: Fear and loathing of Occupy Wall Street

Frank Luntz, the ultra-popular consultant best known for his work in Republican circles and on the Fox News Channel, came here shortly before the 2008 elections and urged members of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce to brace for hard times and to find a way to sell vacationers on a vision of relaxing in Myrtle Beach, not fighting with lines or hassle. | 12/16/11 06:07:49 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: Gingrich can't be the GOP's best option

There must be something in the glorified air breathed by front-runners vying for the Republican presidential nomination that makes them lose their minds. | 12/15/11 06:00:40 By - Merlene Davis

Commentary: Panic in Florida's state house

An absolutely true news item: Having passed a law allowing gun owners to bring their weapons inside the state Capitol building, the Florida Senate has hastily installed panic buttons on the office phone of every senator and staff member. | 12/15/11 06:03:11 By - Carl Hiaasen

Commentary: Trampling the Bill of Rights in defense's name

Without doubt, the United States needs the means to defend itself from terrorists.

Without doubt, the United States should not, in providing for that defense, violate the constitutional principles that define a free people possessed of rights that no government can take away at its discretion. | 12/14/11 06:05:26 By -

Commentary: Gingrich's ideas on child labor are truly bad

Now that Newt Gingrich has brought it up, maybe it's time for a refresher course on the value of child labor laws. The Republican presidential candidate's claim that child labor laws are "truly stupid" rightly offends many people. But the bigger problem is that such a notion is intellectually feeble and flatulent. A guy who is notably smart and likes to publicly announce it with nearly every word and gesture should be wary of uttering such nonsense. | 12/14/11 06:01:22 By - Fannie Flono

Commentary: Latin America’s Pacific bloc might work

While last Saturday’s summit that created a Community of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (CELAC) in Venezuela drew big headlines, a little-noticed meeting of five Latin American Pacific rim countries two days later will have a much greater impact on people’s lives, and on the region’s economic future. | 12/13/11 06:02:53 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Obama takes stand for racial diversity in school policy

Barack Obama has deftly begun what could be his most significant legacy on racial equity.

Did you miss it? Most people did. In early December, the administration sent new guidelines to the nation’s 17,000 school districts about how to address “racial isolation” in primary and secondary schools. | 12/13/11 06:00:11 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Fun in Iowa with the GOP

or Newt Gingrich, it was his first night as prime-time headliner instead of crusty sitcom sidekick.

For Mitt Romney, it was his first round on the ropes in a prizefight that might last till August.

But for voter Mary Morter, 74, of Des Moines, it was another chance to torment visiting politicians. | 12/12/11 14:15:22 By - Bud Kennedy

Commentary: In the 'War on Drugs,' dissent in considered 'unpatriotic'

I owe Kyle Vogt an apology. A former military policeman, he’s now a member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, a group of former cops, prosecutors and judges that supports ending the war on drugs. | 12/12/11 06:08:05 By - Glenn Garvin

Commentary: Sorry GOP but Jesus would side with 'Occupy' folks

'Tis the season to mix politics and religion.

GOP candidates are working fervently to stake out their free market credentials in advance of the inconveniently scheduled Iowa caucuses. “Occupy” protesters are refusing to go in from the cold. You knew it was only a matter of time before somebody brought Jesus into the argument. | 12/12/11 06:06:27 By - Barbara Shelly

Commentary: Roosevelt, Churchill and the meaning of leadership

A thin fragment of moon stood watch that Christmas Eve as the president of the United States and the prime minister of Great Britain came out onto the south portico of the White House. They were there to light the national Christmas tree — and to speak a holiday greeting to an uncertain world. | 12/11/11 06:24:58 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Taking time to make the world slow down

I'm reading a great book, "Moonlight Mile," a thriller by a terrific writer, Dennis Lehane.

It's superbly written, gripping, a real page-turner. It's one of those books you can't put down. Except that I have. Numerous times. I've been plugging away at it for a month or so now, and I'm about halfway through. | 12/11/11 06:42:13 By - James Werrell

Commentary: 'He is our president'

It had been a good Thanksgiving, and the day after, I was sitting in a small coffee shop way out west getting ready to resume the drive back to Raleigh. The television was turned to a news station, and President Obama was commenting on something to do with foreign policy (the volume was too low to discern what exactly). | 12/10/11 06:35:36 By - Jim Jenkins

Commentary: CELAC has no teeth

Contrary to what most headlines suggested, and to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s claim that it’s the most important thing to have happened in Latin America in the past 100 years, the new group of 33 Latin American and Caribbean states created at a Dec. 3 summit in Venezuela will hardly make it into history books. | 12/10/11 06:03:54 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: How long will the bond market play nice?

