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July 3, 2025
The Open App Markets Act: How “Competition” Reform Would Open America’s Digital Doors to Hackers and Foreign Adversaries
The Open App Markets Act (OAMA) has reemerged in Congress with renewed momentum, aiming to break up what some lawmakers perceive as monopolistic control over mobile app distribution. Supporters frame this legislation as a victory for competition and consumer choice, claiming it will free users from the restrictive hold of Apple’s App Store and Google…
July 2, 2025
Cheerleading is Dumb Energy Policy
Any moment now, we will be releasing the full results of the AEI Energy/Climate Survey of the American public that my AEI colleague Ruy Teixeira and I conducted right before the election. The survey provides a fascinating snapshot of what Americans think about a wide range of climate and energy issues. Today, I share some what the…
July 2, 2025
Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton: Doctrinal Drift Erodes Online Speech Protection and Court Credibility
Supreme Court opinions typically are governed by well-established doctrines for determining whether a statute passes First Amendment muster. Notably, content-based laws (ones targeting particular subjects or ideas but not others) must surmount the demanding strict scrutiny test, while content-neutral laws (ones applying evenhandedly to all subjects) face the relaxed intermediate scrutiny standard. Sometimes, however, the…
July 1, 2025
Marie Antoinette Does AI Tech Policy Analysis
Millions of elderly Americans live alone or lack companionship. They should go die while experts figure out if AI buddies designed to keep them company have the right “guardrails.” That’s my distillation of a presentation at a recent conference focusing on technology governance, including our current hot-button, AI. I came away from the presentation more…
June 27, 2025
Top Five Climate Change Narratives in the Media
Today, in cool and cloudy Washington, DC, I’ll wrap up my AEI Summer Honors Course (THB Pro subscribers have access to the syllabus and the reading packet here). The students have been absolutely fantastic and the discussions lively and informed. A highlight of the week was a chance to visit the U.S. Department of Energy and…
June 26, 2025
When and How Markets Think for Themselves
Markets as Minds Man, it’s been hot this week, and hot all over. Heat waves are like petri dishes for observing power systems and electricity markets. Every evening, just after the Texas sun dips below the horizon, the electricity market does something remarkable. Prices jump, batteries discharge, gas turbines spin up, and lights remain on…
June 26, 2025
Trump Is Half Wrong and Half Right: Eliminating FEMA, The U.S. As a Common Currency Area, The Professional Bureaucracy, and The Separation of Powers
Read the full paper below.
June 25, 2025
So You Want to Go Pro?
Ten years ago today I published a post at my sport governance blog, The Least Thing, that explored who had a greater chance of “going pro” — the men’s NCAA Division 1 basketball player or the PhD graduate seeking a tenure track job in a university? At the time it was a fun exploration of an…
June 25, 2025
The Engineers at the ACLU Have Some Good Things to Say
There’s not much insight in reiterating that computer programming and technical-system design are forms of engineering. But this type of engineering sometimes has very significant implications. Much as designing bridges keeps cars and human bodies out of rivers, designing and constructing certain technical systems prevents future civic collapse. So I can readily endorse identification policy…
June 24, 2025
Is Chatbot Output Speech? A Recent Ruling Misses the Mark
When artificial intelligence chatbot characters communicate with you through words––when they respond with comments, answers, and questions to your input––are they engaging in “speech” within the meaning of the First Amendment? According to Senior US District Judge Anne Conway’s May decision in Garcia v. Character Technologies, the answer––perhaps surprisingly and certainly unfortunately––might be no. In…