Gastonia, NC Correspondent — The country watched a fitness question answered on live television. That doesn't mean I want a committee with a stethoscope and a donor list. Primaries were supposed to be the capacity test voters run. What we saw last week was a party that spent a year insisting the question was a … Continue reading After the first presidential debate, should party mechanisms have a formal capacity test for nominees, or would that process be captured by the same insiders the primaries were meant to discipline?
politics
How can the United States address the long-term fiscal burden of entitlement programs without undermining the social contract with current retirees?
Owatonna, MN Correspondent — Current retirees planned around existing promises and abrupt cuts would break expectations built over decades. The arithmetic is published and nobody disputes it. The trustees put old-age insurance depletion at 2033, after which the payroll tax covers something like three-quarters of scheduled benefits. Medicare's hospital fund runs out sooner. Depletion isn't … Continue reading How can the United States address the long-term fiscal burden of entitlement programs without undermining the social contract with current retirees?
Is the current scale of U.S. border encounters sustainable under existing asylum and immigration law, or does it require legislative change?
Wheeling, WV Correspondent — The encounters and the backlog have exceeded the capacity of the law and the infrastructure for several years, and December is running at a record. Catch and release, multi-year waits, and asylum standards written for a different era have produced a de facto policy that neither secures a border nor processes … Continue reading Is the current scale of U.S. border encounters sustainable under existing asylum and immigration law, or does it require legislative change?
Was the Fulton County racketeering indictment a conventional use of a state RICO statute against an alleged effort to overturn a certified result, or a county prosecutor’s attempt to nationalize a political dispute the voters were already going to retry?
Gastonia, NC The word doing the work in this indictment is "enterprise," and I want to start there because I spent two days last week finding out that the word does not mean what I assumed it meant. My assumption, and I suspect most people's, was that a racketeering statute reaches organizations whose business is … Continue reading Was the Fulton County racketeering indictment a conventional use of a state RICO statute against an alleged effort to overturn a certified result, or a county prosecutor’s attempt to nationalize a political dispute the voters were already going to retry?
Is the increasing use of secondary sanctions and financial exclusion as foreign-policy tools creating long-term risks to the dollar’s reserve status?
Sydney, Australia Correspondent — These tools are powerful because the dollar and the clearing system are central, and overuse teaches targets and neutrals to build alternatives. What happened this year is a genuine escalation. Freezing a major central bank's reserves is a different order of action from sanctioning individuals, and every reserve manager in the … Continue reading Is the increasing use of secondary sanctions and financial exclusion as foreign-policy tools creating long-term risks to the dollar’s reserve status?
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?
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?
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?
Should Congress reassert clearer limits on the use of emergency and national-security authorities by the executive branch?
Wheeling, West Virginia Correspondent — These authorities expanded through repeated use and broad interpretation, and Congress has the constitutional position to redraw them. Tighter definitions, shorter time limits, faster review. Leaving them vague invites continued expansion and reduces the legislature to a commentator. I'd say the obvious thing about why it doesn't happen. A member … Continue reading Should Congress reassert clearer limits on the use of emergency and national-security authorities by the executive branch?
