Author: nick

The lobster triumphs. In a special election yesterday, 51 percent of Virginia voters approved a heavily gerrymandered congressional map that will likely give Democrats control of all but one House seat in the purple state. The state’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives is currently comprised of six Democrats and four Republicans. Under the new map approved by voters, that will likely become 10 Democrats and one Republican, come the November midterms. The Reason Roundup Newsletter by Liz Wolfe Liz and Reason help you make sense of the day’s news every morning. Virginia’s congressional map is normally drawn by…

Presidents have been perverting “consent of the governed” for centuries. “Consent of the governed” was a signature line of the Declaration of Independence, and it has echoed in official declarations ever since Jefferson’s time. President Harry Truman assured Congress in 1952, “No government can be invested with a higher dignity and greater worth than one based upon the principle of consent.” But this has long since been a charade. As the federal government has become far larger and more heavy-handed, it is ever more important to persuade people that they consented to their oppression. But political consent is gauged very…

Vice President J.D. Vance told confidants last week that walking out of negotiations with Iran and announcing a blockade on Iranian ports “would probably force the Iranians to fold within a few days,” according to the Financial Times. Instead, Vance found himself stood up by Iranian negotiators, who waited until the last minute on Tuesday afternoon to announce that they would not attend the second round of talks in Pakistan. President Donald Trump, who had threatened “to be bombing” the minute that the U.S.-Iranian ceasefire expired on Wednesday, instead announced that he would “hold our Attack on the Country of…

I’m not sure if Reality is falling apart, but I’m starting to detect some serious buckling over here… What intentional communities can teach us about resilience amid global instability. 98% of meat and dairy sustainability pledges are just greenwashing. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wants warriors who are not afraid of anything—except, perhaps, needles. How RFK Jr.’s vaccine agenda risks a resurgence of deadly childhood plagues. Archaeologists have found that humans were deliberately crossing open seas in the Philippine islands by about 40,000 years ago. Human ancestors butchered and ate elephants 1.8 million years ago, helping to fuel their large…

Illustration: Lex Villena; Ioannis Syrigos Yesterday, in Ream v. Department of the Treasury, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld an 1868 federal law banning home alcohol distilleries. The court ruled that the law is authorized by a combination of Congress’ tax power and the Necessary and Proper Clause, which gives Congress the power to makes laws “necessary and proper” for carrying into execution other federal powers. The ruling contradicts a recent decision by the Fifth Circuit striking down the same law. The Sixth Circuit decision -written by prominent conservative Judge Raymond Kethledge –  is badly flawed,…

Editor’s Note: The following article is not intended as tax advice. For such advice consult a licensed professional. Further, while not a tax professional, the following was reviewed by a tax attorney. While taxation is coercive, economically distortive, and ultimately something to be abolished, it does not follow that one may simply opt out of the existing legal regime. As much as one might wish otherwise, there does exist—at present—a binding legal obligation to report and pay income taxes under U.S. law. This article then is a response to a recent post on Twitter by Peter Schiff, who argued that, unlike excise…

Falla Cuba – Dénia 2025- Secció 4ªA. Sector 6 Russafa B. Título: “Al mal temps bona cara”. Artista: Enrique i Mario Cardells. Photograph Source: Ponscor – CC BY-SA 4.0 In Cuba, hardship is not abstract. On my most recent visit, I watched residents use metal rods to probe beneath the pavement for water lines because municipal pump failures had left them scrambling for access to drinking water. If U.S. policy is meant to help the Cuban people rather than merely punish the Cuban government, it should expand humanitarian channels that actually reach local communities. I have traveled to Cuba in…

If you really want to start an argument with a Labour politician, just ask them why Britain is now poorer than the poorest state in America, Mississippi. “Nonsense,” they would say. “That is a right-wing trope debunked by fact-checks.” Crude comparisons, they’d insist, ignore social transfers and how much Americans spend on health without the beneficence of the NHS. They would be wrong. In terms of GDP per head—i.e. wealth creation—Britain has indeed been falling behind America’s poorest state: €49,780 against €48,411 in 2024. Even by the International Monetary Fund’s Purchasing Power Parity standards, Mississippi is still above the UK.…

Social media platforms. App stores. And next—computers and smartphones? If some lawmakers get their way, Americans could have to show IDs or submit facial scans to so much as open a laptop or power up an iPhone. You are reading Sex & Tech, from Elizabeth Nolan Brown. Get more of Elizabeth’s sex, tech, bodily autonomy, law, and online culture coverage. A bipartisan federal bill called the Parents Decide Act would require age verification at the operating system level. That means most computers, smartphones, and tablets would all be age-gated. The Parents Decide Act was introduced earlier this month by U.S.…

The U.S. government invaded Iraq after a painful public debate over the possibility that Saddam Hussein was developing chemical and biological weapons. The claim turned out to be false, and the war led to the deaths of thousands of American service members and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Two decades later, the episode is widely remembered as a signal failure not just of the post–Cold War foreign policy establishment but of the media that were supposed to hold the government to account and keep the public better informed. Yet as bad as the Iraq War was, America’s current war against…