Across the country, fans of the New England Patriots are wondering whether Tom Brady will return to top form this Sunday, whether Gronk's ankle will hold up, and whether cornerback Julian Edelman can shut down the Giants' dangerous receivers. But here in Beantown, folks ask still another question: Will the Pats go out and win this one for Myra?
Europe and the Muslim world seem to be on a collision course that could have major political, economic and ideological ramifications. January 23, 2012, may well come to be remembered as the crucial date when Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis, which many of us believed discredited beyond repair, was reaffirmed.
For some time now, Republican hawks like Sen. John McCain and Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon have been saying that our military budget is inadequate for the threats we face. They like to gripe that President Barack Obama is orchestrating the decline of American power.
Recently, the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Religious Liberty argued that the Obama administration's requirement that most health insurance plans cover contraception goes against "the mandate of Jesus Christ."
Tears rolled down my cheeks when I hung up the phone after interviewing Billy Ainsworth Cole, the sister of Harry "Mike" Ainsworth, who was gunned down mercilessly last week in New Orleans in front of his two sons, ages 9 and 11.
On the eve of the Nevada caucus, here's some advice to Newt Gingrich: If you still want to draw contrasts with Mitt Romney over immigration, don't toss in your cards. Double down.
"I'm not concerned about the very poor." Oops. Mitt Romney messed up. Again. This was a bigger "oops moment" for Romney than when he said a few weeks ago that the $374,327 he earned in speakers' fees over the course of 12 months amounted to "not very much." It was bigger than "I like being able to fire people." It was the biggest since he blurted out that corporations are people, my friend" at the Iowa State Fair.
One of the truly remarkable and relatively recent boosts to the health of poor women in this country has been their opportunity to get preventive, reproductive health services at little or no cost in one place.
Whenever a hugely popular and successful company goes public, many people wonder what will happen to all the newly created millionaires. What will they do now that they are financially "set for life"? Will there be "1,000 millionaires"? Will they suffer "sudden wealth syndrome"?
The Illinois Supreme Court's recent decision to permit the televising of trials in the state's circuit courts brings to mind another question of television in a court: the U.S. Supreme Court.
As casualties mount before the brutal onslaught of Bashar al-Assad's forces against Syria's pro-democracy protesters, the Russians are being unhelpful again. In Washington and Brussels, even habitually cool diplomats have been showing frustration.
The 1970s were the first full decade after civil rights legislation all but obliterated racial segregation in the United States. And it was in large part because of this great sea change that a bright, bold flowering of African-American popular culture affecting music, movies, fashion, television, sports and literature burst forth, its impact resonating with a breadth and force that had never been witnessed before -- or seen since.
Just as the Netscape IPO inaugurated the dotcom mania of the 90s, so Facebook's imminent IPO will trigger a hysteria with the social web. But the most interesting question isn't whether Facebook is actually worth $100 billion or how many billions of dollars Mark Zuckerberg will personally bank -- but whether or not Facebook really will make the world a better place for its close to a billion users.
The deaths of 73 football fans shortly after a match between Cairo 's Al Ahly and Al Masry in Port Said, Egypt, has shocked the world.
Mitt Romney's victory in Florida is big but still leaves much to be desired.
The U.N Security Council is considering the most important resolution yet on the brutal rule of terror that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has unleashed on his people. The resolution, proposed by Morocco and supporting the Arab League's plan, calls for al-Assad to leave power as the first step of a transition toward democracy.
When Americans pick up their prescriptions from the pharmacy or reach for a prescription bottle from their medicine cabinet, they probably don't think much about where the drugs were made or whether they are safe.
Thirty-nine years ago, Roe v. Wade was decided. With the passage of nearly four decades, the landscape of abortion has changed in a way that should trouble even those who consider themselves pro-choice.
Schadenfreude -- joy at the misfortune of others -- is a bad thing.
Ten days ago, Mitt Romney took a body blow from Newt Gingrich in losing South Carolina by twelve points in an open primary. Tuesday night, he evened the score with his own double-digit win in the cycle's first closed primary.
My home state of South Carolina likes its politics with a twist, and this year she added a new one. South Carolina saved a presidential candidate by dealing him a humbling defeat.
My son had barely taken his first breath when the people in the hospital started telling me how lucky I was.
We all knew he'd eventually get around to it: Mark Zuckerberg is expected to finally bring Facebook public. The company is reported to be preparing to file for an IPO -- initial public offering -- through which anyone will be able to buy shares of the social networking company on an open stock exchange.
On the first day of every year, works of art whose term of copyright has expired enters the public domain. This year's class is particularly strong, as the novels of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are now free of copyright protection. If you ever wanted to stage a puppet show of Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses" or set Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" to music, now is your chance.
Responding angrily to a campaign ad from Newt Gingrich accusing him of being anti-immigrant, Mitt Romney insisted during last week's Republican debate at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville that he has no problem with immigrants.
