It's a game of gotcha, played by people who want to destroy their political opponents—and drive them into the outer darkness.
The debate over flavored vapes really is a debate about whether adult smokers will still have access to products that could save their lives.
If conservatives don't like The New York Times, they don't have to read it. Unlike in the not-so-distant past, you now have endless media options.
As policy makers consider ways to reduce some of these shocking use-of-force incidents, they need to evaluate the role of unions in protecting overly aggressive officers.
Incentive programs for electric cars and solar panels mostly benefit those who can afford those things, while regulations that drive up the cost of energy hurt those who can't afford much to begin with.
Those smitten by John Wayne, Robert E. Lee, or even Joseph Stalin should commission statues on their own property. The rest of us have more important issues to debate.
There's no need to pity successful companies or grant them special deals, but state officials shouldn't be so blinded by an anti-corporate ideology that they drive businesses away, either.
Police strategies have changed dramatically in the past few decades—and not because of soaring crime. America's War on Drugs is a prime culprit.
All that accomplishes is encouraging us to view our fellow Americans as enemies, to see ourselves as members of warring tribes rather than citizens of a nation.
Even after government had imposed an almost unfathomable level of intervention on the economy, the markets are chugging along much better than expected.
It's great that Gov. Gavin Newsom is finally looking at costs and benefits. But don't kid yourself. None of it has anything to do with "science."
Cities are imposing "emergency" regulations capping the fees that delivery services like Uber Eats may charge. That's a mistake.
In a nation of edicts, we serve at the pleasure of the king.
The coronavirus shutdown might alter buying patterns, as more people flee tightly packed cities for suburban, exurban, and rural areas.
Government agencies and public utilities are the most preposterous examples of stasis. The coronavirus might force them, finally, to innovate and join the modern world.
Yes, tenants are losing their jobs because of the COVID-19 shutdown, but forcing businesses to provide services for free would have a ripple effect.
Most serious approaches to the crisis, however, are decidedly libertarian. They involve reducing regulations that keep industries from responding rapidly in an emergency situation.
The mandates would be retroactive, potentially punishing businesses for violating rules they did not even know existed.
No one will ever head to Walmart for a kidney transplant, but retail companies and profit-based clinics certainly can offer high-quality, lower-level services—and impose market discipline in a sector that sorely needs it.
The new money will be consumed in a bureaucratic hiring frenzy, used to pay state-level salaries and pensions, and build a bigger "homeless industrial complex."
Apparently, conservatives believe in states' rights, except when they don't.
Americans are so locked into their political sides that many of them seem willing to cast aside some of the nation's long-established constitutional protections.
Under the law, prosecutors are supposed to pursue justice and not only seek convictions.
Elections are a time when a few of the wealthiest, most cossetted, and least appealing members of society try to convince us that America is an impoverished wasteland.
The president likes things big, so that apparently applies to government budgets too.
No, Californians aren't banned from showering and doing laundry on the same day. But the fact that so many people believed that lie says something about how insane the state's real water laws are.
Few people are buying the U.S. government's unconvincing explanations about "imminent" threats.
And it might make housing more affordable in many places. Conservative NIMBYs should not stand in the way.
In requiring greater transparency in police record-keeping, California proves it can do at least one thing right.
"There has to be a war on poverty," says Michael Bloomberg. Does he know how the last one turned out?
It's hard to compete for attention with the ongoing impeachment proceedings, but the "Afghan Papers" should cause heads to roll (or explode).
The guiding principle for California policymakers seems to be: Tell everyone what they want to hear—or at least stick to the rosiest scenarios.
Newsom is leaning on the side of fish in the state's never-ending fish v. people debate, but is at least trying to deal with farm and urban water needs.
Pentagon brass, who urged the president not to issue these orders, fear that the president's actions will undermine the system of military justice.
"Liberty," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "is unobstructed action according to our will; but rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."
That's not the comparison you want if you're a California governor. Newsom should spend more time dealing with the nuts-and-bolts of government and less time preening for the national stage.
For all their harrumphing about the evils of corporate influence-peddling, left-wing demagogues are willfully blind to the biggest influence-seekers in state and federal capitols.
From plastic bag bans to plastic straw bans to bans on shampoo bottles in hotels, California is adopting supposedly environmental policies that won't save the environment but will piss off residents.
There are stories of marijuana business owners showing up at California's tax agency offices with trash bags filled with cash, even though the agency generally doesn't allow cash payments.
California's progressive political imperatives are having such glaring real-world repercussions that it's hard to keep ignoring them.
H.L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." The rub against vaping, and other smokeless tobacco products, is that people enjoy it.
California is about to get a real world lesson in how rent control laws can't solve a housing crisis.
Putting up with some drag-queen storytelling seems like a small price to pay to live in a relatively free society.
California lawmakers have approved Assembly Bill 5, which poses an existential threat to the gig economy in the state.
Californians' tax rates are among the nation's highest in almost every category, but their property tax levels have remained reasonable. That could change soon.
Milton Friedman famously observed that "nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." The rare demise of a government program, it seems, is temporary too.
It's necessary to confront the threat of white nationalism on the political right, but it must be done without handing new powers to law enforcement and government.
If your neighbor were unbalanced, armed to the teeth and busy posting social-media messages about how much he hates you, you'd certainly support measures to disarm him. But you'd feel more secure if he didn't hate you in the first place.
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