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Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal

2026-04-03T18:55:09Z

Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.

The day draws near for IJ's upcoming conference "The Other Declarations of 1776." As part of the nationwide celebration of 250 Years of America, we're partnering with the Liberty & Law Center at Scalia Law School for an examination of the various declarations of rights that the new states adopted in 1776. It's Friday, April 10 in Arlington, Va. You can still register here! And, if you want to learn more about those Other Declarations in the meantime, check out our series of blog posts, covering Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and, new this week, North Carolina.

New on the Short Circuit podcast: A certification request from the Eleventh Circuit to the Alabama Supreme Court radicalized IJ's Mike Greenberg into Erie abolitionism.

If you like comparing the EPA to the DMV then you'll love how the D.C. Circuit disapproved of the feds delegating endangered species compliance to the state of Florida. Well, you'll love the lead opinion. The concurrence only joins in part and takes issue with the DMV hypo while the dissent bequeaths an "in-the-weeds discussion of various overlapping environmental laws."
Sometimes you can tell the ~~clerk~~ judge had a fun time writing an opinion. Such as this First Circuit decision. A sample of the literature: "Meet the Ponzo brothers, Chris and Joe . . . How the Ponzos became crooks and what they want from us is kind of a long story. But here's the short version . . . Life was good for the millionaire brothers. But the government eventually caught on."
From the annals of "litigation takes a long time": Eleven American families filed suit in 2004 against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority for the Second Intifada terror attacks in Israel. In 2015, a jury sides with the families and they're awarded $655 mil. Second Circuit (2016): Federal courts lack personal jurisdiction over the Palestinian groups for these claims. Congress (2018): Jurisdiction exists if certain requirements are met. Second Circuit (2019): Those requirements aren't met. Congress (2019): What we said before but more. Second Circuit (2023): That violates due process. SCOTUS (2025): It does not. Second Circuit (2026): Okay fine, we recall our mandate from our first go at the case and affirm the judgment and jury award.
New York state prisoner arrives at a new facility with too much luggage. The extra items are legal materials he claims he has permission for. A fight ensues with prison staff which leads to disciplinary action which requires more legal materials and evidence. Which the prison denies. He's then sentenced to months of restricted confinement. Gov: There's no liberty interest here. Second Circuit: The conditions were "atypical" so there is and his due process claim can go forward.
Trainspotting offers one pathway to giving up addiction. Some prison authorities offer another. But if you're in one of their opioid-addiction programs and you're given alternative, safer opioids, then it's best to not be suspected of dealing those alternatives to other prisoners. If subsequent punishment leads to you going into withdrawal, the Third Circuit tells us it is not an Eighth Amendment violation.
Wherein the Third Circuit admonishes and sanctions an attorney in a case where the attorney's client went up against the DEA. The hallucinations at issue are not the DEA's standard fare (whether of drugs themselves or of federal drug policy) but of the AI-induced variety. Things might have gone better had the attorney not doubled down.
From the annals of "litigation takes a long time": Angola, Louisiana's notorious prison once dubbed the worst in America, saw multiple preventable deaths as a result of medical care failures, following unheeded or very belatedly heeded complaints. Inmates sued in 2015, it went to trial in 2018, and the district court entered a liability opinion in 2021 with extensive findings of Eighth Amendment violations, followed in 2023 with a remedial opinion that, among other things, established special masters for overseeing ordered improvements. Fifth Circuit (en banc) (over a dissent): Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act to rein in "judicial adventurism," and federal courts must "maintain a delicate balance among the prerogatives of public institutions, the demands of federalism, and the judiciary's limited remedial role." The remedial order doesn't do that.
Texas pretrial detainee gives birth alone in her cell two weeks before she's due; the baby doesn't make it. The jail's medical director didn't read an email that indicated the detainee had refused breakfast and was experiencing abdominal cramps that morning. Fifth Circuit: Qualified immunity. He didn't see the email, how was he to know?
Business owner slapped with a $130k restitution order in FINRA and SEC proceedings argues that the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Jarkesy entitles him to a jury trial in an Article III court. Sixth Circuit: He forfeited that argument by failing to raise it before the SEC. Nevertheless, for the following reasons discussed over several pages, his arguments are strong . . . if only we were able to reach them. Petition for review denied.
You'll learn from the Sixth Circuit that there are long-running disputes over when and where the first Kentucky bourbon was distilled. The arguments over "when" are narrower regarding the first bourbon distilled by an African American-owned distiller. That's because the year is either 2018 or 2020, not long before one contender sued the other for false advertising regarding its firstness under the Lanham Act.
In further AI-hallucination news, the Seventh Circuit admonished—but did not sanction—an attorney who included two nonexistent sources in a brief. In her favor, she claimed she did not use AI herself (she apparently copied language from a different brief), and she apologized profusely when the court called the errors to her attention. Further, of relevance to litigators everywhere: The court cast shade on opposing counsel for not catching the errors themselves.
Police enter home and arrest a Wisconsin man based on a felony "want"—a type of alert issued by a law enforcement officer saying she believes there's enough evidence for a warrant, but without a judge actually approving one. Seventh Circuit: No matter how much you may want it otherwise, the Fourth Amendment says warrants—and a warrant requires sign-off from a "neutral and detached magistrate." Man's claim for unconstitutional entry into home may proceed. (Ed.: Federal agencies famously active in the Seventh Circuit's largest city may care to take note that warrants must come from a judge.)
Those teaching fed courts next term may be interested in a run-of-the-mill adverse-possession squabble over land in Champaign, Ill. that was removed to federal court. District court: I'll keep the issue over subpoenaing Dept. of Ag. officials as witnesses but remand the underlying dispute over building a garage. Seventh Circuit: Affirmed. Just because Congress passed a law in 1785 concerning the land where the properties are does not federal jurisdiction make.
Jury finds St. Louis city employee was unconstitutionally fired in violation of the First Amendment because she reported corruption at the city tow lot where employees were more-or-less stealing nicer cars. Eighth Circuit: Defendant forfeited qualified immunity defense by not meaningfully raising it until post-briefing 28(j) letters. Also, as you would have learned from watching Liar, Liar, "the federal rules of evidence do not offer protection against evidence that is prejudicial in the sense that it is detrimental to a party's case."
Come for the Eighth Circuit upholding a P.I. enjoining an Arkansas rule requiring a "wet signature" to register to vote. Stay for the dissent chronicling the centuries-long march from a wax-seal-based system of proving authenticity to a written-signature one.
According to its text, the Eleventh Amendment prevents suits against states in federal court by people from other states or countries. According to the courts, it prevents all kinds of other stuff. The Eighth Circuit says you can now add to that list third-party discovery propounded by the estate of a mentally ill man whose death may have been made more likely by sending in a state-owned light-armored vehicle.
During protests in Southern California against ICE tactics in summer 2025, journalists get caught in the pepper-ball crossfire. Press organizations obtain a P.I. against the feds to prevent methods where sometimes "officers issued no warnings and shot individuals who posed no threat." Ninth Circuit: With the Boston Tea Party as prologue, we agree that the plaintiffs are likely to end up victorious. But the injunction's too much; remand to redraw.
Allegation: Tulsa police officer shoots dead a non-threatening, mentally ill (or high) man who had his hands raised. District court: Right but show me a prior case that says an officer can't shoot a non-threatening, mentally ill (or high) suspect who was in an open space and slowly walking away from an officer toward a parked car while ignoring commands to kneel and then lowered one arm when he got close to the car door. Qualified immunity. Tenth Circuit: Reversed. We're not sure he lowered his arm, and anyway the prior case on point doesn't have to be that on point.
Atlanta police officer's already choppy relationship with his superiors (he previously accused them of racial discrimination) doesn't improve after he reports them for downgrading traffic tickets issued to the former mayor's grandson. One week later, the officer learns his flexible shift schedule, a privilege that he's relied on for years, will now be "fixed." He sues alleging, inter alia, First Amendment retaliation. The district court granted summary judgment for the city on all claims. Eleventh Circuit: Mostly affirmed, but a jury could find the officer's superiors had a retaliatory motive for pulling his flexible schedule, in which case they would not be entitled to QI. To a jury it goes. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
Medically complex Florida children need skilled nursing to stay out of pediatric nursing homes, but nearly 94% of them receive fewer hours than authorized. In 2013, DOJ sued, alleging discrimination under the ADA. Eleventh Circuit: The feds can sue on behalf of all affected kids, not just the one who filed an administrative complaint; risk of institutionalization (not just actual institutionalization) gives rise to Title II claims, joining six circuits over the Fifth; and system-wide injunction based on widespread violations affirmed in the main. Dissent: That overstates the circuit split and, regardless, we're on the wrong side of it.
And in en banc news, the Ninth Circuit will not reconsider (but did amend) its decision holding that the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act allows the garnishment of funds in an inmate's trust account coming from gradual accumulations from family and friends.
And in cert denial news: For nearly 20 years, a Midland County, Tex. prosecutor was arguing to put people in jail by day while secretly working as paid law clerk for the county's judges at night, drafting rulings in favor of the prosecution, including in his own cases. Per the Fifth Circuit, that's "utterly bonkers," but also not something IJ client Erma Wilson, who was wrongly convicted, can bring a civil rights claim about. This week, SCOTUS declined to take up the case. What the Heck.

Victory! On Tuesday a federal court ruled that the town of Parksley, Va., and a city councilman violated the Fourth Amendment when the councilman cut a water pipe running from the Eben-Ezer Food Truck, causing more than a thousand dollars in food spoilage and damages. The court also found the violation was so outrageous that it denied qualified immunity. The food truck's owners, Theslet Benoir and Clemene Bastien, teamed up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to sue in January 2024, after the councilman repeatedly harassed them, cut the pipe, and, according to Theslet and Clemene, told them to "go back to your own country."

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Trump's Call for a $1.5 Trillion Military Budget Is Irresponsible, Wasteful, and Unrealistic

2026-04-03T18:36:53Z

President Donald Trump is asking Congress to spend nearly $1.5 trillion on the military next year—a 43 percent increase to the Pentagon's budget.

The White House included that massive increase in military spending in a budget request sent to Congress on Friday. It formalizes the proposal that Trump has been teasing for months. In percentage terms, it would be the largest year-over-year increase in military spending since the Korean War.

Some of the new military spending would be offset by cuts to other parts of the discretionary budget. The White House's budget proposal would trim $73 billion from other programs. Overall, the White House's budget envisions discretionary spending increasing from about $1.9 trillion to nearly $2.2 trillion next year.

Trump's proposed military budget would be "an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars and would make Americans less, not more, safe," says Ben Freeman, coauthor of The Trillion Dollar War Machine and a director at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Freeman says the proposal would encourage more aimless wars and would add to the federal government's already soaring debts.

"Fortunately, it's not going to happen," he added, noting that political and budgetary pressure make it very unlikely that Congress will be able to fulfill the White House's request. Right now, it's not even clear that Congress will approve the much smaller request for $200 billion in supplemental funding for the Iran war. "This is a negotiating tactic, not a serious request," Freeman believes.

Even so, the president has made it clear that boosting the military's budget is a top priority, even if it comes at the expense of other government programs.

While speaking at the White House this week, Trump said the military budget was his top priority. "It's not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare—all these individual things, they can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal," Trump said. "We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country."

The impulse to push more responsibility to the state level is a good one, but Medicare and Medicaid will continue to be a huge part of the federal budget.

That's the real story here—and in every other debate over how much the federal government should be spending. So-called "mandatory spending" on entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will cost an estimated $4.8 trillion in fiscal year 2027, according to the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) latest projections. Interest payments on the debt will cost another $1.1 trillion that year.

Meanwhile, the CBO expects the federal government to collect about $5.8 trillion in tax revenue that year.

It doesn't take a math whiz to see the problem here. The budget is already running a deficit before any discretionary spending, including the military, is on the table.

The White House proposes cutting hundreds of billions in spending from some discretionary programs to use for the military budget. In reality, the entirety of that $1.5 trillion proposal is being borrowed and added to the debt, because entitlement spending and payments on the national debt have effectively crowded everything else. We are putting the whole federal discretionary budget on the national credit card.

"Exploding the Pentagon budget will not make us safer. It will explode the debt. It will waste taxpayer dollars on programs that don't work or that we simply don't need," said Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, in a statement on Friday. "It will crowd out funding for other national security priorities that the Pentagon doesn't address, like disaster mitigation and response, pandemic preparedness, food security, and reining in the debt."

In a historical context, Trump's military budget proposal looks less extreme. Spending $1.5 trillion on the military would mean the Pentagon consumes roughly 5 percent of America's total economic output. During the height of the Cold War, the military consumed up to 10 percent of America's gross domestic product (GDP), as advocates of a beefed-up Pentagon budget like to point out.

Of course, the rest of the government cost a lot less back then, and it wasn't spending $1 trillion to pay interest on the national debt.

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Trump's Answer to Iran's Hormuz Crisis: Sell Oil We Don't Have

2026-04-03T17:44:22Z

President Donald Trump's war of choice against Iran has already had negative consequences. Perhaps most visibly, we've seen higher gas prices after Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which 20 million barrels of crude oil once passed each day, constituting a quarter of the total global supply.

This week, Trump addressed the status of the war in a rambling, disjointed prime time speech largely free of specifics on how we would get out of the mess he got us into.

One thing he did say is that any country dependent on oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz should simply pivot and buy that oil from the U.S.

But that's not likely to happen, because we simply don't have it to spare.

"Under my leadership, we are [the] No. 1 producer of oil and gas on the planet, without even discussing the millions of barrels that we're getting from Venezuela," Trump boasted. "The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won't be taking any in the future. We don't need it."

"So to those countries that can't get fuel," he added, "I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And No. 2…go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves." (This was a slightly softer tone than he took on social media just days earlier, when he told the United Kingdom, "Go get your own oil!")

"When this conflict is over," he optimistically predicted, "the strait will open up naturally."

It is a common refrain from this administration, that the U.S. makes all the oil it needs. "Most countries in the world are significant net oil importers," Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News last month. "Fortunately, the United States—we produce more oil than we consume. We're a net oil exporter."

This is not quite true—at least, not literally. And despite Trump's pledge, it doesn't mean we can start supplying the rest of the world.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), "the United States has been an annual net total energy exporter since 2019," but "U.S. crude oil imports and exports both increased in 2024, and the United States remained a net crude oil importer."

Part of the confusion stems from liquefied natural gas (LNG): The U.S. is currently the world's largest exporter of LNG. But while crude oil is refined into gasoline and diesel fuel, LNG is typically used to generate heat and electricity.

Our LNG output helps tip the balance and make us net fuel exporters, but with crude oil in particular, we still bring in more than we send out.

According to EIA statistics, in the week ending March 27, the U.S. produced about 13.66 million barrels of crude oil per day. But over that same time, we imported 6.45 million barrels per day and only exported 3.52 million—making us net importers by nearly 3 million barrels.

The reason is because not all oil is the same. "The type of oil produced in the United States tends to be higher-quality, so-called sweet oil, but domestic refineries are set up to handle heavy and sour oil," Emmett Lindner wrote at The New York Times. "It is often more cost efficient to sell the sweet and buy the heavy."

As recently as 2023, we received just over half of our oil imports from Canada.

"The amount of crude oil U.S. refineries process greatly exceeds U.S. crude oil production," requiring imports to make up the difference, adds American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a petroleum industry trade association.

In his speech, Trump noted "the millions of barrels that we're getting from Venezuela." In January, after ousting that country's leader, Trump claimed the U.S. would receive "between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels" of that country's heavy crude oil. The plan was light on specifics, but even if it's true, it does almost nothing to replace what has been disrupted in recent weeks.

Venezuela produced just over 900,000 barrels of crude per day in February—a slight improvement over the previous month. Even if Trump could lay claim to that country's entire output, it would pale in comparison to the 20 million daily barrels that until recently flowed through the Strait of Hormuz.

It makes sense that Trump would be desperate for a solution: In a CNN survey conducted before his address this week, only about a third of Americans felt he had a "clear plan," while two-thirds disapproved of the decision to pursue military action. But while a clear plan would certainly be an improvement, it should at least have some basis in reality.

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Maine Bill Proves States Are Capable of Adopting Bad Data Center Policies Without Federal Intervention

2026-04-03T17:25:02Z

Amid bipartisan backlash to AI from federal lawmakers, nearly a dozen states are considering legislation that would prohibit new data center construction for a period of months to years. Maine is poised to be the first state to pass such a bill.

On Tuesday, the Maine House of Representatives passed House Bill (H.B.) 307, largely along party lines, to prohibit "approval for the development, construction or operation of a data center with a load of 20 megawatts or more" anywhere in the state until November 2027. The bill also establishes the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and tasks it with "protecting ratepayers, maintaining electric grid reliability, minimizing environmental impacts and enabling responsible and appropriately sited economic development."

H.B. 307 is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The bill, which was introduced in January 2025 by state Rep. Melanie Sachs (D–Freeport), chair of the Energy, Utilities, and Technology Committee, was carried over from last year's legislative session. In February, Sachs told Maine Public that the impacts that data centers have on the power grid and the environment inspired lawmakers "to take a proactive approach and do it unlike any other state has so far."

But just because states have the power to suspend data center construction doesn't mean doing so is a good idea. In fact, this precautionary approach imposes costs of its own.

State Sen. Matt Harrington (R–Stanford) said the statewide moratorium could cost his district 100 long-term jobs by shuttering the construction of a 100–300 megawatt facility that had already purchased land. The bill would stall development of the data center even though it would be powered by its own natural gas plant, reducing strain on the grid.

Still, Sachs told the Maine Morning Star that the Stanford data center, "could have serious potential impacts on Maine ratepayers [and] our electric grid." Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute, tells Reason that Sachs' bill, not data centers, could actually raise electricity bills in the long run.

"Data centers are steady, long-term customers that give utilities the reliable income they need to invest in more power generation and grid upgrades, which benefits everyone," explains Chilson.

It's also worth recognizing that Sachs' panic over the environmental impacts of these facilities is overblown. As Christian Bristichgi wrote in a recent Reason cover story, "data centers consume a tiny portion of the nation's water. While they're not the prettiest buildings to look at, they mean less noise, fumes, and traffic than almost any other land use one could care to name." And as the technology improves, its environmental impacts will shrink. "In many ways this is the least efficient AI that we will ever have," says Jennifer Huddleston, senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute.

Huddleston also emphasizes that data centers are critical to existing technologies that involve cloud computing, not just AI. Adam Thierer, senior fellow at the R Street Institute, warns that blanket bans on data centers will function as "an actual Internet access kill switch" by undermining online services and raising costs.

Unfortunately, the Maine bill may be a sign of things to come. Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) introduced a bill that would impose a nationwide moratorium on AI data centers until federal lawmakers implement a highly restrictive regulatory framework. His stated motivation is to, among other things, empower "communities that would be affected by the artificial intelligence data center…to approve or reject [its] construction."

Maine has demonstrated that state lawmakers are already empowered to regulate data centers. But just because they have that power doesn't mean they should use it.

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Colorado Becomes First State To Protect Defendants Against Faulty Roadside Drug Tests

2026-04-03T15:55:26Z

Colorado recently enacted a law protecting criminal defendants arrested due to roadside tests for drugs, becoming the first state in the country to recognize widespread instances of wrongful arrests due to police departments' use of unreliable drug field kits.

The Colorado House and Senate unanimously passed H.B. 26-1020 last month, and Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed it into law on March 26. Under the new statute, police can no longer make arrests solely for misdemeanor drug possession based on the results of colorimetric field drug tests and instead must issue suspects a summons to appear in court. The act also requires courts, before a defendant enters a plea in a case where a field test was used, to inform defendants of the known error rates for the tests and their right to request testing from a forensics laboratory.

The first-of-its-kind law is part of a growing bipartisan recognition of a problem that news investigations and lawsuits have documented for years: Police officers' use of unverified drug field tests is inevitably resulting in innocent people being arrested, jailed, and prosecuted.

This type of test kit uses color reactions to indicate the presence of compounds found in different narcotics. Several different companies manufacture them, and they're popular with police departments because they're cheap and portable, allowing officers to test suspected drugs on the spot and get results near instantaneously. But the problem is that the compounds the kits test for are not exclusive to illicit drugs, leading innocent people to be arrested for innocuous items. Over the years, police officers around the country have jailed innocent people after drug field kits returned "presumptive positive" results on bird poop, donut glaze, cotton candy, and sand from inside a stress ball.

The manufacturers warn that the tests should be verified by a laboratory, and they're not admissible evidence in most courts for that reason. But that's done little to protect criminal defendants from arrest and prosecution.

