On May 8, the US Court of International Trade ruled that Donald Trump's massive new Section 122 tariffs are illegal, in cases brought by the Liberty Justice Center (on behalf of two small businesses) and 24 state governments, led by Oregon. Today, the CIT rejected the Trump Administration's motion to stay the injunction blocking further collection of the tariffs until the litigation over the case is done.

This is a potentially very significant ruling. Last year, in the case challenging Trump's IEEPA tariffs, LJC and I secured an injunction against them from the CIT, but that injunction was then stayed until the Supreme Court finally decided the case, almost a year later. That led to the collection of some $166 billion of illegal tariffs, and caused all sorts of harm that cannot be compensated by refunds (which the Trump administration only recently finally began to pay). As I explained at the time the IEEPA stay motion was being litigated:

One factor courts consider in assessing a motion to stay is which side is likely to ultimately prevail on the merits….

Another key factor is which side is likely to suffer "irreparable harm" if they lose on the stay issue. We argue that our clients - and thousands of other businesses - will suffer great irreparable harm if a stay is imposed. They will lose sales due to higher prices, good will can be lost, relationships with suppliers and investors will be disrupted, and more. Those harms can't be made up merely by refunding tariff payments months from now, after the appellate process concludes.

In today's ruling, the CIT recognized the significance of these issues, noting that "[a] stay will compound the losses, such as 'lost profits and damage to business relationships, investments, and innovation' as a result of the Section 122 tariffs."

The immediate effect of this ruling is limited. The administration is likely to appeal it to the US Court of Appeals to the Federal Circuit, and ultimately perhaps even the Supreme Court. Moreover, the CIT injunction in this case is limited to the state of Washington and the two businesses represented by LJC. For procedural reasons, the court decided these are the only plaintiffs who have standing to challenge the tariffs, because they are the only ones who presented sufficient evidence that they directly import goods subject to the tariffs.  But, as noted in my post about the CIT ruling on the merits of the case, many of the other states involved in the litigation likely also import covered goods, and they should be able to move to get a broader injunction, quite possibly one that would apply nationwide.

The CIT seems to have learned from the mistaken decision to stay the injunction against the IEEPA tariffs. Hopefully, the Federal Circuit and (if the issue gets there) the Supreme Court will rule the same way.

The post US Court of International Trade Refuses to Stay Injunction Against Trump's Section 122 Tariffs appeared first on Reason.com.

In April, I wrote a post praising "abundance liberalism" (despite some reservations about it) and urging an alliance between abundance liberals and libertarians. Matt Yglesias - one of the most prominent abundance liberal political commentators - has written an insightful piece responding to mine. He supports the idea of an alliance and notes other points of agreement, but also makes various criticisms of libertarianism.

First - and most important - Yglesias endorses the proposal for alliance:

Somin argued that his fellow travelers in the libertarian camp should seek an alliance with the center-left. The traditional Cold War-era "fusionist" alliance between libertarians and cultural conservatives is, he thinks, dead and should be replaced by an effort to build bridges with the abundance camp on the center-left, even if he thinks we don't go far enough.

I am all for this alliance.

Welcome! Yglesias's support - while much more significant than mine (because he has much greater political influence) - may not by itself be sufficient to make this alliance happen. But it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Second, Yglesias seems to at least partly agree with my argument that many liberals are inconsistent in endorsing deregulation in some areas (e.g. - housing and immigration), while refusing to do so in others, without offering any consistent rationale for the distinction:

[T]he concept of abundance ought to mean more than progressives owning up to overregulation of the housing sector being a problem.

Housing is the single largest sector of the economy, so problems there loom unusually large….

But the basic principles about the positive-sum nature of market exchange and the tendency of regulatory systems to become cesspools of rent seeking are quite general.

In a saner, better world, the Trumpian turn away from liberalism inside the Republican Party coalition should have meant a process of reconciliation between Democrats and at least some of the market liberals of the center right. Instead, a large share of the Democratic Party has reacted to the Republicans' abandonment of markets by simply embracing alternative zero-sum accounts of the economy like greedflation.

The point here is indeed "quite general" and Yglesias and other abundance liberals have done valuable work in making that clear, including, for example, in his recent article condemning efforts to bar institutional investors from owning housing. They don't generalize this insight as much as they should. But the recognition that it is indeed a general insight that applies to most, if not all, policy areas is significant.

Third, Yglesias is right to note that which parties and groups libertarians (and other free market advocates) end up aligned with is a matter of historical contingency. Whether the most logical coalition for them is with the conservatives, left-liberals, or some other group will vary depending on the salient issues of the day, the structure of the political system, and other factors.

Yglesias nonetheless offers several criticisms of libertarianism, which I will now address. Even if we continue to differ on these points, they don't preclude an alliance. But they are worth considering, regardless.

First, Yglesias argues libertarians have a tendency towards "extremism":

Normal ideologies have a directional valence relative to the status quo without committing their adherents to the most extreme possible version of the ideology. But the concept of a "moderate libertarian" doesn't seem to exist.

Most libertarians are indeed extreme relative to the status quo. But, as I have argued elsewhere, extreme ideas are often right. Whether a position is moderate or extreme relative to the current distribution of opinion, or relative to status quo public policy, says little about its correctness:

[E]xtremist defenses of liberty often turn out to be right. Before the Civil War, abolitionists who wanted to immediately free all the slaves and grant equal rights to blacks were extremists. The moderate position was either to maintain the status quo or seek gradual abolition, perhaps coupled with relegating blacks to second-class citizenship or deporting them to Africa.

The post Matt Yglesias on Libertarianism, Abundance Liberalism, and a Possible Alliance Between the Two appeared first on Reason.com.

Raúl Castro, Cuba's 94-year-old former dictator, was indicted Wednesday for his alleged role in the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based humanitarian group founded by Cuban exiles.

The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in South Florida on April 23 and unsealed Wednesday in Miami, charges Castro and five Cuban military officials in connection with the February 24, 1996, attack that killed three American citizens and one legal permanent resident. The Justice Department announced the charges at Miami's Freedom Tower, a symbol of the Cuban exile community and the site where hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees were processed after fleeing Fidel Castro's revolution.

Brothers to the Rescue was founded by Cuban Americans to help locate and aid Cubans fleeing the island by sea. But by the early 1990s, Cuban intelligence had infiltrated the group, placing spies inside its Miami operation and posing as exile pilots. 

In January 1996, after a Brothers to the Rescue aircraft dropped pro-democracy leaflets over Cuban territory, Raúl Castro, then Cuba's defense minister, allegedly authorized the use of deadly force against the group's planes. Cuban authorities then launched what became known as Operation Scorpion, instructing spies inside Brothers to the Rescue to provide information about upcoming flights while avoiding the deadly February mission themselves.

One of those agents, Juan Pablo Roque, had cultivated a relationship with the FBI while secretly working for Cuban intelligence. On February 21, 1996, three days before the attack, Roque told the FBI that Brothers to the Rescue would not be flying that weekend. Two days later, he fled to Cuba.

On February 24, two Brothers to the Rescue Cessnas were flying over international waters when Cuban fighter jets fired air-to-air missiles and destroyed them. A third plane escaped. Cuba has long claimed the aircraft were inside Cuban airspace, but international investigators concluded the planes were shot down over international waters. The pilots received no warning before they were killed. According to the indictment, the strike was the product of a planned Cuban military operation.

Castro and the five other defendants are being charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals. Castro also faces two counts of destruction of aircraft and four counts of murder. At Wednesday's press conference, Sen. Ashley Moody (R–Fla.) said the charges could carry a sentence of up to life in prison or the death penalty.

The evidence against Castro may include a recording in which he discussed the shootdown, a recording that has reportedly circulated for years within U.S. intelligence circles, according to policy analyst Imdat Oner.

The indictment comes as the Trump administration escalates pressure on Havana. Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio marked Cuban Independence Day with a message in Spanish to the Cuban people, attacking the regime's economic record. Rubio argued that Cuba is not controlled by revolutionaries but by GAESA, the military-run conglomerate built under Raúl Castro, which Rubio says dominates much of the Cuban economy.

The move also follows a recent Axios report that Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones and that Cuban officials have discussed potential attacks on the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, U.S. military vessels, and possibly Key West, Florida, according to classified intelligence cited in the report.

The Castro indictment is difficult to separate from the administration's recent Venezuela playbook. Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, indicted in 2020 on narcoterrorism charges, was captured by U.S. forces in the capital city of Caracas in January and brought to the United States to face trial. The question now is whether Washington is preparing a similar strategy for Castro, or whether the indictment is meant primarily as leverage against Havana's current leadership.

"This is not a show indictment," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday. "We expect that he will show up here by his own will or by another way."

The post Justice Department Indicts Cuba's Raúl Castro for 1996 Shootdown That Killed 4 Americans appeared first on Reason.com.

The bipartisan surface transportation reauthorization bill released earlier this week by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee would reform an obscure safety rule that has served as a de facto ban on driverless commercial trucks. 

The BUILD America 250 Act would allow driverless truck operators to use cab-mounted beacons to warn drivers of a disabled truck on the road. Current federal regulations require that roadside warning placards be placed around disabled trucks. 

That requirement has been a serious source of grief for autonomous trucking companies, as it effectively requires a human operator to be on board to place those warning placards. 

For that reason, they've been agitating for a rule change that would allow cab-mounted warning beacons that wouldn't require a human to place them. 

In 2023, the autonomous trucking company Aurora and Waymo's now-shuttered driverless trucking division requested a waiver from the regulation from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). 

The Biden administration ultimately rejected that waiver request.

The companies then challenged that denial in court. Last October, they reached a settlement with the Trump administration that granted Aurora a limited waiver allowing them to use cab-mounted warning beacons, provided they collect data on the safety efficacy of this alternative. 

This was still only a partial win for the industry. 

The terms of the waiver require it to be reapproved every three months. It also only applied to Aurora. Other companies seeking regulatory relief must apply for their own specific waiver. Under a new administration, FMCSA could also revoke the waiver. 

To give the industry greater regulatory certainty, Section 5405 of the BUILD America 250 Act declares that "cab-mounted warning beacons shall be considered permissible warning devices for a commercial motor vehicle stopped upon the traveled portion or the shoulder of a highway" and that they can be used in lieu of roadside placards. 

Section 5405 would also forbid the FMCSA from issuing rules in the future that disallow cab-mounted warning beacons. 

The safety case for requiring roadside warning placards has always been weak. The Biden administration conceded as such when, after denying Aurora's request for a waiver, it announced it would perform its own study on the efficacy of the warning devices. 

In support of their waiver request, Aurora and Waymo submitted their own safety studies showing drivers reacted similarly to cab-mounted warning beacons and roadside placards. In theory, the cab-mounted beacons could improve safety by relieving a driver from having to walk out onto the road to place physical warning placards. 

Beyond the warning device rule, the BUILD America 250 Act would also create a whole new framework for regulating autonomous trucks going forward. 

Traditional federal safety regulations establish objective "performance" standards that regulated commercial vehicles must meet.

Marc Scribner, a transportation policy analyst at the Reason Foundation (which publishes this website), says performance standards are a poor fit for emerging driverless technologies.  

"There isn't agreement yet on what an appropriate performance standard is and how you'd test that," he says. 

The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's bill would instead allow manufacturers to establish their own "safety case" showing that their technology is at least as safe as human-operated commercial vehicles. 

Scribner describes this more flexible approach as "a strong step in the right direction."  

A Transportation and Infrastructure Committee markup of the 1,000-page bill is scheduled for tomorrow. 

The post House Transportation Bill Eliminates Obscure Rule That Effectively Bans Driverless Trucks appeared first on Reason.com.

Opposition to data centers is all the rage among populists of all stripes. On the left, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has proposed a national moratorium on new data center construction; on the right, Tucker Carlson describes them as "dystopian" and "devouring American energy and jobs." In recent days, X has become flooded with images of pristine American forests, plains, beaches, and lakes alongside captions warning that no data center is worth losing this. (The images are often AI-generated, and many of the accounts sharing them are foreign.)

Data center panic is fueled by concerns about electricity and water usage. Many Americans wrongly believe that data centers are driving up their electric bill, even though evidence suggests the exact opposite: Data centers may actually decrease electricity costs for their neighbors. Water use fears are even more unreasonable. Data centers don't actually use all that much water.

For example, a chart comparing data centers' water requirements to almond farms helps put things in perspective.

Over at Substack, @JoshEakle asks: "It's 2026, and I have yet to see an anti-almond farm protest." pic.twitter.com/UZwP7KgPCY

— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) May 19, 2026

California's almond farms consume 4.2 billion gallons of waters per day, according to Reason's Christian Britschgi. Data centers consume just 46 million gallons per day. Those numbers will certainly rise over time, but compared to all the other things that use water—golf courses account for 1.4 billion gallons per day—it's just a drop in the bucket.

Unfortunately, many foes of data centers do not find this comparison very compelling. Speaking for the opposition, The Federalist's Sean Davis points out that almonds are, you know, food. People eat almonds. They can't eat data. Thus, almond farms are a good use of water and data centers are not.

Carlson made a similar argument during his debate with Kevin O'Leary, in which he took it as a knock against data centers that they wouldn't provide as many jobs as the city of Manhattan despite taking up more space and using about as much power.

It's a problem for data center advocates, I suppose, that the good being produced is not as obvious as a job or an almond. But you have to be pretty dense not to realize that the data centers make possible a huge amount of economically beneficial activity. Storing massive amounts of data is a necessary precondition for the modern economy. It will be used to power and train AI models that will improve everyone's lives. AI is already making medical diagnoses more accurate and reducing car crash fatalities via driverless vehicles. AI can swiftly navigate legal, regulatory, and licensing issues, making it easier to start a business or buy a home. As a research tool, it can cut down on time spent learning about a complicated issue.

Reducing the time it takes to complete an annoying (or dangerous) task is a huge benefit that allows people to spend their time—the ultimate finite resource—more effectively, if only for leisure. If this doesn't seem obviously beneficial, then consider where we would be without search engines at all. Not so long ago, people had to trek to the library and consult an encyclopedia when they wanted information. They had to obtain physical copies of relevant documents: books, newspapers, etc. Being able to summon these things instantly—electronically—has inarguably led to huge gains: There are countless jobs that simply would not exist without it (including internet commentator).

The United States' economic future is inexorably tied to the tech sector. Gains from AI are vital to the country's stability. In that sense, it's not very surprising to discover that some of the arguments against AI are being made in coordination with the Chinese government. According to the Bitcoin Policy Institute, the Chinese Communist Party has indirectly encouraged a pause or slowing of AI developments in the U.S.—but not in China. That's one reason Sen. John Fetterman (D–Pa.), a self-described "pro-capitalist Democrat," called Sanders' data center moratorium proposal "China first."

The emerging chassis of AI must be built by America.

We can put appropriate guardrails in place without handing the win on AI to China.

A moratorium is China First. pic.twitter.com/NfZnzxMxBY

— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) March 25, 2026

In any case, you can't eat an oil rig, a suspension bridge, or a satellite. Yet it should be obvious that these are no less useful—even factoring in land, energy, and water use—than almonds, even if the benefits are slightly less straightforward. This is plainly true for data centers as well, and anyone arguing otherwise deserves suspicious looks.

The post Data Centers Use Less Water Than Almond Farms—and Do More Good appeared first on Reason.com.

This week, President Donald Trump agreed to drop his lawsuit against the IRS, and in exchange the government would set up a fund for victims of overly aggressive federal law enforcement actions. But the entire affair reeks of corruption, and the money is most likely to become a slush fund for Trump and his cronies.

"The U.S. Department of Justice today announced that as a part of the settlement agreement in President Donald J. Trump v. Internal Revenue Service, the Attorney General established 'The Anti-Weaponization Fund' to provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare," according to a DOJ press release. It would receive $1.776 billion from the Judgment Fund, an intragovernmental account funded by taxpayer money that pays out claims against the government.

"The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department's intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again," said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. "As part of this settlement, we are setting up a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress."

The case originated in January, when Trump sued the IRS and the Department of the Treasury. In 2020, The New York Times reported on the contents of Trump's tax returns, which the authors said "reveal the hollowness, but also the wizardry, behind the self-made-billionaire image."

According to a 2023 Department of Justice indictment, the Times' source was IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, whom a federal judge later sentenced to five years in prison.

In his lawsuit, Trump sought $10 billion in damages, claiming the IRS "had a duty to safeguard and protect [his] confidential tax returns" and "failed to take…mandatory precautions."

But this was an awkward ask: As the sitting president, Trump was effectively negotiating on both sides of the table.

"For a lawsuit to be valid, the two parties must actually be on opposite sides; otherwise, the judge can throw out the case," The New York Times reported last week.

The presiding judge in the case had the same concern. "Although President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction," Judge Kathleen Williams of the U.S. District Court for the District of Florida wrote in an order last month. "Accordingly, it is unclear to this Court whether the Parties are sufficiently adverse to each other."

