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.
Topics
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.
A Future for Floating Homes
Dutch officials are updating zoning laws to allow homes that are fixed to the shore but rise and fall with the water.
South Dakota's Governor Blocks Voters on Legal Pot
Though voters simultaneously approved initiatives aimed at legalizing both recreational and medical use of marijuana, Amendment A got quickly tied up in court.
Weather Is Not Climate. Or Is It?
For years, experts warned that any given hurricane or heat wave cannot be attributed to long-term changes in average temperatures. But it turns out that climatologists and meteorologists sometimes can establish such causal relationships.
Time To Close the Car Snitch Loophole
When you plug your phone into your car to listen to your favorite band or podcast, you give police a way to rummage around in your personal data without a warrant.
Is High Inflation the New Normal?
With inflation running above 7 percent, we are experiencing the strongest price pressures in nearly 40 years.
Misunderstanding Trauma—and Resilience
Perhaps our culture is accidentally creating PTSD by expecting it, assuming that no one could possibly emerge from a trauma psychologically intact.
Greenwashing Borders
For years, immigration restrictionists have borrowed arguments from the environmentalist fringe to make their case against allowing immigration to developed nations.
How the War on Sprawl Caused High Housing Prices
Since the 1960s, planners have convinced many state and regional governments to limit the physical spread of urban areas.
Ohio's Taxman Is Tailgating NASCAR
The state's tax commissioner claims NASCAR owes Ohio more than $549,000 in unpaid taxes merely because the state's residents watched NASCAR races on television.
How SCOTUS Protects Bad Federal Officers
When bed-and-breakfast owner Robert Boule asked Border Patrol agents, who were questioning a guest, to leave his property, an agent pushed him to the ground.
Why Can't We Build Anything?
The issue has never been a lack of funds for infrastructure; it's that the money frequently ends up getting spent on something else via a highly politicized decision-making process.
Who Will Pay for the Roads?
Taxpayers will pay the tab for spruced-up bridges and rebuilt freeways, doubling down on a worrying trend.
Secret Surveillance Warrants Remain Secret
In November, the Supreme Court declined to consider an ACLU petition arguing that the public has a First Amendment right to see the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's classified decisions.
Stephen Breyer Makes the Liberal Case Against Court Packing
"Think long and hard," Breyer warns would-be court packers, "before embodying those changes in law."
Two Courts Debunk Persistent Opioid Myths
Both rulings emphasized that opioids have legitimate medical uses and concluded that drug companies could not be held responsible for abuse of their products.
When Is Drinking Ayahuasca a Religious Experience?
It should not matter whether would-be ayahuasca drinkers sincerely believe in shamanism or simply believe they will derive mental health benefits from the experience.
Ross Ulbricht's First Nonfungible Token
A virtual collection of 10 artworks made by Ulbricht at various stages of his life was worth $6.3 million at the time of sale.
China's Old Climate Promises Are 'New' Again
The Glasgow Declaration's empty platitudes confirm that China will not be hectored by the U.S. into making any significant changes to its climate policies.
Some People Love a State of Crisis
Why do so many people seem eager to fret and impose emergency measures even as COVID-19 becomes endemic and restrictions take a growing toll?
Same Border Rules, Vastly Different Portrayals
Trump's pandemic travel bans received vastly different media treatment than Biden's.
Photo: Little Amal, World Traveler
The Handspring Puppet Company and Good Chance Theatre sought to raise awareness of refugee rights while celebrating human migration.
Leave Goat Yoga Alone!
"We can't even do the things we want to on our own property that aren't even hurting anyone."
The Independents Strike Back
If you make the government feel too dangerous, a corrective bloc of voters will pour cold water on your face.
Seattle and Detroit Move Toward Decriminalizing Psychedelics
Though state laws in both places have not yet adapted, consumers of "entheogenic" plants and fungi are now less likely to be arrested and prosecuted in the two cities.
One Step Closer to Kidney Transplants From Pigs
Researchers are making great progress overcoming the problems that have long plagued attempts at xenotransplantation.
You Can't Solve Homelessness by Making It a Crime
In an August ruling, Washington's Supreme Court found that a homeless plaintiff's truck qualified as his homestead.
Haitians Meet the New Deporter-in-Chief
Biden presented himself as the immigration antithesis of Trump, but such promises have not been kept.
Inflation Means Interest Rates Could Rise. Higher Interest Rates Will Make the National Debt More Expensive.
The Fed may soon get serious about hitting the monetary brakes to slow the economy.
Closing Schools To Protect Kids Made Them Sick
Children forced to Zoom into school ended up with suboptimal immune systems—the opposite of herd immunity.
China's Quest To Take Taiwan
If Taiwan became embroiled in a protracted military engagement with China, global supply-chain turmoil would ensue.
Defending Armed Self-Defense
It's easy for many people to see the harm that guns are involved in every day in America, but much harder for them to see the harm that gun prohibition causes.
Texas' 6-Week Abortion Ban Threatens Every Constitutional Right
If it is upheld, state legislators easily could use the strategy embodied in S.B. 8 to attack other rights the Supreme Court has recognized.
Is Censuring a Legislator a First Amendment Violation?
"The First Amendment was never intended to curtail speech and debate within legislative bodies."
Hungarian Nationalism Is a Dead End
Hungary's brand of nationalism generates not just cronyist domestic policy but tawdry foreign policy as well.
William Shatner Goes to Space
After his flight, Shatner told Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, "I hope I never recover from this."
The Problem of 'Documented Dreamers'
There are about 200,000 "Documented Dreamers" who were brought to the U.S. legally by parents who obtained work or student visas. Some now face deportation.
Will Environmental Regulations Stop SpaceX?
The lawsuit could be a bellwether of how federal agencies must handle a burgeoning private space industry.
Medicare's Fiscal Ruin
Are Medicare's fiscal problems even worse than the headline numbers suggest?
Crisis at Rikers Island
In 2021, the institutional rot and dysfunction at Rikers Island cascaded into a full-blown catastrophe.
Vaping Regulation Threatens a Lifesaving Smoking Alternative
Policy makers are acting as if saving the lives of smokers via harm-reducing alternatives counts for nothing.
Against the Education Status Quo
After doing the jobs of teacher, coach, and cafeteria monitor for more than a year, many parents resented being told to sit down and shut up.
China's War on Crypto
China sees the value in a digital currency, but only if the CCP has full control of it.
