Barack Obama has taken his two daughters on a dramatic visit to the Robben Island cell once occupied by Nelson Mandela.

Let's hope he takes them next to the one now occupied by Leonard Peltier.

Mandela was famously held by the apartheid South African government for 27 years. He became a global symbol, then president of his nation.

Mandela was charged, among other things, with attempting to overthrow a government, which he admitted.

For 37 years, Peltier has consistently denied the charges against him, which arose from a native American resistance action at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

His bitterly contested 1977 conviction in the killing of two FBI agents came in Fargo. Peltier has since been held under extremely harsh circumstances in a variety of US prisons. He has been denied a wide range of basic rights, been severely beaten, and can't get much-needed medical care. Now in his late sixties, Leonard's health has dangerously deteriorated.

As an indigenous activist, Peltier has been deemed a political prisoner by Amnesty International and numerous other human rights organizations.

For the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Mayor Rawlings of the city of Dallas has come to a momentous decision. Facing what was likely to be a large-scale protest at the grassy knoll, he and his associates have determined that they will allow 5,000 ticket-holders into their "event." 2,500 will be Dallas residents, and another 2,500 will be for the many thousands of tourists from all over the world.

Their website is at www.50thhonoringjohnfkennedy.com.

This decision is ludicrous, but not so much as the title of the website where applicants can try to screen their way into the lottery. Is it really possible for the city of Dallas to honor John F. Kennedy fifty years after he was murdered on their streets? Did Earle Cabell, then-mayor of Dallas, seize the moment to aggressively pursue Kennedy's agenda at the local level? Did Texas become a place where civil rights are guaranteed and obscene oil profits are renounced? In the last fifty years, has there been any aspect of Kennedy's programs or ideas that have found a home in Dallas?

Spending cuts have been applied by Congress to both military and non-military spending.

In my view, the military cuts are much too small and the non-military cuts should not exist at all. In the view of most liberal organizations, the military cuts -- like the military spending and the military itself -- are to be ignored, while the non-military cuts are to be opposed by opposing all cuts in general.

But, guess what?

The spending limits on the military are being blatantly violated. Both houses of Congress have now passed military budgets larger than last year and larger than is allowed under the sequester.

Meanwhile the sequester is being used to cut away at all that is good and decent in public policy.

In fact, the House Appropriations Committee proposes to make up for its violation of the law on military spending levels by imposing yet bigger cuts to non-military spending. And what's the harm in that if all cuts are equally bad?

Throughout the past weeks of revelations regarding the NSA and other agencies spying on millions of Americans, a bipartisan clique of hawks in both the Obama administration and Congress have repeatedly stated that the secret survellance practices are legal. The NSA director, General Keith Alexander, has already lied to Congress once that can be proven, without even a threat of sanction. The UK Guardian has released new documents today that show the legal justification for these survellance was so secret the former NSA director may have never actually read them.

The Guardian released the NSA Inspector General's report on the legalities of certain ongoing wiretap programs. It reveals without a doubt that as time progressed, intelligence gathering on people around the world increased, restrictions relaxed, and successive secret legal opinions normalized and regularized what was originally a secret temporary emergency measure. Federal judges and the vast majority congressional Democrats enthusiastically approved the measures without ever actually examining the legal underpinnings due to the reported success of the programs.

With the Defense of Marriage Act’s evaporation, the U.S. Supreme Court has removed a titanic obstacle in the gay rights movement. For those of us who are dedicated to the causes of equality, tolerance, and fairness under the law, this decision has cleared the path for federal legislation to legalize same-sex marriage. A minority denied access to marriage for prejudicial reasons dealing with their very nature, homosexuals in particular and the gay rights movement at large still has much to accomplish. Meanwhile, since the century’s turn, several countries around the world have already taken action to cement equality into law.**

Netherlands (2000)

In December 2000, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. The Dutch parliament arguably passed the most progressive legislation in the world at the time, and primarily faced opposition from the Christian Democratic Party. More than 2,000 same-sex couples married within a mere nine months of the law’s passage. However, between 2001 and 2011, only 20% of the 55,000 same-sex couples in the Netherlands have actually married.

Belgium (2003)