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1. How will the Obergefell case impact the Republican presidential primaries?
2. Is Bernie Sanders becoming a significant threat to Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations?
3. With no rate increase in June, is the Federal Reserve poised to raise rates in September?
4. Do recent decisions indicate that the Supreme Court now leans to the left?
5. Will the revised U.S. hostage policy put more Americans at risk?
6. Should the U.S. care about the Greek debt crisis?
7. Are transgender rights the next civil rights battleground?
8. Will Space X’s failures deter private investment in the space industry?
9. Should orthodox Christians in America follow the “Benedict option”?
10. How will the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage affect future First Amendment cases where religious and civil rights clash?
Since the shooting of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last August there have been growing calls for reforming police tactics in the United States. Liberal and libertarian groups charge that American police have become “militarized” and much too aggressive. These groups note that in addition to Brown, other unarmed suspects have died after interactions with police officials such as Freddie Gray in Baltimore and Eric Garner in New York City. Protests that emerged from the deaths of these men and others sometimes degenerated into violence with Ferguson and Baltimore experiencing riots this season, thereby creating some of the worst civil unrest that America has seen since the late 1960s. President Barack Obama and the Justice Department have investigated local police forces more diligently over the last six years and such investigations are likely to continue as an estimated 500 Americans have been killed by police officers this year. Proponents of reform argue that police need to do a better job interacting with the communities they serve and that better training is needed for officers when they interact with young people, the mentally ill, and minority groups. Opponents argue that an emphasis on community policing will create the re-emergence of a national crime wave, with some noting that a “Ferguson effect” is taking place where criminals are more empowered than ever before as police hold back for fear of criminal prosecution if they make a mistake.
Since December, American agricultural authorities have been wrestling with an outbreak of bird flu. Three strains of bird flu have affected the North American poultry industry and have thus far led to the culling of 38.9 million birds in the United States, twice the number of a major outbreak that took place three decades ago. The Pacific Northwest and the Midwest have been the regions most significantly impacted by the outbreak and Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa have been forced to declare states of emergency. Scientists are not yet sure what is causing the outbreak, but the leading theory is that migratory birds might be spreading various strains of the virus. Although there is no threat to American public health at this time, health officials are remaining alert to any bird-to-human transmission of avian influenza, which took place in Asia in 2003. Due to the fact that the recent outbreak will raise consumer prices of egg-related food products in the short-term, that U.S. taxpayers will be paying millions in relief to poultry farmers, and handling the problem will test the leadership of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, extempers that specialize in domestic issues should be aware of the recent bird flu problem.
Free trade deals are one of the hallmarks of globalization. They allow countries to reduce trade barriers, allow for a freer flow of goods and services, and are tool of “soft” diplomacy. The 1990s and 2000s was an era for American free trade accords as the United States worked with Canada and Mexico to create the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and then signed additional agreements with another eighteen countries. While proponents argue that these deals will allow consumers to acquire cheaper goods and that the deals serve America’s geopolitical interests, opponents allege that they strengthen the power of corporations at the expense of the middle class and that they produce sizable job losses. Growing trade skepticism could impair the implementation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade accord between the United States and eleven other nations in the Pacific Rim. President Barack Obama is a supporter of the TPP and is pushing Congress to grant him trade promotion authority (TPA) to conclude the deal. Ironically, Republicans who have been an obstruction to much of the President’s agenda for the last six years are his biggest allies in the TPP fight, but Obama will likely have to win over some moderate Democrats to overcome opposition from unions and progressives to make the TPP a reality.
When 2015 began policymakers figured that the U.S. Federal Reserve would raise interest rates. Optimism about the strength of the U.S. economy, as well as projections that inflation would soon meet the Federal Reserve’s preferable mark of 2%, lent credence to these predictions. However, lower than expected growth during the first quarter, coupled with disappointing unemployment data and stubborn inflation statistics have caused some observers to change their predictions of a rate increase. Instead of expecting an increase in 2015, some are now saying that a change in monetary policy will not occur until next year. The minutes of the Federal Reserve’s meeting last month show that it is divided about what to do and this uncertainty means that extempers could face questions over the next three months about when the Federal Reserve will act, and if it should raise interest rates before the end of the year.
Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States. Home to more than 2.7 million people, it is battling some of the same crises as other major urban centers in the country: declining population, poorly performing public schools, high crime, and a growing pension crisis. On April 7, Chicago voters went to the polls to participate in the first mayoral runoff since the city moved to nonpartisan mayoral elections in 1999. The battle was framed as an internal Democratic Party struggle that pitted Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a centrist, against progressive Cook County commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. After the votes were tallied, Emanuel won re-election by a comfortable 56-44% margin, but doing so cost millions of dollars and the fact that the election went to a runoff, especially after Emanuel’s biggest challengers dropped out of the race prior to the first round of voting, was deemed as a blow to Emanuel’s political reputation. Emanuel must now deal with the city’s economic problems, its teachers’ union, and a city council that is growing more progressive. His success in doing so may determine whether he is able to achieve higher national office in the future.