Larry, one of the employees you supervise, hasn't been performing his job up to expectations. But you've been reluctant to take him aside and speak with him candidly: Like most senior people in the company, you are white. What if Larry, who is black, takes your criticism the wrong way or, worse, thinks you are racist?
The announcement on Sunday night that Stephen Hester, the Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, had bowed to political pressure in the UK and decided to waive his bonus -- worth £963,000 ($1.5M) in shares -- will turn out to be a very sad day for commercial democracy.
Florida is the traditional tie-breaking primary in the January gantlet -- but there's very little that's traditional about the Sunshine State. It is a sprawling cross section of 10 media markets and one of the most diverse states in the nation, containing communities of voters across the political spectrum.
Viola Davis got a nod for best actress from the Academy this year for her role as Aibileen Clark in "The Help," and she must win, despite the controversy about the movie and the role she plays in it. If you believe what you read on blogs, black women long to be represented on screens large and small as rounded, complex characters, rather than wise, downtrodden burden-bearers and hot-blooded angry sex machines. Some say they want more black people telling black stories, which would be reasonable, if it were true.
The Republican presidential candidates are preening and prancing throughout the Sunshine State in the hopes of winning the state's 50 precious delegates. Out in Hollywood, another kind of campaign -- one with prettier people, with better hair, but equally sharp nails -- will rage over the next three weeks for Oscar.
German leaders are furious with Greece. Yet again they have to go back to their electorates asking for more billions to throw down the black hole that is the Hellenic Republic. They have now become so angry that they are even openly proposing that Greece's fiscal affairs be deferred to some European Commissioner, preferably one of a Teutonic disposition.
"Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?"
Newt Gingrich likes to fancy himself a counterestablishment rebel. He has attempted to tap into the anger of tea party Republicans by reminding voters about his glory days as a maverick conservative in the House of Representatives, which culminated in the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994.
Newt Gingrich has absorbed a fair degree of ridicule for his campaign proposal to build an American colony on the moon. Before focusing the laughter solely on Gingrich, however, let's recall that it is the declared policy of the U.S. government to return a human being to the moon by 2020, in preparation for sending a human astronaut to Mars. If Gingrich is wrong (and he is), he's not wrong alone.
For more than half a year, super PACs and other third-party advertisers have aired misleading attacks against Republican Massachusetts incumbent Sen. Scott Brown and his probable Democratic opponent, professor Elizabeth Warren. (You can see a sample of these ads at FlackCheck.org.).
Cars and commercial airplanes move the vast majority of us around, but as any frequent traveler knows, both of these modes of transportation have their limitations.
We are now able to project a winner in the 2012 presidential race:
For more than 50 years, the United States has had an embargo against the island of Cuba, all because we supposedly hate communism and believe the nation 90 miles from our borders should institute democracy.
South Carolina was a wake-up call for Mitt Romney. In Thursday night's CNN debate, Romney delivered an aggressive, forceful performance that many thought he was incapable of. The upcoming Florida primary could turn out very differently now, and the results could go a long way toward helping him win the Republican nomination.
Giants players Jacquian Williams and Devin Thomas made sportsmanship a prime topic for discussion when they said after their NFC championship win against the 49ers that they targeted punt returner Kyle Williams, who has suffered four concussions.
For the last 20 years, what name is always in the top 100 most popular baby names given to boys in the United States? Jesus (pronounced hey-seus). And among 4,500 boys names in England in 2009, what was the No. 1 most popular baby name? Mohammed. In Brussels? Mohammed. Oslo? Mohammed. Amsterdam? Mohammed. And what do babies and their names have to do with the global economy? Everything.
Mitt Romney has made much of President Barack Obama playing what he considers an inordinate amount of golf. I've even read blogs likening it to Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
The first competitive debating technique I teach is AARP. No, I don't tell my teams to debate like older people. Argue. Attack. Respond. Presence.
The U.S. Navy Seals' dramatic rescue of Poul Hagen Thisted and Jessica Buchanan early Wednesday ended the hostages' three-month ordeal in Somalia. But why was it left to the United States to conduct this operation in a country thousands of miles away?
Two years ago, the Supreme Court upended the rules for campaign finance, unleashing a tsunami of unregulated, unrestricted and undisclosed spending that has, in effect, allowed donors to buy elections. The full impact of this decision is just now becoming clear, and it's bad both for America's businesses and for our democracy.
Last week, millions of Americans stood up against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate's related anti-piracy bill. Given the public outcry, it is not surprising that all four Republican presidential candidates have come out against them.
Thursday night's Republican presidential debate in Jacksonville, Florida, sponsored by CNN, will be one of more than 20 such encounters in the past nine months. Beltway conventional wisdom says there have been too many debates.
