Peace and Security

Pay Up, Hombres

Remembering Joseph and Mary on the U.S.-Mexico Border
This weekend in San Diego and Tijuana, I gathered with hundreds at Friendship Park, which spans both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. We came together for the 24th annual Posada Without Borders, to remember those who lost their lives crossing the border, and to call...

A Cruel Holiday Gift for Refugee Families
Two months after experiencing the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti in January 2010, my dad finally made it back home to Boston. What had started as a holiday vacation turned into weeks of sleeping outside the family home in Haiti, fearful that it...

We Agree Assault Is Bad. Let’s Agree on How to Punish It.
Our national debate about sexual harassment and assault seems to be missing a bit of nuance. As a woman who's been sexually harassed and assaulted many times, here's how I see it. Sexual predators aren't the same as pigs. Roy Moore is a predator. His systematic,...

A Mass Murderer’s Love Song to Trump
"We've had a great relationship," exulted a giddy Donald Trump, following his two-day schmoozefest in Manila with the thuggish Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte, who calls himself a "toughie," brags that he's personally killed many people and likes to...

What Trump and Suu Kyi Have in Common

Gun Control Shouldn’t Be This Hard
Before the gun lobby or its sycophants in Congress bring out their usual talking points for why we can't ever have common sense gun reform, I'd like to shoot one of them down. No pun intended. We just saw what happens when a bad guy with a gun is met by a good guy...

A Well-Regulated Militia

Who’s Really in Charge of the Afghanistan War?
In June, our Tweety Bird president tweeted this message to members of the U.S. Army: “Proud to be your commander-in-chief.” Actually, Trump is only the delegator-in-chief — he's passed to subordinates a president's most solemn duty of guiding our nation's war...

A U.S. Soldier Died in Niger. What on Earth Are We Doing There?
In our military-revering culture, it’s a strange thing for a president to start a war of words with the grieving families of slain soldiers. Strange, yes. But from Donald Trump’s campaign season feud with the parents of Humayun Khan, who died protecting fellow...