As the debate over health care reform heats up, Republicans in Congress are predictably regurgitating the talking points penned by GOP spinmeister Frank Luntz to once again block progress. Perhaps none of the GOP fearmongers has been more prolific than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Time and again, McConnell has warned that President Obama's proposal "denies, delays, or rations health care." Of course, health care that is denied, delayed and rationed is exactly the crisis Americans face today.

James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen, the ex-military psychologists identified as primary architects of the CIA's "enhanced interrogations techniques" torture program, apparently did not spend all their time on the battlefield. As the Bush administration-approved coercive interrogation techniques spread from Guantanamo and Afghanistan to the new war in Iraq, Mitchell and Jessen were cashing in on their new-found influence.

In Washington perception is often reality and, based on the reported results of two new surveys, one by the New York Times and CBS and the other by the Wall Street Journal and NBC, the perception du jour in DC is that President Barack Obama has lost ground because of public concern with government spending, the deficit, and, perhaps most of all, the General Motors "bailout." But a look beneath the headlines to the survey data itself indicates that New York Times writers, or at least their headline writer, may have misread their own poll results.

Like many I was against the War in Iraq, but believed we had some business to conduct operations in Afganistan in a responsible way. Now, hundreds of billions and probably over a trillion dollars later it does not feel very warm and fuzzy to be proven right on Iraq, and on the "War on Terror" in general. It also does my ego no good to watch my party continue the failed initiatives of the worst president in American history.

I have spent my time polishing my resume networking, practicing my interviewing skills an filling out job applications, and posting my resume to all the recommended job boards. So far I have gotten a few, thanks but no thanks, notices from companies that I have applied. The positive responses that I have gotten have been from the health/life insurance industry.

Considering Pete Hoekstra (R-Holland, MI) feels so down trodden, I thought that it would be interesting to see how his life compares to the Iranians.

We've been lobbying the Department of Justice all these months without realizing that the key to justice lay in the Department of the Interior, and specifically in the National Park Service, which has told activist Steve Lane he will be prosecuted if he attempts to demonstrate waterboarding at Thursday's anti-torture rally in Washington, D.C. The permit for the rally reads "Waterboarding exhibit will not be allowed for safety reasons."

I've been up late every night for a week, watching for news from Iran, doing what I can to help spread the word. Tonight, though, I just wish I could be there. I wish I could be in Tehran today, Saturday, for the Sea of Green. I don't have a lot of Iranian friends. I had a few in college, but we fell out of touch. Those friends taught me what Iran was really like, though. They taught me to see past the rhetoric, Iranian and American, that says Iran is our enemy. They taught me that when you walk out your door, in Tehran or in Manhattan, people aren't so different.

I was hoping they would cancel Father's Day this year, mostly because my son Ezra Malik died. He was my baby boy, and he died the day before he was born, in a hospital in August of last year. We grieving fathers need to know we are not alone this Father's Day.

Health care reform could eliminate spur economic growth, reduce the national debt, and expand access to medical care. On the surface, the costs of health care reform seem staggering. But when one compares the costs and benefits of health care reform, it becomes clear that health care reform could save $1.82 trillion over ten years.

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