HUFFINGTON POST 02/28/13 By Michael Shank, Ben Beachy and Justin Talbot Zorn Momentum is quickly building to redefine, restructure, or replace the statistical measure that has long served as the unofficial “headline indicator” of progress in the United States: Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is good news. GDP, as we […]
HUFFINGTON POST 02/12/2014 By Michael Shank and Erica Marshall This April, when the District of Columbia begins its public debate over the draft budget for fiscal year 2015, there is an opportunity to give many of the District’s youth a second chance on life — literally. All the D.C. government […]
HUFFINGTON POST 01/11/14 By Michael Shank News that the Pentagon is sending its military back into Somalia, after 20 years, shows that America is still missing the point on the Horn of Africa when it comes to preventing violence. Has the Defense Department learned that little in its many misadventures […]
HUFFINGTON POST 12/11/13 By Michael Shank and Ed Lazere As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pushes for a national minimum wage increase this congressional session — and as SeaTac, Washington, passes the highest minimum wage in the country at $15 an hour — the leaders of the District of Columbia […]
HUFFINGTON POST 12/10/13 By Michael Shank It appears that Fethullah Gülen, a U.S.-based Islamic preacher from Turkey who promotes peace and tolerance, and the schools associated with his religious Hizmet movement can’t get a break. They were first targeted in America, via discrimination aimed at the Turkish American community centered […]
HUFFINGTON POST 10/17/13 By Michael Shank The Bilateral Security Agreement deal, forged by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, will be quickly undone since the U.S. is not focused on the right kind of settlement. Attacks on Afghan officials in the last week show how […]
HUFFINGTON POST 10/14/13 By Michael Shank As U.S, Secretary of State John Kerry heralds the near-complete negotiations over a Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, one thing is certain: immunity for U.S. troops post-2014 isn’t going to happen. It’s a political non-starter. No Afghan presidential candidate, queuing for […]
HUFFINGTON POST 10/10/13 By Michael Shank and Elizabeth Beavers America’s streets are looking more and more like a war zone. Last week, in a small county in upstate New York with a population of roughly 120,000 people, county legislators approved the receipt of a 20-ton Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) […]
HUFFINGTON POST 09/24/13 By Michael Shank Watching President Barack Obama’s speech to heads of state at the UN General Assembly summit this week in New York — specifically his pointed prioritization of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — I was reminded of a column I penned with U.S. Congressman Gregory Meeks […]
HUFFINGTON POST 08/01/13 By Michael Shank and Kate Gould The Senate and House Intelligence committees’ about-face decision last week to arm the rebels in Syria is dangerous and disconcerting. The weapons will assuredly end up in the wrong hands and will only escalate the slaughter in Syria. Regardless of the […]