Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/david-schultz/page/9/)
Politics and economics are interconnected. We saw that in the State of the Union speech the other night where the president hung his second term political fortunes on helping the middle class. He offered a set of ideas surely opposed by the GOP but potentially popular with the voters, hoping that the Republicans will vote them down or not vote on them, lending political fodder and ammunition to the Democrats in 2014. Continue Reading
Barack Obama’s assertion that he has the authority to kill American citizens abroad suspected of being terrorists is disturbing both because of its constitutional arrogance and because its flimsy legal justification resembles the dubious Bush era arguments for presidential power that he supposedly criticized and repudiated. Continue Reading
Obama’s legacy is largely written because second presidential terms are usually disappointing. But in assessing his legacy, one needs to look at how successful Obama has been in remaking the federal courts with his appointees. By that score he has squandered an Obama judicial revolution. Continue Reading
The Republican Party is facing a crisis that’s not purely political. The real problem with the party is an ethical and moral one, far more serious than the political missteps that have plagued it in recent years. Continue Reading
Four more years for Obama. Now what? What does Barack Obama do in his second term and what can he accomplish? Simply put, his options are limited and the prospects for major success quite limited. Continue Reading
Repeatedly one hears the definition of “compromise” as one where no one gets all that they want. Perhaps this is true in some cases, but generally compromises also mean that the deal struck is beneficial in some ways. If that is the case, this did not happen here. Continue Reading
The current Congress may or may not address the Fiscal Cliff before 2012 ends. But even if it does, the odds are that any solution it affixes will fail to solve a problem that has been at least 30 years in making. The real Fiscal Cliff, or rather the Fiscal Canyon, is the longer-term disinvestment and neglect this country has made in education, infrastructure, and attending to the structural inequalities in the United States that are driving most of the problems we face in the short and long term. Continue Reading
Safety is on our minds as we receive two reports this week. The first is the NRA long-awaited press conference on how to promote school safety in light of the Newtown shooting, while the other is the final report regarding the attack at Benghazi. But what actually works in terms of promoting safety? We have some good information that addresses question. Continue Reading
Another shooting, life goes on. Continue Reading
Official reports list the upcoming budget deficit for the State of Minnesota as $1.1 billion. This according to the state economist and the fiscal forecast. Yet while $1.1 B is bad enough it is really worse than that, and could deteriorate. Continue Reading