MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Not so toxic: Masculinity’s comeback makes America thrive.
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
February 23, 2026
OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.
I DON’T LIKE SUGAR SUBSTITUTES: Popular Sugar Substitutes Linked to Faster Cognitive Decline.
IT’S ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Mars’ Missing Water Mystery Takes an Unexpected Turn.
PLUG-IN HYBRIDS MAKE MORE SENSE THAN ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Zap! The 2027 Audi RS5 Sedan and Wagon Pack Big PHEV Power.
DECADES OF UNRAVELING THE SOCIAL FABRIC HAS ACHIEVED ITS GOAL: Cold Civil War: Many College Students No Longer See the Rule of Law as a Restraint.
Flashback: Politicians are tearing down the guardrails because they’re convinced they’re always right.
UPDATE: Link glitch fixed. Sorry!
GAVIN NEWSOM EXERCISING POWERS HE DOESN’T HAVE: Governor bans Kid Rock from his state: ‘Not what you want around our children!’ I’ve seen what you want around children, Gavin, and so I’m not impressed.
WELL, THEY’VE BEEN OVERSOLD: Patients want bigger benefits from statins before they consider taking them, finds new study. “Even at a moderate risk (10%) of developing a heart condition within the next 10 years, 42.9% of US adults and 42.4% of Japanese adults declined to take statins after knowing how effective the drug is and what side effects it can have.”
JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: The end of work? Not yet—maybe not ever. “Calm down. Artificial intelligence can already do plenty, but work is bundled, economies have bottlenecks, and rising prosperity tends to create new kinds of labor rather than eliminate it.”
I certainly agree that these are reasons why predictions that jobs and work will be largely gone by 2030 or 2035 are at the very least premature. I wonder, though, if the combination of AI and robotics won’t have a much bigger impact than the introduction of other technologies in the past, making prior technological revolutions an inadequate model.
MAYBE THAT’S THE GOAL: Mayor Mamdani’s spending frenzy will lead NYC into a rapid decline. Looting the West and wrecking it is a logical policy for people who like money and hate the West.
PHIL HAMBURGER: When Is a Tax Not a Tax? When it’s a taking, like California’s proposed wealth levy.
California’s proposed billionaire tax is unconstitutional. The ballot initiative calling for one-time retroactive 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s billionaires has prompted much unease, but the legal arguments against it have remained elusive. It’s therefore important to recognize that this tax is an uncompensated taking or at least a deprivation of property without due process, contrary to the Fifth and 14th amendments.
Disgruntled taxpayers often grouse that taxation is state-sanctioned theft, and libertarians frequently complain about regulatory takings. But the billionaire tax is a problem for more basic reasons—reasons that are crucial for all of us, not only the hyperwealthy.
Although taxes are generally lawful, that isn’t true of everything called a tax. Consider a hypothetical Bill Gates Tax (imagined by legal scholars Calvin Massey and Eric Kades) that imposes an income tax of 100% on Mr. Gates and no one else. In form, it’s a tax; in reality, it’s a confiscation.
The example of the Bill Gates Tax is extreme in demanding 100% of income from one person. It’s less extreme, however, than the California tax in taking only income, not wealth, and in being prospective.
Three considerations coincide to make it especially clear that the California proposal is confiscatory.
It’s also an admission that the California machine has stifled growth and now has to confiscate available wealth in order to maintain desired levels of fraud and defalcation.
(Archived version here.)
LEFTISTS WANTED PEOPLE FIRED FOR HATE SPEECH, EVEN THOUGH THEY DO MOST OF IT: Coastal Carolina CC professor fired after calling Kirk, TPUSA ‘racist pieces of sh*t’ in class.
UM, TRY HOCKEY INSTEAD: College promotes men’s cuddling group to ‘redefine masculinity.’
Tip: When leftists want to “redefine” something good, it’s because they want to destroy it.
HAPPY MONDAY! Warm up with this blast from the past.
K12 IMPLOSION UPDATE:
The public benefitted from huge arbitrage during the decades when school teacher was one of the only professions into which women were permitted.
All of the predecessors of the highly intelligent career-oriented women who now serve as lawyers and corporate executives were once… https://t.co/EiQBu371To
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 23, 2026
PARASITES THRIVE IN THE WARMTH OF COLLECTIVISM THAT’S FOUND IN BLUE STATES: New ‘Ringworm’ Outbreak Turns Minnesota Into America’s STD Fungus Hotspot.
DON SURBER: Alabama and Team USA defeat Canada.
CDR SALAMANDER: The New Battleship: Pondering the ponderous ponderable.
I’M PRACTICALLY BLACK, SEE, BECAUSE I’M DUMB AND ILLITERATE:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 23, 2026
Well….
Fun fact!
California taxpayers invested heavily in developing Squaw Valley as the host site for the 1960 Winter Olympics. After the Games ended, Governor Pat Brown (Governor Jerry Brown’s father) awarded operating rights on the resort facilities to William Newsom Sr. (Gavin… https://t.co/gxJGE9Ol3R
— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) February 23, 2026
DEMOCRATS HATE THAT, WHAT IF PEOPLE EXPECT IT OF THEM? Pete Hegseth Comes Under Fire for Meeting the Standards He Demands of Others. Yes, You Read That Right.
ICYMI:
BREAKING: JPMorgan Admits It Shut Trump’s Accounts After Jan. 6 Capitol Attack
Nation’s largest bank, in response to a lawsuit filed by the president, confirmed his longstanding complaint about “debanking.”
Per the New York Times: “For years, President Trump has complained that… pic.twitter.com/V2Pa20vYiC
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 21, 2026
JUSTICES THOMAS AND ALITO ARE NO DOUBT MINDFUL OF RBG’S LEGACY: Will We See a Supreme Court Vacancy (or Two) This Summer?