Is Trump trying to punish Canada for the wildfires? Yesterday, the president signed an order imposing a 50 percent tariff on Canada, saying that our neighbor up north wrongly discriminated against three American industries: cars, dairy, and booze.

This seems like not only a bad idea but possibly a fake justification. Wildfire smoke has recently migrated across much of the Midwest and Northeast of the United States, forcing us indoors during summertime. My hunch is that Trump is possibly trying to punish Canada for its poor wildfire management that's been pissing Americans off—for multiple summers in a row, now—and this tracks, given that Trump met with Canada's prime minister at the FIFA World Cup this past weekend and told him to get those fires under control. (Senior administration officials who spoke to Semafor claim these tariffs are not related to the fires.)

"The new 50% tariffs would exclude energy products, potash, fish and critical minerals, but they would include goods that had previously been protected from import taxes by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA," reports NPR. "That 2020 trade pact was not renewed by the U.S., triggering a new set of negotiations that could run until 2036. The White House said in a fact sheet that the tariffs would go into effect in 30 days, meaning there is time for negotiations as Trump has not always followed through on his announced tax hikes on imports."

The tariffs would hit cement, dairy, furniture, paper, clothing, swimming pools, wine, and plywood. The president is using "Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which permits a president to impose punitive tariffs of up to 50% against trading partners deemed to have discriminated against U.S. goods," reports Reuters. This is "the law's first known usage in nearly a century of existence."

The tariffs will almost certainly be challenged in court—like all the others Trump has tried to impose.

We're becoming more like China: "The phone is always right there, whenever and wherever, offering a perfect form of mindless entertainment when your mind is on so many other things," writes Xochitl Gonzalez for The Atlantic. "Enter: the micro-drama. These soapy shows are made up of minute-long episodes meant to be watched vertically on your phone. They're fast-moving and designed to hook viewers quickly. Relying heavily on tropes, they are more telenovela than Scorsese. Recently, one show titled Screen Time, from Issa Rae's production company, garnered 75 million views in a week—on TikTok and on TikTok's micro-drama app, PineDrama. The series, which has 57 parts, tells the story of two couples on a double date that descends into chaos after a mysterious figure hacks their personal devices and forces them to reveal their secrets to each other. An estimated 28 million people are watching shows on PineDrama, and it's one of many micro-drama platforms. Who are these viewers? Many are women, many are Gen Z, and many are people of color."

They've already caught on in China, Gonzalez reminds us, where producers have been even clearer about the degree to which they're making these mini-telenovelas to capture the attention of poor people. And they're pretty much nothing more than slop: "The rise of micro-dramas coincides with the rise of AI, and in China, more than 95 percent of the micro-dramas released early this year were AI-generated," writes Gonzalez. "Screen Time is a human-led affair—human actors filmed by camerapeople. But PineDrama offers AI shows too, and they may become the norm here as well."

It's true that we've always had garbage TV products. But, increasingly, we have mini TVs—and casinos, and porn machines, and shopping malls—in our pockets, and very little ability to self-regulate. Maybe I'm a little too Jonathan Haidt–pilled, but I fear what the future looks like when we fail to safeguard kids' attention spans and they are ushered into an adult world full of slop.

Scenes from New York: Checking in on my bougiest neighbors…

Unintentionally heartbreaking. Doing it *to this degree* is reserved for the ultra-wealthy, but *plenty* of upper-middle-class families in big cities like New York do a version of this. When so much of parenting & household-management is professionalized:
-the standards ratchet… pic.twitter.com/KtPfAlnAQf

— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) July 20, 2026

QUICK HITS

• Someone stop the kids, they're Nixonmaxxing! reports The Wall Street Journal: "Watergate has long been considered one of the biggest political scandals in American history. After five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972, investigators uncovered links to Nixon's re-election campaign and an extensive effort by the White House to cover it up. The scandal led to Nixon's resignation, landed some of his closest advisers in jail and ushered in a far-reaching legislative crackdown on executive overreach. Now, Nixon is being recast as a forerunner of 'America First' by a new generation of conservatives: a combative president loathed by the press and besieged by investigators who was brought down by the same establishment they believe targeted President Trump."
• "Frank Bisignano, the head of the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration, sits atop two government organizations that store vast reams of sensitive financial data about every taxpayer," reports The Wall Street Journal. "More than a decade ago, he was co-chief operating officer at JPMorgan Chase, another perch that gave him visibility and authority over every part of a massive financial institution. At the bank, people familiar with the matter said, he spied on fellow executives—using his authority over the security department and position to access sensitive information and internal communications without an apparent business justification."
• "President Trump quietly denied nearly 6,000 clemency applications this month from people who mostly lacked political connections and had waited patiently in a queue while he awarded pardons and commutations to allies who had skipped the line," reports The New York Times. 

The post Punisher appeared first on Reason.com.

Today, Donald Trump announced plans to impose 50% tariffs on a wide range of Canadian imports to the United States:

President Trump is imposing 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian goods, from hockey equipment to alcoholic beverages, escalating the trade dispute between the two countries.

The new tariffs — laid out in a series of proclamations signed by Mr. Trump on Monday — are set to take effect on Aug. 19. The White House accused Canada of "unreasonable, unequal, and discriminatory actions" by imposing tariffs or import restrictions on certain American goods, some of which began after Mr. Trump's initial round of tariffs on Canada last year.

In retaliation for last year's Canadian tariffs on certain U.S. auto imports, the Trump administration slapped tariffs on certain Canadian electronics, hockey equipment, honey, flower bulbs, down feathers, plywood, cowhides, jewelry and other goods. The White House also imposed tariffs on Canadian beer, wine, liquor and milk, in response to Canadian boycotts of U.S. alcohol in response to last year's tariffs and longstanding Canadian quotas on dairy imports.

Goods that flow across the border under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA — a trade deal inked during Mr. Trump's first term — will not be exempt from the new tariffs, a senior administration official told reporters Monday.

The new tariffs are based on Section 338 of the notorious 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff legislation, which severely exacerbated the Great Depression. As Philip Zelikow of the conservative Hoover Institution explained in a guest post here at the VC blog, last year, Section 338 was long-ago superseded by new legislation enacted in 1962 and 1974, and is therefore defunct. For that reason, it has not been used since at least the 1940s.

Georgetown University trade policy scholar Peter Harrell summarizes additional useful points about the new tariffs on Twitter, including some additional legal objections to them. Should the new tariffs come into effect, there will likely be legal challenges, and those challenges will richly deserve to prevail.

I would add that this is just the latest of a series of efforts by Trump to usurp congressional tariff authority and impose harmful and dangerous trade restrictions that damage the US economy and poison relations with our allies and trading partners, of which Canada is one of the most important. That includes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court in February, in a case I helped bring, the  Section 122 tariffs  invalidated by the US Court of International Trade, his massive planned Section 301 tariffs, and - most recently - his threat to impose tariffs in Canada in response to wildfires there. Courts should continue to reject these dangerous power grabs and affronts to the rule of law.

I may well have more to say about these new tariffs later, especially if they end up getting implemented, as currently planned.

The post Trump Plans to Impose New Illegal Tariffs on Canada appeared first on Reason.com.

Penny Quinteros appeals the district court's dismissal of her third amended complaint asserting various claims based on harassment Quinteros says she suffered while playing defendants' online video game, Forge of Empires….

First, a bit of the factual backstory from the district court decision, by Judge Ricardo Martinez (W.D. Wash.) (some record links added):

For purposes of this Motion, the Court will accept all facts in the latest Amended Complaint as true. The Court will briefly summarize the relevant facts….

Plaintiff, using the moniker "TwoCents," played Forge of Empires "almost every day without interruption from 2016–2019 for over 10,000 hours of game play."

Plaintiff maintains that the game is psychologically addictive and that she became psychologically dependent or addicted. Plaintiff alleges that instead of warning players of the addictive nature of the game, InnoGames exploited players with "micro-transactions." Relying on representations made by InnoGames that the game was fair, Plaintiff sought to excel at the game. Her dependence on the game and/or desire to progress resulted in her spending over $9,000 on micro-transactions.

