Think Tank West

By David Boaz I was just listening to the December CatoAudio interview with Tom Palmer and Ian Vasquez about the fall of the Soviet empire 20 years ago, and Tom mentioned that even as late as October 7, 1989, when the East German government held a gala celebration of its 40th year in power, no [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

By Jim Harper White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen’s conclusion that John Brennan should participate in the reviews of the attempted bombing of Northwest flight 253 is interesting. Currently serving as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, Brennan formerly worked at the Analysis Corp., a contractor that helped develop the watch-list system, [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

By David Boaz A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a Lebanese television host to death for the crime of “sorcery.” Apparently Ali Hussein Sibat was recognized by Saudi religious police as he made a pilgrimage to Mecca. On his show, he gave advice to callers and made predictions about their future. He could be [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

By Michael F. Cannon In this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, Mark Pauly and Bradley Herring show that the employer mandates passed by the House and Senate — where employers can either “play” by providing health benefits or pay a penalty — would result in grossly unfair treatment of similar individuals.  Regarding the House [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

By Jim Harper Terrorism presents a complex set of security problems. That’s easy to see in the welter of discussion about the recent attempted bombing on a plane flying from Amsterdam into Detroit. The media and blogs are poring over the many different security systems implicated by this story. Unfortunately, many are reviewing them all at once, [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

By Benjamin H. Friedman Terrorists are named after an emotion for a reason. They use violence to produce widespread fear for a political purpose. The number of those they kill or injure will always be a small fraction of those they frighten. This creates problems for leaders, and even analysts, when they talk publicly about [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

By David Boaz This is not the change we hoped for. President Obama rose to power on the basis of his early opposition to the Iraq war and his promise to end it. But after a year in the White House he has made both of George Bush’s wars his wars. Speaking of Iraq in February [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

By David Boaz The Washington Post reports on what new data reveal about the Chicago public schools run for the past seven years by Arne Duncan, now President Obama’s secretary of education: This month, the mathematics report card was delivered: Chicago trailed several cities in performance and progress made over six years. Miami, Houston and [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

By Daniel Griswold The Obama administration’s response to the attempted bombing of the Christmas Day flight into the Detroit has been both weak and wrongheaded. On the matter of first principles, I agree with my colleagues  Roger Pilon and Chris Edwards that among its limited and enumerated powers, the federal government has a duty to [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

By Mark A. Calabria On Christmas Eve, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner decided that the nation’s taxpayers had been naughty, and accordingly left a big lump of coal in their stockings.  More specifically, after Congress had finally left town and health care filled the headlines, Treasury announced in a short press release, that the federal government [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »