Writing in the fall issue of American Affairs, Rep. Riley Moore (R‑WV) argues that American deindustrialization was a choice—that Washington refused to protect the steel industry and that a West Virginia steel mill and others like it died because of choices made by policymakers. He proposes much higher tariffs, direct federal investment through a new industrial bank modeled on the Development Finance Corporation, the enactment of the Defense Production Act to speed up permitting, and a requirement that the Defense Department buy more specialized domestic steel.

History supports neither the argument nor the remedy. Protection has virtually never been withheld from the steel industry. It was granted continuously for six decades, and the legacy mills declined anyway.

After the Supreme Court struck down his first order restricting birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara, President Trump signed a new order on August 6. At first blush, the new order seems like only a blatant attempt to ignore the Supreme Court. That might be true, but there’s an alternative reading that is more bizarre and potentially frightening: The president might believe he can unilaterally decide whether US law applies to any particular person or groups of people.

The entire order rests on the assertion that presidents can decide who is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and, therefore, US law. In a way, this is a far more dangerous claim. For instance, diplomats receive immunity not only from federal but also from state and local prosecution. If the president can suspend the laws—not just the enforcement of them but the laws themselves—the order would not only strip citizenship from many Americans, it would also create a massive new power for presidents to abuse.

The strange new order is already being challenged in court, but we still don’t know how the government will defend it.

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Why, As a Muslim, I Defend Liberty is a little big book I wrote in 2021 for Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org, a Cato project, to summarize the key Islamic arguments for classical liberalism. In 2023, its Swedish edition was published by Timbro: Varför Jag Som Muslim Försvarar Frihet. Three years later, in July 2026, it was launched in Pakistan, with the title: 

کیوں، بطور مسلمان، میں آزادی کا دفاع کرتا ہوں

— or, in plain English, “Why, As a Muslim, I Defend Liberty.”

The book, published by the Cato Institute, was translated into Urdu by Fida Ur Rahman, a lecturer in Islamic studies at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, who has also organized the printing of physical copies and the promotion of the book in Pakistan. At the same time, Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org offered the free digital download of the book in PDF format.

On July 23, Khurshid Ahmed Nadeem, a prominent Pakistani intellectual, devoted his column in Dunya News, a national Urdu daily, to the question, “What is Muslim liberalism?” The piece is essentially a review of my book Why, As a Muslim, I Defend Liberty, whose Urdu edition was recently launched in Pakistan, and my edited volume, No Compulsion in Religion—No Exceptions: Islamic Arguments for Religious Freedom, which Cato published earlier this year.

Nadeem appreciated some of the ideas behind “Muslim liberalism”—of which he kindly described me as its “most prominent advocate”—but also shared some reservations about rethinking Islam “while taking the liberal paradigm as its standard.” I sent him a respectful response, which he graciously published in full in his own column. Its English version follows: 

It feels like we’re going back to the future today. Two years ago, I profiled Log Cabin Schoolhouse, which was created by Jennifer Wolverton, a homeschooling mom with an engineering background. Despite the old-fashioned name, Log Cabin embraced the latest technology, including AI, “smashing” it (as she put it) with classical education.

Jennifer has tossed any semblance of being old-fashioned aside and leaped fully into the future with her latest undertaking: MARS Microschool, a hands-on, AI-focused high school. 

The US manufacturing sector has been on a nice run in 2026, and some Trump administration officials and protectionist pundits are crediting the president’s tariffs. In my new column for The Dispatch, I detail why we should doubt the pro-tariff story. In particular, both “soft” data (surveys) trumpeted by the administration and “hard” data on output, capacity, and utilization indicate that the sector’s recent growth is owed to other, nontariff factors and, if anything, would be even better without all the import taxes.

Everyone wants to know the “right” answer on AI in schools. Should it be banned? Required? Left up to teachers? Locked down with strict rules? The reality is that there isn’t one right answer. In this, as in much of life, economist Thomas Sowell’s brilliant insight rings true: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”

When it comes to AI in education, different families have different preferences. And the effects of decisions made today may not be known for years. Given the diverse views among parents and the ever-changing nature of AI, it’s crucial that we embrace freedom rather than mandates.