For example, Reason recently profiled the case of Bryan Getchius, who was wrongly arrested and charged with fentanyl trafficking after South Carolina sheriff's deputies ran multiple tests on a bottle of prescription pills in Getchius' luggage. Getchius was jailed for 15 days and held on house arrest for seven months. It would take the state forensics lab more than a year and a half to get official results back to county prosecutors showing that the "fentanyl" was in fact what the label on the bottle and imprints on the pills said: prescription medication for irritable bowel syndrome.

Getchius is now suing the sheriff's department and the county responsible for his wrongful arrest.

But it's the scope of the problem that's alarmed lawmakers and policymakers. The first effort to quantify how many wrongful arrests occur because of these tests—a 2024 study by the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania—put the number at 30,000 people every year. The report estimated that the tests were used in roughly half of the 1.5 million drug arrests in the U.S. each year from 2010 to 2019.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, the executive director of the Quattrone Center, said other states should follow Colorado's lead.

"While this reform may seem small and technical, for the people impacted, it is anything but," Bushnell wrote. "For a person handcuffed, jailed or publicly accused because the field test got it wrong, the consequences are immediate and lasting. A false positive can cost someone their job, destabilize their family, interrupt their education and damage their standing in the community long before a laboratory corrects the record."

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which advocates for free-market policies at the state level, introduced a model policy in January for state legislatures limiting the use of colorimetric field tests.

"By adopting these standards, Colorado policymakers are reinforcing the foundational concept that the states' burden of proof must be founded on accurate, verifiable evidence," Nino Marchese, the director of ALEC's judiciary task force, wrote in a blog post praising the passage of Colorado's bill.

Several prison systems and police departments around the country have stopped using these kinds of field kits, but they still remain widely used by law enforcement and accepted by courts as probable cause to make an arrest.

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America Still Makes Stuff!

2026-04-03T15:00:03Z

Why does everybody think America doesn't make stuff anymore? Where is this expressly disprovable idea dribbling in from?

Writer/Producer: Andrew Heaton
Producer: John Carter
Producer: Austin Bragg
Producer: Meredith Bragg

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The Zendaya Romance The Drama Is Weirder and More Uncomfortable Than You Expect

2026-04-03T13:34:50Z

The first thing you need to know about The Drama is that it's not what you expect. Like really, really not what you expect.

The marketing has positioned the film as an awkward twist on the rom-com with a pair of hot young stars, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, batting eyes at each other as they stumble and mumble their way to a wedding. It's got the A24 imprimatur and a low-light, Instagram aesthetic that suggests a skeptical, modern take on young love. It's been sold as a very conventional kind of unconventional romance.

And, well, it is that—sort of. But it's much weirder, much darker, and much more uncomfortable than you've been led to assume. It's a movie about marriage and mind games, social taboos, and the difficulty of ever knowing, much less loving, another human being. It should have been called The Psychodrama.

Zendaya and Pattinson play Emma and Charlie, a young couple living in Boston. Their relationship begins with an amusing meet-cute in a coffee shop, when Charlie pretends to like the book she's reading even though he hasn't read it. Eventually he comes clean, they move in together, and soon they're engaged.

On the cusp of their wedding, as they're trying out wedding food with another couple—the best man and maid of honor—they have a little too much to drink and decide to play a game. What's the worst thing each of them has ever done?

They all reveal something suitably awful yet sort of funny, mostly impulsive, antisocial acts from their youth. And then Emma reveals, well, something about herself. Something that no one knows how to respond to. Something that changes everything.

To say much more would be to spoil the movie's central provocation, which amounts to the breaking, or at least bending, of a major cultural taboo. Neither Charlie nor the friends know quite what to do. And what ensues is, yes, a lot of drama.

Written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, whose last film was the surrealist Nic Cage picture Dream Scenario, the film traffics in a similar sort of psycho-social strangeness, with dreamlike imagery interspersing scenes of Charlie's escalating mania as he struggles to make sense of Emma's revelation.

It's a tricky tonal balance. Her confession is clearly meant to shock and upset viewers. It's also supposed to be funny. Borgli not only manages to achieve both, he often manages to achieve both at the same time, often without a single clear directive as to which is appropriate. It's a movie that's intentionally, and effectively, designed to make viewers feel emotionally confused.

That emotional confusion stems partly from a sort of social confusion, as both the characters and viewers are confronted with a scenario for which there is no clear cultural playbook. The movie seems to be reacting against the common-on-social-media notion of situations that demand a single, obvious, uniform social and emotional response. Sometimes there is no clearly correct way to respond to a difficult or upsetting event. Sometimes reality demands, or at least supports, multiple conflicting and contradictory responses.

Occasionally, the film strains credulity in its psychological complexities. There are Big Ideas that it gestures at but can't fully support. And the cringe-shock of its big reveal will almost certainly divide viewers, especially those expecting something more conventional.

But the movie's strength is in its human smallness. It never feels like a sociological treatise or a series of tweets about how We Live In a Society. Instead, it's a movie about people, and how they are strange and difficult and impossible to know. It's a movie about marriage and relationships, and how even the most intimate partnerships involve telling lies and stories about yourself, and reintroducing yourself over and over again.

It's drama. It's life. It's a pretty good movie.

The post The Zendaya Romance The Drama Is Weirder and More Uncomfortable Than You Expect appeared first on Reason.com.

Bye-Bye, Bondi

2026-04-03T13:27:37Z

Bondi out. Yesterday, after months of private complaints and rumors of tension, President Donald Trump ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying that she will be taking a job in the private sector. It's not clear what the new job will be. Bondi's deputy, former Trump lawyer Todd Blanche, will take over the Justice Department in an acting capacity. Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin is reportedly being looked at as a possible replacement.

The most straightforward way to understand Bondi's departure is to return to an unusual Truth Social post by Trump from September of last year. The post, directed to "Pam," was reportedly intended as a private direct message, and it gives an idea of what Trump was thinking and saying behind the scenes. The post urged the then-A.G. to move more quickly to prosecute Trump's political enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) and New York Attorney General Letitia James. "We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility," Trump wrote. "They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!"

Bondi used Justice Department muscle to pursue investigations into Trump's enemies, but it wasn't enough for Trump. As Politico notes, "Trump's second term has been marked by an unprecedented assertion of executive power. But that hasn't translated into the cascade of criminal prosecutions Trump has long demanded against his enemies."

The president saw Bondi as "weak and ineffective," according to The Wall Street Journal, because she hadn't successfully prosecuted his foes. Trump views the Justice Department as a vehicle for his personal grievances; he felt Bondi wasn't aggressive enough in driving that vehicle.

As Reason's Joe Lancaster wrote yesterday, Bondi's handling of the Epstein files was also a factor.

But even if you set aside her efforts to pursue Trump's personal grievance agenda, Bondi was not exactly a champion of American freedom, especially on issues related to speech.

She suggested that it was legal to prosecute an Office Depot employee for declining to print flyers for a Charlie Kirk memorial vigil. She made utterly bogus claims about hate speech. She once suggested that "domestic terrorists" could be characterized in part by "extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment."

Bondi was simply unmoored from any sort of coherent constitutional view of freedom of expression. That's worrying for any law enforcement official, and especially dangerous when that person is the attorney general. Federal officials should be in the business of protecting American rights and freedoms, not misconstruing them.

Tariff man. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of what Trump once referred to as "Liberation Day"—the start of his sweeping, and often shifting, tariff regime. The initial justification for those tariffs was struck down by the Supreme Court, but Trump has plowed forward with new (also dubious) legal arguments—and new tariffs.

Yesterday, he announced that he would place tariffs up to 100 percent on some brand-name drugs, and would make further adjustments to existing tariffs on steel and aluminum. These are the first significant changes to Trump's tariff regime since the Supreme Court ruling in February.

The details are somewhat complicated. As The Wall Street Journal reports, "the consequences of the tariff changes will vary widely depending on the product." It's an understatement to say that the words "consequences" and "will vary widely" are not exactly what businesses want to hear right now.

It is worth reiterating that the sheer confusing complexity, combined with the uncertainty of constantly shifting policies, of these tariffs has been a big part of what has made these levies so costly and burdensome. When tariff policy changes repeatedly and without warning, it's very difficult for businesses to plan.

Higher costs get passed off to consumers, and trade pipelines slow down or break down. America is deeply enmeshed in the global economy; Trump's trade policies have mostly served to gum up the works.

Tech bro$. Tech industry-focused podcast TBPN sold to OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, for an undisclosed sum. The Financial Times reports the sale was in the "low hundreds of millions." Reports say the deal allows TBPN to maintain full editorial independence.

The podcast, which began in 2024, broadcasts live for three hours every weekday. It has a relatively modest audience but has become influential inside the world of frontier, big-money tech, in part because it's perceived as more friendly to new tech and business building than other tech-focused outlets.

It's boosterish at times, but it's also fun, informative, and most importantly, optimistic—not just about tech, but about business and capitalism more generally.

I'm a casual fan and admirer of the show, and it's pretty clearly a response to the militantly anti-tech, anti-business attitude that so many tech-and-business-focused publications have taken over the last 15 years or so.

The show's core premise is: What if we covered technology—but didn't utterly loathe technology and everyone who makes it? Sounds crazy, but it works.

Scenes from Washington, D.C.: In January, a D.C.-area sewer line failed, resulting in a massive spill of untreated wastewater into the Potomac. D.C. Water, the utility responsible for the pipe, had previously noticed corrosion and applied to fix the sewer line.

But a Washington Post investigation finds that the project was delayed multiple times "as federal officials studied potential environmental impacts, including risks to a blue wildflower and an endangered bat species." In short, a prolonged and politicized environmental review process made it impossible to prevent an environmental disaster.

QUICK HITS

In March, U.S. employers added 178,000 jobs, according to this morning's jobs report. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3 percent. It's a strong result for an economy that has recently struggled with hiring.
The White House wants $1.5 trillion for defense spending. If approved, according to The New York Times, that would be the highest amount in modern history.
Roughly a quarter of Americans are so-called "double haters" who view both parties poorly. But when it comes time to vote, many of those haters still end up making a choice. A new CNN poll finds that "voters in that group prefer the Democrats in the upcoming midterms by 31 points."
Is big tech shifting from software to hardware?
Trump is reportedly frustrated with other members of his cabinet, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
A planning commission approved Trump's White House ballroom plans, but there are still legal hurdles following this week's judicial ruling that Congress must approve further construction. Also, the ballroom apparently sits atop a giant military bunker.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the Army's top general, along with two others.
The photos coming out of the Artemis II space mission are pretty incredible.

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The Republican Plan To Nationalize Elections Is Performative Nonsense

2026-04-02T22:02:07Z

During my younger days as a soccer dad, I got to watch the variety of ways that people handled the inevitable wins and losses. The trophy my daughter won after a big championship game is packed in a box somewhere in the garage, but the memories remain. Life is about more than winning—and indeed most people involved in the games were good sports.

But I remember some teams for which winning was everything. Their players would punch, kick, and trip our players whenever the referees weren't looking. The coaches constantly intimidated the refs. What's the likelihood that one's team is right on every single call? Not high, but these competitors never conceded anything. That experience reminds me of the modern Republican approach to elections.

Under Donald Trump's leadership, the GOP's outlook is simple: Every election they win is a reflection of the will of the people. Every election they lose is rigged. The president never conceded the 2020 election, nor apologized for the January 6 Capitol attack. That was the result of angry partisans taking seriously Trump's bogus election-fraud claims. Trump continues to push the tiresome rigged-election narrative even though he failed to win the dozens of court cases making such claims.

Lately, Republicans aren't doing well at the polls. A Democrat just won a statehouse victory to represent the Florida district that includes Mar-A-Lago. She's the 30th Democrat since 2025 to flip a seat in a heavily Republican district. That's not surprising. The party out of power often does well in special elections and midterms. Republicans have pushed an unusually divisive agenda, inflation is high, gas prices are soaring, ICE raids are frightening, and the president has launched a Middle East war. So, yeah, there's going to be electoral pushback.

Instead of moderating their policies or engaging in normal soul searching, Republicans are doubling down—and trying to nationalize elections by promoting something called the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) America Act. It would impose draconian voter-identification requirements. The bill would require voters to provide a birth certificate or passport for registration, with the potential for disenfranchising vast numbers of voters, as many Americans don't have a passport or can no longer find their birth certificate.

When Congress required a Real ID for traveling, it provided years for Americans to comply. This legislation would take effect before the midterms.

It's also a red herring. One can always find examples of illegal voting in a nation with 340 million people, but there's no evidence of widespread voting by noncitizens. Even a major MAGA-aligned think tank can only find a tiny number of incidents. (Ironically, some of the most prominent illegal-vote examples involve Republicans.) There is no voting crisis that demands federal intervention.

The legislation also takes aim at mail-in voting, which is ironic given that Trump himself used that system to cast his vote in Florida. Again, there's no evidence that vote-by-mail is any less secure than traditional in-person voting systems. Given the bill's iffy chances of passage, Republicans are cynically trying to build a case to challenge an election they believe they are going to lose. They'll blame losses on Congress' failure to fix a supposedly broken election system. It's politics as performance art. But if it does pass, it could lead to serious voter suppression.

Our Constitution—you know, the document that Republicans continually attack—gives state legislatures the primary power to determine the election ground rules, although it does provide Congress with a role. There's certainly no role for presidential executive orders, as the president prefers. As the Institute for Responsive Government notes, the nation's decentralized election system also makes a federal takeover impractical. The current process, run by local civil servants, is designed to make it harder for fraudsters and partisans to engage in shenanigans. Conservatives used to understand that federalism is one of the core founding principles that protects our freedoms, but not any more.

Of course, Democrats have in the past also tried to nationalize elections, with one onerous example occurring during the Biden administration. I grew up in Philadelphia, which is known for the election antics of its Democratic political machine. But the answer isn't for Republicans to one-up those efforts with their own election-rigging measure.

Unfortunately, we've reached a situation best described by the New America group: "When two-party competition becomes an existential zero-sum contest over the rules of the game itself, the incentive shifts from persuading voters to controlling the machinery of voting." I have no real problem with Voter ID if it boosts Americans' confidence in elections, but this measure would erode trust in the process. Trump has been disturbingly clear that this isn't about creating better elections. He's trying to control the voting machinery to achieve his desired results.

Like with soccer, playing dirty only undermines the sanctity of the game. In democracies, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But if the GOP succeeds with its Trump-inspired dirty tricks, then we're all at risk of losing our democracy.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.

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Today in Supreme Court History: April 3, 1962

2025-07-09T17:59:15Z

4/3/1962: Engel v. Vitale argued.

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Review: Church Committee Report on Illegal Spying Is Relevant Again in the Trump Era

2026-03-27T17:32:22Z

It's not a good sign when a 50-year-old Senate committee report on illegal government activities is relevant and timely enough for a new release. The Church Committee Report: Revelations from the Bombshell 1970s Investigation into the National Security State has, alas, arrived at the right political moment. This new, abridged version of the infamous 1976 report appears as the Trump administration pursues retaliatory investigations into political opponents and so-called domestic terrorists.

The committee, chaired by Sen. Frank Church (D–Idaho), was formed after Watergate to answer basic questions about domestic surveillance: Who was the government spying on? How was it spying? What was it doing with the information? And was it following the law?

"The answer to each of these questions is disturbing," the report concluded. "Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power."

The report aired some of the FBI and CIA's dirtiest laundry, including illegal wiretapping, unethical medical experiments, and covert programs to disrupt lawful political organizing. As the editors of this new edition—the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Matthew Guariglia and Georgetown's Brian Hochman—write in their preface, "No government document has done more to expose the mechanisms behind America's aspirations of political supremacy in the twentieth century."

Guariglia and Hochman have stripped the 3,100-page report down to its core revelations, along with case studies on such scandals as the FBI's blackmail operation against Martin Luther King Jr. This new edition will be an eye-opener for anyone who's not paranoid enough yet.

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Review: Flavor-Changing Gum Is Finally a Reality

2026-03-25T14:00:55Z

Willy Wonka's "three-course dinner gum" captured my imagination when I first saw the 1971 movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as a kid. Violet Beauregarde—one of the many unappealing children in the film and the Roald Dahl book it was based on—steals and consumes the gum, which tastes like tomato soup, roast beef, and blueberry pie.

When I heard that flavor-changing gum approaching that fantasy was now real, I hoped to achieve my lifelong goal of becoming Beauregarde. But 5 GUM Evolution Sour to Sweet Berry Flavor Changing Sugar Free Chewing Gum ain't it. The only thing it has in common with Wonka's gum is that the berry flavor at the end is wildly out of control to the point it becomes quite unpleasant for the chewer and everyone around them.

We live in a time where science increasingly approximates magic, but "three-course dinner gum" is a milestone in food science we have yet to reach.

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Brickbat: Dangerous Hurry

2026-04-02T03:35:43Z

Prosecutors have charged former Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) Police Officer Deion Alexander with multiple traffic-related offenses, including first-degree vehicular homicide and reckless driving, following an on-duty crash that killed a pedestrian in February. At the time, Alexander was responding to a distress call from a fellow officer. Police say that on the way, he drove through 11 red lights in just 93 seconds, and traffic camera footage shows he entered an intersection against a red light and drove into oncoming traffic, causing a crash that killed one person and injured others. Investigators say he was using his lights and sirens but still drove too recklessly, and he has been fired. "Just having the blue lights and sirens on doesn't give you carte blanche to run through an intersection without slowing down or yielding," said MARTA Police Chief Scott Kreher.

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Open Thread

2026-04-03T07:00:00Z

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The President Told The AG She Would Be Fired During The Car Ride To SCOTUS

2026-04-03T06:35:21Z

April 1, 2026 was an even busier day than I expected. The New York Times reports:

On Wednesday, the 60-year-old Ms. Bondi, downcast but determined, joined Mr. Trump for a glum crosstown drive to the Supreme Court, where they watched arguments in the birthright citizenship case. In the car, Mr. Trump told her it was time for a change at the top of the Justice Department.

Ms. Bondi hoped to save her job or, at the very least, buy a little more time — until the summer — to give herself a graceful exit.

She ended up with neither, and grew emotional Wednesday in conversations with friends and colleagues after she realized she was out. The next morning, Mr. Trump made it official, and fired her via social media post.

Bondi then sat next to Trump for nearly an hour. Several reports indicated that Trump sat emotionless during the oral argument. But what was Bondi's demeanor?

Life comes at you fast.

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The World Bank Used To Champion Markets. Now It's Surrendering to State-Led Industrialization.

2026-04-02T21:31:49Z

The World Bank recently published a 276-page report supporting the idea that industrial policy belongs "in the national policy toolkit of all countries." This is a significant reversal for an institution that spent decades pushing developing nations toward fiscal discipline, open trade, and market liberalization. When the World Bank seems more interested in engaging with right- and left-wing populism than in promoting good economics, it tells you a lot about the era in which we live.

Industrial policy refers to government officials channeling resources to particular industries that the market would not. Arguments like national security or protecting "strategic" industries from competitors are often used to justify the policy. Whatever one thinks of these excuses, industrial policy is funded by taxpayers when the chosen instrument is subsidies, funded by consumers when the tool is tariffs, and always funded by the other domestic firms quietly crowded out as capital flows toward their politically favored competitors.

Every dollar directed by bureaucratic decree is a dollar that's no longer directed by people spending their money on what most deserves it. Which, of course, is what makes markets work.

To be clear, the World Bank's reversal wasn't because a new generation of economists finally cracked open the historical record and discovered that state-led industrialization works. It's because the World Bank's most powerful shareholders, the United States and Western Europe, turned toward openly and aggressively practicing industrial policy.

With a cascade of green industrial subsidies during the Biden and Obama administrations, and protectionist tariffs and "golden shares" under the Trump administration, it became impossible to lecture developing countries about the dangers of letting governments pick winning businesses. In other words, the intellectual reversal followed the political reversal, not the other way around.

The World Bank's report thus exists as a manual for governments that are going to do industrial policy regardless of what anyone tells them. It starts with the acknowledgment that all 183 countries surveyed boost at least one industry. But it stops arguing about whether industrial policy is legitimate and instead tries to diagnose which tools governments are capable of using without doing more harm than good. Mapping 15 different policy instruments along a spectrum from simple and low-risk to complex and demanding, the report warns governments repeatedly against blunt instruments that are politically easy but economically costly and urges governments to listen.

They won't listen, and here's why.

The report acknowledges that governments regularly botch industrial policy, yet it expresses hope that rising global education levels are giving more countries the human capital to make certain tools work. For example, a software tax exemption in Romania succeeded partly because a critical mass of people was now capable of becoming software engineers. Fair enough.

