Author: nick

Political slogans are cheap. Governing is not. “America First” is not a bumper-sticker philosophy. It is a testable claim about priorities: How much debt will we pile up, how many wars will we drift into, and how often will elected officials treat Congress as a ceremonial prop rather than a constitutional branch. Midterm elections are where slogans go to trial. Primaries, especially, are where interests that cannot reliably win a general election try to win the nomination. They do it with money, with media saturation, and with the oldest trick in politics: framing obedience as unity. This year, two Republican…

Stratton in his tent, smiling, in the Eagle Cap Wilderness, Oregon. He was alone. He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life. – James Joyce Now I see the secret of making the best persons. It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth. – Walt Whitman On April 12th, my son, Stratton Matteson, would have been 29 years old. He died February 24th of this year in a massive avalanche while backcountry snowboarding near Joffree Peak Provincial Park in Southwest British Columbia. The day he died was perfect,…

San Diego voters will decide in June whether to approve a tax on empty homes. The $8,000 tax would affect homes that are unoccupied more than 182 days a year. The tax is projected to cover 5,000 homes and expected to bring in as much as $24 million in revenue, which city officials say they will spend on affordable housing projects. The post Brickbat: Home Is Where the Heart Is appeared first on Reason.com. Source link

 Download Audio. Scott interviews Patrick Pillow about Anatomy of a Regime Change, the series he’s writing on the so-called Color Revolutions. While Iraq and Afghanistan get the most attention, the majority of Washington-backed regime change attempts since the end of the Cold War have taken the form of these CIA-organized political revolutions. Scott and Pillow walk through the specifics of several examples and discuss the importance of this often overlooked aspect of American foreign policy. Discussed on the show: Libertarian Overwatch The New Cold War: Revolutions, Rigged Elections, and Pipeline Politics in the Former Soviet Union by Mark A.…

Image by Levi Meir Clancy. While a prominent Israeli human rights organisation and a well-known New York Times columnist use the term ‘Jewish supremacy’, some North American or European self-proclaimed leftist supporters of Palestinian rights object to these words. Typically, they claim the description is inaccurate and/or antisemitic. Some argue that “white supremacy” or “Zionism” are the terms we should use when describing the Israeli regime. But Jewish supremacy over the original inhabitants of Palestine is at the core of Zionism and the Israeli colonial project, just as European (white) supremacy was at the core of the Americas’ colonial projects. An apartheid system favors…

Americans are so lucky! They get to be ruled by a FIFA Peace prize winner and a living Messiah!! Shakespeare’s long-lost London home has finally been found. The AP Strange Show goes down the rabbit hole with SMiles Lewis. You’ve lived this life before: Nietzsche’s mystical insight. TikTok psychic seeks relief from $10m verdict for false claims in Idaho student murders. The BoA Revival podcast explores the Corpsewood Manor murders with Amy Petulla. Why the AI backlash has turned violent—and why it-s probably gonna get worse. Are UAPs nuclear sentinels? Roswell revisited. Is there a future for NASA’s space plane…

For decades Washington has advertised its air and naval supremacy as the indispensable guarantor of global order. Recent events have shown this to be little but increasingly expensive theater. The 2026 Iran War has paused not with Iranian capitulation but in a cascade of humiliations that have permanently altered the strategic landscape. Washington’s vaunted power-projection capabilities proved unable to shield even its own forward bases, depleted critical munitions stockpiles, and ultimately ceded effective control of the Strait of Hormuz to Tehran. These lessons will not be lost on Beijing or Taipei. If the United States cannot impose its will on…

Irrigation ditch for alfalfa farmers in the Imperial Valley. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. Across most of the arid West, snowpack is low, rainfall is scarce, and residents are staring down the barrel of another year of major drought. Water levels are dropping, native fishes have become endangered, and a battle royale is heating up between western states to decide whose water uses will go unfulfilled. Right now, water is allocated based on Wild-West-era laws that allowed the first settler who filed a claim to get priority rights to use that water. You could claim as much water as you could…

Happy Tax Day, if such a thing can exist. Today marks the last day that most Americans can file their taxes with Uncle Sam or else face financial consequences. For most people, tax filing is stressful and messy. And even though average refunds are expected to significantly jump thanks to the GOP’s sprawling tax bill from last year, nearly 60 percent of Americans say taxes are still too high, according to a new Gallup poll. But the burden of paying taxes is more than monetary. Here are four other reasons to loathe tax season.   In addition to spending about…

In late March, European Union (E.U.) officials announced they had taken down a five-country cigarette-smuggling operation and seized over 40 tons of tobacco products. The ambitious network reportedly transshipped the cigarettes far and wide to obscure their sources and destinations, while also hiding them in hidden compartments built into cargo containers. Why would smugglers go through such effort to move perfectly legal products, and why would the authorities care? In Europe, as in the United States, the answer is the same: sky-high taxes. You are reading The Rattler from J.D. Tuccille and Reason. Get more of J.D.’s commentary on government…