Nathaniel Ward

Perhaps the best advertisement of Sunday’s Super Bowl was also the funniest:

In one scene, a half-dozen “Green Police” officers surround a man who fails to sort his garbage correctly. Government agents also arrest homeowners for “offenses” like using unapproved light bulbs and running hot-tubs at impermissible temperatures. Later, agents shut down a highway to search cars for environmentally-unfriendly contraband. This is perhaps the best, and funniest, argument I’ve seen against the increasingly intrusive green agenda.

Yet the ad turns out to be for carmaker Audi and — implausibly enough — in support of the green agenda. At the end, an Audi driver bypasses the highway checkpoint because his car meets with government approval, and a tagline is superimposed: “Green has never felt so right.” Audi admits in a press release that the ad is tongue-in-cheek, yet they also praise the work of the “real Green Police,” the nanny-state bureaucrats around the world who enforce environmental pieties.

If Audi intended to draw on consumer sympathy for green technology to drive car sales, this ad missed the mark. What viewers are sure to remember are the images of the government devoting tremendous resources to impose arbitrary environmental rules on ordinary Americans. These images are sure to resonate all the more since the ad isn’t really so far-fetched: not only are there real “green police,” the federal government is considering new measures to enforce its intrusive emissions regulations. As one friend quipped, “I have never been so moved not to recycle.”

Reason’s Nick Gillespie makes the case that much of the Left’s reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United is overstated.

President Obama has proposed a freeze on discretionary, non-entitlement, non-military, non-emergency federal spending. Yuval Levin says this is “a welcome tiny first step.” Dan Mitchell is more skeptical.

Newsweek says neoconservatism is alive and kicking.

CAP responds to Citizens United:  ”Indeed, with hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate profits at stake every time Congress begins a session, wealthy corporations would be foolish not to spend tens of billions of dollars every election cycle to make sure that their interests are protected.” Of course, it’s the fact that billions are at stake whenever Congress meets that’s the real problem. Ilya Somin, meanwhile, defends free speech rights.

And finally, Conan O’Brien stays classy in his final Tonight Show.

Good news: The Supreme Court has struck down government restrictions on free speech. Here’s a quick history of such restrictions and why they haven’t worked.

Bad news: America’s economy is less free now than it was a year ago.

The Agitator makes the case that donations in response to disaster don’t constitute fundraising as such.

Daniel Larison asks a good question: are illiberal governments necessarily a threat to free governments?

James Ceasar explains how the passion for Obama can be traced to radical thinking about replacing traditional religion with a “Religion of Humanity.”

What happens when science becomes politicized? The truth is sacrificed to the “greater good.”

• Campaign Finance Reform’s Unending Quest to Limit Our Rights. Bradley Smith explains how campaign finance "reform" has continued to erode basic constitutional protections: "every time we close off one avenue of political participation, politically active Americans will turn to the next most effective legal means of carrying on their activity. That next most effective means will then become the loophole that must be closed."
• Gmail Users Are More Active on Social Media.
• The GOP Shouldn’t Count It’s Chickens Just Yet. Ramesh Ponnuru: "Republicans shouldn't get carried away. There are 10 months to go before the midterm elections, and the political climate can change a lot in that time."

• Did Deregulation Really Cause the Crash? Russ Roberts: "If you lift the speed limit from 65 miles per hour to 200 miles per hour and someone crashes going 195, it would be strange to blame the crash on the change in the speed limit. The question remains as to why someone would be so reckless."
• Teaching Business School Students to Think Creatively.
• The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Simplify Taxes. "For the Obama Administration, the new regulation is a way to try to increase tax revenues without Congress having to pass a law…Here's a better idea: If Washington doesn't like taxpayers working the system of legal deductions to reduce their tax burden, it can always simplify the code and flatten the rates."

• Rock Solid HTML Emails How to build e-mails that work in every e-mail client.
• How Apple Leaks Information "Often Apple has a need to let information out, unofficially. The company has been doing that for years, and it helps preserve Apple's consistent, official reputation for never talking about unreleased products."
• Todd Zywicki on Proposed New Credit Card Limits. "What would happen if the Merchants Payments Coalition gets its way and politicians squeeze interchange fees? Credit cards are essentially a closed economic system: A reduction in interchange fees will have to be offset by increased revenues elsewhere or a reduction in costs. For example, issuers could try to increase the revenue generated from consumers through higher interest payments, higher penalty fees, or reinstating annual fees."

• What Made American Universities Great. "Ivy League institutions rose to greatness only after being cut off from state aid and meddling."
• What’s the Matter With California? William Vogeli explains how the "big-spending, high-taxing, lousy-services paradigm" is ruining California's appeal.
• Dave Barry Looks Back on 2009. Choice quote: "Washington, rejecting 'business as usual,' finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it."