But while education raises the ceiling on what is theoretically achievable, it does nothing by itself to change a government's incentives. The obstacle has never primarily been a shortage of capable technocrats or populations. The real hindrances are well documented, structural, and bipartisan.

The first obstacle is what economists call the "knowledge problem." As the Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome notes, centralized attempts to identify critical technologies repeatedly fail because governments cannot predict which will end up being most valuable or how markets will develop. In the 1990s, governments picked the right industries—semiconductors and supercomputers—but the wrong products and companies. No amount of educational attainment by bureaucracies or workers solves this. Only markets aggregate untold amounts of economic knowledge through rough, supply-and-demand responsive prices and voluntary exchange.

The report never grapples with this, suggesting tools like industrial parks aimed at coordination failures and skills-development programs aimed at under-investments in human capital. Someone must still decide where the park goes and which skills get funded for which sectors. These are predictions about what the economy will need, made by the same officials facing the same information constraints as any other planner. They are dressed in more sophisticated language than a tariff but are no less vulnerable to being wrong.

The second obstacle is politics. Educated people, bureaucrats, and CEOs operate under and inside governments where industries lobby, ministers have constituencies, and failing programs are far easier to throw more money at than to kill. The World Bank's report concedes as much in calling the bluntest instruments "notoriously difficult to unwind." But that's not a technical or educational problem; it's a political one.

Even in a country as educated as the U.S., a steel industry that has enjoyed decades of political protection does not quietly accept a withdrawn subsidy. It assumes the role of political actor, pressuring politicians for more. As protectionism dulls the industry's genuine competitiveness, politics matter even more. This is bad even for nations rich enough to shoulder the cost.

The World Bank spent 276 pages telling governments how to do more of what governments most want to do but rarely do well. For developing nations, it's like receiving a lifejacket that works better for people who already know how to swim and can afford to paddle around.

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Pam Bondi's Loyalty to Trump Wasn't Enough To Save Her Job

2026-04-02T22:16:18Z

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he is replacing Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general.

"Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year," he wrote on Truth Social. He added that she would "be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future," and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche would take over as acting attorney general.

Despite Trump's kind words and assurance that "we love Pam," Bondi has been fired, as news outlets reported was imminent.

Bondi ultimately became the face of a persistent scandal about the government's files on deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and though she was one of Trump's most vocal supporters, it wasn't enough to keep her job.

As the nation's highest law enforcement officer, Bondi was a vociferous booster of Trump's agenda. During a televised Cabinet meeting in May 2025, Bondi sang the president's praises to the cameras, bragging that in just his first few weeks back in office, Department of Justice (DOJ) seizures of illicit fentanyl had "saved…258 million lives."

The claim was ludicrous, seemingly assuming all seized fentanyl would otherwise have been divided equally among 258 million people with no opioid tolerance, who would each take the entire dose at once. But it served the purpose of fulsomely defending her boss and pursuing his priorities, which Bondi did throughout her tenure in office.

While nobody would ever confuse government attorneys with saints, Bondi's DOJ gained a reputation for pursuing Trump's personal grievances above all else.

With Bondi at the helm, DOJ attorneys pursued indictments against Trump's enemies, and those who didn't were quickly replaced with less qualified toadies. When Trump tried to circumvent federal law that kept him from installing U.S. attorneys in a long-term capacity without Senate confirmation, Bondi went along, firing the legal replacements so Trump could reappoint his picks.

That level of disdain apparently carried over into the courtroom. "The arguments that are being made…by the Department of Justice attorneys under Pam Bondi are contemptuous," former 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig said in October. "Not just of the Constitution and the rule of law, but contemptuous of the federal courts, and even, if not especially, contemptuous of the individual judges that are hearing the cases."

Former U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner added, "It's not just an issue of the arguments they're making. They're lying. They are misrepresenting things."

But ultimately, it was Epstein that Bondi's career apparently couldn't survive.

Epstein died in custody in 2019, and conspiracy theories have persisted ever since. On the campaign trail, Trump suggested he would release federal documents on Epstein's case, including a long-rumored client list.

In February 2025, when Fox News asked about releasing "the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients," Bondi replied, "It's sitting on my desk right now to review." The DOJ later walked back Bondi's comments in July when it announced there was no Epstein "client list."

"She was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes," not a particular client list, explained White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Bondi couldn't escape that unforced error. In subsequent congressional hearings, both Democrats and Republicans excoriated her for her apparent lack of transparency, and Bondi never quite came up with an acceptable answer. Testifying before the House in February, she tried to deflect from Democrats' questions about the Epstein files by, perplexingly, pointing to the stock market.

"The Dow is over 50,000 right now" and the Nasdaq is "smashing records," she said. "That's what we should be talking about."

Ultimately, this was not enough for her to keep her job. "Trump had grown 'more and more frustrated' with Bondi, one person familiar with White House deliberations said, adding that while he likes her as a person, he doesn't think she 'executed on his vision' in the way that he wanted," reported NBC News. "Since the Jeffrey Epstein files saga, Bondi had struggled to regain her footing with the president and deliver wins."

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Alabama Birthing Center Regulations Are Nearly Impossible To Comply With. State Supreme Court Could Intervene.

2026-04-02T22:18:13Z

The Alabama Supreme Court could soon hear a case to determine the future of birthing centers in the state.

In 2023, the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) proposed setting strict requirements on the state's birthing centers. By regulating them as hospitals, the rule would require these centers to have a physician or consultant physician on staff, as well as a registered nurse and board-certified midwife. Birthing centers would also have to be within a 30-minute drive of a hospital.

The rule was quickly challenged by a group of Alabama birthing centers represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The plaintiffs argued that the rule created a de facto ban on birthing centers in the state (because the ADPH refused to issue new licenses) and violated their constitutional rights, as well as the rights of their patients. The suit also argued that the ADPH exceeded its statutory authority in making the rule. Under Alabama law, the agency is allowed to regulate general and specialized hospitals, rehab facilities, and abortion and reproductive centers, among others. It makes no mention of birthing centers. Any ambiguity on the question seemed to have been settled in 2017. That year, the Legislature authorized certified midwives to attend home births independently and "did not authorize ADPH to license or regulate that care—which involves the same midwifery care and patient populations as [freestanding birthing centers]," says the ACLU.

In a 2023 complaint filed before an Alabama circuit court, the plaintiffs provided several practical issues with the ADPH's rules. One birthing center in rural Sumter County would have to close or relocate because it is 12 miles "farther from the closest hospital-based labor and delivery care than permitted under the proposed regulations." Another center would have to undergo costly and extensive renovations to comply with the new rule.

As Victoria Tice, a doula in Huntsville, recently told WSFA 12 News, the rules would require birthing centers to meet standards that do not reflect how birth centers function. "For example, the width of doorways for hospital beds to fit through when hospital beds don't exist in birthing centers and width of hallways and specific equipment that is not necessary to attend low intervention physiological birth."

The circuit court sided with the plaintiffs in 2025 and struck down the rule, which the court said was "beyond the scope of ADPH's statutory authority to license and regulate 'hospitals.'" However, in January 2026, an appeals court reversed this decision and allowed the ADPH rule to stand.

Now, the group is appealing this decision to the state's high court. "If the Alabama Supreme Court decides to hear this case and sets aside the appellate decision, it would permanently protect the ability of freestanding birth centers across the state to continue providing essential midwifery care to their communities," said the ACLU in a recent press release.

If the state Supreme Court sides with the ADPH, however, Alabamians can expect birthing center services to get more expensive and their care more sparse, which would be devastating for the nearly 60 percent of Alabama counties that lack "any hospital-based obstetrical care."

"It shouldn't be this hard to give birth safely in the state of Alabama, and it doesn't have to," Whitney White, the ACLU's lead counsel on the case, told WSFA 12 News.

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Satanic Temple Wins Legal Fight Over 10 Commandments Monument in Arkansas

2026-04-02T20:33:43Z

The Satanic Temple scored a legal victory on Tuesday when a federal judge ruled that Arkansas must remove a Ten Commandments monument from its state Capitol. The ruling comes after a nearly decade-long battle over the religious display on government grounds.

In 2017, the Arkansas Capitol erected the privately donated monument after the state's Legislature passed the Ten Commandments Monument Display Act, which authorized the installation. In response to the religious display (which was originally destroyed by a man unaffiliated with The Satanic Temple and installed again in 2018), The Satanic Temple offered to install its own statue, a 7.5-foot-tall bronze statue of Baphomet, a goat-headed creature with wings and an Iggy Pop–inspired human chest. In 2018, the group temporarily brought Baphomet to the state Capitol on a forklift to protest what they argued was unequal treatment by the state. If the Ten Commandments could be displayed on government property, the group argued, then why not show off Baphomet too?

A rally organizer explained, "If you're going to have one religious monument up then it should be open to others, and if you don't agree with that then let's just not have any at all."

The Satanic Temple's offer to privately donate Baphomet was ultimately rejected, prompting it to join the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments Monument Display Act.

Tuesday's ruling by District Judge Kristine G. Baker sided with The Satanic Temple, along with the American Humanist Association, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers. Baker ruled that the installation of the Ten Commandments Monument "conveys a message that the Christian religion is favored, and the Display Act is coercive in violation of the Establishment Clause."

She also noted that The Satanic Temple was "prevented from competing with Christianity on an equal footing for placement of its Baphomet monument on State Capitol grounds," which meant the state had also violated the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

Baker's ruling orders Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester to remove the Ten Commandments statue "immediately," but the order is on hold pending a potential appeal. Jester has already said that his team is "working closely with the Attorney General's Office to protect [the] critical part of the Capitol in the courts," reported the Arkansas Advocate.

Former Arkansas state Sen. Jason Rapert (R–Conway), who originally sponsored the monument, said the ruling during Holy Week was a "slap in the face" to Jews and Christians. He vowed that he, along with the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, would continue to fight the ruling.

For now, The Satanic Temple is celebrating the win. The group's website says the case "will have reverberations far and wide, validating the fundamental strength of our arguments and mission."

The Baphomet saga is just one of the ways The Satanic Temple has sought to "defend pluralism" and challenge Christian hegemony in America. The Temple first garnered national attention in 2013 for trolling former Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott over his support for prayer in Florida's public schools. The same year, Temple members held a "pink mass" to criticize Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps. In the made-up ritual, same-sex couples kissed over the grave of Phelps' mother, which The Satanic Temple claimed would turn Phelps' mother gay in the afterlife. In 2014, members attempted to host a "black mass" at Harvard University, which prompted protests by outraged Catholic groups.

In 2019, Penny Lane, the director of Hail Satan?, which chronicles The Satanic Temple's many media stunts, told Reason that despite being founded "as a prank," The Satanic Temple has "very quickly gained a huge amount of authentic followers."

"They're not going to stop," Lane said. "I think most politicians are just kind of like, 'If we wait this out, they'll go away.' And I'm telling you, they're not going away."

Tuesday's decision seems to confirm Lane's prediction.

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My Amicus Brief in the Geofence Warrant Case, United States v. Chatrie

2026-04-02T20:27:12Z

Yesterday, I submitted this brief as amicus curiae in United States v. Chatrie, the Supreme Court's case on the Fourth Amendment implications of geofencing and geofence warrants. You can get all of the briefs and materials in the case here. I'll probably blog about the case over the next few weeks, but for now I just wanted to flag my amicus brief. Here's the Summary of Argument:

The challenge of new technology is a recurring theme in Fourth Amendment law. This case raises a host of new and important questions, and this brief hopes to help frame the issues and provide directions for answering them.

The first set of questions considers whether obtaining Chatrie's Location History records was a Fourth Amendment "search" of his "papers." There are two different arguments to evaluate. The first is the virtual private locker question. Did Chatrie store his Location History records in a virtual private locker with Google, such that he had Fourth Amendment rights in the contents of the virtual locker just as he would with an equivalent physical locker? This brief concludes that the answer is likely no. Although the record is murky on the point, Chatrie likely lacked the control over the records needed to have Fourth Amendment rights in them.

The second search argument considers whether Chatrie had Fourth Amendment rights under the limits placed on the third-party doctrine by Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018). This brief argues that he did not. Carpenter does not apply because Chatrie voluntarily opted in to have Google create and store his Location History records.

The next set of issues considers the lawfulness of the warrant, assuming that one was needed. The brief argues that a properly drawn geofence warrant can satisfy the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment does not present an all or nothing choice between zero protection and absolute protection. Where the law requires a warrant, it also provides a means to draft a lawful warrant.

On the specifics of the warrant in this case, the warrant was properly drawn as to Step 1 because it was sufficiently narrow in both time and space. The constitutionality of the warrant at Step 2 is uncertain, however. It is not clear that the Fourth Amendment allows multi-stage warrants, and the particularity of Step 2 debatable. Chatrie may not have raised these issues as to Step 2, however, so they may be waived.

The fact that this case reaches the Court so late in the Term, and that it raises so many complex issues, suggests that there may be value in pointing to a resolution that might plausibly reach consensus. If so, amicus suggests that the Court might want to resolve this case by focusing primarily on the warrant issues. The legality of the warrant implicates fewer contested questions and has a more complete factual record. For the sake of completeness, however, this brief covers both issues.

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Infographic: Who Really Pays for Tariffs? These Scholars Tracked a Bottle of Wine To Find Out.

2026-04-02T22:12:58Z

Adani Samat/Reason/Envato/Midjourney

As many Americans have learned over the past year since "Liberation Day," tariffs can warp supply chains in a variety of ways.

Most importantly, they raise prices for consumers. In fact, consumers end up paying the full cost of a tariff and then some.

That's according to a recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research that tracked how tariffs impact producers, importers, distributors, and consumers. To do that, the paper's five authors tracked a single bottle of imported wine as it moved through the global supply chain.

Consider it a boozy, tariff-themed recreation of "I, Pencil."

What they found is that foreign producers absorb some of the cost of a tariff by reducing prices. That's an argument that President Donald Trump and his allies have made: that foreign companies "eat" the cost of a tariff and reduce prices to remain competitive.

However, the researchers found that consumers ended up paying higher prices anyway. "Our main finding is that the markups along a distribution chain make it possible for the consumer to fully pay for the cost of the tariffs in dollar terms even when the foreign supplier partially absorbs the tariff by lowering its price," they conclude.

Here's how that happens:

Adani Samat/Reason/Envato/Midjourney

The study began with a bottle of wine that, before tariffs, would have been exported for $5 and would have cost an American consumer $23 on a liquor store shelf.

After a 25 percent tariff on wine was implemented, the researchers found that exporters would reduce their prices. The $5 bottle of wine now gets exported for an average price of $4.74, which means the producer is losing 26 cents per bottle.

When the wine is imported to the U.S., a 25 percent tariff is applied to the price. The government makes $1.19 per bottle, and the cost is passed down the supply chain.

Taxes and other markups apply, just as they did before the tariff was in effect. After those are taken into account, the retail price of that same bottle of wine is now, on average, $1.59 higher than it was before the tariff.

As a result, "tariff revenue for this particular tariff event was more than fully offset by increases in consumer prices," the authors conclude. Consumers end up paying an average of 134 percent of the tariff increase, even though foreign producers lowered their prices.

The study illustrates a key economic problem with tariffs. They make almost every party in the transaction worse off. Producers lose out by lowering export prices, and consumers are harmed by higher retail prices.

Only the government, which now gets to collect more taxes, comes out ahead.

The post Infographic: Who Really Pays for Tariffs? These Scholars Tracked a Bottle of Wine To Find Out. appeared first on Reason.com.

The Daily Mail's Dishonesty About Charlie Kirk's Alleged Killer

2026-04-03T01:41:39Z

Earlier this week, the Daily Mail published the following headline: "Bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did NOT match rifle allegedly used by suspect Tyler Robinson, new court filing claims."

That may strike the casual reader as a significant finding and one that casts doubt on whether the authorities have apprehended the correct person. Connecting Robinson's gun to the crime is obviously a key piece of evidence. If the bullet that killed Kirk came from some other gun, which is implied by this headline, then the conspiracy theories advanced by Candace Owens and others suddenly seem more plausible.

Right on cue, Owens shared the story, claiming vindication.

Where are all my neocons who have been "overwhelmed" by the non existent evidence against Tyler Robinson?

You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Hope the money was worth your soul. https://t.co/C88xGoigdR

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) March 31, 2026

Where to begin? This headline is woefully dishonest and clearly intended to generate massive numbers of clicks from gullible people. But the actual news is much less sensational: A report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives failed to match a recovered bullet fragment to the gun in Robinson's possession. This is not all that noteworthy. The bullet that killed Kirk did not exit his body, rendering it "more of a fragment, not a round," according to NewsNation's Jennifer Coffindaffer, a retired FBI agent. In other words, it was not necessarily expected that the bullet fragment would match the weapon. A nonmatch signifies an inconclusive result, not that the bullet is provably from some other gun.

If this were the only piece of evidence against Robinson, I suppose I could understand why it might give people pause. But the case against Robinson is extremely solid because he confessed to his family and his roommate/lover. Indeed, the prosecution plans to call his father and ex-roommate to testify against him. The prosecution possesses text messages that Robinson sent to his roommate in which he explains in detail why and how he committed the murder. Robinson is entitled to the presumption of innocence and should have every opportunity to defend himself, but people who seriously doubt that he's the killer are deluding themselves.

I'm aware that it's no use arguing with Owens. But in theory, at least, the Daily Mail's editors should be capable of feeling shame over this.

This Week on Free Media and Freed Up

Check out the latest episode of Free Media with Amber Duke and Freed Up with Christian Britschgi and subscribe to our channel!

Worth Watching

The Reason staff and I saw Project Hail Mary earlier this week: It was really good! I had no idea what to expect and was totally unspoiled. That's definitely the right way to see it, so I won't say much more about it.

The post The Daily Mail's Dishonesty About Charlie Kirk's Alleged Killer appeared first on Reason.com.

Justice Department Drops 23,000 Cases To Make Room for Trump's Immigration Crackdown

2026-04-02T18:32:30Z

In the first six months of President Donald Trump's second term, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has closed over 23,000 criminal cases while shifting resources to immigration, according to a new ProPublica analysis. The majority of these cases, the analysis found, were closed without prosecution, further calling into question the Trump administration's commitment to the rule of law.

In February 2025, within weeks of Attorney General Pam Bondi being sworn in, the DOJ declined to prosecute nearly 11,000 cases, ProPublica found. The number of declined prosecutions is higher than any other month as far back as 2004 and is nearly double the previous high of around 6,500 declined cases during Trump's first term in September 2019.

When compared to the average of the last three administrations, ProPublica found that the second Trump administration has refused to prosecute more cases across a wide variety of crimes. Interestingly, crime categories with above-average declinations include areas that Trump has often spoken of as high priorities for his administration, including a 45 percent increase in dropped drug cases, a 59 percent increase in dropped white-collar crime cases, and a 93 percent increase in dropped national security cases.

The one area in which ProPublica found that the DOJ took on more cases than the last three administrations was immigration. During the first six months of Trump's second term, the agency declined to prosecute 22 percent fewer immigration cases than average and prosecuted 32,000 new immigration cases, almost three times the number under the Biden administration and a 15 percent increase compared to Trump's first term.

Although the DOJ routinely declines to prosecute cases for a variety of reasons and makes policy changes to reflect differing priorities between administrations, the report suggests that the extent of declined cases and priority overhaul is unprecedented. In a statement to ProPublica, a DOJ spokesperson said the number of declined cases is due to "an effort to clean, remediate, and validate data in U.S. Attorney's cases management system," and that the agency "remains committed to investigating and prosecuting all types of crime to keep the American people safe." At the time of publication, the DOJ had not responded to Reason's request for comment.

But critics of the recent DOJ changes, including 295 former employees, say the agency is no longer fulfilling its mission "to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights." Although the shift to focus on immigration is unsurprising given Trump's ongoing and unpopular immigration crackdown, the administration's decision to trade off against prosecuting other major crimes is perplexing, particularly as state law enforcement agencies are also being incentivized to focus their limited time and resources on immigration enforcement.

Data have repeatedly debunked the Trump administration's claim that it is arresting and detaining "the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens." According to an analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, only 5 percent of immigrant detainees from October to mid-November of last year had a violent criminal conviction, and 73 percent had no criminal conviction at all. Similarly, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse found that nearly 74 percent of over 68,000 immigrants detained in early February had no criminal convictions.

