Dan Greenberg Several of my colleagues have written about today’s controversy: the shooting, at point-blank range, of Renee Good. They are just a few participants in a nationwide argument over what her death means—and, more precisely, who bears responsibility for it. Our vice president has explained that Renee Good was a “deranged leftist”; our president has explained that Renee Good ...
Marcos Falcone Over 26 years, Venezuela’s gradual transition from a democracy into a dictatorship involved increasing authoritarianism on the part of the Chávez-Maduro regime. It also involved ineffective opposition leaders, who were often divided and unable or unwilling to challenge the socialist dictatorship or its ideological foundations. However, María Corina Machado, the current opposition leader and a recent recipient of the Nobel ...
Matthew Cavedon A recent conversation between two judges suggests that mercy should have more of a role in the criminal legal system than many people think. On November 19, Judges Stephanos Bibas and Richard Sullivan met at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC, to discuss “Mercy, Retribution, and the Sentencing Judge.” The talk was sponsored by The Center for ...
Stephen Slivinski President Trump’s recent Truth Social missive about housing fits the mold of many of his others to date: he identifies an issue (that may or may not be important, and summarizes it in a way that may or may not be accurate) and then blames a boogeyman before he suggests a terrible way to eradicate the boogeyman. He ...
Colleen Hroncich “I was a teacher who always stretched the limits and broke the rules a little bit,” admits Kristin Fink, founder of Skola Microschool in Minnesota. “I loved trying kinds of different projects—more student-led, a lot of curiosity, a lot of problem solving, and trial and error projects, tons of creativity.” That approach didn’t always work in the private ...
Scott Lincicome and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon Back in December, we showed how measures imposed by the Trump administration in 2025 have made the US tariff system excessively convoluted and complex, and in the last few weeks, the situation has only worsened. Regardless of what the Supreme Court does with Trump’s “emergency” tariffs, moreover, US tariff red tape will likely grow more this ...
Tad DeHaven The Trump administration says that it will sell Venezuelan oil at market prices and oversee the allocation of the proceeds. Trump framed it as a new presidential revenue stream: This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is ...
Neal McCluskey Arguably the biggest thing happening in American K–12 education over the past several years has been culture war: Battles over whose values, views of history, and more will be reflected in public school curricula, library holdings, athletics and bathroom policies, and more. It is something Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom has cataloged for many years. While the original ...
Solveig Singleton Morning Money’s piece, “How gutting the CFPB clashes with affordability concerns,” suggests that the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau contradicts the administration’s affordability goals. The argument is that the CFPB has tried to limit fees such as bank overdraft charges—a rule nixed by Congress—and such limits would save consumers money. This thesis is, ...
Walter Olson In a major setback for the Trump administration, the Supreme Court, in an unsigned opinion on December 23, declined to stay a lower court order barring the federal government from deploying the National Guard in Chicago. While welcome, the ruling is also in some ways narrow and kicks down the road many important issues. One of those issues, ...