As someone who grew up in another country (India) awash in conspiracy theories of American involvement in local politics, I believe that the best thing for Americans can do right now to support democracy in Iran is ... nothing. Stay out of it.

MediaBistro is reporting that legendary 92-year-old newsman Walter Cronkite is gravely ill. It's hard to believe there was a time when a network news anchor was known for professionalism and compassion. When a network news division dared challenge the powers that be.

One year ago today, my husband and I got legally married on the courthouse steps of our county in Southern California. At the time, we never thought that our "progressive" state would overturn the hard-won judicial ruling that finally, finally granted us the right to marry.

It is quite interesting to me the logical relationship that conservative belief systems have with intolerance. It appears to be a directly proportional relationship where the more conservative a person is in their religion, the more intolerant they are. Now, I don't hate all religions and or anyone per se. I don't have one of my own, but I try to respect the beliefs of others. And good arguments can be made for a variety of positions. However, I do believe that no good comes from injecting narrow, religious viewpoints into any government.

The Obama Administration has an obligation to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. Just as an accused criminal gets a free lawyer from the public defender's office (and this offends many on the Right) a federal statute accused of being unconstitutional gets a free lawyer from the Justice Department. Rule of law demands it.

On April 6, 2009, the US Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal from death-row journalist and former Black Panther, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of white Philadelphia Police Officer, Daniel Faulkner, at a 1982 trial deemed unfair by Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Japanese Diet, Nelson Mandela, and numerous others. Citing the Supreme Court denial and several instances of withheld evidence, Abu-Jamal's international support network is now calling for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal's case.

A week after a white supremacist attacked the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and on the day that three teenagers are being sentenced in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, for brutally beating and killing a Mexican immigrant, it's time we confront the fact that behind violently anti-immigrant and supremacist rhetoric is a real urge and a real encouragement for actual violence.

Last week marked six months on the job for President Obama and the 111th Congress. Together, we've already accomplished a lot when it comes to health care reform. Though we've taken the first major steps to reform our broken health care system, there are still many steps left until we finish the job.

We need a health care reform plan which takes power away from insurance bureaucrats who stand between us and our doctors. We need to put the power of medical decision making back into the hands of patients and doctors. We need some real competition from either a public option or non-profit co-ops that will force insurance companies to treat their enrollees as customers instead of mere pawns to be used in the objective of obtaining a higher stock price on those options the executives got last Christmas.

As soon as the St. Louis police officers knocked on the door of the home of Vera Thomas in April 1991, a parade of horribles began which culminated with her son, Reggie Clemons, being convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The case is infected by police brutality, prosecutorial misconduct, witnesses with motivations to give false testimony, dreadful defense lawyering and blatant racism. Contact Missouri Governor Jay Nixon asking him to grant clemency to Reggie Clemons or appoint an independent Board of Inquiry to examine the case.

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