Jared Bernstein

Fmr. Obama administration economist; CNBC and MSNBC contributor

As the fiscal picture has improved, both through actions we've taken already and the improving economy, it's much tougher to make the hair-on-fire urgency case that drove this benighted debate in recent years.

Spencer Overton

Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School; Senior Fellow at Demos

Before assuming that Justice Scalia is a recent convert to voting rights protections, recognize that language in today's opinion could eventually undermine voting rights. The details of the opinion could empower state and local partisans who manipulate voting rules.

Arn Pearson

Vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause

Now that a major leak has blown the cover off that story and exposed a massive data mining operation by the NSA, will congressional leaders and U.S. Attorney Machen demand justice and rush to convene a grand jury?

Adrian Grenier

Actor, filmmaker and entrepreneur

For too long we've exclusively emphasized punishment for non-violent offenders over treatment and rehabilitation. The current system is unbalanced, unsustainable, and unnecessarily cruel. It's time to legalize or at the very least, decriminalize all drugs.

Daniel Luzer

Washington Monthly web editor

While it's true that the government can't function effectively when its employees take it upon themselves to sabotage the programs they don't like, a good question to ask might be how many programs we should really be running to which any "marginally attentive citizen" might object.

Kelly James Clark

Senior Research Fellow, Kaufman Interfaith Institute, Grand Valley State University

Immigration of persons of extraordinary or exceptional ability is absolutely crucial for the US to maintain its scientific and economic edge. But immigration reform alone cannot address the systemic abuses exemplified in the Nebraska office.

Dan Froomkin

Executive Editor, FearlessMedia.org

Even in this day of fragmented audiences and decimated newsrooms, major news organizations still have the ability to spark a national conversation around a given issue, by putting experienced, tenacious beat reporters on the story. So what's needed is a new beat, to cover secrecy itself.

Jon Soltz and Sen. Tom Udall

Recent history and the current intelligence on the ground supports the conclusion that the risks are just too great. After over a decade of war overseas, now is not the time to arm an unorganized, unfamiliar, and unpredictable group of rebels.

Shaye Wolf

Climate science director, Center for Biological Diversity

As a scientist, I applaud the mayor for trying to protect New Yorkers from climate chaos. But who's looking out for the rest of America? It's hard to understand why President Obama isn't responding to the climate crisis with the same urgency displayed by the leader of our largest city.

Dr. Oran Hesterman and Michel Nischan

There is no need more basic than food, and there is no legislation with a bigger impact on our nation's nutrition than the Farm Bill.

Máirtín Ó Muilleoir

Lord Mayor of Belfast

Today, the Obamas saw a Belfast transformed by two decades of peacemaking which only bore fruit because of the dogged determination of Irish America. President Obama reaffirmed America's commitment to stand with the peacemakers of Belfast as long as we continue to push forward.

Judy Rickard

Author, 'Torn Apart: United by Love, Divided by Law'

This tale of three flags is our nightmare. It made me take early retirement. It made us spend months apart, in different countries, until I quit my job years earlier than planned. My flag, my country, won't let me sponsor her flag, her citizenship, her gender, for U.S. immigration

Jason Stanford

Democratic consultant and writer

By conflating testing with curriculum, Perry's veto of a testing relief bill aimed at the playground set revealed that he doesn't understand what happens in Texas elementary schools.

Stephan Richter

Publisher and editor-in-chief, The Globalist

We're Americans, aren't we? We're the good guys. Our traditional role is to rein in the bad guys, like Iran, isn't it?

Norman Solomon

Author, 'War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death'

Edward Snowden is transcending the moral limits of authority and insisting that we can fully defend the Bill of Rights, emphatically including the Fourth Amendment. What a contrast with New York Times columnists David Brooks, Thomas Friedman and Bill Keller.

Jonathan Wolfman

Author, 'Passionate Justice: A Progressive Memoir in Essays'

Ghosts of Mississippi? One of them ought to be my mom. She made a difference in Philadelphia while I was growing up. And I'm betting she could in Mississippi, as well, then, or today, and I'm betting people like her, the activists of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union, will now.

Michael Shank and Kate Gould

As the elections signified, it is the Iranian people who will ultimately shape the destiny of Iran. And it is the Iranian people who have borne the brunt of sanctions, and it is these human impacts that must always be at the forefront of U.S. sanctions policy considerations.