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National Geographic
30-06-2025
- Politics
- National Geographic
The story behind the Great Compromise—the 1787 deal that made the U.S. possible
STANDING UNITED George Washington, standing at right, presides over the signing of the Constitution of the United States, made possible by the brokering of the Great Compromise two months before. This 1940 painting by Howard Chandler Christy hangs in the House wing of the U.S. Capitol building. Tempers were fraying in the muggy chambers of Pennsylvania's statehouse. Excluding Rhode Island, delegates from 12 states had been meeting in Philadelphia for seven weeks to reshape the young country's Articles of Confederation into a new, more functional national constitution. The convention included some of the nation's most respected leaders, including Gen. George Washington, 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin, Virginia legislator James Madison, and the young firebrand Alexander Hamilton. Many had served in the Continental Army; all were male, white, and prosperous landowners. Yet by July they were deadlocked over a key issue: how to allot power in the newly formed United States. (He was a Founding Father. His son sided with the British.) The argument came down to big states versus small ones. Big states backed the Virginia Plan, drafted by James Madison, which called for the government to be divided into executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The legislature would consist of the Senate and the House of Representatives, both of which would have members proportional to the state's addition to deciding that states would be represented proportionally, delegates agreed on how people within those states would be counted. This led to the Three-Fifths Compromise; white and other free people would be counted as whole persons, and enslaved Black individuals would be counted as three-fifths of a person for state representation for taxation. Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the U.S. Constitution was debated in 1787. Small states backed the New Jersey Plan, crafted by the state's former attorney general, William Paterson. Like the Virginia Plan, it gave the government three branches, but the legislature consisted of a single house in which each state had equal representation. This accorded the smaller states power not proportional to their size. As state faced off against state, the convention was in danger of collapsing. A return to the Articles of Confederation would mean, among other things, that the country could not pay off its war debt. The articles created a weak central government that lacked a necessary enforcement power. Additional debates over territory and taxation threatened to divide the nation. It was time for a committee. (He was the last king of America. Here's how he lost the colonies.) Crafting the compromise On July 3 a small group, led by Connecticut representative Roger Sherman, began meeting to hammer out a solution. Sherman was ideal for this task. Then in his 60s, he was a calm, hardworking businessman, professor, politician, and judge who had already played key roles in drafting the Declaration of Independence and the original Articles of Confederation. John Adams praised his 'accurate Judgment, in Cases of Difficulty' and described him as 'one of the most sensible men in the world.' Sherman and his committee drafted what came to be known as the Connecticut Compromise, or the Great Compromise. As in the Virginia Plan, representatives would be divided into Senate and House, but with a key difference: Each state would have equal representation in the Senate but proportional representation in the House. (How the Declaration of Independence wooed Americans away from Britain) The Articles of Confederation, National Archives, Washington, D.C. The terms were enough to win by a one-state margin on July 16. Washington wrote to Benjamin Harrison: 'I wish the Constitution which is offered had been made more perfect, but I sincerely believe it is the best that could be obtained at this time.' This story appeared in the July/August 2025 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Magazine for all ages starting at $25/year
UPI
23-06-2025
- Health
- UPI
Study: Abortions rose in states with, without bans after Dobbs decision
Protesters argue over abortion rights in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. in June of 2023. File Photo by Annabelle Gordon/UPI | License Photo June 23 (UPI) -- Abortions in the United States increased despite the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, according to a report released Monday by the Society of Family Planning. The international nonprofits #WeCount study found that around 1.1 million abortions were performed by licensed clinicians in 2024, up from 1.06 million in 2023. Of the procedures performed in 2024, 25% were completed via Telehealth, which has risen from just 5% in the second quarter of 2022. The other abortions took place in brick-and-mortar clinics. Co-Chair and professor at Ohio State University's College of Public Health and co-principal investigator of the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network Dr. Alison Norris said the findings "make clear that abortion bans haven't stopped people from seeking care." "As care shifts across state lines and into telehealth care," she said. "What's emerging is a deeply fragmented system where access depends on where you live, how much money you have, and whether you can overcome barriers to care." According to the Society's findings, shield laws, which provide legal protection to clinicians who provide abortion care via telehealth to people in states with bans on abortion or telehealth "continue to facilitate abortion access, especially in states where abortion is banned." There are eight states that feature such shield laws, and in those states, an average of 12,330 abortions per month were conducted in the final quarter of 2024, an increase of 8,747 over the first quarter of 2024. However, abortion care has also increased in states where it is banned. Under shield protections, Texas has seen the highest number of medication abortions via telehealth, with an average of 3,427 monthly at the end of 2024. The Society of Family Planning further found Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Texas saw more monthly abortions by the end of 2024 than in the months before the Dobbs Supreme Court decision in 2022. It was the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe vs. Wade, which ruled in 1973 that the Constitution of the United States protected the right to have an abortion. "Millions of people live in states where abortion is banned or restricted, and traveling for care isn't an option for everyone," said Co-Founder of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project Dr. Angel Foster in the release. "By providing safe, affordable medication abortion via telemedicine, we make sure people can get the care they need, no matter where they live or what they can afford."
