Americans Still Don’t Know What Sequestration Is

I haven’t been doing much writing about the US economy lately, in part because there’s been no substantive movement on the issue politically since sequestration went through. All we’ve gotten lately are some retread hopey changey speeches from Obama and threats of future government shutdowns from congressional republicans. Nonetheless, these are the first signs that we will soon be having more unproductive fights about the economy with potentially devastating consequences for growth, so I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled. And, lo and behold, I stumbled on a little poll from Gallup.

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How to Fix the Voting Rights Act

Back in June, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Through negligence, I never got around to writing about it. Today, however, the Department of Justice has decided to attempt to circumvent the court’s ruling, asking a federal court to require the state of Texas to get federal clearance before it makes changes to its voting laws. This is as good a segue as any into discussing the quality of the court’s ruling and how the rest of the state ought to respond to it.

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Leave Anthony Weiner Alone

Once again I find myself writing about this topic, the tendency in democratic politics for candidates and officials of potentially substantial merit to be disqualified on the basis of sexual behavior. When last I ruminated on this subject, the individual under attack was David Petraeus. Today it is, for the second time, Anthony Weiner the former New York congressman who is attempting to resurrect his career with a run for mayor of New York City. The revelation is apparently that, sometime after Weiner resigned from congress, he sent another person sexually explicit photos. The condemnation has been seemingly near-universal, and, I would argue, near-universally misplaced.

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Democracy’s Origin Story

I have some new thoughts today concerning where the modern emphasis on democracy comes from. Why have so many states decided to become democracies, and why do so many people consider all alternative governments unsuitable? There’s no news story to link you to, no current events connection, this post is just from my mind to yours, dear reader. So let’s get started.

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Pathological British Ignorance

A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society reveals tremendous public ignorance in the United Kingdom about basic political facts. These facts are not matters of mere political trivia (i.e. “who is the current home secretary?”). They are facts the ignorance of which actively misleads British citizens into holding harmful political views, electing harmful governments, and contributing to one another’s mutual malaise.

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