Presidents’ Week only serves to remind me that this is a very difficult time to be a presidential buff. I have been one since 1955 when President Eisenhower graciously responded to my “get well” letter following his heart attack. Not only did I receive a beautifully embossed card, which I actually thought he penned personally, but news of my card from the President was announced on the school “loudspeaker” as we called it back then.

After every mass shooting, a portion of this country insists the real problem is that there aren’t enough guns. The group that pushes this absurd lie includes Republican politicians, many of whom fear that admitting otherwise would drive away NRA donor funds. There's been a lot of recent discussion about how GOP legislators do nothing in response to gun massacres, but a 2016 Harvard Business School study proves that's not quite true. In states with overwhelmingly Republican legislative bodies, after mass shootings, “the number of laws passed to loosen gun restrictions [increases] by 75 percent." Despite being counterintuitive and demonstrably dangerous, more firepower is the GOP's go-to solution because "something something don’t tread on me."

It's incomprehensible to many of us that people could support a president who, in Bernie Sanders' words, "is compulsively dishonest, who is a bully, who actively represents the interests of the billionaire class, who is anti-science, and who is trying to divide us up based on the color of our skin, our nation of origin, our religion, our gender, or our sexual orientation."

Perhaps there is no coincidence that in the same week that the Department of Justice confirmed Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election, seventeen young Americans were gunned down by a troubled young man who had easy access to a military-style rifle.

I'm a Republican who served under Bush and Whitman: Let's ban AR-15s | Opinion

By Alan J. Steinberg I need not dwell on the catastrophe of the Parkland, Florida mass murder last week. Such killings have become the new normal in America. In five of the six deadliest mass shootings of the past six years in the United States (Newtown, San Bernardino.

As teenagers in Parkland, Florida, dressed for the funerals of their friends – the latest victims of a mass shooting in the U.S. – weary outrage poured forth on social media and in op-eds across the country. Once again, survivors, victims’ families and critics of U.S. gun laws demanded action to address the never-ending cycle of mass shootings and routine violence ravaging American neighborhoods.

Many academic disciplines can be consulted to explain the on-going tragedy of the Trump administration. History can give us a sense of the precedents, the shameful nativist tradition in groups like the Know Nothings and the John Birch Society. One could use the language of sociology to explain how the white working and middle classes enthusiastically supported a candidate manifestly not in their interests. An economist could model how stagnant wages and the increasing financial gulf resulted in an anti-status quo vote with disastrous consequences while ironically bolstering the elite. A foreign policy analyst could examine the ways in which Trump embodies a revanchist anti-liberalism, a nascent internationalist fascism which serves as a worrying harbinger of future reaction. Rhetoricians could analyze how Trump’s oratory, often maligned as a jumble of word salad, was carefully calibrated with social media to market the politician. So many hot-takes and columns have been devoted to a man who is so obviously odious that you’d avoid sitting next to him on the subway; so much of our mental energy has been consumed with this self-evidently damaged soul. As Katy Waldman wittily asked in an insightful column for Slate last month: “What’s left to discuss when you’ve discussed everything, and nothing has changed?” So, from my perspective, one of the most insightful methods of approaching Trump is theology.

When Trump and his followers refer to “America,” what do they mean?

Don’t be fooled by the happy lull of the Winter Olympics.

Nothing in the 2nd Amendment prevents sensible gun rules | Opinion

By Cass R. Sunstein The use of the Second Amendment, to block consideration of sensible gun control measures, is a national disgrace. And conservatives themselves have explained why this is true. For decades, conservatives have objected to the use of constitutional provisions as a political weapon, insisting that controversies should be resolved in democratic arenas instead.

On Wednesday, St. Valentine’s Day, I had just printed out an article from the CNN website headlined, “Exclusive: Gun lobbyist helped write ATF official’s proposal to deregulate.” Minutes later came news of gunfire at a high school in Parkland, Florida. By nightfall, 17 were dead.

The only greater certainty than another mass shooting in this country is the likelihood that it will be met with inaction. Since the 2012 massacre of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there have been a staggering 1,607 mass shootings across the U.S., nearly 240 in schools. Each has been met with useless thoughts and prayers from craven conservative politicians, all of whom insist there’s never a right time to discuss gun control. The fatigue incurred from the whole circular spectacle makes it feel like it might just be easier to start labeling lawmakers either “pro-child murder” or “anti-child murder.”