Of course, Trump is not the first president to shift the priorities of federal law enforcement. Several presidents, for example, have chosen to more strictly enforce drug laws, a tactic that has fallen well short of its intended aim. But just as empowering the government to go after drug crimes has hurt civil liberties and failed to make Americans safer, Trump's immigration crackdown is having the same effect.

The post Justice Department Drops 23,000 Cases To Make Room for Trump's Immigration Crackdown appeared first on Reason.com.

A new report on section 702 of FISA from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board

2026-04-02T17:59:56Z

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Protection Board (PCLOB) has just released a comprehensive staff report on section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Since Congress must reauthorize section 702 or let it die this month, the report could hardly be more timely. And its conclusions make a strong case for reauthorizing the provision.

The report reaffirms the value of section 702 intelligence, including queries seeking information on US persons. The PCLOB learned of a number of threats to human life and infrastructure that were thwarted by data gleaned from US person inquiries; more generally, almost two-thirds of the President's Daily Brief contained section 702 information in 2025.
Compliance is much improved. Targeting compliance continues to flirt with perfection, with compliance rates over 99%. In past reviews of the program, FBI compliance with the US person query rules has been a sore spot. It has triggered heavy Congressional criticism and numerous reforms. The PCLOB reports that the FBI has implemented all of the most recent query rules with 98.5% compliance, and that FBI US person inquiries have continued to drop dramatically, from about 57,000 in 2023 to 7400 in 2025. The PCLOB infers from the decline that statutory and administrative changes are deterring unnecessary queries, but it also raises a concern that the reforms may have made FBI agents reluctant to conduct proper US person queries.

The report is also a fount of information about how section 702 and the statutory changes adopted in 2024 are working.

It demystifies the debate over an FBI filtering tool. The dropdown menu allowed agents to narrow their queries to focus on particular participants, some of whom might be US persons. Narrowing the data in this way was not originally seen as a separate query but DOJ has concluded it should be. Use of the tool now is recorded and restricted as though it constitutes multiple separate queries.
It reports on implementation of the expanded definition of "electronic communications service providers" who must intercept communications under 702. The change was made necessary by a narrow FISA court ruling that excluded important intermediaries that have emerged in recent years. Opponents claimed that the new definition would be used to impose intercept obligations on a range of Mom-and-Pop companies; DOJ assured the PCLOB that the expanded definition is being applied only to services that the ruling had unexpectedly put off limits.
In a section rendered somewhat opaque by classified information rules, the report questions whether the intelligence community is fully carrying out the intent behind Congress's expansion of border vetting using section 702. On the one hand, it notes the intelligence community's view that the expanded focus on drug trafficking has had a "monumental" and "unparalleled" impact on the government's ability to identify transnational criminal activity. On the other hand, it notes that the rules for vetting individuals have not fundamentally changed; in general NSA only disseminates US person information in response to vetting inquiries if the information is necessary to protect against terrorism or drug trafficking and "reasonably believed to contain significant foreign intelligence information." These limitations were imposed after an amicus focused the FISA court's attention on the risk that vetting would lead to disclosure of US persons' identities. I fear the limits may be overkill in the vetting context. If there is evidence in intelligence files that someone seeking to enter the country is tied to an American engaged in drug smuggling, does the American's name have significant foreign intelligence value? If it doesn't, should the information be withheld from border authorities? These are hard questions, and it's not clear how Congress intended them to be answered. Given the limits imposed by its classified nature, I'm not sure we even have enough facts to debate them.
According to the report, other reforms from 2024 are being carried out without much drama:
- An FBI internal office now reviews all US person queries and a sample of other queries
- DOJ also audits every FBI query for US person information on a weekly basis
- FBI personnel now get training on 702 rules every year
- FBI agents face additional penalties for negligence and misconduct in making or approving US person queries, and the bonuses and promotions of field office leaders depend in part on their office's 702 compliance record.
- Amici now comment on all annual certifications of the section 702 procedures (it was this amicus participation that led to additional restrictions on US person disclosures during border vetting)
- Members of Congress now have some access to FISA court proceedings, but as the PCLOB notes disputes remain over the constraints imposed by DOJ on that access

All in all, the PCLOB report provides a detailed picture of section 702 as it stands today. It may be particularly valuable to members of Congress who didn't want to support reauthorization without an assurance that this administration was implementing the 2024 act's reforms in good faith. The PCLOB report leaves little doubt on that score.

The post A new report on section 702 of FISA from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board appeared first on Reason.com.

Claim That "100% Real Chocolate" Can't Include "Soy Lecithin and Natural Flavors" "Is Half-Baked, and Is 100% Dismissed"

2026-04-02T19:28:05Z

From Foster v. Nestle USA, Inc., decided Tuesday by Judge Steven Seeger (N.D. Ill.):

Stephanie Foster has a sweet tooth, and she wanted to sink her teeth into a mouthful of chocolate. By the sound of things, Foster is a foodie. She didn't want just any chocolate. She wanted 100% real chocolate.

Foster went shopping at nearby Target and Jewel Osco stores, searching for the best that the cacao bean had to offer. She bought several bags of chocolate chips manufactured by Nestle USA, Inc…. Each bag had a label promising any hungry consumer that the bag contained "100% real chocolate." …

Foster apparently was none too pleased when she realized that the chocolate chips contained soy lecithin and natural flavors. As Foster sees things, chocolate that contains soy lecithin and natural flavors isn't "100% real chocolate." In fact, it's not chocolate at all. So Foster brought Nestle to federal court. She sues on behalf of herself and a putative class [on various misrepresentation-related theories].

For the reasons below, the motion to dismiss is granted. The complaint is half-baked, and is 100% dismissed….

Foster thinks that "chocolate" means that it can "only have ingredients sourced from cacao beans," meaning cocoa butter and cacao. But Foster points out that Nestle chocolate chips also contain soy lecithin or natural flavor.

Soy lecithin is a food additive made from genetically modified soy. It makes chocolate products more viscous, to mimic the consistency of chocolate products that contain only the more expensive cocoa butter.

And "natural flavors" are highly processed food additives that enhance the products' sweet chocolatey taste. Foster says that Nestle uses natural flavors in the products to cut manufacturing and ingredient costs.

In short, Foster alleges that soy lecithin and natural flavors are "inexpensive substitutes for ingredients found in chocolate products that actually contain 100% real chocolate." …

Foster's claims … require a false or misleading statement that deceives a reasonable consumer…. No reasonable consumer would need protection from Nestle's bag of chocolate chips….

Foster believes that she got duped by the phrase "100% real chocolate." … As she sees things, chocolate doesn't have soy lecithin or natural flavors. Chocolate "only ha[s] ingredients sourced from cacao beans, which include cacao (or cocoa) and cocoa butter." …

That theory comes out of thin air. The complaint doesn't cite anything for the notion that chocolate only contains ingredients that come from cacao beans, and nothing else. She doesn't cite a definition of "chocolate." She offers no source for her idiosyncratic understanding of the essence of chocolate. She doesn't cite a consumer survey, either.

No reasonable consumer thinks that chocolate "only" contains the byproduct of cacao beans. For starters, cacao beans aren't sweet. They need sugar. Sugar is a necessary ingredient of chocolate. And sugar doesn't come from a cacao bean….

Chocolate is a composite product. It contains other ingredients, by definition.

The FDA has had a thing or two to say about the essence of chocolate. The FDA recognizes that chocolate is a mixture of many things. See 21 C.F.R. § 163.123 (defining "sweet chocolate" as a mixture of chocolate liquor and "optional ingredients" including cacao fat, sweeteners, spices, natural and artificial flavorings, dairy ingredients, and emulsifying agents). The FDA accepts that chocolate can include "natural and artificial flavorings" and "emulsifying agents."

Soy lecithin—one of the ingredients that Foster challenges—is an emulsifying agent. See National Confectioners Association, Ingredients in Chocolate, https://candyusa.com/story-of-chocolate/what-is-chocolate/ingredients-in-chocolate/ ("Lecithin: An emulsifier, often made from soy, that makes the ingredients blend together.").

The FDA also requires "milk chocolate" and "sweet chocolate" to contain a minimum amount of "chocolate liquor" to be legally labeled "chocolate." In turn, chocolate liquor contains "cacao nibs" and "cacao fat." And chocolate liquor may contain alkali ingredients (i.e., ammonium and potassium), neutralizing ingredients, "spices, natural and artificial flavorings, butter, milkfat, and/or salt."

True, the FDA's definition is hyper-technical, and contains some scientific mumbo-jumbo. The agency uses terms like "semiplastic," "nutritive carbohydrate sweeteners," and so on. But the key point jumps off the page: chocolate is a composite product…. Dictionaries agree that chocolate includes cacoa beans, plus a number of other ingredients.

The fact that chocolate contains more than cacao beans isn't a news bulletin to anyone. "Chocolate is a solid mixture. In its basic form, it is composed of cacao powder, cocoa butter, and some type of sweetener such as sugar; however, modern chocolate includes milk solids, any added flavors, modifiers, and preservatives." See What is chocolate?, MIT Laboratory for Chocolate Science, https://chocolate.mit.edu/science/. In fact, soy lecithin "is quite a common chocolate ingredient, even in the realm of craft chocolate." …

[A] consumer doesn't have to read the fine print on the back of the bag of chocolate chips to figure out that chocolate contains more than cacao beans. The front of the bag tells the consumer everything that he or she needs to know.

"Chocolate" appears on the front of the bag. And reasonable consumers know that chocolate is a composite product and contains several ingredients.

"What matters most is how real consumers understand and react to the advertising." Figuring out that chocolate is more than cacao beans doesn't require consumers to "question the labels they see and to parse them as lawyers might for ambiguities."

Courts don't have to treat consumers like eggshell-skull plaintiffs, wandering bewildered down the grocery aisle in the Land of Confusion. And at some point, it is not asking too much to expect a reasonable consumer to read the list of ingredients if they're unsure….

No reasonable consumer would read the phrase "100% real chocolate" as a representation that the bag contains only the byproducts of cacao beans. A true chocolate lover wouldn't believe that, and a reasonable consumer wouldn't either….

Jared Reed Kessler and Ronald Y. Rothstein (Winston and Strawn LLP) represent Nestle.

The post Claim That "100% Real Chocolate" Can't Include "Soy Lecithin and Natural Flavors" "Is Half-Baked, and Is 100% Dismissed" appeared first on Reason.com.

Court Rejects Lawsuit Over Firing of Georgetown Administrator for Old "Hate for Zio Bitches" Posts

2026-04-02T15:25:47Z

From Judge Christopher Cooper's opinion Tuesday in Johnson v. Georgetown Univ. (D.D.C.):

Plaintiff Aneesa Johnson, an African American and Muslim woman of Palestinian origin, alleges that Georgetown discriminated against her when it fired her [from her position as Assistant Director of Academic and Faculty Affairs at Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service] after discovering eight-year-old social media posts that described her "hat[red]" for Zionists.

{Three of Johnson's posts are relevant here. The first read, "Ever since going to [Northwestern] I have a deep seeded [sic] hate for Zio bitches. They bring out the worst in me." The second elaborated, "You know why I call them Zio bitches, because they're dogs." And the third post was a repost of another user's Tweet, which included a photograph of a scowling Orthodox Jewish man with the caption, "When the whole world hates you bc you a thief and grow up looking like a shaytan #GrowingUpIsraeli." ("Shaytan" means devil or demon in Arabic.)}

She also brings a bevy of related hostile work environment, retaliation, and tort claims against Georgetown and a constellation of other defendants, including Rachel Jessica Wolff and Ilya Shapiro, individuals who publicized Johnson's old posts on Twitter; Canary Mission, a controversial organization that creates online profiles of students and professors on college campuses who have been critical of Israel; and a handful of Canary Mission's donors….

Upon consideration of the voluminous set of briefs in this case, the Court concludes that Ms. Johnson's claims against the movants must be dismissed with prejudice. Among myriad grounds for dismissal, the complaint does not make out any claim that Johnson was discriminated against based on her race, religion, or national origin, nor can she proceed in tort against Georgetown or other defendants due to procedural and substantive defects in her claims….

The opinion is over 20K words long, and I can't do it justice here. But I thought I'd pass along this passage, which is relevant to some of the First Amendment / tort law discussions we've had on this blog in past years:

After Johnson was introduced to the SFS community by email, Rachel Wolff—a Jewish dual degree student at SFS and Georgetown's law school—looked Johnson up online. The top search result was a profile of Johnson on the website of Canary Mission, which the complaint characterizes as an "anonymous cyberstalking and blacklisting" operation that "targets" individuals who advocate for Palestinian rights. [The profile contained Johnson's three Twitter posts. -EV] …

Alarmed at what her Google search turned up, Wolff took to Twitter herself. Late in the evening on November 1, she posted screenshots of Johnson's college-era Tweets, retrieved from Canary Mission, with some added commentary: "Not to be outdone by Harvard, Georgetown @georgetownsfs just hired this antisemite to be the 'primary point of contact for all MSFS Students on everything academic.' As an SFS student, I'd rather fail my master's program than speak to someone who says this about my people."

Wolff's Tweet went viral, garnering over a million views. She followed up with additional posts, calling SFS and Georgetown "shameful" for their hiring decision. According to the complaint, Wolff's Tweets were amplified by Canary Mission, the Israeli government, and other users. One of those users was Ilya Shapiro, a former Georgetown law school lecturer and administrator, who reposted Wolff's initial Tweet, adding "Her name is Aneesa Johnson, @Georgetown School of Foreign Service's new assistant director of academic affairs." …

Johnson alleges that Wolff tortiously interfered with her contract with Georgetown by targeting her online, accusing her of being antisemitic, and thereby pressuring the university to terminate her…. "[U]nder D.C. law, a prima facie case of tortious interference with a contract or business relationship requires (1) existence of a valid contractual or other business relationship; (2) the defendant's knowledge of the relationship; (3) intentional interference with that relationship by the defendant; and (4) resulting damages." … The D.C. Court of Appeals has clarified that "D.C. law permits claims for tortious interference with an at-will employment relationship[,]" at least against "third parties." … [T]he D.C. Circuit has suggested that a plaintiff need not allege interference "through egregious means"—for example, through libel, slander, coercion, fraud, misrepresentation, or disparagement—to survive a motion to dismiss….

[But e]ven if Wolff's conduct qualifies as intentional interference with Johnson's contract and proximately caused her termination, it was not improper or wrongful… [and was thus] "legally justified or privileged," which renders [it] inactionable [citing D.C. precedents]…. {The propriety of a defendant's interference is an affirmative defense, rather than a prima facie element of tortious interference…. [But] it is clear from the face of Johnson's complaint that Wolff's Tweets do not constitute improper interference in her contract with Georgetown and thus cannot sustain her tortious interference claim.}

D.C. law follows the Restatement (Second) of Torts in "determining whether interference with a contract is 'improper[.]'" Courts must consider several factors, including "(a) the nature of the actor's conduct, (b) the actor's motive, (c) the interests of the other with which the actor's conduct interferes, (d) the interests sought to be advanced by the actor, (e) the social interests in protecting the freedom of action of the actor and the contractual interests of the other, (f) the proximity or remoteness of the actor's conduct to the interference, and (g) the relations between the parties." The list is not exhaustive, and courts are to evaluate impropriety based on a "judgment and choice of values in each situation."

Considering the facts in the light most favorable to Johnson—without crediting her legal conclusions and speculative or threadbare assertions—Wolff's behavior is a far cry from wrongful or improper. The nature of her conduct was not unusual: She complained to other social media users about an issue that upset her, though her posts did go viral along the way. Wolff's motive was clear from the face of the complaint: She perceived Johnson's online activity as an affront to her Jewish identity, especially in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack, and publicly vented her objection to Georgetown placing Johnson in a position of responsibility vis-à-vis Jewish (and other) students. Though there may have been less provocative means of voicing her opinion, she was entitled to do so the way she did.

Relatedly, Wolff's individual interest in speaking out had a constitutional valence, which dovetails with the societal interest in protecting her freedom of speech, especially on a matter of public concern like an elite university's hiring decisions. After all, "in public debate [we] must tolerate insulting … speech in order to provide adequate 'breathing space' to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.'" These factors strongly outweigh Johnson's interest in bringing an affirmative tortious interference claim against Wolff, who, at best, played only an indirect role in her firing. {The Court will not fulsomely address Wolff's First Amendment defense, other than to note that it packs a strong punch.}

Imagine the road we would travel if any exasperated social media complaint about a university personnel controversy could give rise to a tortious interference claim. The risk of such suits would undoubtedly chill campus speech, contravening the well-established principle that the "college classroom," along with "its surrounding environs," is "peculiarly the 'marketplace of ideas[.]' " To put an even finer point on it, imagine if student activists for the Palestinian cause could be sued in tort if they condemned their university's decision to hire a vocal supporter of Israel.

This cannot be the result Johnson truly seeks, especially given her own history of campus organizing. Indeed, her opposition stresses that she "does not challenge Defendants' right to speak" and acknowledges that defendants "may express their views about Palestinian advocacy, about [ ] Johnson's political positions, about Israel-Palestine dynamics." If Johnson instead aims to curb the "use" of "employment authority to retaliate against protected-class membership[,]"an iffy tortious interference claim against Wolff—who Johnson concedes had no employment authority whatsoever—widely misses the mark.

And from the Conclusion to the opinion:

The Court [earlier noted] Shakespeare's admonition in Henry VIII to refrain from letting the heat of passion cloud the pursuit of our adversaries, lest we go too far and bring harm upon ourselves. That advice rings true no matter how righteous we believe our cause to be. Litigation can right many wrongs. But not every wrong can be righted by a lawsuit….

There are still other lessons to be drawn from this case.

We should all cherish free speech yet recognize that speech is not free. It has consequences. It reflects who we are. And especially if conveyed over the Internet, it can follow us forever. If our words are caustic and hurtful, they may not only injure others, but also sully our own reputations and cost us valuable opportunities and benefits, including in employment. As elementary as it may seem, we should think twice about what we say and how we say it.

Choosing words wisely is especially important for those entrusted with the education of our students and future leaders. Members of the academy—and, yes, judges and other public figures whose words reach impressionable ears—should model respectful discourse for those next up the rungs. But that is sometimes lacking in this age when hot takes on social media pass for analysis of fraught and complex issues. While most of us appreciate a turn of phrase and even a zinger or two, pith alone is usually a poor substitute for reasoned commentary.

We might remember as well that free speech is for me and for thee. There is a tendency for those whose words are censured to seek refuge in the First Amendment. Yet some seem unwilling to extend like protections to those whose speech they find objectionable. The "cancelled" become the censors. That double standard pops up on both sides of this suit.

This case also illuminates the plight of university administrators these days, who must navigate fractured student bodies and faculties, demanding donors, ever-increasing intrusions by the federal government, and more. They deserve a measure of grace. They will occasionally falter, of course, and when they do in ways that violate the law, they should appropriately be held to account. But hasty social media posts and grasping lawsuits are perhaps not the best ways of confronting their missteps.

As the Court presaged at the outset, this case has become a proxy war of sorts for the conflict that continues to play out on college campuses over events in Israel and Gaza. That conflict has embroiled students, faculty, and staff with deeply held but diametrically opposed views on a seemingly intractable dispute halfway around the globe.

The nation's great colleges and universities are uniquely situated to offer the competing constituencies a shared environment to learn about and debate the underlying struggle and its historical origins, which of course long predate October 7, 2023. They can also provide space for time-honored expressions of protest within bounds of reason and respect.

Fashioning such an environment has proven difficult on some (though not all) campuses. But where school and student leaders can together strive to create conducive settings to achieve these goals, there may be no better place than the university to temper the "fire of passion" with the "sap of reason," in the words of the Bard. At the very least, a college campus is almost always a more appropriate venue for venting ardent political opinions than a court of law.

The post Court Rejects Lawsuit Over Firing of Georgetown Administrator for Old "Hate for Zio Bitches" Posts appeared first on Reason.com.

Birthright Citizenship, Noem Family Circus, and Project Hail Mary

2026-04-02T22:17:31Z

This week on Freed Up, the opening skit makes its triumphant return before Robby and Christian dive into the latest on Iran, Robby's trip to Vegas, and two major court cases involving birthright citizenship and conversion therapy. They also get into former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's husband becoming an unexpected topic of conversation, swap horror stories about the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and debate whether they've found the stupidest tweet ever. Later, they take on youth curfews, surprisingly fit members of Congress, and wrap with a discussion of Project Hail Mary.

0:00—The opening skit is BACK, baby

3:25—The war in Iran, again

10:27—Robby went to Vegas

15:57—Birthright citizenship case

25:38—The conversion therapy case

30:36—Noem's husband gets everyone's attention

41:02—The worst TSA experiences

50:01—The stupidest tweet ever?

