by jpitney | Oct 18, 2025 | Bipartisanship, Civility, Congress, Dreier, House of Representatives
Saya Mueller at The Daily Bruin: Former policymakers and political analysts gathered Tuesday to discuss bipartisanship in the United States’ polarized political climate. The discussion was hosted by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs in partnership with the...
by jpitney | Oct 17, 2025 | Budget, Congress
Kevin Kosar: Sometimes Congress does not bother to adopt a budget resolution. Legislators rarely enact individual spending bills. Instead, they ball them up into omnibus spending packages or pass continuing resolutions. Reconciliation has devolved into a vehicle for...
by jpitney | Oct 16, 2025 | civic virtue, Free Speech
Mike Johnson: Did you know that censorship hurts your brain? Yes, it does, according to Barbara Oakley, Oakland University professor writing in the Wall Street Journal last month: “Our brains are built to form habits…deep learning circuits that automate...
by jpitney | Oct 15, 2025 | China, Economic Policy, Trade
Lingling Wei and Gavin Bade at WSJ: In its trade standoff with Washington, Beijing thinks it has found America’s Achilles’ heel: President Trump’s fixation on the stock market. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is betting that the U.S. economy can’t absorb a prolonged trade...
by jpitney | Oct 12, 2025 | Economic Policy
Congratulations to @MariaCorinaYA on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Her courageous fight for democracy in Venezuela is a reminder that socialism doesn’t lift people up, it holds them down. We continue to stand with the Venezuelan people in their pursuit of freedom,...
by jpitney | Oct 11, 2025 | China, Trade
Vivian Wang and Keith Bradsher at NYT: As the trade war between the United States and China kicked back into high gear after a period of tentative détente, it was clear just how vast the gulf of misunderstanding between the two superpowers had become. President Trump...
by jpitney | Oct 10, 2025 | Civility, Congress, Violence
Justin Papp at Roll Call: “A shutdown distracts from a lot of things, and could clearly distract from a mission like trying to dial down the rhetoric,” said Rodney Davis, an Illinois Republican who joined more than 100 other former members of Congress last year...
by jpitney | Oct 9, 2025 | California Politics, Local Government, Los Angeles
Alene Tchekmedyian at LAT: Los Angeles firefighters will remain on duty for an additional shift during red flag weather warnings in a mandatory protocol instituted after top fire officials failed to pre-deploy engines to Pacific Palisades in advance of the devastating...
by jpitney | Oct 8, 2025 | Congress, House of Representatives, Separation of Powers
Jay Cost at AEI: By centralizing authority so heavily, the United States has rejected a fundamental governing principle upon which it was originally founded: the separation of powers. As the French philosopher Montesquieu wrote in The Spirit of the Laws, a work that...
by jpitney | Oct 7, 2025 | Journalism, Journalists, Mass Media, Public Opinion
Megan Brenan at Gallup: Americans’ confidence in the mass media has edged down to a new low, with just 28% expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly. This is down from 31%...
