Glen Browder

Former Congressman, Alabama; Professor Emeritus, Jacksonville State University

Lilly Ledbetter never dreamed of being a feminist heroine; and she's not a politician. But she now finds herself at the forefront of the movement for gender pay equity and women's rights.

Mohamed A. El-Erian

CEO and co-CIO, PIMCO

Allow me please to take you back for a moment to the beginning of 2011. Remember how surprised the world was that, in just 18 days, a leaderless grass-root uprising managed to topple the Mubarak regime that had ruled Egypt with an iron fist for 30 years?

Eric Boehlert

Senior Fellow, Media Matters for America

Imagine what international observers must be thinking as they watch the U.S. government, in the name of leak investigations, chisel away at one of America's most famous contributions to the democratic way of life: freedom of the press.

Jim Moret

Chief Correspondent, 'Inside Edition'; attorney; author, 'The Last Day of My Life'

Let's stop this madness. Take away the cameras and microphones and put her away for good. Jodi Arias may still long for her close-up, but this mistrial is a wake-up call to silence her voice.

Larry King

Iconic television and radio interviewer, online at #LarryKingNow on @OraTV

Tavis Smiley is a STAR. Congratulations on 2,000 shows; here's wishing you 1,000 more! Hey, before you know it, you'll be in this game as long as me. Get ready to hold on to your suspenders!

Jordan Haedtler

Campaign associate, Forecast the Facts

With each pipeline that is approved, each greenlight given to coal and natural gas exports, we're putting more bullets in the chamber, and doubling down on our dangerous game of 13 Tzameti.

News Genius

The internet's premier crowd-sourced news annotation website

If you somehow missed the week of May 24th, 2013, you overlooked some of the biggest stories of the 21st century.

Bryan Cain-Jackson

Writer/Assistant Editor, Technorati

Media TakeOut is one of the most visited urban websites out there. It truly makes for a fun read about people who we love and are entertained by -- Media TakeOut shows us that just because they might be rich it doesn't mean they are above engaging in common foolery.

Matthew Dowd

Political strategist

If he weren't president today, Professor Obama would be up in arms over the actions of President Obama and his administration. In fact, he was up in arms over similar things involving the administration of President Bush.

Trita Parsi

President, National Iranian American Council

While a very slight glimmer of hope existed after the fraudulent elections in 2009 that the negative trajectory could be reversed through the ballot box, even that small probability may now have been eliminated.

Mark Rice

Professor and chair of the Department of American Studies, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, New York

One of the great achievements of the Internet has been the explosion of websites, blogs, etc. dedicated to politics and the news. This very same achievement, however, has paradoxically resulted in the erosion of a common frame of reference for understanding the news.

Eric Alterman

Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York

Few works in all of American history have enjoyed a greater impact, whether measured in political, cultural, or psychological terms, than Friedan's combination historical novel, manifesto, and cri de coeur.

Peter Dreier and Richard Appelbaum

If journalism's role is to not only report the facts but also to expose wrongdoing, then the Times deserves kudos, and a Pulitzer Prize, for documenting and explaining the emergence of Bangladesh's new sweatshop economy as a major source of the clothing that American and European consumers buy every day.

Wray Herbert

Author, 'On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits'

The elderly have never been honored in American society. They have more often been stereotyped, stigmatized and pitied. And according to Princeton University psychological scientist Susan Fiske, this unfair ageist stereotyping could become even darker with the new influx of seniors.

Art Markman, Ph.D.

Executive Editor, Cognitive Science; Psychology and Marketing Professor, UT Austin; Director, the Program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations

What kinds of people are prone to reject the scientific evidence for global climate change? This question was explored in the May 2013 issue of Psychological Science. These researchers suggest that people typically engage in motivated reasoning.

Brad Bell

Co-creator, showrunner and star, 'Husbands'

In your recent speech at the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center you said, "We need to create an atmosphere that encourages people to speak up, so we get this right." This letter is me speaking up, with the hope that we can get this right.

Rev. Ian Punnett

Author, 'How To Pray When You're Pissed At God'

Nothing can mitigate the profound sadness of the deaths of dozens of people. But the families of all the victims would be right in wishing that there had been a few more miracles to go around.