In this week’s The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie consider the revelation that, like former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden also had a stash of classified documents in his private office and residence.00:00 – President Biden also had classified materials in his house10:35: House GOP introduces the Curriculum Review of Teachings, or CRT, Transparency Act31:33: Weekly Listener Question:I have long held what I consider to be a libertarian position on college admissions and affirmative action: that private colleges ought to be able to control their own admissions policies and that those who don’t like those policies can seek admission elsewhere. I am somewhat surprised that I do not find any libertarians making this argument. It seems to me that if the Supreme Court makes a determination that affirmative action is illegal, as well as other types of arguably discriminatory admissions policies such as preferences for alumni and attempts to achieve geographic diversity in the student body, then we are in for a tsunami of lawsuits in which every damn college applicant in the country who is turned down by her top college pick will argue that she was the victim of discrimination. Where does it end? I’m an alumnus of Wesleyan University. I always accepted that racial diversity is a laudable goal in assembling a student body, as is geographical diversity (although I read recently that a desire for geographic diversity is just a scheme to keep out Jews; I didn’t know I was antisemitic), or a distribution of interests in the arts versus the sciences, or a wide variety of extracurricular activities. So it touched my heart when today’s New York Times ran a headline, “If Affirmative Action Ends, College Admissions May Be Changed Forever,” with a picture of my dear old alma mater, Wesleyan. What does the panel think? By what logic are the details of private college admissions policies a matter for the courts? How does the Constitution say that the courts need to make these decisions? How did we get here? And again, where will it all end?47:21: This week’s cultural recommendationsMentioned in this podcast:”With Classified Documents, the Real Divide Is Between the Powerful and the Rest of Us,” by J.D. Tuccille”Biden Looks Careless, Shady, and Hypocritical After the Revelations About His Handling of Classified Material,” by Jacob Sullum”Like Trump, Biden Had a Private Stash of Secret Documents, but It Was Much Less Impressive,” by Jacob Sullum”The Redacted Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant Affidavit Sheds Light on the FBI’s Concerns and Trump’s Defense,” by Jacob Sullum”Corey DeAngelis: How COVID Has Changed the Face of Education Forever,” by Nick Gillespie”Florida All in for Assault on Academic Freedom,” by Keith E. Whittington”Chris Rufo’s Battle To ‘Stop Woke’,” by Zack Weissmueller and Nick Gillespie”Time To End Affirmative Action? Live With David Bernstein and Kenny Xu,” by Zach Weissmueller and Nick Gillespie”Want To Stop School Book Battles? Give Parents Real Choice in Education,” by Nick GillespieSend your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.Today’s sponsor:When you’re at your best, you can do great things. But sometimes life gets you bogged down, and you may feel overwhelmed or like you’re not showing up in the way that you want to. Working with a therapist can help you get closer to the best version of you. Because when you feel empowered, you’re more prepared to take on everything life throws at you. If you’re thinking of giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option. It’s convenient, flexible, affordable, and entirely online. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can get you there. Visit BetterHelp.com/roundtable today to get 10 percent off your first month.Audio production by Ian KeyserAssistant production by Hunt BeatyMusic: “Angeline,” by The Brothers Steve

The underwhelming vice presidency of an unpopular former prosecutor has created a succession problem for the Democrats.https://reason.com/2023/01/17/kamala-harris-is-a-flop/When she announced that she was running for president in January 2019, Kamala Harris was met with glowing profiles, grassroots excitement, and ready donors. Almost immediately, her campaign was plagued by inconsistent policy positions and internal disarray. Meanwhile, Harris was haunted by her tough-on-crime past as a California prosecutor.Because of her own dismal polling numbers, Harris left the race eleven months later. But Biden picked her as his running mate anyway. And so she became the first female vice president, a black and Asian woman with a sleek image and a willingness to say things young progressives liked to hear.She went on to bungle interviews, flip-flop repeatedly, and fail to own any issue or commit to anything. Which is to say, Harris’s vice presidency has looked a lot like her shambolic presidential campaign. Now she’s considered the Democratic front-runner in waiting—yet no one can quite explain why.”Harris arrives somewhere with the plane and the motorcade and the Secret Service agents, makes a few mostly bland statements, then tells whomever she’s meeting with about how she’s going to bring their stories back to Washington. Then she’s quickly out of sight again,” wrote Edward-Isaac Dovere in The Atlantic in May 2021.Two months prior, Biden had put Harris in charge of “leading the Administration’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras,” as the White House put it. It was a “stopping-the-seas-from-rising” kind of job, says Cato Institute immigration analyst David J. Bier, especially since Harris had no authority to actually change U.S. immigration policy.Still, a vice president could at least play a robust rhetorical role here, shifting the conversation around the issue , or rallying Democrats behind an inspiring message. But rather than outline a coherent policy vision, Harris made a series of awkward decisions and comments that angered many Democrats and gave fodder to Republicans.If Harris runs for president, she can’t point to her record as a prosecutor because it’s mostly become an embarrassment. As San Francisco district attorney, she increased prosecutions and convictions for “misdemeanor quality-of-life crimes” and pushed for giving fewer people access to the city’s Drug Court, which offers alternatives to incarceration. She opposed a prostitution decriminalization measure, helped federal officials raid immigrant businesses, hid misconduct by a drug lab technician, and helped launch an anti-truancy initiative that would bring criminal charges against parents if their kids missed too much school. As California attorney general, she fought against a court ruling that the state’s death penalty was unconstitutional, fought to keep people in overcrowded prisons after a court ordered them released, defended the state corrections department’s denial of surgery for transgender inmates, and refused to back a measure requiring more scrutiny of police use-of-force cases.She also fought to shut down the sex-worker friendly ad platform Backpage while publicly ignoring sexual misconduct involving Oakland police and an underage girl. 1,974 people were sent to state prisons for marijuana or hashish possession while Harris was California’s top cop. Part of a politician’s job is finding a way to work together with those in their coalition. Harris, meanwhile, has struggled to work comfortably with even her own staff, many of whom have departed after brief stints on the job. A June report in Politico described Harris’ office as “tense and at times dour,” marked by chaotic moments, low morale, and low trust. One person “with direct knowledge of how Harris’ office is run” described it as an unhealthy and “abusive” environment where “people are thrown under the bus from the very top.” “Should Biden Run Again? The Question Is Dividing Democrats” read a September 2022 headline in Time, about the oldest president in U.S. history. But if not Biden, then who? A LATimes analysis of national opinion polls said that as of October 2022, 53% find Harris unfavorable, a drop of 14% since she took office.It’s hard to avoid the sense that the Democrats have been so enamored with the package this particular candidate comes in that they’re willing to overlook what lies beneath the surface. Harris’ problems are her own. But in making her an avatar of its future, the party has made her problems their own too, embracing box-checking at the expense of political or administrative competence. Some say “third time’s a charm,” but a more relevant adage may be “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Eventually, Joe Biden will leave politics. When that happens, will Harris fool progressives a third time?

Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that strips police of all liability. It’s not that you don’t have some rights, but when they get you in their sights, they can’t be sued. You’ve got no case. It’s time for you to learn your place! :rotating_light::male-police-officer::skin-tone-2:

In this week’s The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie discuss the government’s censorship-by-proxy of social media companies and Kevin McCarthy’s ongoing showdown for the speakership in the House of Representatives.https://reason.com/podcast/2023/01/03/a-surly-showdown-for-speaker/——————-00:00 – The government’s censorship-by-proxy of social media companies for alleged COVID “misinformation.”30:45 – Weekly Listener Question:Hello Friends, I just finished listening to the Freakonomics Radio three-part series about Adam Smith. The main thesis of the series is that Adam Smith’s views were more nuanced than we generally think of him; most people tend to cherry-pick favorite ideas from The Wealth of Nations while completely forgetting about his first work, Theory of Moral Sentiments. So, I’m curious. How have Adam Smith’s ideas shaped your own? Have any of you read Adam Smith’s works completely? And maybe most importantly, do you think Adam Smith would be a libertarian if he was alive today?39:39 – Kevin McCarthy battles for speaker of the House.52:11- This week’s cultural recommendationsAudio production by Ian KeyserAssistant production by Hunt BeatyMusic: “Angeline,” by The Brothers Steve