Williams appointed six attorneys, unrelated to the case, to weigh in. The resulting memo, filed last week, did not make a definitive determination, but its tone was decidedly skeptical.

The attorneys noted that all the principal players involved—the secretary of the Treasury, the attorney general, and the commissioner of the IRS—are appointed by the president, who may fire them at any time. They also noted objections to any sitting president suing his own government, much less one who demands such fealty from his subordinates.

"Since taking office, President Trump has significantly expanded the President's oversight and control over the Attorney General and DOJ, including in ways that blur the line between fidelity to the President's policy priorities and fidelity to the President himself," they wrote. "There is also reason to believe that the President is, in fact, exercising his control over the Defendants in this litigation. President Trump's own statements suggest that he believes he has control over the Defendants and the DOJ lawyers charged with defending this case."

As to the merits of the case itself, the attorneys noted that the government had already asserted multiple "substantial defenses" in related litigation. Last year, for example, the government successfully argued that under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, it was not liable for Littlejohn's actions. In addition, "DOJ has also successfully argued in a related case" that Trump "did not sufficiently plead damages traceable" to a criminal act. Further, Trump's claims "are based on conduct that occurred more than two years ago" and therefore may be outside the statute of limitations.

Other than the fact that Trump sat on both sides of the negotiating table, there was no reason at all for the government to take the lawsuit seriously, much less settle for nearly $2 billion of taxpayer money.

It seems clear that the settlement was timed to avoid judicial oversight. In her April order, Williams ordered attorneys for both Trump and the government to explain if there was "adverseness" sufficient to justify the court hearing the case. She set a deadline of May 20; the parties announced the settlement just two days before. And in the motion withdrawing his lawsuit, Trump said it "is self-executing, terminates the action upon filing, and divests the district court of jurisdiction," and further "does not require judicial action."

The Anti-Weaponization Fund's most likely beneficiaries are the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Over the following four years, over 1,500 were arrested, and 1,270 were convicted, for attempting to prevent Congress from certifying the election Trump lost. Of the total arrests, 38 percent were charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

Trump vowed that if reelected, he would grant the rioters "full pardons with an apology." He pardoned the rioters on his first day back in office, wiping away their federal criminal convictions. And this week, the IRS settlement agreement granted the Anti-Weaponization Fund the power to not only "issue monetary relief owed to claimants as a result of their legal rights" but also "to issue formal apologies."

But it's also possible that Trump could avail himself of some of that cash. The settlement agreement notes that Trump is still pursuing two other claims against the government, relating to the 2022 raid on his Florida home "and the Russia-collusion hoax throughout his first term as President, and beyond." If Trump also decides to settle with himself in one of those other cases, there's no guarantee he won't seek a portion of the money—which, again, would come from taxpayers.

According to the DOJ, the fund would be administered by five members, with a three-person quorum required for any settlements. But it's not clear what oversight function this is supposed to serve: The attorney general appoints each member, and the president can remove any of them at any time without cause.

In fact, while it could be beneficial to have a dedicated form of recourse for anyone subjected to selective or vindictive prosecution by the federal government, it's clear Trump is only interested in rewarding his allies and correcting the perceived wrongs of the Biden administration: The settlement agreement notes that all claims must be received by December 2028, and all funds must be disbursed by January 1, 2029—Trump's final month in office.

But it's not as if weaponization is entirely a thing of the past. Right now, Trump's DOJ is vindictively prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey. After news broke of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, Comey facetiously asked, "Do I get to apply?…If it's for people who have been targeted for reasons other than the normal standards of the Department of Justice, I'm ready to get in line."

"I say without hyperbole that this is the most brazenly corrupt action in US Presidential history," wrote Harvard University government professor Ryan Enos. "That it does not immediately lead to impeachment is a dangerous sign of how far the rule of law has declined."

It appears that even members of the administration see the potential for abuse: Just hours after the fund was announced, Treasury Department general counsel Brian Morrissey resigned.

The post Trump Settles His Own Lawsuit Against the IRS for $1.8 Billion of Your Money appeared first on Reason.com.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. 

In this week's newsletter, I wanted to share a recent feature story I wrote for Reason about the strange world of California's professional squatter removal services. 

For some time in February this year, I was camped out in an Airbnb in Oakland, California, shadowing James Jacobs, founder of ASAP Squatter Removal, as he went about his work of reclaiming properties from squatters with his trusty katana.  

