Welcome to the Nicotine Prohibition Era
Regulators have long targeted tobacco products, but there's new energy behind outright bans on vapes and cigarettes.
May 2022
The New Campaign for a Sex-Free Internet
Sex, money, and the future of online free speech
Features
'They Just Took Me Away'
Adults declared "incapacitated" by the courts can lose everything—their homes, their savings, their freedom—to Florida's sprawling guardianship system.
What Old-Time Saloons Tell Us About the Pandemic's Damage
Killing barroom social networks kills innovation.
Interview
Are Newsletters the Future of Free Speech?
Substack's Hamish McKenzie on censorship, discourse, and Joe Rogan.
Topics
Canceling Putin, Canceling Russians
Which boycotts, cancellations, and sanctions are defensible and well-targeted against the state actors who are responsible for the attack on Ukraine?
Running Bitcoin Miners Out of Town
Trying to sue or zone bitcoin mines out of town is the wrong response to the tradeoffs the industry presents.
Don't Criminalize Election Lies
The damage caused by election lies is not worth abandoning free speech traditions.
The Natcon About-Face
By going from purging anyone who does not pledge allegiance to the nationalist agenda to welcoming all comers, natcons have abandoned the original defining characteristic of their movement.
The Big Labor President
After promising to be "the most pro-union president you've ever seen," Biden has broken with all recent Democratic predecessors by actually governing like he means it.
Biden Is Deporting Venezuelans to Colombia
"It's abundantly clear [Trump] has no regard for the suffering of the Venezuelan people," Biden said in October 2020 before engaging in many of the same practices toward asylum seekers.
One Cheer for Stephen Breyer
Breyer led the charge against the court packers, denouncing them as shortsighted ideologues who threatened both judicial independence and bedrock liberal values.
States Are Flush With Cash
There's a lesson here for the federal government the next time a national economic crisis strikes: The states don't need bailouts.
Why Do Legalizers Keep Blocking Pot Banking?
Chuck Schumer claims to favor repealing the federal ban on marijuana. So why did he sink legislation that would have removed federal obstacles to banking services for pot businesses?
School Choice Helps LGBT Students in Alabama
The answer for students who feel unwelcome or underserved where they are is to expand the schooling market.
Culture
The 1619 Project Unrepentantly Pushes Junk History
Nikole Hannah-Jones' new book sidesteps scholarly critics while quietly deleting previous factual errors.
Books
![book1 | Photo: Uncle Sam rounding up men labeled “Spy,” “Traitor,” “IWW,” “Germ[an] money,” and “Sinn Fein,” with the United States Capitol in the background](https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/c331x186-w331-q60/uploads/2022/03/book1-331x186.jpg)
Speaking Freely Through the Ages
As long as there have been laws, there have been attempts to silence people.
Reviews
Ozark
A show about an American heartland scourged by black-market drugs, vice, politics, and bureaucratic power
Revenge at All Costs
The Iranian metal band Confess was charged with blasphemy and anti-government propaganda in 2015, before fleeing to Norway. Their latest album documents this experience.
Labor Econ Versus the World
Bryan Caplan's latest book covers the hypocrisy of unpaid collegiate internships and a defense of the professoriate against the charges of laziness.
The Book of Boba Fett
The Empire has dominated the Star Wars franchise's narrative, but the characters who inhabit that universe simply live their lives.
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
The new documentary revisits the draconian political response to the crack cocaine "epidemic" of the 1980s.
ETC.
Travis Peterson on America's Afghan Allies
America has wrongly abandoned thousands of Afghan allies who had been promised Special Immigrant Visas. Now, private citizens, veterans, and government personnel are trying to get them out.
Brickbats: May 2022
News of politicians, police, and bureaucrats behaving badly from around the world.
