Twenty-five years ago, after suffering the humiliating defeat of a major environmental bill, my allies and I gathered to consider next steps.

Angry and more determined than ever to win, my peers set forth a new strategy of "more": more citizen action, more pressure on corporate enemies, and more calls...

If we defund PBS, should we defund commercial media, too?

I have been struggling in recent weeks with the conservative attack on public broadcasting.

As a fiscal conservative but a social libertarian, I can see plenty of reason to put a stop to taxpayer-financed radio and television. The libertarian...

Once again, oil prices are spiraling. Once again, it's out fault: we failed to take charge of our energy future. And once again, politicians on the right and left looked not to solutions, but to their base, to find the rigid ideologies they pretend to believe. They don't...

Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, catapulted global warming into the spotlight and helped bring business and environmental leaders together to reduce fossil fuel dependence.

Now a new documentary film, Gasland, aims to build opposition to natural gas production in the U.S. Recently nominated for an Academy...

Cut Programs, Not Systems

In demanding at last week's CPAC convention that GOP leaders strike $100 billion from federal spending, Tea Party activists are forcing politicians to go against their natural instincts.

If they expect to succeed, they need to understand the difference between a program, which spends money,...

Insiders tell us a battle is looming within the GOP between those for and against a Republican pro-environment agenda.

On the one hand, a small but powerful set of angry GOP social conservatives plan to haul leading environmentalists and scientists before Congress for what they intend to be brutal hearings,...

A Public Display of Extraordinary Ignorance, Unsupported Speculation, and Surprising Naïveté
by Bill Shireman

When I was about eight, and painfully shy, my cousin Doe Lynn inexplicably decided I was cute, and chased me incessantly around my grandfather's house. This unwanted proto-sexual harassment, which forced me...

A genuine path to save the economy, the planet, and the president

With jobs and the economy still weak less than 60 days before the election, President Obama is still pinning his hopes on the prospect of renewable energy and clean technologies to generate "green jobs."...

I doubt that any of us would like what Glenn Beck and Michael Moore would conceive, if they got into bed together. That's because, apart from the physically obvious, each is a close-minded ideologue who demonizes all who disagree.

Yet - though none of us would care to...

The Myth of Freedom -- and An Alternative to the Battle of the Mosque

Right-wing protesters are out in force, attacking the proposed "Ground Zero mosque" as an insult to American freedoms. Left-wing protesters are countering them, supporting the mosque as a symbol of our religious liberties.

But both...

Was George W. Bush the fifth worst President in American history, as a group of historians just concluded? Or, as one of my conservative friends contends, are they just another cadre of leftist intellectuals wearing their ideological blinders?

Yes, it's been less than 18 months since Cheney and...

"I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America,
and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation, under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all."

As...

I have to admit the impermissible: Barack Obama's name and race were factors that helped attract me to his candidacy.

To have a thoughtful, measured and articulate black President is an inspiring validation of the America I believe in. To have one named Barack Obama is potentially a knife...

As soon as the virtual ink was dry on BP's commitment to a $20 billion escrow to reimburse Gulf spill costs, Republicans pounced quickly -- on each other.

First, party leaders claimed that Obama had nothing to do with persuading BP to set up the fund...

Why can't we have angry leaders -- people more like us? An Abraham Lincoln who would have said, "With malice toward them, with charity for us." A Mahatma Gandhi who demanded that his followers stop sitting around on "strike" and just kick Britain's bloody ass. A Nelson Mandela who, instead...

Soldiers and statesmen risk all for their country. Politicians risk nothing, it seems. Consider the latest case of flaccid backbone in Congress.

Putting a price on carbon is the single biggest step we could take to secure the nation's freedoms and prevent the loss of more...

As Congress prepares to vote on financial reform, lawmakers are scrutinizing executive compensation. In fact, a portion of the Senate's legislation proposes delegating approval of executive compensation to shareholders. Setting aside whether or not one agrees with that principle, one aspect of the rule should raise some important questions. It...

Glenn Beck and Michael Moore agree on one thing: If we could just beat the Republicans AND the Democrats this November, maybe we'd have a shot at solving the enormous challenges we face.

But since that's not likely, I would like to offer ten reminders to each party, to...

The bipartisan summit on health care has already been dubbed a failure by party spinsters on both sides. But Americans are hungry for the integrative approach it symbolizes.

So am I. I resolve conflicts between political adversaries for a living. And I...

Extremists want to make GOP the party of "NO - CAN'T DO"

Extremist opponents of gay marriage equality and other "social conservative" causes want to rid the party of any candidate who dares oppose them on ten issues.

To "purify" the field of Republicans...