House Democrats passed a nearly trillion-dollar so-called stimulus bill last week at the urging of President Obama, but the spending may do little or nothing to get this economy moving again.

A majority minority nation: that’s what the U.S. Census Bureau is projecting by the year 2042, according to new figures released last week.

Washington, D.C., will become a safer place to live and work thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday against the city’s absolute ban on handguns.

Remember when Mother’s Day was a simple affair? The kids woke Mom up with breakfast in bed — Froot Loops floating on a sea of slightly pink milk — and handmade cards.

As if a housing crisis, rising energy costs and a soft labor market weren’t enough to cause economic anxiety for the average American, now consumers are feeling the pinch of rapidly escalating food costs.

A funny thing happened on the way to the election: Many Americans had a change of heart about the war in Iraq.

No, I’m not talking about the large numbers of Americans who now think that the United States should never have gone to war in the first place, or those who want the troops brought home immediately.

The bitter squabbling on the right over the presidential nomination has now entered a dangerous phase. Politics is about winning elections, not winning prizes for ideological purity.

The nasty bickering on the subject of race between Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama got me thinking about the true legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Come November, voters in several states will not only be picking the next president but deciding whether they want to end a system of racial preferences in public higher education and government hiring and contracting.

The world became a more dangerous place this week with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

The country, a linchpin in the war on terrorism, is wracked with violence, endangering not just Pakistanis but all of us. If Islamic fundamentalists are able to exploit the current chaos and gain control of the government — an unspeakable but not inconceivable possibility — we will be faced with a nuclear-armed enemy rather than one that relies on suicide belts and roadside bombs.

His name isn’t yet familiar to most Americans, but I expect it will be by the end of 2008: Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. He is the man, according to recent press reports, who ordered the destruction of interrogation tapes made by the CIA, which allegedly show the effects of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” used against terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

For the past year, Hillary Clinton’s Democratic presidential nomination has seemed inevitable. She raised more money than any presidential candidate in history. She performed well in an endless series of debates. She carved out careful positions on difficult issues, protecting her left flank while not alienating moderates. She used her husband to woo crowds and raise money, while never letting him overshadow her on the hustings.

President Bush seemed at a loss for words this week when he was asked during a press conference if he would use his influence to help a Saudi rape victim who has drawn international attention. The young woman was raped 14 times by seven men and now faces her own imprisonment and 200 lashes in a sentence imposed by a Saudi court.

With housing prices falling, energy prices climbing and the stock market on a roller coaster, it’s no wonder many Americans are worried about their economic condition.

Just in time for the busiest travel week of the year, we have this news from the General Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm: It’s relatively easy to get bomb-making materials through security checkpoints and onto airplanes.

For the second time in as many years, immigration has fizzled as a wedge issue at the polls. In 2006, Republicans hoped to use anger over illegal immigration to maintain control of Congress, but failed miserably, losing races even in states like Arizona and Colorado that have experienced large influxes of illegal aliens.

Judge Michael Mukasey seemed a shoo-in for confirmation to attorney general when he was nominated in September, but now his nomination seems in genuine peril. Democrats who were quick to praise his stellar credentials are suddenly mum on whether they’ll vote for the retired federal judge — that is if his nomination even makes it to the floor of the Senate.

Am I imagining it or is television becoming even more family unfriendly? For years now, primetime television fare has offered a steady diet of comedies that depend on sexual innuendo and situations for laughs, crime dramas that make the world seem like it’s filled with sadistic predators and perverts, often within our own homes, and cable “news” programs that spend as much time dissecting the bizarre antics of this week’s celebrity bad girl (or boy) as they do covering real news.

Am I imagining it or is television becoming even more family unfriendly? For years now, primetime television fare has offered a steady diet of comedies that depend on sexual innuendo and situations for laughs, crime dramas that make the world seem like it’s filled with sadistic predators and perverts, often within our own homes, and cable “news” programs that spend as much time dissecting the bizarre antics of this week’s celebrity bad girl (or boy) as they do covering real news.

An employee who works harder than his colleagues, produces more and generally excels at his job should be paid more than one who is mediocre, or worse, a downright failure, right? Most employers reward good workers with promotions, bonuses and higher pay in order to keep them. But in the one profession you’d think that excellence should be rewarded — namely, teaching — it’s often difficult to do so.

Hillary Clinton has spent years trying to erase the memory of her failed attempt to bring socialized medicine to the United States, but this week the ghost of Hillary Care was lurking in the wings again as she unveiled her new plan to overhaul the nation’s health system.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights turns 50 this week. Created by the 1957 Civil Rights Act, signed into law Sept. 9 that year by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Commission’s work rarely makes the front pages as it did in the heyday of the civil rights movement.

There is something more than a little bizarre with the latest Washington feeding frenzy over Sen. Larry Craig.

Don’t get me wrong. I think what Sen. Craig did in the men’s bathroom in Minneapolis was gross and sleazy. But is it really worthy of the press attention it has received this week?

I had put off reading Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses” for years, having picked it up when it first came out in paperback in 1993. But a Colorado vacation seemed a perfect time to take it up again. There’s something satisfying about reading a book in sync with the locale where I happen to be.

The GOP has traditionally been the party of political primogeniture. From Ronald Reagan to George Herbert Walker Bush to Bob Dole to George W. Bush, Republicans have nominated the man who could best lay claim to being the natural heir, either by virtue of his service to the party or his ability to ring up early endorsements and financial backing from the party faithful.

Hillary Clinton may be pulling away from the pack of Democratic contenders, but she’s still playing it safe. She’s quick to stake out territory that puts her in the mainstream of Democratic opinion, even if it means disavowing her own past positions — or those of her husband.

Ward Churchill, the controversial University of Colorado ethnic studies professor who likened 9/11 World Trade Center victims to “little Eichmanns,” has finally lost his job. CU regents voted 8-1 this week to fire Churchill after a lengthy investigation that revealed a long history of academic misconduct by Churchill, including plagiarism.

Barack Obama and John Edwards want to get us out of one war and into another. The two Democrats vying for their party’s presidential nomination want to end the war in Iraq and spend at least some of the savings on a new war on poverty.

Now that the Democrats are raking in more campaign dough than the Republicans, it will be interesting to see if the media demonize the role of money in politics as they have in past elections when the GOP was winning the contributions race.

Immigration reform is dead. But before conservatives who killed this bill start popping champagne corks, they ought to consider the following.