1:00:43—Debating youth curfews

1:19:20—Project Hail Mary

The post Birthright Citizenship, Noem Family Circus, and Project Hail Mary appeared first on Reason.com.

Florida Cop Punished With 'Training/Counseling' for Farting in Colleague's Face

2026-04-02T22:17:48Z

A Palm Beach County detective was disciplined for farting in a fellow deputy's face, public records obtained by Reason show.

A Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office (PBSO) personnel complaint filed on November 17, 2025, alleged that Detective James Coppola had "engaged in horseplay by passing gas in Deputy [Joshua] Mohammed's face" in the PBSO's District 9 detective bureau.

The complaint was not filed by the target of Coppola's rude eruption, but rather the District 9 division commander. The commander also filed a complaint against Mohammed for prohibited horseplay, presumably launched as a counter-offensive.

According to the report, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw authorized an internal investigation into the rowdy officers, and on January 21, the lieutenant assigned to the investigation sustained the allegations against Coppola and Mohammed, finding both had violated PBSO Rules & Regulation "VII(15) Horseplay."

The report did not detail the exact nature of Mohammed's horseplay.

On both reports, under a section titled "final disciplinary action taken by agency," the option "Training Counseling" was circled.

In response to an inquiry, the PBSO did not elaborate on what training or counseling Coppola and Mohammed received. However, a PBSO spokesperson said in a written statement to Reason:

"The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office holds all employees to the highest standards in its commitment to maintaining the public's trust. While the vast majority of our employees uphold these expectations, there are instances when poor decisions result in misconduct. In this case, the actions of our deputies; James Coppola and Joshua Mohammed, were identified, thoroughly investigated, and determined to be clear violations of our agency policies and procedures. We remain committed to accountability and will continue to ensure that our actions reflect the professionalism and integrity our community expects and deserves."

Reason obtained the reports through a public records request under Florida's Sunshine Law for recent complaints and disciplinary records.

The state's relatively broad freedom of information law is often cited as one of the reasons Florida is an epicenter of weird news. These sorts of internal records are nearly impossible to get in some other states, blocking the public from getting information on police misconduct far more serious than two officers playing Terrance and Phillip. (The PBSO records included other, more serious infractions as well, such as a deputy arriving to work drunk or negligently discharging a taser.)

Unfortunately, the Florida Legislature and Governor's Office have been ceaselessly chipping away at the Sunshine Law, but for now we can still enjoy its bounty.

See the reports below:

The post Florida Cop Punished With 'Training/Counseling' for Farting in Colleague's Face appeared first on Reason.com.

Gorsuch, Barrett, and Roberts Raise Fatal Objections to Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order

2026-04-02T13:45:31Z

President Donald Trump made history yesterday at the U.S. Supreme Court when he became the first sitting president on record to attend a SCOTUS oral argument. Unfortunately for Trump, his presence, however attention-grabbing, is unlikely to sway the outcome of a case that he has always deserved to lose.

At issue in yesterday's oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara is the president's 2025 executive order that purports to deny the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children whose parents are unlawful immigrants or lawful temporary visitors.

According to Trump's solicitor general, John Sauer, the overriding factor for determining birthright citizenship should be whether or not a newborn's parents were "domiciled" in the United States, a term he defined to mean "lawful presence with the intent to remain permanently."

Yet as Justice Neil Gorsuch pointed out, "you don't see domicile mentioned in the [congressional] debates" over the 14th Amendment, which enshrined birthright citizenship in the Constitution. "We have the—the child's citizenship, and the focus of the clause is on the child, not on the parents," Gorsuch said. "The absence" of the word domicile—a word which is the centerpiece of Trump's entire case—"is striking."

Gorsuch also noted another fatal flaw in the government's position. "Today, you can point to laws against immigration that are much more restrictive than they were in 1868," Gorsuch said. "If somebody showed up here in 1868 and established domicile, that was perfectly fine without respect to anything, any—any immigration laws." Which means, Gorsuch told Sauer, "why wouldn't we, even if we were to apply your own test, come to the conclusion that the fact that someone might be illegal is immaterial?"

In other words, if the Supreme Court sticks to the circa-1868 meaning of domicile, which Sauer himself said that it should, then that term, as originally understood at the time of the 14th Amendment's ratification, would cut against Trump's executive order.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett then raised an even more ominous issue for the Trump administration. What about "the children of slaves who were brought here unlawfully…in defiance of laws forbidding the slave trade," Barrett asked Sauer. "You can imagine that their parents were not only brought here in violation of United States law but were here against their will and so maybe felt allegiance to the countries to where they were from." And "let's say they don't have an intent to stay. They want to escape and go back the second they can. Are they domiciled?"

This was a very dangerous query for Sauer, and his struggle to respond to it coherently suggested that he understood the peril he was in. After all, if the Trump administration's theory is correct, and "domicile" requires "the intent to remain permanently," as Sauer said it did, then the U.S.-born child of an enslaved person who wanted "to escape and go back" would clearly not qualify for birthright citizenship under the Trumpian view. And the descendants of such persons, born today, would also be ineligible for birthright citizenship under the Trumpian view, if applied retroactively.

The reason why that logic is so disastrous for Trump is because the Trump administration has repeatedly conceded that one of the undeniable purposes of the 14th Amendment was to make citizens out of all enslaved black Americans and their descendants. Yet if Trump's theory wins, that one undeniable purpose of the amendment would be nullified because the U.S.-born children of some enslaved people would not qualify for birthright citizenship after all.

That line of questioning from Barrett might be enough by itself to spell legal doom for Trump's executive order.

Chief Justice John Roberts offered another damning analysis of the Trump administration's case. After Sauer claimed that "the 19th century Framers of this amendment" could "not possibly" have approved of "birth tourism" or other supposed modern problems that have been allegedly caused by birthright citizenship, Roberts observed that such contemporary policy arguments have zero bearing on the case at hand. "You do agree," Roberts pressed Sauer, "that that has no impact on the legal analysis before us?"

Sauer struggled a bit in response to that one, too, before finally asserting that "we're in a new world now," one "where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a—a child who's a U.S. citizen."

"Well, it's a new world," Roberts replied. "It's the same Constitution."

That reply by the chief justice perfectly illustrated the bankruptcy of Trump's entire position. Instead of following the straightforward text and history of the 14th Amendment, the Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to adopt a tortured and unpersuasive new theory that rests on a different word that appears nowhere in the text of the Constitution and, as Gorsuch noted, is also strikingly absent from the relevant congressional debates. At the same time, in a case that's supposed to be about the original meaning of a constitutional provision, the Trump administration is wasting the Court's time with non-legal, modern-day anti-immigration arguments that, as the chief justice pointed out, are totally irrelevant to the originalist and textualist analysis that the Supreme Court is actually performing.

Gorsuch, Barrett, and Roberts probably hold the swing votes in this case. If they remain as skeptical of Trump's position as they sounded during oral arguments, the president's executive order is in big trouble.

The post Gorsuch, Barrett, and Roberts Raise Fatal Objections to Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order appeared first on Reason.com.

War and/or Peace

2026-04-02T13:26:36Z

President Donald Trump delivered a prime-time address about the Iran War that could have been a Truth Social post.

The rambling 19-minute speech resembled Trump's frequent social media posts: vaguely belligerent and at times contradictory.

The U.S. will continue to hit Iran "extremely hard over the next two to three weeks," Trump threatened, while simultaneously promising that "discussions are ongoing" to end the war. As he's done in recent weeks, he threatened to target Iran's civilian infrastructure, including power plants, which would be a war crime. However, he seemed to downplay the significance of Iran's nuclear weapons program, which is ostensibly the reason why the war was launched in the first place.

As for the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran now fully controls, Trump simply said "it will just open up naturally."

Well, I guess we can hope so.

That's what the speech included. Here's what was missing: any indication that the Trump administration has a functional plan to end the war and/or restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. There were no details about what a prospective peace deal might look like (significant, since U.S. intelligence agencies have reportedly determined that the Iranian government is not currently willing to negotiate with Trump, despite what the president has said). There was no acknowledgement of the fact that the war still lacks congressional authorization.

A speech like this might have helped sell the American public on the necessity of this war before it began. A month in, however, I don't get the sense that it will move the needle on the war, which is deeply unpopular:

Only 62 percent of Republicans and 79 percent of MAGA support the Iran war. Sounds like a lot but Republican support for the Iraq war was much higher. And other polls show even these Iran war supporters have concerns.

Oh, and only 28 percent of Americans support the war. pic.twitter.com/Fx8hlDEEGD

— Andrew Day (@AKDay89) April 1, 2026

At least 13 Americans have already died in this conflict, which is costing billions of dollars every day and disrupting global markets for oil, helium, and more. What are the American people gaining to offset all that? If Trump has an answer to that question, he didn't articulate it on Wednesday night.

"We're going back to the fuckin' moon." We sure are. The Artemis II mission blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Wednesday night, beginning a planned 10-day, 240,000-mile journey that will take four astronauts around the moon and back to Earth.

Liftoff.

The Artemis II mission launched from @NASAKennedy at 6:35pm ET (2235 UTC), propelling four astronauts on a journey around the Moon.

Artemis II will pave the way for future Moon landings, as well as the next giant leap — astronauts on Mars. pic.twitter.com/ENQA4RTqAc

— NASA (@NASA) April 1, 2026

The first manned mission into Lunar orbit since 1972, Artemis is the culmination of a very expensive, decade-plus effort to get there. "It marks the first time astronauts will fly aboard NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, and it is the first real test of Orion's life-support systems with humans on board," writes Reason's Natalie Dowzicky. "It is less a triumphant return to the moon than a high-stakes systems check."

One problem has already cropped up: The ship's fancy zero-gravity toilet wasn't working, but was quickly fixed.

This whole thing strikes me as pretty wasteful—strip away the romance of going to space, and this is just another way for government contractors to milk taxpayers.

But it is also undeniably cool that humans can do this:

The coolest orbital animation I've seen of Artemis 2

Just really shows you how far away they're flying today and also how precise they need to be to go to the moon pic.twitter.com/fBTYHbcGoQ

— delian (@zebulgar) April 1, 2026

Scenes from D.C.: Unhappy first anniversary to this bit of insanity, when Trump stood outside the White House to announce a policy even more poorly planned than the war in Iran, if you can believe that.

Andrew Leyden/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

Yes, it's Liberation Day. Every day is a good day to remember that tariffs are taxes paid by Americans, but we've got extra coverage of the topic to mark the occasion:

Jacob Sullum notes that there has been little rhyme or reason to the president's tariff scheme, which fluctuated wildly depending on his mood.
Jack Nicastro reviews the impact that tariffs had on blue-collar jobs, including the decline of 89,000 manufacturing jobs. Hey, didn't Trump promise that tariffs would cause the opposite of that to happen?
And I wrote about why Trump should take a lesson from his role model, former President William McKinley, and put his tariff proposal up for a vote in Congress.

If that's not enough tariff content for you—and, really, is there ever enough?—then let me also recommend Phil Gramm's and Don Boudreaux's take in The Wall Street Journal: "Most economists predicted that the economy's performance would be negatively affected. Thus far data overwhelmingly indicate that is what has happened," they conclude.

QUICK HITS

The Supreme Court seemed skeptical of the Trump administration's arguments in a case challenging an executive order abolishing birthright citizenship.
The partial government shutdown could end today, as congressional leaders are close to reaching a deal to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through September. A separate package funding the parts of DHS that do immigration enforcement will need to be passed by June 1.
A new Penn Wharton study shows that annual federal outlays to senior citizens total $43,000 per capita, while young Americans and children (those under age 26) get about $4,000. Keep that in mind when legislators start talking about raising taxes to fund Social Security.
The Pentagon is giving media outlets outdated casualty counts that lowball the numbers of American troops killed and wounded in the Iran War, and that lack the sort of specificity provided during previous conflicts.
Jonathan, a giant tortoise residing on the island of St. Helena, is still the world's oldest living creature after reports of his death were revealed to be an elaborate April Fool's Day hoax—and maybe a crypto scam too? To put that in perspective: Jonathan was born a few years before humans invented the telegraph, and he lived long enough to be a central figure in an internet-based hoax and social media scam involving digital currency. And you think the world has changed a lot in your lifetime.

The post War and/or Peace appeared first on Reason.com.

A Short Take on Chiles v. Salazar

2026-04-02T13:02:57Z

The Supreme Court ruled this week, 8-1, in Chiles v. Salazar, that Colorado may not apply its ban on conversion therapy for minors to prohibit a licensed counselor's talk therapy. Justice Gorsuch wrote for the Court; Justice Kagan concurred, joined by Justice Sotomayor; Justice Jackson dissented. The Court held that, as applied to therapist Kayla Chiles's conversations with clients, Colorado's law discriminates on the basis of viewpoint and therefore triggers the most searching First Amendment scrutiny.

A couple points. First, this is not, formally speaking, a religion case. It's a Free Speech Clause case. Indeed, as far as I can tell, the word "religion" does not even appear in the Court's opinion. But the case is religion-adjacent. Chiles described herself in the litigation as a practicing Christian whose views about sex and gender are informed by her faith, and she said that some clients seek her out because they want counseling consistent with those convictions. So although religion is not part of the Court's doctrinal analysis, it is very much part of the background.

That feature places Chiles in a familiar line of First Amendment cases. Think of 303 Creative, another Gorsuch opinion. Or Barnette, the WWII-era flag salute case. Both were free speech cases in doctrinal terms, but religious conviction supplied much of the underlying human drama. One sees something similar here. Disputes touching religious freedom often come to the Court not under the Religion Clauses, but in the guise of free speech. Religion influences what people say--or don't say.

The key to the Court's reasoning is viewpoint discrimination. Colorado's law allows counseling that affirms a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity, but forbids counseling that seeks to help a minor change or redirect sexual orientation or gender identity. For the Court, that means the State is not simply regulating treatment as such. It is permitting one side of a contested moral and psychological question while suppressing the other. That, the Court says, is about as serious a First Amendment problem as one can have.

Second, it's notable how little work the formal strict-scrutiny framework seems to do once the Court reaches that conclusion. The Court says that content-based restrictions ordinarily trigger strict scrutiny, and that viewpoint discrimination is an especially egregious form of content discrimination. But it does not linger over the familiar steps of balancing: compelling interest, narrow tailoring, least restrictive means. Instead, once the Court identifies viewpoint discrimination, the case is largely over. The rest of the opinion is devoted mostly to rejecting Colorado's efforts to characterize the law as regulation of professional conduct rather than speech. Chiles thus resembles 303 Creative in this way as well. In 303 Creative, too, the Court avoided applying the strict-scrutiny balancing test in a serious way.

For those interested, I discuss Chiles in a short Legal Spirits episode, here.

The post A Short Take on Chiles v. Salazar appeared first on Reason.com.

On 'Liberation Day,' Trump Promised a Manufacturing Boom. The Data Tell a Different Story.

2026-04-01T20:33:54Z

A year ago today, President Donald Trump unveiled steep tariffs on imports from most countries. With these duties, he declared, "jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country." The president's tariffs have fallen well short of this goal.

From April 2025 to February 2026, the U.S. lost 89,000 manufacturing jobs, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That's an average of about 9,000 jobs lost per month since Liberation Day. Meanwhile, overall blue-collar employment has declined by around 190,000 jobs since April 2025. These numbers reflect what many manufacturers warned would happen after Trump announced his so-called reciprocal tariffs.

Last June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond published data showing that 41 percent of firms had adjusted their hiring plans in response to Trump's tariff policies. The next month, automakers cited tariffs as responsible for 4,975 job cuts. In August, John Deere laid off 238 workers across three of its plants, after the firm reported its "operating profit decreased due to higher tariffs."

Tariffs don't just hit finished imported products like TVs, furniture, and cars; they also hit those imported goods that American manufacturers use to make things, which is one reason why manufacturers are shedding employees.

"The vast majority of bike components…have never been produced in the USA and are all manufactured in Asia," explains Hanna Scholz, the president of Oregon-based custom bike manufacturer Bike Friday. Every additional dollar spent on imported parts is a dollar that must be cut somewhere else—or passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Indeed, federal data show that prices have risen for many imported manufacturing inputs.

Visualization of BLS data by Jack Nicastro

For example, the price of imported inputs to the primary metal manufacturing subsector, which includes iron, steel, and aluminum manufacturing, increased by 17.41 percent from April 2025 to January 2026. Meanwhile, electrical equipment manufacturing, which includes household appliances, generators, and batteries, and clothing stores saw the price of their imported inputs rise by 9.90 percent and 15.27 percent, respectively. (From April 2024 to January 2025, the price of imported primary metal manufacturing inputs increased by 2.15 percent, while the price of imported electrical equipment and clothing store inputs remained basically constant.)

Trump's defenders might point out that manufacturing jobs were already in decline before Liberation Day. That's true. After rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic, an average of 9,583 manufacturing jobs were lost each month from 2023 to 2025.

The difference lies in the cause. While Joe Biden's economically regressive policies did not stave off manufacturing job losses, Trump billed his protectionist policies as a way to reverse this (long-running) trend.

In reality, Trump's tariffs not only imposed costs on American manufacturers but also introduced uncertainty. After initially imposing his reciprocal tariffs on April 9, Trump unilaterally paused, resumed, and modified them throughout 2025. Scholz tells Reason that this "chaotic storm of uncertainty" forced her to fire 10 percent of her workforce in 2025.

If Trump wants to increase American manufacturing production and employment, then he might want to reconsider his trade policies. Otherwise, expect the job losses to continue.

Even though Liberation Day tariffs are no longer in effect, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling them illegal in February, Scholz says "the impact of the tariffs in 2025 are still trickling through the whole supply chain in the form of cost and price increases, supplier inventory shortages and uncertainty." One of the ways manufacturers are mitigating this risk and cutting costs is by laying workers off. Last month, Whirlpool fired around 350 workers at its Amana, Iowa, factory.

Unfortunately for manufacturers, things could get worse before they get better. After his reciprocal tariffs were voided, Trump doubled down on his protectionist policies by levying more duties under a different statute. In some cases, these tariffs, which will expire in July, are even higher than the ones they replaced. Kacie Wright, one of the owners of Houghton Horns, a musical instrument retailer based in Keller, Texas, tells Reason her business was "paying a flat 15% on everything from the European Union" under the old regime, but is now charged a total of 16.5 percent.

Scholz says that, compared to "the storm of constant tariff change in 2025," things are relatively calmer, "but since it is temporary I still can't plan well long term."

The post On 'Liberation Day,' Trump Promised a Manufacturing Boom. The Data Tell a Different Story. appeared first on Reason.com.

Today in Supreme Court History: April 2, 1980

2025-07-09T17:59:05Z

4/2/1980: Justice Stanley Forman Reed dies.

Justice Stanley Forman Reed

The post Today in Supreme Court History: April 2, 1980 appeared first on Reason.com.

A Year After 'Liberation Day,' Trump's Tariffs Will Never Be Legitimate Without a Vote in Congress

2026-04-01T19:54:24Z

As the Supreme Court was striking down many of the tariffs that President Donald Trump tried to impose one year ago today—on what he called "Liberation Day"—Justice Neil Gorsuch called attention to the most fundamental problem with the president's tariff regime.

"Most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people (including the duty to pay taxes and tariffs) are funneled through the legislative process for a reason," Gorsuch explained.

The year-long saga of Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs raised some major legal and political questions about the limits of executive power and the balance of powers. As an economic matter, the tariffs remain a foolish policy that has harmed American businesses and consumers, all while subjecting supply chains to an expensive, ever-changing tangle of regulations.

Beyond all that, however, Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs also asked a basic question about what makes government policy legitimate—a question that has been fundamental to the American experiment for nearly 250 years, ever since the founders told King George III that governments must justly derive their power "from the consent of the governed."

That is the "reason," as Gorsuch put it, that major legislative decisions are funneled through Congress.

"Yes, legislating can be hard and take time. And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises," Gorsuch wrote. "But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design."

Before, during, and after Liberation Day, Trump has steadfastly refused to subject his tariff plans to that deliberative process.

Instead, he's tried to force the tariffs through various loopholes created by Congress over the decades—like the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which was the legal basis for most of the tariffs Trump announced during 2025. The Supreme Court shut that down in February, but the Trump administration quickly pivoted to another questionable mechanism: Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.

