Navigating Public Policy, Technology, Health, Data, and Innovation for a Fairer Future
Congress is supposed to argue. It is supposed to debate, negotiate, and fight like hell over ideas that affect millions of people. What it is not supposed to do is shut itself down because one man decides democracy is inconvenient. Recent reporting revealed that Speaker Mike Johnson refused to convene the House of Representatives for Read More “The Day the People’s House Went Dark”
Thank you. That is the only honest way to begin. The past week brought a surge of new readers to Breaking Barriers, and the analytics point to something I did not expect: most of this new traffic is coming from outside the United States. A large percentage is coming from China. Several other countries follow Read More “Curiosity is an act of courage”
The video opens the way these things usually do. A blurred screenshot. A whispery narrator. The suggestion of a hidden truth just out of reach. Facts are optional. Ambiguity is the point. A vague accusation drops into the digital bloodstream and within hours it mutates into certainty. Thousands share it. Tens of thousands believe it. Read More “When Disinformation Becomes a Business Model”
Democracy doesn’t collapse overnight. It erodes, step by step, pushed along by leaders who see rules as obstacles instead of obligations. Trump is well into his second term now, and he’s been clear about one thing: institutional constraints are for other people. His latest demand is the most dangerous yet. He wants Senate Republicans to Read More “The Day Duty Quietly Won”
There’s a peculiar dynamic at work in American energy policy right now, one that reveals something deeper about our political moment than mere partisanship. The facts themselves are straightforward enough. Seventeen of the twenty-two states drawing the highest share of their electricity from wind and solar now enjoy below-average retail power prices. Iowa generates nearly Read More “Green Energy Won the Market. Ideology Won’t Let It Win the Narrative”
One of the quiet pleasures of middle age is scanning your own bookshelf, not for something new, but for the ghosts of what shaped you. The books are a map of who you’ve been, and sometimes, who you still hope to be. The other morning, I noticed a gap. My copy of Daniel Boorstin’s The Read More “The Subversive Power of Sharing Books”
On a quiet stretch of Indiana farmland, the combines should be humming. September is harvest season, when grain silos begin to fill and contracts with Chinese buyers typically bring relief to debt-laden families. Yet this year the bins stand conspicuously empty. China, once the world’s largest buyer of American soybeans, has turned off the spigot. Read More “The Heartland Pays the Price of Tariffs”
Something remarkable is happening. Across the country, renters are joining together to form tenant unions on a scale we have never seen before. In affordable housing complexes owned by Capital Realty Group, more than 1,000 residents in five states are organizing across buildings, across cities, and even across state lines. It is a hopeful, inspiring Read More “The New Labor Movement Is in Our Living Rooms”
Here’s what’s happening right now with artificial intelligence: A handful of giant corporations are seizing control of the most transformative technology of our era, making unilateral decisions about who gets access, how much it costs, and what purposes it serves. This approach is fundamentally backwards. AI should function as a public resource accessible to all Read More “The Future of AI Belongs to All of Us, Not Just Silicon Valley”
There’s something almost subversive about Anki. In a world where every app is designed to capture and monetize your attention, here’s one that actually wants to give your time back to you. It’s the most popular education app in the world, yet it has no marketing department, no subscription traps, no notifications designed to drag Read More “The Intellectual Elegance of Damien Elmes”