Science
Reason magazine
A Nostalgic Read for Foreign Policy Elites
IF YOU WERE looking for a human avatar of America's unipolar moment, you couldn't do better than Michael McFaul. Picture a youthful, energetic McFaul with a newly minted Ph.D. bounding into the suddenly post-Soviet space of the early 1990s, full of bright ideas about democracy and faith in the end of history. As McFaul himself puts it, 1991 \"was a glorious moment to be a democratic, liberal, capitalist, multilateralist, and American....I was treated like a rockstar.\"
4 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
TRUMP IS DEPORTING ENTREPRENEURS
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S MASS DEPORTATION EFFORT IS ROBBING THE U.S. OF IMMIGRANT BUSINESS OWNERS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS.
9 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
The First Information Revolution
PRINTING PRESSES AND LIBRARIANS INTERPRETED CENSORSHIP AS DAMAGE AND ROUTED AROUND IT.
10+ min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
What Would Bill Buckley Do?
THE NATIONAL REVIEW FOUNDER'S FLEXIBLE APPROACH TO POLITICS DEFINED CONSERVATISM AS WE KNOW IT.
7 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
MAHA Mandates Food Labels
BURDENSOME FOOD LABELING mandates were once the province of Democrats, who pushed for calorie count requirements on restaurant menus and insisted packaged food must feature warnings about genet- ically modified ingredients and trans fats. Now it's Republicans leading the charge- with equally foolish results.
2 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
IS JAKE TAPPER DOOMED?
THE CNN ANCHOR ON THE WAR ON TERROR, THREATS TO FREE SPEECH, AND THE FUTURE OF MEDIA
10+ min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
REPUBLICAN SOCIALISM
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS BUYING STAKES IN COMPANIES. THAT NEVER ENDS WELL.
10+ min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
A Taste of Capitalism in Warsaw
WARSAW, POLAND, IS a living museum of economic systems. It's a city where concrete reliefs of stoic factory workers decorate a building that now houses a Kentucky Fried Chicken, where a Soviet-era apartment block stands beside a glass tower filled with coworking spaces.
2 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
Robert Crumb's Roving Art and Life
IN THE SPRING of 1962, an 18-year-old Robert Crumb was beaned in the forehead by a solid glass ashtray. His mother, Bea, had hurled it at his father, Chuck, who ducked. Robert was bloodied and dazed, once again a silent and enraged witness to his family's chaos.”
5 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
THE HOWARD ROARK OF COMICS
SPIDER-MAN CO-CREATOR STEVE DITKO WAS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF, AND DIRE WARNING TO, OBJECTIVIST POP ARTISTS.
10+ min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
Gun Groups Oppose Trans Firearm Ban
MULTIPLE NEWS OUTLETS reported in September 2025 that the Justice Department was weighing a ban on gun possession by transgender people, on the theory that they are \"mentally ill\" and therefore \"unstable.\" That constitutionally dubious proposal provoked objections from gun rights groups that typically align with the Trump administration, including the National Rifle Association (NRA).
2 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
Plastic Pollution to Practical Power
A RECENT INNOVATION could make it easier to transform plastic waste into usable products.
2 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
What Would a $100,000 H-1B Fee Do?
IN DECEMBER 2024, a battle erupted between the tech right and the nativist right over the H-1B visa program, which allows American employers to hire foreign workers in specialty fields. When President-elect Donald Trump weighed in, he threw his support behind H-1B defenders Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. “I've always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” he told the New York Post. “I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times.”
2 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
Trump's Tariffs Fail Their Own Test
HOW SHOULD WE assess whether President Donald Trump's tariffs have been effective?
3 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
Bail Wars Are Back
THE LONG NATIONAL debate over cash bail reignited in summer 2025 after the White House issued an executive order in August threatening to pull federal funding from jurisdictions that allow cashless bail.
