Caleb Crowder

2 weeks ago | ips-dc.org | Caleb Crowder

Growing up as an avid reader, I loved trips with my mom to our local library. It also served as a community space where I attended many birthday parties and baby showers to celebrate our neighbors. If you love your local library too, you’ll want to listen up.

2 weeks ago | ips-dc.org | Caleb Crowder

Each year for Tax Day, my colleagues and I at the Institute for Policy Studies release a tax receipt so you can learn where your taxes are actually going. This year, you may be more worried about the price of eggs than your tax dollars. But with President Trump now urging a $1 trillion military budget, it’s worth thinking about what we’re already spending. Last year, the average taxpayer paid $3,707 for weapons and wars. That’s the equivalent of 628 dozen eggs.

2 weeks ago | ips-dc.org | Caleb Crowder

Dictators defend their rule with guns. Democrats defend their rule with paper. Of course, the constitution that upholds democracy is not just any piece of paper. It is a document backed up by political institutions, by courts, and by the public will. In a normal situation, this paper is stronger than military force or police actions because the product of the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. But we don’t live in normal times.

2 weeks ago | ips-dc.org | Caleb Crowder

I had been falling a lot. It was almost as if my small feet were suddenly too big. Then my symptoms took a darker turn. “I can’t see!” I gasped one frigid January morning in 1997. Beside me, my boyfriend asked, “What do you mean you can’t see?” I couldn’t catch enough breath to speak normally. My left eye hurt, and I could only see a kind of darkness that I had never seen before. It was like an abyss. My voice was too loud, too quick, too high. I was disoriented.

2 weeks ago | ips-dc.org | Caleb Crowder

Last December, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, claiming the country was under threat from “North Korean communist forces.” But mass public outcry led to impeachment proceedings this January. And on April 4 the judges unanimously decided to remove Yoon from office. On BBC News, IPS Associate Fellow and Women Cross DMZ founder Christine Ahn analyzes this historic moment.