When Asian American rock musician Simon Tam started his band, he never guessed it would bring him to the steps of the Supreme Court. But when the federal trademarking office rejected his band’s name, The Slants, saying it was offensive to Asian Americans, it set Simon on a long and frustrating path through the courts. Though it was a free speech case at its heart, Becket weighed in at the Supreme Court to add another layer of consideration—that the trademarking laws were dangerously close to the anti-blasphemy laws the U.S. fights abroad.

What’s in a Name?

Join us on #texasvaluesreport with special guest David Barton, Founder of  @wallbuilders  , & host Jonathan Saenz, President & Attorney for Texas Values, as they discuss the attacks on the Texas Ten Commandments Law.
 
💥 Texas Ten Commandments Attacked!! Please Help Now 
https://txvalues.org/%F0%9F%92%A5-texas-ten-commandments-attacked-please-help-now/
 
Breaking! Texas School District Bans Ten Commandments; AG Sues in Court
https://txvalues.org/breaking-texas-school-district-bans-ten-commandments-ag-sues-in-court/
 
Purchase Ten Commandments posters for your school district https://restoreamericanschools.org/
 
Learn more about the Texas Ten Commandments Law https://tencommandmentstexas.com/
 
Learn more about WallBuilders https://wallbuilders.com/
 
Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton Sues Galve­ston ISD After It Refused to Dis­play the Ten Com­mand­ments in Classrooms
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-sues-galveston-isd-after-it-refused-display-ten-commandments-classrooms
 
Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton Sues Round Rock ISD and Lean­der ISD for Refus­ing to Dis­play the Ten Com­mand­ments in Classrooms
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-sues-round-rock-isd-and-leander-isd-refusing-display-ten-commandments
Help us build our channel so we can maintain a culture of Faith, Family, & Freedom in Texas by interacting with us; like, comment, share, subscribe!

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Lemon Case Point #1 Stated in Order for Religious Activity to Be Constitutional it has to be Secular

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie goes deep on the thinkers, doers, and artists who are making the 21st century a more libertarian—or at least more interesting place—by challenging outmoded ideas and orthodoxies.

Today's guest is Ken Burns, the filmmaker who has massively reshaped national conversations about everything from the Civil War to baseball to jazz to immigration to national parks with epic documentary series that have aired on public television.

His latest work is The American Revolution, a 12-hour series about the nation's founding that he codirected with Sarah Botstein and David P. Schmidt. As the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary next year, the American Revolution foregrounds the bloodiness of the war for independence from the British and the high levels of disunity among the colonists before and after the conflict, themes especially noteworthy in a society that is increasingly concerned about political violence and polarization. The series can also be seen as a rebuke to recent, overtly ideological attempts to recast the American experiment as morally irredeemable from its origins (The 1619 Project) or as a Disneyfied morality tale (The 1776 Project).

Burns talks with Gillespie about the role of truth in documentaries and why we should embrace contradictions in historical storytelling. They also debate whether PBS, defunded earlier this year by the Trump administration, should continue to receive tax dollars.

0:00—The American Revolution was a global war

7:52—Slavery in the Revolution and competing narratives

21:48—The logic of the Declaration of Independence

29:14—The impact of Native Americans

32:41—Why the Revolution leaves Burns feeling optimistic

39:09—The importance of New York in the Revolution

46:15—Funding for public broadcasting

53:16—What's next for Ken Burns?

56:26—Why understanding history is important for unity

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What We Get Wrong About the American Revolution

This week, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch dig into the disconnect between strong Black Friday spending and a public mood shaped by rising costs, economic anxiety, and slipping approval numbers for President Donald Trump. They explore why so many Americans feel poorer despite higher overall wealth, how regulation and subsidies have distorted key markets like housing and health care, and what to make of polling that shows young voters warming to democratic socialism.

The conversation then turns to the war crime allegations against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who allegedly gave the orders to "kill everybody" on Venezuelan boat strikes that resulted in the killing of survivors, and what limits actually exist on the use of military force. The editors also examine a new federal ban on hemp products and the damage it could inflict on a growing legal industry. A listener asks whether recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions signal a troubling erosion of constitutional protections, and the group takes time to reflect on the legacy of playwright Tom Stoppard and his long association with free speech and small government ideals.

Join us this Thursday, December 4, at 2:30 p.m. ET for a special live edition of The Reason Roundtable as part of our annual webathon. Send your questions for the Reason editors to podcasts@reason.com with "Webathon" in the subject line.

Watch at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaOOdtJqzmY

0:00—Economic anxiety and standards of living

18:45—War crime allegations against Hegseth

32:09—Federal hemp ban threatens industry

37:35—Listener question on ICE constitutionality

46:45—The legacy of Tom Stoppard

56:31—Weekly cultural recommendations

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Is Economic Anxiety Driving People to Socialism?

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who are making the world a more libertarian—or at least a more interesting—place.

Please donate to Reason's annual webathon, the one time a year when we ask our online audience to support our principled libertarian journalism with tax-deductible donations. Click here for details, swag, and more information.

Today's guest is the science writer Matt Ridley, author of best-selling books such as The Red Queen, The Rational Optimist, and, with Alina Chan, Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19. At a live event filmed in New York City, Ridley tells Nick Gillespie that political and cultural elites had already turned science, our best tool for understanding and improving the world, into a centralized, hyperpoliticized priesthood even before COVID.

