"The administrative state is the leading threat to civil liberties of our era," says Philip Hamburger, the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and author of the recent books, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (2015) and The Administrative Threat (2017). "We have a system of government in which our laws are made by the folks that we elect, and these laws are enforced by judges and juries in the courts, but we have within that an administrative state, a state that acts really by mere command and not through law." Hamburger argues that by reducing the role of elected officials to set policy, the administrative state, which has grown rapidly since World War II, disempowers blacks, women, and other minorities who have only recently gained full voting rights and political power.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Hamburger to discuss why the administrative state is unconstitutional, and what, if anything, can be done reduce its power.

Edited by Ian Keyser. Introduction produced by Todd Krainin.

"The NRA is constantly doing these kind of dick moves... If a cop kills a black guy they're silent, if a white person gets caught in the crossfire then they're all pissed," says Reason's Nick Gillespie. "The NRA is a special interest group that pushes a Republican agenda first and kinda Second Amendment rights second."

Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Andrew Heaton join him in a conversation about gun-control proposals in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting and whether Jeff Sessions' new push for religious liberty really means that women will have to result to abstinence and the rhythm method for contraception.

Also: Why the Republican Party is only principled about cutting government when it's not in power, the prospects of World War III, and of course, whether you should be allowed to buy your very own personal tank.

"Young women are really putting their foot down and saying, 'These are our bodies,'" says Vanessa Grigoriadis, a National Magazine Award-winning journalist and the author of the new book, Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus. 'We don't care what you, 55-year-old college president, thinks is consent.'"

From the conviction of Vanderbilt University football players for raping an unconscious student, to the he-said-she-said story behind Columbia University's "mattress girl," to the discredited Rolling Stone account of a gang rape at the University of Virginia, few topics generate more emotion and outrage than sexual assault on college campuses.

Grigoriadis's book is a deeply researched and nuanced take on campus relationships and the often-fuzzy boundary separating consensual sex from assault. Over the past three years, she interviewed over 100 students and 80 administrators on 20 different campuses, and her findings further complicate an already complicated story.

In a wide-ranging interview, Reason's Nick Gillespie and Grigoriadis grapple with this question, the proper role of campus tribunals in administering justice, what constitutes due process for alleged offenders as well as victims, and whether a "yes means yes" affirmative consent standard should be the norm.

"Every time there's a mass shooting," says Reason's Jacob Sullum, "people who had already been in favor of gun control talk about how we need more gun control. . . they don't feel a need to really explain how [their particular policy] would have prevented this particular attack."

Nick Gillespie speaks with Sullum about the Las Vegas mass shooting, the country's narrative in the wake of tragedies, and why it's so difficult to have a fact-based discussion about guns, violence, and policy.

On Sunday, a lone gunman perpetrated the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

Is this significant beyond the human tragedy? Are we a more deadly, violent society than ever before?

On today's podcast, Reason's Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Matt Welch discuss the numbers behind mass shootings and gun violence. What's the biggest step American law can take to reduce homicides?

They also cover Donald Trump's Twitter feud in Puerto Rico, and parse out the difference between presidential malfeasance and just "being a super big dick."

Plus the Jones Act, and other strains of harmful protectionism foisted on Puerto Rico and the rest of the country by special interests.

On September 19 at the Soho Forum, David Goldhill, former CEO of the Game Show Network and author of the exceptional 2013 book, Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father—and How We Can Fix It, faced off against Princeton sociologist Paul Starr in a public debate over whether the federal government should offer a Medicare-like health insurance plan to all Americans. Star is the author of The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry, which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the prestigious Bancroft Prize. (Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker was scheduled to debate Goldhill, but had to drop out because of a medical issue.)

The Soho Forum runs Oxford-style debates in which the audience votes on the resolution at the beginning and end of the event. The side that gains more ground is victorious. ​In this case, Goldhill won overwhelmingly by convincing about 30 percent of the audience to switch over to his side.

When the minimum wage goes to $15 an hour "you kill jobs," says Andrew Puzder—"businesses close, businesses reduce staff and automate, and businesses reduce the hours of the employees they have."

But "what you can't measure, which is really what hurts economic growth...is the number of restaurants that don't open."

Puzder is best known as the former head of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of fast fast-food chains Hardee's and Carl's Jr. When he was named CEO in 2000, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Puzder focused his attention on improving the customer experience, improving the food quality, simplifying the menu, and emphasizing good service. Ten years later, CKE had quadrupled in value.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Puzder at FreedomFest 2017, the annual libertarian conference in Las Vegas.

Edited by Ian Keyser. Cameras by Meredith Bragg and Justin Monticello. Music by Kai Engel.

At a rally in Alabama last week, President Trump lambasted NFL players for "disrespect[ing] the flag."

"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners...say 'get that son of a bitch off the field right now,'" Trump told the crowd. A few days later, he urged football fans to boycott the NFL unless the league takes action against players who refuse to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Has Trump burst the only remaining non-political bubble in American culture? Not at all, says Reason's Nick Gillespie. "Sports is often seen as a kind of redoubt from serious activity, and I think that's wrong. . . Sports has always been politicized and I think it's a good thing to admit that."

In today's podcast, Gillespie was joined by Katherine Mangu-Ward, Eric Boehm, and Andrew Heaton to talk about Trump's rage against professional football, whether the Graham-Cassidy bill should replace Obamacare, and what Republicans should actually focus on with tax reform.

"The [Juggalos] have their own language, they have their own leaders, [and] they have their own ways of talking to each other," says Reason's Paul Detrick, who covered the group's march on Washington last weekend. "They exist in this strange world of their own."

Who are the Juggalos? In a nutshell, they're fans of the rap duo Insane Clown Posse and have built a cultural identity around the music. They're known for wearing clown makeup, hatchet main logos, and greeting each other with "whoop, whoop!" The Juggalos are mostly working class—these are the people "work at Pizza Huts...and gas stations," says Detrick—and often refer to each other as "family."

In 2011, the FBI labeled the group a "hybrid gang" in its National Gang Threat Assessment, which has been causing problems for Juggalos with local law enforcement. Last weekend's march on Washington was a protest against the gang designation.

Detrick has been covering the group for years, producing a 2014 documentary on the group that was shot at the annual Gathering of the Juggalos, and more recently a profile and interview with Insane Clown Posse.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Detrick about Juggalo subculture, the real life legal perils of gang misclassifications, and the meaning of the "hatchet man" logo.

What do you think of when you think of plastic surgery? Fish-lipped women on the Real Housewives shows? Or maybe aging Hollywood actors who look like burn victims. Michael Jackson's disappearing nose? Or Lindsay Lohan's rubberized lips? When internet slideshows of plastic surgery fails are only a click away, it's easy to think about facelifts, eye jobs, liposuction, Botox injections, and all the rest as a mark of narcissistic people who refuse to grow old as nature intended.

But that's not the only—and certainly not the best—way to think about plastic surgery, as the new documentary, Take My Nose...Please!, which will be premiering in Los Angeles and New York City this weekend, makes abundantly clear.

Directed by the nearly 90-year-old journalism legend Joan Kron, Take My Nose...Please! follows two actresses as they contemplate getting work done. Along the way, viewers learn the history of modern plastic surgery and are exposed to a powerful argument that plastic surgery is just one more way of improving ourselves, like diet, exercise, and education.

Intro video produced by Todd Krainin and written by Nick Gillespie. Interview produced by Mark McDaniel.