Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
Is The War on Iran Unlawful And Unfair To U.S. Troops?

Is The War on Iran Unlawful And Unfair To U.S. Troops?

Protestors holding signs, many that say "Stop Bombing Iran."

Trump’s ‘Just for Fun’ War Talk Shows a Dangerous Trivialization

Disinformation Wins: Justifying ICE Murders through Transphobia

Disinformation Wins: Justifying ICE Murders through Transphobia

Three candidates vie to become the first Latino Representative for Illinois Congressional District

Three candidates vie to become the first Latino Representative for Illinois Congressional District

Republican scheming backfires in Texas election

Republican scheming backfires in Texas election

Blue Oregon pledges its electoral votes to the national winner, if red states do also

The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumJun 07, 2019
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
See More Writings by author

Oregon is about to become the 15th state to pledge its electoral votes to the winner of the presidential popular vote.

Democratic Gov. Kate Brown says she will soon sign legislation committing Oregon to the National Popular Vote Compact. States that do so have made legally binding provisions to instruct their electors to vote for the national popular vote victor no matter the result in their states – but only once enough states to make up an Electoral College majority do likewise.

The state House approved the bill, 37-22, on Tuesday. The Senate had passed it, 17-12, two months ago.

With Oregon's seven, the compact now includes states (plus Washington, D.C.) that total 196 electoral votes. All of them, however, are currently considered part of the bedrock "blue wall" for the Democrats in presidential politics. Oregon, for example, last voted Republican in the Reagan re-election landslide of 1984.

"This is about giving all voters in the United States, regardless of where they live, the ability to be heard in the most important of our elections," said one of the bill's chief sponsors, Democratic state Rep. Tiffiny Mitchell. "Today, we make Oregon a battleground state."

The countervailing views are: the Electoral College is what the founders had in mind; the system does a great job of getting candidates to spend time in all parts of the country; the smaller states do not want to lose their relatively big power over the outcome; and neither do Republicans who currently have a quite stronger electoral vote base.

With most state legislatures winding up their annual sessions, the actions in Salem look to bring progress for the popular vote movement to a pause for the rest of the year. Last week Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada vetoed a measure committing his state's six electoral votes to the cause.

The effort has gained momentum, especially in Democratic states, since Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million but won 84 more electoral votes than Hillary Clinton. It was the fifth time in history the winner of the presidency did not win the popular vote.


Latest news

Close up of stock market chart on a glowing particle world map.
Economy

How the Iran Conflict Triggered a Private Credit Liquidity Crisis

I’m a Former Immigration Lawyer Turned Public School Teacher. Here’s How I’m Engaging Students in Civics.
Education

I’m a Former Immigration Lawyer Turned Public School Teacher. Here’s How I’m Engaging Students in Civics.

Digital generated image of green semi transparent AI word on white circuit board visualizing smart technology.
Media & Technology

A Proven Playbook for AI Leadership: Lessons from America’s Chip Comeback

Protestors holding signs, including one that says "let the people vote."
Governance & Legislation

SAVE America Act Debate Begins; Mullin for DHS Hearing

Read More

Paul Ehrlich was wrong about everything

Crowd of people walking on a street.

Andy Andrews//Getty Images

Paul Ehrlich was wrong about everything

Biologist and author Paul Ehrlich, the most influential Chicken Little of the last century, died at the age of 93 this week. His 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” launched decades of institutional panic in government, entertainment and journalism.

Ehrlich’s core neo-Malthusian argument was that overpopulation would exhaust the supply of food and natural resources, leading to a cascade of catastrophes around the world. “The Population Bomb” opens with a bold prediction, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Bravado Isn’t a Strategy: Why the Iran War Has No Endgame

People clear rubble in a house in the Beryanak District after it was damaged by missile attacks two days before, on March 15, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. The United States and Israel continued their joint attack on Iran that began on February 28. Iran retaliated by firing waves of missiles and drones at Israel, and targeting U.S. allies in the region.

Getty Images, Majid Saeedi

Bravado Isn’t a Strategy: Why the Iran War Has No Endgame

Most of what we have heard from the administration as it pertains to the Iran War is swagger and bro-talk. A few days into the war, the White House released a social media video that combined footage of the bombardment with clips from video games. Not long after, it released a second video, titled “Justice the American Way,” that mixed images of the U.S. military with scenes from movies like Gladiator and Top Gun Maverick.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, War Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted of “death and destruction from the sky all day long.” “They are toast, and they know it,” he said. “This was never meant to be a fair fight... we are punching them while they’re down.”

Keep ReadingShow less
A student in uniform walking through a campus.

A Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadet walks through campus November 7, 2003 in Princeton, New Jersey.

Getty Images, Spencer Platt

Hegseth is Dumbing Down the Military (on Purpose)

One day before the United States began an ill-defined and illegal war of indefinite length with Iran, Pete Hegseth angrily attacked a different enemy: the Ivy League. The Secretary of War denounced Ivy League universities as "woke breeding grounds of toxic indoctrination” and then eliminated long-standing college fellowship programs with more than a dozen elite colleges, which had historically served as a pipeline for service members to the upper ranks of military leadership. Of the schools now on Hegseth’s "no-fly list," four sit in the top ten of the World’s Top Universities for 2026. So, why does the Secretary of War not want his armed forces to have the best education available? Because he wants a military without a brain.

For a guy obsessed with being the strongest and most lethal force in the world, cutting access to world-class schools is a bizarre gambit. It does reveal Hegseth doesn’t consider intelligence a factor–let alone an asset–in strength or lethality. That tracks. Hegseth alleges the Ivies infect officers with “globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks…” God forbid the tip of the sword of our foreign policy has knowledge of international cooperation and global interconnectedness. The Ivy League has its own issues, but the Pentagon’s claim that they "fail to deliver rigorous education grounded in realism” is almost laughable. I’m a veteran Lieutenant Commander with two Ivy League degrees, both paid for with military tuition assistance, and I promise: it was rigorous. Meanwhile, are Hegseth’s performative politics grounded in reality? Attacking Harvard on social media the eve of initiating a new war with a foreign adversary is disgraceful, and even delusional.

Keep ReadingShow less
Are We Prepared for a World Where AI Isn’t at Work?
Person working at a desk with a laptop and books.
Photo by Microsoft Copilot on Unsplash

Are We Prepared for a World Where AI Isn’t at Work?

Draft an important email without using AI. Write it from scratch — no suggestions, no autocomplete, and no prompt to ChatGPT to compose or revise the email.

Now ask yourself: Did it feel slower? Harder? Slightly uncomfortable?

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026