THE MADGETTE

TENDING DEMOCRACY

• Six Thoughts About a Big Night for Democrats and Democracy PersuasionThoughtful post-election read: no return to old normal
• Renewing the Eternal Contract Law & LibertyParliamentary reform history as cure for unconstitutional times
• Madison’s Toleration Law & LibertyMadison on plural society and toleration
• America’s Test PersuasionArgues democracy's resilience under test
• The election Marginal RevolutionProcedural check on 'end of democracy' claims
• Democracy’s False Dawn Law & LibertyChallenges Europe's democratic founding story
• The Banker Trying To Save Liberalism PersuasionCarney giving liberalism a moral core against populism

AGAINST POVERTY & SUFFERING

• California’s Minimum-Wage Experiment Isn’t Looking Good City JournalEvidence on California's minimum-wage experiment
• ICE Is Set to Deport Dozens of Afghans. They Fear ‘Certain Death.’ The Free PressAfghans who aided US troops face deportation
• As predicted, the ACA exchanges seem not to be stable Marginal RevolutionACA exchange instability and rising premiums

FINANCE & ECONOMY

• Oligarchic World Order Project SyndicateOligarchs now lead states with 60% of world GDP
• Trade and the end of antiquity, or did Islam serve to deglobalize the world? Marginal RevolutionTrade and economic activity at the end of antiquity
• The economics of tips Marginal RevolutionReal payroll data on tipping and workers
• Expensive Pharmaceuticals for Targeted Diseases Marginal RevolutionPricing a gene-therapy cure: economics of precision medicine
• Ireland fact of the day Marginal RevolutionIreland's tax base concentrated in three firms
• Are economists declining in status? Marginal RevolutionCowen on economists' declining public status
• A Debtors’ Club for a Fragmented World Project SyndicateSovereign debtors organizing against creditor-club dominance
• Trump’s Tariff Fiasco Could Save Free Trade Project SyndicateWhy global trade survived the tariff regime
• The Limits of AI as an Economic Weapon PalladiumAI model markets and limits of economic coercion
• Let China copy American AI The EconomistThe case for allowing distillation of American AI

LAW & COURTS

• Poland’s Constitutional Civil War Project SyndicateConstitutional tribunals as the battleground of populism
• Court seems poised to side with Catholic preschools in religious discrimination dispute SCOTUSblogArgument in Catholic preschool religious-discrimination case
• Are There No Limits to Religious Freedom? NY Review of BooksLimits of religious freedom in state-funded pre-K
• Will an ability to hold federal officers accountable survive this term? SCOTUSblogWhether federal officers can still be held liable
• Is Montgomery affirmative action’s final chapter? SCOTUSblogMontgomery case could end affirmative action chapter
• Justice Kagan: firing point blank in Smith & Wesson v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos SCOTUSblogKagan at argument in the Smith & Wesson case
• Court will hear arguments in January on six-person juries, religious zoning dispute SCOTUSblogSix-person jury challenge granted; trial-lawyer relevance
• Turbulent Times Call For Experimental Law NoemaExperimental law for turbulent times

IDEAS & LETTERS

• If AI Thinks for Us, Democracy Will Suffer Project SyndicateAI outsourcing analysis threatens democratic judgment
• Believing and thinking AeonBelief versus thought as basis of church-state separation
• The philosopher Bernard Williams refused every ism. That made him hard to pin down. And hard to refute Arts & Letters DailyBernard Williams, the philosopher who refused isms
• Emmanuel Carrère Untangles His Russian Roots The New YorkerCarrère on his mother, Sovietologist who defended Putin
• The Conscious Pariah Lapham's QuarterlyArendt on Israel and refusing easy labels
• A Revolution Around a Star Place Lapham's Quarterly1776 seen from the Cherokee towns
• Curiosity is a cure for certainty. It’s also the enemy of humility, modesty, and self-doubt. Adam Phillips explains Arts & Letters DailyAdam Phillips on curiosity as cure for certainty
• The Wisdom of Charlemagne QuilletteReassessing Charlemagne as savant, not just warlord
• The Battle at Fort Necessity Lapham's QuarterlyYoung Washington and the start of the Seven Years' War
• The Sediment Of Culture Shapes Political Order NoemaCultural sediment as the base of political order
• What did the Mongols do for Eurasia? Engelsberg IdeasWhat the Mongols did for Eurasia

WORLD

• Serbia’s Graduation Day NY Review of BooksSerbian students beat an authoritarian at the ballot
• The Politics of Poland’s Judicial Crisis Project SyndicatePoland's judicial crisis, the standoff and its stakes
• Putin loses his Balkan Trojan horse Engelsberg IdeasSerbia's election and the end of a Russian foothold

SCIENCE

• The self-making world AeonLamarck's idea of self-making organisms returns

MINNESOTA

• Frazier to be next Hennepin County Attorney in a tight win for progressives MinnPostHennepin County Attorney race, a trial lawyer's home turf
• Jake Johnson sneaks past Brad Finstad in an apparent upset in Minnesota’s southern congressional district MinnPostUpset in southern Minnesota congressional district

DIVERSIONS

• A visit to Greeneland The New CriterionCriterion essay on Graham Greene's wartime thriller