Stories

Innovations in countless fields have transformed society and radically improved individual well-being, especially for the least fortunate. Every American’s life is now immeasurably better than it was 80 years ago. What made these dramatic improvements possible was America’s uniquely free and open society, which has brought the country to the cusp of another explosion of […]

A group of Pokémon Go players in Shreveport, Louisiana, is using the game to support local charities. According to Miles Jay Oliver writing for USA Today, players encountered several homeless people while playing and decided to form “Pokémon for Progress” to start a donation drive for the local shelter. According to one volunteer, the game […]

Recently, onerous new ride-hailing regulations effectively kicked Uber and Lyft out of Austin, Texas. Now, the city is taking aim at short-term rentals with an extreme new ordinance. James Quintero of the Texas Public Policy Foundation outlined a whole host of these burdensome, intrusive regulations in the Austin American-Statesman. First, Quintero notes that the ordinance […]

Defenders of free speech from across the ideological spectrum packed the Newseum in Washington, DC, earlier this week for an advance screening of the documentary Can We Take a Joke? The screening, hosted by Stand Together Trust in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union-National Capital Area (ACLU-NCA), the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education […]

Innumerable examples of bribery and cronyism paint a seedy picture of how business is done in the Windy City. However, if you believe a recent survey, Chicago’s business leaders are sick of it. Crain’s Chicago Business recently reported on a survey Crain’s Custom Media helped conduct. The survey found that “91 percent believe companies using […]

Writing for the Hoover Institution’s Defining Ideas, Richard Epstein examines the state of religious liberty protections after the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision. He focuses on a recent house bill in Mississippi, stalled by a judicial injunction, which would have attempted to legally refute “the notion that people who are opposed to same-sex marriages […]

What is AUMF? The power to declare war is the most important Constitutional duty assigned to our Congress. Since the outset of the Global War on Terror, our elected officials have abdicated this responsibility, preferring to cede authority to multiple presidential administrations under the 2001 Authorization of Military Force (AUMF). Relinquishment of Congressional war powers […]

The “Autopilot” feature in Tesla cars that allows for semi-autonomous driving is facing calls for its removal following a second accident involving the system. Nick Jaynes at Mashable writes that Laura MacCleery, the vice president of consumer policy and mobilization at Consumer Reports, has called for Tesla to “disable hands-free operation until its systems can […]

Widespread use of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter by groups like ISIS has led to Facebook being sued for “providing material support for terrorism,” according to Mike Wereschagin at Triblive.com. This raises interesting questions about the responsibility such platform providers have for their users’ speech. Additionally, aside from the question of Facebook’s […]

Jacob Sullum of Reason highlights several cases where police relied on faulty suspicions of drug possession to arrest, detain, and convict people. Furthermore, he writes that thousands of people nationwide have potentially faced similar situations. Highlighting one example, Sullum explains that sheriff’s deputies in Leawood, Kansas, detained the Harte family for more than two hours […]