Despite reforms to tighten prohibitions against animal fighting, a glaring federal law loophole remains: Attendance at an animal fight must be made a federal crime. 

Political pundits and other recent critical voices, even from supporters of President Obama, contend that this president’s inability to get even watered-down legislation passed that would expand background checks on gun purchases was clear evidence that he didn’t know how to use the power of the presidency.

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The use of drones to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and al Qaeda there and in Yemen, draws criticism for exacerbating anti-American sentiment. But drone use needs to be seen in broader contexts as the U.S. withdraws from combat in Afghanistan, deals with unrest in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, and grapples with al Qaeda threats to our homeland.

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In the last election cycle, candidates and their campaigns spent approximately $8 billion to secure their offices. Because I live in Virginia and I contribute to the campaigns of Republicans and Democrats, I was under siege by candidates, their surrogates, their parties, their PACS and issue organizations to donate $3.00 or $5.00 or $197.00, and to do it before some silly deadline imposed on me by the caller. 

The reality remains: Congress has a 9 percent approval rating, but yet we returned to office 85 percent of those seeking office.

Three years ago, when the Affordable Care Act was passed, the bill set up something that was unusually far-thinking by Washington standards: an ongoing funding source dedicated to preventing illness before it occurs.

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As someone who has spent much of his adult life in politics and journalism, I find the action by the Department of Justice in targeting The Associated Press and its reporters as utterly reprehensible and crying out for some dramatic response.

Let me set the scene.

The JOBS Act has the potential to help entrepreneurs finance their small and emerging growth businesses through “crowdfunding,” but only if we get the costs right. In the year since the measure was signed into law, online technology platforms have continued to successfully disrupt the costs of fundraising, necessitating a reevaluation by the Securities and Exchange Commission of some components of the law before completing the regulations.  

Vice President Biden intoned, “On this vote, the yeas are 54, the nays are 46. Under the previous order requiring 60 votes, the amendment is not agreed to.” Moments later, from the gallery, Patricia Maisch, survivor of the horrific Tucson shooting, shouted at the senators below, “Shame on you!”

The Senate had defeated the bipartisan compromise background-check amendment worked out by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.), 54-46. Adoption of the amendment required 60 votes under a unanimous consent agreement. Proponents had agreed to set that threshold in order to avoid a threatened time-consuming filibuster.

This was not the Senate’s proudest moment.

The raft of school shootings across the country is dramatic evidence of the need to provide a better support system for children with mental illness. As schools have focused more and more narrowly on academic performance, early warning signs of mental and behavioral health disorders have been all too frequently overlooked. The Mental Health in Schools Act of 2013 (S. 195) has placed a spotlight on children’s mental health, now at increasingly greater risk given cuts to state education budgets. These cuts threaten to further reduce already limited numbers of school counselors and other support personnel. In a time of “big data,” we cannot ignore the fact that one in five children in the United States suffers from mental illness. Over the past 20 years, suicide rates have nearly doubled among children between ages 10 and 14.

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