Rights and Democracy
Taking the Fight for Electronic Privacy to the Streets
It's been four months since Edward Snowden exposed the NSA's spying regime. Since then, we've discovered that the agency tracks our phone calls, our emails, our browsing history, and our contacts. It also tracks our contacts' contacts…and their contacts. We've also...
How to Honor the March on Washington’s Legacy (or Not)
Remember that inspiring 50th birthday party for the March on Washington at the end of the summer? Unfortunately, those moving speeches didn't slow the emergence of a new Jim Crow system. The Supreme Court kicked off its celebration of the occasion a month early by...
Monumental Government
Forging Ahead at 50
Fifty years ago, two progressive former Kennedy administration officials opened the doors of the Institute for Policy Studies. Ever since, IPS public scholars have channeled our independence — from government and corporate money— to blend fresh, bold ideas with...
Shut Up and Work
For the first time in 17 years, Congress failed to provide the funding to keep the entire government running. So now you have two classes of government service and two classes of employees: "essential" and "non-essential." If you run a national park, you aren't...
Attack of the Zombie Lawmakers
Barack Obama’s shutting down of the government is the most self-destructive thing to happen since Poland attacked Nazi Germany in 1939. Oh wait! It was Germany that attacked Poland, wasn’t it? Yes, but Adolf Hitler, the chancellor of Germany, said that Poland was the...
The Values Divide
There's a lot of talk about how polarized the country is today. Sometimes that polarization is more than about partisan politics — it's about real differences in values. Take the House Republicans' recent votes to deny food and health care to millions of Americans....
It’s All Their Fault
Everyone pretty much agrees that what's going on in Washington right now ranks up there with the dumbest, most destructive episodes in our history. We are a great and powerful country, on the cusp of achieving that "Shining City upon a Hill" status that Puritan leader...
Shutting the Whole Thing Down
Citizens United, the Sequel
Did you get sick of that barrage of attack ads during last year's elections? Brace yourself: It could get worse. One deep-pocketed Alabama donor named Shaun McCutcheon, joined by the Republican National Committee, will soon ask the Supreme Court to let him put even...