There is no doubt that Congress has traded away a lot of its authority over trade policy in the past few decades. But, as the Trump administration is now learning, those policies do not allow for the open-ended, anything-goes approach that Trump wants to take. The IEEPA tariffs were tripped up by the plain text of the underlying law, which courts at all levels agreed did not include the power to tariff. The new Section 122 tariffs face a similar legal challenge over the administration's attempt to read broad powers into a narrowly tailored law.

There is an easy solution to all this. Put a tariff bill in front of Congress.

Of course, there is an equally obvious reason why Trump has refused to do that. It would be unlikely to pass.

Polls show that Trump's tariffs are broadly unpopular. About 60 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of tariffs in general, and only 36 percent have a favorable view of Trump's use of tariffs, according to one poll released this week. Other polls show that many Americans believe tariffs have increased prices and have not provided much benefit.

All that means that getting a tariff bill through Congress would be a difficult task—though certainly not an impossible one, as Congress passes plenty of unpopular laws.

Republicans in Congress have been happy to stand aside while Trump has threatened and imposed tariffs against longtime allies and major trading partners. Behind the scenes, however, it is clear that many Republicans are opposed or at least uncomfortable with how this has all gone down.

In the absence of a congressional vote, however, Trump's tariffs will never have legitimacy. It's not quite as simple as saying that policies must be popular to be legitimate—but the whole point of a republican form of government is to limit the ability of leaders to impose wildly unpopular whims upon the country as a whole.

The legislative process, wrote Gorsuch in the concurring opinion, "tempers impulse, and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions. And because laws
must earn such broad support to survive the legislative process, they tend to endure, allowing ordinary people to plan their lives in ways they cannot when the rules shift from day to day."

As Trump has pursued this tariff regime, he and his allies have often pointed to President William McKinley and the late-19th century as an inspiration. "President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs," Trump claimed in his inaugural address last year. "In the 1890s, our country was probably the wealthiest it ever was because it was a system of tariffs," he said last year on the campaign trail.

As an economic matter, that claim has been widely debunked. Tariffs did not make America rich, and did not make American manufacturing strong.

Less frequently considered is the political angle of that analogy. The tariffs of the 1890s were not implemented by executive fiat. They were the result of congressional actions—major tariff bills were passed by Congress in 1890 (which McKinley was instrumental in passing during his time as a representative from Ohio), 1894, and 1897 (which McKinley signed as president). There are literally dozens of other examples. Sometimes those bills were pushed by presidents, like McKinley. Other times, Congress took the initiative and forced the president's hand. Special interests always played a major role (some things never change) in determining which tariffs would be charged and what products would be exempt.

Whatever you think of those historical tariffs as economic or fiscal policy, they all had something that Trump's tariffs lack. They were legitimate policies, passed by Congress and signed by the president.

Trump could send his tariff plan to Congress tomorrow and tell legislators to vote for it. If that happened, Reason would argue against the bill's passage. Others would support it. At the end of the process, we'd learn whether the president's idea is a popular one—and in a republic, that's what matters—and we'd see which members of Congress were willing to be held accountable for the consequences of that policy.

Without that, Trump's tariffs will remain illegitimate—no matter how many different legal loopholes the administration tries to find.

The same could be said for any number of other things. Trump should get permission from Congress to go to war or to build a ballroom at the White House.

Yes, the legislative process is annoying, slow, and deliberative. That, as Gorsuch put it, is "the whole point."

The post A Year After 'Liberation Day,' Trump's Tariffs Will Never Be Legitimate Without a Vote in Congress appeared first on Reason.com.

Trump's Mercurial, Constantly Changing Import Taxes Took American Businesses on a Wild Ride

2026-04-01T19:55:30Z

As President Donald Trump told it, his "Liberation Day" tariffs aimed to correct "unfair trade practices by other countries." But there was little rhyme or reason to the widely varying tariff rates he announced on April 2, 2025, and a long line of subsequent revisions compounded the confusion and uncertainty, wreaking havoc with the plans of American businesses that rely on international trade.

Trump's executive order imposed a 10 percent "additional ad valorem duty" on all but a few trading partners, without regard to whether they had adopted policies or practices that unfairly impeded imports from the United States or artificially boosted exports. Imports from Singapore, for example, were subject to the 10 percent tax even though that country was collecting zero tariffs on "nearly 100%" of imports. Brazil likewise was hit by the 10 percent tax, even though it was running a trade surplus with the United States.

An annex to Trump's executive order listed higher, supposedly "reciprocal" tariffs on goods from 57 countries. Those tariffs were based on Trump's longstanding but economically fallacious belief that bilateral trade deficits are inherently unfair and problematic. When the value of goods imported from any given country exceeds the value of U.S. exports to that country, Trump assumed, the explanation must be "non-reciprocal trading practices."

The formula that generated Trump's country-specific tariffs, which ranged from 11 percent for Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 50 percent for Lesotho, reflected that simple-minded assumption. To arrive at those rates, the Trump administration divided the U.S. trade deficit with each country by the value of U.S. imports from that country, then arbitrarily halved the result. In many cases, the rates produced by that formula were puzzling.

In 2024, for example, Lesotho exported about $237 million in goods, primarily clothing and textiles, to the United States. That same year, Lesotho imported about $9 million in U.S. goods, which consisted mainly of vehicles, "milling products" such as malt and starches, machinery, and chemicals. Lesotho is a very poor country, with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of about $972 in 2024, and that fact alone goes a long way toward explaining the high ratio between its exports and imports.

At the time, Lesotho was taxing U.S. imports at a rate of 10 percent. Trump's decision to tax Lesotho's exports at a rate five times as high looked anything but "reciprocal." Last July, he implicitly acknowledged that point, reducing Lesotho's rate to 15 percent—a 70 percent drop.

Or consider Israel, which Trump had previously described as "our best ally" and "a fair-trading partner." In anticipation of Trump's tariff announcement, the Israeli government made its trade policy even friendlier to the United States by eliminating all remaining import taxes on U.S. goods. Israel nevertheless got hit by a 17 percent "reciprocal" tariff. That rate was subsequently cut to 15 percent, then cut again for certain categories of goods.

There were many such adjustments, not always in a downward direction. In July, for instance, Trump dramatically increased the tariff on Brazilian goods, from 10 percent to 50 percent. He also raised the tariff rate for seven other trading partners, including Canada (from 25 percent to 35 percent), the European Union (from 20 percent to 30 percent), and Mexico (from 25 percent to 30 percent). At the same time, he cut the rate for a dozen countries, including Cambodia (from 49 percent to 36 percent), Bangladesh (from 37 percent to 35 percent), and Sri Lanka (from 44 percent to 30 percent).

The timeline of Trump's tariffs is perplexing, even if you focus on a single country. Less than a week after "Liberation Day," Trump raised the country-specific tariff rate for China from 34 percent to 84 percent. The next day, the rate became 125 percent, in addition to the 20 percent tariff that Trump had imposed on Chinese goods in the name of reducing the flow of illicit fentanyl, for a total of 145 percent.

In May, Trump extended those tariffs to low-value packages from China, which had previously been exempt under a "de minimis" exception. Ten days later, Trump cut the 125 percent tariff to 10 percent for a 90-day period, after which it would rise to 34 percent—the rate he had initially announced on April 2. In August, he extended the 10 percent "reciprocal" tariff for another 90 days. Three months later, he cut the 20 percent "drug trafficking" tariff in half and extended the 10 percent "reciprocal" tariff until November 10, 2026.

That deadline was obviated by the Supreme Court's February 20 decision in Learning Resources v. Trump, which held that the law the president had invoked to justify both the "reciprocal" and "drug trafficking" tariffs, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), did not authorize import taxes at all. Although the impetuous, haphazard, and zigzag pattern of Trump's IEEPA tariffs was not relevant to the Court's interpretation of the statute, Chief Justice John Roberts thought it was worth noting.

"Since imposing each set of tariffs," Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, "the President has issued several increases, reductions, and other modifications. One month after imposing the 10% drug trafficking tariffs on Chinese goods, he increased the rate to 20%. One month later, he removed a statutory exemption for Chinese goods under $800. Less than a week after imposing the reciprocal tariffs, the President increased the rate on Chinese goods from 34% to 84%. The very next day, he increased the rate further still, to 125%. This brought the total effective tariff rate on most Chinese goods to 145%. The President has also shifted sets of goods into and out of the reciprocal tariff framework. And he has issued a variety of other adjustments."

It was a bewildering ordeal for exporters, importers, and the U.S. businesses that rely on them for materials, parts, and finished goods. Faced with a mercurial president whose decrees were unpredictable yet crucial to their bottom lines, those businesses had to make decisions about purchases, investments, and prices in highly uncertain, constantly changing conditions. And although Trump has switched tracks, turning to other tariff options now that IEEPA is off the table, that wild ride is not over yet.

The post Trump's Mercurial, Constantly Changing Import Taxes Took American Businesses on a Wild Ride appeared first on Reason.com.

Brickbat: Cop and Robber

2026-04-01T19:38:19Z

Former New Haven, Connecticut, Police Chief Karl Jacobson is facing criminal charges for allegedly embezzling $85,500 from city funds, nearly all of it from funds meant to pay confidential informants. Prosecutors charged him with two counts of larceny, saying he took the money for personal use. When other police officials confronted him about the missing money, Jacobson allegedly admitted taking $10,000 for personal use, and he retired that same day. Investigators also found additional evidence linking the money to him, including two checks deposited into his personal bank account.

The post Brickbat: Cop and Robber appeared first on Reason.com.

Open Thread

2026-04-02T07:00:00Z

The post Open Thread appeared first on Reason.com.

If Chiles Was So Lopsided, Why Did The Court Deny Cert In Tingley?

2026-04-02T05:23:10Z

Back in August 2025, I speculated about why the Court granted certiorari in Chiles v. Salazar, yet denied review two years early in Tingely v. Ferguson, an identical case from the Ninth Circuit. I queried, "Perhaps the climate of the day on transgender issues, in the wake of Skrmetti, make this issue more palatable?"

On Tuesday, the Court decided Chiles. The 8-1 vote was quite lopsided. Only Justice Jackson was in dissent. She articulated a very cramped conception of free speech in the commercial context. Justices Kagan and Sotomayor joined the majority opinion in full. They even wrote that Jackson "reimagin[ed]—and in that way collaps[ed]—the well-settled distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based speech restrictions." I think Kagan and Sotomayor were correct. Indeed, it was very significant they felt compelled to respond forcefully to Justice Jackson. There have been press reports of how Justice Kagan and Sotomayor are unhappy with Justice Jackson. This opinion may represent those tensions boiling over.

Given that this case was so straightforward, why didn't the Court grant Tingley in 2023. The legal issues are the same. There has been no intervening free speech precedent.

I would posit that the legal landscape for transgender cases has changed since 2023. President Trump's executive order from January 2025, rejecting the entire concept of gender identity, reflects a broader societal shift. In the span of about a year, the Court will have decided Skrmetti, Mahmoud, Chiles, Mirabelli, and the Title IX case. While Srkmetti and Mahmoud split 6-3, I think the Title IX case may also be lopsided. Based on the oral argument, Justice Kagan seemed sympathetic to the view that Title IX bars biological males in female sports.

The legal landscape for transgender cases has shifted since 2023. Most Americans, and even legal elites, see a distinction between gay and lesbian rights and transgender rights. You can support gay marriage but oppose providing puberty blockers to minors. You can support gay troop leaders but oppose drag queen storytime. You can oppose electro-shock therapy for gay teens and also oppose public schools secretly transitioning teens without telling parents. You can oppose firing a person because they're gay but favor excluding biological males from female spas. And so on.

I've never fully understood why LGB was merged with T. Sexual orientation and gender identity are such different concepts. For gays and lesbian people, the mantra is "we were born this way, so accept us as we are" But for transgender people, the message is the opposite: "we were not born this way, so accept us as we tell you we are."

I think the schism between LGB and T is now inevitable. At some point, gay rights groups might re-evaluate their priorities.

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Edited Version of Chiles v. Salazar for Barnett/Blackman supplement

2026-04-02T04:43:51Z

I have finished editing Chiles v. Salazar for the Barnett/Blackman supplement. This is a fascinating case. Based on the lopsided 8-1 vote, my initial take was that this case didn't add much to the doctrine. But on further reflection, I think it is a very good teaching tool. Justice Gorsuch's majority opinion ably summarizes doctrine with regard to both content discrimination and viewpoint discrimination. Moreover, I've always found Holder v. HLP to be a difficult decision to teach. Gorsuch summarizes HLP and applies it to a much more relatable context. On the flip side, Justice Jackson continues the path charted by Justice Breyer of narrowly reading free speech doctrine in the commercial context. Methinks KBJ suffers from Lochnerphobia. Finally, Chiles pairs nicely as a thematic matter with Skrmetti, Mahmoud, and the Title IX case.

Chiles may be worth adding to the casebook, and dropping out some of the older-ish cases.

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Justice Barrett, Slavery, and Birthright Citizenship

2026-04-02T00:48:31Z

Justice Amy Coney Barrett (Eric Lee/Pool via CNP/Polaris/Newscom)

I have previously written about how all of the Trump Administration's rationales for denying birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States would also have required denying it to numerous freed slaves and their children. Thus, Trump's position is at odds with the central purpose and original meaning of the Citizenship Clause. Interestingly, Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised this very issue in today's Supreme Court oral argument in Trump v. Barbara, the birthright citizenship case. And Trump Solicitor General John Sauer gave an inaccurate response:

Barrett: General, you -- you said in your reply brief that the children of slaves who were brought here unlawfully, you know, in -- in -- in defiance of laws forbidding the slave trade, would, in fact, be citizens….

And you can imagine that their parents were not only brought here in violation of United States law but were here against their will and so maybe felt allegiance to the countries where they were from. And you say that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to put all slaves on equal footing, newly freed slaves on equal footing, and so they would be citizens. But that's not textual. So how do you -- how do you get there?

Sauer: Sure. If you look at the nine -- I think, if you look at the 19th century sources, what you see is that even though their entry may have been unlawful, 19th century antebellum law never treated their presence as unlawful. In fact, quite the opposite. One of the amici, in fact, points to, like, a Mississippi statute, which probably is replicated throughout the South before the Civil War, that says slaves in Mississippi have an indefeasible domicile in Mississippi.

Justice Barrett is getting at the point that if - as the administration argues - children of people who entered the US illegally are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States (which they have to be to qualify for birthright citizenship), then the same is true of the many thousands of slaves brought in illegally after the US banned the slave trade in 1808, and their children. Similarly, as she suggests, if - as the administration claims - children of people who lack exclusive "allegiance" to the United States don't qualify for birthright citizenship, then that must be true of the children of slaves brought in illegally. After all, these slaves likely felt little if any allegiance to the US authorities complicit in their enslavement, and under the administration's logic, they and their children also were not entitled to birthright citizenship. I would add this point applies even to slaves imported legally. They, too, might well have felt or "owed" allegiance to the rulers of their homelands, and certainly had no allegiance to the United States, the nation that held them in bondage. I develop this point further in my Lawfare article.

SG Sauer's answer is just factually wrong. Under federal law, the presence of illegally imported slaves in the United States was not legal. As legal scholars Paul Finkelman and Gabriel Chin showed in their pathbreaking 2021 article on this subject, illegally imported slaves were subject to detention and deportation, much like illegal migrants today.

Later in the same exchange, Sauer tries to get out of this hole by claiming that illegally imported slaves were "domiciled" in the United States. Justice Barrett seemed skeptical, and that skepticism is well-justified. As explained in my article, there is no meaningful sense in which illegally imported slaves were domiciled in the US that would not also apply to illegal migrants and their children.

In sum, Justice Barrett hit on an important issue. And it should lead her and the other justices to rule against Trump for this reason alone, even aside from all the many other reasons why his position is wrong.

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Artemis II Launches a New Era of Lunar Exploration

2026-04-01T22:45:39Z

On December 14, 1972, Eugene Cernan became the last human to walk on the moon. More than 53 years later, NASA is finally—cautiously—taking the first steps toward sending astronauts back.

The four-person crew of Artemis II took flight on April 1 at 6:35 P.M. If successful, the mission will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on an approximately 10-day journey around the moon. They will not land on the lunar surface, but NASA expects the crew to go at least 248,655 miles from Earth—the farthest humans have ever traveled from our planet, exceeding the record set by Apollo 13.

Artemis II is a critical test flight. It marks the first time astronauts will fly aboard NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, and it is the first real test of Orion's life-support systems with humans on board. It is less a triumphant return to the moon than a high-stakes systems check.

The road has been anything but smooth. In 2021, NASA's inspector general estimated that the agency's total Artemis spending would reach $93 billion through FY 2025, while also warning that a 2024 lunar return was unrealistic. That now looks like a massive understatement. Artemis II is only now taking off from the pad in spring 2026. Even the price tag remains unclear. In 2021, the inspector general claimed that NASA lacked a credible Artemis-wide cost estimate and projected the production and operations cost of a single SLS/Orion launch at about $4.1 billion for the early missions. In February, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman claimed that over the next seven years, the agency will spend an additional $20 billion to build a moon base. It's unclear if that moon base project will be entirely separate from the Artemis missions.

Artemis II is no longer simply paving the way for Artemis III to land astronauts on the moon. Under NASA's updated 2026 plan, Artemis III has been downgraded—or repurposed—into a low-Earth-orbit test mission in 2027, meant to rehearse rendezvousing and docking with one or both commercial landers being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin. NASA's first Artemis lunar landing is now Artemis IV, targeted for early 2028, and the agency says the actual landing provider will depend on which commercial system is ready first.

That matters because the bottleneck is no longer just NASA. The return to the lunar surface now depends heavily on commercial hardware that is still in development. The seventh, eighth, and ninth Starship flights in 2025 all experienced mishaps, though SpaceX plans to test Starship again as soon as this week. NASA's revised plan reflects that uncertainty: Instead of tying the first landing to a single contractor on a fixed timeline, it has shifted to a more flexible approach built around whichever lander proves ready.

Humanity's long-awaited return to the lunar surface is still coming—but later, and under a very different architecture than NASA originally sold. Artemis now looks less like Apollo with better branding and more like a sprawling hybrid program in which NASA sets goals, subsidizes infrastructure, and relies on private firms to make the crucial pieces work.

Whether that model is prudent or unnecessary is the real debate. NASA moved toward public-private partnerships because commercial space was moving faster than the agency could on its own. But the private space sector is no longer fragile. It is competitive, ambitious, and increasingly capable of pursuing lunar missions on its own terms. If the goal is to get humans back to the moon, Washington should not manage the whole enterprise. It may simply need to get out of the way.

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Trump Bullying Allies To Help in Iran Suggests He Knows the War Is Not Going Well

2026-04-02T17:41:49Z

President Donald Trump is growing frustrated that allied countries are not stepping up to help the U.S. in its war of choice with Iran.

In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump encouraged "all of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz" to buy American oil instead. The post criticized countries that "refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran," explicitly naming the United Kingdom, and urged them to "build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.…The U.S.A. won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us…Go get your own oil!"

This supposed betrayal has led Trump to consider leaving NATO, as none of its member states joined the U.S. in the war it started, reports The Telegraph. Yet, NATO countries are under no obligation to help the U.S. in this war because the U.S. and Israel delivered the first blows, not Iran.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed Trump's statements on Tuesday by mocking the U.K.'s "big bad Royal Navy" for not doing enough to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. "There are countries around the world who ought to be prepared to step up," he said.

Unsurprisingly, these comments haven't convinced European allies to join the war. "Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I'm going to act in the British national interest," British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said during a press conference on Wednesday. "This is not our war, and we're not going to get dragged into it." However, the U.K. has convened discussions with 35 other countries to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after the war is over, Al Jazeera reports.

Trump's social media posts are just the latest revelation of the administration's incoherent strategy and objectives for the war in Iran.

Days after the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes, Hegseth announced that the war had four objectives: "destroy Iranian offensive missiles," "destroy Iranian missile production," "destroy their navy and other security infrastructure," and ensure "they will never have nuclear weapons." Hours later, Trump said the war was needed to ensure Iran "cannot continue to arm, fund and direct" proxy groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Since then, the Trump administration officials have continued to provide inconsistent explanations for the war, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Monday said that destroying Iran's air force was one of the U.S.'s four objectives. On Wednesday, he justified the war as the "last best chance" to prevent Iran from building a "conventional shield" to protect its nuclear weapon facilities.

The timeline and exit strategy for the war, too, have been inconsistent. Trump has said that ceasefire talks will commence only when the Strait of Hormuz is "open, free and clear," but he has also told allies that he is willing to end the war in Iran, even if the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed.

