Heidi Pascual's web site

By Will Ragland and Joe Radosevich

This article is part of a series from the Center for American Progress exposing how the sweeping Project 2025 policy agenda would harm all Americans. This new authoritarian playbook, published by the Heritage Foundation, would destroy the 250-year-old system of checks and balances upon which U.S. democracy has relied and give far-right politicians, judges, and corporations more control over Americans’ lives.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is a road map for how a new far-right presidential administration can take over the country. The project contains four components: a 920-page book with far-right policy proposals, a personnel database of loyalists ready to replace tens of thousands of civil servants, a private online training center, and an unpublished plan for the first 180 days of a new administration.​- CLICK STORY TO READ MORE

By Sachin Shiva

Unions are a critical force in American society, ensuring that everyday Americans can earn decent pay and benefits and have a voice in our democracy. Study after study has shown that unions make our economy and democracy stronger by boosting wages for workers, reducing wage inequality, increasing voter turnout for union and nonunion voters alike, and providing a counterbalance to wealthy interest groups. This is part of a historical tradition of unions playing a powerful role for American workers: Unions helped create the 40-hour workweek, child labor laws, and improvements in health insurance. At their height in 1945, unions represented one-third of all U.S. workers. Unfortunately, decades of attacks on unions, weak U.S. labor laws, and a changing economy have caused union membership to steadily decline in 2023, unions represented just 10 percent of workers. However, in recent years, the popularity and activity of unions has grown to levels not seen in decades, bolstering their ability to deliver on these benefits. -- CLICK STORY TO READ MORE

​By Robert Benson

The 75th NATO Summit—which took place this week in Washington, D.C.—marked an important milestone for the alliance. As leaders gathered to commemorate 75 years of collective defense and strategic cooperation, the summit also served as a critical opportunity for addressing contemporary security challenges and for shaping the future of the alliance. Perhaps at no point since its founding in 1949, and certainly not since the end of the Cold War, has NATO been so comprehensively tested. Given the rapidly devolving global security landscape in Europe and the Middle East, along with rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific basin, it is imperative for Washington to build on key summit outcomes. This column outlines five priorities that Washington must build on following the summit. 1. Address the Ukraine membership question: Pave a path to membership NATO should unambiguously invite Ukraine to join the alliance and clarify a timeline for its accession. While membership will not be immediate, initiating this process would strengthen NATO-Ukraine cooperation and signal robust support for Kyiv amid its ongoing war against Russian aggression. ​ -- CLICK STORY TO READ MORE

By Allison McManus, Nick Wilson, Laura Kilbury, and Allison Jordan

On July 1, 2024, the Center for American Progress and 34 organizations working on issues of national security, gun violence, arms control, and human rights sent a letter to Congress expressing support for the improvements to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s firearm export policy. The interim final rule, which was published on April 30, 2024, took effect on May 30, 2024, increases accountability and transparency over U.S. firearms exports. The rule requires additional documentation for some license applications improves data collection for exports limits exports to countries at high risk of diversion or misuse and establishes an interagency working group to assess license applications, among other changes. The letter highlights areas in which the new rules may be improved, but it argues that the rule contains necessary reforms to the department’s firearm export license review process to reduce the risk of weapons diversion or their use in political violence, human rights abuses, or other destabilizing activity. In order to protect the national security interests of the United States and prevent U.S. firearms from contributing to instability, violence, and rights abuse abroad, Congress must strongly oppose any efforts to undermine or nullify this rule.--CLICK STORY TO READ MORE

By Alan Yu and Hyunwoo Roh

South Korea, as the world’s 13th-largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter, is a pivotal nation in the global effort to tackle climate change and advance clean energy solutions. Comprising 1.35 percent of global GHG emissions and emitting 654 million tons in 2022 alone, the government faces significant domestic pressure to align its policies with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The steel industry, a cornerstone of South Korea’s manufacturing prowess, bears a substantial share of the responsibility, as it accounts for a staggering 40 percent of the nation’s industrial GHG emissions and 16.7 percent of total national emissions. There is an urgent need for decisive action to decarbonize this sector and transition toward more sustainable practices. Under its nationally determined contribution (NDC), South Korea has pledged to reduce total national GHG emissions by 40 percent by 2030 compared with 2018 levels this falls short of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature goal. Climate Action Tracker estimates that South Korea must achieve a domestic emissions reduction of at least 59 percent by 2030 to satisfy this threshold. This gap highlights the imperative for the government to set bolder and more ambitious climate policies, particularly as the Republic of Korea (ROK) and all other governments now prepare to update and submit by next February their 2035 NDC pledges. -- CLICK STORY TO READ MORE

By Julia Cusick

July 1, Washington, D.C. — Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents are entitled to absolute or presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts that occurred during their time in the White House. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, the majority opinion “reshapes the institution of the Presidency … [and] makes a mockery of the principle … that no man is above the law.”

In response, Patrick Gaspard, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement: Today’s dangerous decision from the six extremists on the Supreme Court makes a mockery of the rule of law and will go down in history as one of the high court’s most disastrous opinions. It turns presidents into kings, finding—for the first time ever—that they enjoy sweeping immunity for their actions while in office. The court has now made it much harder to prosecute Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. And it allows future presidents almost unlimited power to abuse their authority, including seemingly unfettered ability to weaponize the Department of Justice and direct the prosecution of political opponents.-- CLICK STORY TO READ MORE