The Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program: Latest Articles

While environmentalists are keen to fight climate change by reducing carbon emissions, rank-and-file voters seem more taken by the promise of energy independence. Last year, Republicans energized the conservative base by promising to "drill here, drill now," a rallying cry that promised to exploit domestic energy reserves to reduce America's reliance on foreign oil. Energy experts insisted, however, that because oil is a global commodity, exploiting offshore oil would have a trivial impact on our exposure to geopolitical instability in

The case of Najibullah Zazi serves as a grim reminder that al Qaeda continues to plan deadly attacks against American civilians. Zazi traveled to Pakistan's rugged borderlands, where he connected with al Qaeda operatives who provided him with explosives training in the summer of 2008. The next year, a few months after he had returned home to the United States, Zazi began gathering explosive materials to launch an attack, one that could have killed dozens. Yet it's worth keeping in mind that this plot, however dastardly, pales… more

Maybe that Saturday Night Live skit wasn't so funny after all. Four days after Fred Armisen announced that Barack Obama's signature accomplishments were "jack" and "squat," our do-nothing president did something that Democratic presidents have been trying to do for most of the last century: He celebrated a universal health care bill's passage through Senate Committee. For good measure, the Dow topped 10,000 for the first time since last fall's meltdown. Obama's polling has even ticked up: According to Gallup,… more

Remember last winter, when liberals were complaining that Barack Obama had kept Bush family consigliere Robert Gates as his secretary of Defense and named a John McCain buddy, General James Jones, as his National Security Adviser? They're not complaining now. Today, Gates and Jones are MoveOn's best friends, because they provide the political cover that Obama needs to reject General Stanley McChrystal's call for more troops in Afghanistan. Imagine if Richard Danzig was Defense secretary and Susan Rice was NSC adviser, as many had expected. Obama

As we mark the end of the first year of the financial bailout, the public seems to regard the government's actions with a toxic combination of rage and confusion. People are pissed off but too bewildered to know what to do with that anger. The confusion isn't an accident. The government hasn't exactly been forthcoming about how it's made buckets of money available to the banking sector. When it does disclose some information--such as in July's SIGTARP report from the Treasury or the Federal Reserve's weekly balance… more