elections

BY ALISON FLINT I first learned about hackathons when I saw an ad for an event called Datafest hosted at Stanford University three years ago. Like most people, I primarily associated ‘hacking’ with computer programming. However, this Datafest looked different. It turned out that Teresa Bouza, a Knight Fellow at Stanford, had organized the hackathon […]

BY ELIZABETH A. KISLIK In a lecture at Harvard University in mid-October, New York Times columnist Gail Collins discussed how fundamentally women’s roles in American society have changed over the past half-century. Her talk reflected the theme of her 2009 book, When Everything Changed. Collins recalled the days of “executive flights,” on which young, unmarried […]

BY TOMMY TOBIN Whatever you think about former Vice President Dick Cheney, his upcoming book Heart provides new fodder for debates around the 25th Amendment and America’s system of presidential succession.  Cheney’s imperilled health during his term in office demonstrated that the 25th Amendment and the nation’s procedures for handling inability, disability, and vacancy in […]

BY PATRICK KIBBE Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for a case that could be worse for the American public than Citizens United v. FEC, and unleash countless millions of special interest dollars into political campaigns. In this case ­– McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee v. FEC – Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama […]

BY AHMED MOOR It was “one of these compressed moments, where an entire story is told in a headline,” says Harvard Kennedy School Professor Richard Parker. “The story narrative is so simple—and so powerful—that there is no way that Romney can easily escape.” To hear more of Professor Parker’s discussion of Romney’s “47%” comment, listen […]