Hoover Institution Press released Constitutional Conservatism: Liberty, Self-Government, and Political Moderation, by Peter Berkowitz. Berkowitz contends that constitutional conservatism encompasses a distinguished tradition of defending liberty that stretches from the great eighteenth century British statesman Edmund Burke through the authoritative exposition of the Constitution in The Federalist to the high points of post-World War II American conservatism.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision upholding the Obama administration’s interpretation of a critical provision of the Affordable Care Act was the rare judicial action that helped both Democrats and Republicans, at least in the short run.

In his first term, President George W. Bush has had difficulty getting his nominees to the federal courts of appeal confirmed by the Senate. The Democrats have taken the almost unprecedented step of threatening filibusters to prevent floor votes on certain nominees. Has the judicial appointments process become the latest victim of bitter partisan politics? Or has the judiciary brought this state of affairs on itself by advancing a doctrine of judicial supremacy, leaving the executive and legislative branches no choice but to resort to political litmus tests for nominees? What does this situation bode for the next Supreme Court nomination? And what, if anything, should be done to reform the process?

On December 12, 2000, the Supreme Court of the United States brought an end to thirty-six days of dramatic vote recounts and legal challenges in the state of Florida. The decision let stand the initial results of Florida's election, which gave the state's electoral votes, and thus the Presidency, to George W. Bush. What was the legal justification for the Supreme Court's decision? Should the Court have intervened in the first place? And what precedent did the Court create for future elections?

As required by the Constitution, the president of the United States is elected not by the national popular vote but by the vote of the Electoral College. In the Electoral College, each state receives as many votes as it has members of Congress. Because every state has two senators and is guaranteed at least one House member, votes of small states count more heavily than votes of large states. Has the Electoral College served the nation well? Or should it be abolished and replaced by a system in which every vote counts the same? Peter Robinson speaks with Jack Rakove and Tara Ross

Peter Schweizer, the William J. Casey Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, unveils his current research, on Fox News, which exposes the corruption and extortion accepted as business as usual in Washington, DC. Last year, the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes featured Schweizer, spotlighting his book Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison. Feedback from the program helped pass the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, which prohibits members and employees of Congress from using nonpublic information for private gain.

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In this wide-ranging conversation, Thiel discusses his politics, his campaign, and the scourge of totalitarian conformism in the United States and abroad; the problem with “following the science”; where President Biden deserves the blame and where he doesn’t; and why cryptocurrency may just save the world.

What sustains the conservative agenda? What makes it distinctive and coherent? In a word, principle. By Peter Berkowitz.

The Hoover Institution hosted its annual Spring Retreat beginning on Sunday, April 21, 2013, with before-dinner remarks by Kevin Warsh, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His speech, titled “The Economy over the Horizon: Unknown Knowns,” emphasized the importance of the state of the economy, which currently has a 2 percent growth rate, and understanding the concept of “unknown knowns,” a reference to former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld.