With fusionism – the strategic alliance of conservative foreign policy hawks, social conservatives and economic libertarians knitted together in the last half of the 20th century in opposition to munism – crumbling after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the modern conservative movement has been remaking itself in effort to address the problems of the current day. One of these seemingly ascendant factions are the mon good conservatives. In an article in the October 2020 edition of Reason magazine, managing...

Given the recent passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, public conversation has swirled with speculation about President Donald Trump’s list of potential replacements. Leading the pack is Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a circuit judge and former Notre Dame law professor, who has attracted significant heat from progressives due to her devout Catholicism, pro-life beliefs, and fondness for originalism. Beginning with Sen. Diane Feinstein’s concern that Barrett’s Roman Catholic “dogma lives loudly within her” – expressed during her confirmation...

The prospect of appointing a Supreme Court justice so close to a presidential election has roiled political discourse. Is such a move unprecedented? Is it even possible? Here are the facts you need to know. Background Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, just 46 days before the presidential election on November 3. President Donald Trump has said he will fill the vacancy, “most likely” with a female, naming his nominee at a press conference on Saturday...

This week, Alejandro Chafuen – the Acton Institute’s Managing Director, International – reflects in Forbes about parisons between Sweden’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and that of other countries. Sweden has been held up as a model by those who favor less exacting responses to the coronavirus and condemned by those who advocate for more severe measures. parison and data suggest that it is too early to hand down a judgment one way or the other, and his verdict is...

In recognition of Gregory M. Collins’ outstanding research in the fields of ethics, politics and economics, the Acton Institute will be awarding him the 2020 Novak Award. Gregory M. Collins is a postdoctoral associate and lecturer in the program on ethics, politics, and economics at Yale University. His book on Edmund Burke’s economic thought,Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke’s Political Economy, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020 and has already garnered significant attention inside and outside the munity....

After some delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the newest issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality is live on our website here. Print issues should be in the mail to subscribers sometime in the next few weeks. This issue marks the final issue for executive editor and longtime Acton research fellow Dr. Kevin Schmiesing. In his editorial to the issue, he highlights the perennial difficulty plex and important ideas: Spoken or written language is of course the medium...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on the evening of Friday, September 18, 2020, at the age of 87. She died following her fifth bout with cancer, which had metastasized to her pancreas. She is preceded in death by her husband, Martin, and is survived by two children and four grandchildren. Ginsburg, the second woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, earned her reputation at its most fervent judicial activist during her 27 years on the court. At...

Why is tonight different from all other nights? Because if you live in Los Angeles, you could face legal repercussions for celebrating the Jewish High Holy Days with family and friends. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health ordered the public not to gather with anyone outside their immediate family to celebrate the Judaism’s holiest celebrations. But after the legal intervention of a religious liberty watchdog, county officials backed down from the most rigid forms of enforcement. “The following...

It is extremely mon for me to read anything published by Glamour. In 2018, however, a first-person profile by Clara Spera caught my attention. Spera, a Harvard-trained attorney, shared with readers a personal portrait of her grandmother, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Over the course of the last several months as Justice Ginsburg’s health began to fade more rapidly, and then again last week when news of her death was announced, I remembered this article and the humane sincerity...

While TikTok will continue to be available in the U.S. due to a deal between ByteDance, Oracle, and Walmart, President Donald Trump has returned to his talking points about a payment from TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, to the U.S. Treasury. Most recently he said that ByteDance will “be making about a $5 billion contribution toward education.” While it is important to have a realistic policy towards China, forcing businesses to make special contributions in exchange for approving major deals would be...