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
My Presidential Candidacy
On the spur of the moment, and having consulted no one whatsoever, I have decided to offer myself as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, for the term beginning January 20, 2029. Since 1980, the first presidential election in which I was eligible to vote, I have always cast my ballot for a Republican—though not, in each of the last three elections, for the person nominated by the Republican Party. So I would be happy to run under the Republican banner, but since the president of the United States is, for all constitutional purposes, a party of one, I will accept the nomination of any party that wants me as its standard-bearer. If nominated, I will consent to be elected, but don't expect me to do much else. If elected, I will most certainly serve to the best of my ability. My platform is the Constitution of the United States. The presidency is neither the most important nor most powerful institution in American government. That institution is Congress. The presidency is merely the office that can be made to appear most important and powerful, by virtue of the fact that it has a single officeholder responsible for one of the three branches of government. But the most important clause in Article II—and the most neglected clause in recent years—is the one saying that the president 'shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.' The Constitution is our supreme law, and Congress makes the rest of our federal laws. I will, to the best of my ability, faithfully execute them. Article II exhorts the president 'from time to time' to inform the Congress of the state of the Union as he understands it, and to recommend legislation that he considers 'necessary and expedient.' There is no requirement concerning how often this should be done, or the manner of its doing. I will not at any time during my term of office give an address in the Capitol, where Congress sits. I will instead communicate with the House and Senate in writing, as was done by every president from Thomas Jefferson to William Howard Taft. In the first 100 days of my administration, I will issue no executive orders other than those that I determine to be necessary for the revocation of my predecessors' executive orders, or those that are most urgently necessary for the execution of acts of Congress my predecessors have heretofore neglected to enforce. At all times I will conform the executive actions of my administration to the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and other relevant acts of Congress governing executive-branch regulatory activity. I will, in my first written message to Congress as well as subsequent ones, identify those acts of Congress that have vested the president with undue authority over taxation and regulation of economic activity, and urge their repeal or reform as seems appropriate in each case. I will particularly request that presidential powers over tariffs, international trade, domestic business activity, and 'emergencies' of every kind be either eliminated or considerably curtailed from their present scope. I will never declare an emergency unless the United States finds itself in a war or depression. By this I mean an actual war, not a metaphorical one, or something far worse than the occasional cyclical recession in the domestic or international economy. Executive branch agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will of course continue to exercise power to respond to natural and man-made disasters. I will appoint no persons to high office because of their celebrity, their media appearances, or their expressed loyalty to me as a person. Proven qualification for administration of government agencies will be my touchstone. In the case of any office whose permanent occupant requires Senate confirmation, I will not designate any 'acting' or 'interim' officeholder with no experience in the agency or office in question, and will prefer persons currently serving therein. I will make no recess appointments to executive or judicial office during the intrasession recesses of an annual congressional session. My nominations for the federal judiciary will be guided by my own consideration of nominees' devotion to the original meaning of the Constitution, to respect for the texts of federal statutes, and to a restrained understanding of the judicial power. My administration will unstintingly carry out any judgments of the federal courts that require the executive branch's attention. And I will take seriously the guidance of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, whose opinions will have binding force on all executive agencies unless directly countermanded by me. Federal employees in the civil service will be held to high standards of performance, but will not be dismissed, laid off, or demoted except according to statutory norms governing their employment. No private citizens will be authorized by my administration to interfere in the performance of these civil servants' duties. American treaty obligations, existing alliances, and trading relationships will be the focus of my administration's foreign policy, with a view to strengthening international relations of trust, security, peace, and freedom of commerce. The national security of the United States will not be considered in isolation from the security and mutual support of our historic friends and allies. The aim of my administration will be to keep the friends we have, to make more friends among freedom-loving nations, and to make common cause with them against the adversaries of freedom. Territorial expansion of the United States, or aggressive acts of imperial dominion by use of military force, will be out of the question. I will commit myself, however, to bolstering the strength and technological capacity of America's military services. I will spend the monies Congress appropriates and administer the laws already on the books. My administration will propose reforms of those sectors of federal spending most responsible for our runaway deficits and national debt—namely, the entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The first two of these are not (despite their names) true pension funds or insurance programs into which American taxpayers have paid for a return on investment in retirement. Like the third, they are transfer programs in current accounts, spending contemporary revenues on contemporary beneficiaries. I will urge Congress to consider means-testing their expenditures, just as is done with Medicaid. But fiscal policy is Congress's right and responsibility to make. My administration will do what it can, consistent with the law and basic decency, to secure America's borders and reduce illegal entry into the United States. This great country benefits, in the main, from immigration, and should welcome more immigrants legally. It is for Congress, however, to decide our immigration policy, and for the president to execute that policy. I urge both houses of Congress to work toward the restoration of regular order in the preparation of budgets and appropriations. Legislation presented to me will be signed or vetoed according to my judgment of its constitutionality and its contribution to the blessings of liberty or the general welfare. I will not promulgate signing statements identifying any parts of congressional enactments that I decline to execute. I have my own views of what justice for all consists of, and of how law and policy should be crafted to achieve it. In communications between my administration and the Congress, I will be happy to enlarge on such views in appropriate policymaking contexts. This should result in settled expectations regarding what I shall sign and what I shall veto. But Congress is the deliberative branch of government, and should not forget it. There is little about my personal life that will be of interest to most people. I will say here that I have spent almost half a century studying the constitutional order of the United States, and most of that time teaching college courses on that and related subjects. I have written a little on the subject as well. I have not held any public office previously, but such inexperience seems not to have troubled American voters very much of late. I am in pretty good health for my age (66), and can think of better things to do with my time than run the country. If elected president, I will not in fact think it my job to run the country. My job will be to administer the executive branch of government, to fill vacancies in that branch and the judiciary, to execute the laws of the United States, to conduct American diplomacy, and if need be to direct American military forces at the level of strategy in the event of war.I expect to be able to catch the odd afternoon nap now and then. If I do my job well, my fellow Americans should be able to pay little or no attention to me most of the time. On these understandings, I am ready and willing to serve the American people. Thank you, and God bless America.
