The New York Times: “It has only 500 subscribers. And yet Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, a 15-year-old quarterly run by a three-person staff out of a small office blocks from the White House, may be one of the most influential publications of the post-Trump era. Six of President Biden’s 25 Cabinet-level officials and appointees,… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Congress
What is an “algorithm”? It depends whom you ask
MIT Technology Review – “…In statistics and machine learning, we usually think of the algorithm as the set of instructions a computer executes to learn from data. In these fields, the resulting structured information is typically called a model. The information the computer learns from the data via the algorithm may look like “weights” by… Continue Reading
Lizard People in the Library
Project Information Literacy Provocation Series – By Barbara Fister February 3, 2021: “As “research it yourself” becomes a rallying cry for promoters of outlandish conspiracy theories with real-world consequences, educators need to think hard about what’s missing from their information literacy efforts. Information systems that we use in our daily lives map the divisions that have… Continue Reading
Washington’s Most Influential People
Washingtonian – “The 250 experts and advocates—outside the government—who’ll be shaping the policy debates of the years to come. Contents: Antitrust Banking and Finance Business and Labor Civil Rights and Criminal Justice Climate/Environment Economic Policy Education Energy Foreign Affairs Good Government Healthcare Immigration Infrastructure and Transportation Legal Intelligentsia National Security and Defense Tech and Telecom Continue Reading
46,218 news transcripts show ideologically extreme politicians get more airtime
Via LLRX – 46,218 news transcripts show ideologically extreme politicians get more airtime – Professors Joshua Darr, Jeremey Padgett and Johanna Dunaway research how changes in the media have shifted the incentives of elected officials and the considerations of voters, and what that means for American democracy. In recent work, they showed that extremely conservative… Continue Reading
Supreme Court Nominations, 1789 to 2020: Actions by the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and the President
CRS – Supreme Court Nominations, 1789 to 2020:Actions by the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and the President, Updated February 23, 2021: “The process of appointing Supreme Court Justices has undergone changes over two centuries, but its most basic feature, the sharing of power between the President and Senate, has remained unchanged. To receive a lifetime… Continue Reading
The 5 Trump Amendments to the Constitution
The Atlantic: “…Presidents have been the authors of many informal amendments. George Washington set enduring precedents such as the two-term limit on presidential service (a norm so embedded that after Franklin D. Roosevelt broke it, it was written into the formal Constitution). Andrew Jackson reimagined the president as the direct representative of the people. Abraham… Continue Reading
The Three Permissions: Presidential Removal and the Statutory Limits of Agency Independence
The Three Permissions: Presidential Removal and the Statutory Limits of Agency Independence, 121 Columbia Law Review No.1, January 2021. “Seven words stand between the President and the heads of over a dozen “independent agencies”: inefficiency, neglect of duty, and malfeasance in office (INM). The President can remove the heads of these agencies for INM and… Continue Reading
How Americans Navigated the News in 2020: A Tumultuous Year in Review
Pew Report – Americans inhabited different information environments, with wide gaps in how they viewed the election and COVID-19, February 22, 2021. “Americans are divided – that much is obvious after a contentious presidential election and transition, and in the midst of a politicized pandemic that has prompted a wide range of reactions. But in… Continue Reading
Power Outages in Texas
CRS Insight – Power Outages in Texas, February 17, 2021: “Texas’s power outages, many experts argue, are largely a result of policies for electricity independence that the state has pursued for decades. Texas operates its own independent electrical grid, run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) that serves most of the state. Texas… Continue Reading
Now Available on Congress.gov – US Statutes at Large from 1973-1994
In Custodia Legis – “As announced at the Congress.gov Virtual Public Forum, we are excited to bring you more full-text access to legislation in the form of the United States Statutes at Large. Twenty years of law texts, dating from 1973-1994, are now easy to access from Congress.gov. Law texts can be accessed from lists… Continue Reading
Abortion: Judicial History and Legislative Response
CRS Report – Abortion: Judicial History and Legislative Response, Updated February 8, 2021: “In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy. In a companion decision, Doe v. Bolton, the Court found that a state may not unduly burden the exercise… Continue Reading
