Mike Pilewski writes about life, politics and culture in the United States
The party of Barack Obama had everything going for it: unemployment down to 2008 levels, GDP growing at 3.5 percent, the stock market doubled in value, and more Americans with health insurance than ever before. Jobs and the economy are the issues US voters care about most, with health care in second place, so mission accomplished. Why, then, on Tuesday, … >>
The situation in Ukraine is not going to be an easy one to solve. The consensus in American political circles is that it’s bad and something must be done. How bad is it? Interviewed on a CNN news program on Sunday, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski compared the situation on the Crimean … >>
If you watched Barack Obama’s State of the Union (SOTU) speech Tuesday night (Wednesday morning in Europe), you learned some surprising things. According to Obama: Lots of people are getting jobs in America. Millions of Americans have signed up to get health care. The United States no longer depends significantly on foreign oil. The US government is doing something about … >>
Well, they did it: they broke the government. Congress failed to agree to continue funding the federal treasury into the new fiscal year, which began October 1. So now 821,000 federal employees have some time off, while the remaining 2.4 million continue to operate essential services. “Essential services” include things like the CIA, the Internal Revenue Service, and the NSA … >>
If a group of Republican members of Congress gets its way, large parts of the US government could stop functioning next week. National parks and museums will close. The military won’t get paid. Passports won’t be issued. Government loans to businesses and home-buyers will stop. Safety inspections could be less frequent. That’s the threat, anyway. A last-minute deal is still … >>
Recently, the American and German exchange students I advise were privileged to enjoy the company of Vice-Admiral Charles Martoglio, the deputy commander of United States European Command. Martoglio and his boss are in charge of 100,000 military and civilian personnel who operate across this entire continent. Our group often meets with ambassadors, consuls, army generals, air-force colonels and important politicians, … >>
American filmmaker Oliver Stone is fascinated by history and those who make it. His JFK, Nixon, World Trade Center and W. have attempted to fill the gaps in our knowledge of what happened and what may have happened at key points in US history. Now he’s filled the gaps in his own timeline in an ambitious documentary called Oliver Stone’s … >>
Ten years ago today, the United States invaded Iraq — a country that had not threatened the US and that had no means of attacking it. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed; two million became refugees. A total of 4,475 American soldiers were killed, and another 32,221 suffered significant injury, disfigurement or amputation. Many more suffered traumatic brain injuries … >>
One of the highlights of my USA ’08 Special Report for Spotlight Online was a review of all the different music videos that expressed the election campaign in song. Will.i.am’s “Yes, We Can” video, along with Barelypolitical’s Obama Girl series, started an avalanche of user-made songs and parodies about all the candidates that kept us entertained for a year. There … >>
Every recent US president was elected by a minority — one quarter, at most one third, of the population. That’s because nearly half of the Americans who could vote don’t vote. I’ve been meeting Americans who tell me they won’t be voting this November. The candidates don’t speak to their needs; the system is too corrupt; promises are made to … >>