America ’s Violent Extremists: Past Tragedies, Future Threats
Patrick G. EddingtonTwenty ‐eight years ago today, two Army veterans utilized a truck bomb in Oklahoma City to kill 168 people, including 19 children. It was the high watermark of right ‐wing violent extremist activity in the 20th century, justified by its key perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, as a reaction to alleged and actual state ‐sponsored violence against other Americans.McVeigh had been inspired by a small but influential white supremacist novel calledTheTurner Diaries which espoused a “leaderless resistance” concept. The author, William Luther Pierce III, wrote it under the pseudonym ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 19, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Patrick G. Eddington Source Type: blogs
A Handsome Settlement in the Dominion ‐Fox News Case
Walter OlsonThose who seek to “open up” libel laws to make way for more defamation suits and higher damages sometimes talk as if the speech‐protective constitutional standard announced by the Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan makes it impossible for libel suits to prevail even when starkly meritorious — when egregious misconduct by the media has resulted in the circulation of gross falsehoods that cause severe damage to someone’s good name.Today ’s settlement, in which Foxhas reportedly agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems a handsome $787.5 million, should take the wind out of demands to make...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 18, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
Government Proposes To Make Bad Standards on Race and Ethnicity Worse
John F. EarlyI recently laid out the case to stop government classification of people by race and ethnicity in a CatoBlog post. Those observations were stimulated by The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) posting a notice for comment in the Federal Register with respect to a report from the Federal Interagency Technical Working Group and Race and Ethnicity Standards to revise the existing standards for collecting data by race and ethnicity. Comments are due by April 27, 2023.Ipublished a similar op ‐ed in the Wall Street Journal, which subsequently printed a singleletter to the editor in re...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 18, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: John F. Early Source Type: blogs
State Department ’s Human Rights Reports and Their Failures
Jordan CohenIn March 2023, the State Department released theirannual“Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.” While these reports do provide useful information about individual countries’ human rights practices that allow for better policy research, analysis, and implementation, they do little to stop human rights abusers from receiving U.S. aid. Considerin g a recipient ’s human rights record before sending military assistance is important as states who violate human rights tend to go towar more frequently, facerisks of political instability, and are the most likely todisperse U.S. weapons to terrorists an...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 17, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jordan Cohen Source Type: blogs
The Supreme Court ’s 150‐year Mistake
Anastasia P. Boden and Matthew D. MitchellOn April 15th, Americans should be thinking about Myra Bradwell.On this day 150 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court shut Mrs. Bradwell out of a job when eight justices ruled that she, as a woman, lacked a constitutional right to earn a living in the profession of her choice.Though the Supreme Court has come a long way in protecting equality before the law, it still refuses to protect the right to earn a living —and theBradwell case has never been overturned. The opinion illustrates the value of economic freedom, the often-discriminatory way it is denied, and the tragic consequences...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 14, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Anastasia P. Boden, Matthew D. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Friday Feature: St. Martin ’s Academy
Colleen Hroncich“Boys thrive when they’re challenged and when they’re doing hard things. Especially when they’re doing hard things together.” This is some of the insight Daniel Kerr has developed after founding and runningSt. Martin ’s Academy, a Catholic boarding school for boys on a sustainable farm in Fort Scott, Kansas.Daniel ’s dream of founding a school was inspired byThe Restoration of Innocence: An Idea of a School, an unpublished work by John Senior. After years of dreaming and then planning, St. Martin ’s Academy opened in 2018.“The school is situated on a 5 ‑acre parc...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 14, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Colleen Hroncich Source Type: blogs
Rhetoric and Abundance
Erec SmithAs a rhetorician, I see rhetoric as a crucial aspect of a free and pluralistic society, and I believe that its theory and best practices should be explored. I also think rhetorical skill can be the difference between feeling powerless and powerful.With rhetorical skill, one ’s agency, and therefore influence, is strengthened substantially. In “Rhetoric Creates Opportunities for Abundance, ” written for Discourse Magazine, I write,“Using rhetoric to identify with an audience can open doors that would otherwise remain shut.…This, in turn, may lead to an abundant life.”...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 14, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Erec Smith Source Type: blogs
Fast Facts about Medicare and Social Security
