The following historical nugget appeared today in Paul Krugman's Op-Ed piece in the Times: "In 1997 Mr. Clinton struck a deal with Republicans in Congress in which he cut taxes on the rich in return for creation of the Children's Health Insurance Program." Up to the point of that deal...

In Act Two of King Lear, the old fading king's nasty daughters, Goneril and Regan, badger their dottering father about letting go of his large, expensive entourage of soldiers and retainers. They argue him down in number to the point where, finally, Regan puts the knife in and asks, "What...

In the media recently, the question is being asked: how it is that the wealthy are doing so well while the middle class is suffering in comparison? The usual villains named are outsourcing and the resulting decline of the manufacturing base. Blame also goes to NAFTA and the other trade...

A new book has been making the rounds and getting a very bad press. It is The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions, by Alex Rosenberg, a philosopher of science at Duke University. What Rosenberg has done is to take the scientific principle of reductionism and apply...

In his recent article in Foreign Affairs, the historian Francis Fukuyama said: "It has been several decades since anyone on the left has been able to articulate... a realistic agenda that has any hope of protecting a middle-class society." It's too bad that the Left has not clearly articulated an...

It's an old theme by now, going back to Reagan and his war on welfare, but this time it's Romney's war on entitlement. His new campaign refrain is to blame the poor for feeling "entitled," for saying, "They owe me, I'm entitled," while they sit back with their big screen...

On the eve of primary voting, we are more or less clear about Ron Paul's racist newsletters and the Gingrich sexual and financial affairs, but less clear about the relationship between Mitt Romney and Bain Capital. As in the case of Paul and Gingrich, this too is an issue of...

As Congress muddles its way toward some sort of deal on extending the payroll tax holiday, and the Republicans keep fighting a tax on the wealthy to help pay for it, we hear again and again the mantra of this campaign: "Don't penalize the job creators."

That mantra has...

My question is this: why would any sane person want to be elected president of these disunited states in this toxic economic and political climate? In the case of Obama he has little choice but to try for a second term. If he quits now, he's a coward, and if...

As the 2012 election cycle heats up, the myth of American Exceptionalism is with us again. Romney and Gingrich, the two bruised and battered candidates still standing, have both chosen American Exceptionalism as their clarion call, their only rationale for being candidates for president.

They accuse President Obama of...

In 2008, millions of people saw the presidential election as a matter of crisis and principle. Deep into two wars and debt rising, Barack Obama was a new voice, stunning in his eloquence and a stark and welcome contrast to the aging McCain and the Crazy Lady from Alaska. Small...

Well, we knew it was coming. First, the big box bookstores like Barnes & Noble drove out the independents (See You've Got Mail). Then, the online sellers knocked out the big boxes (watch as B&N closes hundreds of those big boxes) and now, as we learned in the New York...

Some years ago now the brilliant physicist David Bohm, who studied with Einstein, had this to say about human thought:

Thought doesn't know it is doing something and then it struggles against what it is doing. It doesn't want to know that it is doing it. And thought struggles against...

Does anyone doubt that the Obama administration's request for the Supreme Court to rule on the health care law ASAP is designed to decide the next election? If the court nixes the insurance mandate section of the law -- its crucial requirement -- then the law won't survive, except perhaps...

The new publishing sensation, Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais's Millennial Momentum, is working its way up the best-seller lists with its analysis of the Millennials -- this huge generation of Americans, over 80 million strong, whose influence in the 2008 election gave Obama a mandate for change. This is...

It's startling, this shift we are seeing in the president's recent Rose Garden speech. Most liberals and progressives, although wary of concessions, liked what they heard, but we wonder where the Obama we elected has been this year. The answer is that he's moved into campaign mode, seeing that...

The other day, while standing by my car on a Manhattan street waiting for alternate side parking to end. I got talking to the guy next to me, also waiting. Turns out he is a plumber with a good business -- employs six workers and is looking for apprentices, but,...

Today (July 15) is celebrated among a small group of dedicated scholars, readers and thinkers as Divinity School Day. On this day in 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson gave a speech (some call it a sermon) on the occasion of the graduation of the Class of 1838 from Harvard's Divinity College,...

To the Readers of Huffington Post.

In the dust-up following the death of bin Laden, a too-soon forgotten issue came alive again when Bush-era pols surfaced to claim that the "enhanced interrogation" (read torture) of detainees gave us crucial intelligence. Despite disclaimers from Leon Panetta and other present and former officials that torture gave us no...