Today, Eyck Freymann explains why the United States must prepare for a variety of crisis scenarios surrounding Taiwan beyond a clear military attack; Hoover invites the nation’s high school and college students to enter our spoken-word competition on America’s founding ideals; and Eugene Volokh analyzes the recent indictment of former FBI director James Comey over an Instagram post from a First Amendment law perspective.
US Foreign Policy
In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, Hoover Fellow Eyck Freymann argues that the true threat facing Taiwan—and by extension the United States’ foreign policy with respect to that self-governing island nation off China’s coast—is not a barrage of missiles or other military action; rather, it’s a crisis, a slower strangulation of Taiwan under the guise of a “quarantine” or similar assertion of China’s administrative control. Freymann makes the case that US diplomats and military strategists have prioritized planning around military contingencies and have neglected important, if less extreme on their face, crisis scenarios. He identifies areas where the US can bolster its deterrence efforts around the contested island. “The United States, its allies, and the people of Taiwan can sustain peace for another generation,” Freymann concludes, “but only if the allies start preparing for a crisis, not just a war.”
Read how US policy shifts could proactively lower the chances of a Taiwan crisis.
Hoover USA @ 250 Contest
Calling all poets! To mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Hoover Institution invites high school and college students to reflect on the meaning and the future of the American experiment through the spoken word. The ideals of the American Founding have always required the active engagement of citizens to carry them forward. Today we’re asking students: At this moment, what do America's founding ideals demand? Where have they endured, and where do they need to be reclaimed, reinterpreted, or renewed? Full details are available at the links above and below; this competition closes on June 1, 2026. One winner in each division will receive a $2,500 prize plus an expenses-paid visit to the Hoover Institution to perform their spoken-word composition.
Learn more and enter here.
First Amendment Law
Writing at his Volokh Conspiracy blog, Senior Fellow Eugene Volokh examines the indictment announced yesterday of former FBI Director James Comey over Comey’s 2025 Instagram post depicting seashells arranged to show “86 47.” The indictment alleges that “a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret [this post] as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.” Volokh explains why, in his view, “this prosecution is unjustified, and will get thrown out.” Volokh notes that “with the right context, very many things could be seen as threats of violence,” but in this case, no context he’s aware of “would lead Comey's tweet to be reasonably interpreted that way.” The “true threat” exception to free-speech protections “only extends to statements that really would be reasonably understood as threats,” the leading First Amendment scholar writes.
Learn why Volokh doesn’t think it’s reasonable to read Comey’s post as a true threat of violence.
Can you be sued for repeating a rumor—even if you say you don’t believe it? Is calling someone a “racist” an allegation of fact or opinion? In this new episode of Free Speech Unmuted, Senior Fellow Eugene Volokh and cohost Jane Bambauer unpack the hidden rules of defamation law, from libel and slander to viral tweets and billion-dollar verdicts. This conversation offers a deep dive into what you can freely say, what you can be sued for, and why the biggest legal battles often turn on the smallest details. In an age featuring frequent controversies over the legality of various acts of speech, this discussion between two seasoned First Amendment lawyers is sure to illuminate this area of law for listeners.
Unpack the key differences between protected expression and legally actionable speech.
Education Economics
Last Wednesday, Senior Fellow Eric Hanushek presented research to Hoover’s Economic Policy Working Group on “how returns to cognitive skills have evolved over the past decade in 23 developed countries.” Hanushek and his coauthors found “strong convergence consistent with factor price equalization.” As they write, “On average across countries, earnings increase by 16.7 percent per standard deviation in numeracy skills in 2023, a decline from 20.3 in 2012.” The authors also find “substantial cross-country heterogeneity, with one-third of countries seeing increased returns.” Hanushek says that “much of the cross-country variation in the changes to skill returns can be accounted for by convergence, whereas other factors including technological change do not contribute.” He concludes that “the speed of convergence is faster in countries with more labor-market flexibility and openness to trade, especially in intangibles.”
Review the slides for insights into how returns to cognitive skills have changed over time.
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