March 3, 2025

Now, on to the news…

Since its inception in 1958, NASA has enjoyed broad bipartisan support. But the agency’s recent failures—its constantly delayed return voyage to the moon, troubled partnership with Boeing, and lack of groundbreaking missions—could jeopardize its popularity. With Elon Musk reviewing NASA’s finances, the Trump administration appears poised to reform America’s space agency.

The effort comes with potential pitfalls. The United States and China are grappling for leadership in space, and botched reforms could doom our ability to compete. Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow James Meigs acknowledges these risks and outlines three proposals to improve NASA’s operations. “The Trump administration’s challenge,” Meigs writes, “will be to fix NASA’s glaring problems without carelessly driving away the agency’s supporters or creating further delays in its missions.”

Read the rest of his piece here.

Higher education’s trust problem has contributed to the budget deficits many colleges are facing. Schools should review their academic courses to see which are in line with a high-quality education, argues Scott Yenor, Senior Director of State Coalitions at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. “Today, many of their most ideological programs and departments are not—and they should be scrapped,” he writes.

Last week, Barnard College expelled two students for their behavior in January, when they disrupted a class on modern Israel. The two instigators shouted anti-Israel slogans, threw around anti-Israel propaganda, and refused to let the professor teach.

In response to Barnard’s move, dozens of other students forced classes to be canceled as they assaulted staff, injuring at least one, and defaced property.

Barnard should expel these students, too, writes Manhattan Institute Legal Policy Fellow Tal Fortgang. “Mobs disrupting classes while hiding behind keffiyehs and violent threats isn’t free speech; it is the negation of free speech,” he argues. “If Barnard fails to banish these students, it will have forfeited its purpose as an academic institution.”

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones “inherited a city in decline, but her progressive policies have done nothing to slow or reverse the trend,” writes Jordan Duecker, a former aide in the Missouri governor’s office. The city’s population is at its lowest point since 1950; businesses continue to move out, and violent crime runs rampant. Read about the policy decisions that led to the mayhem.

Populism is an important check on undemocratic liberalism. “However, national populists must move beyond ‘tear it all down’ partisanship to construct a new, mainstream vision of national unity,” writes Eric Kaufmann, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “The negative impulses of populism need to be reined in: we need a rational populism.”

“What’s most revealing is how the radicals accrue power with their control of language and policies; none of this is haphazard. This can only happen with permissive leadership.

The NSA leadership between them and the top needs to be cleansed. This is doable. It just takes diligence.”

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War for the West, commenting on the NSA’s ideological capture

Photo credits: Heritage Images / Contributor / Hulton Archive via Getty Images