Joe Biden’s Russia Dilemma

Sanctions, cyberattacks, freezing assets, reinvigorated rhetorical and material support for key allies, notably Ukraine, a larger presence in regions like Central Asia and the South Caucasus, will all be part of the menu of options facing a potential Biden administration, but while all of those will send a message to Moscow, they will not undo the damage that the Kremlin-GOP access had done to the US over the last five years or so; nor will these actions go unanswered by Moscow.

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What We Can Learn from the Stoneman Douglas Students →

While seeing Kasky humiliate Marco Rubio by challenging him to stop taking NRA money or watching Emma Gonzalez similarly embarrass NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch is very encouraging for adults who support gun reform, there is much more to these young people’s message than that. In her most well-known speech, Gonzalez repeated the refrain “we call BS.” While most of that refrain was targeted at the gun lobby and their apologists, it was also aimed at pro-gun reform legislators who have not been aggressive, or successful, enough in their efforts to change American gun policy. Gonzalez, and her generation, are not just calling BS on the NRA, but on those who are cowed by arguments like the one that asserts that none of the proposed laws would have stopped the shooting.

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The Second Amendment Threatens American Democracy

Those who seek to craft policies to address the problem of easy and widespread access to extremely powerful firearms are confidently and dismissively told by legislators who receive generous support from the NRA that those efforts can never lead anywhere due the Second Amendment. This misinterpretation of the Second Amendment is wielded like some kind of magical trump card that can, and frequently does, end any conversation or debate about guns. In democracies, rational policy solutions must be discussed and debated not shouted down by a small minority of the American people hiding behind an extreme interpretation of a sentence written more than 200 years ago. Thus, for several decades now the Second Amendment has been wielded not as a way to guarantee individual freedom, but to make mass shootings easier and ultimately stifle democracy.

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Homophobia, Terrorism and Guns in Orlando →

The politics of this shooting are more than just about guns. The victims of this attack were killed for the simple reason that they were gay. Mateen’s hatred of gay people was the major motivating force behind actions. While American history features examples of institutionalized bigoted violence and unequal treatment, there are few, perhaps no, examples of one person committing a hate crime of such an enormous scale.

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Blankets, Guns and Plumbers →

The letter was an extraordinary brew of mean-spiritedness, cruelty, insensitivity, arrogance and egotism. The most quoted line from that letter, written by a man singularly incapable of empathy was "your dead kids don't trump my constitutional rights." That line is painful to read and probably makes many people angry with Joe the Plumber. The extraordinary chutzpah required to write something like that to a total stranger who has just lost a child and does not care about your opinion notwithstanding, the worst thing about that line is that it is essentially the official position of the US government.

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What Are the Republicans Talking About Now? →

In the aftermath of the election, the notion that the Republican Party was facing what might delicately be called an uphill demographic battle was frequently raised. This was made evident by the age and ethnicity demographics in the U.S., and by President Obama's decisive victory in his bid for reelection. Since the election, the Republican Party's demographic problem has manifested itself in another significant way. Because of their narrow demographic and ideological base, the Republican Party and its leadership, inside and outside of congress, has proven itself to be increasingly out of touch with the citizenry it seeks to govern.

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Obama and the NRA's Waning Influence →

Although there are several different dynamics surrounding the coming fight over the president's proposals, one significant way this is being framed is as a fight between the Obama White House and the NRA. The NRA is an extremely powerful interest group in Washington, but like many interest groups it's power depends heavily on keeping a low profile and maintaining relatively strong popular support, or more accurately, drawing only limited opposition. Accordingly, the NRA is much better positioned for a behind the scenes strategy where policy decisions are made at congressional committee hearings and various regulatory agencies than a legislative fight involving the media and mobilized citizens groups.

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The President Needs to Lean on Gun Safety →

President Obama's promise to "use whatever power this office holds," to ensure that horrific shootings like this do not occur again, is the right promise to make. The question the President asked -- "Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?" -- is the right question to ask. Obama's ability to follow through on this promise will be a test of his moral and political leadership. Passing meaningful gun safety laws will require the courage to take on powerful entrenched interests and to speak truth to NRA power, but it will also require deft political maneuvering to push national legislation through a congress in which one house is controlled by the Republicans and where Senate Republicans have enough votes to stop a cloture vote on key legislation.

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