• Honduras: It Wasn't a Coup (Juan Carlos Hidalgo, project coordinator for Latin America. July 9, 2009)

  The international community has grossly misrepresented the facts of the institutional crisis in Honduras. What happened on June 29 was not a military coup. The decision to remove Manuel Zelaya…

• Obama Won't Make Much Progress in Russia (Justin Logan, associate director of foreign policy studies. July 6, 2009)

  Successive U.S. administrations have tried to make Russia both more liberal and more at peace with advancing U.S. politico-military influence. They have failed on both fronts, in large part because…

• The U.S. Should Cease Escalation in Afghanistan (Malou Innocent, foreign policy analyst. July 2, 2009)

  To combat the growing Taliban insurgency, the United States recently dispatched thousands of Marines to Afghanistan’s restive eastern and southern provinces bordering Pakistan. Going after al Qaeda does not require Washington…

• Draw Down in Iraq a Positive First Step (Christopher A. Preble, director of foreign policy studies. June 26, 2009)

  The withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities is just the first step in a long process of finally bringing the ruinous Iraq war to a close. It's what…

• Are Democrats Serious about Immigration Reform? (Daniel Griswold, director, Center for Trade Policy Studies. June 25, 2009)

  President Obama is meeting today with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to talk about reforming our broken immigration system. The challenge for both parties will be whether they can overcome…

• Supreme Court Stands Up for Student Privacy (David Rittgers, legal policy analyst. June 25, 2009)

  The Supreme Court's decision today in Safford Unified School District #1 et al. v. Redding was a victory for privacy and decency. The Court held that a middle school violated…

• Cato Scholar Comments on the Obama Administration's Financial Regulation Reforms (Mark A. Calabria, director of financial regulation studies. June 17, 2009)

  The Obama Administration is presenting a misguided, ill-informed remake of our financial regulatory system that will likely increase the frequency and severity of future financial crises. While our financial system,…

• Reformist Victory in Iran? Positive Step for Peace, But Challenges Remain (Doug Bandow, senior fellow. June 12, 2009)

  Reports from Iran indicate a heavy voter turnout, which has forced authorities to keep the polls open. The long lines are thought to favor reformer Hossein Mousavi over incumbent Mahmoud…

• Enlisting China against North Korea (Doug Bandow, senior fellow. June 11, 2009)

  The U.S. and the other permanent members of the Security Council have agreed to strengthen sanctions against North Korea. In the main, the members plan to tighten the rules imposed…

• U.S. Presence Feeds Pakistan's Insurgency (Malou Innocent, foreign policy analyst. June 10, 2009)

  Tuesday’s attack on Peshawar’s Pearl Continental Hotel was the latest signal of Pakistan’s growing Islamist insurgency. Since the raid by the Pakistani government on the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in…

• You Pay, The Government Goes (Tad DeHaven, budget analyst. June 9, 2009)

  President Obama on Tuesday endorsed statutory pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules that would require Congress to increase taxes or cut spending to offset new entitlements or tax cuts. For regular citizens struggling…

• Journalists as Bargaining Chips (Doug Bandow, senior fellow. June 8, 2009)

  North Korea has announced the conviction of two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, for illegally entering the North and exhibiting “hostility toward the Korean people.” They were sentenced…

• Treasury Is Its Own Worst Enemy (Mark A. Calabria, director of financial regulation studies. June 8, 2009)

  The Treasury's handling of TARP shows again why government is often its own worst enemy. With limits on executive compensation, and continuing pressure to make and modify risky loans, the…

• OAS Lift on Cuba Is Bad Politics (Ian Vásquez, director, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. June 4, 2009)

  The OAS’s decision to lift Cuba’s suspension from OAS membership is a symbolic victory for the Cuban dictatorship and makes a mockery of the organization’s purported mission to defend human…

• 20th Anniversary of Tiananmen: (James A. Dorn, vice president for academic affairs. June 4, 2009)

  After 20 years China has made substantial economic progress, but the ghosts of Tiananmen are restless and will continue to be so until the Goddess of Liberty is restored. The…

• Cato Scholar Comments on President Obama's Speech in Cairo (Christopher A. Preble, director of foreign policy studies. June 4, 2009)

  I listened live to the president's Cairo speech this morning on my ride into work. I know that it will be parsed and dissected. Passages will be taken out of…

• The Tobacco Regulation Shell Game (Patrick Basham, adjunct scholar, Center for Representative Government. June 3, 2009)

  Handing tobacco regulation over to the FDA, as Congress is poised to do, is an epic public health mistake. It is tantamount to giving the keys of the regulatory store…

• Obama's Mideast Watchwords: Manage Expectations (Christopher A. Preble, director, Defense and Foreign Policy Studies. June 1, 2009)

  During the course of his travels in the Mideast, but especially in his Cairo speech, President Obama must impress upon his audience that the United States cannot simply dictate the…

• Cato Scholar Comments on GM Bankruptcy and Ford's Future (Daniel J. Ikenson, associate director, Center for Trade Policy Studies. June 1, 2009)

  It's not as if we didn't know this was going to happen to GM for a long time now. The real question we all should turn to is: What's going…

• News Release: Chávez Tries to Shut Down Pro-Free Market Educational Conference (May 27, 2009)

  CAUCAGUA, VENEZUELA -- A Cato Institute educational seminar fell victim to an attempt by the Venezuelan government to shut it down for expressing ideas critical of the Chávez regime. Numerous…

• North Korea: An Opportunity, Not a Crisis (Doug Bandow, senior fellow. May 26, 2009)

  Nothing seems to upset North Korea more than being ignored. Hence Pyongyang's second nuclear test, punctuated by the separate firing of a short-range missile. Although the nuclear test reinforces the North's…

