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Why the Democrats Should Cut Off All Government Funding Discussions
Sébastien Lecornu resigned as French Prime Minister less than a month into the job. The reason is that he cannot cobble together a coalition that will pass a budget. As he explained, the balance of power and the mood of the country does not favor compromise: In a last-ditch move, Mr. Lecornu announced last week that he would not use…Read More
Pizzagate Darling Jack Posobiec is Voting Illegally in My State
I felt badly Edgar Maddison Welch of North Carolina when I found out what he had done. Completely suckered into believing a bogus conspiracy theory promoted by foreign intelligence agencies and domestic right-wing agitators, Welsh traveled on December 4, 2016 from his home state to the Comet Ping-Pong pizzeria in Washington DC and committed some felonies. Specifically, he showed up…Read More
Why the GOP Can’t Dissuade the Dems on the Shutdown
Carl Hulse of the New York Times does a good job of highlighting two major factors that have convinced the congressional Democrats to force a government shutdown. Both of them are based on trust. The first relates to President Trump’s threat to retaliate by firing federal workers. Democrats believe they have a powerful message on health care, with some Americans set…Read More
Demosthenes: A Conversation with James Romm
In Demosthenes: Democracy’s Defender, James Romm tells the tragic story of ancient Greece’s last democratic leader. In this Q&A, we talk with the author about his writing process and what today’s world leaders can learn from Demosthenes’ successes and failures. How do you, as a historian, ensure that you objectively cover all aspects of a historical figure, equally portraying both…Read More
A Lesson from Tacitus and Thomas Jefferson
One of the great passages from Roman history comes right at the beginning of Book One of Tacitus’ Annals, where he is discussing how Augustus seized power and ended the Republic for good. When after the destruction of Brutus and Cassius there was no longer any army of the Commonwealth, when Pompeius was crushed in Sicily, and when, with Lepidus pushed…Read More
Congressional Republicans Want to Shut Down the Government Instead of Keeping Your Healthcare Costs Low
Have you heard the federal government is on the brink of shutting down again? Moments like this can be confusing. But let’s be perfectly clear about what’s happening here: Republicans are so hell-bent on jacking up costs and taking away health care from millions of working people, that they are willing to shut down the government to do so. Millions…Read More
Democracy Alliance Statement
September 25, 2025 Amid today’s reports of politically motivated attacks on Open Society Foundations, the Democracy Alliance issued the following statement: The reported efforts by the Department of Justice to draft plans to investigate the Open Society Foundations are straight out of the authoritarian playbook. This is more than an attack on one organization, it is a plan to give…Read More
Choosing the Right Frame and Its Effects on Public Policy
Barry Schwartz and Richard Schuldenfrei— The COVID epidemic knocked the whole world for a loop. Different nations responded to it differently, as did different regions within the United States. Did we handle it well here in America? Did we handle all of it well? How should we go about trying to answer these questions? President Trump has imposed and threatened…Read More
Trump’s Proclamation Setting a $100,000 Fee for the Entry of H1-B Visa Holders to the U.S. rests on Debatable Foundations
The claimed authority in the Proclamation on “Restriction On Entry Of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers” for the $100,000 immigration fee on H1-B visa holders is 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) and 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f). Here are the relevant bits of those two code sections: 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) (f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President Whenever the President…Read More
“No Guernicas, no sacred places”: On the closure of Meanjin
Australia’s literary culture depends for its life on its journals. Literary journals are not just clearing houses for pithy snatches of commentary and readable middlebrow fiction — they’re incubators for successive generations of literary talent. One need only consider how many published novelists in this country have secured those deals on the back of work published in journals, and how…Read More