U.S. homeowners don’t need another reduction in their mortgage payments. What they need is a break on their debts. As President Barack Obama prepares to present his job-creation plans to Congress this week, his advisers are studying what some economists have called a “slam-dunk stimulus.” The idea:

Sept. 8, 2011

The Nuclear Security Summit, scheduled for March 2012, will bring approximately 50 heads of state to Seoul. It will be the single largest gathering of world leaders in South Korea in the nation’s history. While the G20 aided Korea’s recognition as a developed country, the NSS will propel the country

Sept. 8, 2011

Sarah Palin is learning that attention is a depreciating asset. Her latest melodrama revolved around whether she would show up at a Tea Party event in Iowa on Saturday. In the end, she did. Yet that only begged a question: Does anyone, including Republican primary voters, still care? In 2009, Palin

Sept. 8, 2011

Driving couldn’t possibly be worse than heading toward Allentown on an unfamiliar, dark highway, with walls of rain splashing away decent visibility and tractor-trailers barreling by with no regard for the treacherous road conditions.It was Thursday last week, and you’d have thought Hurricane Irene

Sept. 8, 2011

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ushered in a new era of cooperation with a foreign policy that brings the country closer to the U.S. than it has been in decades. Vive la France. The fall of Muammar Qaddafi’s brutal dictatorship in Libya wouldn’t have been possible without Sarkozy’s leadership.

Sept. 7, 2011

They came great distances across dangerous seas in overcrowded ships to land at various points on the coast. More than 800 boats made it during an 80-year period, each carrying fragile human cargoes. Lack of sanitation, poor food and disease were commonplace, sexual and other forms of violence were

Sept. 7, 2011

Few people in their right mind would find any good in a $31 billion loss. In India’s case, it may just be the best thing that has happened in a very long time. Let’s flash forward 20 years to what school kids will learn about recent events. Sure, they may hear about Anna Hazare, the anti-corruption

Sept. 7, 2011

The ethos of Ebenezer Scrooge is now infecting federal disaster relief.It was inevitable that this bipartisan practice ― helping storm-tossed Americans, regardless of the cost ― would become politicized. After all, if ``tea party’’ Republicans would hold the debt ceiling hostage, in exchange for a h

Sept. 6, 2011

Taxes are in bad political odor these days. True, there has been no era in which taxation was popular, but we seem to have reached a moment of particular confusion. We have one major party dedicated to the bizarre principle that nothing that is not taxed now should ever be taxed again, and another d

Sept. 6, 2011

On or about Sept. 3, 1592, Robert Greene died from eating too many pickled herrings and drinking too much Rhine wine, or Rhenish, as the English called it in those days. I learned this from a poetry anthology ― a gift from my mother ― containing some of Greene’s poems along with a brief biography th

Sept. 6, 2011

We just endured and survived a major political crisis over the possibility that the U.S. government might default on its debts. Most people ― other than a few high-stakes poker players on the right wing of the Republican Party ― agreed that this would be a terrible thing. But now, a growing number o

Sept. 5, 2011

Does Barack Obama care that the terrorist convicted only a decade ago of killing 189 Americans is reportedly running around Libya?The Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was tried in the U.K. and then released two years ago ― but only on “compassionate grounds” because he was supposed to die wi

Sept. 5, 2011