• Cato Scholars Comment on Obama Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor (Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs; Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow, Center for Constitutional Studies and editor-in-chief, Cato Supreme Court Review. May 26, 2009)

  In nominating Second Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, President Obama chose the most radical of all the frequently mentioned candidates…

• News Release: John Cochrane Joins the Cato Institute (May 22, 2009)

  University of Chicago economist John Cochrane has joined the Cato Institute as an adjunct scholar. Cochrane has done pioneering work on health insurance markets, demonstrating how market innovation can solve…

• News Release: Vladimir Bukovsky Joins the Cato Institute (May 21, 2009)

  Author and Soviet-era political dissident Vladimir Bukovsky has joined the Cato Institute as a senior fellow. "Vladmir personifies the struggle for freedom that animates the Cato Institute's mission," said Cato founder…

• No Warming Solution, Just a Pain in the Gas (Patrick J. Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies. May 19, 2009)

  President Obama's imposition of new mileage standards for cars demonstrates that he is willing to circumvent the legislative process when it comes to global warming. Why he would do…

• New Administration, Same Multibillion Dollar War Bill (Benjamin H. Friedman, research fellow in defense and homeland security studies. May 14, 2009)

  The $96.7 billion fiscal year 2009 war supplemental bill spends too much. The bulk of the spending, $84.5 billion, funds military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The remainder goes to diplomacy,…

• Old Enough to Die for Your Country, Too Young for a Credit Card (Mark A. Calabria, director of financial regulation studies. May 14, 2009)

  While much of the debate around the so-called "Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights" has been on ending various card policies aimed at disguising different credit risks, one group of cardholders…

• Social 'Security' Now Officially a Laughable Euphemism (Michael D. Tanner, senior fellow. May 12, 2009)

  The Social Security Trustees report released today shows that the program's financial crisis is growing worse while Congress has continued to duck the issue. …

• It Begins: White House Unleashes the Health Care Tempest (Michael D. Tanner, senior fellow; Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies. May 11, 2009)

  Monday's meeting between President Obama and representatives of the health care industry is part of an ongoing process of trying to strike a deal between government and industry over how…

• Earth to Lawmakers: Available Credit Is a Good Thing (Mark A. Calabria, director of financial regulation studies. May 11, 2009)

  With the House having passed credit card legislation and the Senate scheduled to take up its own bill this week, one questions keeps coming back to me: What's the hurry?…

• News Release: Harvard Economist Jeffrey Miron and Capitol Hill Veteran Mark Calabria Join the Cato Institute's Economic Policy Team (April 20, 2009)

  Jeffrey Miron, Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard's Department of Economics, has joined the Cato Institute as a Senior Fellow.  "I am delighted to be working with Cato," Miron said.…

• News Release: Tucker Carlson Joins the Cato Institute (February 23, 2009)

  Noted columnist and television commentator Tucker Carlson has joined the Cato Institute as a senior fellow.  "I've admired the Cato Institute since I first read its publications, passed around like samizdat…

• News Release: The Biggest Check Ever Signed (February 17, 2009)

  The Obama Administration has banked a lot of political capital on the economic "stimulus" package to be signed into law today—and no doubt will try to give the measure credit…

• News Release: Four Obama Statements That Deserve Closer Scrutiny (February 10, 2009)

  1.      "[I]f you delay acting on an economy of this severity, then you potentially create a negative spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of. We…

• News Release: Mr. President, We ARE Hungry for Change…So Stop Spending Money Like Bush (February 9, 2009)

  In selling his big-spending ideas for reviving the U.S. economy, President Obama on Thursday night chastised "the same policies that, for the last eight years, doubled our national debt, and…

• News Release: Will Drug Violence Make Mexico a Failed State? (February 9, 2009)

  While U.S. leaders focus on Afghanistan, Iran and other problems in distant regions, there is an alarming security problem brewing right next door. Violence in Mexico, mostly related to the…

• News Release: Nat Hentoff Joins the Cato Institute (February 4, 2009)

  Nat Hentoff, one of the foremost authorities on the First Amendment, has joined the Cato Institute as a senior fellow.  "The core of libertarianism is a defense of free speech,"…

• News Release: Daschle Loves Big Government — If Someone Else is Paying (February 3, 2009)

  The Tom Daschle imbroglio is instructive on several levels. From a policy perspective, it is an indictment of a convoluted tax code that simultaneously hinders compliance by honest people and…

• News Release: The Human Cost of America's Drug War (February 2, 2009)

  The large and growing problem of drug-related violence on the southern U.S. border has finally seeped into the news cycle.  The U.S. State Department has issued warnings for Americans traveling…

• News Release: Trade Lessons Unheeded (January 29, 2009)

  Leaving aside the many other disastrous implications of the pork-laden "stimulus" bill, here are some thoughts about its impact on international trade. For all practical purposes there is no difference…

• News Release: What You REALLY Need to Know About the Stimulus (January 28, 2009)

  President Obama says "economists from across the political spectrum agree" on the need for massive government spending to stimulate the economy. In fact, many economists disagree. Hundreds of them, including…

• News Release: Why Obama Needs to Close Gitmo (January 22, 2009)

  "Using closed courts to try suspected terrorists plays the propaganda game in exactly the way our enemies want, and cheapens American justice on the world stage.  Terrorism and insurgency constitute…

• News Release: SCHIPing Away at Sustainable Federal Spending (January 15, 2009)

  Expanding SCHIP is bad medicine for the intended beneficiaries and for taxpayers.  SCHIP is a costly, poorly targeted, and unproven strategy for improving child health.  In addition, SCHIP crowds out…

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