Snowden says U.S. and Britain spy on friends as well as foes

In the middle of the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland early this week, the host, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and his closest international partner, President Obama, were embarrassed by the latest revelations of secret spying sprung on them by elusive whistle-blower Edward Snowden. 

NSA surveillance power shows technology is trumping liberty

The National Security Agency's program of scooping up raw data on nearly every phone call placed in the United States should freak us all out – not so much because of what the agency is doing, but because it has the technological capability to do it.

NSA surveillance program is one of many Big Brothers watching

In principle, the National Security Agency’s vast data collection operation is troubling, but, in the age of Google and Facebook, it feels like having just one more Big Brother in a growing family of Big Brothers.

Obama presidency, born in hope, is boxed in by unrelenting GOP

At dinner a couple of days ago, my friend Janey Ireson said how disappointed she is that Barack Obama has been hemmed in by congressional Republicans and blocked from fulfilling the high expectations of those who supported his rise to the presidency. The next day at lunch, another friend, Colin Gray, expressed precisely the same sentiment.

Taking on Hollywood: 'Game of Thrones,' 'Iron Man' and much more

If you are wondering what the cartoon above is all about, I confess it is a tease. To see the entire image -- my take on the HBO series, "Game of Thrones" -- you'll need to go to the blog, Company Town or wait to see it in our Sunday newspaper.

Michelle Obama puts the spotlight on rude political discourse

First Lady Michelle Obama has shown us all how to deal with the nastiness that has infected American politics: do not indulge it. 

Rape of American woman in India shows how women travel with peril

The gang rape of a 30-year-old American woman in India on Tuesday is the latest horrific reminder that women travel in a more dangerous world than men.

Government dysfunction, part 3: U.S. pols let China win future

Despite prognostications otherwise, it is not inevitable that the United States will cede its place as the world’s leading nation to China. But if the American political system remains as dysfunctional as it is today, China may rise above us by default.

Government dysfunction, part 2: Centrist Republicans are extinct

My boyhood political hero was a guy named Dan Evans. The rare Republican candidate elected in the Democratic landslide of 1964, Evans served three terms as governor of Washington. Upon the death of Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson in 1983, Evans was appointed to the open Senate seat and then easily won a special election to complete Jackson’s term.

Government dysfunction, part 1: The unaddressed 'sequester' mess

First, members of Congress set a trap that would bite hard if they failed to break the political gridlock and come up with a grand bargain on the budget. Then, having failed, they let the trap spring shut. And now, they continue to blunder and bluster as the country remains locked in the vise grip of the so-called sequester.

College grads still face a struggle to find that first good job

The American employment picture may finally be brightening a bit, but for the tens of thousands of young people being handed diplomas in the next few weeks at colleges and universities across the land, more gloom is in the forecast.

Apple, America’s richest, most innovative consumer technology company, is also the most creative in hiding billions of dollars in profits from the taxman, according to congressional investigators. But on Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed out that his company’s creative tax sheltering, far from being illegal, is made possible by the loophole-ridden tax laws of the United States. 

Now that more extensive, dispassionate reporting has been done about the "scandal” at the IRS, it is abundantly obvious that what is being called “targeting” of tea party organizations and other conservative groups was the result of bureaucratic confusion, not political conspiracy.

On Wednesday, President Obama fired the head of the Internal Revenue Service, the first sacrificial lamb brought down after the alleged “targeting” of conservative political groups by the IRS. Obama declared, “Americans are right to be angry about it.” Call me out of step, but I am angrier that the president is joining the rush to judgment.

The revelation that conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status were singled out for special attention by Internal Revenue Service bureaucrats has given Republicans their best cudgel yet to beat on the Obama administration. But as the outrage revs into high gear, let me offer a contrarian perspective: As inept as the IRS may have been in the way they processed applications for 501(c)(4) status, the bigger scandal is that the IRS grants the tax-exempt designation to so many overtly political organizations, treating them as if they are no more engaged in partisan politics than the Girl Scouts. 