How the government borrows from the bond market, simplified version: A Treasury guy walks into a room full of people with money. He says, “OK, we’re selling 10-year notes today. Any takers?” | 12/09/11 06:10:23 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: When health care bills are a bigger fear than dying

While others were celebrating Thanksgiving, Devin Pate was in the critical care unit of Conway Medical Center. It was just a couple of days after her family made the almost impossible decision to remove the tubes helping her breathe.

Devin died after a more than 5-year fight against Gardner syndrome, a rare cancer. The life expectancy of those who are diagnosed with the disease is between 35 years and 45 years. She was 21. | 12/09/11 06:01:22 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: For healthier female body images, let's drop Photoshop

Thanks to a computer science professor and a Ph.D. student, American women may soon rediscover the muffin top.

And the crooked noses, upper-arm pudge and multifarious skin blemishes that skilled photo editors excise from the fashion plates that fill our glossy magazines and other venues for advertising. | 12/08/11 06:10:38 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Minorities play too small of a role in U.S. media jobs

Opening most publications or turning on the TV today would make many think people of color have left the planet.

Minorities are appearing a lot less in the media as journalists, newsroom managers, experts, commentators and actors despite the nation’s black president and the U.S. surging toward majority-minority demographics. Those were key points of an American Prospect magazine article and a National Association of Black Journalists 2011 diversity census report. The article, “The Right Messengers,” said the American media “does a terrible job of covering racial issues — and having a president of color has done little to change that fact.” | 12/08/11 06:00:22 By - Lewis W. Diuguid

Commentary: Deliver us from the overly devout

Count me among those pulling for Tim Tebow. Frankly, I don’t think the former University of Florida star now playing for the Denver Broncos has much of a chance at long-term stardom in the NFL, at least not as a quarterback. But right now he’s winning, and he’s exciting, and I like the kid.

Here’s what he isn’t: He isn’t a doctrinal obligation on anybody’s part to root for his team or his success because he’s a Christian. | 12/07/11 12:54:11 By - Dusty Nix

Commentary: American TV's obsession with missing white women

Let the first word be one of compassion. For anyone who has a loved one missing, Godspeed the day of that person’s safe return. Or failing that, Godspeed the bitter satisfaction of knowing his or her fate. To have someone you love vanish is, one imagines, a special kind of hell.

That said, let the second word be one of exasperation. | 12/07/11 06:03:52 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Two surges, different outcomes

From 2007 to 2009, a surge of 20,000 troops under the generalship of David Petraeus saved a mostly lost war in Iraq. Petraeus' counterinsurgency doctrine helped win over the population, as the surge in troops gave greater security to Iraq's government and military. Despite occasional violence, fewer Americans have been killed in Iraq in 2011 (53 in the most recent count) than in any year since the invasion -- a quiet that could end with the departure of all American troops soon. | 12/07/11 06:07:11 By - Victor Davis Hanson

Commentary: Obama builds on Bush's AIDS project

World AIDS Day, on Dec. 1, was truly remarkable this year for several reasons -- mostly good, but at least one bad thing.

It was the day George W. Bush returned to Africa, a continent that benefited greatly from his unprecedented HIV/AIDS initiative; President Barack Obama committed to a major increase in funding for treatment of HIV here at home; and Magic Johnson included Tarrant County's AIDS Outreach Center as a partner in opening a new AIDS health clinic in Fort Worth. | 12/06/11 06:07:36 By - Bob Ray Sanders

Commentary: How Latin America is gaining on poverty

In sharp contrast to the gloom surrounding U.S. and European economic news, a new United Nations report has good news for Latin America: it says that poverty levels in the region have dropped to their lowest levels in 20 years, and will continue falling in 2012. | 12/06/11 06:03:43 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Herman Cain, the media and electoral coverage

All along, the Herman Cain campaign — which Politico called “one of the most hapless and bumbling operations in modern presidential politics” — has been riveting but improbable. Yet whatever the ex-restaurant executive’s other misdeeds and missteps, Cain’s bid seems finally to have crumbled because of extensive coverage of a woman’s allegations that she had a 13-year extramarital romance with him. | 12/06/11 06:06:37 By - Edward Wasserman

Commentary: The life of an embedded reporter

The nature of war and warriors seldom changes. The ways wars are fought do change. And the way they're covered by the news media has shape-shifted a lot since the Vietnam War.

I've been lucky to have witnessed the generational changes up close and personal -- sometimes too close and too personal. | 12/05/11 14:17:26 By - Mike Tharp

Commentary: World forum in Korea aims to improve aid

Three thousand leaders from 160 countries went to Busan, Korea, last week to hammer out a new way to improve the delivery of foreign aid to billions of people around the world trapped in poverty, hunger, disease, ignorance and the other cancers of underdevelopment. | 12/05/11 11:10:14 By - Ben Barber

Commentary: Rick Perry has lost but he'll keep running

I'm going to go out on a limb and say Gov. Rick Perry won't be our next president.

