Barack Obama

Many left-leaning observers commended Barack Obama’s State of the Union last week for its calls for a $9 minimum wage, universal preschool education, immigration reform, climate action, and election reform. Yet most also acknowledged that these goals have little chance of being achieved, given the present composition of the U.S. Congress. More likely, they represent [...]

Divestment is becoming an increasingly salient issue both at Swarthmore and at colleges and universities around the country. The movement, which aims to compel colleges and universities to stop investing in companies that produce fossil fuels, has grown rapidly over the last few months. Early in December, the New York Times published an article detailing [...]

Though I am frequently disgusted by the seemingly-constant assertion that the US can exert its will across the globe, without oversight foreign or domestic, I am comforted by the fact that, on the whole, we feel a need to hide this opinion from plain sight, to cloak it in veiled statements heaped with denials. I [...]

Writing for The Corner on National Review Online last week, NRO media editor Eliana Johnson criticized President Obama for calling the Holocaust “senseless violence” in a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. She wrote that “the idea that all violence is ‘senseless’ violence is one that has taken deep root on the left; it’s also, [...]

In the weeks since the devastating Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings last month, debate over gun rights has taken center stage in American political discourse. It has proven difficult to turn on the news without hearing about Vice President Biden’s commission on guns or seeing a supposedly objective reporter gushing over the newest gun control [...]

Barack Obama delivered his second inaugural address on Monday. In clear and compelling terms, he celebrated the accomplishments that “we, the people” of the United States have achieved throughout our history in creating a more perfect union. He declared that “preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action” and that “the most evident of truths [...]

I think it is safe to say that the next big political fight is about guns. President Obama has outlined parts of his plan, and has put some of it into action through executive order, while Congressional Republicans have pretty much vowed to block any piece of legislation that would restrict access to guns. As [...]

Over the last few weeks, pundits and politicians have taken to the airwaves to offer hundreds of explanations for the Republican losses on November 6th. Some insist it was the Hispanic vote, others say it was the Republican turnout operation, the messaging, or the candidate at the top of the ticket, Mitt Romney. Each person [...]

This past Friday evening, Science Center 199 was almost full. Around 80 Swarthmore alumni, professors, students and some residents from the local community gathered to hear a talk on the just-passed presidential election. Five panelists specializing in three different fields were invited to speak. “I want the audience to be able to get a broad [...]

Governor Romney’s loss Tuesday night gave me time to step back and think about why I care so much about politics. I was devastated by Romney’s loss, and my state of disbelief clouded my more rational senses. I came to see politics as some sort of irrational obsession of mine, rather than as an institution [...]