Trump's increasingly erratic tone suggests a recognition that the war is neither as contained nor as close to resolution as he claims. He should stop expecting other countries to help him finish the war he started.

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Accusation of "Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence" for Allegedly Nonconsensually Posting Bondage Pictures May Be Defamatory

2026-04-01T20:17:45Z

From Judge Sarah Pitlyk (E.D. Mo.) yesterday in Doe v. Sutton:

This case arises from a relationship between Counterclaim Defendant John Doe and Counterclaim Plaintiff Leslie Sutton. Sutton operated a Twitter account where she posted sexual content and advertised private online subscription services. Doe initially reached out to her as a client, seeking to engage in activities such as bondage, domination, submission, and related sexual fetishes, but the parties later developed a romantic relationship based on their shared sexual proclivities. During their relationship, Doe discussed these proclivities with Sutton's online clientele, including during livestreams hosted by Sutton. He also wore a collar while in public with Sutton.

During their relationship, Sutton took two photos of Doe, which, while not sexually explicit in a traditional sense, appealed to Sutton's online clientele. One photo showed Doe fully clothed while wearing a collar, and the other depicted him tying Sutton's shoe. Sutton posted one of these photos to her private Twitter account where it was visible to individuals who were aware of their relationship and sexual proclivities. Sutton posted the other photo to an account related to her online services. When Doe asked Sutton to remove the photos from her online accounts, she "immediately deleted the Twitter post, and attempted to remove" the other photo.

The romantic nature of their relationship eventually ceased. After their relationship ended, Doe reached out to Sutton and threatened to contact law enforcement unless she deleted her online accounts. Sutton complied. This did not satisfy Doe. On August 30, 2023, he allegedly took three distinct actions against Sutton. First, he filed a lawsuit against her in the Circuit Court of St. Louis seeking damages for the dissemination of the photos, which was subsequently removed to this Court. Second, he created a website accusing Sutton of sexual abuse, which listed Sutton's name, contact information, and private online account information (such as her anonymous online usernames). Third, he mailed a copy of the lawsuit to Sutton's parents.

Sutton counterclaimed against Doe, and the court allowed her defamation claim to go forward based on Doe's saying she had committed "sexual abuse and sexual violence" against him:

Doe … argues that he did not defame Sutton because the contents of his website, including allegations of sexual abuse and violence, are true…. [Doe] alleges that Sutton admitted that the image she sold to one of her followers was done without Doe's consent. He then argues that distributing images of a person without their consent "has been recognized as a form of sexual abuse and sexual violence under various legal frameworks," and therefore it is true that Sutton sexually abused him….

Doe's assertion that distribution of intimate photos without consent has been considered sexual abuse and sexual violence, and therefore, his website is truthful … presents factual issues, the resolution of which is not appropriate at the motion to dismiss stage. Accepting all allegations in the Counterclaim as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in her favor, the Court finds that Plaintiff has stated a plausible claim for defamation….

The court also allowed Sutton's public disclosure of private facts claim to go forward, based on her claim "that Doe's website publicly revealed private information, namely the connection between her anonymous online usernames and her real identity." This presumably satisfied the disclosure tort requirement that the disclosure "bring shame or humiliation to a person of ordinary sensibilities" because her online material was sexually themed; ordinarily, simply identifying an anonymous online user isn't seen as legally actionable under the disclosure tort.

Justin A. Hardin represents Sutton.

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Trump Keeps Taking Equity Shares of Private Companies. A New GOP Bill Would Codify the Practice.

2026-04-01T19:49:17Z

Since reentering office, President Donald Trump has taken equity shares in multiple private companies on behalf of the U.S. government. For example, after then-President Joe Biden awarded an $8.5 billion grant to Intel, Trump demanded a 10 percent stake in the company—all this, even though such an act has no basis in law.

A new GOP bill would not only codify the practice but expand it.

Rep. Warren Davidson (R–Ohio) has introduced the DPA Modernization Act of 2026, which would reauthorize the Defense Production Act (DPA).

Passed in 1950 at the outset of the Korean War, the DPA gives the president considerable power over the economy. While some provisions have expired over the years, the law still allows the president to compel private companies to prioritize the manufacture of certain goods if it is determined to be key to national security priorities.

The Defense Production Act Committee—made up of the heads of federal agencies—coordinates DPA actions with money from the Defense Production Act Fund. Davidson's bill would raise the DPA Fund's maximum budget from $750 million to $2 billion, and it would allow any member of the DPA Committee to make equity investments in private companies with it, so long as the secretary of the treasury—acting as the "Fund manager"—says the company "is unable to obtain additional equity investment from private sources on commercially reasonable terms."

The bill caps total government ownership of any company at 15 percent and requires the committee to "sell and liquidate any equity support for an entity provided under this section as soon as commercially feasible…taking into consideration the national security interests of the United States."

None of these are meaningful limitations: With only Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's permission, the government can use taxpayer funds to purchase equity in companies. While it's likely intended as a restraint, 15 percent of a multi-billion-dollar company is still a sizable piece—when Trump demanded a 10 percent stake of Intel, it would've made the U.S. government its largest shareholder. A 15 percent shareholder can wield significant power over a company's decision making, even when they don't also control the world's largest army.

And although the bill would require the DPA Committee to "liquidate" its holdings, the added provision to do so only after "taking into consideration…national security interests" means it can hold the shares indefinitely. As Tufts University professor Daniel W. Drezner wrote in 2024 at Foreign Policy, eventually, "everything became national security and national security became everything," and the same officials who would be subject to the law are also the ones who can decide what does and does not constitute "national security."

Currently, there exists no clear legal basis for what Trump is doing, past his own ability to bully companies into cooperating. Davidson's bill would not only codify Trump's actions into law, but it would also set up a framework for both this administration and any in the future to do it too.

Some in the administration defend the proposal by saying that as long as taxpayers are making investments into private companies, we should reap the rewards. "Hey, we want equity for the money. If we're going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC in August, characterizing Trump's rationale for demanding a 10 percent stake in Intel.

But there are several problems with that way of thinking. First of all, it assumes the government has a role in funding private companies, which undermines the free market principles that have turned the U.S. economy into the envy of the world (and for that matter doesn't appear to work).

If the goal is to let American taxpayers reap the benefits of an equity stake, that can only happen if the investment pays off. But ahead of the Intel announcement, the company had struggled for years, registering as the worst-performing tech stock in 2024. Turning a grant into an equity stake ties the taxpayer to the company's financial future, raising the possibility of a need for future investment.

"You don't want the executive branch treating government programs as if they're running a mutual fund," Cato Institute policy analyst Tad DeHaven tells Reason. "The private sector is more than capable of making such investments. That's not the role of the state."

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Does the Government Own You—or Do You Own Yourself?

2026-04-01T18:31:26Z

Politicians tax what we earn, regulate what we build, and often decide what we can do with our bodies and our money.

I like to think I own myself. But politicians increasingly act as if they do.

"People should not have power over other people's lives," says Timothy Sandefur, author of the book You Don't Own Me.

In my latest video, Sandefur challenges the attitude that "freedom belongs to the government and it can parcel it out to us."

He starts with building permits.

"A building permit really says, you're not allowed to build on your own property until the government gives you permission. And you have to pay for that permission. The government has essentially confiscated your land and sells it back to you in exchange for more rights."

Such government control makes it harder to build anything.

"The Empire State Building," Sandefur reminds me, "was built in a single year. Now it's unimaginable that you could accomplish a project like that, or even just the paperwork, within a year."

So vast sums of money are wasted. Take high-speed rail for example. Somehow, California has spent 16 years and $14 billion without laying down a single mile of high-speed track.

"How much would Californians have done with that colossal amount of money?" Sandefur asks.

Government forced me to get vaccinated, to pay into Social Security.

If I want to buy a gun or get a hunting license, I must ask government's permission. I even have to get bureaucrats' permission to start a business braiding someone's hair.

"Two-thirds of businesses in America require some form of government permission slip for you to do your job," complains Sandefur. "Everything from something as simple as barbering to something as complicated as engineering. If you want to earn a living, you first have to get permission. Often…this is not only unconstitutional, but a violation of the fundamental principle that you have the right to pursue happiness."

Sandefur's state is trying to do something about it.

"Arizona passed a universal licensing law that says that if you have an occupational license from another state and you move to Arizona, you will automatically get the equivalent license. Which only makes sense. You don't forget how to be an architect when you move from California to Arizona."

Where regulation is heavy, Americans aren't waiting for politicians to simplify things. They're just leaving.

U-Haul records show people moving from blue states like California, New York, and Illinois to freer states like Texas, Florida, and North Carolina.

It's a good thing that we Americans are free to move. We vote with our feet. We're not totally stuck with the rules local politicians impose.

We libertarians like that.

"Libertarianism expresses the idea that the individual is in charge of his or her own life and has the right to achieve happiness or suffer the pains of making wrong decisions," says Sandefur. "I'm a libertarian because I believe that freedom is the natural state of all human beings."

"Seems right to me," I reply, "Yet this is a tremendously unpopular political philosophy."

"Libertarianism hasn't been sufficiently explained to people. They think libertarianism consists of doing whatever you feel like….The opposite is the case. A truly free society is one where people have to take a great deal of self-responsibility."

The core idea is simple: "You own yourself. Who else has a better right to own you or me? I'm the one who suffers if I make bad decisions. I'm the one who gets to enjoy the rewards if I make good decisions. So why should somebody else have this right to decide the direction of my own life?"

"To protect me from myself if I'm making bad decisions?" I reply.

"That's always the excuse that's given," Sandefur says. "The kings never rode on top of the people because they wanted to, but because people were better off for being ridden upon."

Let's not buy into that.

"I don't think government can ever really own you," says Sandefur, "unless you let it."

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The Islanders Expelled To Build the West's Middle East Fortress

2026-04-01T19:02:11Z

One of Michel Mandarin's last memories of his hometown was the U.S. government throwing all the dogs into a gas chamber. In 1967, the British authorities declared that people of the Chagos Islands were not "permanent inhabitants," and expelled them to make way for a new U.S.-British military base on the island of Diego Garcia. American naval engineers infamously killed the islanders' pets as a threat against staying.

This week, a British court ruled that people like Mandarin were really permanent inhabitants of the Chagos Islands, and they have a right to go back.

"There is no historical authority for a prerogative power to expel or permanently exclude a population of British subjects from the territory to which their citizenship belongs," British Indian Ocean Territory Chief Justice James Lewis wrote in his Tuesday ruling, denouncing the government's "inglorious" decision "to perpetuate the fiction that there was no settled or permanent population on the islands."

The Chagossian issue is one of the most stark underdog stories in modern times. On one side are several thousand exiles from a poor country, whom British officials dismissed as "some few Tarzans or Men Fridays whose origins are obscure." On the other side are the interests of a superpower government; Diego Garcia has been key to U.S. military operations in the Middle East, including the current Iran War. Recently, Chagossians found an unexpected ally in British conservatives, who oppose a plan for Britain to give up control of the island.

After an international court in The Hague ruled in 2019 that the Chagos Islands rightfully belonged to Mauritius, the British government agreed to give Mauritius the territory and rent it back with a guaranteed 99-year lease on Diego Garcia. The Biden and Trump administrations both pressured Britain to take the deal. From the U.S. perspective, it was a win-win scenario, bringing Mauritius closer to the U.S. (and further from China) with a bribe that Britain paid.

Win-win for everyone except Britain, which was paying for the privilege of losing territory. Right-wing politicians seized on the deal as an obvious liability for Prime Minister Kier Starmer's left-wing Labour Party. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch called the planned handover "an act of great stupidity and a sign of total weakness" from the floor of Parliament. Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage went further, accusing Starmer of "treachery."

Chagossians themselves were divided about the deal. Olivier Bancoult, chairman of the Chagos Refugee Group, who was exiled at age four, called the treaty with Mauritius "a sign of recognition of the injustice done against Chagossians." But Frankie Bontemps, chairman of the nonprofit Chagossian Voices, whose mother was exiled, said that the handover left the community "powerless and voiceless in determining our own future." As it turned out, the treaty would only allow Chagossians to visit or live on the islands outside Diego Garcia, with permission from the Mauritian government.

In February 2026, a group of British Chagossians made a last-ditch attempt to stop the treaty. Sailing from Sri Lanka on a yacht called No Excuse, and joined by former Conservative Party member of Parliament Adam Holloway, they set up a protest encampment on Île du Coin, on the edge of the Chagos Islands. Mandarin, one of the campers, had been removed from the island at age 14; his son told The Guardian that Mandarin cried when he saw Île du Coin again.

The British government filed an order to deport them from the Chagos Islands, which the campers challenged in court. The Supreme Court of the British Indian Ocean Territory ruled that there is no legal basis for keeping Chagossians in exile, though the "government has the legitimate right to control entry to specific locations, albeit with different concerns, and on different terms, for those with a right to abode," so the campers still need to go back and get a permit.

"I came here because I wanted to see my homeland again, I have been home sick for nearly 60 years. I wanted to show my son our islands. I wanted to find and visit the graves of my ancestors, something I have partially achieved this week with my son," Mandarin testified in court. "I never want to be removed again."

The story of those ancestors begins in the 18th century, when French settlers from the colony of Mauritius brought several dozen slaves to establish coconut plantations. Britain conquered both Mauritius and the Chagos Islands during the Napoleonic Wars. Slavery was abolished in 1835. Indian immigrants joined the local population, which swelled to about a thousand.

At first, "life and the conditions from slavery apparently changed little" after abolition, the anthropologist David Vine writes in Eviction From the Chagos Islands. "However, it appears that Chagossians gradually struck what (for a plantation society) was a relatively good work bargain." They developed a unique culture with a French-based creole language.

Where Chagossians saw a quiet life, Cold War military planners saw a society that was easy to crush. Taking stock of the "local disorders" around the Indian Ocean basin, from Arabia to Malaysia, the U.S. State Department proposed setting up military bases on "strategically situated Indian Ocean islands under British control" in a secret 1964 paper. The authors honed in on the Chagos Islands as the best candidate.

"They do not appear to us to be capable of supporting serious independence movements and probably are too remote and culturally isolated to figure plausibly in the plans of any mainland government," which allows them to be "put to the military service of the West in an emergency without delay, negotiation, or political restraint," the paper noted.

Britain agreed to implement those plans. It granted independence to Mauritius, but declared the Chagos Islands part of a new British Indian Ocean Territory. In April 1971, the authorities passed the British Indian Ocean Territory Immigration Ordinance #1, which made it illegal for nonmilitary personnel to stay on the islands. Under the logic that their ancestors only came to work on plantations, Chagossians were deemed "immigrants" on their own land. "We are able to make up the rules as we go along and treat the inhabitants as not 'belonging' to it in any sense," a British official privately admitted.

"Bulldozers uprooted palm trees, destroyed the coral reef with explosives and the corals ripped out were used to build the runway," reported the journalist Jean-Claude de l'Estrac in the book Next Year in Diego Garcia. "All this upheaval, along with the constant sound of military aircraft flying over the island, terrorised the Chagossians."

In case Chagossians had not gotten the message, British Commissioner Bruce Greatbatch issued orders to kill all the dogs on Diego Garcia in bizarre public cullings, to be carried out by U.S. troops. The Americans first tried shooting all the dogs, then began poisoning them with strychnine, then finally lured them into sheds filled with vehicle exhaust, before burning the corpses, Vine reports in the book Island of Shame.

"They put the dogs in a furnace where the people worked, and when their dogs were taken away in front of them, our children screamed and cried," Chagossian exile Lizette Tallate told The Guardian years later. According to court documents, Mandarin remembered the same thing happening on Île du Coin, where troops told the locals, "you'll be gassed too if you don't leave now."

The last ship full of Chagossians left Diego Garcia in October 1971, and the Chagos Islands were completely cleared of locals by April 1973. Bernadette Dugasse, a Chagossian emigrant living in the nearby Seychelles, witnessed waves of refugees arriving in the early 1970s. These exiles were reduced to begging, and the threat of rape hung over the heads of Chagossian girls, Dugasse wrote in Eviction From the Chagos Islands.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy continued to grow its presence on Diego Garcia, building satellite uplinks, port facilities, and an airport. The island became a staging ground for U.S. forces headed to the Middle East and a base for long-range bomber missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen. It has also hosted crucial electronic surveillance equipment—and a possible secret CIA prison.

The growth of the base has created a need for hundreds of civilian maintenance workers. Rather than hiring the exiled Chagossians, the U.S. military instead imports foreign contractors from much farther away. The strict military control of the island keeps these workers isolated and precarious.

Indian contract workers told The Observer that they were flown to Bahrain on tourist visas, then transferred to Diego Garcia on a U.S. military flight without papers, essentially disappearing these workers from the map. In 2022, the Philippine government accused KBR of keeping Filipino workers trapped on Diego Garcia over a wage dispute by cancelling charter flights. KBR insisted that the flights were cancelled due to coronavirus conditions.

"Some Filipino workers here have stayed on the island for three years without going home. Think of the psychological impact," Father Gerald Metal, the chaplain to foreign workers on Diego Garcia at the time, told me by phone during the flight holdup. "I already counseled some people who were attempting to commit suicide."

However, the military nature of the island didn't seem to bother the Filipino workers or Metal, who said that "it's not really seen as something warlike, because at the end of the day, it's for the defense of the nation, not for anything offensive."

The British government doesn't agree. In the buildup to the current war with Iran in February this year, Starmer denied the U.S. military permission to fly out of Diego Garcia, on the grounds that an attack on Iran would be an act of aggression. U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily threatened to withdraw his support for the deal with Mauritius. After the U.S. launched its attack on February 28, Starmer declared his support for the "defensive" campaign to prevent Iran from retaliating. While it's unclear whether any of the U.S. fighter jets stationed at Diego Garcia are taking part in air raids, the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit passed through the island on the way to the Middle East.

The protest campers on Île du Coin took advantage of the U.S.-British spat to advance their own claims. Mandarin's son Misley, who had declared himself First Minister of the Chagossian government-in-exile, posted a video message on February 23 giving his "blessing" to attack Iran from Diego Garcia. "If our homeland stands as a shield for America and its allies, then America must stand as a shield for our people," he added.

Although Diego Garcia has mostly put U.S. forces out of reach of their Middle Eastern opponents, that may not be the case forever. On March 21, the Iranian military launched two missiles at the island. One of the missiles was intercepted and the other failed mid-flight, but the attack showed that Iranian missiles had a larger range than the 2,000 kilometers previously believed. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth used the incident as a further justification for war. "For years, they told the world that their missiles could only range two [sic] kilometers. Surprise yet again, Iran lied," he said at a cabinet meeting.

Taken as a whole, the history of the Chagos Islands is quite dismal from the perspective of human freedom. The land was populated by slavery, then stolen from its inhabitants after emancipation by a capricious government. The purpose of this theft was to create a perfect dictatorship, a fortress run by indentured servants rather than citizens, to spy on and wage war against the region without dealing with the "political restraint" and "independence movements" of a free population.

No one can quite imagine an end to this situation. The Mauritian government, the aggrieved contract workers, and Chagossians themselves all seem to have accepted that Diego Garcia will remain a closed-off military base for the foreseeable future. But the success of the protest encampment shows that no situation is forever.

"We are making history right now," the younger Mandarin said on camera while landing on Île du Coin. "My daughter was born in Manchester. My grandkid will be born on this island."

The post The Islanders Expelled To Build the West's Middle East Fortress appeared first on Reason.com.

Conspiracy Lawsuit Against National Students for Justice in Palestine Parent Organization Can Go Forward

2026-04-01T22:33:30Z

From today's corrected opinion by Judge Andrew Carter (S.D.N.Y.) in Horowitz v. AJP Educ. Found., Inc., the plaintiff's allegations:

Horowitz is a documentarian and civil rights activist. AMP [American Muslims for Palestine] is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation …. Defendant NSJP [National Students for Justice in Palestine] is an unincorporated association … that was created and is operated by AMP.

AMP was founded for the direct purpose of serving certain political aims in the United States. Defendant NSJP is AMP's on-campus brand, a project created to manage and control a network of chapter and affiliate organizations across hundreds of campuses on behalf of AMP so that they can be used to serve its political aims.

In April 2024, AMP and NSJP began a largescale operation coordinating, guiding, and commanding NSJP's network of on campus chapter to engage in protests by building encampments to participate in civil disobedience with the goal of making certain political demands. One example of these activities occurred on April 24, 2024, when AMP's Executive Director, Osama Abuirshaid, visited an encampment at Columbia University …. Abuirshaid made a fiery speech to the encampment protestors and declared to the NSJP protestors that there was a "war" on them in America. He also stated that there was a war against their First Amendment rights, and that police were repressing them.