It was a fascinating story to report out, and one that involved being in slightly dicier situations than this housing and zoning reporter is typically used to. The experience taught me a lot about the extreme edges of California's housing crisis and the limits of what Reason will allow me to expense for a story. (Body armor, yes. A sword, no.) 

Truly, we are living in Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash. 

The reporting process yielded a few observations that didn't make it into the final draft, one of which I'll share here. 

A major setting of the story is an apartment building off Oakland's International Boulevard that had been overrun by squatters. Jacobs had been hired by the owner to attempt to remove them. 

Running down the middle of International Boulevard is a dedicated lane for the new Tempo bus rapid transit line. The lane was completed in 2020 for a total cost of $232 million. 

That's a significant investment in new public transit infrastructure. Its presence means that properties along International Boulevard now qualify for new transit-oriented height and density allowances created by last year's Senate Bill 79. 

Thanks to S.B. 79, one can now build a six-story apartment building, at a density of 100 dwelling units per acre, within a quarter mile of the Tempo line. 

The apartment building that features heavily in my story should be a prime candidate for redevelopment into more, better housing under S.B. 79. The two-story building that currently occupies the land is badly deteriorated, thanks in no small part to the presence of squatters there. 

Unfortunately, no one is in a position to do anything productive with the property so long as squatters continue to occupy it. It'll continue to be what it is today, a badly run-down apartment building that the owner and neighboring business owners say has been overrun by criminal activity. 

As I detail in my story, California's law enforcement agencies typically refuse to remove squatters. Property owners who report squatters are invariably told they need to file for eviction in civil court to remove them. 

That's inherently not unreasonable. But California's civil court process is long. In that process, squatters can claim a host of procedural rights granted to legal tenants (which they are not) that stretches out the process for months, and in extreme cases, years. 

The upshot is that the state does very little to protect the basic property rights of owners who see their units fall prey to squatters. 

That's an injustice all on its own. It leads to a law-and-order problem when desperate property owners turn to gray-market squatter removal services to solve a problem the courts and the cops won't. 

This lack of orderly property rights protections also undermines the efforts California's policymakers have put into making its urban areas more affordable and transit-served.

All the upzoning laws and transit investments in the world won't induce the development of badly needed housing on a property that cannot be reclaimed from squatters who are occupying it illegally. 

Even the best-conceived urban planning can't make up for the nonenforcement of basic property rights. 

My feature is a little too long to fully include in this newsletter. Below is a short excerpt. If it piques your interest, I'd encourage everyone to read the whole thing at Reason. 

Samurai vs. Squatters

"We're probably not going to use grenades on this one, right? Because I got 'em."

James Jacobs had hired a motley crew of toughs online to help him clear squatters out of an Oakland, California, apartment building. None of the hired muscle accept the offer of smoke grenades. They intend to complete this job with the baseball bats and firearms they brought from home.

"All right, let's do this," says Jacobs. He grabs his katana and sets off in his long black leather jacket toward the apartment. His improvised militia follows single-file behind him. Half a minute later, they confidently walk through the front door of a two-story building off of Oakland's busy International Boulevard.

From across the street, I watch them enter and wait anxiously for the sound of gunshots. 

It was another battle in California's low-burning turf war between the squatters who invade homes and the enforcers hired to reclaim them.

Across the Golden State, uninvited occupants have taken over countless residential properties and then refused to vacate. Homes undergoing renovations, vacant rental units, and even whole apartment buildings have fallen prey to squatters. Once they move in squatters are very difficult to dislodge. The legal process to remove them is expensive and can take months or years.

In their desperation, owners are increasingly turning to a rising crop of private rights enforcers to solve the problem. That includes Jacobs and his company, ASAP Squatter Removal.

Jacobs claims to have developed a long list of tools and tactics that enable him to remove squatters far faster than the court system, all while staying within the bounds of the law. Chief among them is a weapon he carries on every job: a katana, a curved Japanese sword that's more synonymous with samurai warriors than clearing squatters.

"In most industries, swords just don't make any damn sense," Jacobs says. "In this particular one, it actually does." The lightly regulated katana, he explains, is an ideal weapon for indoor self-defense and intimidation.

It's also an ingenious marketing ploy in the competitive world of squatter removal services. Jacobs' company has received a healthy amount of media attention from local and international outlets that never fail to mention his sword in the headline.

