Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by staff

“A half-century after the ESA’s enactment, regulations have generated endless conflict but little species recovery, precisely because they infringe property rights, ignore the role of states, and prioritize red tape over voluntary recovery efforts. To date, the Service has recovered only 3 percent of listed species (and far fewer species than it expected). A new approach is necessary to change that.” (12/22/25)

https://www.perc.org/2025/12/22/the-endangered-species-act-should-prioritize-species-recovery-not-red-tape/

Source: The Daily Economy
by Walter Donway

“State regulation of AI is not, by itself, an ideal situation. We are indeed seeing 50 variations of concern, from the merely paternalistic to the openly fearful. Some states worry about algorithmic bias, others about deepfakes, still others about data privacy or labor displacement. Several are experimenting with rules requiring disclosure of training data, transparency of model decision-making, or permission requirements for models above certain compute thresholds. This is confusing. It is also federalism working as intended. The states are laboratories of democracy, not subordinate offices waiting for federal consolidation. The administration’s answer — federal preemption followed by federal regulation — is not a remedy. It is a cure worse than the disease.” (12/22/25)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-nationalization-of-ai-threatens-innovation-and-the-american-mind/

Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman

“[W]hile Trump’s gaslighting on prices is a natural and appropriate target for critics, we shouldn’t forget that the main goal of his policy agenda wasn’t lower prices, it was job creation. Specifically, Trump and his economic advisers claimed — and may even have believed — that they would create lots of manly jobs for manly men. They would revive American manufacturing, they claimed, by unilaterally imposing huge tariffs and thereby breaking all our international agreements (and, whatever the Supreme Court may say, U.S. law). They would create mining and construction jobs, they claimed, by killing renewable energy and gutting environmental protection in order to promote fossil fuels. They would deport millions of undocumented workers which would result, they claimed, in a job boom for native-born workers. … even on its own absurd terms, the MAGA jobs strategy has been an abject failure — as abject as Trump’s failure to bring down prices.” (12/22/25)

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/magas-manly-manufacturing-misfire

Source: Reason
by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

“Burdensome food labeling mandates were once the province of Democrats, who pushed for calorie count requirements on restaurant menus and insisted packaged food must feature warnings about genetically modified ingredients and trans fats. Now it’s Republicans leading the charge — with equally foolish results. … Seed oils have become a major target of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, whose figurehead is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ‘Seed oils are one of the driving causes of the obesity epidemic,’ according to Kennedy, who has accused fast-food restaurants that use seed oils of poisoning Americans. But among nutrition experts, opinions about seed oils and health are much more mixed, with plenty suggesting they’re fine in moderation, are better than alternatives, or are unwisely treated as a unit despite the fact that different seed oils have different properties and effects on health.” (12/22/25)

https://reason.com/2025/12/22/maha-mandates-food-labels/

Source: New York Post
by Wai Wah Chin

“Attention high-school seniors: Deadlines are coming up! Polish your dream-college applications, hit send, and hope the admissions game isn’t rigged with ‘race proxies’! To stay ahead of the curve, consider including your ‘subjective social status’ — what’s good enough for the governor of California should be good enough for admissions officers. Education gatekeepers are always hunting for fresh metrics to cherry-pick students, especially after the Supreme Court’s 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling banned racial preferences in college admissions. Some elite schools produced expected racial shifts post-SFFA, others amazingly kept racial proportions similar to pre-SFFA. Was this by feigning compliance using stealthier ‘socioeconomic status’ preferences? ‘Socioeconomic’ is deceptive. It sneaks in the term ‘economic’ to win over generous Americans who support helping those with genuine financial need. Then ‘socio’ takes over, shunting aside tax returns and bank statements apparently to favor racial outcomes.” (12/22/25)

https://nypost.com/2025/12/22/opinion/race-bait-to-skirt-the-law-colleges-incentivize-applicants-to-write-identity-essays/