Michelangelo Signorile

Editor-at-large, HuffPost Gay Voices

Continuing to ban lesbian den mothers and gay scoutmasters is sending a horrible message to American youth, including the scouts, gay and straight. The Boy Scouts of America made this change to take some of the heat off, and no matter what equality advocates hope for, that will happen.

William Astore

Writer, Professor, Retired Lt. Colonel, Air Force

For our children and their children, Memorial Day weekend may become a time to reflect on another loved one lost: Mother Earth.

Robert L. Borosage

President, Institute for America's Future

We are sitting idly, watching, and suffering, as our nation disintegrates into a run-down backwater. At the same time, over 20 million people are in need of full-time work. Yet instead of grabbing this opportunity to rebuild the country, Washington is focused on cutting budgets.

Martha Burk

Money Editor, Ms. magazine; director, Corporate Accountability Project, National Council of Women's Organizations

Let's hope when the next Memorial Day rolls around, the good news will be that changes have been made. Our military women deserve to be safe from attack by their own ranks. Those who assault their peers and dishonor the country in the bargain deserve to be punished, not protected.

Dan Kennedy

Assistant Professor, School of Journalism at Northeastern University, and author of "The Wired City"

With the BSA finally dragging itself into the late 20th century, can the 21st be far behind? The answer, I hope, is that the time to end discrimination has arrived. But it isn't going to be accomplished without a lot of strife.

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.

Lincoln Mitchell

Harriman Institute, Columbia University

The Obama administration, through incompetency, pettiness, venality or something else, has unwittingly badly damaged the IRS. Some on the right may celebrate this, but a tax agency that cannot enforce regulations or laws is a major problem in a modern state.

Adam Levin

Former Director New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs; founder of Credit.com and Identity Theft 911

Why should middle-class students pay more for loans than is absolutely necessary, all the while padding the government's coffers and enabling state universities to build facilities that the students will only get to use for four years?

Carl Pope

Former executive director and chairman, Sierra Club

What is mystifying is why almost all of America's political class is willing to support a set of policy decisions whose outcomes will be to impoverish most Americans and weaken the nation.

Bob Greenstein

Founder and President, Center on Budget & Policy Priorities

In today's Senate debate on the farm bill, Senator David Vitter offered -- and Senate Democrats accepted -- an amendment that would increase hardship and will likely have strongly racially discriminatory effects.

David Ernesto Munar

President and CEO, AIDS Foundation of Chicago

Despite being a resource for people without coverage, it has the potential to disrupt existing doctor/patient relationships, something all of us -- and especially people with chronic, complex health conditions like HIV and other co-occurring diagnoses - want to avoid.

Robert Koehler

Syndicated writer

Like suicide, sexual assault is skyrocketing in the military. Why? Could it be that the problem is deeply structural? Could it be that it's related to the domination culture the military embodies.

Jared Bernstein

Fmr. Obama administration economist; CNBC and MSNBC contributor

Technology and tax law have led to the emergence of what international tax analyst Ed Kleinbard calls "stateless income," a phenomenon that was on full display at the Apple hearing yesterday.

Leilani Münter

Race car driver, environmental activist

Free market economics is touted by conservatives, and yet almost routinely now we are seeing legislation being introduced designed solely to block the competition that Tesla is bringing to the old guard.

Bill Chameides

Dean, Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment

One reason you don't want to have politicians mucking around in the nuts and bolts of science is that they often have a shaky grasp of the science at best.

Daniel Robelo

Research associate in the Drug Policy Alliance’s Office of Legal Affairs in Berkeley, California

This report is the first time that any multilateral institution anywhere in the world has critically analyzed the war on drugs and considered new approaches for the future -- giving equal weight to options like decriminalization and legalization in the process.

Barbara Lee

President, Barbara Lee Political Office and Barbara Lee Family Foundation

While women's numbers in the military -- and in elected office -- may be dwarfed by their male counterparts, women in Congress are giving new meaning to the phrase "pulling rank."