How you feel about Benghazi very likely has everything to do with your political leanings. If you think the Obama administration is covering up a scandal bigger than Watergate, you are almost certainly a Republican. If you think Republicans in Congress are simply trying to gain political advantage by exploiting the terrorist attack against the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11, you are very likely a Democrat.

Republicans could make an easy hit on the Obama administration by highlighting the State Department’s apparent bureaucratic blundering during and after the deadly terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last fall, but they refuse to settle for such a small political prize. Instead, they have got themselves all steamed up and snarling about heinous, impeachable offenses that are figments of their imaginations.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is worried enough about an early death due to obesity that, two weeks ago under a fake name, he checked himself into a hospital and had lap-band surgery on his stomach. It is being reported that having his tummy tied has already cut his food intake enough to help him shed 40 pounds.

One hundred prisoners held in the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are engaged in a hunger strike -- a desperate attempt to get the attention of President Obama, who was elected in 2008 having promised to shut the place down. Not only did Obama fail to close the facility, his administration has neglected to appoint anyone to oversee repatriation of the 86 current prisoners who have been cleared for release.

This week, a 5-year-old Kentucky boy was playing with the mini-rifle he had gotten as a gift and ended up shooting and killing his 2-year-old sister. Apparently, even kindergartners have a right to keep and bear arms that shall not be infringed.

The retirement plans of more and more Americans are about as connected to reality as Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Grim is exactly what it is going to be for these folks when, in their 70s, their 401(k)s have petered out, they have no pensions and no income except what they get from the tottering Social Security system.

The hawks are squawking. Congressional conservatives and the right-wing media are blasting President Obama for going soft on the Syrians.

The people of Los Angeles would be up in arms if some out-of-town billionaires tried to buy the Dodgers and institute a rule that only right-handers could play on the team. Petitions would be signed, protests would be organized and politicians would rise up to condemn the sale. It would be nice if there were a similar outcry at the prospect of the Koch brothers buying the Los Angeles Times.

Like finding new friends on Facebook or a great deal on EBay, it is easy to locate fiery, radical Islamist imams on the Internet who will guide the willing toward the path of bomb making, random slaughter and martyrdom. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the accused Boston Marathon bomber who died in a shootout with police a week ago, seems to have connected with a number of these firebrand theologians in exactly that way.

Since Mitt Romney lost to President Obama on Nov. 6, the conventional wisdom has been that the Republican Party is in trouble. The less conventional truth is that it is the Democrats whose chances many be more bleak.

Here is a political object lesson from the seamier, steamier end of the entertainment business: The new law in Los Angeles County requiring actors in pornographic films to wear condoms seems merely to have pushed the smutty movie industry into the quiet residential areas of unincorporated Ventura County. The lesson? Passing a law to banish unhealthy behavior does not necessarily solve a problem, it just kicks it to another place or directly into a courtroom.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of the two brothers accused of perpetrating the Boston Marathon bombing, is the baffling mystery man in this crime.

Usually, it would be best to ignore conspiracy-mongers such as Alex Jones and not reward him and his angry gaggle of paranoiac followers with any sort of attention. But, in a week when thoughts of the dead and maimed victims of the Boston Marathon bombings weigh heavy on the hearts and minds of most Americans, it is worth pointing out what a worthless waste of skin and bones Jones and his minions happen to be. 

Polls indicate that 80% to 90% of Americans support expanded background checks for firearms sales, but on Wednesday such a plan could not get 60 votes in the United States Senate. In the White House Rose Garden, surrounded by families of children gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School, President Obama called the Senate vote “shameful” and declared that this was “just Round 1” in the fight to get gun safety legislation adopted by Congress.

The terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon is yet another cause for despair. It places the hometown of Paul Revere, Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty in company with Mumbai, Karachi and Baghdad, as well as Oklahoma City.

The Republican National Committee’s Spring gathering is taking place this week at Loews Hollywood. That is not Hollywood, Fla., or Hollywood, S.C., or Hollywood, Ala. – all real towns in really red states – but Hollywood, Calif., the place where Sean Penn, Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, George Clooney and the rest of the entertainment industry’s liberal horde earn their keep.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un seems like a fictional character out of a satirical doomsday movie -- maybe a sequel to “Dr. Strangelove.” That fact that this immature brat and his gaggle of grim, aging generals actually rule a country and have the capacity to disturb the international order seems absurd in an era of global interdependence.

