With the recent announcement of "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood", an impending biopic on Fred Rogers, the Internet lit up with suggestions of what actor might play him in the film. It would be dangerously easy to underestimate this casting challenge, given how often and effortlessly entertainers have done...

However tragic the effects of a pressure cooker filled with explosive powder and shrapnel, there is a worse way to use one: cook elected officials to death. That's the effect of the gun-lobby pressure cooker where they turn up the heat until members of Congress wilt into spineless mush.

I...

You have to figure that when a composer requests that you not applaud his creation, there's probably a reason that has nothing to do with humility. That is why my maiden voyage to the Metropolitan Opera's cinematic display of live performances in local theaters was at once thrilling and dismaying....

With publications as influential and far-flung as The Washington Post, The San Diego Union-Tribune and Nature magazine all having nice things to say about approval for the Keystone pipeline, who am I to offer a contrary perspective? Well, I'll tell you: I am a recovering addict, and that makes me...

Note this piece contains spoilers. Do not read on if you have not yet seen "Skyfall."

Thanks to a friend who is a judge for the Oscars, we sat by the fireside last night and watched a judges' DVD edition of Skyfall, the latest of the long-running James Bond...

Mitt. Oh, Mitt. Whatever became of you, anyhow? How did you go from being the guy I voted for as governor of Massachusetts to a guy who is this unrepentant and embarrassing liar? I just feel so sad to see a once-decent fellow prostitute himself so blatantly at every turn,...

With his blatantly dishonest "Jeep" ad accusing President Obama of ruining the American auto industry, Governor Romney has pulled out the last desperate arrow in his quiver: the Swift-Boat tactic.

You will recall that during the 2004 presidential campaign, a group of President Bush supporters calling themselves "Swift Boat Veterans...

While an impressive-sounding 70 million Americans viewed the presidential debates on TV, that means twice as many registered voters (137,000,000) did NOT see the debates. As a public service to them, I present below my summary of what they missed.

Okay, so here's a really painless way to understand what Governor Romney is up to. Just get your hands on a DVD of The Music Man and settle back for an entertaining lesson in flimflamming the rubes.

Right at the outset of the film, as not-really-"Professor" Harold Hill -- huckster...

Smooth-talking, good-looking Mitt Romney made a forceful depiction of both the failure of President Obama to keep Candidate Obama's promises to improve the economy, and of his own presumed knowledge of how to create jobs that will heal our economy. Left unchallenged, the apparent validity of these two assertions may...

Voter suppression is treason.

Yes, that's what I said: treason.

I know that is an extreme word. There are few words in the English language uglier than "treason." It strikes at the gut, triggers a shiver of revulsion, prompts incredulity. How could any American really commit treason?

But then we...

When the framers of our Constitution defined "voter," here is what they prescribed: white male property owners.

Oops. Guess that leaves out a lot of the people you know and love, right?

So over time, we wised up as a country and began to evolve that definition. It took...

If you ever needed convincing that love incarnate trumps even the most well constructed depictions of loving, all you need to do is compare an episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" with an episode of "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood," the new TV production from The Mister Rogers Company. Drawing on all the...

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh seems bent on destroying the best elements of the Grameen Bank whose loans to poor women inspired a global movement now enabling more than 135,000,000 borrowers to become self-employed. More than a year ago, she engineered the spectacularly illogical dismissal of Prof. Muhammad Yunus,...

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales' alleged slaughter of 16 Afghan civilians highlights the folly of our repeatedly deploying a tiny fraction of Americans to fight our wars. Because we have eschewed universal military service, we currently rely on a tiny cadre of 309,670 soldiers to do our killing and...

Why should your employer have any say whatsoever about how you manage your reproductive health? Why? Can you think of one good reason? Your employer, of all people, influencing the most intimate decisions in your life -- could anything be more ridiculous?

Because it's all we have ever known in...

The year was 1990. February. It was a Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday, as it is now known across the country. A normal worship service was being conducted in a normal church in a normal town in America. Somebody said a prayer: "Lord, even as we enjoy the Super Bowl football...

One of the Republican party's shrewdest politicians just did a really stupid thing: he threw principle under the bus to avoid taking a stand. This was out of character for a man whom many Democrats like myself have admired at times for enacting unpopular but necessary reforms in New Jersey....

My last post addressed to the atheists who frequent the HuffPost Religion section triggered nearly 800 comments, many of them properly taking me to task for seeming to suggest that all atheists share certain less-than-congenial traits that some exhibit. But one put forth a query that I now address: "So,...

By using the "recess appointment" process to install Richard Corday as the first director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Obama has seemingly reaffirmed the end of his wishful working for bipartisan cooperation in Washington. Coupled with his recent speech given at the site of Teddy Roosevelt's historic...