Prescott Valley, Arizona Correspondent — The present approach is reactive — rules written after harm appears or after deployment is already widespread. For these two the speed and the scale make pure reaction too slow. An anticipatory framework would identify high-risk applications early, require transparency about capability and limitation, and set baseline safety standards before … Continue reading Is the current regulatory approach to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology adequate, or is a more anticipatory framework required?
Are midsummer state referenda and ballot-qualification fights over abortion a better test of post-Dobbs democracy than a federal statute neither chamber can pass?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — Democracy that can actually close a question beats a national bill that exists as a fundraising header. The decision didn't create a consensus. It created a venue, and venues that can vote are the test of whether a country can live with disagreement. Ballot-qualification fights are ugly — signature vendors, … Continue reading Are midsummer state referenda and ballot-qualification fights over abortion a better test of post-Dobbs democracy than a federal statute neither chamber can pass?
How should Congress treat the pending rail-labor dispute so that a national freight stoppage is avoided without simply imposing terms that neither side will own?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — A national stoppage isn't a seminar about feelings. It's groceries, chemicals, cars, and a plant that runs out of a part on Tuesday. The road is narrow. Force the last mile of bargaining under a clock that's real. Put the disputed items on a small table — attendance policy, time off … Continue reading How should Congress treat the pending rail-labor dispute so that a national freight stoppage is avoided without simply imposing terms that neither side will own?
Has the student-loan payment pause now lasted long enough to become a political entitlement rather than pandemic relief?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — Relief has a date. Entitlements have a constituency. March 2020 was a shutdown of the labor market that pays the note, and a pause then was a bridge. This isn't that labor market. Hospitality on this coast is hiring in the same month the pause is being defended as though … Continue reading Has the student-loan payment pause now lasted long enough to become a political entitlement rather than pandemic relief?
Should the United States condition further Ukraine aid on a defined end-state and on European ammunition production, or treat support as open-ended for as long as Kyiv holds?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Open-ended isn't a strategy. It's a feeling that resembles one on television. Kyiv holding is a condition of geography and will. It isn't a definition of done. Without a picture of done and a European factory attached, we're running a magazine as a moral subscription. Condition it, and not as a … Continue reading Should the United States condition further Ukraine aid on a defined end-state and on European ammunition production, or treat support as open-ended for as long as Kyiv holds?
Do gasoline prices at midsummer levels require a temporary federal tax holiday and drawdown of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or would those steps worsen the longer shortage?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — A holiday on a federal tax of eighteen cents against a five-dollar sticker is a rounding error with a ribbon. A reserve drawdown is a one-time sale from a tank built for a blockade, not for a midsummer poll. Neither drills a hole or finishes a pipe. Midsummer prices hurt … Continue reading Do gasoline prices at midsummer levels require a temporary federal tax holiday and drawdown of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or would those steps worsen the longer shortage?
How should regulators respond to the spread of monkeypox without repeating the early-COVID pattern of mixed messages and uneven access to vaccine?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Say who is actually at risk, say it on Monday, and say the same sentence on Friday. That's the whole rule. The current outbreak is concentrated in a defined sexual network — overwhelmingly men who have sex with men — and it's spreading through close, sustained skin contact rather than through … Continue reading How should regulators respond to the spread of monkeypox without repeating the early-COVID pattern of mixed messages and uneven access to vaccine?
Is Title 42 still a legitimate public-health tool at the border in mid-2022, or has it become an immigration policy the statute no longer supports?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — By July the public-health sentence is exhausted. The operational sentence isn't. The authority was written for communicable disease and in March 2020 it had a face — a novel virus, crowded holding rooms, no vaccine. This is a different country. Shots, boosters, full airports, and an administration that will not … Continue reading Is Title 42 still a legitimate public-health tool at the border in mid-2022, or has it become an immigration policy the statute no longer supports?
Should Finland and Sweden’s move toward NATO be treated as a durable strengthening of the alliance, or as a new set of defense obligations the United States is not ready to resource?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Two serious countries joining a treaty isn't two more names on a mailing list. Finland has an artillery culture, conscription it never abandoned, and eight hundred miles of border with the problem. Sweden has industry and a navy that already knew the Baltic. That's strengthening if we mean mass, geography, and … Continue reading Should Finland and Sweden’s move toward NATO be treated as a durable strengthening of the alliance, or as a new set of defense obligations the United States is not ready to resource?
What should the federal response be to the infant-formula shortage, and does it expose dangerous concentration in a regulated food category?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — A baby doesn't eat a press conference, and that's the whole test. One plant that supplied a very large share of the WIC and retail market went down in February, the agency was slow and then loud, and the remaining handful of producers couldn't cover a category the rules had … Continue reading What should the federal response be to the infant-formula shortage, and does it expose dangerous concentration in a regulated food category?
