Civic glossary
The words the news assumes you already know
Each one is defined from the primary record — the statute, the constitutional clause, the regulation — and then shown as it is actually being covered right now, and by whom.
Reference, not news. Every definition here is Sift's summary of a cited source, never Sift's own authority on what a term means.
Most of this vocabulary is invisible
Across these terms, 1,713 of 10,600 stories in Sift's index turn on a term the coverage never names — roughly 16 in every 100. For Prior Restraint it is every single story. That is the gap these pages exist to close: you cannot look up a word the article never used.
37 terms, each with its source and its coverage.
Counts measured 2026-08-18. Each term's own page is computed live, so its figures may be a little ahead of these.
Constitution
Congress
- Appropriations178 stories · 28 outlets40% never name it
- Budget Reconciliation169 stories · 18 outlets3% never name it
- Impeachment144 stories · 34 outlets3% never name it
- Contempt of Congress81 stories · 20 outlets19% never name it
- Filibuster73 stories · 15 outlets10% never name it
- Cloture45 stories · 16 outlets100% never name it
The executive
- Executive Order535 stories · 59 outlets6% never name it
- Director of National Intelligence328 stories · 25 outlets1% never name it
- War Powers Resolution219 stories · 30 outlets26% never name it
- Special Counsel93 stories · 18 outlets26% never name it
- Presidential Pardon41 stories · 17 outlets2% never name it
- Executive Privilege32 stories · 12 outlets59% never name it
Courts
- Injunction285 stories · 44 outlets51% never name it
- Subpoena227 stories · 40 outlets48% never name it
- Certiorari88 stories · 23 outlets94% never name it
- Qualified Immunity75 stories · 22 outlets92% never name it
- Recusal51 stories · 18 outlets51% never name it
- Habeas Corpus13 stories · 8 outlets31% never name it
Elections
Speech and the press
Immigration
Business and markets
world
health
ethics
surveillance
Found an error?
Every claim on this page is meant to match the record it cites. If one doesn’t — a misread statute, a broken link, a figure that doesn’t match the filing — tell me and I’ll fix it or take it down: corrections@siftnews.io.