Around July of 2016, Plaintiff began experiencing gender-based harassment from other players, including some she alleges "were secretly InnoGames moderators, senior moderators, and community managers." These players and/or "staff members" accused Plaintiff of being a man and started to solicit Plaintiff's online friends and co-players to no longer engage with her socially or for game activities. Plaintiff pleads:

These other players, and secret InnoGames staff moderators, told the plaintiff that she had to prove she was a woman by sending a photograph of her breasts to them. They told her this was the only way they would stop harassing her. The plaintiff fell victim to this manipulation, and relying on statements from InnoGames and Julie Blan that the game was fun, fair, and the rules were enforced equally, sent a picture of her breasts (in a somewhat see-thru bra) to what she considered a friend and neutral third-party player, known as Gensmoky, via a screenshot link.

{Plaintiff alleges she registered a copyright for this photo of "her breasts in a somewhat see-thru bra" three years later, on September 3, 2019. The photo has been filed as an exhibit by Defendants. The Court denied a motion to seal this exhibit. That Order described the image as "a photograph depicting Plaintiff Ms. Quinteros' upper torso in an opaque, teal sports bra covering her entire chest." Where a sports bra would naturally dip down in front, Plaintiff tucked in a note covering all exposed skin. The note reads, "fuck off [unintelligible] Macy, DD, and the [unintelligible] Love, TwoC[ents]."}

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants were involved in continued harassment through their efforts as moderators of the game's chat feature. Statements made by other players to Plaintiff included "'what you are is a dumb sluuuuut," "butthurt dumb ****biotch," and "Inno won't ban 2C [TwoCents] because she keeps sending them photos." The names or monikers of the harassing players/staff members are not alleged. Plaintiff alleges she has been targeted by unnamed moderators "because she doesn't display 'typical female' behavior." A game moderator accused Plaintiff of having a "vulgar upbringing." Other game moderators accused Plaintiff of "drama" or allowing her emotions to run high.

Plaintiff believes that the above behavior occurred, at least in part, because InnoGames advertised the game with "sexually explicit advertisements" which "created an unsafe environment for women players."

Plaintiff reported her continued harassment to InnoGames and at least some of the individual Defendants. Plaintiff believes that the harassment violated InnoGames' Terms and Conditions for playing Forge of Empires, but that Defendants failed to prevent the harassment. Plaintiff alleges that instead of acting to protect her, Defendants discriminated against her, enforcing rules disproportionately against her because of her gender, changing rules, and enforcing certain rules against her alone.

In reporting this harassment, Plaintiff, for whatever reason, also engaged in harassing and offensive language. This is demonstrated in her own attachment to her first Amended Complaint. Examples of harassment have previously been highlighted by Defendants:

Among the profane attacks Plaintiff made on InnoGames moderators and managers, were statements such as "F**k that, give me the number you dirty mother f***ing rancid p***y licking f**k" (asterisks added). Plaintiff threatened to change her username to 'Pancea3 s**ks d' …" (asterisks added). In perhaps her most profane and offensive attack on support staff, Plaintiff wrote "YOU are a dirty filthy b**ch. You f**king get down on your knees and s**k the rancid d**ks of other players. Or let them shove their fists up you're a**s because you don't have a single brain-cell left. Apparently there is quite seriously a thing as being "f**ked stupid." You're living proof." (asterisks added).

This is language directed at Innogames support staff—not other players—through an online customer support system. Responding to that last "down on your knees" example, Innogames support staff stated "[w]e have, repeatedly, asked you not to curse or verbally abuse our team…. whilst as a customer you have a right to service, you don't have a right to verbally abuse our team under any circumstances …. To draw a real world comparison, if you walked in to your local grocery store and verbally abused staff, the management has the right to remove you from their premises."