According to Jacobs, his company has had a near-perfect success rate of removing squatters. 

If they were Jacobs' only adversary, his katana might be the only weapon he needs. But ASAP Squatter Removal is engaged in a two-front war. His main competition comes from law enforcement agencies that are none too keen on ceding their monopoly on the use of force to people like Jacobs.

Every job that ASAP Squatter Removal performs requires it to dodge criminal charges. The company has had only mixed success on the latter front. In January, Jacobs and two associates were charged with a long list of felonies stemming from one of their jobs.

The legal and physical risks inherent in anti-squatter work are why California's landlords have called for more systemic reforms that would make Jacobs' business obsolete.

But with reforms stalled in the state Legislature, many property owners feel they have no choice but to turn to gray market services and the unique set of characters, with a very particular set of skills, willing to take on this dangerous work.

On the streets, it's samurai vs. squatters.

(Read the whole thing here.)

Quick Links 

• The latest House version of the 21st Century Road to Housing Act removes an effective ban on build-to-rent housing that the Senate had included it's version of the bill. The bill retains restrictions on large institutional investors purchasing homes. A vote on the House's bill is expected this week.
• Tokyo's housing is cheap, even if its land is incredibly expensive, writes Alex Armlovich in a new essay.
• In Illinois, a state upzoning bill supported by Gov. J.D. Pritzker is encountering predictable opposition from the state's cities and towns.
• The Trump administration is using eminent domain to seize a Catholic pilgrimage site on the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a border wall project.
• The City Council of Providence, Rhode Island, failed to overcome Mayor Brett Smiley's veto of a rent control ordinance it had passed. On X, the mayor had some wise words about the failure of rent control in other cities.

The rent in Providence is too high and we need real solutions to bring down costs for families. And I understand why rent control sounds compelling, but the reality is that it has consistently been shown to hurt those it is meant to help. In Cambridge, in Berkeley, in Portland,… pic.twitter.com/vEagSDrXca

— Mayor Brett Smiley (@PVDMayor) May 15, 2026

The post What I Learned Shadowing California's Katana-Wielding Anti-Squatter Enforcers appeared first on Reason.com.

They're at it again: Yesterday, the unions representing the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) workers reached an agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the railroad. It's not yet clear what's in the agreement, but the demands of the striking workers were rather extraordinary: Pay raises of 5 percent, plus three years of retroactive raises since their last contract was hammered out in 2022. This might make sense if they were destitute, but they are not: "More than 325 Long Island Rail Road workers are raking in over $100,000 a year in overtime on top of their lucrative salaries, with 11 of them netting at least twice that huge figure in OT," reports New York Post (below yesterday's perfect headline: "Gravy Train").

"The LIRR workers are already the best-compensated transit workers in the United States," the Manhattan Institute's Ken Girardin told the Post. Not wrong. Workers routinely game the overtime system to rake in huge amounts of cash beyond their (already-huge) union-negotiated sums: Supervising foreman Leonardo Espinosa, for example, earned $244,954 in overtime last year on top of his $129,483 salary. Jeffrey Davies (working the same role) brought in $233,808 in overtime on top of $130,291 base. And we haven't even started talking about pensions, and how overtime reporting factors in:

Sounds like they're working hard, right? Thing is though, LIRR has had repeated scandals about overtime fraud. And they look for ways to report massive overtime in their final years approaching retirement, massively spiking their pension payments for the rest of their lives. https://t.co/tYdzE4HZCA

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) May 18, 2026

The LIRR—with its 270,000 daily commuters—brings a lot of value to the many residents of New York City's eastern suburbs (even if it does us the disservice of bringing the Lawnguylanders in*). But in this case, like many others, unions representing public employees have bilked taxpayers.

But wait, there's more!

Yesterday, union representatives advocating for hotel housekeepers reached a deal with management: The average pay of housekeepers at New York City hotels will, per the terms of the agreement, increase to over $100,000.

"The owners of nearly 250 hotels in the city reached agreement with the union, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, on an eight-year contract that would increase wages by more than 50 percent for workers, union officials said," reports The New York Times. "The hotel owners will continue to pay the full cost of providing health-care benefits for 27,000 union members and their families." Here's another highlight: The new deal will "raise the pay of housekeepers from slightly below $40 an hour to more than $61 an hour by 2034."

