Recent Responsibility Commentaries

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That Interview
“Mission accomplished: We have him.” No sooner had Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto tweeted that message to Mexico’s citizens announcing the recapture of Joaquin Guzmán Loera, than the other shoe dropped… Rolling Stone magazine published an interview with “El Chapo,” The El Chapo, the notorious drug kingpin of the Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel. Getting an interview like this is akin...
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January 13, 2016
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The Fierce Urgency of Now
Before President Obama held a press conference Tuesday to announce that he was signing executive orders to help reduce gun violence, two Brooklyn New York legislators, Senator Roxanne Persaud and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, were threatened by America’s 1st Freedom, an affiliate of the National Rifle Association. Why? In a story reported by The New York Daily News (Jan. 5),...
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January 6, 2016
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A New Hope
Every year newspapers put forth editorials about expectations for the New Year. Looking back, 2015 has been perhaps, the most unsettling in the first decade of the new millennium. With the rise of the Islamic State, we have seen a global war by a group of extremists who justify killing non-believers in the name of their religion. Factually speaking, the...
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January 4, 2016
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Line Crossed
What if your neighbors were suspected of being involved in a mass shooting? And after the police and FBI had searched their home, the media were allowed to go through the residence, and among the items broadcast live were photos of you and your family; how would you react? In the aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting rampage, the home...
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December 11, 2015
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Sorrow and Shame
Every time an attack, like the recent mass shooting in California, occurs too many of us react badly. Paralyzed by fear and anger, we retreat into a moral relativism that is simply breathtaking. It’s become a sad reality that after every such attack, gun sales rise. The working theory is: If I’ve got a gun, I can do something about...
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December 7, 2015
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Fear and Extremism
Since the attacks in Paris more than a week ago, so much of the political talk has centered on radical Muslims. (Although some leave the word “radical” out of the discussion). Before a packed crowd on Saturday (Nov. 21) in Birmingham, Alabama, GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said, “I want surveillance of certain mosques, O.K.?” Earlier in the week, in...
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November 23, 2015
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What Makes a Hero?
“A hero has two basic qualities: a selfless devotion to what’s right, whether that’s his duty or not, and the courage of his convictions.”  – Dale Dye, Marine Captain (Ret.) In 2012, while fighting in Afghanistan, Army Captain Florent Groberg demonstrated the kind of selfless devotion to duty Dye speaks of when he knowingly rushed a suicide bomber who was...
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November 16, 2015
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Red Cup or Red Herring?
The choice of stories selected by broadcast news directors sometimes amazes me — example: the Starbucks Red Cup “Controversy.” What began as a YouTube rant about Starbucks alleged lack of acknowledgement of Christmas turned out to be a red herring that was a complete waste of news time. After years of offering cheery Christmas designs on their cups, coffee monster...
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November 11, 2015
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Now the Hard Part
After being sworn in as the 54th Speaker of the House last week, Paul Ryan talked about the elephant in the room. “The House is broken. We are not solving problems. We are adding to them. And I am not interested in laying blame. We are not settling scores. We are wiping the slate clean. Neither the members nor the...
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November 3, 2015
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Authentic Republican Leadership
On Monday I talked about the Freedom Caucus – a group of about 40 unyielding House Republicans whom Republican strategist Frank Luntz says “…believes that it is better to blow-up the process than it is to fix it.” But there is another group in the House. The Liberty Caucus, a group of about 36 members, was founded in 2011 by...
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October 16, 2015