But also, he can't quit. | 12/05/11 06:04:25 By - Bud Kennedy

Commentary: Digital gadgets diminish our attention to real life

A young woman pointed to the seat next to mine on a recent flight, prompting me to stand in the aisle so she could move in.

Airplane trips afford us opportunities for encounters with strangers. It’s a chance to have conversations with people we’d otherwise never meet. There’s usually excitement in learning where others are going and why, where they’ve been, if they have children and what their dreams are. | 12/05/11 06:08:09 By - Lewis W. Diuguid

Commentary: Most Americans see through GOP's taxes and spending humbug

Let’s talk about charity.

What should the federal government be doing to help those less well off? It’s an appropriate question as the nation enters the season of giving, when even the grumpiest among us silence the inner Scrooge and drop a few coppers into the donation kettle. | 12/04/11 06:03:25 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Amateur college athletes, Bigfoot, Nessie and other myths

What the Marx Brothers found deserving of satire 80 years ago — a college president recruiting professional players with cash – would be familiar to anyone paying attention to college sports today. It’s still built on the myth of the amateur and the ruse that it is really about helping young people get an education. | 12/04/11 06:09:27 By - Peter Callaghan

Commentary: Uncertainty still reigns over U.S. economy

Last week, the stock market took another dive. The supercommittee failed. A bond auction flopped in Germany. The U.S. economy didn’t grow as fast in the third quarter as originally thought. | 12/03/11 06:54:58 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: Politicians have never been saints

The women have been coming forth with stories about presidential candidate Herman Cain's wandering hand. If former House Speaker Newt Gingrich continues to rise in the polls, the three-time married former House speaker's messy personal life will once again be dredged up. | 12/03/11 06:42:29 By - Rob Christensen

Commentary: Time for another look at Simpson-Bowles and shared sacrifice

Who woulda thunk it?

Pick 12 lawmakers, six from each party, who have declared compromise anathema, and they still can't come up with a plan to stem the nation's indebtedness. What a shock! | 12/02/11 06:06:31 By - Terry Plumb

Commentary: Tragedy sprung from Westmoreland's arrogance

While clicking through the TV channels one afternoon not long ago, I happened by pure accident upon a lecture by military historian Lewis Sorley, author of a book titled “Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam.” | 12/02/11 06:07:13 By - C.W. Gusewelle

Commentary: Brownback's staff overreacted to teen's free speech

Yes, the bullying is troubling, the thin-skinned aversion to criticism vexing. But in the end, it is the piddling, picayune pettiness, the sheer, Lilliputian smallness of the behavior that I can’t quite get past. | 12/01/11 06:00:23 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: How to spot a fake doctor in Florida

When your cosmetic surgeon injects Fix-A-Flat and Super Glue into your posterior. When her own surgically enhanced butt seems to have been acquired from a 360-pound NFL offensive lineman. When your doctor goes by the name of Duchess. When she locates her surgical theater in a suburban townhouse. To us highly trained professional journalists, these criteria suggest that perhaps Duchess might not be Dr. Duchess. | 12/01/11 06:12:10 By - Fred Grimm

Commentary: On immigration, Gingrich has a reasoned approach

Finally, there is a voice of reason on immigration among the front-runners for the Republican nomination, who until last week's debate seemed to be competing with one another to see who could take the craziest stand against Hispanic immigrants. | 11/30/11 06:05:05 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: For Republicans, Romney is the 'castor-oil' candidate

Nominating Mitt Romney is sort of like taking grandma's castor oil. Republicans are dreading the thought of downing their unpleasant-tasting medicine but worry that sooner or later they will have to. | 11/30/11 06:09:51 By - Victor Davis Hanson

Commentary: Gov. Brownback can also learn from teen's tweet

Meet the other Sullivan sister.

Olivia Sullivan is the older sibling of the Shawnee Mission East senior who created a media and blogosphere frenzy by her errant tweet about Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback last week. It was 18-year-old Emma who sent this overly-scrutinized message: “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.” | 11/29/11 06:00:53 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Trampling on the First Amendment at UC-Davis

A menacing crowd of protesters had encircled police and they had no choice but to defend themselves with pepper spray. Or at least, that is the story campus cops at UC Davis initially told. Video of the Nov. 18 incident tells a different story. | 11/29/11 06:04:36 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Some 'one-percenters' aim to give back

It's easy to fume at corporations, banks and tycoons that seem to pocket ever more money at our expense. But heading into an election year, a few 1 percenters are contemplating giving a little bit back. | 11/28/11 06:45:23 By - Dan Morain

Commentary: Failure was always an option for supercommittee

Well, they’ve blown it. Failure was an option.

The 12 supercommittee senators and representatives announced last Monday they couldn’t come up with a spending, taxing and deficit reduction package.