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, says his party needs to be retooled. Republicans, he says, need to reach out to minorities, show a willingness to work with those who do not agree with them 100% and find a way to convince young people that the GOP does not stand for Goofy Old Paranoids. 

President Obama wants to invest an initial $110 million in a study of the human brain that could have benefits as great as those achieved by the Human Genome Project. Maybe the first study should be done on the one-track minds of tea party Republicans, who will undoubtedly oppose funding for the study because their brains are fixated on the single idea that government can do nothing right.

Kim Jong Un is an absurdly comical figure. If he were not holding the fate of millions of people in his hands, the North Korean dictator would provide us all with nothing but laughs. 

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has heard the arguments on both sides of California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the smart bet seems to be that, though both restrictions on same-sex marriage are very likely to be struck down, the court is not going to make a sweeping ruling that will allow homosexuals to marry in all 50 states.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will not be facing a challenge from actress Ashley Judd when he runs for reelection next year. Though he may be happy to have avoided the physical comparison -- she, after all, played Marilyn Monroe in a movie, while he looks like an ancient sea turtle dressed in a $1,000 suit -- the Kentucky Republican may miss having such an attractive target for his attack machine.

My friend Mark says he is against gay marriage – but it’s the marriage part, not the gay part he finds objectionable. Mark is a confirmed bachelor who marvels that anyone would want to get married. Still, he says, if gays and lesbians are crazy enough to want to tie the knot, they have as much right to do it as anyone else.

This week, the United States Supreme Court is delving into arguments about same-sex marriage and doing so with apparent reluctance and unease.

Jay Leno had to know the head honchos at NBC were gunning for him when he told the following joke Monday night: "You know the whole legend of St. Patrick, right?" he asked the audience in his opening monologue. "St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland — and then they came to the United States and became NBC executives."

This week, realizing that government actually does do some things people like, senators in both parties tried to undo some of the damage wrought by the sequester/fiscal cliff debacle. Their efforts were quickly undone, however, by the chronic dysfunction of the United States Congress. 

This time, we dodged a bullet. Another mass shooting – the sort of bloody event that seems to happen on a weekly basis – was averted Monday when James Oliver Seevakumara chose to shoot himself before he could carry out his plot to shoot a bunch of his fellow students at the University of Central Florida.

A new report commissioned by the Republican National Committee reads like an anti-GOP critique from the “lame stream media.” It describes the party as too rigidly ideological, too in thrall to greedy corporations, too disconnected from nonwhite and young voters, and in desperate need of new ideas.

For the first time in history, the Roman Catholic Church has a pope from the New World, but liberal American Catholics should not expect Pope Francis to stray far from the old theology. Some things are excitingly different about this new pontiff. On matters of birth control, abortion, homosexuality, celibate priests and the role of women in the church, however, he is no revolutionary.

Both Republicans and Democrats say concern about the middle class is at the heart of the ongoing, vituperative debate over taxes, entitlements and fiscal discipline, but the political spat never seems to honestly address the gaping and growing class divide in the United States. As politicians in Washington slam one another over competing budget priorities, most avoid facing up to the disturbing question behind all the numbers: Is the American Dream temporarily stalled or permanently kaput?

Here’s a riddle: If gun ownership is declining, why are so many guns being sold?

President Obama had a dinner date Wednesday night with a dozen of his worst enemies, thus proving that the governmental stalemate in Washington, D.C., is driving him to unusual acts of political creativity -- or desperation. 

The United States Congress has reached a new low in callous disregard for the people of this country. One would hope a price would be paid for failing to stop the budget sequestration before dramatic cuts in programs began to kick in, but given the realities of our political system, only common citizens, not politicians, are likely to suffer as a result of this mess.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is alleged to be one of the great intellects of conservative jurisprudence, but his comments during oral arguments over a challenge to the 1965 Voting Rights Act displayed all the mental acuity of a third-tier talk radio bozo.

