Cato Daily Podcast

Showing respect for an opponent's argument may be difficult, but it's important if we care about having productive and civil discourse. Greg Rehmke runs economicthinking.org and has spend decades teaching young people how to engage in proper debate. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Social entrepreneurs still face a bottom line. Sam Staley of Florida State University discusses what is required to engage in charity and business simultaneously. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You would expect a court designed for foreign intelligence surveillance would use a stronger hand in punishing agencies that illegally snoop on Americans. Julian Sanchez discusses why that's not exactly what's going on.Help us celebrate the Cato Daily Podcast’s 15th anniversary by receiving a small token of our appreciation for listeners. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Left's blind spot about guns mirrors the Right's blind spot about immigrants. Trevor Burrus explains. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Biden Administration hopes to hike capital gains taxes for high earners. What are the likely results? Cato’s Jennifer Schulp comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Should the U.S. care that Saudi Arabia and Iran are talking? Doug Bandow explains. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As Republicans have come to love big government, Democrats have stopped pretending to care about fiscal restraint. Eric Boehm of Reason details the absence of serious fights over spending. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How does an off-campus profane rant implicate student discipline for schools? The Supreme Court is looking at the case of a teenager disciplined for that kind of speech. Cato's Thomas Berry talks about why the student will probably prevail. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Facebook Oversight Board generally approved of the company's ban on Donald Trump, but the board attached some directions for Facebook, as well. John Samples, a vice president at Cato, is a member of the oversight board. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How well does the medical malpractice system compensate injured patients and spur better care? Charlie Silver is coauthor of Medical Malpractice Litigation: How It Works — Why Tort Reform Hasn’t Helped. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A new Cato Institute poll drills down on why Americans feel the way they do about immigration. Emily Ekins directed the research. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

California wants to maintain a database of the identities of donors to all manner of charities throughout the U.S. Paul Sherman of the Institute for Justice says it's an imposition on privacy and association. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The experience of Ukraine may offer lessons for public defense. Economic researcher Garrett Wood has looked into the creative but imperfect means of crowdfunding small-scale defense in Ukraine. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Qualified immunity is an insult to Americans whose rights have been violated by public officials. Ben Cohen tells some of those stories in Above the Law: How 'Qualified Immunity' Protects Violent Police. We were joined by Cato’s Jay Schweikert and Clark Neily. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

New Mexico has eliminated qualified immunity for almost all public officials. New Mexico House Speaker Brian Egolf (D) discusses how it happened and why it's an important reform. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Biden Administration is reportedly considering a federal mandate to lower nicotine levels in cigarettes to nonaddictive levels. Is that just back door prohibition? Tom Firey and Jeff Singer comment. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The arguments from self-described libertarians on private vaccine certifications often disrespects the freedom of people to define their own associations. Sam Staley of Florida State University comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Criminal justice reformers should turn their eyes to how data is collected in myriad ways within the criminal justice system. Stuart Buck of Arnold Ventures details how credible data can drive reform efforts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As Democrats prepare to roll out the end of federal cannabis prohibition, it's worth taking stock of where cannabis legality stands today. Erin Partin details how states have moved over the past decade, and how the feds ought to move forward. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

President Joe Biden lost credibility in his own party by failing to make good on campaign promises to increase the cap for refugee admissions to the United States. David Bier says Biden has no reason to back down from his immigration promises. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Defining a hate crime is a challenge and definitions vary by jurisdiction, but Congress is moving ahead with revising and expanding those laws federally. Walter Olson comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The rigidity that Democrats want in labor markets doesn't serve women well, and Republicans are far from innocent in pushing for new mandates. Rachel Greszler of the Heritage Foundation comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Defenders of certificate-of-need laws make big claims, like those laws effectively protect access to health care services. Economist James Bailey at Providence College has examined that claim. He says there’s not much evidence to support it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The housing market's normal churn has been all but absent in this pandemic. Does that make for a housing bubble? Tom Firey comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

