The Reason Roundtable

Libertarians want to shrink the government, but a shutdown is little cause for celebration. Hitting a giant "pause" button on federal agencies won't end the drug war or reform entitlements. A government shutdown doesn't even save money. Back pay to furloughed federal employees ensures that taxpayers pay just as much as they would have if the government had proceeded as normal. But during a shutdown taxpayers don't receive the government services they're paying for, and the economy takes a hit from the disruption.

In the latest "Mostly Weekly," Andrew Heaton explains why libertarians should be against the next government shutdown.

Mostly Weekly is hosted by Andrew Heaton with headwriter Sarah Rose Siskind. Special appearance by Brian Sack.

Script by Andrew Heaton with writing assistance from Sarah Rose Siskind and Brian Sack

Edited by Austin Bragg and Sarah Rose Siskind.

Produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg.

Theme Song: "Frozen" by Surfer Blood.

New York City is home to some of the world's worst public schools for children with special needs, places that warehouse students in chaotic and unsupportive environments. A growing number of affluent families have successfully sued the city on the grounds that these schools are so bad that taxpayers should pay to send their learning-disabled children to elite private institutions instead. It's a de facto private voucher system that is largely inaccessible to poor families.

What if the city were to provide all families with school choice, so that even disabled kids from poor homes could get an excellent education?

Written, produced, shot, and edited by Jim Epstein. Production assistance from Ian Keyser.

It's school choice week!

What's that? It's a week about giving parents and kids a choice of schools, so they aren't stuck in failing, government-run schools.

John Stossel says amazing things happen at some of these alternatives. He visited one school where the kids like learning. Reading is "rockin' awesome," one kid tells John.

That school was created by Eva Moskowitz. Her "Success Academy" now runs 46 charter schools that teach more than 15,000 students. As a charter, she has more freedom to innovate.

"It's absolutely true that school makes people show up, sit down, shut up and that these are useful skills for people to have in adulthood, " says Bryan Caplan, a professor of economics at George Mason University, who blogs at EconLog, and is the author of the new book The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money. "So the real question is if all we're trying to do is prepare people for a job, why not prepare them with a job?"

Caplan argues that schools are not only overpriced, but that traditional education fails to prepare students with job skills that reflect the needs of the labor market.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Caplan to make the case that the government needs to spend so much on education if it isn't relevant to our success in getting a job and earning higher wages.

Interview by Nick Gillespie. Edited by Alexis Garcia.

Almost everything the federal government has told the public about healthy diets over the past three decades may have been wrong. The U.S. Surgeon General suggested avoiding saturated fats and prioritizing grains and other carbohydrates. Low-fat products started filling the aisles at grocery stores, as families tried to follow the government's infamous food pyramid. Obesity rates continued to climb, and some dissenting scientists and started questioning the consensus. The U.S. government and major health organizations were slow to react, but in recent years have finally started updating the official recommendations.

Is the exact same scenario about to play out in the fitness industry?

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Field producer is Mark McDaniel. Additional camera by Alex Manning. Additional graphics by Brett Raney. Music by Elvis Herod and Podington Bear.

President Trump promised that today he'll announce the recipients of his "Fake News Awards," an honor he's sure to bestow upon unflattering coverage that displeases him, a category that will almost certainly include the book Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff's insider tell-all of life in the Trump White House.

But with "fake news" back in the real news, it's worth reflecting upon how both Republicans and Democrats have utilized the amorphous term to lay the groundwork for the regulation of speech on the internet and why that's a very bad idea.

There are dangerous hate groups in America. So a group called the Southern Poverty Law Center promises to warn us about them. They release an annual list of hate groups in America.

The media cover it, but John Stossel says they shouldn't. It's a scam.

There are many non-hateful groups on the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate list. But Antifa, which clearly is a hate group, is not on the list.

The Southern Poverty Law Center wouldn't talk to Stossel about their list. Stossel says screaming "hate!" brings in money.

Morris Dees, the Center's founder, pays himself nearly half a million dollars a year. Although Dees once promised that when the Center's endowment reached $50 million, he'd stop fundraising, he didn't stop. Now the Center has $320 million dollars stashed away -- much of it in the Cayman Islands. It's all in their tax returns.

Stossel notes that they still con people into giving them even more money. Apple gave them $1 million last year.

He says the Southern Poverty Law Center has become a hate group itself. It is now a left-wing, money grabbing, slander machine.

Produced by Maxim Lott. Edited by Joshua Swain.

It turns out that a lot of accomplished, well-respected historical figures did drugs. From Winston Churchill taking amphetamines to Thomas Edison lacing his wine with cocaine, not everyone who uses narcotics is a hopeless basket case living in a dumpster. While some drug users spiral into addiction and crime, others go on to become president. It's time to debunk the age old stereotypes of the back alley dangerous dealer or the lazy stoner when, according to the National Survey on Drug Use, roughly half of all Americans have tried an illegal drug.

In the latest "Mostly Weekly" host Andrew Heaton breaks down the cartoonish Drug Warrior portrayal of drugs by showing some of the beloved historical figures who used them.

Mostly Weekly is hosted by Andrew Heaton, with headwriter Sarah Rose Siskind.

Script by Sarah Rose Siskind with writing assistance from Andrew Heaton and Brian Sack.

Edited by Austin Bragg and Siskind.

Produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg.

Theme Song: Frozen by Surfer Blood.

Song: "Burnt to a Crisp or Bloody as Hell" by TeknoAX

Few journalists have tossed more hand grenades or built more of a reputation for themselves than Matt Taibbi, who covers politics and culture for Rolling Stone when not writing bestselling books, such as Griftopia, Insane Clown President, and most recently I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street, a powerful account of the death of Eric Garner, who died in police custody after being arrested for selling loose cigarettes in Staten Island. In 2008, Taibbi won a National Magazine Award for his columns and commentary at Rolling Stone.

With fame comes controversy. A 2005 piece for the defunct free weekly The New York Press was titled "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope." It was denounced by everyone from Hillary Clinton to Matt Drudge to Michael Bloomberg to that paragon of good taste, Anthony Weiner. With the publication of I Can't Breathe last fall, Taibbi has come under attack in a wide array of places ranging from Twitter to Facebook to The Washington Post for work that critics say is flat out misogynistic and sexist.

Taibbi has published at least two apologies about past work (much of which appeared in The eXile), but the firestorm has barely abated. He says that his support for Bernie Sanders throughout the 2016 campaign—even after Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination—is part of what's motivating the attacks on him, and is leading to something approaching a media blackout on his book about Eric Garner.

Reason's Nick Gillespie spoke with Taibbi about his new book, free speech and the left, the recent negative attention that his work has received, and issues on which progressives and libertarians overlap in powerful, if always uneasy, ways.

John Stossel asks if New York has become a city of so much regulation where only big businesses can thrive?

Produced by Naomi Brockwell. Edited by Joshua Swain.