A Poison Pill for NASA Reform

Less than six months into President Trump’s second term, hopes for a more mission-focused NASA have been dashed. That’s largely because the Big Beautiful Bill allocates an additional $10 billion for the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket program and stipulates that it must be used for at least four more missions.  

SLS is notoriously expensive and riddled with delays—the rocket flew a single, uncrewed test flight in 2022, James B. Meigs points out. “Retiring SLS would have enabled NASA to save billions each year, freeing up the funds needed to return astronauts to the moon and keep America’s space probes operating,” he writes. 

Read how forcing NASA to stick with SLS could ultimately slow America’s space exploration efforts. 

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that Zohran Mamdani described himself as “Black or African American” on his Columbia University application. The winner of New York City’s Democratic primary was born in Uganda, but both of his parents are famous and well-educated Indians. 

In his weekly column, Christopher Rufo argues that Mamdani and his fellow New York socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have feigned oppression for political gain while supporting policies that will crush the working class. “Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are elites masquerading as the oppressed,” he writes. “If they are successful, they will create a system that rewards people like them and punishes those below.” 

The term “disinformation” gained widespread use in the U.S. after the 2016 presidential election, when Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. The theory that Russian interference swayed the vote became a dominant narrative. “The concept served the progressive Left well, first as a way to explain Trump’s 2016 victory, and then as a tool to suppress inconvenient stories,” Andrey Mir writes in our spring issue. “But it came at a steep cost: the war on disinformation ultimately became a war on truth.” 

President Trump recently signed an executive order to pause enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which established penalties for businesses and individuals who pay bribes to foreign officials. The problem, Jarrett Dieterle points out, is that the law now needlessly penalizes American businesses. “The Trump administration was right to hold off on enforcement and to instruct the Department of Justice to issue new guidelines,” Dieterle writes. 

As the New York mayoral candidates discuss how to address the city’s high housing costs, the idea of rent freezes seems to be gaining popularity.  

Rent control can indeed provide some short-term relief, but it can also cause long-term pain for the very tenants it’s meant to help, Josh Appel points out.  

“Tenants who might otherwise move—due to life changes or rising incomes—often stay put to preserve their below-market rents,” he writes. “This reduces turnover and shrinks the pool of available units. With supply constrained and demand unchanged, prices for unregulated apartments rise.” 

Read more about the unintended consequences that come with price controls on rent. 

Photo credit: JIM WATSON / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images