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Articles on US politics

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The outside is being renovated, but what about the inside? Jim Bourg/Reuters

How to make the House of Representatives representative

Foundation essay: This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look…
The blurring of the line between the military and the police, especially in the US, is now on the political agenda following recent events in Ferguson, Missouri. EPA/Roberto Rodriguez

Urban combat: Ferguson and the militarisation of police

Anyone watching the footage coming out of Ferguson, Missouri in recent days would be forgiven for thinking they had tuned into a scene from a combat zone, rather than suburban America. There has been a…
In telegraphing toughness on foreign policy issues, Hillary Clinton hopes to send the message that the US will act like a great power when she’s president. EPA/Michael Reynolds

Clinton fires first shot in battle to show she’ll be different as president

Few people expected the opening shots of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to be fired across the bow of the Obama administration. Yet in a recent interview, the former secretary of state took aim…
Excessive use of force? EPA/David Carson

Michael Brown, Ferguson and the nature of unrest

The death of Michael Brown is heartbreaking, and Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to his family and his community at this very difficult time … I know the events of the past few days have prompted…
Five-year-old Dahlia Zabrano-Tercero at a July vigil for young Central American migrants in California. David Maung/EPA

Life for child migrants is even harder beyond the US border

Between 2003 and 2011, 8,000 to 40,000 unaccompanied migrant children from Central America were stopped every year on the southern border of the US. When this number boomed to more than 57,000 during the…
In the late ‘90s, Monica Lewinsky became part of US political lore and pop culture, inspiring this Los Angeles mural. So what can she add to her story now? Hector Ponce 1999/Flickr

Lewinsky, Clinton and ‘Zippergate’ redux 2014

It’s scarcely a surprise that, a decade on, we’re still interested in hearing from a president’s mistress. It’s even less surprising that, a decade on, that mistress still wants to talk. The whys of our…
This train will not be stopping at jail. Ed Schipul

The 1% game the system and the rest no longer want to play

Every year I ask my class on “Wealth and Poverty” to play a simple game. I have them split up into pairs, and imagine I’m giving one of them $1,000. They can keep some of the money only on condition they…
Empty-headed? Not even close. Gage Skidmore

Michele Bachmann defies her caricature at the Oxford Union

On March 14, in an address to the Oxford Union supposedly about “innovation”, Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann talked about her 2012 presidential run, and went so far as to hint she might consider…
The Obama administration’s revised drone warfare policy is currently being put to the legal and ethical test. World Can't Wait

Killing Americans abroad: has Obama’s policy really changed?

When is a government entitled to kill its own citizens? That’s the question at the centre of recent revelations that the Obama administration might conduct a strike against an American suspected of plotting…
Stand Your Ground laws, used as a defence in high-profile US murder trials, implicitly justify a new breed of vigilante who has little regard for human life. Fibonacci Blue

‘Stand Your Ground’: America’s violent culture written into law

Earlier this week, a Florida court began hearing arguments in the murder trial of an older, white man accused of murdering an African-American teenager. If you think this sounds familiar, you’re right…
Simply standing in front of a class and telling children how we are used to doing things ‘just won’t work’, according to leading American education expert Linda Darling-Hammond. AAP/Dan Peled

In Conversation: Maxine McKew and Linda Darling-Hammond

Watch the video of Maxine McKew interviewing Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond below. Australian schoolkids are scoring higher than their US counterparts in maths, science and literacy, but a visiting…
US president Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to motivate his party’s base, but will it work ahead of the mid-terms in November? EPA/Larry Downing

State of the Union: it’s what you didn’t hear that really matters

Barack Obama may have delivered the annual State of the Union speech before Congress, but his real audience was the Democratic base that his administration needs to mobilise before this November’s midterm…
Has US president Barack Obama seized on the right issue at the right time by targeting income inequality in his State of the Union address? EPA/Larry Downing

State of the Union: Obama’s timely answer to Americans

Just over half a century ago, after his presidency began with the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, John F. Kennedy sought out advice from his recently defeated rival, Richard Nixon. The two men had a special…
US president Barack Obama is set to address Congress to map out his agenda for the year. What’s he likely to say? EPA/Pete Marovich

State of the Union: can Obama emerge from the shadow of 2013?

On Tuesday evening (Washington time), US president Barack Obama will deliver his sixth State of the Union address. It comes at an important moment in his presidency. He has little to show for the first…

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