I find reports that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups to be deeply alarming, much more so than Benghazi. Benghazi continues to be the smoking gun void of smoke.

CNN recently obtained an email sent by a top aide to President Barack Obama, in which the aide discusses...

This year (January 9) marks the centennial of the birth of America's 37th President, Richard Milhous Nixon. Coincidently, 2013 also marks the 40th anniversary when the scandal known as Watergate would pick up the requisite momentum that would lead to Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974.

Dark, complicated, brilliant...

On balance it appears the news that Jason Collins is the first openly gay male athlete currently playing for an American team sport has been generally received positively.

A number of NBA players outwardly showed support. They demonstrated the obvious in that they were under no illusion that Collins...

April 16 commemorates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's 'Letter From Birmingham Jail.' Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book 1963: The Year of Hope and Hostility.

Eight white clergy published an a piece on April 12, 1963 in the local Birmingham newspaper titled: "A Call for...

It appears that I ruffled a few feathers in a recent post. Several readers took umbrage with the following statement:

"Can we at least agree that so-called traditional marriage is a phenomenon of Western civilization? Those who oppose marriage equality based on biblical teachings must know that the...

During the oral arguments in Supreme Court's hearing on Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage, Justice Samuel Alito stated to Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.:

But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution (same-sex...

Were it not for award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Princeton professor Cornel West it's quite possible the issue of poverty would have largely gone ignored during the 2012 presidential campaign.

It's not that presidential candidates openly discussed those on the underside of life last year, but Smiley and West,...

Bob Dylan was right! The times indeed are a-changin'.

A recent Field poll shows that 61 percent of California voters now back same-sex marriage -- twice the support when the question was originally posed in 1977. In 2008, Proposition 8, which provided only a marriage between a man...

It is the issue du jour -- be it the recent election, Benghazi, gun violence, the sequester, the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense or whether Florida Sen. Marco Rubio sips water during his response to the State of the Union -- that serves to muddy the water...

When engaging in the public discourse, there is an understandable tendency to rely on preconceived orthodoxy; it's our personal slate card.

What happens when our particular orthodoxy falls short? Should we maintain it by viewing every issue as if it were a nail to justify the relentless use of the...

Now that America's longest war is scheduled to conclude by 2014, shouldn't a second GI Bill specific to the 21s-century soldier be under consideration?

The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 has been referred as the Post 9/11 GI Bill. But does the bill go far enough?

The...

Whenever the filibuster is brought up, there is a mythical and tangible image that immediately comes to mind. The mythical image is Frank Capra's Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

The young naïve Jefferson Smith who refused to be a stooge for the political machine holds the Senate floor to...

In the aftereffects of the Newtown shooting it appears the public discourse around gun safety remains restricted within the same reactionary climate that invariably leads to a stalemate.

The gun debate is held hostage by a nonsensical one-size-fits-all discussion. The responsible sportsperson, demented psychopath, and career criminal are conveniently...

January 14, 2013 marks the 50th Anniversary of former Alabama Governor George Wallace's inaugural address that would begin his ascension onto the national stage and become the face of Jim Crow Segregation in 1963.

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of my forthcoming book: 1963: The...

January 1963 ushered in a year that I define in my forthcoming book as one of hope and hostility. It was particularly evident in the area of civil rights.

January 1 of that year marked the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The significance of the anniversary, and the work...

Jan. 1 commemorates the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
President Abraham Lincoln signed the proclamation on Sept. 22, 1862. It went into effect the following Jan. 1. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass considered the proclamation at the time a "worthy celebration of the first step on the part of the...

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly famously opined during his post election analysis: "It's not a traditional America anymore. People want stuff."

Though a sophomoric conclusion, O'Reilly is simultaneously right and wrong. He's right in that Americans do want stuff. In fact, it is a bedrock desire that goes back to...

The Benghazi affair has sadly morphed into a political litmus test as to whether U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice should serve as Secretary of State.

Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso recently told CNN: "She (Rice) just parroted information she was given. A Secretary of State needs to have...

Earlier this year Nobel Prize economist Peter Diamond stated, "We have an unemployment crisis, in my view. The impacts, both on long-term unemployed and young people, are going to affect them for years and years. This is something we need to be addressing right away... We have a...

If President Barack Obama wins reelection, it would be the first time voters returned an incumbent to the Oval Office with unemployment so high. The August unemployment rate sits at 8.1 percent -- nearly a full percentage point higher than President Ronald Reagan who holds the record for highest unemployment...