Separation of Powers

Freelance is one of those delightful words that wears...

There are some statistics you force yourself to forget...

David Wulf was days away from starting production on a new movie—a romantic comedy set on a farm—when he got a voicemail from a Teamsters representative.

It can show up in your mail one day:...

There’s something quintessentially American about a lone man driving...

When CODA won Best Picture at the 2022 Academy Awards, viewers were surprised. CODA is a quiet film about a deaf fishing family in Massachusetts. It stars an unknown lead actress and was made for under $10 million—a paltry budget, by Hollywood standards. Yet it beat out slick, star-studded movies like Dune, The Power of the Dog, and Don’t Look Up.

From the moment President Joe Biden announced the student loan forgiveness program on August 24, 2022, it set off alarm bells.

When environmentalists celebrate the 50-year impact of the Clean Water Act, they talk about what the law means for animals and plant life. The CWA, they say, has helped fish, birds, and turtles thrive in America’s waterways.

In the late 1970s, two sociologists asked: Where had all the 1960s radical activists—the countercultural voices who clamored for a revolution—ended up in the seventies?

“Somebody must have slandered Josef K.,” Franz Kafka writes in the opening line of The Trial, “for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.” Josef K. spends the novel in a futile (and ultimately fatal) quest to learn from a mindless bureaucracy what his supposed crime is and how he can prove his innocence. At one point, a priest tells Josef K., “It is not necessary to accept everything as true. One must only accept it as necessary.” The Environmental Protection Agency has adopted this same stance in the case of Sackett v. EPA, which has now spanned 15 years and gone to the Supreme Court twice, most recently in October.

Ask your average environmental activist about their impression of commercial sea fishing and you’re likely to hear about turtles caught in plastic soda can rings or dolphins trapped in drift nets.

At Goodwood Brewing, the food is comforting, the beers come in flights, and the atmosphere immediately makes you feel like a regular. “I’m in the hospitality industry,” says Ted Mitzlaff, CEO of Goodwood Brewing & Spirits. “There’s nothing I love more than providing food, safety, and fun for my patrons.” The growing company has three locations in Kentucky and is adding a fourth. Their Louisville taproom hosts live music every weekend, including a Saturday afternoon “Bluegrass Jam,” where anyone is invited to bring an instrument, pull up a seat, and join in. Wednesdays are board game and bingo nights. Kids are welcome in the taproom. Sometimes Goodwood even hosts yoga classes, where they serve “beermosas.” “This place has personality and funk.” - Vyvian, Yelp review, Louisville Goodwood started with beer. “We were kind of at the forefront of the craft beer movement,” Ted explains.

America is suffering through a crisis for which there is no easy fix. The president is frustrated: The Supreme Court keeps knocking down his initiatives, dismissing them as unconstitutional expansions of federal power.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated when the Great Depression was in full swing. Many Americans felt as if the country was months—if not days—away from breaking under the weight.

Woodrow Wilson spent most of his life in academia penning books about public administration.

It must have pained Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. to utter those words when he testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in 1939.

When Anne Duke flipped her cards after calling Phil Hellmuth in the 2004 World Series of Poker, the world discovered what she already knew—she was about to win the $2 million championship.

“It is not possible to experiment with a society and just drop the experiment whenever we choose. The experiment enters into the life of the society and never can be got out again.” —William Graham Sumner, Laissez-Faire

When government regulations for America’s coastline go too far, there are real consequences. As you’ve read, many beach homeowners can be forced to give up their property or acquiesce to absurd bureaucratic rules.

After the husband passed away from lung cancer, Kimberly Manor decided that she wanted to help other longtime smokers quit and hoped to prevent others from going through the pain she experienced. Kimberly owns and operates Moose Jooce in Lake, Michigan, a store that sells vaping products. These devices, sometimes known more generally as “electronic nicotine delivery” products, provide Kimberly’s customers with a real alternative to smoking, one that many studies and testimonials have suggested could be a much safer alternative.

The English Historian Lord Acton told us that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As those who have been battling government agencies for many years know, it can be added that administrative power corrupts both the governing and the governed just the same. As bureaucracies grow, so too does their reach. As their reach grows, freedoms diminish. And as freedoms wither, people are tempted to compromise their rights in order to survive.