Chris Mooney, 2/8/12

Author, 'The Republican War on Science' and 'The Republican Brain'

From global warming denial to claims about "death panels" to baseless fears about inflation, it often seems there are so many factually wrong claims on the political right that those who make them live in a different reality. Maybe they actually do.

Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres, 2/8/12

It is in nobody's interest to see the Supreme Court's legitimacy damaged as Super PACs increasingly erode Americans' fundamental commitment to democracy. The Court should be given a second-chance to define the meaning of free speech.

Thomas B. Edsall, 2/8/12

Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor, Columbia School of Journalism

The contest for power between Democrats and Republicans pits two antithetical value systems against each other; two conflicting concepts of freedom, liberty, fairness, right, and wrong; two mutually exclusive notions of the state, the individual, and the collective good.

Gary Hart, 2/8/12

President, Hart International, Ltd.

Instead of endlessly and ineffectively interviewing the Santorums of the world, wouldn't it be interesting if just one of the Sunday morning talk programs rounded up George W. Bush and his cohorts to hold them accountable for the monumental act of folly that is still unfolding in Iraq?

Cara Santa Maria, 2/6/12

Science correspondent, Huffington Post; editor, Talk Nerdy to Me

Women make up just about half of the American workforce, but we hold less than a quarter of the STEM jobs. Why is that?

Robert Reich, 2/8/12

Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley; Author, 'Aftershock'

So now a relative handful of super-rich Democrats want to fight a relative handful of super-rich Republicans. And we call this a democracy.

Robert Redford, 2/8/12

Actor, director, and environmental activist

The Keystone XL pipeline doesn't deliver on jobs or national security, it jeopardizes public health and safety and the president was right to reject it.

Dr. Michael J. Breus, 2/8/12

Clinical Psychologist; Board Certified Sleep Specialist

There's still a great deal of information about the effects of sleep on the brain that we don't yet understand, so any research that sheds light on this subject is exciting and potentially important.

Jason Rodi, 2/8/12

Adventurer

We'll be travelling from a cape in South America to Africa, stopping at Bouvet Island, where fewer people have been to than the moon. Both capes represent the toughest seas on Earth, but for me it's much more than that. It's completing the loop from the end of human exploration to the beginning of civilization.

Dominic Carter, 2/8/12

Political television reporter, RNN TV; Author, 'No Momma's Boy'

Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado may not be delegate rich, but Rick Santorum's clean caucus sweep has upended Mitt Romney's aura of inevitability.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, 2/8/12

CEO, Green for All

Green jobs pay higher, are more available to those with only a high school degree -- and are growing faster than jobs in the rest of the economy. It's a smart sector in which to invest.

Mike Lux, 2/8/12

Co-founder and CEO, Progressive Strategies

For about 16 months, we have been hearing that the settlement talks with the big banks are just about to close, but they never do, and it's clear that the major holdup now is bankers crying themselves a river, weeping, moaning, and gnashing their teeth.

Imam Abdullah Antepli, 2/8/12

Muslim Chaplain, Duke University

As we are now in the season of our next presidential election, anti-Muslim sentiments uttered by our political, religious and civic leaders are becoming more and more mainstream and systemic.

Jared Bernstein, 2/8/12

Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Mitt Romney's got real economists on his team. If he wants to make the case that things would be better if we followed his plan, which is explicitly anti-stimulus on jobs and would liquidate the housing market, let's see the economic model for how it would work.

Robert Creamer, 2/8/12

Political Organizer, Strategist, Author; Partner Democracy Partners

Let's be clear, the controversy over the Obama administration's rules that require all employers who provide health insurance to provide birth control without a co-pay to its women employees, has nothing to do with religious freedom.

Arianna Huffington, 2/7/12

The recent reversal by the Susan G. Komen foundation of its decision to no longer fund grants to Planned Parenthood is a case study in how radically social media have changed the way institutions relate to those they purport to serve.

Dr. Marty Klein, 2/8/12

Sex therapist and marriage counselor

While magazines, blogs, and talk shows are full of advice about how to make your lover explode with pleasure, lots of people aren't having sex as much as they wish they were. Here's why.

Dan Collins, 2/8/12

New York Editor-at-Large, The Huffington Post

Do you think there's a celebrity somewhere who'd be interested in taking on legislative redistricting? I know it's quite a lift. But if there was ever a good cause that needed some glamour, this is it.

Shen Tong, 2/8/12

Occupy Wall Street activist

The movement has called for communal conversations in hundreds of American cities to successfully shift national dialogue from hypocritical austerity discussion to social and economic fairness.

Al Checchi, 2/7/12

Author, 'The Change Maker'; chairman, Join Together America; former chairman, Northwest Airlines; former candidate for Governor of California

There is a significant difference between recognizing a woman's "right" to choose and making it the "obligation" of others to pay for or facilitate that choice.

Scott Mendelson, 2/7/12

Film Critic at Mendelson's Memos, Valley Scene Magazine

Perhaps the reason that Denzel Washington has maintained his star power for 20 years is that he still goes out of his way to make 'the kind of movies they just don't make anymore'.

Lincoln Mitchell, 2/7/12

Harriman Institute, Columbia University

Clint Eastwood's appearance and words during the Super Bowl had little to do with Obama. For observers with a long political memory, it was hard not to think of another president when seeing that commercial.

David Katz, M.D., 2/8/12

Director, Yale Prevention Research Center

Even if we were to isolate sugar as public health enemy number one, its regulation would draw us into challenging subtleties.

Emma Goldberg, 2/8/12

17-year-old senior at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York

How can the candidates claim to endorse American leadership, yet reject responsibility for those deprived of freedom and security abroad?