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An abstract grid wall of shipping containers, unevenly arranged with some jutting out, all decorated in the colors and patterns of the USA flag. A prominent percentage sign overlays the grid.

Tariffs on Trial: The Supreme Court’s Hidden Battle for Balance

Paramount-WBD Deal: Antitrust, Consumers, and the Future of Media

Paramount-WBD Deal: Antitrust, Consumers, and the Future of Media

Two people in business attire walking into an office.

How Do We Become the Gatekeepers?

Pete Hegseth walking in a congressional hallway

The War against DEI Is Gonna Kill Us

Donald Trump isn’t joking about a third term

Donald Trump isn’t joking about a third term

Top-seeded campaign finance reforms squaring off in Democracy Madness

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The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumMay 13, 2020
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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It's down to the top two in the Money in Politics "region" of our reader-driven Democracy Madness tournament. Repealing the Supreme Court's 2013 Citizen United decision (No. 1) is taking on "dark money" disclosures (No. 2) for the championship in this quarter of our bracket.

Similar to an earlier bracket, ideas for bettering voting, the second seed has coasted its way into the finals, blowing out every opponent it came across. The top seed faced a couple of matchups that were a little tighter — but also didn't face any real challenges along the way.

Will the Money in Politics quarter of the draw deliver an upset in the championship round, which is what happened when ranked-choice voting and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact got past higher-seeded ideas to earn the first births in our Democracy Madness Final Four? You decide.

Cast your vote by Thursday for the campaign finance reform you view as the single most important. Click the Vote Now button and take your pick.

We'll unveil our 16 "best of the rest" democracy reform proposals and start whittling them down next week.

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A stethoscope, calculator, pills, and cash.

America’s healthcare debate misses the real crisis: soaring care costs. Discover how inattentional blindness hides the $5.6T gorilla reshaping policy, work, and rural communities.

Getty Images, athima tongloom

America’s $5.6 Trillion Healthcare Gorilla: Why We’re Blind to the Real Crisis

In the late 1990s, two Harvard psychologists ran a now-famous experiment. In it, students watched a short video of six people passing basketballs. They were told to count the number of passes made by the three players in white shirts.

Halfway through the film, a person in a gorilla suit walks into the frame, beats its chest, and exits. Amazingly, half of viewers — both then and in later versions of the study — never notice the gorilla. They’re so focused on counting passes that they miss the obvious event happening right in front of them.

Keep ReadingShow less
A stethoscope, calculator, pills, and cash.

America’s healthcare debate misses the real crisis: soaring care costs. Discover how inattentional blindness hides the $5.6T gorilla reshaping policy, work, and rural communities.

Getty Images, athima tongloom

America’s $5.6 Trillion Healthcare Gorilla: Why We’re Blind to the Real Crisis

In the late 1990s, two Harvard psychologists ran a now-famous experiment. In it, students watched a short video of six people passing basketballs. They were told to count the number of passes made by the three players in white shirts.

Halfway through the film, a person in a gorilla suit walks into the frame, beats its chest, and exits. Amazingly, half of viewers — both then and in later versions of the study — never notice the gorilla. They’re so focused on counting passes that they miss the obvious event happening right in front of them.

Keep ReadingShow less
Rethinking the Church’s Calling in a Time of Crisis
person's hand
Photo by Billy Pasco on Unsplash

Rethinking the Church’s Calling in a Time of Crisis

There is a significant distinction between charity and justice. Charity responds to visible wounds in the community and rushes to bandage them as necessary. Justice, rooted in biblical conviction and prophetic courage, goes further. It questions the sources of suffering: Why are people bleeding in the first place? This tension between crisis response and deeper transformation is at the core of a courageous step recently taken by Atlanta's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.

As the nation grapples with democratic strain and institutional fatigue, New Birth's decision to suspend the collection of tithes and offerings during a government shutdown and amid the threatened rollback of social supports is a daring example of moral clarity. It is more than an act of relief; it is a refusal to proceed with business as usual when the most economically vulnerable are again being asked to bear the highest costs. The pause is not merely financial; I believe it is prophetic. An assertion that the church's highest duty is to its people, not its ledger.

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