• Let’s Stop Being Cavalier About Civilian Control of the Military

    The message of a remarkable open letter by former secretaries of defense and former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, published last week, is straightforward: The United States needs to review the basic principles of civilian control of the military and recommit to best practices in civil-military relations. Peter Feaver and Michèle Flournoy write that the statement dismisses what might be called the naïve theory of civilian control — the idea that every whim of the president should be immediately executed as a direct order without any further thought. “In a democracy, that can be as dangerous as rank insubordination, if a president is reckless,” they write. “It is hard not to think of President Trump and the way his impulsive, idiosyncratic approach to the commander-in-chief role made this rearticulation of first principles necessary.”

  • How the Midterms Could Weaken U.S. Election Security

    Candidates who support former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election would, if elected in November, gain the power to open up access to their states’ voting machines. Eric Geller writes that this is a prospect which election security experts and cybersecurity analysts describe as potentially catastrophic for American democracy.

  • “Mega Study” Points to Ways to Strengthen Democracy

    American democracy is at risk, Stanford scholars and others have warned. Many studies have found anti-democratic attitudes and support for partisan violence are at concerning levels among the American public, partisan animosity is growing, and Americans are willing to compromise democratic principles for partisan gain. A Stanford-led project has identified a set of strategies to counter anti-democratic attitudes and reduce partisan animosity.

  • Reinforcing Democracy by Building Trust

    Trust is a critical ingredient for cultivating a robust civil society and resilient democracy, analysts attest. By the mid-1990s, several Western democracies, including the United States, were showing signs of political decay, distrust, and declining civic and political engagement.

  • ‘Silicon Lifeline’: Report Reveals Western Technology Guiding Russia’s Weapons in Ukraine

    Microelectronics produced in the United States and allied countries are crucial components of Russian weapons systems used in the Ukraine invasion. A new report says more than 450 foreign-made components have been found in Russian weapons recovered in Ukraine. The report’s authors say Moscow acquired critical technology from companies in the United States, Europe and Asia in the years before the invasion.

  • Chinese Firms Leaving New York Stock Exchange Could Be First of Many

    A long-running battle between U.S. securities regulators and Chinese companies that sell their shares in the United States is expected to result in five large state-controlled Chinese firms leaving the New York Stock Exchange, with other departures possible in the future.

  • Man Charged with Making Threat to Arizona Election Official

    A Missouri man was indicted for allegedly threatening election officials in Arizona. “These unlawful threats of violence endanger election officials, undermine our electoral process, and threaten our democracy,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

  • Why Presidential Papers Don't Belong to Presidents

    The Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 established that all presidential records are owned by the public and automatically transfer into the custody of the National Archives as soon as a commander-in-chief leaves office. The PRA was passed after President Richard Nixon, in 1973-1974, during the Watergate scandal, fought to destroy White House records, including secret tape recordings, in order to conceal criminal activity by himself and his staff. Nixon argued that the White House records were his private property to do with them what he wanted.

  • Drones Approved for Aerial Inspections of Power Facilities

    Drones have allowed companies new ways to stretch the boundaries of current regulations. One of the latest wins for drone technology is a waiver from the FAA that gives Dominion Energy, one of the U.S. largest energy companies, permission to use drones to inspect power-generation facilities in seven states.

  • Texan Who Prosecutors Say “Lit the Match” of Jan. 6 Riot Sentenced to More Than 7 Years in Prison

    Guy Reffitt, a 49-year-old Wylie resident, never entered the Capitol but helped ignite the crowd “into an unstoppable force,” a prosecutor at his trial said. His sentence is the longest given out so far from the Jan. 6 riot.

  • Correcting Misconceptions About the Electoral Count Reform Act

    It has been apparent for a long time that the Electoral Count Act (ECA)—the 1887 law designed to ensure that presidential elections operate with integrity—is flawed. These flaws were on full display during the counting of electoral votes in 2020-2021, but all of the flaws had historical precursors. Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith write that the Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA), which was recently introduced by a bipartisan group of senators to replace the ECA, is an exceptionally promising development in our polarized era.

  • Buying Into Conspiracy Theories Can Be Exciting – That’s What Makes Them Dangerous

    The historian Richard Hofstadter, in his seminal 1964 book, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, described a “paranoid style” which he observed on the fringes of far-right U.S. politics and culture: a blend of “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.” In our time, the “birther” movement, “Pizzagate,” QAnon, and “Stop the Steal” are but a few examples of these conspiratorial fantasies. Much of the commentary on conspiracy theories presumes that followers simply have bad information, or not enough, and that they can be helped along with a better diet of facts. My research shows that believers in conspiracy theories have plenty of information, but they insist that it be interpreted in a particular way – the way that feels most exciting. Just as the “X-Files” predicted, conspiracy theories’ acolytes “want to believe.”

  • Building the “Big Lie”: Inside the Creation of Trump’s Stolen Election Myth

    Internal emails and interviews with key participants reveal for the first time the extent to which leading advocates of the rigged election theory touted evidence they knew to be disproven, disputed or dismissed as dubious.

  • An Elusive Shadow: State-by-State Gun Ownership

    Policy-makers are faced with an exceptional challenge: how to reduce harm caused by firearms while maintaining citizens’ right to bear arms and protect themselves. Meaningful legislation requires an understanding of how access to firearms is associated with different outcomes of harm, but this knowledge also calls for accurate, highly-resolved data on firearm possession, data that is presently unavailable due to a lack of a comprehensive national firearm ownership registry.

  • U.S. Youth Firearm Mortality Increases Over the Past Decade --Trends Differ Significantly Across States

    In 2020, firearms were the leading cause of death in children in the United States. Four states with stricter laws restricting gun access successfully reversed upward trajectories in youth gun deaths over the past decade.