He walks through the collapse of public trust in 2020 as experts flipped on masks and transmission, declared Black Lives Matter protests safe but religious services dangerous, and insisted on certainty where none existed. Ridley also explains how the lab leak hypothesis went from being a forbidden conspiracy theory to the most plausible explanation for the pandemic.

He shares his thoughts on why climate alarmism is finally waning, the future of innovation in an age of overregulation, why he's bullish on the future of nuclear power and AI, and how America can spark a new technological renaissance—even when leaders seem determined to smother dissent.

0:00—Introduction

1:59—Bill Gates' climate change reversal

6:15—How COVID diminished public trust

14:27—Centralization and confirmation bias

17:53—Vaccine skepticism

21:29—Sex and evolutionary theory

29:47—Politicization of science

31:34—COVID lab leak theory

37:50—Human progress

46:10—The role of storytelling

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Why Science Lost Its Way

It's that time of year when we ask you to open your wallets, dear listener, and make a tax-deductible donation to Reason's annual webathon: https://reason.pub/4pzsSOE.

In this special episode of The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Robby Soave, and Peter Suderman respond to all of your burning questions. Nothing is off limits!

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Ask Us Anything: Libertarians Answer Your Questions

Watch #texasvaluesreport with special guest Riley Gaines, 12x NCAA Champion & Save Women’s Sports Leader, and host Jonathan Saenz, President & Attorney for Texas Values, as they commemorate the Texas Women's Privacy Law that went into effect yesterday!

Learn more about Texas Women's Privacy Law at http://protectwomensprivacytexas.com 

Help us build our channel so we can maintain a culture of Faith, Family, & Freedom in Texas by interacting with us; like, comment, share, subscribe!

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They're {Men in Women's Prisons} Raping & Impregnating These Women. Women have Contracted HIV/AIDS

This week, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Matt Welch are joined by associate editor Liz Wolfe to sort through the political free-for-all surrounding the Warner Bros. and Netflix merger. They look at why Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) is urging regulators to block the deal, why President Donald Trump says he plans to get personally involved, and how Jared Kushner's role in a rival Paramount bid is reshaping the fight. The panel digs into whether this moment signals a real return to trustbusting or another round of theatrics from both sides.

The editors then turn to the economy, where Trump's tariff strategy is colliding with rising layoffs and growing unease within his own party. They assess the administration's new national security posture as Congress advances a defense bill that exceeds White House requests, and discuss the uproar over Kalshi's push to turn opinion into a tradable market. Also, a listener asks whether a renewed turn toward religious faith could help the country lower its political temperature.

It's that time of year when we ask you to open your wallets, dear listener, and make a tax-deductible donation to Reason's annual webathon: https://reason.pub/4pzsSOE.

0:00—Antitrust and the Netflix-Warner Bros. acquisition

19:17—Tariff failures and rising unemployment

27:43—National security strategy memo

36:50—Listener question on polarization and faith

48:13—Kalshi's controversial online gambling vision

58:33—Weekly cultural recommendations

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Why Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump Hate the Netflix Deal

The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie, goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, and scholars who are making the world a more libertarian—or at least a more interesting—place by championing free minds and free markets.

Today's guest is Sarah McLaughlin, a senior scholar at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and author of Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech.

She explains how governments in places like China and the United Arab Emirates restrict academic freedom and expression not just in their own countries but also at colleges and universities in America by exploiting speech codes and threatening to end lucrative satellite campus arrangements.

McLaughlin and Gillespie also talk about whether it was a good idea for American comedians to censor their material at Saudi Arabia's Riyadh Comedy Festival and what to make of President Donald Trump's repeated minimization of the murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives.

0:00—Introduction

1:14—Trump's response to Khashoggi's murder

7:26—The Riyadh Comedy Festival

11:29—Foreign influence on U.S. college campuses

23:55—The NBA and the Chinese government

28:39—Sensitivity exploitation

34:36—Changes to campus culture

39:46—Satellite campuses

43:50—Matthew Hedges and the UAE

50:03—McLaughlin's path to FIRE

51:55—Solutions to campus censorship

58:12—Climate of free speech under Trump

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How Foreign Governments Police U.S. Speech

Join us on Texas Values Report with special guest  Dwayne Bohac, Former State Representative and Author of the Merry Christmas Law and host Jonathan Saenz, President & Attorney for Texas Values, as they discuss the war on Christmas.

Learn more about the Merry Christmas Law at http://merrychristmastexas.com. 

Help us build our channel so we can maintain a culture of Faith, Family, & Freedom in Texas by interacting with us; like, comment, share, subscribe!

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"There's No Holiday called 'holiday' Schools were Scared of Celebrating Federal Holiday 'Christmas'"

In Season 2 of Stream of Conscience, we dive deeper into religious liberty to explore its two major components, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. What did the framers of the Constitution mean when they forbade the “establishment” of religion? Who gets to decide what “free exercise” of religion includes? What’s the difference between the two clauses, and how do we argue cases arising under them? 

Season 2 also introduces cases that are not strictly religious liberty cases. We’ll talk about how other fundamental freedoms, like the freedom of speech and the right to property, intersect with religious liberty, and why it’s so important to understand these connections as we defend our freedoms.

What’s in a Name?

Stream of Conscience

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