Eight minutes later, Plaintiff wrote, "I have not, once verbally abused any member of your team. On the other hand you have, repeatedly asked me to modify my mode of address to a form of power as a method of silencing my rights as a woman. [citation to a Dame Magazine article]…. This is your final warning." The argument between Plaintiff and customer support continues for several pages.

Some excerpts from the Ninth Circuit's analysis:

[1.] Quinteros's negligence per se claim … alleges that an InnoGames employee was able to "access … information" about Quinteros, including a photograph, and "release it to third-party players." This claim necessarily relies on a vicarious-liability theory because an unknown third-party moderator, rather than any defendant, engaged in the allegedly wrongful conduct of accessing and distributing the photograph of Quinteros. The vicarious-liability theory fails, however, because Quinteros does not allege that the moderator was "acting on [InnoGames's] behalf." Under Washington law, if an employee "steps aside from the employer's purposes in order to pursue a personal objective of the employee," as Quinteros alleges the moderator did here, then "the employer is not vicariously liable." The same result follows if the moderator was InnoGames's agent rather than its employee.

Quinteros's negligent-supervision claim also fails. Although an employer has a duty to "prevent the tasks, premises, or instrumentalities entrusted to an employee from endangering others," it is "not liable for negligent supervision of an employee unless the employer knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known, that the employee presented a risk of danger to others." …  Because the moderator who allegedly wronged Quinteros was unknown to InnoGames, Quinteros does not plausibly allege that InnoGames knew or should have known of any "dangerous tendencies" of that particular moderator. Quinteros's failure-to-protect claim fails for similar reasons….

Finally, the statements by defendants Julie Blan and Richard Stephenson to Quinteros "that they would enforce the rules equally against all players in order to prevent [her] harassment," did not create an affirmative duty to rescue Quinteros from other players' conduct. Without more, these statements by defendants at most reiterated game policy and expressed an intent to investigate. They do not plausibly amount to the voluntary undertaking of a special duty to "aid an individual in need."

[2.] The district court correctly determined that Quinteros has not stated a defamation claim. Quinteros alleges that a moderator disclosed an "intimate image" she had sent to another player "for the express purpose of creating sexually explicit and harassing comments against Plaintiff" and also "directly" made harassing statements. Even if dissemination of an altered image may support a defamation claim, Quinteros does not allege that the "intimate image" was altered. Any statement made through its disclosure thus could not have been false. Nor can any negative implication the image conveyed support Quinteros's claim, because [under Washington law] "a plaintiff may not base a defamation claim on the negative implication of true statements." Yeakey v. Hearst Commc'ns, Inc. (Wash. Ct. App. 2010).

Quinteros further alleges that the disclosure of the image prompted harassing and defamatory statements, but as the district court recognized, she pleaded no facts about who made the statements or when, where, or to whom they were made. As for the statements allegedly made by Blan and Stephenson that Quinteros was "crazy" or "a liar," those were not actionable because their audience and context suggest that they were "expressions of personal opinion," and they did not imply undisclosed facts.

And some excerpts from a 2024 Ninth Circuit decision at an earlier stage of the case (this part was endorsed by Judges Mark Bennett, Jennifer Sung, and Holly Thomas):

[3.] Because Quinteros fails to state a claim for negligent conduct, or plausibly allege any physical injury stemming directly from Defendants' conduct, she cannot state a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress.

[4.] Likewise, Quinteros fails to state a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Such a claim requires showing conduct "so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community." Here, Quinteros only alleges that Defendants inconsistently applied certain rules to her, helped her alleged harassers ban her from the game, and attempted to cover up the misconduct of moderators. None of these allegations rise to the level of outrageous conduct.

[5.] The district court properly dismissed Quinteros's gender discrimination in public accommodations claim …. The district court correctly found Quinteros's allegations {that her gender was a substantial factor causing the alleged discrimination} … were vague and conclusory.

[6.] Quinteros also fails to meet the heightened pleading standards for fraud. Here, Quinteros's main allegation is that Defendants represented that game rules on the Forge of Empires platform would be applied fairly when they were applied unfairly. However, she fails to allege with particularity what specific statements Defendants made to her, who made these statements, when, and how she was deceived.

