For some, the end of the year is a time to think back on all the memorable moments from the previous 12 months. I prefer to continue my contrarian tradition of removing from my internal hard drive all the things that should no longer be cluttering my mind. My list of things to forget, circa 2009, includes Glenn Beck's tears, Glenn Beck's whiteboard, Glenn Beck's attacks on Van Jones, and Glenn Beck calling Obama "a racist." Also: the fact that we know as much as we do about David Letterman's, Tiger Woods', Sen. John Ensign's and Gov. Mark Sanford's sex lives; the large number of warning signs exhibited by Maj. Nidal Hasan that were overlooked; and Balloon Boy vomiting on national television. Twice. Click here to read more of the things from 2009 I'd like to forget.
Obama's presidency will not rise or fall on health care, but on his ability to safeguard America. His lackadaisical response to Friday's terrorist act is cause for alarm.
Taxing or reducing this year's Wall Street bonuses is but an irritant for bankers if they can safely hold on to the hundred's of billions paid out over the past few years of fraudulent "banking".
Incompetent State Department officials and poor enforcement of visa procedures that have been in place long before the personal computer, or even the jet airliner, are the problem here. And we aren't hearing a word about it.
As a former teacher, the issue of education remains close to my heart. Keeping schools operational in communities affected by conflict is an essential priority for UNICEF in Somalia. Join me in helping them.
With would-be terrorists -- however inept -- scattered around the planet, we keep pushing the Sisyphusian boulder up the slopes of the Hindu Kush.
For Democrats who value their Congressional majority, the 2009 Election results might suggest a need for caution in pursuing major new liberal initiatives until the deficit is brought down.
In a stunning admission on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano compared the nation's terrorist watch list to the once-popular social networking site, MySpace.
If 2009 has proved anything, it's that the bailout of Wall Street didn't trickle down to Main Street. Mortgage delinquencies continue to rise. And people everywhere, it seems, are worried about losing their jobs.
Those former Obama fanatics experiencing a crisis in faith should look in the mirror. What they have refused to acknowledge is that Obama would not have fallen so hard had they not lifted him so high.
New rules restrict even more what passengers can do on a plane. Is this really an appropriate response, given that the real problem here was a man who should never have been there in the first place?
Since President Obama is in Hawaii with his family, I guess he'll be on his best behavior this New Year's. We'll have to wait for another administration before we hear about any lamp shades on heads.
I was on my third in-flight movie when the screaming started. That was when my fellow passenger Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab decided to ignite his explosives 19 rows ahead of me.
While we'll never fully snuff out spin, we can at least secure the facts behind a given issue. The type of misinformation that took us to Iraq continues to influence our societal decision-making.
While we all felt satisfied that justice had been done for the Goldman family, NBC's decision to pay for a chartered plane to fly David and Sean back to the U.S. smacks of bribery, not justice.
The violent confrontations in Iran this week, which resulted from widespread resistance to the brutality of the regime's various security forces, have shifted the balance of the struggle towards the people.
Looking back on 2009, a narrative seems to have emerged that the Democrats failed and would pay the price in the 2010 midterm elections. But where is the discussion of how the Republicans have behaved in the last year?
Despite the Designated Driver campaign's success in making the term a household phrase, some 13,000 people will still lose their lives this year to alcohol-related incidents. Help this NYE to make sure everyone has a DD.
I am spending my holiday in the mountains of Idaho in our log cabin, and after a lovely Christmas Eve pizza party, the lights went out -- everywhere.
I give David Paterson an "A" for honesty. He's possibly the only liberal politician willing to admit publicly that the greed merchants on Wall Street are a necessary evil for big government liberalism to survive.
Khamenei has become the new Shah -- hated by so many that it seems implausible that Iranian elites will ever be able to operate without much distrust and fear of each other.
The discourse on radicalization and homegrown terrorism is fundamentally racist and Islamophobic. It is based on seeing Muslims as the "other" and viewing our actions through an "orientalist" lens.
Voters want the proverbial money changers thrown out of the temple of government. They don't want Democrats to be more milquetoast and "sensible." They want something done to right this extraordinary wrong.
