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Jimmy Carter: Prophet of Doom for American Democracy

Jimmy Carter: Prophet of Doom for American Democracy

A fictional, fanciful sign depicts the results of voter suppression through the unfair, partisan manipulation of district lines (gerrymandering).

The worst congressional gerrymanders of the 2020s

Behind the “Lie of the Year,” some bitter truths

Behind the “Lie of the Year,” some bitter truths

Photo from the movie "Conclave"

Certainty is the enemy of unity and tolerance

N.C. legislators on course for on-time undoing of their partisan gerrymander

N.C. legislators on course for on-time undoing of their partisan gerrymander

This map, drawn by the state Senate for itself, is expected to win approval from the judges who demanded it.

North Carolina General Assembly
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumSep 17, 2019
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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North Carolina's new state legislative district lines are on pace to be finished by Wednesday's court-imposed deadline after versions of the maps passed both chambers of the General Assembly.

The Senate's bipartisan, 38-9 vote happened Monday night. The House and Senate are now reviewing each other's maps, potentially making additional tweaks to some boundaries before they are forwarded for final approval to the three state judges in Raleigh who ordered the redistricting this month.

The judges said the current maps were gerrymandered to ensure continued Republican control to the point they violated the state constitution. In reviewing the new lines for similar partisan bias, the judges will be assisted by Stanford University law professor Nathaniel Persily, who was appointed on Friday to referee the process.

The court has the ability to tweak the news lines, and House Democrats don't think districts covering Robeson, Columbus and Pender counties will pass the proverbial sniff test, according to WRAL. The state House maps were passed on Friday, but were more controversial, meaning the Senate maps will be the ones most likely passed on to the court.

These new maps will only be used for one election before they are redrawn using data from the 2020 census.

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Democracy

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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The Second Dimension of Our Current Politics

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The Second Dimension of Our Current Politics

Politics has felt weird for a while now. From Donald Trump himself to the noteworthy rise of populist sentiment that is affecting both parties, many informed people are left scratching their heads trying to understand what has come over the country. The American economy, historically the number one issue for voters, is the “envy of the world” according to a recent special report by The Economist; crime and illegal immigration are also down. Yet the 2024 presidential election was a decisive rebuke of the current administration, resulting in Trump leading the Republican party to its largest win in a presidential election since 1988.

Many postmortem conversations have focused on whether Kamala Harris should have run further to the right or the left and focused more attention during her abbreviated campaign on popular social or economic issues. This one-dimensional view of the right-left political spectrum, with traditional conservatism on one end and redistributive socialism on the other, comes up short in describing our current politics. It is only through recognizing the class dimension of political appeal, whereby some candidates tailor their message to the priorities of the educated, cosmopolitan class, and others tailor their message to the concerns of the working class that recent political contests can be better understood.

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Examining Why DEI Efforts Often Fall Short and How to Foster Effective Change

Diversity illustration concept shows different ethnicity and style of people walking on the street, the contrast of people showing individuality characteristics.

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Examining Why DEI Efforts Often Fall Short and How to Foster Effective Change

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller

What if I told you that most organizations’ DEI initiatives were doomed from the start? That their failure could have been predicted and even avoided?

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Meta ditches fact-checkers: What it means for the rest of us

CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg is seen during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with representatives of social media companies at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Wednesday January 31, 2024 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Meta ditches fact-checkers: What it means for the rest of us

This week, Meta announced that it would be ending relationships with its vast global network of fact-checking partners – organizations like Factcheck.org, Politifact, and the Associated Press that have been flagging falsehoods on the platform since 2017. In making the announcement, CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed these partners were making “mistakes” and engaging in “censorship” and that it was time to “restore free expression” across Meta properties.

Platforms, journalists, civil society organizations and regular folks have long relied on fact-checkers to debunk the falsehoods polluting our information ecosystem. These journalists are trained to research claims and report the facts in accordance with standards set by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and its European counterpart, the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN). All of Meta’s fact-checking partners were IFCN-approved; none took down content themselves.

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The Untold Costs of AI: The West Is Paying for the Future That Hasn’t Arrived

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The Untold Costs of AI: The West Is Paying for the Future That Hasn’t Arrived

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been heralded as a technological revolution that will transform our world. From curing diseases to automating dangerous jobs to discovering new inventions, the possibilities are tantalizing. We’re told that AI could bring unprecedented good—if only we continue to invest in its development and allow labs to seize precious, finite natural resources.

Yet, despite these grand promises, most Americans haven’t experienced any meaningful benefits from AI. It’s yet to meaningfully address most health issues, and for many, It’s not significantly improving our everyday lives, excluding drafting emails and making bad memes. In fact, AI usage is still largely confined to a narrow segment of the population: highly educated professionals in tech hubs and urban centers. An August 2024 survey by the Federal Reserve and Harvard Kennedy School found that while 39.4% of U.S. adults aged 18-64 reported using generative AI, adoption rates vary significantly. Workers with a bachelor's degree or higher are twice as likely to use AI at work compared to those without a college degree (40% vs. 20%), and usage is highest in computer/mathematical occupations (49.6%) and management roles (49.0%).

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