"Why should we have to wait one more day?" asks Steve Hildebrand, former deputy national campaign adviser for President Obama, addressing the lack of progress on gay rights in America.

Hildebrand was speaking about two weeks ago -- before the hate crimes legislation was passed and before the President's...

As President Obama makes his push for health care reform, one of his key selling points has been that if you're happy with your current insurance plan you can keep it. This message appeals to voters afraid of being forced into coverage from a government program. However, a close...

Saturday night's surprising resignation of Van Jones and the controversy leading up to to it reveals all that is good and great about our political system. It also reveals all that is bad and sad about it.

In the good and great column: Jones's rise from a community...

No offense to the medical device manufacturers, but I wonder if $20,000 preemie incubators aren't the equivalent of those mythical $500 hammers purchased by the Department of Defense.

Consider what happened when a bunch of Stanford d. school students looked at the needs of premature newborns in developing...

Call it Boyle's Law for debate. The lexicon for health care reform has expanded to include the plural noun, town hallers, and it's grown louder as well, increasing in volume from all the shouting. Hot air will expand to fill the available space.

Thus it's refreshing to hear...

Even as it appears that the House of Representatives has reached agreement on healthcare reform, the devil, as always, will be in the details. And in this case, what matters most is what form the so-called "public option" will take.

If approved, as appears likely, legislation that prevents insurance...

Call it the 'Omnivore's Health Care Dilemma.'

Michael Pollan wades into the issue of health care reform by looking, not surprisingly, at food. In conversation with journalist and urban farmer Novella Carpenter, he argues that health care reform and changes to American agriculture will go hand-in-hand.

"If we do get...

"To make health a profit-making institution is psychotic," rants Lewis Black while discussing his belief in God (or not). He's speaking about his faith with Bob Schieffer at the Aspen Ideas Festival and gets sidetracked when he lists health care that actually pays the doctor's bill.

...

The dirty truth about carbon capture: it's very expensive and it's a long way off. Speaking at the World Bank in Sydney, Mark Diesendorf of the Univeristy of New South Wales points to the Bush Administration's shuttering of the FutureGen project as an example of the escalating costs associated...

Now that the House has passed Waxman-Markey, the stage is set for a much harder look at the actual implementation of cap and trade.

Speaking at an energy conference in San Francisco last week prior to the Congressional vote, negative reactions to the proposed cap and trade system...

Here's the thing about the current economic crisis and global warming. For the past decade, there were lots of smart people warning about the housing boom and about climate change, yet they were largely ignored.

We're now being forced to address both these matters -- at last. But rather...

President Obama's announcement extending some benefits to same sex partners of federal employees doesn't go far enough. What of his campaign promise to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy? Why the delay? Why not include rights for gay and lesbian members of the military?

A provocative video...

They're young, they wear green, and they vote.

As disagreement over Iran's presidential election results spreads into the streets, it's worth asking what has changed in Tehran over the past four years to create a situation where a relatively moderate reformer candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, can challenge an...

Consider that California was the flashpoint for marriage of a different sort in 1948. Then the issue wasn't two men or two women wanting the state's blessing for their matrimony, but couples from different races seeking to be married. According to Reverend Scotty McLennan of Stanford University, author of Finding...

In California, the battle over Proposition 8 has drawn comparisons to the civil rights movement. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom has called the ban on same sex marriage a new form of separate but equal. But civil rights for gay, lesbian, and transgender people is more than a Golden...

As the rhetoric escalates over President Obama's nomination of judge Sonia Sotomayor, the confirmation process promises to reveal both the good and bad of our separation of powers. But consider that for the first 150 years of our nation's history, confirmation hearings were viewed with contempt. Or that state...

California's Supreme Court upheld today Proposition 8, which bans same sex marriage. At the same time, the Court recognized those same sex marriages performed before the ban was approved. So, the unions of some 18,000 gay and lesbian couples from last summer are legal, but if you're gay...

Scary thought: Next time you're in a traffic jam in Yosemite, don't honk your horn at that knucklehead blocking the road while taking a picture of El Capitan. If the GOP has its way, soon "point-and-shoot" will take on whole new meaning.

As part of a credit card reform...

Want to experience life as a Gitmo detainee without, well, experiencing it? Do you secretly admire Christopher Hitchens for having subjected himself to waterboarding?

Consumer technology and the war on terror have crashed into each other to make it possible. In this case, citizens of popular virtual world

No one should be surprised that the ACLU would issue a call to prosecute those who authorized torture on detainees. But what grabs my attention in this video is the thorough argument presented by executive director Anthony Romero to hold accountable everyone from President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, Secretary...