[7.] Quinteros fails to state a claim for unfair business practices under Washington's Consumer Protection Act (CPA). A private plaintiff bringing a CPA claim must show that their lawsuit would serve the public interest. Washington courts consider a number of factors to assess whether a claim concerns the public interest, including whether acts: (1) were carried out in the course of business, (2) were part of a pattern or generalized course of conduct, (3) were repeated prior to the involvement of the plaintiff, (4) created a "real and substantial potential for repetition," and (5) if the act is a single transaction, whether many consumers were affected. Applying [these] factors to Quinteros's complaint, she fails to allege that her CPA claims concern the public interest.

[8.] Quinteros fails to state a products liability claim based on a design defect…. While she identifies certain features of Forge of Empires which she asserts are addictive and harmful, she fails to allege specific, factual allegations that are sufficient to show that the game was, as designed, unreasonably addictive [and thus not reasonably safe]….

[9.] [As to her] breach of contract claim, … Quinteros fails to plausibly allege the existence of a contract between her and Defendants, which imposed an obligation on Defendants to refrain from transmitting images or engaging in verbal harassment. Likewise, none of the allegations in the complaint represent that Quinteros is a third-party beneficiary of an agreement between Defendants and other users….

[10.] To make out a promissory estoppel claim, a promise must be "clear and definite" and include "manifestation of intention to act or refrain from acting in a specified way, so made as to justify a promisee in understanding that a commitment has been made." Quinteros fails to allege a clear and definite promise. She alleges only that she "relied on [unspecified] statements of fairness" for her promissory estoppel claims….

[11.] Quinteros alleges the copyright violation here took place before she registered the photograph in question with the U.S. Copyright Office. However, Quinteros "is entitled to statutory damages and attorneys' fees only to the extent infringement occurred after the work was registered." Because Quinteros fails to allege any other damages arising from the alleged copyright infringement with any specificity, [her copyright] claim was properly dismissed.

[12.] Quinteros's gender discrimination in employment claim fails because it … merely asserts "[u]pon information and belief, the reason [she] was not hired [was] because she was a woman[.]" Quinteros alleges no underlying facts to support this bald assertion, and without more, she does not elevate her claim from the speculative to the plausible.

Friday's Ninth Circuit decision also denied Quinteros's motion to retroactively seal and proceed under a pseudonym, partly because those are rare exceptions to the rule of openness, and partly because "[t]his case has been proceeding publicly since 2019, and Quinteros has identified no additional threat to her privacy if it remains unsealed and she remains named."

I asked Quinteros whether she had a statement, and she passed along the following:

Federal law, 15 U.S.C. § 6851, provides relief to victims of intimate image distribution and allows those victims to remain anonymous in lawsuits against the perpetrators. Unfortunately, the Ninth Circuit failed to extend this protection to my case which was filed before the law was enacted. It is disappointing that I am again forced to choose between protecting my reputation or protecting my rights.

As I see it, the photo image filed in the district court by defendants, which they state is a copy of the deposit image provided by plaintiff to the U.S. Copyright Office, does not appear to be an "intimate visual depiction" under the relevant part of the § 6851 definition:

The term "intimate visual depiction"-
(A) means a visual depiction … that depicts-
(i) the uncovered genitals, pubic area, anus, or post-pubescent female nipple of an identifiable individual ….

But Quinteros's argument seems to be, to quote her Ninth Circuit brief,

The court further states that it would dismiss the additional claims due to the defendant's argument that the image in question could not be considered an intimate image. Ms. Quinteros again argued that the picture evidence in question was inadmissible as it did not meet the best evidence rule and was submitted by defendants on a motion to dismiss, but her arguments were ignored by the district court. The district court stated, "Although not strictly necessary for dismissal of this claim, the Court finds that Plaintiff's pleadings as to this image do not match any reasonable interpretation of the image, which is in the record. The image does not show a see-through bra. Defendants also assert that Plaintiff fails to plead damages stemming from the breach of contract." Plaintiff objected to this image being relied on, and that objection was never addressed. The original image does show a see-thru bra and a visible areola, which is the "best evidence" to rely on, not the PDF copy that has been degraded in integrity so much that it has "fuzzed out" the necessary detail. Either way, whether that bra is see-thru or opaque is a question of fact that is not permissible to be decided on a motion to dismiss.

