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Like many large progressive cities, Chicago receives its fair share of criticism for overbearing regulations and sclerotic government. It clocks in at number five on the list of large American cities where it is hardest to obtain a business permit. It has some of the highest commercial property tax and sales tax rates of any large city. And as with any overregulated locale, the burden of all this regulatory excess inevitably falls most heavily on the smallest businesses. In Chicago, mobile food

9/26/1986: Chief Justice Warren Burger retires. Chief Justice Warren BurgerThe post Today in Supreme Court History: September 26, 1986 appeared first on Reason Magazine.

President Donald Trump was excited about a new military operation. "Earlier this morning," he announced on the afternoon of September 2, 2025, "U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility." That attack should "serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America," he said. "BEWARE! Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!!!!!!!!" Those 11 excla

The post Open Thread appeared first on Reason Magazine.

After being blocked in his attempt to keep CNN out of the White House altogether (including the main press briefing room), President Trump has excluded CNN from traveling with him on Air Force One. This, though, he is quite likely allowed to do. As you likely recall, last year Trump kicked AP out of the Oval Office press pool, because the AP had refused (in my view correctly refused) to call the Gulf of Mexico "the Gulf of America." A D.C. Circuit panel majority, to oversimplify slightly, conclu

The sun is setting shortly and I'm on the go, so my comments about the Missouri order will be brief. First, the Court only addressed standing in a footnote. I am still not convinced any of the parties had standing but at least 5 members of the Court disagreed, including the Court's leading proceduralist. Second, the per curiam noted that Justice Kavanaugh's prior orders had no noted dissents. I am still not convinced all three of these orders were unanimous. It may be that Justices Thomas and Al

What started as a "narrow constitutional exception" now "threatens to swallow the protection it was meant only to qualify," according to an amicus brief filed last week by the Cato Institute asking the Supreme Court to reconsider a petition about warrantless searches of Americans at the border.  The petitioner is George Anibowei, a Texas-based immigration attorney who has, on five separate occasions when traveling internationally, been stopped and had his phone searched at the border by federal

Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice. "Technology may make surveillance more convenient, but it does not make the Fourth Amendment's protections any less important." So said IJ legislative counsel Alasdair Whitney this week at a congressional hearing on Flock and other automated license plate readers. Read all about it at The Hill. And then maybe check out our model legislation on the topic. New on the Short

A small Christian college founded by controversial, self-described "libertarian theocrat" and "Christian nationalist" pastor Doug Wilson claims in a new lawsuit that officials in Moscow, Idaho, are using the city's zoning code to discriminate against its religious mission.  In a complaint filed in federal court in early September, New Saint Andrews College argues that Moscow officials have imposed on it a long list of permitting requirements, use restrictions, and parking mandates that apply to

From Judge Gregory Katsas, joined by Judge Neomi Rao, in today's D.C. Circuit decision in Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War: To succeed on such a First Amendment retaliation claim, the plaintiff or petitioner must prove that (1) it engaged in protected speech, (2) the government took materially adverse action against it, and (3) the speech caused the materially adverse action Anthropic has satisfied the first and second prongs of this test, but not the third. The First Amendment squarely p

From Judge Colleen McMahon in Freeman v. Deebs-Elkenaney (S.D.N.Y.) Monday: My order requires no clarification. It is perfectly clear. Counsel for Ms. Freeman do not get to set the rules. Ms. Freeman will answer EVERY question that is put to her—whether or not the question was asked previously. If Ms. Freeman asserts attorney client privilege with respect to a question that was not previously asked, you are to call my chambers immediately to obtain a ruling. If I have to rule on more than one fr

It seems that automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are constantly in the news. The roadside cameras—often called "Flock cameras" after Flock Safety, the company that manufactures most of them—capture images of license plates and store them in a database that can then be searched by police. While the technology is not new, it has come under intense scrutiny as numerous police officers across the country have been caught misusing the cameras. Two U.S. senators from opposite sides of the aisle a

From Azhar v. Choudhri, decided today by the Texas Supreme Court: A man who has lived in Houston since he was three years old, who built several businesses in Texas, and who accumulated over $100 million in community assets during a Texas-domiciled marriage, traveled to Pakistan to obtain a unilateral divorce from his wife. He did so without her knowledge or consent, using an Islamic legal mechanism called talaq. His wife was not served with process. She was not heard. She received no notice at

The killing of Renée Good, who was gunned down on a Minneapolis street in January by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer, was a tragedy. The fact that Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed her, has not faced any accountability for his actions—firing his gun wildly through the window of Good's vehicle as she tried to flee a confrontation that ICE officers had initiated and escalated—remains shameful. This week, that story gained a new, heartbreaking angle when Good's mother, Do

The war in Yemen has come full circle. In 2015, a proxy conflict broke out, with the United States backing Saudi Arabia against Iranian-backed rebels there. After years of a brutal slog, in 2022, the two sides agreed to a fragile truce. It broke down this summer as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran turned into a regional conflict. Earlier this week, President Donald Trump ordered a U.S. attack on Yemen, but pulled back at the last minute. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress have been pushing the adminis

Two University of Mississippi students are dead, and investigators found packages of kratom at both scenes. Toxicology results are still pending, and authorities have not determined whether kratom contributed to either death. That hasn't stopped news outlets from blaming the deaths on "kratom overdoses." A September 23 headline from KGW8 in Portland, Oregon, read "2 Ole Miss students found dead in suspected kratom overdose." The same day, WKYT in Lexington, Kentucky, published a story headlined

Thag put sharp rock on stick. Discovers "quagmire." The post Caveman Invents War appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Some excerpts from today's long majority opinion by Judge Gregory Katsas, joined by Judge Neomi Rao, in today's D.C. Circuit decision in Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War: This case arises from a decision by the Department of War to exclude Claude, an artificial-intelligence product developed by petitioner Anthropic PBC, from its supply chain under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018. The Department made this decision after Anthropic refused to relax contractual prohi

In a bipartisan Senate hearing on Wednesday, Lindsey Isaacs described her harrowing legal battle stemming from the increasingly unpopular Flock Safety's automatic license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance network. But without proper police accountability and oversight, law enforcement mistakes like the ones experienced by Isaacs are bound to repeat.  After a normal day of cooking and errands on October 4, 2025, Isaacs testified that she franticly woke up at approximately 4:45 a.m. The police were

"You can shove it with your culture wars," said Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa, describing her mindset toward Gov. Greg Abbott when interviewed by Politico. Hinojosa has been making the case that her challenge against three-termer Abbott will be successful because she's gone "back to basics" and reflected voters' concerns about the economy instead of growing distracted by the culture warring that has for so long co-opted much of her party. "We're not doing the culture war