December 29, 2025
The Culture War Comes for Science
Almost immediately after President Trump returned to office, he moved aggressively to remake the federal science agencies, exerting tremendous pressure on the entire research enterprise in the process. The Trump administration has frozen federal research grants, slashed overhead costs, and laid off thousands of employees at “Democrat Agencies” (Trump’s phrase) like the Centers for Disease…
November 17, 2025
Congress Can Help Update our Infrastructure by Passing the SPEED Act
The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 is the basic law governing federal reviews of construction projects’ environmental impacts. Unfortunately, it has evolved into an environmentally destructive monstrosity. Why? Because the left-wing environmentalists have used it in endless litigation to oppose even projects that clearly would yield important environmental improvements over existing infrastructure. New infrastructure…
October 30, 2025
When Kids’ Safety Becomes a Trojan Horse for Risky App Store Regulation
The federal government may be shut down, but Congress continues to cause chaos. As the 2025 legislative session comes to an end, lawmakers are taking advantage of the lull to attach their pet projects to any bill that might pass—most recently, a kids’ online safety package pending approval once the government reopens. As I have…
October 28, 2025
New Patent Office Director Makes Waves with New Rules for Patent Challenges
The new director of the Patent Office is wasting little time on the job, announcing several new rules and practices that will make it more difficult to challenge the validity of issued patents. John Squires, officially the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, published…
August 1, 2025
AI Tools for Economists and Policy Analysts
New artificial intelligence tools are rapidly transforming how economists and policy analysts conduct research, dissect data, and communicate findings. Rather than replacing traditional research methods, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are serving as force multipliers, allowing analysts to explore ideas more thoroughly and overcome common bottlenecks in the research process. The Basics As of writing, I…
July 29, 2025
The War on Science
An unparalleled group of prominent scholars from wide-ranging disciplines detail ongoing efforts to impose ideological restrictions on science and scholarship throughout western society. From assaults on merit-based hiring to the policing of language and replacing well-established, disciplinary scholarship by ideological mantras, current science and scholarship is under threat throughout western institutions. As this group of…
July 22, 2025
Human Progress versus Climate Evangelism
In the annals of history, the first half of 2025 will be remembered for many things. I’d venture that very few are aware of one of the most momentous achievements in human history occurred in the past six months. In fact, there is an organized effort to keep you from understanding this achievement. Before getting…
July 14, 2025
Do Women Owe Men an Apology? With Dr. Carole Hooven
This episode starts with a Very Special introduction in which I explain what’s been going on with the podcast over the last six months (lots of different offerings, which possibly caused some confusion) and talk about the ongoing challenges of the subscriber model. (Short version, please stick around!) I then have the great pleasure of…
April 22, 2025
Which is in Collapse? Administrative Law or REAL ID?
If you’ve ever raised children, you’re familiar with defenses like: “I didn’t hit my brother. My bat did!” We keep kids in whiffle ball until they understand culpability a little better. The upcoming deadline for compliance with our national ID law, REAL ID, has a children’s logic to it. The deadline will not change, we…
March 28, 2025
Generative AI: The Emerging Coworker Transforming Teams
Artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to transform workplaces, fundamentally changing tasks, teamwork, and organizational dynamics. Several recent studies highlight promising early findings about how AI is affecting knowledge workers, suggesting it can actively collaborate with humans to enhance interactions and capabilities across various professions. The first study, conducted by researchers from Harvard, Wharton, and Procter…