Note that, while factual disputes are indeed generally not resolved on motions to dismiss, but are supposed to be saved for the jury (or the judge in a bench trial), factfinding questions related to preliminary motions—such as motions to seal or motions to proceed under a pseudonym—are indeed a matter for the judge to resolve at the time of the motion.

Alan Behr (Phillips Nizer LLP) and Diana Breaux (Summit Law) represent defendants.

The post Lawsuit Over Alleged Harassment in <i>Forge of Empires</i> Game Thrown Out appeared first on Reason.com.

A federal judge in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, sentenced police officer Jaron Taylor to three years of probation and $38,670 in restitution for his part in an auto insurance fraud scheme. Prosecutors said Taylor worked with other officers to file false insurance claims for stolen or damaged vehicles. They helped each other by writing fake police reports, staging vehicle thefts, and using their positions as police officers to make the fraudulent claims appear legitimate so they could collect insurance payouts and avoid paying loans on vehicles worth less than they owed.

The post Brickbat: Friends Helping Friends appeared first on Reason.com.

In the course of a post criticizing the Hawaii Supreme Court's recent "Aloha Spirit" decision interpreting the Hawaii state constitution, co-blogger Josh Blackman suggests that "Red Sox Spirit" might be relevant to interpreting the Massachusetts constitution. It's surprising that it took a New York fan like Josh to see it. But Red Sox Spirit is indeed relevant! Even though I myself didn't see it, previously, despite growing up in Massachusetts.

Red Sox Spirit is all about protecting liberty and resisting tyranny, especially that of the self-proclaimed Evil Empire of Baseball. David "Big Papi" Ortiz - the greatest-ever exponent of Red Sox Spirit summarized it best: "This is our f-ing city and nobody gonna dictate our freedom":

Under the "history and tradition" approach to constitutional interpretation applied by the US Supreme Court in the 2022 Bruen Second Amendment case, the Massachusetts Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with that principle! It's certainly a crucial element of the state's history and tradition.

Resisting tyranny is central to the Massachusetts constitutional tradition, at its best. The American Revolution began in Massachusetts, in response to British imperial tyranny, and its many violations of liberty and property rights. A few years later, in 1783, Massachusetts became the first state to use its constitution to abolish slavery, when the state supreme court held that it violated the constitutional provision mandating that all men are "free and equal" (Vermont had abolished slavery in 1777, but it was not yet a state at the time).

Today, the state would do well to apply the Red Sox Spirit of constitutional law to curb rent control and exclusionary zoning, which threaten constitutional property rights, and create housing shortages that make it impossible for many to enjoy the liberty the state offers. And, as Josh suggests in his post, protection of the right to bear arms is also central to Red Sox Spirit (even if the state's supreme court has ruled otherwise). After all, the Revolution began because the British sought to confiscate arms kept by the Lexington and Concord minutemen, and those privately owned weapons enabled the people to effectively resist the British and eventually defeat them.

The proper application of Red Sox Spirit to state constitutional law isn't always clear. But, when it doubt, ask what Big Papi would do! And then strike another blow for freedom.

On a slightly more serious note, I think "history and tradition" is a badly flawed approach to interpreting the federal Constitution. Conventional "original meaning" originalism is generally better. But what is best for federal constitutional isn't always the right approach for state constitutions. State courts might be justified in using different interpretive methods than federal courts. And, as jurists ranging from liberal Supreme Court Justice William Brennan to prominent conservative Judge Jeffrey Sutton have argued, states often can and should use their constitutions to protect rights more broadly than the Supreme Court's interpretation of the federal Constitution. For example, many did that in response to the Supreme Court's badly flawed property rights ruling in Kelo v. City of New London (2005). Josh's invocation of Red Sox Spirit is on the right track, there!

