Democratic mega-proposals, GOP budgetary fictions, prostitution decriminalization surprises, and Zardoz moments galore

Meet the undergrad who is recovering the legacy of gay, socialist civil-rights activist Bayard Rustin while explicating Kanye West's conservatism.

This story looks at the history of mental illness, institutionalization, and the role of coercion in psychiatry. It features an array of voices and viewpoints, including Linda Mayo, the mother of twin daughers with severe psychiatric diagnoses, who advocates for court-ordered psychiatric treatment; Richard Krzyzanowski, a patients' rights advocate who fights against coercive treatment laws; DJ Jaffe, the founder of Mental Illness Policy Org., who argues that the state should make it much easier to commit mental patients; the late Thomas Szasz, a controversial libertarian psychiatrist who fought compulsory treatment and questioned the very existence of mental illness; and Scott Zeller, a psychiatrist who's developed a new model that he hopes will reduce coercion in the system.

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Weissmueller, Jim Epstein, Meredith Bragg, and Alexis Garcia.

"Mare," by Kai Engel, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NC 3.0 license.

"Seeker," by Kai Engel, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NC 3.0 license.

"Traffic," by Kai Engel, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NC 3.0 license.

"Imago Mundi Nove, Part 1," by Megatone, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NC 3.0 license.

"Aveu," by Kai Engel, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NC 3.0 license.

"Cendres," by Kai Engel, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NC 3.0 license.

"Salue," by Kai Engel, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NC 3.0 license.

"Fryeri," by Kai Engel, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NC 3.0 license.

Photos of Adderall: Kristoffer Tripplaar/Sipa USA/Newscom

Photo of Andrew Goldstein: Marty Lederhandler/Associated Press

Photo of Gov. Pataki signing Kendra's Law: Jim McKnight/Associated Press

The cartoonist talks about being libertarian, why Marvel is OK with "serums" but not drugs, and how comic books have evolved over the past 30 years.

Three academics conducted what they call a "grievance studies" experiment. They wrote fake papers on ridiculous subjects and submitted them to prominent academic journals in fields that study gender, race, and sexuality.

They did this to "expose a political corruption that has taken hold of the universities," say the hoaxers in a video which documented the process.

John Stossel interviewed James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian who, along with Helen Pluckrose, sent so-called research papers to 20 journals.

They were surprised when seven papers were accepted. One claimed that "dog humping incidents at dog parks" can be taken as "evidence of rape culture." It was honored as "excellent scholarship."

Another paper rewrote a section of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf as intersectional feminism.

Stossel assumed that the journals would apologize for publishing nonsense and question the quality of their scholarship. But instead they criticized the the hoaxers, complaining that they "engaged in flawed and unethical research."

Of course, that was the point of the hoax.

Boghossian is unapologetic, telling Stossel the hoax shows "scholarship in these disciplines is utterly corrupted … they have placed an agenda before the truth."

When Stossel suggests, "maybe you are just conservative hacks looking to defend your white privilege." Lindsay replied "I've never voted for a Republican in my life." Boghossian added, "Nor have I."

Stossel says what upsets him is that after the hoax "no university said 'we're not gonna use these journals' and no editor publicly said, 'we have to raise our standards.'"

Instead, Portland State University began disciplinary procedures against Boghossian.

We live in desperate times when the brake on both Democratic socialism and Republican executive-branch abuse is a 78-year-old San Francisco Democrat.

Jordan Shapiro's The New Childhood boldly embraces technological innovation and the interconnected world it's creating.

Former BB&T Bank CEO John Allison vs. Moody's Mark Zandi

The U.S. sugar program is "Stalin-style price controls," Ross Marchand of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance tells John Stossel.

The U.S. government uses a complex system of loans, domestic quotas, and limits on how much sugar we can import. The goal is to control the price of sugar.

Stossel calls it "welfare for the rich." Economists say the program costs consumers billions a year. And yet the sugar industry makes videos that say "it costs taxpayers nothing."

Economist Vincent H. Smith writes that the "Stalinist-style," supply control, "substantially increases U.S. prices–on average U.S. sugar prices are about twice as high as world prices."

Yet politicians from sugar-producing states defend the program. "It basically allows our sugar industry to compete with other countries that are heavily subsidized by their home countries," Senator Marco Rubio said in an interview with Fox News.

Stossel takes Rubio's claim to Marchand, "It's only fair to our sugar producers who don't get subsidized, who can't compete with these subsidized countries."

Marchand replies, "Is it fair for customers to pay double the world rate for sugar? Is it fair for taxpayers to have to bail out a handful of super rich super-connected sugar processors? No."

The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

The perils—and profits—of being identity-focused in business, content, and audience