The Democratic Republic of Congo, in the heart of Africa, is not filling the world's headlines, but it is at a crossroads. Today's elections and the kind of governance that ensues could take Congo and Central Africa towards peace and realizing its potential, or -- the terrifying alternative of allowing...

Written from South Korea

The Korea free trade agreement is something that is good for both the United States and Korea. For South Korea, this is an opportunity to solidify their position as a world economic power by establishing a relationship with the United States. They are in a situation...

Investing in the health of American women should not be a partisan dispute. Family planning decisions belong to women, their doctors and their families, not to ideologues in Congress. Unfortunately, House Republicans have made attacks on women's health services a top priority of the 112th Congress. Even more startling is...

While millions of ordinary Americans have been struggling to cope with the harsh economic realities of the last two years, Republican elected officials have focused their attention on ways to take political advantage of widespread hardship. Republicans have decided that ongoing economic turmoil offers a perfect opportunity to go after...

The violence in Libya is unconscionable and the international community must unite in opposition to this brute use of force against non-violent protesters.

Yesterday's speech by embattled Moammar Gadhafi reinforces the fact that he is willing to cling to power through whatever means necessary. Calling himself a 'martyr' and...

This month's tax deal starkly illustrates the enormous power wielded by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. In fact, his role confirms our government is not operating as a democracy ruled by the will of the majority, but as a strangled entity tightly in the grasp of the Senate Republican minority...

While the pundits and politicians continue pontificating on the meaning of the Nov. 2 election, one message is already clear: Americans are extremely worried about jobs and unemployment. According to CNN polling, voters said that unemployment is roughly twice as important as all other top issues combined. And the Wall...

Last week, former President George W. Bush emerged from his Texas mansion to declare that the biggest failure of his presidency was not privatizing Social Security. President Bush should take a good look around because he failed at a number of things, but failing to gut one of America's most...

Recently, I watched the movie, A Day Without a Mexican. It's a hypothetical look at life in Los Angeles without Latinos, and the impacts on the society were they to disappear for one day. Yesterday, I read a newspaper article noting that unemployment insurance is due to come to a...

Six months ago today, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, one of the most important pieces of health care legislation in more than a generation. Six months later and the sky is still there, grandma hasn't been euthanized, and the dreaded death panels have ceased to materialize. Six months...

In 1965, New York State pioneered an innovative effort to encourage the adoption of children out of foster care. New York recognized that children with special needs within the foster care system generally languished in care and faced severe barriers to adoption. Attempting to overcome some of these barriers, and...

As we learned the results of the Massachusetts Senate race, we all knew we would need to re-examine our options to get a final health reform bill through Congress. On Wednesday morning, discussion about our next move was rife with speculation and ambiguity. And while I think we need to...

President Obama is trying to bring about the largest change in social policy in more than 75 years. To do that, he has to get consensus among 300 million Americans who fall into two basic categories: those worried that change will not go far enough, and those worried they will...

It should come as no surprise that agents of the status quo are dispensing false and misleading information about health care reform. More than anything else, they fear the American people taking control of their health care system for the first time.

The medical industry wants to maintain their...

America is the economic engine that drives the global economy, and it's about time we ran that engine on clean and renewable energy. We have within our power the ability to transform America into nation that wisely and responsibly consumes and produces energy, and provides leadership that enables the world...

World Aids Day, December 1, 2008

World Aids Day is a day to bear witness, to celebrate the progress we have made and to re-dedicate ourselves to the fight by telling our own personal stories. When experiences are shared from every corner of the globe, we remind the world of...

And Health Care is Going, Going, Almost Gone for Millions of Americans.

Another 9.0 quake rattled America's health care crisis to the core last week, but coming amidst the wreckage to the U.S. economy from nearly eight painful years of bad policy by this administration, many people mistook it for...

As we mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, the most troubling fact, in a long and tragic list of troubling facts, is that we already know there will be a sixth anniversary. Worse yet, depending upon the outcome of the November election, there could be a seventh, tenth,...

The R in "Republicans" must also stand for "Rich." That's the only plausible explanation I can find to explain why my Republican colleagues in the House prefer to sink the American middle-class to keep afloat unfair and bloated tax breaks for the rich, and I mean Rich with a capital...

Too many times today, we hear the American people and politicians say about the Iraq war, "If I only knew then what I know now I would have not supported it, or demanded more information and assurances beforehand."

This is precisely why I think that Members of Congress- with...