Abuirshaid shouted that AMP and the protestors were "going to continue to fight" until they achieved their political goals. Abuirshaid's visit to NSJP's Columbia chapters and affiliates and their encampment coincided with the creation of the encampment at CUNY the following day—which the Columbia chapters assisted with….

On April 25, 2024, over 200 members of NSJP's chapters and affiliates at CUNY gathered to set up an encampment in a public square at CUNY's campus at the City College of New York ("CCNY"). In the late afternoon on April 26, 2024, Plaintiff Horowitz entered CCNY's campus to film a video. He approached the encampment with an American flag.

A mob of protestors from the encampment surrounded him. After swarming from the encampment to surround Horowitz, the mob immediately ripped the American flag from Horowitz hands, smashed it on the ground, and began beating him. The attack occurred during the middle of the day, in broad daylight, in full view of the surrounding campus, the encampment, and hundreds of onlookers. The mob's members kicked, punched, and headbutted Horowitz, aiming strikes at his throat, spleen, and kidney.

While beating Horowitz, the mob dragged him to the ground and shoved him down nearby stairs. After being shoved down the stairs, Horowitz got up and ran back to retrieve his flag. As Horowitz went for the flag, the mob grabbed him again and continued beating him. The mob then pushed Horowitz off the ledge of a nearby retaining wall. Horowitz got up and ran back to the flag again. Again, he was grabbed, punched, kicked, and headbutted by the mob.

After this third round of mobbing occurred, officers from CUNY's campus police and the NYPD arrived and detained Horowitz, but they did not detain anyone from the mob. The police bodily removed Horowitz him from the scene in a tight armlock. As a result of the mob's attack, Horowitz suffered bruises and wounds, primarily to his torso, and had to go to an urgent care facility for examination. Horowitz also had to attend physical therapy for his arm and shoulder which were injured during the attack, which continues to this day….

Horowitz sued, and the court held that plaintiff had adequately alleged facts that would hold defendants liable for civil conspiracy (of course, at this stage these are just allegations):

To state a claim for civil conspiracy, "a plaintiff must demonstrate the primary tort, plus the following four elements: (1) an agreement between two or more parties; (2) an overt act in furtherance of the agreement; (3) the parties' intentional participation in the furtherance of a plan or purpose; and (4) resulting damage or injury." …

[1.] Here, the Complaint alleges the existence of an agreement between AMP and the co-conspirators that attacked Plaintiff. Specifically, the Complaint alleges that AMP organized and supported the very encampment Plaintiff was attacked at, and that on November 24-25, 2023, AMP hosted its "Campus Activism Track" program ("CAT"), an intensive training bootcamp for its campus organizations "designed to help student organizers navigate activism on their college campuses" and "provide [students] with the tools and resources [they] need to strengthen pro-Palestinian presence on [their] campus." In addition, the Complaint alleges that AMP encouraged the use of violence in defense of the encampments. Accepting these allegations as true, they support a finding of a corrupt agreement.

[2.] [The overt act] element requires that "there have been at least one overt act by one of the conspirators in furtherance of the unlawful plan." The allegations in the Complaint satisfy this element because Plaintiff has alleged that AMP's co-conspirators attacked him in defense of their encampments in furtherance of their plan to take over college campuses….

[3.] The allegations in the Complaint satisfy the [intentional participation] requirement because they allege that AMP intentionally participated in the common plan to defend the encampments. Plaintiff alleges that AMP not only issued directives to the encampments, but it also provided funding, training resources, and social media support. The Complaint also alleges that AMP's Executive Director Osama Abuirshaid visited the Columbia encampment and gave a speech during which he encouraged protestors at the encampments to "fight."

[4.] This element is satisfied here, through Plaintiff's allegations that he "suffered bruises and wounds, primarily to his torso, and had to go to an urgent care facility for examination," and "physical therapy for his arm and shoulder which were injured during the attack, which continues to this day."

Viewed in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff, the allegations in the Complaint are sufficient to make out a prima facie case of conspiracy. Having established a prima facie case for conspiracy, the Court now considers whether it has personal jurisdiction over AMP. "To establish jurisdiction under § 302(a)," a plaintiff must not only allege a prima facie case of conspiracy, "but also must show a sufficient relationship between the defendant and the conspiracy to warrant the inference that the defendant was a member of the conspiracy." "[C]ourts have required plaintiffs to show that: (a) the defendant had an awareness of the effects in New York of its activity; (b) the activity of the co-conspirators in New York was to the benefit of the out-of-state conspirators; and (c) the co-conspirators acting in New York acted 'at the direction or under the control,' or 'at the request of or on behalf of' the out-of-state defendant." The Court addressees each in turn below.

[a.] AMP had an awareness of the Effects in New York of its Activity

This element is satisfied here, where the Complaint alleges that AMP's AMP's Executive Director, Osama Abuirshaid, went to Columbia's encampment on April 24, 2024 made a fiery speech to the encampment protestors to galvanize them and encourage them in their violent, illegal activities and defend them with the false narrative that they were being persecuted for engaging in protected speech. Abuirshaid declared to the NSJP protestors that there was a "war" on them in America and against their First Amendment rights, and that police were repressing them. Abuirshaid shouted that AMP and the protestors at the encampment were "going to continue to fight" until they achieved their goal.

[b.] The activity of the co-conspirators in New York was to the benefit of the out-of-state conspirators

This element is met through Plaintiff 's allegation that AMP and NSJP accomplished their objective to encourage violence at protests, as well as in developing and disseminating the Day of Resistance Toolkit, Student Toolkit, and Solidarity Toolkit: hundreds of SJP chapters and affiliates on hundreds of campuses commenced protest campaigns in accord with NSJP's orders and toolkit materials, including "Day of Resistance" protests on October 12, 2023, and "Student Week of Resistance" protests during October 18-25, 2023.

[c.] AMP's Co-conspirators acting in New York Acted at the direction or under the control, or at the request of or on behalf of AMP

The Complaint alleges enough to satisfy this element through its allegations that AMP assisted with the CUNY Encampment's creation for violent and unlawful purposes, and that The Columbia NSJP chapter that AMP supported and directed in establishing the CUNY encampment was notoriously and consistently violent and unlawful.

But the court held that plaintiff didn't plausibly allege facts that would support a separate aiding and abetting theory:

[T]o state a claim for aiding and abetting assault and battery, New York state law requires "(1) a wrongful act producing an injury; (2) the defendant's awareness of a role as a part of an overall illegal or tortious activity at the time he provides the assistance; and (3) the defendant's knowing and substantial assistance in the principal violation."

With respect to the knowledge requirement, the Second Circuit, which is binding on this Court, has repeatedly held that "[a]ctual knowledge, not constructive knowledge (meaning that someone should have known something), is required." The Second Circuit has distinguished "actual knowledge" from "constructive knowledge." Constructive knowledge is "knowledge that one using reasonable care or diligence should have, and therefore that is attributed by law to a given person." …

Plaintiff contends that there is another standard that could also apply here: "foreseeable risk." Under this standard, a "defendant may be liable for aiding and abetting a wrongful enterprise's tortious act where the defendant has systemically supported the enterprise and the act was a foreseeable risk of the enterprise's wrongful conduct the defendant supported, regardless of whether the defendant knew about or directly assisted the act." In support of this position, Plaintiff points to two cases: Twitter v. Taamneh (2023) and Halberstam v. Welch (D.C. Cir. 1983). Neither case dealt with a claim of aiding and abetting under New York state law. Instead, both cases discussed federal statutes. Therefore, in asking the Court to apply the foreseeable risk standard set forth in these cases, Plaintiff essentially asks the Court to depart from decades of Second Circuit authority requiring actual knowledge—the Court declines to do so….

The Complaint is bereft of any allegations that would support a finding that AMP had actual knowledge of the assault and battery. At best, the Complaint showed "red flags," that is, they show that AMP was involved in or directed activities which it should have known could lead to Plaintiff's assault and battery.

Therefore, at best, Plaintiff has alleged AMP's constructive knowledge of the assault and battery. For the reasons outlined above, such knowledge is insufficient to support a claim for aiding and abetting assault and battery….

The Court will afford Plaintiff the opportunity to amend his Complaint to attempt to cure its deficiencies, if he wishes to do so. Rule 15(a)(2) states "the court should freely give leave when justice so requires." The Supreme Court has instructed that "this mandate is to be heeded." However, it is ultimately "within the sound discretion of the court whether to grant leave to amend."

While the Court is skeptical that Plaintiff could amend the already voluminous Complaint to survive a motion to dismiss, it will not foreclose him from trying. Plaintiff's amended Complaint, should he choose to file one, is due by April 10, 2026. We will remind Plaintiff's attorney that Rule 8 requires a short and plain statement. While we understand how important this Complaint is to the parties, the Court sees no reason for the Complaint to be more than 75 pages.

The court also held that it had subject matter jurisdiction, because Horowitz had adequately alleged that he suffered $75K or more in damages (the jurisdictional threshold) and the parties were citizens of different states. And the court held that it had personal jurisdiction over AMP, because they were alleged to have committed a tort in New York through an agent.

Jacob William Roth and Josiah Contarino (Contarino Roth LLC) represent plaintiff.

The post Conspiracy Lawsuit Against National Students for Justice in Palestine Parent Organization Can Go Forward appeared first on Reason.com.

There Are Many Good Reasons To Criticize Kristi Noem. Her Husband's Sexual Interests Are Not Among Them.

2026-04-01T19:59:07Z

There's something unseemly going on with Kristi Noem's husband—and it's not the giant, fake balloon breasts.

Bryon Noem, longtime spouse of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, was just outed by the Daily Mail as a kinkster with a fondness for bimbofication (fantasies in which women undergo extreme transformations into cartoonish sex symbols) and perhaps autogynephilia (in which men are turned on by the thought of themselves as women).

How should we feel about this? Maybe firstly, like someone in the writer's room of this farce we call 2026 has gotten bored.

War? Done that. DoorDash discourse? Done that. Armed federal agents shooting citizens for protesting cruel immigration policies? We've aired that episode at least twice already! But wait—what if the husband of the woman presiding over those extrajudicial killings dressed himself up with comically uneven fake nipples and a duck face pout and sent those photos to sex workers? Now that's sure to get ratings….

I don't mean to sound callous about the killings and other atrocities carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers under his wife's direction. It's precisely those things—the shock and horror of them, the cruelty and unaccountability—that make me extra wary of the Bryon Noem fetish-photos news cycle. There is plenty of legitimate fodder for criticism in Kristi Noem's record. No one needs to go digging into her husband's sex life for fuel.

And, in fact, doing so could actually detract from criticism of Kristi Noem's record, giving her and her supporters room to dismiss political opponents as part of a cruel and personal campaign against her family.

I also feel bad for the Noems' children and grandchildren. And, yes, for Bryon Noem—even if he was reckless, and even if he has other things to answer for. ("At least he did this on his own dime and without shooting protesters in the face," comments Nick Gillespie.)

Being married to a public figure shouldn't automatically make your sex life fair game. And the Mail's attempt to frame this as a national security issue seems like a weak attempt to justify this invasion of privacy.

For those interested in Kristi Noem's husband cross-dressing, I have written deeply about another man's cross-dressing being "discovered." It ended tragically https://t.co/238162wOj5

— Nancy Rommelmann (@NancyRomm) March 31, 2026

Mostly I just think this sort of thing—the Mail's choice to publish this story, the gleeful and mocking way many have been sharing it—is corrosive to us as a society.

Bryon Noem wasn't hurting anyone with his dress-up time and his bimbofication chats. In fact, he was, per the Mail, paying some sex workers thousands of dollars. He's not out there campaigning against sex work and being a hypocrite.

We gain nothing from the knowledge of his antics but a bit of fun at someone else's expense—and at the expense of values like tolerance and respect for privacy.

A lot of people are weirded out by Bryon Noem's proclivities—OK, fine. All kinks are weird to those who aren't engaging in them. I can even sort of stomach social conservatives piling on right now; at least that's consistent. But liberals and progressives and others who generally support a live-and-let-live attitude on matters of adult sexuality and gender can't in good conscience sneer here.

Sexuality is weird. And it doesn't map neatly onto other political categories. Just because someone supports low taxes or mass deportations doesn't mean they might not also like cross-dressing or flogging or whatever. And I think that actually bolsters the case for respect and privacy when it comes to people's sexual habits. Kinks aren't just the province of any one kind of person or any political cohort.

Don't kink shame Bryon Noem sounds like a punchline but…come on, don't kink shame Bryon Noem. And don't delight in this invasion of his privacy. Even if you don't care about him, a standard where it's ok to publicize and mock people's private sexual antics if they're on the "wrong" side means, effectively, you have no standard against these things at all.

How should we respond to Bryon Noem's sexual kinks? A shrug feels appropriate.

The Noems have enough to answer for. Let's not let a pair of balloon tits distract us from that.

I'm generally tolerant of people's private pleasures, but I draw the line at something as perverse as marrying Kristi Noem. https://t.co/Kn0iMcWfW5

— Jesse Walker (@notjessewalker) March 31, 2026

P.S. This piece about how people in the town where the Noems live are reacting to this news is very good.

Follow-Up: Orgasmic Meditation and Conversion Therapy on Trial

Orgasmic meditation leaders sentenced: Nicole Daedone, founder of the orgasmic meditation company OneTaste, was sentenced on Monday to nine years in prison. Her co-defendant, Rachel Cherwitz, was sentenced to six and a half years. Both women were convicted last summer of conspiracy to commit forced labor, a human trafficking offense.

As this newsletter has mentioned several times before, the case represents a stunning departure from traditional understandings of forced labor or human trafficking. Prosecutors built a case around people—many of whom weren't even employees but volunteers, students, and/or residents in OneTaste housing—saying now that they felt "psychologically entrapped" at OneTaste by fears that going against executives or others in the group would lead to losing friends, losing status in the wider OneTaste community, or losing their grip on spiritual enlightenment and sexual fulfillment.

"That type of fear is not the type of fear that was contemplated by the lawmakers when they passed [forced labor] legislation," Daedone's lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, told the court last June. Physical violence and threats are "the type of coercion that the lawmakers had in mind," she said, not "fear of being kicked out of the group chat."

But a jury found otherwise. Now, Daedone and Cherwitz now face long prison terms and prosecutors have a new playbook for prosecuting people on forced labor charges even when no traditional force or labor was involved.

Supreme Court issues ruling in conversion therapy case: In an 8–1 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held that applying Colorado's ban on conversion therapy to talk therapy is a viewpoint-based regulation of speech and, therefore, should be subject to what's known as strict scrutiny when weighing whether it passes constitutional muster. This means a lower court will have to rehear the case and apply this new standard, which in turn means a high likelihood that the ban will be found unconstitutional.

Here's a key passage of the opinion, which was penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Under the First Amendment, what matters is not how a government describes its law or whether the law may regulate conduct in other circumstances. What matters is whether, in fact, the law regulates speech in the case at hand.

As applied here, Colorado's law does not just regulate the content of Ms. Chiles's speech. It goes a step further, prescribing what views she may and may not express. For a gay client, Ms. Chiles may express "[a]cceptance, support, and understanding for the facilitation of…identity exploration." For a client "undergoing gender transition," Ms. Chiles may likewise offer words of "[a]ssistance." But if a gay or transgender client seeks her counsel in the hope of changing his sexual orientation or gender identity, Ms. Chiles cannot provide it. The law forbids her from saying anything that "attempts…to change" a client's "sexual orientation or gender identity," including anything that might represent an "effor[t] to change [her client's] behaviors or gender expressions or…romantic attraction[s]." Colorado disputes none of this; neither does the dissent.

[…] She cannot voice certain "perspective[s]" the State disfavors when speaking with consenting clients. And, under our precedents, viewpoint restrictions like that are not subject to mere rational-basis review or intermediate scrutiny. Rather, they represent "an egregious form of content discrimination" where First Amendment concerns are at their most "blatant."

The decision has taken a lot of flak from folks on the left, some of whom have characterized it as the Supreme Court endorsing conversion therapy. But it's best seen as the Supreme Court endorsing the First Amendment—no matter who is speaking.

That makes the ruling important, no matter which side of various culture wars you're on. "In the long run, and especially in the current political environment, I can see this actually being a useful bulwark against efforts to restrict gender-affirming care," points out Julian Sanchez.

In The News

New Orleans ditches strip club regulations. After passing and then reversing restrictions on strip clubs, the New Orleans City Council then asked the planning commission to study the issue. It has now dropped that request. No one's really sure what that means for the future of the regulations, per Verite News. Meanwhile, at the state level:

Dancers are also facing restrictions. Louisiana State Senator Beth Mizell, a Republican who represents Washington, St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes, recently introduced a bill that would redefine commercial sex activity to also include "any sexual or lewd or lascivious act" done for payment. The law, which Mizell hopes will reduce sex trafficking, is concerning to some dancers who worry it could be used to limit their work.

Chris Olsen owns multiple small businesses in the French Quarter and has been involved in advocacy against increasing restrictions on clubs and dancers.

"There's been this kind of long history of the [sex work] industry being regulated unlike any other business," Olsen said. "There's all of this moral panic around sex work and around strip clubs in general but it doesn't match with what actually is good for people who are doing sex work."

On Substack

"Dopamine is not why kids love social media," suggests Taylor Lorenz in her UserMag newsletter. The piece digs into the supremely dumb way that many mainstream pundits, politicians, and publications discuss dopamine—a neurotransmitter associated with the brain rewards centers—and social media.

Basically, anything pleasurable can create a hit of dopamine. When people itching to regulate or ban something want to lend an air of scientific credibility to their authoritarian impulses, they'll often reach for dopamine. Because (activity to be banned) activates dopamine in our brains, it's like a drug, and should be treated as such, they'll say.

This is silly—and "not supported by science," as psychologist Chris Ferguson noted in a RealClear Investigations piece last year. "Solid research connecting dopamine spikes to drugs and alcohol – that is, the capacity of one chemical to ignite another – has not been shown to occur in similar ways with other behaviors. Drug use is fundamentally and physiologically different from behaviors that do not rely on pharmaceutical effects."

Read This Thread

Idealized versions of everything look good, the problem is people worry they're not going to get the idealized version. https://t.co/pF6JQ626jk pic.twitter.com/fRd2EXiUvb

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 31, 2026

Matthew Yglesias rejects the (now weirdly prevalent online) idea that Gen Z men would all be marrying young if it weren't for rejection by their dastardly, girl-bossing female counterparts. The Dilan Esper thread below gives a sort of "yes, and" to Yglesias, suggesting that while he's right about social conservatives overlooking young men's hesitancy to marry, he ignores the transnational picture (data show people are marrying older all over the world) and what that means.

Let's talk about Matt's piece today. His thesis-- that all the discussion about "encouraging women to marry" ignores that men don't want to marry-- is correct as far as it goes. (And he implies, but doesn't quite state, that this has something to do with anti-feminist thought.) https://t.co/0jiTGjAM9J

— Dilan Esper (@dilanesper) March 31, 2026

More Sex & Tech News

A big announcement from the British Home Office:

Police time will no longer be wasted investigating legal social media posts, freeing up officers to patrol the streets and tackle real crime.

By scrapping Non‑Crime Hate Incidents, we are balancing the protection of vulnerable communities while respecting free speech.

— Home Office (@ukhomeoffice) March 31, 2026

• Are middle-aged moms having the best sex? A survey conducted by the Substacker Cartoons Hate Her found that "as far as women having sex with men went, being married and over 40 seemed to be associated with better sex," as defined by likelihood to orgasm and giving sexual enjoyment at least a four out of five. And "being a married mom over 40 was associated with even better sex," she found:

For married women under 40, being a mother increased their odds of orgasm from 69.8% to 76.4%. For women over 40, the odds of orgasm went from 70.8% to 82.6% if they were mothers. Also, 43% of married mothers over 40 rated their most recent sexual encounter a 5/5, compared with only 33% of married women under 40 without kids.

• In rural Ohio, "the backlash to data centers…is leading some communities to consider adopting zoning for the first time," reports Reason's Christian Britschgi, who recently penned a Reason cover story called "The Joys of Data Centers: Debunking the Backlash Against the $7 Trillion AI Building Boom."

• Google will now let people change the name associated with their Gmail address.

• Proton will now let people make end-to-end encrypted video calls.

• Derek Thompson has published part two of his critique of "the smartphone theory of everything."

The post There Are Many Good Reasons To Criticize Kristi Noem. Her Husband's Sexual Interests Are Not Among Them. appeared first on Reason.com.