politics

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Photo by Julio Rosas

The State of CHAZ

The new state of CHAZ has evolved. Over the past week, left-wing protesters have transformed the surrounding neighborhood into the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), hoping to create a new political authority based on social-justice principles. Read More ›
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Photo by the Black Rose Organization.

Anarchy in Seattle

Seattle’s hard-Left secessionist movement has claimed its first territory: six blocks in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Read More ›
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The Federal Bureaucracy in Check

Congress, despite many chances, has not been willing to take responsibility for checking “the administrative state,” as the aggrandizing bureaucratic power of federal agencies has come to be known. Arrival of a Democratic House makes it still less likely that Capitol Hill will resist the continued expansion of federal rules and regulations. As executive, President Trump has tried to slow Read More ›

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Is Democracy in the United States Salvageable?

It’s obvious from daily conversation — and well-documented in poll after poll — that Americans have lost faith in U.S. political institutions. Former Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Chapman has written a brilliant book warning that the trend threatens to undermine representative democracy and lead to tyranny. But Chapman, who also served as Washington’s secretary of state, comes at the danger from a different angle than most. The book is Politicians: The Worst Kind of People to Run the Government, Except for all the Others. Read More ›

Book Review: “Politicians” By Bruce Chapman

There may be one or two Americans left in the country who don’t know that we are currently living in an anti-Establishment, anti-professional, anti-politician era. Nationally we have voted someone into the Presidency whose primary claim to high office is that he has never held office. (In my own state, we have had a smaller version of the exact same phenomenon.) In virtually every Congressional and state-level campaign beyond the Presidential elections, we have candidates (including incumbents) engaged in an ever-escalating rhetorical battle to claim the low ground of experience. In Politicians: The Worst Kind of People to Run the Government, Except for all the Others, Bruce K. Chapman argues that this disdain for long-serving public servants has to stop. Keep reading.

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Politicians

About the Book

Americans love to trash their politicians as corrupt and self-interested, but they don’t agree on a solution. How can America attract good leaders to the thousands of elective offices in the land? In Polticians: The worst Kind of People to Run the Government, Except for All the Others, Bruce Chapman lays out a bold plan for the changes we need to make in our public life if we are serious about enable worthy leaders to emerge to and to succeed. Drawing on history as well as his own extensive experience in politics and public policy, Chapman challenges the conventional wisdom about politicians, arguing that their chief rivals — the media, bureaucrats, college professors, and even political “reform” groups — are often sources of further political demoralization rather than renewal. Republicans and Democrats alike, conservatives and liberals, have a stake in responding to the stirring and provocative challenge raised by this book.

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Photo by Oleksii on Adobe Stock

Goodbye California: A Lament

I was born at the French Hospital, City of Los Angeles, State of California, in 1949. As of this writing, I have never been outside my native state for more than three weeks. That’s about to change. Last week, I moved from California to the Washington, D.C. area after my wife accepted a journalism job there. The situation should last Read More ›

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Steve Buri at Bradley Center launch in Dallas

On Election Day, Discovery Institute President Steven J. Buri Says “Thank You” to Politicians

In his Seattle Times op-ed, DI President Steven J. Buri reminds us to thank our fellow citizens who choose to place their names on a ballot. At a time when many Americans are fed up with politics, we should take a moment to appreciate those that aspire to public service — often at great personal sacrifice and little personal gain. Read More ›