opinion

Luxury versus necessity. That’s the debate around every kitchen table these days, and it is reflected in Congress. American families need to cut back and stretch their budgets, and Congress needs to cut way back in order to regain some semblance of fiscal sanity. But while American families deal painfully …

When I came out yesterday morning, there were helicopters over my neighborhood. I couldn’t see them from the sidewalk. Buildings were blocking the view. But a few blocks south of me, two or three of them were definitely hovering up there. And it wasn’t the sound of puny news copters …

Getting kicked out of the top job at the International Monetary Fund turned out to be a brilliant business move for Dominique Strauss–Kahn. He still has to face trial for allegedly sexually abusing a powerless chambermaid at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan. But not to worry, the International Monetary Fund …

That was quite a mob takedown. “Meatball” and “Mush” and “Johnny Pizza” and “Jello” all got rousted. And don’t forget KSM and his crew. OK, that last part was a trick. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in the news again because Attorney General Eric Holder can’t help himself. In Brooklyn to …

Keeping hard working men and women employed is a serious challenge today. Competition is vicious and it seems like every day there is a new regulation or proposed legislation that will make our investment even more risky. No private business person I know is very optimistic. The perception of our …

President Obama’s “Renewed Nationalism” speech on Tuesday sets important themes for his 2012 campaign, and offers him a chance to win back the vital center of American politics. His focus on fairness, income inequality and the plight of the middle class is his best chance to overcome what is, at …

The 2,315 page Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that passed the Senate 60-39 on Thursday and will be signed by President Obama next week should not be called “financial reform.” Instead, it should be called what for what it is: pages and pages of massively costly, counterproductive and possibly unconstitutional mandates …

On December 1 Salon.com published an article that suggests that exposure to pornography can help protect children from exposure to sex abuse. — This is something like teaching children to be pickpockets in order to prevent them from living a lifetime of crime. — The article’s headline “Could child porn …

With regard to our energy independence, the BP oil disaster should be a call to action. Everyone knows we are dependent on fossil fuels coming from foreign sources yet; no one to date has the will to do anything serious and credible about it. Nuclear energy is the Holy Grail …

As one of the almost million volunteers who went to help after Hurricane Katrina (about one out of every 230 adults in the United States) I have seen the devastation and recovery first hand. At first it seemed totally unbelievable, as if the country had moved from first world status …