On behalf of all those Latino voters who have figured out that the Obama administration is the most hostile to Latino immigrants of any administration in the last half century and who are looking for an alternative, let me say this to the Republican presidential candidates: "Bienvenidos to Florida! Now, behave yourselves."
Newt Gingrich is a political opportunist. His job is to pack as much powerfully charged meaning into every sentence as he can, which makes him a working poet. So he knows full well that calling someone a "food stamp president" brings up the working person's fear, looming reality, and in some cases the actual experience, of unemployment -- while making a shout-out to racism and affixing a stigma to poverty. All the while hiding behind the symbol of a flag.
Perhaps you remember the Oscar-nominated movie "12 Angry Men." It's the story of an all-male, all-white jury meeting for a slam-dunk guilty-of-murder-one verdict against a Spanish teenager. Except for one lone juror, known only as No. 8. He quietly, persistently presents his arguments, asks questions and refuses to be diverted by emotional outbursts or personal attacks until he persuades the other jurors to examine the case logically and objectively.
On Tuesday night, President Barack Obama laid out an encouraging reminder of what America is all about: a country that succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does his or her fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules. He talked about an America where hard work pays off, so that you can raise a family, save for the future, and create even better opportunities for your children.
Just as the politics of oil shaped the 20th century industrial economy, so the politics of data will shape the 21st century digital economy.
Gabrielle Giffords submitted her resignation as a U.S. representative from Arizona before Congress on Wednesday, and an initial reaction might be a sense of despair about her decision to step aside. Many have imposed a narrative of national recovery on Giffords' ability to run for her office again and take her oath in a clear strong voice.
The first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution is today. Egyptian society and the forces in Egypt are in a state of anticipation. World media has its cameras and correspondents in Cairo and major cities around the country. But many Egyptians wonder if the revolution amounted to nothing more than a military coup.
President Obama used the State of the Union address to outline an agenda for the coming year and, more importantly, to define what his goals would be should he be re-elected in November.
For a century, the bedrock principle of our tax code has been progressivity: The rich pay a larger share of income than the middle class and poor. Yet Mitt Romney's revelation that he paid 14% in federal income taxes on more than $40 million in income in 2010 and 2011 reveals an increasingly open secret: Progressivity is dead for the superrich.
Count on it. President Obama will devote three sentences to immigration reform in the State of the Union.
In the age of the cell phone, in which every public space buzzes with the conversation of strangers, is it any surprise that a silent movie has captured the public imagination? On Tuesday "The Artist," a silent movie about the transition to sound, was nominated for 10 Oscars.
Mitt Romney wasted no time in Monday night's Republican presidential debate. He began his very first answer with a prolonged attack on Newt Gingrich.
Our esteemed CNN colleague Ari Fleischer says we don't understand Republicans.
On a cool January morning, Israeli ambulances sped to the site of a simulated terrorist attack in Haifa, the country's largest port city. In keeping with the script for the long-planned civil defense exercise, emergency workers responded to a suicide car bomb with one element the country has not experienced in the dozens of real terrorist bombings over the years: this simulated attack dispersed nuclear materials, a "dirty bomb" laced with radioactive Cesium 137.
"Will my child still qualify for a diagnosis of autism?" This is the question on the minds of many parents with children who have autism. The short answer is: Most likely, yes.
People are turning. The misery is too widespread. The privileged are too brazen. The injustice too apparent.
As Americans read about the flood of private money that is going into the current presidential campaign, most can't help but shake their heads in disgust about how our democracy functions.
I am sitting here in front of my computer, looking at the headline that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has died, and I honestly don't know how or what I should feel. If he had passed a year ago, it would be a no-brainer. For a World War II soldier who dedicated more than 50 years to one institution and one wife during a time in which examples of both grow rarer by the decade, it seems flags should be flown at half staff.
Anytime James Carville, Paul Begala and David Axelrod hold hands and jump for joy, it's worth pondering how to turn their joy into tears.
You know that a news story has broken through, as we like to say in the journalism business, when Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart start playing it for laughs. In the last few weeks, the dynamic duo of Comedy Central has had a field day with the subject of super PACs, those fundraising machines that can raise unlimited donations to fund political ads, provided that they are not officially affiliated with a specific candidate.
It was the perfect storm. Newt Gingrich seized on one of the wildest weeks ever in primary politics to win Saturday's South Carolina Republican presidential primary, taking 40% of the vote in a contest that showed Republicans are energized and focused on beating President Obama.
The dragon is the Chinese counterpart of the phoenix rising from the ashes of destruction. And as we bring in the Year of the Dragon Monday, the most important of the years in the Chinese Zodiac, let's consider a great opportunity -- and an awe-inspiring responsibility -- to create an ethical world together.