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Hands Off' protest held in Morgantown
MORGANTOWN, (WBOY) — As other 'Hands Off' protests are held around the country, Morgantown residents added their voices to the movement on Saturday afternoon. Several dozen protestors lined Beechurst Avenue near the Campus Drive intersection at around 1 p.m. As drivers passed by, many of them honked their horns in support of the demonstration. Andrew Cockburn, an organizer for the protest, said their main goal is to let others in the community know they aren't alone in their disapproval of the Trump administration and the numerous federal cuts it has made in recent months. At the beginning of April, about 200 Morgantown NIOSH employees were laid off as a result of those cuts. Elon Musk's influence in the White House was also a point of contention for protestors. 'We're willing to stand out on the street, wave our signs and protest, and let people know that, […] you're not alone,' Cockburn told 12 News. 'There are other people that think this way and that this is not okay. What's going on is not okay.' Addie Tennant, another protester, said she was less worried about party lines and more concerned about upholding the Constitution of the United States. Anti-Trump protesters turn out to rallies in New York, Washington and other cities across country 'I think we should follow the constitution, and due process is very important. If we don't have due process for one person, we don't have it for anybody,' Tennant said. 'It's not about republican or democrat, it's about the way our electoral and governmental processes are supposed to work.' Similar protests were carried out in New York City, Concord, Massachusetts, Washington D.C. and other cities. You can read about those protests here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Russia Today
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Ex-Russian MP probed over attempted coup
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has opened a criminal case against former State Duma MP Ilya Ponomarev, accusing him of plotting a coup and forming a terrorist organization. The announcement was made by the agency in a press statement earlier on Wednesday. Ponomarev began serving as a State Duma MP in 2007 but fled Russia in 2014 amid embezzlement accusations. A year later, he was stripped of parliamentary immunity when Russia's Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against him, accusing Ponomarev of stealing 22 million rubles ($241,000) from the Skolkovo research center. He was placed on the federal wanted list. Since leaving Russia, the former MP has been a radical opponent of the Russian government and a self-styled representative of the 'Russian resistance'. He moved to Ukraine, where he obtained citizenship in 2019, and has repeatedly called on Russian citizens to join Kiev's forces and violently seize power in Russia. Last year, the FSB launched a criminal case against the former lawmaker on charges of terrorism and treason. The new case against Ponomarev was opened in connection with his ties to the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD), a Polish-based group whose aim is 'a violent seizure of power and change of the constitutional order in the Russian Federation,' according to the FSB. The agency says the former lawmaker has described the group, which he founded in 2022, as 'the new government of Russia in exile.' In footage accompanying the FSB statement, which features a number of interviews with Ponomarev, the former MP himself calls his organization Russia's 'proto-parliament.' According to the security service, Ponomarev has been working on getting the CPD recognized as the legitimate power in Russia by the Ramstein group, a bloc of Western nations supporting Kiev in the conflict with Moscow, also known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG). The FSB stated that the CPD has attracted over 60 former Russian politicians to its ranks since its inception, while developing and adopting more than 30 normative acts, such as the Constitution of the 'New Russia', as well as acts 'On the Transitional Parliament' and 'On the Resistance Movement', which are all illegal under Russian law. The FSB alleges that Ponomarev's plans involve seizing power in Russia by force. In order to accomplish this, the former lawmaker has been collaborating with one of Kiev's paramilitary units, which is considered a terrorist group in Russia, the FSB stated. The agency did not mention the name of the unit in its statement but accompanied it with footage of Ponomarev taking part in activities of the 'Russian Freedom Legion', a Ukrainian paramilitary association that has been officially recognized as a terrorist organization by Russia's Supreme Court. The FSB opened a criminal case against Ponomarev on two charges – 'Violent Seizure of Power or Violent Retention of Power' and 'Organization of a Terrorist Community and Participation in It'. He is facing up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The former lawmaker has authored a book titled 'Does Putin have to Die?', in which he puts himself forward as a candidate for interim leader of Russia. In footage provided by the FSB, one of his supporters claims that Ponomarev 'personally urged' them to 'physically eliminate Putin.'