I think Josh is right that the Guarantee Clause, which guarantees a "republican form of government" to each state, is justiciable, and should not be considered a nonjusticiable "political question."  The political question doctrine is generally a mess. And there is no good reason to think courts are somehow less capable of determining what a republican government is than they are of interpreting any number of other somewhat imprecise provisions of the Constitution, such as the Necessary and Proper Clause, or the Fourth Amendment's requirement that searches must be "reasonable."

Unlike Josh, I am skeptical that Hawaii's gun control policies violate that Clause. The original meaning of the Guarantee Clause probably imposes only fairly minimal requirements, perhaps not much more than that the legislative and executive branches be controlled by elected officials, and that there be no hereditary monarchy and aristocracy. After all, most in the Founding era apparently thought slavery and an extremely limited franchise were compatible with the Clause. Some Hawaii gun restrictions do violate the Second Amendment, however, including those recently invalidated by the Supreme Court. States can protect rights more than the federal Constitution does, but not less.

And it may be that federal armed coercion of states - like that recently undertaken in Minnesota during "Operation Metro Surge" - is also incompatible with the Guarantee Clause. If anything undermines republican government, it's usurpation of state authority at literal gunpoint. But maybe we don't need to rely on the Guarantee Clause here, given that the same result can be reached under the currently justiciable Tenth Amendment.

Unlike Josh, I think that the meaning of "invasion" in the federal Constitution is justiciable. For more, see my article on that subject, where I explain why enforcing the correct definition (a military attack, not illegal migration or drug smuggling) is crucial to protecting the separation of powers and preventing both state and federal governments from abusing civil liberties.

In sum, Josh may (however unintentionally) be onto something with the "Red Sox Spirit"!

UPDATE: I have made a few minor revisions to this post, including correcting my initial misunderstanding about Josh Blackman's position on the justiciability of "invasion."

The post "Red Sox Spirit" and Constitutional Theory appeared first on Reason.com.

A recent Echelon Insights poll finds that the "free market economy" is more popular than "capitalism." 53% of respondents say they have a "very" or "somewhat" favorable view of the former, while only 12% have an very or somewhat unfavorable view. By contrast, "capitalism" is viewed very or somewhat favorably by 49%, while the two unfavorable categories combine for 29% (more than the double percentage for "free market economy").

Other polls show similar results. For example, a recent Gallup survey finds 54% have a positive  view of "capitalism," but 81% say the same of "free enterprise." A December 2025 Napolitan News Service poll conducted by prominent conservative pollster Scott Rasmussen found 64% of respondents have a favorable view of the "free market," but only 53% say that of "capitalism." A Reason-Rupe poll reached a similar result back in 2015. In Echelon and some other polls, "capitalism" polls unusually badly among younger people, while "free market" mostly does not.

Such variation in responses based on question wording isn't surprising. It occurs with respect to many issues. In a world of widespread political ignorance, many people don't have carefully thought out views on a variety of issues, and can easily be influenced by the way questions are worded. Many are also confused in other ways. Rasmussen's poll even found that 48% of those who have favorable opinion of "socialism" also have a favorable opinion of "capitalism"! Yet rejection of capitalism is a central element of socialist ideology. If capitalism works well, that strongly implies socialism does not (and vice versa).

It is not entirely surprising that "free market" generates more favorable reactions than "capitalism." The former has positive intuitive associations with freedom and choice. The latter has associations with "capital" and "capitalists," which words make many of us think of greedy, selfish business interests and rich people. It is no accident that "capitalism" was first used and popularized by nineteenth century socialists!

In a better world, people's reactions to ideas should not be so susceptible to variations in wording. But in the world we actually live in, libertarians and other free market advocates (notice I did not say "capitalism advocates"!) should take note. As much as possible, we should use "free market" and similar wording (e.g. - "free enterprise"), while abjuring "capitalism." I myself have largely been following that practice for many years. I urge others to do the same.

The post The "Free Market" is More Popular than "Capitalism" appeared first on Reason.com.