Democracy | News-Opinion
TOP NEWS: Democracy: September 17th, 2012
- Teachers Vote to Continue Strike
- Political Wisdom: Romney Looks to Focus
- Looking, Very Closely, for Voter Fraud
- NYPD Arrest 25 in Re-Occupy Protests
- Teen Arrested in Chicago Bomb Plot
More top news and analysis excerpts below:
TEACHERS’ STRIKE: Teachers Vote to Continue Strike - WSJ
Delegates for Chicago’s public-school teachers union voted Sunday night to extend their members’ strike into a second week, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he would go to court to force them back into the classroom.
TEACHERS’ STRIKE: In Search of Excellent Teaching - NYT, EDITORIAL
Teachers’ unions in much of the country now agree that though controversial and difficult, measuring student achievement is essential.
TEACHERS’ STRIKE: Chicago Teachers’ Strike Enters Second Week - NYT
MONICA DAVEY and STEVEN YACCINO – Many had assumed that school would restart on Monday, but a tentative deal won only tepid support in the union.
ELECTIONS 2012: Political Wisdom: Romney Looks to Focus - WSJ
Romney is presenting a series of speeches, television commercials and events promoting his five-point economic policy, the Times reports, and more in our morning roundup.
ELECTIONS 2012: For Both Campaigns, a Need to Control the Message - NYT
MICHAEL D. SHEAR – The events in the Middle East have forced both campaigns to improvise and abandon the economic playbook they had imagined using.
*MORE ELECTION/ROMNEY STORIES BELOW
VOTER FRAUD: Looking, Very Closely, for Voter Fraud- NYT
STEPHANIE SAUL – Busloads of illegal voters, cited by groups like True the Vote, have yet to be seen. But that has not deterred such organizations, which widely support conservative causes.
OCCUPY: NYPD Arrest 25 in Re-Occupy Protests - WSJ
About 25 people were arrested Saturday as hundreds gathered in New York City to mark the coming one-year anniversary of the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
OCCUPY: Protesters Arrested on Occupy Wall Street Anniversary - WSJ
Hundreds of protesters marking the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement were met by a heavy police presence as they converged on lower Manhattan Monday morning.
TERRORISM: Teen Arrested in Chicago Bomb Plot, Authorities Say - WSJ
An 18-year old Muslim-American from a Chicago suburb was arrested after attempting to detonate what he believed to be a car bomb outside a crowded bar in downtown Chicago, federal authorities said.
HEALTH CARE: Beyond Obamacare - NYT, OPINION STEVEN RATTNER –
Unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently, the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget.
NY POLITICS: The First Test for Albany’s Ethicists - NYT, EDITORIAL
The tangled controversy surrounding Assemblyman Vito Lopez has presented the ethics commission with its first big challenge.
UNIONS: Wisconsin Vows to Fight Labor Ruling - WSJ
Wisconsin’s attorney general said he will appeal a local judge’s ruling that struck down parts of the state law ending most public-employee unions’ collective-bargaining rights.
VETERANS: Republicans vs. Veterans’ Jobs - NYT, EDITORIAL
A jobs bill that would support veterans is being blocked by some wacky maneuvers in the Senate.
MIDDLE CLASS: Defining Middle Class - NYT
Both presidential candidates have suggested that the threshold for being rich starts around $250,000. That’s about the 96th percentile for American households.
JOBS: Obama’s Jobs Number Still Beats Predecessor’s - NYT
The pace of creation of jobs in the private sector during the current administration is now greater than the pace in either of President George W. Bush’s terms in office.
COMMODITIES: As Grocery Dies Off, Down-and-Out Town Lives On, if Barely - NYT
BROOKS BARNES – After years of watching his Central Valley town grow more and more desperate, a grocery store owner in California decided it was time close down.
SCIENCE: Online Mentors to Guide Women Into the Sciences - NYT
By connecting female college students with accomplished women working in science and technology fields, a new program hopes to increase the number going into these fields.
MORE ELECTION 2012 STORIES:
ROMNEY/TAXES: Romney‘s Tax Plan Fails to Gain Foothold - WSJ
Mitt Romney has lost his recent lead over President Obama on the question of which presidential candidate would best handle taxation, a worrisome trend for the GOP nominee.
ROMNEY: Amid Discord, Romney Seeks to Sharpen Message - NYT
JIM RUTENBERG and JEFF ZELENY – With an outbreak of finger-pointing signaling trouble in his campaign, Mitt Romney plans to say more clearly what he wants for the country, his aides said.
ROMNEY: Some Romney Proposals Await Fuller Detail - NYT
A presidential candidate who is not short of campaign promises is specific on some proposals, but vague on others.
ELECTIONS 2012: Political Perceptions: The Battle Over ‘Better Off’ - WSJ
There’s one question an incumbent president has to figure will come up sooner or later: Are Americans better off than they were four years earlier? And what about four years from now?
ELECTIONS 2012: Investor Bankrolls Romney Campaign- WSJ
Joe Ricketts, a billionaire whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, is pressing ahead with a multimillion-dollar pro-Republican political campaign, bucking a furor that emerged when the effort first become public.
The Common Good publishes a U.S. domestic news digest every weekday, available here.
