The Reason Roundtable

Super Bowl LI between the Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots was a stunner of a game, the first Super Bowl to be decided in overtime. But the playing on the field was hardly the only topic of conversation. Conspiracy nut Alex Jones prophesied that performer Lady Gaga would perform a satanic ritual during her half-time show while others complained that pro-immigration TV commercials from Anheuser-Busch and 84 Lumber were spoiling the pleasure of seeing millionaires beat each other for the Vince Lombardi trophy. In the end, Lady Gaga didn't spill any blood or summon any demons, though she did jump off the roof of Houston's NRG stadium in a remarkable entrance. After the Patriots staged an unparalleled comeback, it was the alt-right that politicized the effort, with the vile Richard Spencer tweeting an image of QB Tom Brady kissing his supermodel wife and announcing, "For the White race, it's never over." That the official pre-game show honored Black History Month by saluting football Hall of Famers who had graduated from historically black colleges and universities doubtless enraged Pepe the frog fans all over the planet.

Reason Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward, Editor at Large Matt Welch, and Reason.com's Nick Gillespie talk about all this plus Donald Trump's second week on the job as president of the United States. Trump spent part of last week attacking the "so-called judge" who issued a temporary stay against his refugee and immigration ban and just minutes before the Super Bowl he caused a stir by responding to Fox News' Bill O'Reilly charge that Russia's Vladimir Putin is a killer by saying, "You think our country is so innocent?"

We discuss all that, plus the increasingly tight confirmation votes slated for Trump's picks for Secretary of Education and Attorney General in the newest Reason Podcast.

The CEO of the Amsterdam-based Backpage.com—the "world's largest online brothel"—was arrested at the Houston airport on October 6, 2016, charged by the state of California with pimping, conspiracy, pimping of a minor, and attempted pimping of a minor.

Two months later, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman threw out the government's case on the grounds that the law protects online platforms from criminal liability for user-generated content. "Congress has spoken on this matter," Bowman wrote in a preliminary decision citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). "[A]nd it is for Congress, not this court, to revisit."

The prosector in that case, state's attorney general (and now junior senator from California) Kamala Harris immediately filed new criminal charges against Backpage. Last month, the company decided to close its adult ads section after years of legal harassment.

On today's podcast, our guest is legendary free speech attorney Robert Corn-Revere, who represented Backpage.com. The conversation touched on the history of the Communications Decency Act, why Backpage's move to close of its adult ads section has made it more difficult for law enforcement to catch sex traffickers, how Anthony Comstock "set the playbook" for today's censors, and what Trump's election means for the First Amendment. (Note: The conversation was recorded on January 17, before the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.)

Georgetown Law's Randy Barnett sat down with Reason's Nick Gillespie to weigh in on Trump's nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme court.

Barnett said he was cautiously optimistic about Gorsuch. "Of all the people on [Trump's] list, he was certainly near the top," Barnett said. Gorsuch, he says, is well-read, smart, and a staunch defender of originalism like Justice Scalia.

"There's the old 'framers intent,' which people say if they don't know what they're talking about," Barnett said. "Gorusch says 'original public meaning,' which means he knows what he's talking about" when it comes constrained interpretation of laws.

Barnett said he believes the addition of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court could have a significant impact on whether or not a reinterpretation of abortion rights is in the future. "Roe v. Wade is not settled," Barnett said. "Could [a decision] happen? I think it could...in the sense that it's been contested since it was decided. As a result I can seem them undoing it and sending [the issue of abortion] back to the states."

Edited by Mark McDaniel. Cameras by Josh Swain and McDaniel.

As president Trump's immigration crackdown prompts nationwide protests, Reason Foundation convened three policy experts in Washington, D.C., to discuss the moral and economic case for reform.

PANELISTS

Ilya Somin - Law professor, George Mason University. Contributor, The Volokh Conspiracy, at The Washington Post.

Tim Kane - Economist, Hoover Institution at Stanford University; editor of Peregrine, an immigration journal.

Shikha Dalmia - Senior Analyst, Reason Foundation.

Produced by Todd Krainin.

Donald Trump's executive order on immigration and refugees is anathema to our core beliefs—as is his proposed tariff, border wall, and a slew of other anti-globalist policies—but he's also talking about deregulating industry, and has nominated (or is considering nominating) several pro-freedom cabinet members. So where do libertarians fall in Trump's America?

"The future of politics is going to be more oriented around a purely issue-by-issue consideration of things," says Reason's Editor at Large Matt Welch. "You're going to have a lot of temporary coalitions." On the other hand, "we also seem to be seeing the rise of a permanent anti-Trump coalition," notes Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward, "and at some point the true Trump oppositionists will consider any kind of coalition building with Trump to be evidence of non-trustworthiness."

In our latest podcast, Nick Gillespie chats with Mangu-Ward and Welch about "rage exhaustion," tribalism, and how Trump is making us more like Western Europe.

School choice is flourishing in America, with millions of kids now using vouchers to attend private schools, going to publicly funded charter schools, benefiting from open-enrollment policies, being schooled at home, and more.

What are the forces that are driving the acceptance of choice programs, does choice increase student performance, and are traditional public schools being left behind? These are some of the questions Nick Gillespie puts to Lisa Snell, the director of education research at Reason Foundation. Snell is one of the architects of the reform that's known as the "weighted student formula," in which education dollars follow a particular student to whatever school he or she attends (extra dollars are added for students with learning problems and other issues). Not only does the weighted student formula give more control and options to students, it also allows for an end-run around conventional school districts, which often soak up huge amounts of per-pupil funding before it reaches the classrom—or a teacher's paycheck.

Snell explains the growing appeal of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), which allow parents to spend money on a wide variety of educational services and hyper-personalize their children's education.

Education reformer Jay P. Greene offers a powerful and uplifting libertarian vision of the role of education that firmly rejects not only centralized control but also stultifying conformity. If you want to get a sense of not only where education policy is headed but the role it can and should play in a truly free society, listen now.

Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason.com Associate Editor talk to Nick Gillespie about the spectacle and substance of Donald Trump's inaugural address, the size and force of the Women's March (which pulled an estimated 500,000 people), and the start of National School Week, an annual event promoting the ability of parents and students to have greater options in K-12 education.

President Trump is full-throated in his support of choice and his controversial pick for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, is a high-profile activist in the school-choice movement. Will the Trump era be the moment when letting parents and kids choose where to go to school becomes the norm? Or will the toxicity of Trump on other issues kill the momentum in favor of choice?

On Tuesday night, Reason's Matt Welch participated in an event at The SoHo Forum with New York magazine political writer and frequent libertarian-baiter Jonathan Chait, author of the published-just-this-week Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail. The proposition under discussion was: "Based on his record of accomplishments, Barack Obama has been a great president." Listen to the event!

Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason Editor at Large Matt Welch join Nick Gillespie to discuss Barack Obama's farewell speech (the one where he talked about the need revive "democratic institutions" after arrogating more and more power to the executive branch), Donald Trump's latest word salad (check out his London Times interview!), and whether Trump Derangement Syndrome is less, more, or the same as previous presidential iterations.

And as a bonus, we each discuss one hugely positive development that has nothing to do with politics. You'll have to listen to get the full skinny, but the answers include HBO's The Young Pope, the Baseball Hall of Fame, and hand-knit "pussy hats."