When we listen to gun advocates breathing fire over the last few months and defending to the death (everyone else's) their right to own a Bazooka for home protection or hunting squirrels, we invariably hear them cite the second amendment and - despite not actually taking part in well-regulated militias...

Wolf Blitzer: We are live on the floor of the Republican National Convention and we will have more later on reports that Osama bin Laden has been sighted alive in Tampa and wearing an Obama 2012 t-shirt. But first, the convention floor is abuzz with the latest news circulating among...

With so much else going on in the news -- a horrific mass shooting in Colorado, a huge election year and, of course, the economy -- it is far too easy for the average American to forget that we are a nation at war.  What little public debate there is...

In a political year filled with more stupid statements than Mitt Romney has offshore bank accounts, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton unleashed a doozy Tuesday.  While discussing the recent legal problems of Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who has been charged with resisting arrest after getting into a fracas with...

Like almost everyone else in Congress, Republican Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina's 3rd Congressional district voted to give President George W. Bush authority to invade Iraq. And like almost everyone else in Congress, he soon realized that was a mistake, fought Bush...

For the first few years after being discharged from the military, many veterans who have experienced combat and the serious bangs and booms that go along with it, have a difficult time on July 4th or any occasion accompanied by fireworks.  It's not that we vets don't have the capacity...

Among the symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that many of our most recent war veterans will carry with them for the rest of their lives, hypervigilance -- the experience of being "on guard" and prepared for the worst every waking minute -- will...

As a writer, I've been amazed for the longest time to see journalists now using Twitter for attributable quotes. A person's Twitter output is only as secure as the password on their account so, unless you actually see someone typing in their latest stream-of-conscience thought, there's no proof that their...

Kristen Fenty and Siobhan Esposito are widows whose husbands were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and they're on a couple of missions. One is a serious legislative issue for people in Congress and the other is a simple request -- and an incredibly offensive thing...

"We don't shake hands, we hug,"says Karen Meredith as she pulls a new member of "Team Ken" into her warm embrace. "We're family."

Team Ken is the group of people who meet every Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the life of...

Kristen Fenty knows a thing or two about pain and struggle.

Like all Gold Star Wives -- women whose spouses have died or been killed while on active duty in the U.S. military -- she has learned to live with the grief of losing her life partner, the...

Megan Leavey wanted her dog back. No, she wasn't running around posting flyers on neighborhood bulletin boards and telephone poles -- because her dog was not lost. The dog lover is a former U.S. Marine Corporal and the dog she wanted back is Sergeant Rex, the bomb-sniffing german shepherd she...

"There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

At 3 a.m. on Sunday, an American soldier walked off his base about a mile from a cluster of villages in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan's Kandahar Province, and went on a shooting spree, killing 16...

When former Governor Mitt Romney signed the landmark Massachusetts health care reform legislation in 2006, he provided health insurance to almost all of his state's citizens. At this point, over 98 percent of all Bay State residents are insured. Of course, this moment of -- gasp! -- demonstrating...

It's safe to say that anyone surprised at National Rifle Association (NRA) hypocrisy on gun violence needs to rethink their belief in the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny and Republican bipartisanism. But the statement they released in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords assassination attempt takes the cake.

"Our thoughts...

NEW YORK - In the wake of the foiled terror attack on Northwest Airlines flight 253 in December of 2009, federal officials imposed new restrictions on travelers, including requiring them to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight without any personal items on their laps.

I stopped publicly answering reader mail quite some time ago -- I generally only did it years ago to make fun of right-wingers sending me hate mail -- but I got a note from Michael Rapaport of Brooklyn, New York who had some interesting comments on me and much of...

Even through my utter euphoria at Barack Obama being elected president, I knew there would be times in the coming years when I would disagree with certain decisions and policy stances taken by our new Democratic president. That's a natural thing -- I just didn't think one of those moments...

President-elect Barack Obama talked in his Saturday radio/web address about the bold national-infrastructure initiative he will send to the new Congress as soon as it convenes next month. It's a plan that the new president believes will boost the economy, provide millions of new jobs during the current recession, while...

There's a giant gray area in how the United States Senate operates and, as someone who covers that body, I'm aware of that and try not to react too quickly when I see something I don't like. Maybe my proximity has made me too sympathetic, but I'm aware that there's...