“Over the last decade, roughly one in every 10 dollars of budget authority has worn an emergency tag.
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On paper, the Office of Management and Budget has a five-part test for emergency spending: It should be necessary, sudden, urgent, unforeseen, and not permanent. Congress rarely forces itself to demonstrate, item by item, that all five prongs are met. There’s no neutral referee. Once “designated as an emergency” appears in the bill and the president concurs, the amounts are exempt from caps and PAYGO scorecards.
And because this budget label is separate from more specific “national emergency” declarations under statutes like the Stafford Act or the National Emergencies Act, it quietly turns into a vehicle for funding routine projects. It’s such a procedural magic word that fiscal guardrails all but disappear.
Finally, even when a real crisis exists, so too does opportunism. Emergency bills move fast, face weak scrutiny, and become irresistible means for unrelated projects or those that Congress would never approve otherwise. This dynamic marred the 2012-13 Hurricane Sandy package and has recurred in other disaster bills, not because relief is illegitimate but because speed plus political cover invites provisions that would die in regular order.
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The stakes of the abuse of emergency labelling are no longer abstract. Interest costs on debt that results from the extra spending are crowding out core functions of government. Americans are hammered with “emergency” tariff costs. The next true crisis will arrive with less room to maneuver if we keep burning credibility on manufactured ones.
A republic that treats emergencies as a governing philosophy is a republic that lives without its safeguards. We must put the word back in its place: as one describing something rare, reviewable, temporary, and paid for.”
“”Mamdani won about 62% of the vote among New Yorkers under 30, and more than half among those aged 30 to 44,” Spain’s El Pais noted in an analysis of the election, which was followed around the world. “By contrast, among voters over 65, he drew just 29%.”
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In March, Gallup found that “since 2010, young adults’ overall opinion of capitalism has deteriorated to the point that capitalism and socialism are tied in popularity among this age group.” Among millennials and Gen Z, support for both stood at about 50 percent. But among the youngest in that cohort, socialism is winning out over its freedom-friendly rival.”
Nigeria’s violence involves herders fighting farmers. Herders have the military advantage so more often slaughter farmers than the other way around.
There’s a variety of violence and not all of it fits the herder VS farmer paradigm, and some of it is religiously motivated or facilitated.
A majority of people killed are Muslim. However, farmers tend to be Christian, and herders tend to be Muslim. The conflict is not a simple Muslims slaughtering Christians fight, but a lot of people are dying and the Nigerian government is too weak to stop it.
“”Criminals posing as US immigration officers have carried out robberies, kidnappings, and sexual assaults in several states, warns a law enforcement bulletin issued last month by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Dell Cameron and Caroline Haskins write at Wired. “The bulletin cites five 2025 incidents involving fake immigration officers and says criminals are using Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s heightened profile to target vulnerable communities, making it harder for Americans to distinguish between lawful officers and imposters while eroding trust in law enforcement.””
“Despite Trump promising to stand “with the good people of Cuba and Venezuela,” his administration has fast-tracked deportations for victims of communism.”
“While speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, President Donald Trump claimed that “every price is down,” including those paid at the pump. Gas is now “almost $2,” he added.
Gas is not $2 a gallon. The national average is a little over $3 a gallon, about the same as it was a year ago, according to AAA. Even if you’re giving Trump wide leeway for that “almost,” this is what would have been called a gaffe in more normal political times. Remember when President George H.W. Bush didn’t know the price of a gallon of milk?
When you zoom out to Trump’s larger point, things get even more confused. Despite Trump’s claim, prices as a whole continue to rise at politically inconvenient rates. Annualized inflation was 3 percent in September, the most recent month for which data is available. Prices for food and housing are rising faster than overall inflation. Most Americans say they are spending more on groceries now than a year ago.
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This is the point where I’d normally point out that presidents don’t really exert much influence over prices. There is no “lower gas prices” button in the Oval Office. Yet while it’s true that market forces are the primary reason any price is what it is, this administration has taken a number of actions that directly and deliberately put upwards pressure on prices.”