The Baines Report
The time to abolish the filibuster is long overdue. The filibuster is not in the U.S. Constitution. It is not codified law. It is simply a procedural mechanism adopted by the Senate at the suggestion of Vice President Aaron Burr in 1805. Burr thought the previous question motion, which only required a simple majority to […]
During the Democratic primary, Joe Biden promised to veto Medicare for All legislation — two days before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. COVID-19 has exposed the inadequacies of private health insurance. Approximately 49 percent of Americans depend on their employer for health coverage. Amid historic unemployment, 12 million Americans have […]
Seventy years ago today, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human rights that enshrined the idea that every person has fundamental rights regardless of who they are or where they live. Yet since 2016, a civil war in Yemen has escalated into the largest manmade humanitarian crisis in modern memory. The world should […]
In his book The Abolition of Man, the great British thinker C.S. Lewis contemplates the demise of universal values and moral leadership. From a young age, children are taught that only objective reality is universal, Lewis writes. The dismissal of a common standard of morality results in a society led by individuals with “heads no […]
The 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution changed how Americans select senators and, in doing so, fundamentally changed how Congress operates. The people form the basis of power and hold the sovereignty in our democratic republic. The people in turn surrender some sovereignty to the states, through charters and constitutions. During the Revolutionary War […]