New York City's average hotel room rates run around $335 a night. The union representatives seem confident that there's room for prices to be raised without demand being affected. I doubt this is true, and I think this type of market distortion will have bad results in the long run:

These feel like the early innings of UK-style destruction of the price mechanism.

Regulatory capture + unions extracting fees through means that are not legible to the general public. The results — college grads can't find work, but housekeepers get $100K+ — are counterintuitive https://t.co/8gIAg2GNKK

— John Loeber (@johnloeber) May 18, 2026

*I am sorry for lightly poking fun at Long Island but I will not stop. My husband is from there, so I've seen a little too much.

Voters' choice: Today, freedom fighter and national debt lapel pin wearer Thomas Massie goes up against former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in what has become the most expensive U.S. House primary on record down in Kentucky.

Followers of this newsletter are surely aware of how President Donald Trump absolutely hates Massie's guts. Massie has proven himself no sycophant, challenging the president first on the passage of a massive COVID relief bill, then on his spending, his relationship to Jeffrey Epstein, and his penchant for sinking boats in the Caribbean (the legality of which the Pentagon's internal watchdog will investigate).

Campaign spending has totaled over $32 million, mostly due to Trump-aligned and pro-Israel organizations attacking Massie. "Give me somebody with a warm body to beat Massie," Trump said back in March. ("And I got somebody with a warm body, but a big, beautiful brain and a great patriot," he followed up.)

"When President Trump needs backup, Massie wants to debate process," said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at a rally yesterday. "When the movement needs unity, especially at the biggest moments, Massie's willing to vote with Democrats." Yes. That's exactly why some of us like him: It's about principle, not blind allegiance to party. The role of a member of Congress is not to just give the president "backup."

"On Saturday, Trump successfully ousted Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., after recruiting and backing a primary opponent, GOP Rep. Julia Letlow," notes NBC News. "And earlier this month in Indiana, Trump helped unseat GOP state lawmakers whom he blamed for foiling his redistricting there." It looks very likely that Massie will be out come tomorrow, and Trump's power over Republicans in Congress will be further solidified.

Scenes from Texas: I got back from Texas yesterday, and on the transportation front, it's a glimpse of the future. I mentioned the peace of mind Tesla's self-driving capabilities gave me when having those cars around my toddler, playing on the driveway. But driverless Waymos have overtaken Austin, too (which may be in danger of being recalled due to an incident in nearby San Antonio where a car got swept away in floodwaters, thankfully with no person inside), and Tesla Cybercabs—two-passenger driverless robotaxis—could be seen on the road, though it's not clear whether they're legal yet or in testing or what. Uber seems like it's basically going to be replaced by driverless fleets, and soon. Meanwhile, in my city, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stopped road testing of Waymos.

QUICK HITS

• "Disputed bets are a growing headache for prediction markets, including Polymarket, as they contend with a surge of new traders and dizzying growth in trading volume," reports The Wall Street Journal. "The platforms aim to write clear yes-or-no questions for traders to wager on. But the messiness of real-world events means it isn't always obvious which side was right." (More from "The Mysterious Crypto Judges Who Settle Polymarket Disputes.")
• It looks like Hungary might be trying to use the euro.
• "Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones and recently began discussing plans to use them to attack the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels and possibly Key West, Fla., 90 miles north of Havana," reports Axios, having received some classified intelligence.
• "Three people were killed at a mosque in San Diego on Monday in a shooting authorities said they were investigating as a hate crime," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Two teenage gunmen are believed to have killed three men, including a security guard, at the Islamic Center of San Diego, Police Department Chief Scott Wahl said at a news briefing Monday. Authorities said one of the shooters was a teenager whose mother reported him missing hours earlier."
• The only group of refugees the president seems to like:

SCOOP: The Trump administration is proposing increasing the refugee admissions ceiling for fiscal year 2026 to 17,500 for White South Africans, according to an emergency determination sent to Congress and obtained by CNN. That's an increase of 10,000.

— Priscilla Alvarez (@priscialva) May 19, 2026

• Kind of a strange rhetorical turn on Taiwan (and allegations of chip stealing make no sense):

Trump on Taiwan: When you look at the odds, China is very, very powerful, big country. That's a very small island. Think of it, it's 59 miles away. We're 9500 miles away. That's a little bit of a difficult problem. Taiwan was developed because we had presidents that didn't know… pic.twitter.com/bKhDQ65vTS

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 15, 2026

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