To understand the sometimes glaring gaps between candidate Obama’s promises and President Obama’s policies, it is useful to appreciate an old tension in American progressivism. . . .

In the midst of the Great Recession California students protest in favor of themselves. . . .

This week on Uncommon Knowledge, host Peter Robinson mediates a discussion between PayPal founder and Stanford Professor Peter Thiel and Velocity Capital Management founder and journalist Andy Kessler on the state of technology and innovation in the United States over the past four decades. Thiel argues that, outside of computers, there has been very little innovation in the past forty years, and the rate of technological change has significantly decreased when compared to the first half of the 20th century. In contrast, Kessler asserts that innovation comes in waves, and we are on the verge of another burst of technological breakthroughs. Industries covered include education, medicine and biotechnology, as well as robots and high tech.

Partnerships with religious groups may have been dismissed as a stepchild of the Bush administration, but they appear to have a bright future all the same. By David Davenport.

Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, discusses his article “Gay Marriage and the Libertarian’s Dilemma.”

How conservatives can reclaim their heritage of prudent reform.

Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force, speaks to the constitutionality of the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act.

Richard Epstein the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, considers proposals for increasing the minimum wage, requiring paid sick leave and maternity leave for employees, and toughening anti-discrimination laws.

Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of its Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force, notes that the conscious decision to make Apple the focal point of a special investigation offers a bittersweet commentary on the fragile state of the US political economy.