Do you experience a creeping sense of dread when a letter arrives in the mail from a government agency or before you sign an official government form? Do you find yourself asking, "what does this mean?" or "what happens if I'm mistaken?"

You are not alone. Confusing language is frustrating. But beyond our frustration are real consequences if we misunderstand government documents and regulations. Confusing language leads to mistakes that have dramatic consequences for our health, our safety, and our financial security. Think what might happen if we don't understand changes in our mortgages, or if we're confused by Medicare prescription drug information, or if we don't have  enough income taxes withheld from our paycheck.

During the last three decades, the biopharmaceutical industry has invested significantly in new and improved vaccines. The results have provided remarkable new ways to prevent cases of cervical cancer, meningitis, pneumonia, pandemic influenza, and rotavirus diseases.
 
The collaborative efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), national governments and industry have led to major progress in addressing global immunization goals and reducing illness and death due to vaccine-preventable diseases.

A marathon runner myself, I want to begin this week’s column by letting the runners, first responders, families and friends of those involved in Monday’s tragic events in Boston know that Pam and I send our thoughts, prayers and well-wishes to you. The acts of kindness and bravery following Monday’s horrific events warm my heavy heart, and I commend our first responders – the EMS, fire and police officers – who rushed to help victims not knowing whether they were in harm’s way.  President Obama, our police and intelligence officers and the leaders involved in this investigation deserve our support and prayers as they work to bring the person or persons behind this atrocious terrorist attack to justice. As the president said, when confronting terrorism and perpetrators of heinous attacks like these, there are no Republicans and Democrats – only Americans.

This week the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will hear from Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, the President’s nominee to serve as secretary of Labor. Having been in his position, I know he’s probably busy preparing his opening remarks and doing his homework to learn as much as possible about the new job for which he’s about to undergo a very public interview.
 
In 2003 and 2004 I was fortunate to work with Tom on my Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Professions and found him to be an engaging, thoughtful individual dedicated to public service and able to work with all. 

The judicial appointment process has been broken for two decades. Through the first two centuries of our republic, the Senate was renowned as the world’s greatest deliberative body, the home of lawmakers and statespeople who understood not only the impact of soaring rhetoric but also the value of collaboration and compromise. Senators assiduously exercised their authority to provide advice and consent on judicial nominations. The judicial appointment process was divisive at times, but presidents and senators have historically recognized that stonewalling judicial nominees undermines the independence of the judiciary as a coequal branch of government. With 86 (one in 10) vacancies on our federal bench and with 37 vacant judgeships qualifying as judicial emergencies, the time for collaboration and compromise is now.

We in Kansas harbor, properly, a deep commitment to the protection of Constitutional civil liberties and privacy. It is in our DNA. We don’t, reflexively, turn to government to improve our lives — we turn to each other and we share what we have to improve the lives of all. And, when it comes to keeping America secure, we are also committed to getting it right.
 
Threats from cyberattacks are mounting, and the damage they are inflicting on individuals and businesses each day in America continues to increase.  This year, I was honored to be appointed to the House Intelligence Committee where I now see firsthand the enormity of the cyberattack threat from malevolent nation-state actors.

Remember last year, when Congress passed a law that the Pentagon must cut ties with Rososboronexport, the Russian state-owned arms exporter at the heart of Bashar al Assad’s atrocities in Syria?  The Department of Defense was supposed to spend the last twelve months identifying alternatives to its contract with Rosoboronexport, so that the United States wouldn’t be dependent on an enabler of mass atrocities. Well, apparently the Pentagon forgot too, because so far they haven’t done anything to prepare the United States to cut off its ties.
 
As a refresher, Congress passed a provision, authored by Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), in  the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that prohibited the use of DOD funds for any contract, memorandum of understanding, cooperative agreement, grant, loan or loan guarantee to Rosoboronexport.

For many years, a persistent theme in House and Senate Agricultural Committee debates over farm policy has been “Give the farm lobbies the subsidy programs they want and the heck with the consequences for U.S. trade relations.”  Nothing reflects that attitude better than the recent history of the cotton subsidy program. Like other developed countries, the United States agreed to end explicit export subsidies for all agricultural commodities by the early 2000’s under the terms of the 1994 Marrakesh Treaty that established the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, America’s gun control movement was momentarily reenergized. Many reasoned voices sought solutions for such events, which unimpassioned analysis showed to mainly be a mental health issue. Gun control groups also concurred on the mental health aspect, then squandered that brief moment of collaboration by tossing their dusty legislative wish list into the political maelstrom. Knowing that their more extreme measures had little or no chance of passage – such as Dianne Feinstein’s now stalled “assault weapons” ban – they include seemingly benign and popular measures including “universal” background checks.

As with assault weapons, the public self-educated on the topic, and is now rejecting the plan. And for good reasons.