Archive for July 2025

As Michael Kazin, the Co-Editor of Dissent has recently pointed out in a Times Op Ed there has always been cultural a civil war in the United States In that Op-Edh he points to the Scopes Trial of 1925 as emblematic of that war, pitting a largely rural population of Biblical believers against “urban liberalism.”…

Decades ago, I read an article in The New York Review of Books that created a lasting impression. It was penned by the late, famed, Harvard biologist, Richard Lewontin. The piece began with Lewontin describing how he and the astronomer, Carl Sagan, had engaged in a debate with defenders of creationism in a large public…

The Budget Reform and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 had two goals: to prevent Richard Nixon from blocking the disbursement of appropriated funds, and to establish a budgeting process whereby Congress could assert long-term control over the relationship between government spending and taxation. The Act established Budget Committees, mandated annual budget resolutions, and created a…