US vs: Constitutions

<p><a href="https://kenburns.com/principals/ken-burns/">Ken Burns</a> and <a href="https://kenburns.com/staff/sarah-botstein/">Sarah Botstein</a> spent nearly a decade making a twelve-hour documentary on the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/show/the-american-revolution/?gad_source=1& ... Show More

<p>In sixty years, we have gone from 2 billionaires in the United States to just under 2,000. How on earth did that happen?</p><p>Today, Timothy Noah from the New Republic takes us all the way from our framers fearing excessive wealth to the country's first (potential) trillionai ... Show More

<p>Off-year elections -- as in, not a presidential or a midterm -- have fairly dismal voter turnout. Yet they matter a great deal. Most of our lives are lived at the local, not the national, level. So why do so many skip their state and local elections?</p><p>We spoke with <a hre ... Show More

Join us as we discuss the history of the Magna Carta, how it changed English governance, and its influence on all democracies and constitutional federal republics that came after. 

<p><em>Citizens United</em> <em>vs. Federal Election Commission</em> is one of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/us/politics/poll-shows-americans-favor-overhaul-of-campaign-financing.html">the most polarizing</a> Supreme Court cases of all time. So what is it actually a ... Show More

The 25th amendment. A few years before JFK was shot, an idealistic young lawyer set out on a mission to convince people something essential was missing from the Constitution: clear instructions for what should happen if a U.S. president was no longer able to serve. On this episod ... Show More

<p>In More Perfect's final episode of the season, listen to liner notes for two amendments that contemplate the still-unfinished status of our Constitution. "27" is an album that marks a particular point in our history: this moment when we have 27 Amendments to our Constitution. ... Show More

We Americans are defined by our Constitution and we cherish especially the First and Second Amendments. But like all texts, the Constitution can be read to empower and protect our individual rights, but it can also be used selectively, self-servingly, and in bad faith. And the Co ... Show More

<p>Right from independence, a question has hovered over the government of the United States. How much power should the President have? Not too much, lest they become a monarch. But not too little, they are elected to do a job and that job must be done.</p><br><p>In this episode o ... Show More

<p>On first read the 16th and 22nd Amendments are at best sleepers and at worst, stinkers. In a list of Constitutional hits like the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, and birthright citizenship, the amendments covering taxes and term limits tend to fall by the wayside ... Show More

On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had been issued over two years earlier, and the South had ... Show More

<p>If one thing can be said to characterize the first months of Donald Trump’s second term, it is his expansive and often norm-breaking use of presidential power, both abroad and at home. There are the lethal strikes on boats alleged to be smuggling drugs; the range of tariffs he ... Show More