Author: nick

[ad_1] The Fourth of July is supposed to feel like a reset, but it hits differently when people look around and see a country that can fund anything abroad while families cut back at home. We start with a viral political message about America’s contradictions, then challenge the instinct to turn Independence Day into a scolding session. For us, the better move is to separate the ideals worth celebrating from the government actions worth opposing and to ask what it would take to return the American empire to a constitutional republic. From there, we dig into the economic anxiety behind…

[ad_1] Odds Man Out: The Untold Story of How Professional Sports Crushed the Pioneers of Online Betting, by Jay Cohen, Post Hill Press, 384 pages, $32 In the early 1990s, Jay Cohen was a trader on the Pacific Options Exchange in San Francisco. Traders will bet on anything, and so Cohen and a colleague set up a brisk market for betting on the outcome of the O.J. Simpson trial. But it wasn’t a traditional yes/no betting structure. You could actually buy futures on the outcome of the trial, which would fluctuate in value upon the arrival of news. It was…

[ad_1] Some excerpts from today’s very long opinion in Pernell v. Fla. Bd. of Governors of State Univ. by Judge Britt Grant, joined by Judge Charles Wilson; note that the leading Eleventh Circuit precedent on this is Bishop v. Aronov, which both opinions discuss in considerable detail: [A.] The provision at issue here disallows any “training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” students at Florida’s public colleges and universities to believe any of eight concepts relating to topics like race and sex: Members of one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of…

[ad_1] This new article of mine has just been published by the Emory Law Journal. Here’s the Abstract; readers might recall that I serialized an early draft of the article on the blog last year: Recent statutes and lawsuits have sought to restrict social media or video game design practices that supposedly cause some users to become “addicted.” Are such restrictions consistent with the First Amendment? This Article begins by asking what would happen if the same arguments were applied to religious practices (whether or not the arguments’ supporters would seek to so apply them). Say some religious practice was viewed…

[ad_1] Story at-a-glance Researchers found that every 10% increase in ultraprocessed food intake linked to measurable declines in attention performance, even in adults without dementia Attention problems such as brain fog, distractibility, slower thinking, and mental fatigue often appear long before obvious memory loss and may reflect early metabolic stress in the brain The study found that ultraprocessed foods harmed attention independently of overall diet quality, suggesting that industrial food processing itself creates biological stress beyond poor nutrition alone Researchers identified inflammation, unstable blood sugar, impaired cellular energy production, and cardiometabolic dysfunction as major pathways linking ultraprocessed foods to higher…

[ad_1] Reuters (2018). Yesterday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), filed a lawsuit challenging an egregious violation of the First Amendment by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). FIRE’s website has a helpful description of the damning facts of the case (see also this summary by Reason’s Tosi Akintola): The freedom to criticize law enforcement without fear of punishment is an essential right in the United States. In fact, it’s one of the things that separates our free nation from a police state. But officials at the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement…

[ad_1] President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his argument for Ukraine to join the North Atlantic alliance.  “I have a question for you. Do you really believe it? Do you really believe it would be right to leave outside Nato, a country and a people with this level of defensive capability?” Zelensky argued on Tuesday. “If we already have these capabilities, if Ukrainians already know how to fight like this, then it does make sense for these capabilities to become a part of the alliance’s collective defense that would make all of us stronger.” Zelensky made the remarks at the military industry…

[ad_1] Welcome to Free Media. Today, here’s my take on how Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) could end up replacing Mitch McConnell in the Senate. That would be sweet, sweet irony after President Donald Trump and GOP donor Miriam Adelson conspired to destroy Massie for his foreign policy heresies and forced him out of Congress. But he could return more powerful than ever, in the U.S. Senate. Sound crazy? Maybe, or maybe not! Something is going on with McConnell, who checked into the hospital three weeks ago due to unspecified medical issues and has not been seen since. His staff is…

[ad_1] On the morning of March 13, Afghan immigrant Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal was taken into custody while preparing to take his children to school. His wife told Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that Paktiawal required an inhaler to breathe. She said officers did not take the inhaler and did not allow her to provide it later. Within 24 hours, the former Afghan National Army Special Operations Command soldier was dead. Paktiawal began to experience shortness of breath shortly after arriving at an ICE detention center. When he called his brother, Naseer Paktiawal, to alert him to his condition, his brother…

[ad_1] Editor’s note: This is a developing story. The U.S. military announced Tuesday evening it was “launching a series of powerful strikes against Iran” in retaliation for “Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels that were transiting the Strait of Hormuz.” Posted to X at 5:15 PM Eastern Time, the announcement said the Iranian attacks were “unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire.” Subscribe Today Get daily emails in your inbox Minutes later, Trey Yingst of Fox News reported that “U.S. forces are currently striking southwestern Iran.” The memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed last month laid the…