THE GUARDIAN 03/12/15 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Matt Cartwright Most Americans take water for granted. It’s a resource that people assume will always be accessible, available, and consumable. For most people in this country, whether they’re at a public drinking fountain, a restaurant or at home, water is […]
THE GUARDIAN 12/18/14 By Michael Shank and US Rep Mike Honda Holding out for winter rain or implementing short-term fixes won’t fix California’s water crisis. We need action on the state, federal and international level Between power outages, deluging rains, flash floods, mudslides and record droughts, California is quickly becoming […]
THE GUARDIAN 09/23/14 By Michael Shank and Rep Raul Grijalva Members of Congress – and the public – who care about a sustainable peace in the Middle East, the wise use of American tax dollars and the balance of power between our branches of government must not stand by as […]
THE GUARDIAN 10/07/13 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) […]
THE GUARDIAN 07/09/13 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Steve Cohen The Department of Defense is spending more than three-quarters of a billion dollars to buy Russian-made aircraft for an Afghan aviation squad that lacks the troops and expertise to operate or maintain them. We know about this example of […]
THE GUARDIAN 05/05/13 By Michael Shank and Matt Southworth A handful of Democratic and Republican senators are considering a rewrite of 60 of the most consequential words to ever pass through Congress. The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed after the attacks of 11 September 2001, and provides […]
THE GUARDIAN 01/23/13 By Michael Shank GOP hawks who defend the US military’s budget from Chuck Hagel’s charge of ‘bloated’ must account for why it isn’t audited No matter how much Congress softens the sequestration’s austerity footprint, everyone in government will have to nip-and-tuck in order to balance budgets. And […]
THE GUARDIAN 11/26/12 By Michael Shank The occupation of Afghanistan costs US taxpayers $10bn a month, and millions in corruption. Yet Congress is oblivious. This month, hidden amid election excitement, a report was delivered to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar). Likely, few in Washington read […]
THE GUARDIAN 10/05/11 By Michael Shank The huge costs of social deprivation make the US poorer, even as the top 1% gets richer. Fix that and you fix the budget deficit On the heels of the US government’s announcement that personal income of Americans has dropped for the first time […]
THE GUARDIAN 08/06/11 By Michael Shank We have the evidence: the hardpressed US taxpayer is being fleeced by profiteering contractors and corrupt military personnel This past week, as US Congress quacked its way through the debt-ceiling quagmire, a seemingly non-germane offshore issue surfaced vis-a-vis Iraq. The connection between the two […]