Thanks for wrecking everyone’s Thanksgiving. | 11/28/11 06:05:07 By - Keith Chrostowski

Commentary: UC-Davis police didn't need the pepper spray

She could lose her job, but give her this: UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi showed courage when she apologized for the actions of her campus police before a massive crowd of students calling for her dismissal. | 11/27/11 06:04:33 By - Marcos Breton

Commentary: NBA players, owners are from Mars

Most days, Tammy Smith wakes up tired and goes to bed hungry. She has 12 children — three with sickle cell anemia. She can’t find a job. Her husband died last year.

To her, the NBA lockout that has put the season in jeopardy might as well be taking place on Mars. | 11/27/11 06:29:41 By - Linda Robertson

Commentary: What went on in the shadow of Penn State's image?

The image of Jerry Sandusky, was built through years of shared success, adulation and financial reward. Sandusky was more than one potentially flawed and predatory man, he was Penn State, its record for running a clean program, Paterno's legacy, the boosters' loyalty, Western Pennsylvania's self-image, the Penn State cash cow that filled bank accounts. Tearing off that veil would be painful indeed. So much so that people on the inside might even be able to convince themselves that maintaining the illusion was really the humane thing to do. | 11/26/11 06:32:14 By - Jacalyn Carfagno

Commentary: Giving bullies a veto on the First Amendment

Imagine five Jewish kids go to school one day wearing their yarmulkes. The school’s numerous skinhead students are furious. At lunch they mill around in the school yard, muttering threats and complaining to the assistant principal that that their political beliefs have been insulted. The assistant principal responds by calling the Jewish kids into his office and ordering them to take off their yarmulkes or go home. | 11/26/11 06:06:29 By - Glenn Garvin

Commentary: Picking a president shouldn't be like picking a golf buddy

A presidential campaign constitutes the world’s longest and toughest job interview. While it’s fine to vet candidates on likeability, credibility and, yes, experience, it might not hurt to require that they also show evidence of having thought deeply and with an informed mind about the world and America’s place in it. We are, after all, choosing a president — not a golf buddy. | 11/25/11 06:03:28 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Sexual harassment is not a joke

I don't know whether Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is a serial sexual harasser of women or not. But with multiple women accusing him of such past misconduct - four at the last count - he at least has (or had) a serious problem in knowing what some women considered appropriate behavior toward them. Recognizing and addressing that would surely have been in order. | 11/25/11 06:08:50 By - Fannie Flono

Commentary: A story on Thanksgiving

In difficult times, in a country divided by petty partisan politics without any goodwill in sight, it’s tough to muster enough reasons to feel grateful this Thanksgiving. When we’ve become so estranged from each other that Congress can’t even agree on what to serve our children during the school lunch, it’s tough to sit at the table in harmony. | 11/24/11 06:03:57 By - Fabiola Santiago

Commentary: Many GOP candidates have stumbled over Cuba in South Florida

Don’t worry Herman. When it comes to this Cuban immigration stuff, we’re all befuddled.

Campaigning in Little Havana last Wednesday, Herman Cain was confronted with a truly bewildering foreign policy question. Not like the one about Libya that stumped him last week. Not like trying to recall what’s-his-name from Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan. | 11/24/11 06:00:21 By - Fred Grimm

Commentary: Socialism and the NFL

Once again on Thanksgiving Day, Americans of every political persuasion will gather around the dinner table and wax poetic about all sorts of topics, some silly, some serious.

But as many Americans consume pieces of just-right sweet potato pie and slabs of fried turkey, tens of millions will be in front of television sets cheering on the most popular form of economic socialism the globe has ever known. In laymen’s terms, it is called the National Football League, which will televise a triple-header on Thanksgiving Day. | 11/23/11 12:17:15 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: Why the U.S. defends weaker nations

Recently, an open mic caught French President Nicolas Sarkozy and American President Barack Obama jointly trashing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sarkozy scoffed, "I cannot stand him. He's a liar." Obama trumped that with, "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day." | 11/23/11 06:11:31 By - Victor Davis Hanson

Commentary: Finding the wit and will to fix broken communities

This is not about your neighborhood.

Probably not, at least. The demographics of newspaper readership being what they are, you likely do not live in Liberty Square or anyplace like it. | 11/23/11 06:06:46 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Childhood sexual abuse causes life-long damage

In the Penn State University pedophilia scandal and cases involving Catholic priests, many wonder how the perpetrators got away with the crimes for so long and how the sexual assaults on children went unreported for years. | 11/22/11 06:00:53 By - Lewis W. Diuguid

Commentary: Jack Ambramoff's truth

When a guy like Jack Abramoff starts truth-telling about the venal world of Washington, don't buy it. Not that he's lying. But he's hardly giving the whole truth, at least not in a half-hour phone call, or in the numerous publications and television shows that are featuring him these days, or in his book, "Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist."When a guy like Jack Abramoff starts truth-telling about the venal world of Washington, don't buy it.

