“Foreign aid, election data, border security, and the standard of living in America were among readers’ favorite articles. In 2024, Americans came to USAFacts seeking information about safety and homelessness across the US, how many people are immigrating here, the 2024 election, and government spending related to foreign aid and foreign debt. Here are the… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Congress
2025: Keep democracy alive. Our New Year’s resolution
FrameLab – Advice for defeating the authoritarian threat – “It is hard to compete with Woody Guthrie’s timeless list of New Year resolutions from 1943, which includes these ever-relevant goals: Work more and better. Read lots of good books. Keep hoping machine running. Help win war – beat fascism. Wake up and fight. But here’s… Continue Reading
The Ethics Complaint Against Liz Cheney: Blue Smoke Without Fire
Just Security: “A recently released House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight report accuses former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney of unethical conduct and concludes that “the Federal Bureau of Investigation must also investigate Representative Cheney.” The report is the House Republican majority’s investigation of the House’s own January 6 report, created when the Democrats still controlled the… Continue Reading
The religious composition of the 119th Congress
Pew Report: “When the U.S. Congress convenes for its 119th session on Jan. 3, it will have marginally fewer Christians than it did in the previous session (2023-25), continuing a gradual, 10-year decline. Christians will make up 87% of voting members in the Senate and House of Representatives, combined, in the 2025-27 congressional session. That’s… Continue Reading
Archival Records of Congress: Frequently Asked Questions
CRS Report – Archival Records of Congress: Frequently Asked Questions – “Congressional offices and committees receive, generate, and process many paper and digital files in the course of their work. Archivists preserve some of this historical material, which can help inform future Congresses and researchers studying congressional history. This report is intended to assist congressional… Continue Reading
Bill requiring US agencies to share custom source code with each other becomes law
FedScoop: “Agencies will have to share custom-developed code amongst each other in an effort to prevent duplicative software development contracts under a new bill signed into law by President Joe Biden. The bipartisan Source Code Harmonization And Reuse in Information Technology (H.R. 9566), or SHARE IT Act, takes aim at reducing the roughly $12 billion… Continue Reading
New Site for Federal Government Workers
Civil Service Strong – “Our nation depends on a strong, non-partisan civil service. The U.S. civil service — 2.2 million federal workers who live and work in every state across the country — works for the American people, safeguards our democracy, and upholds the rule of law. Strong civil servants embody the values of integrity,… Continue Reading
Senate Judiciary Committee Investigative Report on Ethical Crisis at the Supreme Court
The culmination of a 20-month investigation, the staff report features new information and a comprehensive analysis of the ongoing ethics challenge at the Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), released the findings of its 20-month investigation into the ethical crisis at the Supreme Court, including the… Continue Reading
American Autocracy Threat Tracker
State Democracy Defenders Action: “President-elect Donald Trump has said he will be a “dictator on day one.” Our American Autocracy Threat Tracker comprehensively catalogs all of Trump’s and his allies’ Project 2025 and other specific plans and promises. We also catalog potential bipartisan solutions to address the threat both now and should it come to… Continue Reading
Rebel Yell
Tablet – Part I: Donald Trump broke the back of the GOP establishment by driving blue-collar and lower-middle-class politics in a Southern direction. His gentry Republican critics have only themselves to blame. Donald Trump’s first and in many ways most enduring political accomplishment is not the humiliation of the Democratic Party he has toppled in… Continue Reading
The Crumbling Foundation of America’s Military
The Atlantic [gift article]: “The U.S. failed to produce weapons and ammunition fast enough to supply Ukraine. Could it equip its own armed forces in the event of war?…”America itself lacks stockpiles of the necessary components. A massive rebuilding effort is now under way, the largest in almost a century, but it will not—cannot—happen fast.… Continue Reading
How Silicon Valley is disrupting democracy
MIT Technology Review – “Two books explore the price we’ve paid in handing over unprecedented power to Big Tech—and explain why it’s imperative we start taking it back. The internet loves a good neologism, especially if it can capture a purported vibe shift or explain a new trend. In 2013, the columnist Adrian Wooldridge coined… Continue Reading
