Nathan Whetton: Civil Disobedience, Protest and the Jury Trial Reforms

On 2 December 2025, the Lord Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy announced significant reforms to criminal trials in England and Wales. Defending his proposals on the BBC Sunday programme on 4 January 2026, Lammy justified restricting jury trial on the basis of his strong sense of justice, explicitly pointing to the fact he had a photograph […]

Nathan Whetton: Civil Disobedience, Protest and the Jury Trial Reforms

My polling predictions at Newsroom

Newsroom asked some pollsters for their predictions for 2026. Mine are below: Every poll (or almost every poll) will show that both National and Labour will need two partner parties to govern, not just one – that is: only National/Act/New Zealand First and Labour/Greens/Te Pāti Māori will have enough seats to make 61.  All 71…

My polling predictions at Newsroom

“It’s Going to Get Really Serious”: Liberal Influencers Discuss Public Trials and Court Expansion After Democratic Takeover

Former CNN correspondent Jim Acosta spoke with popular podcaster Jennifer Welch, discussing the plans for radical changes after a Democratic…

“It’s Going to Get Really Serious”: Liberal Influencers Discuss Public Trials and Court Expansion After Democratic Takeover

Endangered Republicans at Yale

The NY Post reports: A recent report from the Buckley Institute found that there are no Republican faculty members across 27 departments at Yale University. … It found that nearly 83% of faculty are registered Democrats or primarily support Democratic candidates. More than 15% identify as independent, and fewer than 3% are Republicans, according to the report. Most notably, 27 of 43 undergraduate…

Endangered Republicans at Yale

Have the Greens lost their mojo?

Bryce Edwards writes – The Green Party should be flying high right now. They’re not. As the 2026 election year begins in earnest, the Greens find themselves in a deeply anomalous position: polling has slumped, internal organisation has been shaken by staff departures and scandals, and the co-leaders seem strangely detached from the scale of […]

Have the Greens lost their mojo?

‘Market Power in Antitrust Cases,’ by William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner

William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner’s 1981 Harvard Law Review article “Market Power in Antitrust Cases” is a true classic. Showing the value of interdisciplinary work within the law & economics tradition, it brought real clarity to what “market power” means and how courts should assess it—cutting through vague labels like “monopoly power” and…

‘Market Power in Antitrust Cases,’ by William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner

The black market crisis in tobacco

A comprehensive article in the SST about the rise in black market tobacco sales in NZ. Some extracts: This is again a reminder that prohibition doesn’t work, and neither does trying to tax something so much to prohibit it.

The black market crisis in tobacco

Guest Post: No, the Supreme Court Didn’t Hand Climate Activists a Victory.  It was an own goal.

A guest post by Sean Rush: If you’ve read the headlines about Climate Clinic Aotearoa v Minister of Energy, you might believe a group of law students marched into the Supreme Court and reshaped New Zealand’s climate policy. The popular narrative suggests a solid victory to the students, with reports that the students created new law,…

Guest Post: No, the Supreme Court Didn’t Hand Climate Activists a Victory.  It was an own goal.

The Post ranks the MPs

The Post has ranked Ministers and senior opposition MPs. This is their ratings, not mine. Agree with some, disagree with others. I thought the ranking for Willow-Jean Prime was a bit generous. The post The Post ranks the MPs first appeared on Kiwiblog.

The Post ranks the MPs

Western Leftists and Islamic States

Western leftists do criticise Islamic states at times—but they rarely prioritise opposing them, and often treat them with conspicuous restraint. That asymmetry is not accidental. It follows from the same ideological lenses that drive anti-Zionism. Here are the main reasons. 1. Anti-imperialism outweighs liberal values For much of the Western Left, opposition to Western power is the overriding moral […]

Western Leftists and Islamic States

In His Quest for Easy-Money Policy, Trump Launches Lawfare Against the Federal Reserve

When he first ran for President, I observed that Trump was a big-government Republican. This doesn’t mean he’s part of the moderate GOP establishment, like Bush and Romney. But it does mean that there is considerable overlap in terms of supporting bad policy, as indicated by my last two columns. Yesterday, I wrote about his […]

In His Quest for Easy-Money Policy, Trump Launches Lawfare Against the Federal Reserve

The ICE Elephant: Why the Law Requires All the Facts

Below is my column in The Hill on the refusal of many to consider all of the facts in the…

The ICE Elephant: Why the Law Requires All the Facts

Carding the Internet Still Isn’t Constitutional

After the U.S. Supreme Court decided Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton last year, I wrote that the “broader war over age verification and parental consent online isn’t over.” As we head into 2026, that prediction looks right. The fight has shifted. Lawmakers have moved their focus from social-media platforms to app stores. But the basic…

Carding the Internet Still Isn’t Constitutional

Some Snapshots of the US Demographic Future

Demography is the study of the structure of human populations, including factors like births, deaths, aging, as well as health and economic factors. Some demographic changes happen slowly, over decades, but in a predicable way. For example, if you want to look at projections for the year 2050 of the ratio of the US working-age…

Some Snapshots of the US Demographic Future

Sam Harris and John McWhorter: Is wokeness dead?

In this shortish (23-minute) video, Sam Harris and John McWhorter discuss whether wokeness is finally dead.  The short answer is “nope.”  It may have lain down, but it refuses to die. The YouTube notes (there’s a transcript you can see as well): Sam Harris speaks with John McWhorter about language, ideology, and moral certainty. They […]

Sam Harris and John McWhorter: Is wokeness dead?

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