Not that he's lying. But he's hardly giving the whole truth, at least not in a half-hour phone call, or in the numerous publications and television shows that are featuring him these days, or in his book, "Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist." | 11/22/11 06:14:38 By - Dan Morain

Commentary: Burma wakes up

The Arab Spring may be foundering in the Middle East as democracy struggles to take root from Tunisia to Syria to Iraq, but in Southeast Asia, a new democratic Spring has just been born. | 11/21/11 14:23:56 By - Ben Barber

Commentary: School that banned U.S. flag T-shirts missed a teachable moment

Is banning a few students from wearing U.S. flag T-shirts really the best way to maintain order in a public school? Really?

That's what officials at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Calif., insist they were doing last year on Cinco de Mayo. And now a federal judge has concluded they were not outside First Amendment bounds. | 11/21/11 06:14:21 By - Linda P. Campbell

Commentary: Congress isn't ready to act on Supreme Court's health care decision

It surprised no one last week when the U.S. Supreme Court said it would review constitutional questions about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. President Barack Obama's signature 2010 healthcare overhaul was headed for the high court from the moment he signed it. | 11/21/11 06:05:40 By - Mike Norman

Commentary: Penn State reminds us real life is neither perfect or tidy

In times such as these, I always go back to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, and to a lesser degree, Martin Luther King Jr.

Since late last week, I’ve been hearing from depressed and stunned local Penn State University alumni, all of whom are trying to come to grips with a scandal the likes of which they never imagined could have enveloped their beloved alma mater. | 11/20/11 06:25:23 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: GOP's rush to cut federal agencies is flawed

It’s not the verbal stumbles that should give voters pause about Rick Perry. Did you note how quickly his fellow presidential candidates chimed in to aid Perry in his moment of cerebral breakdown? It wasn’t just because they felt his pain. | 11/20/11 06:15:00 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: When it comes to vices, California is in the weeds

All too often, California is stereotyped as an epicenter of sin and vice. No doubt, we have our hot spots, sometimes in unexpected places. Scrolling through the Web, I noticed that there is a Southern California Hedonism Meetup Group that gathers regularly in Newport Beach. | 11/19/11 06:30:15 By - Stuart Leavenworth

Commentary: Not all democracies are created equal

Condoleezza Rice, without question, is an accomplished, brilliant, even fascinating woman. From poli-sci prof at Stanford University to the 66th U.S. secretary of state makes for one heck of a resume. | 11/19/11 06:08:15 By - J.R. Labbe

Commentary: Only in Congress would pizza become a vegetable

See if you can score higher on this pop quiz than members of the U.S. Congress.

How much tomato paste must one slather onto a slice of pizza for it to qualify as a nutritionally adequate serving of vegetables for low-income schoolchildren? | 11/18/11 12:38:15 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Kamal Saleem's tales of terrorism don't jibe

Forrest Gump of the Middle East is the questionable keynote speaker at the Independence mayor’s prayer breakfast. Wherever Islamic terrorism reigned, the now-Christian Kamal Saleem claims to have been there, waging jihad on Israel, the Soviets, and later, America. | 11/18/11 06:11:04 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Never-ending 'War on Drugs' hits Central America

While Mexico’s bloody war against the drug cartels is making headlines worldwide, there is a little-known fact that is sounding alarm bells among U.S. and Latin American officials: Central America’s drug-related violence is far worse than Mexico’s. | 11/18/11 06:07:02 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Why Mitt Romney causes conservatives anguish

After last week’s debate, some are calling Mitt Romney the “presumptive nominee.” Indeed, despite momentary uneasiness when a questioner brought up the personal mandate in his Massachusetts health plan, he held his own — as he has in earlier debates. | 11/18/11 06:00:43 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: What took Penn State so long?

So they did the right thing. Belatedly.

You might say that is better than failing to do the right thing period, but it comes as meager comfort to those who have watched the Penn State scandal unfold and wondered how a moral imperative as obvious as a gorilla in church could have been missed by so many. | 11/17/11 06:04:20 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Time to get hungry for U.S. poverty solutions

Hunger is the new face of America, and these demographic groups have been hit hard because of high unemployment, foreclosures and the lingering bad economy. Part of the problem is that even for working people, their income has “barely budged since 1974,” the American Human Development Index recently reported in its study on median personal earnings. | 11/17/11 06:09:02 By - Lewis W. Diuguid

Commentary: We shouldn't blindly worship sports 'heroes'

Sports are one of the great joys of my life, but I never got the idolatry part of sports – the hero worship based on athletic success.

I've loved the personalities, the games and the traditions. Sportswriters like Jim Murray inspired me to pursue a career in writing. | 11/16/11 06:04:38 By - Marcos Breton

Commentary: Decision time nears on Iran's nukes

With each report from the United Nations nuclear agency, the choices the world faces regarding Iran's nuclear program become more stark.

