Maybe President Obama is able to reconcile his words and his actions, but my head is spinning. This was Barack Obama on May 23, speaking at the National Defense University: “For over two centuries, the United States has been bound together by founding documents that defined who we are as Americans, and served as our […]
Barack Obama
Posted inNews & Opinion
War, policy, and Obama
The days leading up to Memorial Day seem a particularly appropriate time to start a broad discussion about war and national security. And President Obama tried to do that in his speech at the National Defense University last week. If his actions back up his words (and if he can persuade Congress to support him), […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Feedback 3/13
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Partisanship, poverty, and paychecks
In his State of the Union address, President Obama issued a challenge: “Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour.” On this he finds support from Governor Cuomo, who proposes increasing the […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Obama’s second term
At this early stage, it’s hard to predict what kind of president Barack Obama will be over the next four years. He seems to be abandoning, at last, the hesitancy and timidity of his first term. And in the long list of initiatives in his State of the Union address last week, he gave us […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Guns, criminal justice, and a national agenda
There are things that are simply too terrible.
Posted inNews & Opinion
The next four years
The 2012 election provided plenty of reasons to celebrate, Barack Obama’s re-election only one of them. A record number of women in the Senate. The first openly gay Senator. A House of Representatives with more Latinos, more Asian-Americans, three new openly gay members…. Also worth celebrating: the stunning dedication of voters, some of whom stood […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
US on track to become top oil producer
During the presidential campaign, Republican Mitt Romney made some noise about how President Barack Obama was, more or less, standing in the way of increased domestic energy production. The campaign is over, Romney lost, and media outlets are finally picking up on reports that the United States is on pace to pass Saudi Arabia as […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The high price of the presidency
This spending in this year’s presidential race will crush the record set in 2008. But how outrageous will the sums be? As of October 17, the numbers were staggering. First, some context. The 2008 presidential election cost $1.7 billion, twice as much as the 2004 presidential election. In 2012, spending will at least double that […]
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ENDORSEMENT: For a just future: Barack Obama
In a very real sense, this year’s presidential election campaign has taken place in an artificial setting, the state of the nation viewed through tinted glasses, significant problems and challenges glossed over or ignored. It’s as if voters and candidates caught those problems, briefly, in their peripheral vision and then blinked, turned, and the problems […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
A divided country waits
The debates are over, all but a handful of voters seem to have made up their mind, and President Obama and Mitt Romney are virtually tied. Regardless of who is elected, this troubling campaign could have a troubling ending, with the outcome not immediately known – and, perhaps, with one candidate winning the popular vote, […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
US should use caution when aiding rebel groups
The United States has a long history of aiding coups against unfriendly regimes, only to watch the the rebel groups it aided become unfriendly. And the new regimes often have gone on to commit human rights abuses of their own. In some cases, the goal was to stop the spread of Communism. That was an […]