New proposed authorities to combat domestic terrorism after the attack on the Capitol again pose challenges for basic constraints on government like probable cause and particularized suspicion. Patrick Eddington comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Parents, put in a bind by a pandemic, have focused their attention on the options available to them for their kids' education. This year may be the very best for the expansion of school choice so far. Jason Bedrick explains how it happened. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The price we all would ultimately pay for a central government database of our vaccination status to regulate our public engagement could be very high. Can we get the benefits without the costs? Julian Sanchez and Jeff Singer comment. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The pandemic has shown us that there is a price to be paid for failing to understand economic consequences. Ryan Bourne catalogs many of the missteps in his new book, Economics in One Virus: An Introduction to Economic Reasoning through COVID-19. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Islamic thinkers once inspired great Western thinkers. How can Islam fully embrace respect for science, reason, liberty, and other religions? Mustafa Akyol is author of Reopening Muslim Minds. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Local efforts at criminal justice reform can be preempted by state-level edict. How should states and localities work to get along? Rachel Elise Barkow, author of Prisoners of Politics, comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The authorizations that have enabled two decades of American-led war across the globe should be repealed. Congress may finally agree. Gene Healy and John Glaser explain why. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Biden Administration hopes to spend trillions of new dollars on public infrastructure, and while they're at it, massively subsidize private infrastructure. Cato's Chris Edwards says it's utterly unnecessary. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has a new piece of would-be reform legislation, though the proposal highlights just how hard it is to do content moderation at scale. Mike Masnick of techdirt and Cato's Will Duffield comment. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Understanding what systemic racism is requires an understanding of what it isn't. Jonathan Blanks of The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity details a few important distinctions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What does a former cop think about qualified immunity? Sonia Pruitt is head of The Black Police Experience. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Pollsters got it wrong again in 2020, underestimating support for Donald Trump and Republicans more broadly. How are they going to get it right? Emily Ekins discusses the theories. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The people who set the prices for a lot of Medicare-funded services point out many of the problems that leads Michael Cannon to conclude that the behemoth of government healthcare provides "junk" coverage. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Big players expanding telehealth offerings while a great deal of state regulation is temporarily suspended might mean a vast expansion of telehealth offerings going forward. Jeff Singer comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

California's poverty is dramatically more stark than in other states. Delivering on an inclusive economic recovery from pandemic means addressing several underlying policy problems. Michael Tanner comments ahead of his conference in April. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Biden Administration has ways to make good on pledges to treat young people crossing the border fairly. David Bier comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rick Perlstein's Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 details a downtrodden GOP approaching irrelevance ahead of the surprising resurgence of Ronald Reagan. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Stupid wars go back a long time, but the idea that war is stupid is relatively new. John Mueller explores the modern idea in The Stupidity of War. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When will President Biden withdraw all support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen? Does Joe Biden own the war in Afghanistan if he doesn’t stick to the current timeline for U.S. departure? Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California discusses the Biden foreign policy so far. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fifty years ago this month, a group of anti-war activists broke into the FBI and revealed terrible crimes committed by that agency under the secrecy of COINTELPRO. Patrick Eddington details the history. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Do judges feel undue influence from libertarian legal scholars? Sheldon Whitehouse may believe that's the case, and he'd like to change the way groups like the Cato Institute are allowed to engage with the judiciary. Ilya Shapiro comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A year after Louisville police killed Breonna Taylor, what's changed? Peter Kraska is a policing researcher at Eastern Kentucky University who worked on the Taylor case. He comments on police reform efforts now underway. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's easy to want to throw the book at someone who's engaged in some egregious conduct, but it's harder to understand what even seemingly minor punishments entail. Author and criminal justice scholar John Pfaff discusses the incentives inherent in the way criminal justice is carried out in America. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Trump Administration made extensive use of national security justifications for restricting trade. It's time for the law that allows it to go. Inu Manak and Scott Lincicome comment. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Should online platforms get blamed for criminal behavior that occurs online, even when police fail to act? Will Duffield comments. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How governments have opted to distribute COVID-19 vaccines leaves a lot to be desired. And precisely what does the end of this pandemic look like? Comedian Andrew Heaton guest hosts in a conversation with Jeff Singer. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The last days of the Trump Administration saw an attack on the Capitol and an historic second impeachment for a sitting President. For Republicans who voted to bring that President to trial, what now? Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler offers her thoughts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.