Romina Boccia and Dominik LettMedicare and Social Security are the two largest federal government programs that are also growing the fastest. They are fiscally unsustainable as currently structured. Medicare consists of four parts which provide inpatient care (Part A), outpatient care (Part B), prescription drug coverage (Part D), and subsidies for seniors to choose alternative health insurance providers through Medicare Advantage (Part C). Social Security consists of Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI). For the purposes of this fact sheet, Social Security will refer to OASI only. This fact...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 13, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Romina Boccia, Dominik Lett Source Type: blogs
Importance of Startup Businesses
Chris EdwardsThisCato study examined the role of startup businesses and the angel investors who fund them. It discussed how startups create jobs, generate innovations, and inject competition into markets.Covering some of the same ground, a new piece in theWall Street Journal by Christopher Mimsdiscusses differences between large and small high ‐tech firms. Compared to large firms, small firms tend to have less bureaucracy, assume more risk, act more quickly, and may have better worker incentive structures.The moment Noam Bardin, former chief executive of navigation app Waze, knew that life at a big company w...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 11, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Arizona Governor Hobbs Makes the Right Call by Vetoing Fentanyl Mandatory Minimums Bill
Jeffrey A. SingerToday Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoedSB 1027, which would have placed a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison on the first offense, and 15 years on the second offense, for anyone convicted of possessing, distributing, transferring, selling, or manufacturing heroin, fentanyl, or fentanyl analogs. In 2006 Arizona voters passedProposition 301, imposing mandatory minimum prison sentences for possessing, transferring, selling, distributing, or manufacturing methamphetamine. This did nothing to decrease meth ‐related deaths.Meth ‐related drug deaths per 100,000 increased nationally...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 11, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Abandoning the US, More Scientists Go to China
David J. BierThe Organisation for Economic Co ‐operation and Development (OECD)—an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries—has publishednew data showing that the United States is losing the race for scientific talent to China and other countries. China ’s strategy to recruit scientific researchers to work at China‐affiliated universities is working.In 2021, the United States lost published research scientists to other countries, while China gained more than 2,408 scientific authors. This was a remarkable turnaround from as recently as 2017 when the United States picked up 4,292 scientists ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 11, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: David J. Bier Source Type: blogs
Did South Korea Spy On Congress?
Patrick G. EddingtonThere ’s been quite an uproar over the past week regarding the latest Pentagondocument leak. While much of the attention has been focused on material dealing with Ukraine, another U.S. ally is not happy about alleged American snooping on its internal affairs:South Korea.Responding to the allegations, South Korean Democratic Party leader Lee Jae ‐myungsaid, “If it is true that they have spied on us, it is a very disappointing act that undermines the South Korea ‑U.S. alliance, which is based on mutual trust.”What the South Korean minority party leader may not be aware of is that his own...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 11, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Patrick G. Eddington Source Type: blogs
Call for Papers: Cato Health Policy Workshop 2023
Michael F. CannonOnOctober 13th and 14th, 2023, the Cato Institute will host its second annual Cato Health Policy Workshop, a paper workshop for pre‐doctoral academics on topics relating to health policy.The workshop seeks to encourage participants to approach health policy questions from a market‐based perspective. Through a competitive selection process, Cato will offer up to 12 scholars the opportunity to present and receive feedback on research from their peers and distinguished academics.Papers should be original and journal ‐article length. The workshop will focus on presentations, discussion, and...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 10, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Michael F. Cannon Source Type: blogs
Why Is the Fed Keeping Banker ’s Hours?
Nicholas AnthonyThe Federal Reserve has been a center of attention since the fall of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).Controversy continues to swirl around the Federal Reserve ’s supervision of SVB, but a particularly interesting question about the Federal Reserve ’s larger efforts came the week before SVB made headlines. During a congressional hearing, RepresentativeFrench Hill (R –AR) asked Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell why the Federal Reserve does not allow its payments system to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.Chair Powell answered, “I’m not sure ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 10, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Nicholas Anthony Source Type: blogs
Can San Francisco Afford Reparations?
Marc JoffeLater this year, San Francisco Supervisors will consider anambitious plan to make reparations to black residents to compensate them for the lingering effects of slavery and more recent discriminatory public policies. While other Cato scholars have commented more generally on reparations atthe national level andin San Francisco, I will focus here on the fiscal implications and the local economic impact.AHoover institution analysis of the plan estimates its cost at $200 billion, with most of the expense attributable to the recommended $5 million cash payment to each eligible individual. Because the recommendat...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 10, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Marc Joffe Source Type: blogs
