The budget deal hammered out this week between Republican and Democratic negotiators literally imperils the economy. Congress is doing Wall Street's bidding with this budget, and it needs to be stopped.

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Consistency is the hobgoblin of little countries: Superpowers can do whatever they wish. But the United States enjoys only the illusion of free rein. In fact, America is held hostage by the very way it conducts its foreign policy.

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A half-century later, my father's words are still powerful, still relevant. Justice, racial equality, and the Beloved Community that he often described are still, to paraphrase Victor Hugo, ideas whose time has come. In fact, their time is long overdue.

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If organic movements emanating from the grassroots are to possess any lasting quality, it can ill-afford to be leaderless. Leadership need not be a single individual, but a clear and concise message that participants can agree that also carries the power of moral persuasion.

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Because of decisions likely to be taken this year and next, nuclear weapons will become a normalized and permanent part of the 21st-century American arsenal, and therefore of the arsenals of many other nations; nuclear weapons, that is, will have become an essential element of the human future -- as long as that future lasts.

It is two years before the next presidential election, and the anti-Hillary hit squad is already revving up its engines. But the various efforts by the professional Clinton-haters to demonize Hillary have already been exposed to the light and rejected by the public.

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One theme is emerging loud and clear: if the world is serious about addressing the climate crisis, we must get off fossil fuels--completely. This is a new frame for the climate negotiations and it's revolutionary in its implications.

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I'm talking, of course, about the nuclear faith. That's the Cold War belief that a U.S. arsenal big enough to destroy several Earth-sized planets and on a hair-trigger alert remains crucial to the preservation of the American way of life.

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Few of the "emerging" rights have yet garnered sufficient consensus to be considered established universal rights. But what the political nature of human rights does point to is this: each one of us has a role to play in shaping the human rights of the future.

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Just as no person of good faith denies the extraordinary challenges and heroisms of being a police officer, no person willing to listen should ignore the times we shield our eyes, hurrying past a police officer demeaning and humiliating someone, usually poorer and too often a person of color.

If you're a Congressperson looking to sneak through something shady, the omnibus budget bill is the perfect opportunity since 1) It's 1600 pages long and relatively easy to hide things in, and 2) Congress has to pass it or the government shuts down. Again.

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The disquieting truth is that there was never to be an indictment in this case, which on simple legal grounds should have moved to trial, because the US justice system knows no justice when it comes to African-Americans.

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Just when it appeared we had achieved consensus that climate change was a major threat to our health and our communities, enter Inhofe and his supporters to launch us back to a worldview when the Earth was flat and tobacco smoke was good for you. Come January, God help us.

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While a pardon might help Wahlberg do more in his philanthropic and civic endeavors, for millions of non-celebrity ex-offenders and their families in New York State criminal record sealing or expungement would help pay the rent and put food on the table.

If we don't see justice as a reality for African-Americans from street level on up through the system, from the unwarranted stops to unfair arrests to uneven sentencing, wrongful conviction and unjustifiable homicide, then how can we believe justice is possible?

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All of this back and forth over whether or not torture is effective (it's not), whether it protected us from terrorist attacks (it did not), whether it led us to the hiding place of Osama Bin Laden (it did not) means nothing.

How should we rank order the following in terms of their importance in how we want our government to behave: morally; legally, constitutionally, effectively? Of course, we want all these things, but when push comes to shove, as it does for an individual government worker in the CIA, a government agency, and a nation, what matters most?