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To hear these "experts" pontificating about Islam or Arab culture is more than annoying. It's downright dangerous. Instead of elevating the discourse, they dumb it down. And instead of making us aware of the enormous complexities involved in these conflict zones, they reduce them to simple and easy clichés.

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Vice President Biden and his son's response should be to join the millions of people who are challenging the ignorance and irrationality of locking up hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens because of a nonviolent drug offense.

The government of President Francois Hollande, under fire for failing to ignite a recovery, now plans economic stimulus measures -- and the target be damned. Under E.U. rules, France can be fined up to 0.2 percent of its GDP. The French seem to be saying, 'So sue us!'

That headline, of course, quotes the cover to the fictional Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: "Don't Panic." This week, it seems like timely advice, as the news media and American politicians go into full-blown panic mode over one death and two illnesses within the United States.

With early voting in full swing, more than 1.9 million people have cast a ballot in the 2014 midterm elections. I track early voting statistics here. Predictably, dueling spin about early voting has emerged from the Democratic and Republican camps.

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This is political gamesmanship of the lowest order, playing on media and public fears over a legitimate and terrifying health crisis, to again belittle Obama. And with the stakes sky high in the 2014 midterm elections, the dirty political pool by the GOP was totally predictable.

AIDs cases pile up but POTUS40 says nothing. After three Ebola patients in Dallas, POTUS44 sends 4000 troops/medical personnel to West Africa, creates CDC SWAT teams, appoints Czar -- NOT ENOUGH says GOP! Ebola Derangement Syndrome?

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and it's important that we realize that the faces of domestic violence victims are all around us -- it may be a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a co-worker, or the clerk at your local grocery store.

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If the news media's job is to educate, and especially to clarify during times of steep public concerns, then the news media have utterly failed during the Ebola threat. And politically, that translates into a win for Republicans because it means there's fertile ground for their paranoia to grow.

Our nation boasts the most advanced healthcare system in the world. We have the capacity and know-how to address this public health issue. If we listen to the voices of our nurses and health professionals, we can keep our communities safe and healthy.

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Fear of resurgent inflation has been a defining element of U.S. economic policy over the last five years, driving federal spending reductions, personal income tax increases, and, just this month, the end of the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing program. But that broad-based inflation has not materialized and we are left asking why?

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Following the non-binding British Parliament's recognition of Palestine, it has been written a lot about Israel's inaction regarding the peace process. While reporting on Israel's politics and policy, it is important to draw the full picture -- most Israelis want peace.

When he was elected in 2010, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback began to slash core government services and privatize the rest. Kids receiving child support payments from absent parents would be among Brownback's first 'crash test dummies.'

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It is important for everyone to become more savvy about abuser's excuses because many people unwittingly reinforce them in how we respond to the abuser's "explanations" for his/her violence, and to understand what taking real responsibility means.

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In his recent meeting with Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he was "committed to the vision of peace for two states for two peoples." That sounds nice. But if he'd been pressed, Netanyahu might have admitted that the two states he had in mind were Israel and the U.S., not Israel and Palestine.

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We should act to strengthen the Office of the Surgeon General by protecting it from political manipulation. In our hyper-partisan political world characterized by gridlock and great political poetic license in the interpretation of science to support preconceived political biases, who will have the responsibility to speak scientific truth to power?

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While each of these candidates has danced to a slightly different tune on the science of climate change, they all follow the same move when it comes to opposing any action to address the issue. This is where their dancing feet start to step on each other.