Good morning:
As we approach the 25th anniversary of 9/11, MI scholars are reflecting on what we have learned in the quarter century since the attacks and on which lessons we may be in danger of forgetting.
In City Journal, legal policy fellow Tal Fortgang argues that a moral equivalence between the U.S. and its terrorist enemies is increasingly commonplace feature of the progressive worldview. As he notes, Hasan Piker’s view that “America deserved 9/11” now puts him closer to the Democratic party mainstream than to outright pariahdom. At the same time, courts and prosecutors have been unwilling to fully enforce federal prohibitions on material support for foreign terrorist organizations. As we reflect on the 25th anniversary of the attacks, Fortgang argues, we would be wise to remember that the “nation belongs to those who believe in Americanism, not those who aid and abet its enemies.”
Also in City Journal, senior fellow Nicole Gelinas argues New York’s post-9/11 recovery succeeded because the city chose continuity rather than trying to “reimagine” itself. Lower Manhattan was rebuilt and the city continued to attract private investment, high-paying jobs, residents, and tourists. Today, however, Gelinas warns that New York’s post-pandemic growth has slowed and that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s economic agenda marks a break from this long-running consensus.
MI scholars are also weighing in on academic freedom, the future of the Supreme Court, and the future of AI in government.
In the Wall Street Journal, senior fellow Roland Fryer and Bill Ackman announced the launch of the Carob Trust Prize for Academic Courage, which will award scholars who rigorously challenge prevailing orthodoxies. The prize awards $1 million to as many as five social scientists per year who demonstrate intellectual independence and are validated by the evidence despite being attacked. The selection committee is comprised of scholars from across the ideological landscape, united only by a common goal to pursue the evidence wherever it may lead. Although one prize cannot change culture overnight, Fryer and Ackman note, it will make it slightly easier for scholars to ask questions rather than staying silent.
Also in the Journal, senior fellow James Piereson examines proposals to expand the Supreme Court from nine justices to 13. He argues that the nineteenth-century changes often cited as precedent were driven largely by administrative needs, not an effort to alter the Court’s ideological balance. In his view, a partisan expansion would raise serious separation-of-powers concerns, weaken judicial independence, and invite retaliatory court-packing whenever control of Washington changes hands.
Finally, this week MI published a new issue brief by technical writer Sean Speer on New York’s LOADinG Act, which limits the use of artificial intelligence across state and local government. Originally introduced as an AI transparency and accountability measure, the law was repeatedly revised until its central feature became protections for public-sector employees. It now bars agencies from using automated systems to displace workers or transfer duties currently performed by employees to machines, while extending those protections across state agencies, schools, public universities, and local governments. Speer argues that the law effectively protects existing public-sector work arrangements—and the unions that benefit from them—at the expense of the productivity gains, lower costs, and improved services that AI could make possible.
Continue reading for all these insights and more. Nick Saffran Senior Editor |
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New York’s LOADinG Act: Protecting Public-Sector Jobs From AI
By Sean Speer | The Manhattan Institute | Photo by Sean Pavone/iStock/Getty Images Plus via Getty Images
“Artificial intelligence could make government faster, cheaper, and more effective. But New York’s recently passed Legislative Oversight of Automated Decision-Making in Government (LOADinG) Act will prevent agencies from realizing many of those gains.
In a new Manhattan Institute issue brief, Sean Speer traces the evolution of the LOADinG Act. Originally introduced as an AI transparency and accountability measure, the law was repeatedly revised before taking effect. Its governance provisions were narrowed or repealed, while protections for public employees survived and expanded.
Today, the law bars public employers from using automated systems to displace workers or transfer duties currently performed by employees to machines. Those restrictions now reach state agencies, school districts, public universities, and local governments.
