Progressive

Confronting Homeland Security’s ‘SSSS’ Watch List

HUFFINGTON POST 05/21/15 By Michael Shank It’s official. The Department of Homeland Security has placed me on a travel watch list. Every time I travel abroad, I now have “SSSS”, which stands for Secondary Security Screen Selection, on my boarding documents. That means I get an extra rigorous full-body screening, […]

NYC Housing: A Clear and Present Danger

HUFFINGTON POST 03/28/15 By Michael Shank In the wake of New York City’s devastating gas explosion and fire in the East Village, which destroyed residential buildings and injured dozens of New Yorkers, there couldn’t be a more critical time to take a serious look at New York’s housing situation. In […]

Detroit’s Death Knell? Austerity, Structural Racism, Water Wars

HUFFINGTON POST 11/18/14 By Michael Shank and Peter J. Hammer The post-industrial dystopia emerging on the streets of Detroit may be shocking, but it is not surprising. The crisis results from the convergent forces of fiscal austerity and structural racism in a region defined by its extreme segregation of race, […]

DC’s Attorney General Race: A Serious Impact on District Youth

HUFFINGTON POST 11/03/14 By Michael Shank and Erica Marshall On November 4 the voters in the District will turn out to choose our City’s next mayor. On the same ballot, after casting a vote for David Catania, Muriel Bowser or Carol Schwartz, voters will be asked to choose between five […]

Detroit on the Brink

THE HILL 10/29/14 By Michael Shank and Peter Hammer The post-industrial dystopia emerging on the streets of Detroit may be shocking, but it is not surprising.  The crisis results from the convergent forces of fiscal austerity and structural racism in a region defined by its extreme segregation of race, wealth […]

Jobs Index Shows Dismal Outlook for US Workers

ROLL CALL 10/23/14 By Michael Shank and US Rep Steve Cohen (D-TN) This month, the first-ever global ranking of countries based on the quantity — and quality — of their jobs was released. The JustJobs Index uses empirical data to provide workers around the world with a simple answer to […]

UN Summit Already Successful: $50 Billion Divested From Fossil Fuels

NATIONAL JOURNAL 09/22/14 By Michael Shank The United Nations climate summit in New York, where I’m writing from this week, is already a success. With Rockefeller Brothers Fund announcing this week that they’re divesting entirely from fossil fuels, pulling $860 million of RBF funds out of fossil fuel stocks, the […]

Fossil Fuel Divestment Makes UN Climate Summit a Success

HUFFINGTON POST 09/22/14 By Michael Shank The United Nations climate summit in New York, where I’m writing from this week, is already a success. With Rockefeller Brothers Fund announcing this week that they’re divesting entirely from fossil fuels, pulling $860 million of RBF funds out of fossil fuel stocks, the […]

Has the Calculus on Climate Talks Changed?

NATIONAL JOURNAL 09/16/14 By Ben Geman and Clare Foran WHAT INSIDERS ARE SAYING HAS THE CALCULUS ON CLIMATE TALKS CHANGED? Is there reason to believe that next year’s U.N. climate negotiations in Paris will succeed where past negotiations have failed? If so, why? Read the question here. “The calculus has […]