THE HILL 10/22/13 By Michael Shank and US Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) In the past month, the U.S. has faced two grave threats, one domestic and one international. Both pose serious consequences to the United States and the world at large, and no one knows how either will end. The […]
THE HILL 07/11/13 By Michael Shank, Ph.D. With 150 negotiators in 24 working groups descending on Washington D.C. this week to take part in the first round of US-EU trade talks, and with the joint EU-US High Level Working Group saying that “ambitious outcomes” should be sought for the areas […]
THE HILL 06/18/13 By Judy Kurtz Don’t be surprised if you happen to spot Abraham Lincoln walking the halls of the Capitol on Tuesday. A former staffer for Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) will be donning Honest Abe’s signature top hat and beard to teach school kids about the 16th president […]
THE HILL 06/12/13 By Michael Shank and Sabina Dewan Last week, a high-level panel appointed by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon released its recommendations for a global development agenda when the Millennium Development Goals expire at the end of 2015 and when approximately one billion people will still […]
THE HILL 06/05/13 By Hill Staff Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker public interest firm, has hired Michael Shank as a lobbyist to focus on foreign policy issues, including climate change, global poverty, and U.S. military and nuclear weapons policy. Shank most recently worked as Rep. Mike Honda’s (D-Calif.) […]
THE HILL 04/29/13 By Michael Shank and Sabina Dewan The World Bank has always focused on poverty reduction; it is their stated mission to ‘help reduce poverty’. But actually ending it, with a target date, was never their explicit goal, until now. In Washington, at their annual spring meeting last […]
THE HILL 09/06/12 By Michael Shank Being here in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the 2012 Democratic National Convention, having watched the Republican National Convention religiously on television, one thing that is explicitly different between the two national conventions is the diversity of delegates. Walking the convention hallways, the arena stairways, […]
THE HILL 08/17/12 By Michael Shank In pursuing politics in Washington, and as a former senior congressional staffer, I am the odd one out in my extended family: many, if not most, of my relatives are farmers, preachers or teachers. At family reunions, consequently, like the one I recently returned […]
THE HILL 08/09/12 By Michael Shank On the heels of the Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin, the U.S. Department of Education is hosting its Third Annual Bullying Prevention Summit this week, which is fortuitously timed and desperately needed. Without question, the Sikh temple shooter, Wade Michael Page, a self-proclaimed skinhead, […]
THE HILL 06/22/12 By Michael Shank When it comes to making the world more peaceful, how do we know what we want or what we don’t want? Do we simply want less violence? Or are we working to build the attitudes, institutions and structures that lead to more peaceful societies? […]