The most recent one essentially confirmed that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency, not known for using alarmist tones, describes Tehran's activities developing nuclear triggers for atomic weapons, advanced research on warheads that can be delivered by medium range missiles, computer modeling of nuclear explosions, and other efforts that have nothing to do with producing nuclear energy. Then again, who actually believed Iran's claims - still continuing - that this is all about producing electricity? | 11/16/11 06:13:34 By - Frida Ghitis

Commentary: Penn State's Gilded Age

This story from Penn State is a blood diamond. So many facets, so many different angles, all of them uncomfortable to think about.

There's the hold that big-time sports has on our culture. I say this as a fan: The games matter far too much to far too many. Coaches and stars are our secular gods. Nobody in the state of Pennsylvania was as loved or as powerful as Joe Paterno. | 11/15/11 13:57:57 By - Tommy Tomlinson

Commentary: It's time to act on Iran's nuclear threat

Since the Nov. 8, 2011, release of the International Atomic Energy Agency's latest report about Iran's nuclear program, Tehran has waged an all-out campaign to dismiss the IAEA's findings, while implicitly threatening the world with a terrorist response. "Iran will respond with full force to any aggression or even threats in a way that will demolish the aggressors from within," Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said. | 11/15/11 11:56:14 By - Alireza Jafarzadeh

Commentary: What the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street really have in common

A number of commentators have struggled to link the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street protestors. Both groups seem to be grassroots, spontaneous expressions of popular discontent. They appear to occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum, however, and have different takes on the cause of, and the solution for, their unhappiness. | 11/15/11 06:13:51 By - Dennis Jett

Commentary: Penn State, Catholic Church share tragic parallels

In March 2002, a graduate assistant in Penn State's storied football program stopped by the training facility on a Friday night and witnessed something horrific. | 11/15/11 06:09:57 By - Barbara Shelly

Commentary: On 'personhood' and abortion

Moral clarity is one of the most seductive traits of social conservatism.

So last week’s election result in Mississippi comes as a seismic shock. By a significant margin — 58 to 42 percent — voters rejected an anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution defining the fertilized human egg as a person, with all the rights and protections attendant thereto. | 11/15/11 06:02:24 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: This isn't class warfare

Call for an end to a capital gains tax rate that allows a man who makes a billion dollars in a single year, through investments, to pay a lower effective rate than a man in the middle class who takes home a bi-weekly paycheck, you are participating in class warfare. | 11/14/11 06:00:43 By - Issac J.Bailey

Commentary: How money-handlers muzzled WikiLeaks

A comment posted to London’s Guardian newspaper said it best: “Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized.” The writer, somebody called “edensasp,” was referring to news that WikiLeaks — the online whistleblower that has been embarrassing governments and corporations worldwide by disclosing their secrets — was suspending operations. | 11/14/11 06:03:05 By - Edward Wasserman

Commentary: Putting religious group's campaign against contraception into context

First marketed in 1960, the birth control pill soon became the most popular form of contraception in the United States. However, the pill was still not available to every woman who wanted it. Religious groups lobbied in favor of laws that banned all contraception, and it was not until 1965 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Griswold v. Connecticut, that the right to contraception was protected by the Constitution. | 11/13/11 06:00:56 By - Sarah Lipton-Lubet

Commentary: Daniel Ortega could have won fairly in Nicaragua, but he didn't

Nicaragua may be the only country in the world that’s perpetually under a full moon, so it’s no surprise that the big news out of Sunday’s presidential election was not that incumbent Daniel Ortega was piling up suspicious landslide voting totals, but that he wasn’t a vampire. | 11/13/11 06:14:13 By - Glenn Garvin

Commentary: Bell Helicopter wants tax breaks but can afford to pay Wall Street

Occupy Bell Helicopter? To get an idea of why people are so angry at corporate America and the political class, consider a local exchange last week. Bell Helicopter negotiated an 80 percent tax abatement for 20 years, and a Fort Worth councilman called it "a good example" of how the city can help its own. | 11/13/11 05:59:35 By - Mitchell Schnurman

Commentary: Paterno's stubborn loyalty led to his downfall

Joe Paterno stayed too long. His ethical ideals had become rusty and the paint was peeling on his uncompromising principles. He placed a pail under the leak in the ceiling and looked the other way. | 11/12/11 06:49:50 By - Linda Robertson

Commentary: Environmental alarmists have a sorry record

The United Nations announced that the 7 billionth human probably arrived in our crowded world last week, so it was predictable that we would get another crash course on the threat posed by overpopulation. | 11/12/11 06:21:06 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: Drug sentencing disparities haunt U.S. justice system

Cocaine, regardless of which disguise it wears, is a monster that most often destroys the lives of its users and sellers while devastating their loved ones. | 11/12/11 06:05:29 By - Bob Ray Sanders

Commentary: Penn State scandal reveals methods of predators

This column usually is devoted to the weekend’s big game or news in college sports. Coaches, players or administrators typically have voice here as a football Saturday approaches. But this isn’t a typical football eve. Because we continue to grasp what feels like the biggest scandal in college sports history, a story so vile it’s almost beyond belief, only voices like Jeanetta Issa’s should matter. | 11/11/11 14:25:29 By - Blair Kerkhoff

Commentary: In Michael Jackson's death, it's fair to blame the pusher

Once upon a time, there was a boy who channeled the gods.

