Cato Events Podcast

The President has linked tariffs on aluminum and steel to the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations, although he has exempted Canada and Mexico for now. Negotiations on a new NAFTA had been looking positive, but linking the trade deal to tariffs could undermine that progress. What is the future of continental free trade? And how should a renegotiated NAFTA be different?

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Representative Smith and Christopher Preble will discuss the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, including their findings from a new article they are copublishing in Strategic Studies Quarterly about BRAC, its impact on defense communities, and the future.For a number of years, the U.S. military — with support of presidents from both parties — has sought congressional authorization to rid itself of excess infrastructure. Unfortunately, Congress continues to stand in the way, often citing concerns about the effect of closures on local communities.In failing to authorize a BRAC round, however, Congress is doing more harm than good. Local communities are deprived of the support and clarity BRAC would provide, and they are denied access to property that could be put to productive use. Our military is forced to allocate resources away from training and equipping our soldiers in order to maintain unnecessary and unwanted infrastructure. Meanwhile, tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars continue to be wasted.Debate over the BRAC process needs to be better informed by context and a real-world understanding of downstream effects, particularly the less-appreciated way that closing excess facilities positively affects communities. This conversation aims to do just that.

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Representative Smith and Christopher Preble will discuss the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, including their findings from a new article they are copublishing in Strategic Studies Quarterly about BRAC, its impact on defense communities, and the future.

For a number of years, the U.S. military — with support of presidents from both parties — has sought congressional authorization to rid itself of excess infrastructure. Unfortunately, Congress continues to stand in the way, often citing concerns about the effect of closures on local communities.

In failing to authorize a BRAC round, however, Congress is doing more harm than good. Local communities are deprived of the support and clarity BRAC would provide, and they are denied access to property that could be put to productive use. Our military is forced to allocate resources away from training and equipping our soldiers in order to maintain unnecessary and unwanted infrastructure. Meanwhile, tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars continue to be wasted.

Debate over the BRAC process needs to be better informed by context and a real-world understanding of downstream effects, particularly the less-appreciated way that closing excess facilities positively affects communities. This conversation aims to do just that.

The President has linked tariffs on aluminum and steel to the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations, although he has exempted Canada and Mexico for now. Negotiations on a new NAFTA had been looking positive, but linking the trade deal to tariffs could undermine that progress. What is the future of continental free trade? And how should a renegotiated NAFTA be different?

Each year since the early 1900s, the world has recognized March 8th as International Women’s Day, an opportunity to celebrate women’s social, economic, cultural, and political achievements while calling for global gender equality.

What is the state of global gender equality? How free are women around the world today? What role has government historically played in women’s oppression and liberation? How have market-driven innovations and the unprecedented economic growth of the last decades changed women’s lives? Are policies designed to promote gender equality working? What changes still need to happen?

This International Women’s Day, please join the Cato Institute for an interactive, online-only Facebook Live discussion of women’s liberty around the world and tweet your questions using #CatoDigital.

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature — tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking — which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

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Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature — tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking — which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.

With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

One of our most important federal civil rights statutes allows individuals to sue state and local officials who violate their constitutional rights. This remedy is crucial not just to secure relief for individual claimants whose rights are violated, but also to ensure accountability and professionalism in law enforcement.

But the Supreme Court has created a major hurdle for civil rights plaintiffs through the judge-made doctrine of “qualified immunity.” This doctrine holds that law enforcement officers will be shielded from liability for unlawful misconduct unless the plaintiff can show that the officer violated “clearly established law.” The courts have aggressively applied this standard to require not just a clear legal rule but also a prior case with functionally similar facts. The end result is that police may get away with egregious unlawful conduct simply because no case already on the books has the same fact pattern.

Please join us for a forum marking the beginning of Cato’s campaign to challenge and roll back qualified immunity, as our distinguished panel discusses the law and history of the doctrine, its effect on civil rights litigation, and the implications for police accountability.

On February 28, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, an important First Amendment case that could clarify voters' speech rights nationwide. Lead plaintiff Andy Cilek (executive director of the Minnesota Voters Alliance) voted in the 2010 election in a Tea Party T-shirt that said "Don't tread on me." Because Minnesota prohibits badges, buttons, or other insignia that promote a group with "recognizable political views," at polling places an election official delayed Cilek from voting and took down his name and address for potential prosecution. Cilek sued to have the law struck down. Throughout litigation, the government has embraced the sheer breadth of Minnesota's ban on political apparel. In addition to prohibiting Tea Party apparel, the ban extends to apparel featuring the logo of the Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO, NRA, NAACP, and countless other organizations that might be associated with a political viewpoint. Cilek asks the Supreme Court to invalidate the law as an overbroad restriction on expression. Cato filed a brief in this case, arguing that the Court should look with skepticism at a law, like Minnesota's, that targets core political speech. Please join us for a discussion of one of the most important First Amendment cases of the year a few days before argument.

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