Alexander Hamilton called the judiciary the "least dangerous" branch of government. He was right then but wrong today. Since Hamilton's time the Supreme Court has become a cardinal example of Lord Acton's famous dictum: "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." It is not a corruption of bribes, or even of bad intentions, but of taking upon itself the right to alter the Constitution whenever past principles offend present preferences of five or more Justices....

"Common Sense" is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. The Thirteen Colonies were a group of British colonies on the east coast of North America founded in the 17th and 18th centuries that declared independence in 1776 and formed the United States of America.Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809) was an English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary.

We’ve been living in 1984 since 1941. That was the year the Justice Department first authorized the wiretapping of Americans. “We shudder to think of what its agents will do with this new authorization,” The Nation warned in an editorial that year. Ever since then, our writers have investigated, exposed and denounced gross violations of our most basic civil liberties. Now these articles have been collected in Surveillance Nation, a fascinating and timeless alternative histo...

In a delightfully refreshing and revealing tone, Dr. Piper exposes the potential fallacy in today's liberal academia and political spheres. He masterfully addresses educational, social, political, and religious issues that have shaped American culture. His commentary rhetorically confronts the reader to consider issues such as freedom, justice, common sense, human dignity, and moral objectivity. Piper is specifically passionate in arguing that postmodern political correctness is really not...

A brief discussion of Liberia's history, political development, civil wars, post-civil war recovery, and varied relationships with African nations during the administrations of presidents William V. S. Tubman, William J. Tolbert Jr., Samuel K. Doe, Charles G. Taylor, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Do American presidents consider public opinion when making foreign policy decisions? In a democracy, it is generally assumed that citizen preferences inform public policy. For a variety of reasons, however, foreign policy has always posed a difficult challenge for democratic governance. In Paying Attention to Foreign Affairs, Thomas Knecht offers new insights into the relationship between public opinion and U.S. foreign policy. He does so by shifting our focus away from the opinio...

When the Democrats retook control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2007 after twelve years in the wilderness, Nancy Pelosi became the first woman speaker in American history. In Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New American Politics, Ron Peters, one of America's leading scholars of Congress, and Cindy Simon Rosenthal, one of America's leading scholars on women and political leadership, provide a comprehensive account of how Pelosi became speaker and what this tells us a...

From the beginning of the Republic, members of Congress have been in the media spotlight. In recent years, the expansion of media venues has provided both challenges and opportunities to Representatives and Senators, the public, and even the media itself. Legacy media such as newspapers and broadcast television each carry with them their own needs and accepted usages affecting the kind and volume of news about Congress delivered to the public. These sources still serve important roles for ...

For decades after the Second World War, Senator James O. Eastland (1904–1986) was one of the more intransigent leaders of the Deep South's resistance to what he called “the Second Reconstruction.” And yet he developed, late in his life, a very real friendship with state NAACP chair Aaron Henry. Big Jim Eastland provides the life story of this savvy, unpredictable powerhouse.From 1947 to 1978, Eastland wore that image of resistance proudly, even while recognizing from the b...

The Council of Ministers is one of the most powerful institutions of the European Union (EU) and plays a major role in the European policy-making process. Drawing on formal theory and combining quantitative and qualitative methods in an innovative fashion, this book provides novel insights into the role of national bureaucrats in legislative decision-making of the Council of the EU.The book examines and describes the Council of Ministers’ committee system and its internal decision-...

President Obama has done most of what he said he would do if elected in his first term; imagine what he could have done by now if progressives had supported him and not given him a Congress that doesn't look at him as if he's the demon seed.Not only is he NOT a "disappointment," he's pretty much the opposite. And no, I don't just say that because he took out Osama bin Laden, helped Libya determine their own destiny for the first time in a while, and because he seems able to handle i...

The House and the Senate floors are the only legislative forums where all members of the U.S. Congress participate and each has a vote. Andrew J. Taylor explores why floor power and floor rights in the House are more restricted than in the Senate and how these restrictions affect the legislative process. After tracing the historical development of floor rules, Taylor assesses how well they facilitate a democratic legislative process---that is, how well they facilitate deliberation, transpa...