He invoked them through his feet, moving without friction across the gleam of a thousand stages. They possessed him though his voice, now rough like bark, now sweet like butter and brimming always with an emotional depth once thought inaccessible to children. | 11/11/11 06:06:19 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Morality took a back seat to sporting glory at Penn State

Five years before scandal overwhelmed Penn State, we saw devotion to school sports trump morality right here Miami-Dade County. A sexual crime against a child was shrugged off. Laws were ignored. Cops weren’t notified. | 11/11/11 06:09:21 By - Fred Grimm

Commentary: How Homeland Security 'has become pork barrel spending'

The Grover Beach (California) Police Department is going to grab $133,000 in Homeland Security money to use for electronic license plate readers. Are you feeling safer? I’m not, for two reasons.

First, there is precious little nexus between these scanners and thwarting terrorists. Using Homeland Security money this way is in fact part of a decade-long, pork-barrel operation. | 11/11/11 06:06:39 By - Bob Cuddy

Commentary: I won't forgive Joe Paterno

Joe Paterno is an American icon, winner of more games than any other coach in the history of college football.

And now I can’t look at him without wanting to clench a fist. | 11/10/11 14:41:50 By - John McGrath

Commentary: Paterno's legacy soiled by Sandusky scandal

The almost unspeakable scandal enveloping Penn State University locks in a different perspective, requires a reconsidering, alters the prism through which we view sports and judge what terrible means. | 11/10/11 12:21:09 By - Greg Cote

Commentary: Venezuela is tangled up in red tape

Following last week’s announcement that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has created two new Cabinet ministries — the Ministry of Ground Transportation and the Ministry of Air and Water Transportation — it may be time to propose a new economic theory: that countries’ economic development is inversely proportional to their number of ministers. | 11/10/11 06:04:23 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Grover Norquist finds political gridlock pays off nicely

Gridlock has been good for Grover Norquist.

Norquist is the Beltway denizen who promotes the gimmicky anti-tax pledge signed by most Republican members of Congress, major Republican presidential candidates other than Jon Huntsman, and all but two Republican California legislators. | 11/10/11 06:00:00 By - Dan Morain

Commentary: Why didn't Joe Paterno do more?

As the flames rise with the noise, all of it threatening to engulf a legend, the old coach remains forever stubborn. Quit? That’s not what Penn State football coach Joe Paterno teaches, not what he knows, not who he is, so he’ll fight until the very end, and here’s what will happen: The winningest coach in the history of college football is about to lose, and he’s about to lose big. His job, his reputation, his desire to finish on his terms, his decades of work, the way he defines himself, his entire legacy — all of it is about to go up in a smoldering bonfire of flames unlike we’ve ever seen in college sports. | 11/09/11 13:06:09 By - Dan LeBatard

Commentary: Cain doesn't get that journalists' code of ethics is about asking questions

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, engulfed in a growing sexual harassment controversy, tried to put the issue to rest Saturday following a one-on-one debate in Houston with rival Newt Gingrich. Reporters tried to ask Cain about the allegations brought by three women that he had engaged in unwanted sexual behavior toward them while he headed the National Restaurant Association. | 11/09/11 12:42:23 By - Bob Ray Sanders

Commentary: It's time to ignore Herman Cain

There are plenty of reasons not to take Herman Cain seriously as a presidential candidate. There is one, however, that is rarely mentioned. And it is more important than the ones the media are talking about. | 11/09/11 11:49:33 By - Dennis Jett

Commentary: Who exactly are the one percent?

First lady Michelle Obama the other day railed at "the few at the top," who do all sorts of bad things. A few months ago, we began hearing of the "1%" who are responsible for the current economic mess. | 11/09/11 06:08:41 By - Victor Davis Hanson

Commentary: Just in time for the holidays, GOP laff-fest hits Florida

When Florida’s Republican 2012 presidential primary was moved up to Jan. 31, the reaction was mixed. Some voters were glad to getting past it sooner than later. Others were dismayed that the holiday season would be polluted by vicious campaign commercials and distracting barnstorm visits from candidates. | 11/09/11 06:07:49 By - Carl Hiaasen

Commentary: Scandal offers a view into Herman Cain's character

I see the makings of another best-seller in the recent travails of presidential candidate Herman Cain.

This one might be titled, “Owning Up To The Past: How My Failed Bid for the White House Taught Lessons in Humility and Self-Awareness.” When the dust settles, Cain will have to take responsibility for how poorly he has handled the allegations that he sexually harassed women while head of the National Restaurant Association. It will be interesting to see how Cain — a propagator of the slogan “CEO of Self” — files this episode. | 11/08/11 12:48:55 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: Playing the race card in Cain's sexual harassment scandal

Do you think it gives Clarence Thomas a warm, fuzzy feeling to know he is one of Ann Coulter's blacks?

