Many hope an agreement on the TPP will provide a much-needed boost to a still prostrate global economy, but what is being widely hailed as profound progress in the evolution of trade integration globally is having the opposite effect in Latin America.
Here are the top five things you can only find in Albuquerque.
The United States has a history of providing important moral leadership in many areas. But by shrouding our tortured past in secret, we endanger both our country's moral legacy and our national security.
Is the issue of government interference, fear of the NRA, or the possibility of a tedious Republican filibuster really as important as a life?
To ensure the vitality of our nation, it's continued progress, to more fundamentally remember who we are and honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, and all those who died fighting for us, we must remember....we all have a role to play.
For a three-month period, every American will get a perfect credit score, and the federal government will guarantee all loans made as a result of this "score stimulus."
While it certainly was (quoting the Flintstones theme) a "gay old time" in Washington this week, I have already spent the whole week on the subject, so I'm really only going to mention it in passing.
It would be a mistake to view President Obama's visit to Israel as just a fence-mending exercise. It is in fact part of a planned redesign of U.S. foreign policy that will change the face of American leadership around the world.
On a plane circling Baghdad in gray dawn light, a little Iraqi girl quietly sang to herself in the next row. "When I start to wonder why I'm making this trip," Sean Penn murmured to me, "I see that child and I remember what it's about."
There he goes again -- NRA chief Wayne LaPierre served up fear mongering rhetoric designed to divide Americans into keeping the status quo rather than building bridges to reduce gun violence in our communities.
If only the actual drone program, and the strategic thinking that underlies it, were to undergo the same sort of review as a little contraption of cloth and medal.
One of our great American leaders, Congressman John Lewis, has been celebrated in the news quite a bit recently.
When we reflect on the administrations and policies that led to these decade-and-longer wars with such ambiguous (at best) results, we note that, of course, George W. Bush forced the Iraq War down our throats, while current President Barack Obama objected.
Thank goodness, the President is done turning himself into a human pretzel, and for this we must rejoice. You just can't compromise with folks that hate you and all that you stand for.
It's true that income inequality has grown dramatically in last 30 years in United States, but social mobility? In truth it doesn't appear that ever changes much at all.
It is the death throes of the neoconservatives' hold on United States foreign policy that makes the confirmation of Hagel and the installation of the Biden-Kerry-Hagel team so critically important for the United States and the world.