2 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
To the Socialists of All Parties
REASON HAS A rule against starting essays with quotes from Friedrich Hayek. After all, one could start nearly every essay in this magazine with a bon mot from the Austrian-born economist and classical liberal hero. But sometimes things get bad enough that only a Hayek quote will do.
4 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
Work From Home, Have More Kids
PRONATALISTS PUSH ALL manner of big-government schemes aimed at raising fertility rates. But could a more modest—and more market-oriented—policy prove better at boosting births? Research suggests that more remote work leads to larger families.
3 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
Q&A Jeff Flake
IN 2017, SEN. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) announced he wouldn't seek reelection. He told his colleagues that \"we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal.\"
3 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
DHS Brings an Ugly Past Back to the Surface
WHEN THE U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted a single word—remigrate—on X in October 2025, it wasn't a vague message. A once neutral term dating back to the 17th century, meaning “to migrate back” or “to return,” remigration has evolved into a euphemism for forced deportation under the guise of policy. A government agency invoking it naturally sparked debate about this historically fraught concept.
1 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
Discord Revolution in the Himalayas
THEY MARCHED TO defend free speech online and ended up reshaping a nation. In September 2025, young protesters opposing Nepal's social media ban triggered a political upheaval that brought Sushila Karki to power as the country's first woman prime minister—with much of the organizing happening on the messaging platform Discord.
3 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
Ayn Rand Denounced FCC Censorship 60 Years Ago
AFTER JIMMY KIMMEL delivered a misinformed monologue about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr pressured broadcast channels to take the comedian off the air. Carr faced immediate pushback: Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania all chastised Carr for trying to use his position to steer private companies' editorial decisions—a serious breach of free speech principles.
2 min |
January 2026
Reason magazine
AI vs. Paperwork
AT SEPTEMBER'S NATIONAL Conservatism Conference, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) argued Al “threatens the common man's liberty” and that “only humans should advise on critical medical treatments.” Yet Al promises to enhance the human experience by reducing the price of critical services like health care.
1 min |
December 2025
Reason magazine
Q&A Katie Engelhart
THE CANADIAN PULITZER Prize-winning journalist Katie Engelhart wrote the new book The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die.
3 min |
December 2025
Reason magazine
What Happened After Greta Rideout's Husband Raped Her
WOMAN SHOWS up at the police station and says she would like to press charges for rape.
6 min |
December 2025
Reason magazine
An Alarmingly Broad View of 'Public Health'
DEFENDING COVID-19 POLICIES against legal challenges, government officials relied heavily on Jacobson v. Massachusetts, a 1905 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a smallpox vaccine mandate imposed by the Cambridge Board of Health.
3 min |
December 2025
Reason magazine
'He Never Got To Go 'Home'
INSIDE TEXAS' SECRETIVE \"CIVIL COMMITMENT\" SYSTEM
10+ min |
December 2025
Reason magazine
Inside Vernor Vinge's FBI File
VERNOR VINGE-THE Hugo Award-winning science fiction author who passed away in March 2024—imagined a world where individuals, not governments, held the power.
1 min |
December 2025
Reason magazine
Will Tariffs Steal Christmas?
SANTA CLAUS MIGHT be able to evade customs checkpoints as he magically smuggles toys into the country for the good boys and girls-but everyone else doing Christmas shopping this year could run into some problems.
2 min |
December 2025
Reason magazine
THEY THOUGHT LEGAL WEED MEANT FREEDOM. THEN THE DRONES CAME.
A CALIFORNIA COUNTY TRIED TO USE DRONES TO FIND ILLEGAL MARIJUANA OPERATIONS, BUT IT PUNISHED BUILDING CODE VIOLATIONS INSTEAD.
10+ min |
December 2025
Reason magazine
Thank This Klansman for Your Freedom of Speech
A TWO-BIT BIGOT'S SUPREME COURT VICTORY REVERBERATES IN CONTEMPORARY DEBATES.
10+ min |