Homeland Security

Our gun policies have failed, in part, because our system lacks transparency and accountability. That’s why we’re asking teachers to carry guns before we’ve asked gun owners to tell us who they are. Charles Krauthammer recently argued “increasing public safety almost always means restricting liberties.” But here, merely by shedding some light we can better protect society without restricting liberties of law-abiding, responsible gun owners.

In 2008 D.C. v. Heller affirmed our individual right to own guns. Unfortunately, our culture is stuck in a pre-Heller mindset that prioritizes secrecy and obstruction over transparency and accountability. It is time for us to adapt to Heller and redefine what it means to be a “responsible gun owner.”  

The results of the 2012 elections showed that Republicans are teetering at the edge of a “demographic cliff.” They have alienated Latino voters so thoroughly that they risk becoming a regional party unless something big changes, and changes soon.

End mandatory detention. Appoint lawyers for detained immigrants. Hold the Office of Public Affairs responsible for disinformation.
 
Last year, President Obama's adviser Cecila Muñoz faced criticism from liberals when she defended her boss's record-breaking deportation numbers, telling PBS's Frontline that the underlying laws are the real problem. Muñoz had been director of the liberal National Council of La Raza.
 
Now, in an interview with The American Prospect about immigration reform, the current leaders of La Raza fail even to mention the 1996 mandatory detention laws to which Muñoz was referring. Their memory loss is disturbing, and it's characteristic of the current debate on immigration "reform."

When CODEPINK, MoveOn and representatives of other organizations marched into Senator Harry Reid’s D.C. office on Tuesday, December 18, they wanted a simple answer to a simple question: Does the Senator support a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity clips, such as the legislation proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein and supported by President Obama and Vice President Biden? It would seem like a no-brainer for the Senate majority leader to fall in line with the leadership of his party in backing a modest bill that would ban the sale of weapons that are only good for mass murder. Unfortunately, Reid’s senior policy advisor Kasey Gillette was unable to give an answer.

I just finished watching “Zero Dark Thirty.” It’s pretty brutal. Not plucking someone’s eye out brutal, but definitely not “enhanced interrogation technique” euphemism level either. Some of the torture portrayed in the movie is low-grade violence against restrained prisoners – slapping and roughing up, a lot of stress positions (arms tied spread eagle with ropes so that the prisoner can’t lower them or move them), and a waterboarding scene where the detainee is choking up water and spit.
 
Maybe the most horrible (although least graphic) form of torture is when the characters fold a prisoner up into a tiny confinement box and shut the lid on him.

As we gather to celebrate the holidays this year, President Obama will determine with the stroke of a pen the fate of more than a hundred men held without charge or trial at Guantánamo Bay. The National Defense Authorization Act, an annual bill that directs how the Pentagon may use its funds, will likely make its way to the Oval Office with renewed restrictions on transferring detainees to any country regardless of the allegations against them. If President Obama signs the restrictions into law, the human consequences will be severe and forever damage his legacy.

I want to start by extending my deepest sympathies to the families of the victims of Friday’s massacre, and to the whole community, and to thank the first responders and all those who are helping in the aftermath of this darkest of tragedies.
 
Three days after the horrors of Newtown, we’re all still reeling from what happened. Any time there’s a shooting like this we’re crushed with sorrow, but there’s no escaping the fact that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary stands out for its awfulness. The murder of so many little children and the adults who tried to save them doesn’t just break our hearts, it shatters them.
 
The last few days have been searing for all of us, and the days ahead will be too.

This afternoon, the families of Newtown, Connecticut are burying two six-year-old boys – Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto.
 
Noah turned six last month. Jack was a New York Giants fan.
 
In the days to come, many of their classmates will also be laid to rest – the victims of a tragedy too terrible to comprehend.
 
Twenty little girls and boys. Twenty tiny daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, friends and playmates.
 
Twenty children, who will never grow up and learn to drive, go on a first date or graduate from high school.
 
Twenty six- and seven-year-olds who will never have the chance to fall in love, get married or have children of their own.
 
Noah and Jack, Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Allison and Avielle.

When a tragedy strikes, it is human nature for us to ask, "Why?" And in the next breath, we wonder, "What can be done so this never will happen again?"
Those certainly were among my thoughts Friday when I heard that someone had burst into an elementary school in Connecticut and murdered 26 people. Among them were 20 young children -- children who were there to learn about their world and to develop friendships.

This time it was in Connecticut. Before that it was in Portland, Ore., and Aurora, Colo., and Milwaukee and at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech.
And in Tucson.

On Friday, as I watched television, I saw the looks on the faces of those parents in Connecticut. And I wished I had the answer that could stop all of this and make sure it never happens again.

When a man kills twenty children and seven others for no reason other than his own demons, the immediate human response is the same anywhere: deep pain, grief, anger and frustration. In the United States, unfortunately, such a tragedy carries an added weight because it is not unique.
 
Last Friday will live in our collective memory, just as Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Tucson and the numerous other mass killings we have endured will live in our memory. We have become a nation overly acquainted with shock and grief.