Guest: General Wesley Clark
"Former pro basketball player Dennis Rodman is in North Korea again, this time with other former players, entertaining the dictator Kim Jong Un and his murderous regime. But what started out as a publicity stunt has turned very serious. 45-year-old American Kenneth Bae has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea for 'committing hostile acts.' He is a Christian missionary and was arrested while running a tour in 2012. By all accounts this is a frame-up and Bae is being held illegally. When Rodman was asked about the situation, he reacted with profanity and anger. Rodman is a buffoon who is being used by a brutal dictator and there isn't much the USA can do about it. On another front, there is more chaos in Iraq. While the Obama administration was drawing down U.S. troops, Vice President Biden said Iraq would be 'one of the great achievements of this administration.' Mr. Biden was wrong - Iraq is a mess with Sunni and Shiite Muslims fighting each other and Al Qaeda all over the place. This is a huge loss for American foreign policy and now we have a similar situation developing in Afghanistan. Foreign policy is not in the forefront, but President Obama needs to deal with overseas situations forcefully."

The Factor asked former NATO commander and Democratic presidential candidate General Wesley Clark about the Al Qaeda resurgence in Iraq. "Prime Minister Maliki has not lived up to all the promises he made," Clark posited, "and he is in the grip of regional forces. He's made some accommodations with Iran, he has Iraqis fighting in Syria on the side of Hezbollah, and there's really a stewpot of difficulty. Right now I would let Maliki's military handle Fallujah, but if it goes beyond that should we conceive of putting in Special Forces and air power? Yes, but only with the right agreements." The Factor lamented, "The whole foreign policy for America right now is a mess."

Guest: Bernie Goldberg
FNC's Bernie Goldberg opined on the apparent rise of enmity on both sides of the political divide. "I think this is as bad as it's been since the Civil War," he said, "but during the Civil War and Vietnam there was no Internet, no cable TV, no talk radio. There are now battlefields where the left and the right can fight each other 24 hours a day. As a result there is more polarization and more anger - neither side wants to hear what the other side has to say and neither side likes the other side. We wall ourselves off to anything we don't want to hear, which creates even more polarization and anger. During the Great Depression and during World War II we were united because we had faith in our institutions, but who trusts Congress and the mainstream media now?" The Factor also contrasted today's political hatred with that of past eras: "During Vietnam there was real angst and violence in the streets. We don't have physical violence now, but we have mental and verbal violence."

Guests: James Carville & Mary Matalin
James Carville and Mary Matalin, the left/right husband/wife team, entered the No Spin Zone to discuss their new book about odd political bedfellows. "Sometimes it's hard to get a word in edgewise," Matalin admitted, "and there are things we disagree on. But we love each other and one thing this man has given me is that he is not boring. In general I would not recommend pursuing a subject that you know will result in a war." Carville added that the debate over the Iraq war was an especially difficult time. "That was a very intense subject - she felt very strongly for it and I felt very strongly against it. So not every issue is equal and every marriage has difficult times."

Guest: John Stossel
The Factor asked Fox Business host John Stossel to opine on "income inequality" and the left's recent obsession with equalizing wealth. "The American philosophy has always been that what matters most is income mobility," Stossel said. "You're not stuck as a poor person or as a rich person. The people on the top move down, the people on the bottom move up, and some people move all the way from the bottom to the top. But these ever-growing government programs teach people to be dependent, which makes things worse." The Factor agreed that America provides more opportunity than any nation in history, adding, "Liberals never understand that some people will never do what is necessary, they will not or can not do it."

Guests: Kimberly Guilfoyle & Lis Wiehl
Legal analysts Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lis Wiehl began their segment with the court ruling that overturned Chicago's ban on selling guns. "The right to keep and bear arms," Wiehl said, "must also include the right to transfer arms, to buy arms, and to sell them." Guilfoyle wholeheartedly endorsed the ruling. "I like the judge's reasoning - he also said the city did not demonstrate a direct correlation to say this would pose a threat to public safety." The duo moved to the Utah Supreme Court's ruling against same-sex marriage in that state. "They put a hold on gay marriages in Utah," Guilfoyle reported, "after 950 have been performed in 17 days. The court says this is an issue of the voters' right to ban gay marriage." Surveying the chaos, Wiehl concluded, "There are people in Utah who don't know whether or not they're married."

Guest: Alan Colmes
Almost immediately after Colorado's marijuana legalization went into effect, a 2-year-old was hospitalized when she ate a pot-laced cookie. The Factor asked Alan Colmes about the unintended consequences of legalization. "This is a horrible situation," Colmes conceded, "but it's really about parenting, it's not about whether or not marijuana should be legal. There's no guarantee this would be any different if the law was different in Colorado. There's little evidence that the decriminalization of marijuana leads to more use of marijuana." The Factor warned that legalization will continue to have adverse and unintended consequences: "An irresponsible parent can get as much marijuana as he or she would like. All the doctors we've talked to expect more emergency room cases with children, and all the counselors expect more addiction problems with children."

Lorna Gregory, Swansea, MA: "Bill, you are right about the negative effect that pot and high tech are having on American kids. They are falling behind children in other countries."

Cynthia Fricas, Northbrook, IL: "Bill, you are a bully! You were so rude to Mary Katharine Ham. I cannot believe she would ever come back on the Factor."

Craig Misslehorn, Jupiter, FL: "Bill, your arguments conflating pot with texting may be a bit old fogeyish."

Extreme temperatures, whether cold or hot, serve as valuable reminders that life can be difficult and we all face challenges. Never use the weather as an excuse for your performance or behavior.