In 2013, Vice President Joe Biden stated as fact that Jewish industry leaders in Hollywood and social media had more to do with the normalization of America's perception of gay marriage than any other force.
On Sunday's "Meet the Press," host Chuck Todd raised an issue that is getting more and more attention from the media: the record proportion of voters who call themselves independents - and their lack of a voice in the upcoming presidential election. Here is part of the transcript...
CHUCK TODD:
The growing number of voters who don't affiliate with either major political party is reshaping our political system perhaps more than you may realize. How? Let's take a look at this.
On July 5, Greek citizens decisively voted "no" on a 68-word referendum about whether to accept a proposal from international financial institutions. The proposal involved the creditors extending a bailout program to Greece in exchange for new austerity measures.
The referendum was the culmination of a week of tensions between the Greek government and the creditors, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB), and leading European politicians.
A recent NBC poll confirms that the partisan political environment is, in fact, taking a toll on the two major parties, with voter registration revealing that self-identified independents are the fastest growing voting bloc in America.
The Illinois special election primary to fill the seat of a resigned congressman is scheduled for Tuesday. Despite being the only election occurring in the country, there has been little enthusiasm or attention for the race.
. . . the idea of the future being different from the present is so repugnant to our conventional modes of thought and behavior that we, most of us, offer a great resistance to acting on it in practice. -- John Maynard Keynes, 1937
For a little more than two decades, the CIA, in conjunction with the director of National Intelligence, has created a forward looking document called Global Trends every four years for use by the Executive Branch for policy-making.
On June 26, I attended an event in Cambridge, Massachusetts called the City Dance Party. Every year thousands of people flock to this event from all over the Greater Boston Area. The streets ringing City Hall are closed down, and for a few hours the square in front of City Hall is turned into an enormous dance party. At night, the front of City Hall is lit up with swirling lights while colored spotlights pan over the jubilant crowd.
As the event neared its end, the energy of the crowd was surging, and in the darkness someone began to waive the rainbow flag of LGBT pride.
There's a Fourth of July celebration that hasn't happened during my lifetime. In fact, it was 55 years ago the last time it was celebrated -- the addition of the 49th and 50th stars to the American flag.
By law, the new flag is designed by executive order, and then first hoisted on the July 4 immediately following the date of statehood.
This week a handful of presidential hopefuls touted the millions in campaign donations they racked up during the second quarter of 2015. Official FEC disclosures will not be available until later this month; however, some candidates (Clinton, Sanders, and Carson) are choosing to boast about their early campaign fundraising.
He won't likely get much attention from the mainstream media, but one-term U.S. senator and former Navy secretary Jim Webb launched his presidential campaign on Thursday. Webb made the announcement on his campaign website and brings the total number of Democratic presidential candidates to five.