Many plain about the poor quality of America’s public schools. ButBob Luddy didsomething about it. Tired of trying to convince North Carolina bureaucratsto improve the state’s public schools, Luddy built his own network of low-cost private schools that the government can’t meddle with. ...

Note: This is the secondin a weekly series of explanatory posts on the officials and agencies included in the President’s Cabinet. See the series introduction here. Cabinet position: Secretary of State Department: U.S. Department of State Current Secretary: Thomas A. Shannon Jr. is serving as acting Secretary pending the confirmation of President Trump’s nominee, Rex Tillerson. Ranking/Succession: The Secretary of State is the highest ranking member of the Cabinet and the third-highest official of the executive branch of the federal...

What just happened? Today, President Trump signed an executive order titled, “Reducing Regulation And Controlling Regulatory Costs.” The stated purpose of the executive order is “to manage the costs associated with the governmental imposition of private expenditures required ply with Federal regulations.” What does this executive order do? The order requires that for every one new regulation issued, at least two prior regulations must be identified for elimination, and that the “cost of planned regulations be prudently managed and controlled...

Ideas have consequences, but they do not have geographical boundaries.The latest example of this truth isUK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal that the government impose amaximum annual salary on British residents – an“earnings cap” on how much anyone could earn in any givenyear. The idea enjoyed massive popularity in the United States during the Great Depression due to the charismatic support of one man: Senator Huey “Kingfish” Long. The Louisiana governor and senator claimed that his “Share Our Wealth”...

During his first week in office, President Trump has signed a number of executive orders, affecting a range of policies from trade to health care to immigration. Here is what you should know about executive orders: What is an executive order? An executive order is an official document, signed by the president, used to manage the Federal Government. Are executive orders legally binding? Yes, assuming they are limited to the scope of the executive action allowed by a president, an...

In a new article at the Public Discourse, Acton’s director of research Samuel Gregg, reviews Thomas C. Leonard’s new book,Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, & American Economics in the Progressive Era. Leonard’s latest “details the progressive movement’s reliance on eugenics and race science as well as its effort to exclude the disabled, blacks, immigrants, the poor, and women from full participation in American society.” Gregg starts his article by noting both the positive and negative events that took place in the...

On January 26, the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) released its 10th Annual Think Tank Report. This list ranks thousands of think tanks worldwide and ranks them in dozens of different categories. The “think tank of think tanks” has a rigorous ranking criteria which includes: “quality mitment of the think tank’s leadership,”“quality, number, and reach of publications,”“reputation with policymakers,”“media reputation,”“ability to produce new knowledge,”“financial stewardship,” and“impact on society.” Chatham House was named “Think Tank of...

January isNational Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, a time when “we resolve to shine a light on every dark corner where human trafficking still threatens the basic rights and freedoms of others.” Here are five facts you should know about modern-day slavery: FBI.gov (Public Domain) 1. Human trafficking,also referred to as trafficking in persons or modern slavery, describes the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person pelled labor mercial sex acts through the use of force,...

Togetherwithhis appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, yet another Trump administration official has ties to the Acton Institute. The Washington Free Beacon reported today that President Trump has appointed Victoria C. G. Coates, Ph.D., to serve as senior director for strategic assessments at the National Security Council (NSC). Action Institute – THE CRISIS OF LIBERTY IN THE WEST THE BLOOMSBURY HOTEL * LONDON, UK An art historian by training, she has a long record of service in foreign...

“When it’s too late to intimidate, it’s never too late to retaliate,” says Bruce Edward Walker in this week’s Acton Commentary. It was in 2010 that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decided Citizens United by a 5-4 vote. The decision overturned most campaign finance provisions of the bipartisan McCain-Feingold Act. Kimberley Strassel, in her 2016 book The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free Speech, depicts Sen. John McCain’s co-sponsorship of the bill as the Arizona Republican’s public penance for...