We've now arrived at the era of "feeding the base," telling the most likely voters what they've told consultants they most want to hear -- the clanging echo chamber that passes for modern American political discourse. Just as advertisers' wishes have merged with (if not driven) technological change in the media universe, so in politics: speaking to the larger mass audience is a rare event, limited to special ceremonial occasions like inaugurations. The rest of the messaging is targeted, if not dog-whistled, to specific tranches of the desired constituency, sliced as finely as the mortgages (pre-2008) or the auto loans in modern financial "securities."
The costs to cities, coastlines and crops, as well as to the health and livelihoods of thousands, are mounting. China and the United States show the necessary determination to build a future based on low emissions through clean energy and livable cities because it makes sense for the environment and economies.
If ALEC were an honest broker, it would recommend market-based solutions, like the Republican-inspired, acid rain cap-and-trade program championed by President George H.W. Bush. But that's not likely going to happen, because doing so would alienate its fossil fuel industry and trade association members.
November is "Adopt a Senior Pet Month," and adopting a pet isn't just good for your pet; it's good for you, too. Check out these nine scientifically-researched ways that pets improve the lives of their human companions.
We do not choose the work we were brought into this lifetime to do. That work is your soul signature -- your unique expression. Your spiritual DNA.
I've never voted for a Republican in my life, but I'm tired of terrorism causing us never-ending wars and political paranoia at home. If it's a choice between Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul in 2016, I'm jettisoning many of my liberal values to vote for the Kentucky Senator.
The Democratic Party has core values that are very much in sync with most Americans. But this year, too many Democratic candidates lost sight of those core principles -- opting instead to clip their progressive wings in deference to a conventional wisdom that says bold ideas aren't politically practical.
Whatever you call it, Race to the Top has hurt children, demoralized teachers, closed community schools, fragmented communities, increased privatization, and doubled down on testing. But I have an idea for a new accountability system that relies on different metrics.
Today's an achievement for everyone who's held a banner, signed a petition, and gone to jail -- and a call for many more to join us going forward!
Why does it seem that no one in the small business community is discussing or getting active about a policy issue that has the potential to seriously impact our livelihoods?
Leave it to Netanyahu, however, to use the Gaza experience to justify the continuation of the occupation rather than working out airtight plans with the PA that would entail security measures to ensure that the West Bank does not become a staging ground for attacks on Israel.
You work hard, play hard, and want to live life to the fullest. Yet you can't do that if you don't get the right amount of quality sleep. Don't let sleep deprivation keep you from performing at your peak!
Approaching its 35th anniversary, the strategy of maintaining such a structure of garrisons, troops, planes, and ships in the Middle East has been one of the great disasters in the history of American foreign policy.
Anti-imperialism has survived as a pillar of ideology, as has Sinocentrism and Russocentrism, which focus overwhelmingly on resistance to the United States and its allies.
In the bizarro election of 2014, where the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage backed pro-gay Democratic candidates to show the GOP that they will help defeat any Republican candidate who veers from the evangelical right's agenda, pro-gay hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer helped the anti-gay GOP take control of the U.S. Senate.
The coalition that ran the Prop. 47 campaign shows that bipartisan partnership can work. The voters that passed it into law shows that the public is more than ready to finally end the prison crisis in our country by dramatically reducing incarceration and investing in the smart safety strategies our communities need.
Landmark though the US-Chinese bilateral agreement may be, it is still much more about domestic Chinese priorities than trans-Pacific good will.
I follow the Sikh faith, which requires that I keep my hair long and wear a turban and beard. The ROTC recruiters said I would not be able to enlist unless I complied with all Army grooming and uniform rules.
So much has changed in recent decades -- the influx of women into the workforce, modernizing gender roles, new family structures -- and it makes no sense that our laws haven't kept up with social and economic change. In the second decade of the 21st century, why are we still living by Leave it to Beaver rules?
Most Americans, if we can trust the polls, think our country is on the wrong track. They also seem to think that someone else put us there. Washington knew better. If America is failing, it is because we are failing to be what he knew we should and could be.
Ralph, for whatever reason, your vicious, personal caricature of Hillary Clinton has trashed a great friend of the consumer movement. Don't compound the error you made in 2000.
The real problem in Ferguson is the fact that the residents are stuck with a police department that seemingly lacks ethnic diversity, appears racially insensitive and is unwilling to admit changes within are necessary. The problems of the Ferguson Police Department are cultural and systemic.
As an eternal optimist, I look at Ebola as an opportunity. This is the world's chance to partake in a massive paradigm shift where attention is given to issues before they become catastrophic.
No worker wants to go on strike, but several major trucking companies at these L.A. and Long Beach ports have made working conditions so miserable that many drivers believe they have no choice. So the drivers will be out of their trucks and onto the picket lines this week.
Brush up on your etiquette basics to wow fellow diners (and make your mom proud).
The goal of making Election Day a national holiday is not only to make it easier for people to vote, but to increase attention on the need for us to move toward a vibrant democracy.
Would your marriage be stronger if you and your partner lived apart? When David proposed to Claire after 12 years together, Claire had one question. Would he want to move in? Luckily the answer was no and the now-married couple continue to live happily, apart.
Now is the time to continue to take swift, commonsense action to protect the public from Ebola and other infectious diseases. But first we must address another contagion spreading across the country. We must confront the epidemic of fear.
Obama needs to strongly show that no election instantly changes what the two parties believe, and that all this talk of waving red flags cuts both ways.
When one party has made explicit that its primary goal is to block nearly anything proposed by a sitting president and, further, to undo substantive achievements to date -- when revenge requires all Republican senators and representatives to adhere to that primary goal -- then seeking agreement is seen as a contradiction.