Politics
As the Boston area was gripped by the manhunt that followed the Marathon bombings late last week, the opinion pages of the Concord Monitor just up the road in New Hampshire were consumed with another subject: Senator Kelly Ayotte’s vote against legislation to expand background checks for gun purchases. READ MORE >>
More than a decade after 9/11, the “war on terrorism” continues to produce new legal questions. The Supreme Court has plenty of cases about “enemy combatants,” the Bush-era designation for detained Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists, but it’s never had to consider Senator Lindsey Graham’s latest idea. READ MORE >>
I’m relatively agnostic about gun control. I’m from the West; I have friends who really like their guns. And I live in the East; I have friends who really hate guns. But it should be troubling to partisans of all stripes when terrible political analysis dictates public policy. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happened with gun control. This week, the Manchin-Toomey amendment requiring background checks on gun purchases failed in the Senate, in part—perhaps in large part—because senators bought into the myth of an omnipotent National Rifle Association. READ MORE >>
The State of the Civil Union
Gay marriage gets all the press, but its precursor is still in play
Last month brought historic change to the lives of thousands of same-sex couples, but not as a result of any judicial ruling. READ MORE >>
Gun Control Failed, Not Liberalism
The real lesson Obama should learn from this week's setback
For the record, I’m someone who thought gun control, while noble and important, was doomed to fail and therefore a dubious investment of presidential time. READ MORE >>
Now that even a watered-down effort to “do something” about guns in response to the mass slaughter of small children in Newtown has collapsed in the Senate, it’s time to look political reality squarely in the face: No external shock, no matter how extreme, will clear a path for meaningful gun control legislation to emerge from Congress. READ MORE >>
That's Rich
Wealthy Americans, more than the middle class, say the Grand Old Party is out of touch
Ever since last year's election, the nation's conservatives have been in self-preservation mode: They know something about the GOP needs to change, but they don’t want it to be them. The party establishment would prefer to jettison cultural issues, since it never cared much about cultural issues, anyway. And the faction of fiscal conservatives argues that well-educated, affluent voters are more natural GOP constituents, anyway. READ MORE >>
Regulatory Rockstar
Elizabeth Warren is using her Senate seat to grill those who let the big banks off the hook
In September 2009, as chief of staff to Senator Ted Kaufman, I sat in on a meeting with the then-senator and Lanny Breuer, who led the criminal division of the Justice Department at the time. Why, Senator Kaufman wanted to know, had the Justice Department not prosecuted financial institutions and the individuals who run them for criminal behavior? Breuer said he was “dependent on the pipeline” to bring forward cases, and added that bank regulators so far had provided no criminal referrals related to the financial crisis. READ MORE >>
The Angriest Obama We've Ever Seen
After the Senate failed to expand gun background checks, the president flashes anger
The compromise on background checks died today in the Senate. And President Obama is as angry as we’ve ever seen him. READ MORE >>
Immigration Reform Is Labor's Loss
The Senate plan will benefit businesses, not low-wage workers
There are many good reasons to support comprehensive immigration reform. There are some 11 million undocumented workers in the United States who exist in a legal and economic limbo: Their condition is worse than that of indentured servants. Proposals for emphasizing immigration of skilled workers are also welcome. And an influx of young workers is important to sustaining an aging citizenry’s social-insurance programs. READ MORE >>
