The date was September 14th, 2001. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) was delivering a one-and-a-half minute speech on the US House of Representatives floor in an attempt to persuade at least some of her colleagues to vote against authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan. Quoting a member of the clergy to whom she had listened … Continue reading Authorizing Military Force: The Mistakes of 2001 and Remedies for the Future
Month: June 2017
In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWOA), commonly known as welfare reform. PRWOA was designed to alter the structure of welfare to shift it from a program designed for long-term assistance to one designed for short-term help. This was in response to decades of criticisms of the program by conservatives … Continue reading Destroying an Entitlement
Last Friday, Amazon announced its plans to acquire Whole Foods for $13.4 billion. This was the latest in a series of acquisitions by the company, which now owns Twitch, a video game streaming service; Zappos, an online apparel retailer; and Diapers.com, an online retailer for childcare essentials. This latest acquisition represents another milestone in Amazon’s … Continue reading Break Up Amazon
President Trump has proven in the short 140 days of his presidency that his “America First” ideology is nothing but dangerous isolation. While the president has struggled in carrying out many of his more specific goals and promises (tax reform, repealing and replacing Obamacare, infrastructure, building a wall) this one broad belief in self-imposed American … Continue reading America’s Abandonment of its Role Abroad
The state of Michigan is home to Motown, a world-class baseball team, America’s largest ski jump - and thousands of extremely dangerous abandoned mine shafts. As the mining industry began leaving Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the mid-twentieth century, few steps were taken to ensure the safety of existing structures. Today, there are over 700 abandoned … Continue reading Shuttered for Years, Mines in the Upper Peninsula Remain Hazardous
Roosevelt @ Michigan State University 