Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Last week, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency conducted a successful test of the new SM-6 interceptor. Over the course of several days off the coast of Hawaii, the USS John Paul Jones launched four separate interceptor missiles at distant targets designed to simulate both threatening aircraft and incoming ballistic missiles. The tests proved successful. In…
The Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage has left many concerned about protecting freedom for everyone who believes that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. Among them are law professors Richard W. Garnett, John D. Inazu and Michael W. McConnell. In a characteristically thoughtful essay at Christianity Today, they argue that post-Obergefell,…
Scandinavian countries appear to many to be exceptional social democratic success stories because they are able to maintain economic prosperity while balancing financial equality and social welfare. So what makes Scandinavia exceptional? According to Nima Sanandaji, a Swedish research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies in London, the answer is nothing. The Institute of…
There is no question that we can and should celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which is one of the most successful—and important—laws ever passed by Congress. It may be one of the few statutes passed by Congress that has fully achieved its objective: it has enfranchised millions of black and…
Recent undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood employees haggling over the price of body parts from aborted babies have renewed calls to end all federal funding of the nation’s largest abortion provider. With the Senate’s failure to pass a standalone bill prohibiting funding of the organization this week, all eyes have turned to the appropriations process…
The Puerto Rican government failed this week to make a $58 million payment of principal and interest on a specific outstanding debt that lacks strong legal protection. The commonwealth’s move is part of its opening gambit, in what will surely be a lengthy contest with creditors. The government is trying to pay as little of…
The Los Angeles city council will vote this week on exempting collectively bargained wages from its new $15 an hour minimum wage law. That’s correct – if unions get their way, only unionized employers will be able pay their employees less than $15 an hour. Over the past year, “Fight for 15” has swept the…
Every year interns from the Cato Institute match up against interns from The Heritage Foundation to debate whether conservatism or libertarianism is the superior political philosophy. Considering almost 700 people signed up on Facebook to watch, we were not surprised at the sizable audience that turned out to view this year’s contest live. Cameron Swathwood…
Regardless of one’s point of view on an issue, you can usually find a poll that shows that a majority of people agree with you. I’d suggest that is exactly what we saw happen on CNN Wednesday, when anchor Alisyn Camerota interviewed Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., about the debate surrounding Planned Parenthood. A May 2015…
On Wednesday, President Obama continued his push to sell the Iran deal to an increasingly skeptical American public. Unfortunately for the White House, Obama’s charm offensive won’t solve the major flaws in the Iran deal. The president stated, “Between now and the congressional vote in September, you are going to hear a lot of arguments…
The Social Security Administration hasn’t had a great summer. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently reported that the Social Security Administration (SSA) paid $46.8 million to deceased individuals who had, prior to their death, been acting as financial representatives for Social Security recipients. This report comes just a few weeks after the OIG identified…
Free-market advocates have long criticized excessive occupational licensing as a drag on the U.S. labor market and an impediment to growth. The Obama administration, it seems, is finally listening. The White House Report In a major report published in July, the White House acknowledged the growing costs of occupational licensing and called on state leaders…
Conservative historian, poet and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Robert Conquest passed away on Monday, leaving behind a legacy of vital support for freedom. Robert Conquest was born in 1917, the son of a British mother and an American father. He is best known for his book “The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties,”…
It might seem absurd to suggest that allowing unlicensed florists to sell flower arrangements harms the public health and safety. But states make claims like this every day. A recent report from the Treasury Department, the Council of Economic Advisers and the Department of Labor reveals the alarming growth—and the huge costs—of America’s convoluted and…
The Obama administration has made a big deal over Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent meeting with representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a loose intergovernmental alliance of the Persian Gulf states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The White House has spun the visit as a diplomatic triumph and…
Why isn’t the Justice Department enforcing the law and requiring state local election officials to keep voter rolls updated and current? Last week, the Public Interest Legal Foundation launched a project to clean up America’s voter rolls. Their lawsuit is based on a decades-old statute that requires states and counties to make reasonable efforts to…
On Monday, federal district court Judge William Orrick ordered the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) not to publish undercover video taken at the National Abortion Federation’s (NAF) annual meetings in 2014 and 2015. CMP has released five undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s program of selling aborted babies’ body parts—and they promise that more videos are…
I like Charles Krauthammer. But he made some disturbing statements Monday when talking about the Planned Parenthood scandal and reactions to it. “There is a difference between a fetus and a born adult or child human being,” Krauthammer said on “The O’Reilly Factor” when explaining why those defending Planned Parenthood’s actions thought the way they…
Unions claim they’re for the little guy. They talk about big businesses putting corporate interests ahead of the average Joe. But unions have become quite big themselves. They often put their institutional interests ahead of workers. Last year, for example, several major unions gave over $400,000 to Planned Parenthood and its political action fund. They…
Many Americans are seeking out so-called fair trade products in their local markets. They are willing to pay higher prices in hopes of improving incomes and working conditions for people in developing countries. But, in their paper “Fair Trade and Free Entry: Can a Disequilibrium Market Serve as a Development Tool?,” economists Alain de Janvry,…