Speer argues that the law blocks precisely the kinds of automation and workflow changes that make AI valuable—protecting existing work arrangements at the expense of productivity and better government services.” |
An Award for Scholars Who Tell the Truth
By Roland Fryer and Bill Ackman | The Wall Street Journal | Photo by Virojt Changyencham/Getty Images
“We deeply agree on the most important principle: You can’t help people you don’t understand. Bad data have victims, and they are rarely the professors. They are the families who can’t buy their way out of a failing school or an unsafe street. The scientific method isn’t a political position. Treating it as one is how America loses.
We are under no illusion that a prize can change culture overnight. What it can do is change the career calculus at the margin—for the graduate student wondering whether a question is too risky, the junior professor deciding whether to submit a finding that will generate angry emails, the senior scholar who has quietly stopped asking the questions he once did. We aren’t telling them to be brave. We are trying to make doing their jobs less expensive. |
Is Court Packing Constitutional? Don't Be So Sure
By James Piereson | The Wall Street Journal | Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images “No matter how this legal battle played out, a court-packing law would undermine respect for the rule of law and further politicize the Supreme Court. That would be the only effect if the Democrats were to lose in court. “Instead of tossing aside Senate rules and breaking other norms and precedents to pack the court, Democrats would be better advised to follow the example of Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans, not to mention Ronald Reagan’s and Donald Trump’s. Influence the court the old-fashioned way, by electing presidents and senators who will appoint justices more to their liking.” |
What We Have Forgotten About 9/11 By Tag Fortgang | City Journal | Photo by -/FEMA/AFP via Getty Images)
“Consider the axis of leftism and Islamism—the Red–Green alliance, whose cultural and political prominence has grown in recent years. Dalliance with foreign terrorist organizations is part of its organizing ethos. The shocking proliferation of terrorist paraphernalia at post–October 7 protests in 2023 testifies to the rallying power of symbolism—in this case, a symbolism emphasizing sacrificial moral purity and conscientious opposition to decadent Western policies. In the Red–Green worldview, 9/11 signifies the moment Americans were forced to confront the consequences of their own evil, now visited upon them . . .
“What has changed today is where expressing such sentiments might get you. In articulating the inescapable conclusion of this line of thinking—“America deserved 9/11,” as he put it—Hasan Piker has entered today’s Democratic mainstream, not the pariahdom that would have resulted in the early years after 9/11. . . “Several Democratic Socialists of America candidates have displayed oddly conciliatory instincts toward al Qaeda and 9/11. Drawing a moral equivalence between the U.S. and its enemies has become an important signal in progressive politics, with 9/11 equivocation as its touchstone.” |
The Resilient City By Nicole Gelinas | City Journal | Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images
“In the months after 9/11, as the Ground Zero fires continued to smolder, it was no surprise that New York voters, despite all the talk of “rethinking,” “reimagining,” and the like, instead chose continuity. That November, they elected Michael R. Bloomberg, a political unknown, with barely a majority vote, even as the New York Times endorsed Bloomberg’s opponent, Mark Green, a traditional New York Democratic politico. After the trauma they had just suffered, New Yorkers were apparently determined to preserve a city led by private-sector growth. . .
“Since the lockdowns of 2020, New York has struggled to resume its four-decade trajectory. The city’s job growth has lagged the nation’s, with tourism-related employment still nearly 4 percent below its 2019 level. Though professional and business employment has grown by 3 percent since then, that growth stalled in 2024–25, mirroring a national trend. . . . “Worse, after choosing continuity in the wake of 9/11, the city is once again talking about “reimagining” itself. New York’s Democratic Socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, represents a decisive break from the approach that prevailed from the 1980s through the pandemic: support private-sector growth, the only reliable source of the tax revenues needed to sustain big government.” |
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Stu Smith’s coverage of the Socialism 2026 Conference:
“🚨 Da’Shaun L. Harrison at Socialism 2026 argues that the policing of ‘Black fat flesh’ is foundational to broader ‘entire systems of governance.’ ‘Without a population to discipline, there would be no BMI, no obesity epidemic, and no medical or scientific institutions organized around managing fatness,’ Harrison says. “Harrison then turns to Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs, arguing that the broader effort to treat fatness as a public-health problem cannot be separated from Blackness.” |
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