NPR 11/25/14 By Laura Sullivan For weeks, Ferguson police and local leaders met with community groups and activists to work out a plan for the aftermath of the grand jury’s decision whether to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. But any results of that […]
Violence
Yemen’s a Model All Right—For Disaster
DAILY BEAST 11/13/14 By Michael Shank and Casey Harrity Guns, drones, and special forces were not enough to stabilize Yemen, and they won’t be enough to stop ISIS. Remember the so-called “Yemen model,” the seeming success story for a U.S. policy targeting terrorists that President Barack Obama pointed to a […]
Breakdown in Yemen
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 11/06/14 By Michael Shank and Casey Harrity Yemen is teetering on the verge of an all-out sectarian civil war. Recent peace deals may prove to be fleeting. The Houthis, a Zaydi-Shiite group based in northern Yemen, stormed the capital, Sanaa, over one month ago, resulting […]
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 […]
Post-Election Ferguson: Bipartisan Congress to Demilitarize Police
HUFFINGTON POST 10/21/14 By Michael Shank As the Ferguson fight rages on, a potentially more courageous Congress stands ready to return, post-elections, to shut down that which rightfully enraged protestors initially. Last month, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and the House of Representatives finally took a stand against the […]
Police Militarization Must Be Halted
POLITIX 10/13/14 By Michael Shank Last month, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and the House of Representatives finally took a stand against the growing militarization of our police forces and our main streets. Shortly after Congressmen Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) introduced the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement […]
Iraq’s Islamic Divisions Intensify
GLOBAL BRIEFING October 2014 By Michael Shank The USA’s air strikes on ISIS positions could inadvertently exacerbate Iraq’s problems, given the recent history of the West’s interventions in the country Iraq continues to pose a conundrum for the international community. Many in the West feel that Iraq is perpetually ungovernable […]
Why Hong Kong’s #OccupyCentral Used Nonviolent Action as Tactic
HUFFINGTON POST 09/30/14 By Michael Shank and Jamila Raqib The Occupy Movement has returned and is resurrecting itself in Hong Kong. But in this case, the “occupying” is not associating itself with the Occupy Wall Street of recent years. Instead, a new political initiative in Hong Kong – called Occupy […]
Rethink America’s Yemen Policy, Set New Standard for Syria, Iraq
HUFFINGTON POST 09/29/14 By Michael Shank and Casey Harrity Authors Michael Shank and Casey Harrity published a policy brief this month as part of FCNL’s “Shared Security” series. For the full 20-page “Security in Yemen” report, click here. Below is the executive summary excerpted from the report. Yemen is on […]