Vietnam War veterans in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea receive Agent Orange disability benefits through their governments. Canada has compensated citizens who were exposed to herbicides during pre-war testing of the chemicals. The U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs has paid billions in disability benefits related to herbicide exposure to eligible American veterans. In contrast, Vietnamese Americans who were exposed and are now sick - a group that includes both veterans and civilians - haven’t received a dime. 

It has been more than a decade since the first US drone strike in Pakistan, and can we say that we are safer for it? In recent years, the drone campaign has expanded from Yemen to Pakistan, Somalia, eastern Turkey and the southern Philippines. Has the violence in these regions lessened and hatred of America abated? The answer is a resounding no. The near daily attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and other areas where the war on terror is being played out, and countless lives lost — feeding into high-levels of anti-Americanism — are the clearest signals that the drone has failed.

After five years of nonstop bad news regarding black unemployment, the Obama administration was finally able to celebrate some good news last month, or so it seemed. In July African-American unemployment dipped to 12.6 percent, a small but significant change from June's 13.7 percent unemployment rate -- and substantially lower than the high of 16.5 percent that it reached in January 2010. But any celebration was likely short-lived. 

There is great division of opinion regarding potential U.S. military action in Syria. However, one group is ecstatic over President Obama’s endorsement of a military attack on Damascus. These are the neconservatives who dominated the George W. Bush administration, and who still hold tremendous influence in Washington. An attack on Syria would be one step in fulfilling “stage two” of a longstanding neoconservative plan to bring about regime change throughout the Middle East in three stages: Iraq, Syria and finally Iran. 

Once known as the “City of Light,” thanks to the hydroelectric power generated by nearby Niagara Falls, Buffalo’s fortunes turned with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1957. Many of its white residents soon began to leave, and by 1967 race riots rocked much of the city. Today the unemployment rate lingers at just above 10 percent, while census data from 2011 ranked the city fifth poorest among those with populations of more than 250,000. Rates of crime and childhood poverty are also high. 

The even more long-range political peril is to further taint Democrats in the eyes of liberals and progressives as a party that is just as willing to wage war as the GOP. All three are important considerations for Obama. They take on even more significance given that polls show Americans overwhelmingly oppose any involvement in Syria, masses of demonstrators have already taken to the streets in protest of a strike, and some Tea Party-affiliated GOP congressional reps have screamed loudly against the war drums. And GOP Senate war hawks want nothing less than an all-out attack to remove the Assad regime.

Since 2012, every MLS team maintains a free and full-functioning academy with moderate success. Each academy sources from local clubs, showcases, and camps, whisking away the most promising talents and training them for future MLS contracts within their respective organizations. As a model, the U.S. academies bear a considerable resemblance to the German academies, sans the $300 million euros Germany invests in youth development annually and the ideological devotion to a dominant German national squad. All that and some comparable results. 

New York hasn’t elected a Democratic mayor in 28 years. The winner of that race, Ed Koch, subsequently endorsed Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Both became mayor. Neither is a Democrat. And while analysts cite abnormal circumstances – as they inevitably do in such situations – a slightly longer perspective shows that New York has had a non-Democratic mayor for most of the past half century.

There is momentum building in California and around the country for common sense criminal justice practices that reduce America’s overreliance on incarceration. Even those who have been the most ardent proponents of flawed Get Tough on Crime polices have come around. The United States Justice Department, hard right-wing politicians, and even some victim groups have all agreed that there are far too many people incarcerated in this country, at far too great a cost to society. 

Currently, the U.S. ranks number-one in countries with the highest rate of civilian gun ownership per capita, according to the Estimating Civilian Owned Firearms report published by Small Arms Survey  in September 2011. Using a scale of comparison, Americans own more guns than Israelis or Iraqis living in the embattled Middle East. Furthermore, a 2013 Small Arms Survey report stated that between 1986 and 2010, gun manufacturers have produced more than 98 million pistols, revolvers, rifles and shotguns for domestic sale.