The Weird World of Watergate

Fifty years later, the motive behind the mother of all modern political scandals remains clouded.

IMMIGRATION: THE BORDER LEGACY OF TITLE 42 EXPULSIONS

WHEN PRESIDENT JOE Biden announced in April that he would not extend a controversial public health order that allowed U.S. immigration officials to expel migrants, many on the right criticized the move as premature or misguided. But the order has actually made the border less secure.

Christopher Alexander's Utopian Blueprint

Imagine a Federation of independent regions. Each of its cities is a mosaic of distinctive, self-governing neighborhoods, where "people can choose the kind of subculture they wish to live in, and can still experience many ways of life different from their own."

Biden Can't Pin Inflation on Putin

If Biden is looking to spread the blame for inflation evenly, he should look in the mirror.

Kids Can Learn Without Instruction

Don’t show this to your kids, because they might cry. But guess how much time children in “traditional societies”— indigenous groups pretty much off the grid—spend in direct instruction, the way American kids do in school?

Why a Wealth Tax Is a Bad Idea

Billionaires are better at figuring out what to do with their money than the government will ever be.

Was Censorship the Greatest COVID Threat to Freedom?

WE’RE NOT JUST fighting an epidemic,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, declared at the Munich Security Conference on February 15, 2020. “We’re fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus and is just as dangerous.”

After the War

In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s time for Europe to step up and America to step back.

Jared Polis Wants To Leave You Alone

The Democratic Colorado governor on pandemics, parenting, and partisanship

THE METAVERSE IS ALREADY HERE

HOW IS VIRTUAL REALITY REMAKING OUR WORLD?

OBAMACARE AND SCOTUS, 10 YEARS LATER

THE PATIENT PROTECTION and Affordable Care Act of 2010, better known as Obamacare, was designed to patch the insurance gaps between Medicare, Medicaid, and employer-sponsored health care, which is bolstered by a tax carve-out for workplace benefits.

Zora Neale Hurston's Inconvenient Individualism

The author of their eyes were watching god defies easy political categorization.

Bars Are Full of Good Ideas

Shutting them down—for prohibition or Covid—does more harm than you think.

The New Campaign for a Sex-Free Internet

Sex, money, and the future of online free speech

Are News-letters the Future of Free Speech?

Substack’s Hamish McKenzie on censorship, discourse, and Joe Rogan

Welcome to the Nicotine Prohibition Era

Regulators have long targeted tobacco products, but there’s new energy behind outright bans on vapes and cigarettes.

Why Do Legalizers Keep Blocking Pot Banking?

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer claims to favor repealing the federal ban on marijuana. The New York Democrat nevertheless helped sink legislation that would have removed federal obstacles to banking services for state-licensed marijuana businesses.

THE PANDEMIC KILLED DISSENT IN HONG KONG

WHEN GREAT BRITAIN returned control of Hong Kong to China in 1997, a condition of the transfer was that Beijing would allow the territory to maintain its own government until 2047. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never liked this agreement, and the COVID-19 pandemic provided the excuse to all but erase the “one country, two systems” distinction.

SAVING THE RAINFOREST, ONE PET FISH AT A TIME

DESPITE THE OBJECTIONS OF ANIMAL PROTECTION ORGANIZATIONS, CAREFUL COMMERCIAL FISHING MAY BE THE BEST BET FOR THE AMAZON AND THE WORLD’S AQUARIUMS.

The Real Cost of a Magical Education

Blood, sweat, and tears in Naomi Novik’s scholomance novels

Can We Fix San Francisco?

San Fransicko author Michael Shellenberger on homelessness, crime, addiction, and his differences with progressives and libertarians

Weather Is Not Climate. Or Is It?

Science

Why Can't We Build Anything?

Future

Some People Love a State of Crisis

Can’t we get back to some version of normal? That’s a fair question now that every American who wants a COVID-19 vaccine has had the opportunity to get one. But we still get breathless coverage of every variant and new rounds of travel restrictions, mask mandates, and vaccine document checks as if it were still the early days of the pandemic.

Corruption and Crackdowns in California's Marijuana Market

Black markets thrive under mismanaged legalization.

The Destruction of Black Bottom

How the zeal for government project housing killed a prosperous black community in Detroit

A Nation of Quitters?

Has America become a nation of quitters? It might seem so.

When Is Drinking Ayahuasca a Religious Experience?

Inside the vast apparatus of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), there’s a bureaucrat who is tasked with investigating the tenets of psychedelic churches. That improbable job figures in the legal troubles encountered by Arizona’s Vine of Light Church.

Inflation Will Make Government Budget Problems Worse

"Recent comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted that the Fed may soon get serious about hitting the monetary brakes to slow the economy. Until recently, inflation was described as transitory. But at some point, that story has to change."

IS HIGH INFLATION THE NEW NORMAL?

ECONOMICS