Reason (magazine)

Reason is an American libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 50,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.

History

Reason was founded in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander (1947–2011) as a more-or-less monthly mimeographed publication. In 1970 it was purchased by Robert W. Poole, Jr., Manuel S. Klausner, and Tibor R. Machan, who set it on a more regular publishing schedule. As the monthly print magazine of "free minds and free markets", it covers politics, culture, and ideas with a mix of news, analysis, commentary, and reviews.

During the 1970s, the magazine's contributors included Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Thomas Szasz and Thomas Sowell.

In 1978, Poole, Klausner, and Machan created the associated Reason Foundation, in order to expand the magazine's ideas into policy research.

Current incarnation

Matt Welch has been the magazine's editor in chief since 2008. Katherine Mangu-Ward is the managing editor. Other Reason editors include Jacob Sullum, Jesse Walker, Brian Doherty, Peter Suderman, and Damon Root; contributors include Ronald Bailey, Greg Beato, Cathy Young, and cartoonist Peter Bagge. Former editors in chief are Nick Gillespie, Marty Zupan, and Virginia Postrel.

Camille Paglia

Camille Anna Paglia (/ˈpɑːliə/; born April 2, 1947) is an American academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984.The New York Times has described her as "first and foremost an educator". Paglia is known for her critical views of many aspects of modern culture.

She is the author of Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990) and a collection of essays, Sex, Art, and American Culture (1992). Her other books and essays include an analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and Break, Blow, Burn (2005) on poetry. Her most recent book is Glittering Images (2012), a history of the visual arts. She is a critic of American feminism and of post-structuralism as well as a commentator on multiple aspects of American culture such as its visual art, music, and film history.

Personal life

Ron Paul

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American politician, author, and physician, who is a former Republican congressman, two-time Republican presidential candidate, and the presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party in the 1988 U.S. presidential election.

Paul served as the U.S. Representative for Texas' 14th and 22nd congressional districts. He represented the 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977 and from 1979 to 1985, and then represented the 14th congressional district, which included Galveston, from 1997 to 2013. On three occasions, he sought the presidency of the United States: as the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988 and as a candidate in the Republican primaries of 2008 and 2012. Paul is a critic of the federal government's fiscal policies, especially the existence of the Federal Reserve and the tax policy, as well as the military–industrial complex, and the War on Drugs. Paul has also been a vocal critic of mass surveillance policies such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the NSA surveillance programs. Paul was the first chairman of the conservative PAC Citizens for a Sound Economy and has been characterized as the "intellectual godfather" of the Tea Party movement.

Ted Cruz

Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from Texas. He is a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, in the 2016 presidential election.

Cruz graduated from Princeton University in 1992, and from Harvard Law School in 1995. Between 1999 and 2003, Cruz was the director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, an associate deputy attorney general at the United States Department of Justice, and domestic policy advisor to President George W. Bush on the 2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign. He served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008, appointed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. He was the first Hispanic, and the longest-serving solicitor general, in Texas history. From 2004 to 2009, Cruz was also an adjunct professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he taught U.S. Supreme Court litigation.

Cruz ran for the Senate seat vacated by fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, and in July 2012 defeated Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst during the Republican primary runoff, 57%–43%. Cruz then defeated former state Representative Paul Sadler in the November 2012 general election, winning 56%–41%. He is the first Hispanic American to serve as a U.S. senator representing Texas, and is one of three Senators of Cuban descent. Cruz chairs the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights and Agency Activities, and is also the chairman of the United States Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. In November 2012, he was appointed vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Paul Ryan

Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is the 54th and current Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Ryan is a member of the Republican Party, who has served as the U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district since 1999. Ryan previously served as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, from January 3 to October 29, 2015, and, before that, as Chairman of the House Budget Committee from 2011 to 2015. He was the Republican Party nominee for Vice President of the United States, running alongside Governor Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. Ryan, together with Democratic Senator Patty Murray, negotiated the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.

On October 29, 2015, Ryan was elected to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and named John David Hoppe as his Chief of Staff. He is the first person from Wisconsin to hold this position.

Early life and education

Ryan was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, the youngest of four children of Elizabeth A. "Betty" (née Hutter) and Paul Murray Ryan, a lawyer. A fifth-generation Wisconsinite, his father was of Irish ancestry and his mother is of German and English ancestry. One of Ryan's paternal ancestors settled in Wisconsin prior to the Civil War. His great-grandfather, Patrick William Ryan (1858–1917), founded an earthmoving company in 1884, which later became P. W. Ryan and Sons and is now known as Ryan Incorporated Central. Ryan's grandfather, Stanley M. Ryan, was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin.