Peace and Security
Mission Essential
It's getting easier to find people inside Washington's Beltway who want to cut the fat from the Pentagon budget. Scaling back military spending isn't just for the most progressive members of Congress anymore. Even the tea-partying Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) favors defense...
What about Gun Control Abroad?
A 14-year-old Honduran, Hasked Brooks Wood, perished when police in the town of Ahúas opened fire on him and other civilians riding in a boat down a winding river. This incident, in May 2012, didn't garner much U.S. media coverage. But it should have — because the...
Federal Budget Buster’s Last Stand
Zero Dark Thirty’s Losing Premise
Zero Dark Thirty is a movie the CIA wants you to see. It tells a tale of the search for Osama bin Laden wherein the key lead comes from a man softened up by waterboarding, sleep deprivation, confinement in a coffin-like box and other forms of pain and humiliation. It...
Stronger At Home, More Respected Abroad
Americans agree it's time to strengthen our nation at home and abroad — but how can we make it happen? We can start by making wise choices in the federal budget and with our efforts to cope with our nation's debt ceiling problem. We can make smart military strategies,...
Banning Assault Weapons Makes More Sense than Arming Teachers
They've been holding hearings on gun control up on Capitol Hill in Washington. It's always an inspiring spectacle. There are few things as bracing as watching terrified lawmakers duck behind the Second Amendment while they justify their lack of significant response to...
Second Amendment Vigilantes
I don't hunt, but I have nothing against hunters or owners of rifles, bows and arrows, or boomerangs. However, I am against vigilantes and those, like the NRA leaders, who encourage them. I had my own run-in with vigilantes when I joined the movement to end...
Duck and Cover 2.0
Last year, Sheriff Tommy Gage of Montgomery County, Texas, was eager to show off his new surveillance toy. Having obtained a $300,000 Homeland Security grant from the federal government, his office had become the first police agency in the nation to have its very own...
Automatic Congressional Allegiance
We Don’t Need a Secretary of Militarism
The chicken hawks are out in force these days, attacking Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama's choice for Secretary of Defense. He's too reluctant to use force, they say. He favors negotiation over sanctions and sanctions over bombs, they say. He doesn't like Israel...
