Colin Grabow Defenders of the protectionist Jones Act often insist that the law’s prohibition on the use of foreign-built vessels in domestic commerce ensures a robust domestic shipbuilding industrial base. But data released by UNCTAD last week demonstrates that such claims rest on a rather loose definition of “robust.” In 2024, the United States — the world’s second-largest manufacturing country ...
Alex Nowrasteh On June 12, reporters and political commentators were abuzz with news that the Trump administration told ICE agents to “hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture, restaurants, and operating hotels.” His administration’s announcement launched 100,000 tweets crowing about how Trump is in the pockets of big business, a premature op-ed at National Review titled “Trump’s New Amnesty Would ...
Jeffrey A. Singer With summer upon us, many American consumers are purchasing sunscreens to protect themselves from the ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer. Unfortunately, government regulations limit consumers’ choices to decades-old formulations that offer less comprehensive protection than the options available to people in other countries. The Food and Drug Administration last approved a sunscreen product in 1999. ...
Stephen Richer I just got back from oral argument in Harvard v. US Department of Homeland Security, where Harvard’s attorney argued that the government should be further enjoined from revoking visas from the approximately 7,000 international students and researchers currently at the university (background here). There are a lot of arguments in play. And each argument has different subcomponents. Former Acting ...
Nicholas Anthony It has been three years since the postal banking pilot program had a customer (Table 1). It’s time for Congress to step in and put this program to rest. What is the Postal Banking Pilot Program? For anyone wondering, “What is the postal banking pilot program?” here’s a brief breakdown to get you up to speed. The United ...
Chris Edwards Local government corruption comes in many flavors, as we found in summarizing 15 recent cases. A news story from Baltimore alerts me to yet another method of corruption: officials taking bribes to cancel debts owed to the government. In Baltimore’s Department of Finance, employee Joseph Gillespie accepted $250,000 in bribes from city residents for canceling or postponing their payments ...
Robert A. Levy A centerpiece of the Trump agenda has been to expand executive power at the expense of Congress. To date, the major check on that agenda has been intervention by the judiciary. That intervention, in turn, has prompted an appreciation for our Constitution, which divides power structurally among the three branches. There is, however, a contrary view—promoted mainly by whoever is ...
Brandan P. Buck Israel’s airstrikes on Iran and US involvement shatter the illusion that America First guides President Trump’s Middle East policy. The hijacking of “America First” for hawkish goals is clear as Trump treads the same failed interventionist path in the Middle East. Beyond policy, these attempts to co-opt the legacy of America First for the sake of the status ...
Colleen Hroncich Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play. According to MIT researcher Mitchel Resnick, these are the “four Ps of creative learning.” He notes that in kindergarten, children have historically learned through play and exploration. But he thinks too many schools have gone away from that approach. “Kindergarten is becoming like the rest of school,” he writes. “I argue for exactly ...
Walter Olson Last month, I expressed alarm about a provision in the House budget reconciliation bill proposing to strip from federal courts the power to use contempt sanctions to enforce many court orders. Now, the Senate Judiciary Committee has countered with its own version, which drops the unconstitutional craziness while still advancing the goal of discouraging the issuance of temporary ...