Citizen Leadership

The substantiveness of the Fox Business/Wall Street Journal GOP presidential debate Tuesday night gave the lie to media complaints that the presidential candidates had been seeking to turn the GOP debates into toothless Safe Spaces. After the CNBC debate, with its unabashedly biased moderation job, several candidates held a post-debate meeting and proposed new rules, including a 67-degree temperature stage, no Read More ›

There supposedly are 36 candidates vying for the Republican nomination for President in 2016. Charlie Cook calls the field “flat.” That means, I think, that no one is clearly ahead. How does the public sort it out? The media will run stories with manufactured exposes, jabber about “gaffes” (like the exaggerated reaction to Jeb Bush’s answer to questions about the Iraq War), Read More ›

“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T. S. Eliot, but for Britain’s Liberal Democrats and Labor (er, Labour) the cruelest month will always be May. In particular, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats and Ed Milliband of Labour will never forget the very night in May when each was stricken with what might be called “Sudden Onset SDD”— Staff Deprivation Read More ›

This event is sponsored by Discovery Institute’s Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership and is part of our Gorton Lecture Series. Join us as Allen Hayward gives a behind-the-scenes look at Olympia and shares his deep understanding of the political process, drawing from his 3+ decades as legal counsel to the Washington House of Representatives. In this upcoming Gorton Lecture, Allen Read More ›

Discovery Sr. Fellow George Gilder and other “elders” of the privatized Internet era expressed their alarm over drive by the FCC and Obama Administration to put Internet innovation under federal regulation in the name of “Net Neutrality”. They want an “open Internet” instead.

The Daily Caller said, “Tech elder George Gilder, a futurist author and co-founder of the Discovery Institute, told TheDCNF that businesses have no incentive to interfere with Internet freedom. ‘Their interests are aligned with an open Internet,’ he noted, ‘and the idea that Title II can impose an open internet is just quixotic.'”

A sizable media contingent covered the “elders” presser, and noted the significance of leaders such as Bob Metcalf, John Perry Barlow, Mark Cuban and Scott McNeilly, among others, speaking out on a controversial subject. Daniel Berniger organized the event.

George Gilder advised me today that the Internet companies now represent almost half the value of the NASDAQ and that putting the FCC into the role of regulating them–using the old telephone company model of 1934–could greatly damage economic growth. “It’s Obama’s biggest socialist grab so far,” Gilder said. Read More ›

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote next week on the Corker/Menendez bill to require a subsequent vote on any Iran deal that the Obama Administration completes by early summer. There is great uncertainty about everything involved, however. To start with, the Iranians and the American Administration are saying contradictory things about what they have “agreed” on. Increasingly, as the Israelis Read More ›

Quick now, name the likely Republican candidates for President in 2016. It’s tough, isn’t it? And it takes time. There are so many of them — more than in living memory, literally — that even savvy political reporters can’t keep them all in mind. An article by Stephen F. Hayes in a recent Weekly Standard came up with 18. Some Read More ›

We are fast approaching the February 27th application for our 2015 Leadership Roundtable, a program of Discovery Institute’s Center for Citizen Leadership. Through our Leadership Roundtable, young professionals have the opportunity to meet and engage with some of our state’s most distinguished leaders in business, education, media, religion, and public service. Past speakers include State Representative Matt Manweller, nationally syndicated radio host Michael Medved, Skip Li of Agros International, and former Microsoft COO Robert Herbold, among many others. If accepted into the program, there is no cost to participate. If you are under the age of 35 and aim to make a significant leadership contribution to your community, we encourage you to apply. The application deadline for the 2015 program Read More ›