It's been a truism in American politics for over 30 years: South Carolina is where insurgent, underdog candidacies go to die. McCain beats Huckabee. Bush beats McCain. Dole and Bush beat Buchanan. The challenger is retired, and the front-runner begins to look ahead to November.
Newt Gingrich has pulled a Double Lazarus, coming back from the dead twice in this campaign to win decisively in South Carolina.
In a stunning achievement for unionists and Democrats, critics of the Wisconsin governor Scott Walker marshaled over a million signatures for a petition that has made it possible for Walker to lose his office in a recall election this spring. If so, that would be the first successful gubernatorial recall in Wisconsin history and only the third in that of the United States.
All presidential primaries matter, but some matter more than most.
When someone asks when the Republican Party abandoned its longstanding position as the party of family values, we will all be able to say it was shortly after 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on January 19, 2012, in Charleston, South Carolina.
If you missed the press conference after the State Department announcement that the Keystone XL pipeline had been canceled, you missed a heck of a show.
If Thursday night's robust CNN debate is any indication, the Republican presidential race in South Carolina is tightening.
If I were a conservative Republican in South Carolina and Thursday night's debate was the first I'd watched during this primary season, the choice would be easy. Rick Santorum. I know: It surprised me, too.
Rick Perry's decision to pull out of the Republican primary before the South Carolina vote on Saturday could provide just the boost that Newt Gingrich, or even Rick Santorum, needs to edge out Mitt Romney. Should this happen, would it be bad for the former Massachusetts governor? In the long run, it might actually help him.
The growing number of foreign websites that offer counterfeit or stolen goods continues to threaten American technology, products and jobs. Illegal counterfeiting and piracy costs the U.S. economy $100 billion and thousands of jobs every year. Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while some of America's most profitable and productive industries are under attack.
"I'm just gonna put a little more butter in there, y'all," she said as she plopped a large chunk into the skillet. "Oh my," she added, "I've gone and put a whole stick in by now."
One of the lessons of modern American presidential history is that there is nothing more devastating than turning a candidate's supposed strength into a weakness. Karl Rove masterfully made John Kerry's distinguished military service a liability through a series of Swift Boat attacks in the 2004 campaign.
Today, Rick Perry finally announced he was suspending his presidential campaign and, in doing so, ending the excruciating parade of mistakes and miscalculations that left many in the national audience wondering how this guy ever got elected governor of Texas. But as we review all the political errors and bone-headed gaffes the campaign committed over the last six months, the biggest mistake is easy to miss: Perry and his team didn't stick with the strategies that made them such a strong political force in his home state.
The cloak of inevitability that Mitt Romney has been wearing -- on again, off again -- is suddenly and dramatically off again. Just as he seemed poised to wrap up the GOP nomination in South Carolina, Romney has been hit with a triple dose of bad news:
In their attacks on the food stamp program, some Republican presidential candidates are leaving a deeply misleading impression of the nation's leading anti-hunger program. No one aspires to enroll, but for those who must, it is an essential lifeline that addresses one of the harshest impacts of poverty and unemployment -- hunger.
For many millions of years, the oceans have been filled with the sounds of a geologically and biologically active planet: waves, rain, earthquakes and the songs of life from snapping shrimp to great whales. Before the age of engine-driven ships, the resounding voices of the great whales could be heard across an ocean.
After complaining about a barrage of negative ads that has put his campaign into a tailspin, Newt Gingrich, supported by some super PACs, is waging a bloody last stand in South Carolina against the clear GOP front-runner, Mitt Romney. Gingrich's drop-off and his look to negative ads as a way to revive his standing shows just how powerful the role negative advertising plays in our modern day campaigns.
As someone who has had the great honor of commanding four different ships for the United States Coast Guard, I have watched the news about the Costa Concordia -- the grounding of the vessel and the resulting death of at least 11 people -- from the perspective of a seagoing captain.
The world was shocked and astounded to learn of the wreck of the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast. How could a modern, state-of-the-art passenger vessel have succumbed to such a gross navigational error in well-charted waters, in clear visibility and calm conditions?
Something remarkable is happening Wednesday. A large swath of the Internet is blacking out in protest of two controversial copyright bills being considered in Congress. Major Web juggernauts such as Google and Wikipedia, some graduate schools and a number of start-ups and prominent advocates are participating in what is expected to be the largest organized online protests in more than a decade.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
It has now been certified officially: Germany is special, at least in the eyes of ratings agency Standard & Poor's.
Lately it's hard to tell the difference between a presidential debate and "The Jerry Springer Show." Yeah, I know. Some of you have been saying this for months. But my comment isn't a criticism of the candidates, but the live audience. I was hoping this audience "whoop" factor would go away over the long debate season, but it has only grown worse.
Job hopping has become routine for professionals even in this poor economy. In fact, the average American will have about nine jobs between the ages of 18 and 32 reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Loading weather data ...
© 2011 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|