That is how Coulter put it on Fox "News" while defending Herman Cain against sexual harassment charges that threatened to engulf his campaign last week. Liberals, she said, detest black conservatives, but the truth is, "our blacks are so much better than their blacks." | 11/08/11 06:09:26 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: Science trumps climate change deniers

Richard Muller was supposed to be the white knight for the deniers of global warming, smiting the fire-breathing activists who insist that climate change is real. In the end, though, science prevailed. | 11/08/11 06:05:11 By - James Werrell

Commentary: Condoleezza Rice's book shows 'inattention' to Latin America during Bush years

If political biographies of recent U.S. presidents and top foreign policy officials are any indication of what goes on in their mind — and I think they are — the new book by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks for itself: it’s about 98 percent about the Middle East, Russia and Asia, and 2 percent about Latin America. | 11/07/11 06:10:42 By - Andres Oppenheimer

Commentary: Will the GOP ever get serious about 2012?

All campaigns have their unserious candidates. Think Alan Keyes, Ralph Nader, Steve Forbes, Al Sharpton, to name a few. Mickey Mouse snares a share of votes in every presidential election — for real.

But never has it been so easy for publicity seekers to command the limelight. | 11/07/11 06:07:58 By - Barbara Shelly

Commentary: Forget November. Retailers are ready for Santa

Baseball season just ended. It must be time for -- Santa?!

The biggest wonder of all is that Christmas has vaulted in front of Thanksgiving. And Veterans Day. | 11/06/11 06:31:24 By - Bud Kennedy

Commentary: Time for Occupy Wall Street phase two

It’s time to launch Occupy Wall Street, Phase II. The part where the movement articulates what it wants, wins over a large bloc of the public and fights to get its demands enacted. So, who’s got some ideas? Anybody? | 11/06/11 06:16:19 By - Mary Sanchez

Commentary: The politics of 'I'm more religious than you are'

Religiosity — I’m more religious than you are, nanny-nanny, boo-boo — has become such a campaign issue that when I tune into the news, I wonder if I’m listening to some aspiring dictator from a foreign theocracy instead of an American politician. Last time I checked, one of the fundamental tenets of American democracy is the separation of church and state. The Founding Fathers established a secular government as a way of ensuring religious freedom. | 11/05/11 06:27:42 By - Ana Veciana-Suarez

Commentary: Bank executives have people angry

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan is trying to use the good work of the bank’s everyday employees to mask the stench emanating from the actions of executives in his company and up and down Wall Street.

Never mind that about 30,000 of those employees Moynihan is using to deflect criticism will be staring at pink slips. | 11/05/11 06:00:37 By - Issac Bailey

Commentary: In Perry's viral video, the crowd loved the 'animated' Texan

Every Texan I know was loopy last Friday.

It just happened that one of us had to give a speech. On the night after we all stayed up late for a cataclysmic event hereafter known only as Game 6, Gov. Rick Perry had to give a keynote speech that has since turned into a sour note. | 11/04/11 12:19:18 By - Bud Kennedy

Commentary: The iPod at 10 — a pocket-sized digital revolution

Not long ago a friend made an interesting observation over the poker table: He said the most significant technological advance of his lifetime might well be the iPod.

I’m a little older than he is, so I’d probably go with the hydrogen bomb, that lethal Cold War cloud of annihilation hanging over the first 35-plus years of my life. (It’s still around and still lethal; the terror it poses just comes from a different kind of enemy now.) | 11/04/11 06:12:27 By - Dusty Nix

Commentary: Keystone XL pipeline splits Obama's base

Barack Obama won the presidency because of a rare confluence of events that created a coalition of the moment: upper-class liberals, organized labor, young voters, minorities and centrists. | 11/04/11 06:01:06 By - E. Thomas McClanahan

Commentary: Jobs are plentiful on Alabama's farms

Good news. The jobs crisis is over.

Meaning the recent Alabama law (toughest in the nation, they say) cracking down on illegal alien workers. Ever since it was passed, Hispanic farm laborers who had been taking jobs from hard-working Americans have been fleeing that state like a foreign language film with subtitles. As a result, there is now lots of work available in the exciting field of . . . well, fields. As in fields of vegetables and fruit. | 11/03/11 06:09:12 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: For H-2B guest workers, hard labor as 'cultural experience'

They’re the veritable saviors of the hospitality industry, aren’t they? Foreign guest workers, recruited from distant places, 7,276 of them last year, to rescue Florida’s hotels and restaurants and country clubs and amusement parks and other businesses so very desperate to fill vacant jobs. | 11/03/11 06:07:47 By - Fred Grimm