When Pope Celestine V quit his job in 1294, his successor locked him in prison and kept him there until he died. Pope Benedict XVI will not suffer the same sad fate. When he resigns Thursday, not only will he not be jailed, exiled or even sent to a retirement home. He will get to stay in the Vatican.

The delusions of tea party Republicans are about to create a lot of misery for America. The "sequester" -- the drastic set of budget cuts formerly known as the "fiscal cliff" -- seems very likely to go into effect at the end of this week due in no small part to the fact that hyper-conservative lawmakers, such as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, actually think it's a pretty swell idea. 

The Oscar for best picture was won by "Argo," the true tale of a secret rescue mission in Iran during the Carter administration. It beat out "Lincoln," the story of how black Americans were rescued from slavery. Does this mean that Jimmy Carter's stock is on the rise? Nope, but Ben Affleck has certainly become a blue-chip player in Hollywood.

Republicans make the claim that their party represents the concerns of average, hard-working, family-centered Americans. It is a curious claim, given that their party unfailingly opposes any measure that gives those average Americans a break. 

In one episode of "Seinfeld," hapless George Costanza was hired as a stunt hand for a movie. Predictably, things went awry and poor George's hand never made a cinematic debut. In the days leading up to the 2013 Academy Awards ceremony, my own hand fared far better performing a tiny but stellar role in a documentary about the great Washington Post editorial cartoonist, Herblock.

Another season of "Downton Abbey" has swiftly gone by, and those of us who are fans deserve a break.

The 10-ton meteor that streaked into Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph and exploded above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk was a reminder that the universe is not such a hospitable place. Still, though hundreds of people were injured and thousands of windows were shattered, no one died and repairs can be made. By comparison, the terrestrial havoc wrought by Hurricane Sandy in the northeastern United States was far more devastating. 

It is no wonder Florida Sen. Marco Rubio needed to grab a bottle of water in the middle of delivering the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. The speech he was given to recite was like a hunk of stale, dry sourdough and it surely caught in his throat. 

Pope Benedict XVI knows how to keep a secret. In a world of strategic leaks, gabby underlings, intrusive paparazzi and cyber-hackers, the pope was able to pull off a surprise when he announced his plan to step down as head of the Roman Catholic Church at the end of the month.

What appears to be the fiery finale to Christopher Dorner's violent rampage across Southern California nearly upstaged President Obama's State of the Union address. As the seconds ticked down to the start of the speech, it seemed as though Anderson Cooper and the folks at CNN were awfully reluctant to break away from the burning cabin near Big Bear where the disgruntled, unhinged ex-cop from the Los Angeles Police Department appeared to be holed up. 

It is certainly not what he hoped or intended, but one of President Obama’s biggest legacies in foreign affairs may prove to be the proliferation of drones as tools of war, assassination and terror.

As AOL used to say, “You’ve got mail!” But maybe not on Saturdays if the mail you are looking for is being delivered by the much-maligned “snail mail” of the United States Postal Service.

Republicans have become a devious party that believes if you cannot win by following fair rules, there is nothing wrong with rigging the game. To their constitutionally endorsed advantage in the Senate, they have added a manipulated advantage in the House of Representatives that some Republicans would like to leverage into an advantage in presidential elections.

Cardinal Roger Mahony has been relieved of his public duties by Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry has quit his job as regional bishop in Santa Barbara. And the website of the Catholic archdiocese of L.A. is displaying tens of thousands of pages of formerly secret files detailing accusations of child molestation against 122 priests -- all the church’s dirty laundry that Mahony and Curry did their best to hide for many years.

A glimpse of political oblivion has suddenly inspired at least some Republicans to push for comprehensive immigration reform. But this does not guarantee that, six months from now, an immigration bill will be sent to the president or that, even if it is, Republicans will be saved from approaching demographic doom. 

Since the beginning of the republic, there has been a dynamic tension between constantly expanding diversity driven by immigration and the relentless homogenizing force of common American culture. And there’s nothing like a long drive on an interstate highway to remind a person of that reality.

Gun owners truly have nothing to worry about. There are no federal commandos coming to break down their doors and take away their guns.