There are few high-profile criminal defendants as unsympathetic as Harvey Weinstein, the erstwhile Hollywood mogul whose alleged sexual misconduct against women was so pervasive that it was reportedly an open secret in celebrity circles. So the New York Court of Appeals' decision yesterday overturning his sex crime convictions in that state may have seemed to represent something deeper: backlash to the #MeToo movement, how powerful men are held to a less robust standard of justice, how we don't take survivors of sexual assault seriously. In reality, it was about none of those things. It was a ..read more

On April 11 in Dallas, I participated in a debate on immigration that was sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and The Free Press. The proposition was "America should shut its borders," and columnist Ann Coulter and Compact magazine cofounder Sohrab Ahmari defended it. The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur and I opposed the motion, while The Free Press' Bari Weiss moderated. The full video is currently only available to Free Press subscribers (a monthly subscription costs $8 a month; go here for details), but I'm happy to share video and a lightly edited transcri ..read more

State and local governments love giving out taxpayer money so private companies will choose to do business there instead of someplace else. Each U.S. state has some form of an economic development agency whose primary purpose is to incentivize companies to set up shop within the state or to keep them from leaving. A new report by economic development watchdog Good Jobs First finds that New York's agencies are specifically incentivized to give out as much taxpayer money as possible, in order to pad their own bottom lines. In New York, industrial development agencies (IDAs) are "public benefit ..read more

Under a new bill working through the Alabama Legislature, public librarians could soon face prosecution for providing minors with "harmful" materials. Critics say that the bill, which passed the state's House of Representatives with a large majority, would force librarians to unnecessarily censor challenged books, or face misdemeanor charges.  "This basically gives one person the ability to have a librarian arrested, as long as they can convince a warrant clerk that they've given notice and material is obscene," Rep. Chris England (D–Tuscaloosa) said during a discussion of the bill on Th ..read more

Anti-Israel protest encampment at Columbia University. (AP)   Recent conflicts over anti-Israel protests at college campuses highlight the ongoing relevance of issues I addressed in two posts written back in October, in the immediate aftermath of the horrific October 7 Hamas terrorist attack: "Some Cancellations are Justified," Oct. 15, 2023 "Far-Left Support for Hamas is not an Aberration" Oct. 30, 2023 The first explained why some "cancellations" of people with abhorrent views are justified, depending on the nature of the views, the type of job they are barred from, and whether st ..read more

Important Update from The Soho Forum: "[We regret] to inform you of a significant change to tonight's debate between Brent Orrell and Tom Woods. Unfortunately, Brent Orrell will not be able to participate as his granddaughter tragically passed away over the weekend. Our hearts go out to Brent and his family during this difficult time. In light of this, we've made adjustments to the event to ensure it can still proceed. Our director Gene Epstein will read, word-for-word, the script that Brent prepared, along with the slides Brent submitted. Tom Woods will then make his case for the negative. I ..read more

The ongoing student protests over Israel and Palestine have become the center of a national controversy, with members of Congress calling for National Guard deployments and terrorism financing investigations against the protesters. But a few years ago, the federal government was interested in a very different sort of campus controversy: whether right-wing journalist Ben Shapiro should be allowed to speak. In October 2017, the FBI prepared a "tactical intelligence report" on Shapiro's upcoming speaker event at the University of California, Los Angeles. The bulletin was released last week in re ..read more

After the California Assembly's Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee recently voted 11-0 to support a far-reaching, speech-quelling, lawsuit-promoting bill in the name of protecting "the children," Assemblymember Joe Patterson (R–Rocklin) posted this on X: "The most simple bill ever and I was pleased to support it after a lot of heartburn. All the bill says is companies are liable if they don't 'exercise ordinary care or skill towards a child.' Do you disagree?" Well, yes, I disagree, but more on that in a moment. When asked by a reporter about his gut reaction, Patterson doubl ..read more

4/26/1995: U.S. v. Lopez decided. The post Today in Supreme Court History: April 26, 1995 appeared first on Reason.com ..read more

You have to respect anybody willing to tell powerful government officials to get stuffed, and tech titan Elon Musk is pretty good at doing exactly that. While sometimes thin-skinned himself and not always consistent in his free speech principles, the head of social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is the best of the bunch among his peers when it comes to facing down censors. His latest battle is with Australian officials who want to restrict the entire world's access to recordings of a crime. The dispute involves video of the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at Good Shepherd Church in ..read more