Why do people vote? What factors contribute to people’s eventual voting choice, and which factors that seem like they should be relevant are actually meaningless in the aggregate? Political scientists have long investigated questions of how people end up at their eventual voting choice, and the relative strength of the decisive factors are still debated …
Continue reading “Voting: Comparing the Michigan and Columbia Models”
At the beginning of October, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill to “designate the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or “COVID-19,” as unprofessional conduct,” according to the bill’s own language. Thus, doctors in the state can now risk losing their licenses if they engage in spreading what the government …
Continue reading “New California Bill to Criminalize Doctors’ Free Speech”
The first White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health took place in 1969, and conversations among policymakers at this vent led to some of the major food assistance programs still in existence today, such as SNAP, WIC, and school lunches. That was over 50 years ago. The second White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, …
Almost two years ago, Business Insider began a series of articles that revealed the extent of the conflicts of interest among upper-level members of the US government. In a series of articles published in mid-December of 2020 collectively called “Conflicted Congress,” Insider revealed that 54 members of Congress and 182 upper-level Congressional staffers have violated …
The 5th Circuit Court of the US has ruled that a Texas law banning social media companies from censoring users’ viewpoints is constitutional. Although small progress in combating social media censorship, this ruling is undoubtedly a victory for those who value free speech in the digital age. Trade groups NetChoice (Orwellian name there) and the …
Continue reading “Small Free Speech Victory In 5th Circuit Court Ruling”
With Labor Day being tomorrow, it’s a perfect time to talk about this subject. Across the US, too many cities have seen the same pattern. At one time, a large manufacturing employer provided steady income that allowed individuals working there to obtain a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. Such jobs often came with pensions and other benefits. …
Continue reading “Recent Trends in the Reshoring of US Jobs”
A little over a month ago, the North Carolina Democratic Party committed fraud against North Carolina’s Green Party in order to prevent the NCGP from getting on the ballots for the senatorial elections. NCGP candidate Matthew Hoh, a former Marine captain who served in Afghanistan, gathered well over the 13,865 signatures required for a candidate …
The past few decades have seen the closure of many local news operations across the US. Political science studies suggest that the loss of local news outlets results in more polarization amid the local population as well as reliance on less reliable sources of news. Sometimes, the dearth of local news does not remain. Sometimes, …
Continue reading “Chevron Starts News Site in Texas News Desert: The Third Level of Power at Work”
Welcome to the third and final part of this series! A brief recap of weeks one and two: Liberal pluralism involves competing interest groups and relies on aggregation of these interests, which are automatically known to people. Deliberative democracy is a system in which political discussions lead people to discover common interests. The third broad …
Liberal pluralism is the version of democracy that we explored in the last post, a vision of democracy that focuses on group dynamics within a society and how these groups advance their own interests. A second theoretical vision of democracy, deliberative democracy, offers a very different version for how this system of governance is supposed …
Continue reading “Visions of Democracy: Deliberative Democracy”
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