February 19, 2025
Trump’s Tariffs Would Prime Prices at the Gas Pump
Donald Trump promised tariffs, and he delivered, imposing by executive fiat tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada (10 percent on Canadian energy) and Mexico and 10 percent on imports from China. His justifications are “the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl,” and our “major trade deficits with those countries.” According…
February 19, 2025
Global Encryption Under Siege: How UK’s Apple Backdoor Demand Threatens International Security
The recent U.K. government directive mandating Apple to establish encryption backdoors underscores a vital debate surrounding digital privacy and security. While law enforcement contends that these backdoors are crucial for crime investigations, the reality is that any deliberate weakness in encryption introduces vulnerabilities that endanger all users. Encryption serves as the foundation of digital security,…
January 15, 2025
Goodbye and Good Riddance to Meta Fact-Checking
The decision last week by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, to immediately stop using “fact checkers” — groups hired by Meta to determine what information is true and what is false, and thuswhat should be removed — represents not just a return to common sense but also good news for both science and…
January 12, 2025
The Collapse of Offshore Wind Power Is Only the Beginning
The “clean energy transition” — the wholesale replacement of conventional (for the most part fossil) energy with such unconventional technologies as wind and solar power — has been the raison d’être for great masses of the well-off living in comfort in Western economies for many years. And they now are grieving. Why? Because that transition, aided with…
January 6, 2025
Ten Years and Counting: Who Stands for the People of Puerto Rico?
The Lord works in mysterious ways, an eternal truth illustrated by the latest electric power blackout afflicting Puerto Rico on New Year’s Eve. Merely the latest manifestation of the reality that the island’s electric grid is in desperate need of modernization, it is a reminder also that the sad saga of the Puerto Rico Electric…
December 12, 2024
The DOJ’s Misguided Overreach with Google Is an Opportunity for Trump
The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) proposed remedies in its antitrust case against Google read less like a serious legal prescription and more like an attempt to sabotage innovation—or perhaps the incoming Trump administration itself. By seeking to dismantle Google and force it to subsidize its competitors, the DOJ risks creating an economic disaster and hobble the development…
December 6, 2024
Our Digital Future Went Off-Course Under Biden; Can Trump Put Antitrust Back in Line?
President-elect Trump faces a pivotal choice: continue the Biden administration’s ill-advised antitrust crusade against America’s leading tech companies, or chart a more balanced course that lets customer choice foster invention and growth. The stakes are high. If the campaign against digital companies creating uniquely valuable products, sometimes by acquisition, is successful, it will do…
December 2, 2024
The MAGA Science Agenda Reveals America’s Future
The leader of the Republican Party and our country’s next president has tapped a pro-choice scion of the country’s most famous Democratic dynasty to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. In keeping with the bewildering dynamics of today’s negative partisanship, conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation have cheered the selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while liberals have…
November 22, 2024
The Case for a Smarter Antitrust Policy
As Donald Trump prepares to begin his second term, his administration must change the direction of America’s antitrust policy. Over the past four years, antitrust enforcement has become unmoored from its economic foundations, driven instead by ideological zeal and political opportunism. The result? A policy that leaves businesses in limbo, consumers worse off, and innovation at…
October 29, 2024
The Energy Permitting Reform Act Doesn’t Go Far Enough
This summer, Senators Joe Manchin and John Barrasso’s Energy Permitting Reform Act passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee by a 15-4 vote and the House of Representatives is now working on passing its own permitting reform. Both bills reflects a growing bipartisan consensus that after years of bottlenecks and delays to…