civilliberties
With the stroke of his pen, President Joe Biden could take a stand against authoritarian restrictions on free speech by issuing a posthumous pardon to D.M. Bennett, the freethought publisher convicted of violating the Comstock Act in 1879. Over the past year, judges have revived the long-dead Comstock Act to justify restrictions on speech and abortion drugs. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas even approvingly cited the moribund law in recent arguments. For these reasons, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has submitted a petition to the president se...
Reason
In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman pore over recent Supreme Court decisions regarding the abortion pill mifepristone and the Trump administration's ban on gun bump stocks. 02:01—Supreme Court rulings on abortion pill and bump stocks 16:45—Secret recording of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito 27:45—Weekly Listener Question 37:11—Hunter Biden's conviction 44:30—This week's cultural recommendations Mentioned in this podcast: "Unanimous Supreme Court Rejects Abortion Pill Challenge," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown "The Igno...
Reason
The House passed a large defense bill Friday evening that included a provision that would automatically enroll young men between the ages of 18 and 26* for the Selective Service. The House's version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would authorize $895 billion in military spending, passed by a vote of 217–199. It's unlikely to be picked up by the Democrat-controlled Senate because of numerous amendments regarding abortion, diversity efforts, and transgender medical treatments. The Selective Service provision, though, is part of an enduring bipartisan effort to keep the f...
Reason
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry last week signed a law that criminalizes approaching police officers within 25 feet, provided that the officer tells any would-be approachers to stand back, effectively creating a legal force field that law enforcement can activate at their discretion. "No person shall knowingly or intentionally approach within twenty-five feet of a peace officer%20%C2%A0%22Peace%20officer,and%20parole%20officers.) who is lawfully engaged in the execution of his official duties after the peace officer has ordered the person to stop approaching or to retreat," the law states. Offender...
Reason
For nearly a decade, the transit authority in Washington, D.C., has faced controversy over restrictive guidelines governing advertisements in the city's subways and busses. Now, it might have to scrap some of them. The controversial rules prohibit any ad that is "issues-oriented" or "intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying opinions." The guidelines also single out religious ads, prohibiting "advertisements that promote or oppose any religion, religious practice or belief." Last month, a D.C. district court ruled in favor of a Christian group se...
Reason
Last September, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung caused a kerfuffle by mistakenly reporting that the former president had bought a Glock 19 pistol decorated with his portrait during a visit to a gun dealer in Summerville, South Carolina. At the time, Trump faced four criminal indictments, which would have made him guilty of several federal felonies—the purchase itself, plus two more felonies related to falsely presenting himself as an eligible buyer—if he had actually completed the transaction that Cheung described. Now that a New York jury has convicted Trump of 34 felonies involving fa...
Reason
What do the National Rifle Association (NRA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and nine U.S. Supreme Court justices from five presidential administrations all have in common? That list is likely relatively small. But at least one area of overlap was made evident Thursday when the Court published a unanimous ruling that a New York government official allegedly violated the First Amendment by pressuring insurers and banks to sever business ties with the NRA, which the ACLU is representing. The decision resuscitates the gun advocacy group's lawsuit against Maria Vullo, the former head o...
Reason
A man has filed a lawsuit against the town of Sturgeon, Missouri, a little more than a week after a police officer shot and killed his small, blind, and deaf dog. In a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Nicholas Hunter alleges that Officer Myron Woodson and the city of Sturgeon violated his Fourth Amendment rights when Woodson killed Teddy, his 13-pound blind and deaf Shih Tzu, shortly after finding the dog wandering in a neighbor's yard on May 19. "Woodson's warrantless seizure of Teddy was unnecessary, callous, and egregious as it was unwar...
Reason
Described as "the 26 words that created the internet," Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act catches a lot of flak for a piece of legislation that is largely responsible for online platforms' willingness to host discussion forums. In its absence, social media companies and message boards would likely return to the previous era of either allowing anybody to say anything, or else taking legal responsibility for every insult and slur posted on their platforms. That would probably mean the end of online discourse as we know it—which may be what happens if proposed bipartisan legislation "s...
Reason
“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” – P.J. O’Rourke Q1 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more The Dark Side of QE InfinityLast week I wrote about how ultra easy monetary policy is destroying personal wealth, distorting markets and causing governments to do dumb things. When you give a government infinite access to money, money itself ceases to be a measure of value. Without that measure, the state has no way of prioritising and no sense of proportion, leaving vested interests and personal biases to run amok. There are many nasty co...
ValueWalk
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