CEI Today: Twitter IPO aided by JOBS Act, Obama barricades tourist sites, and EPA destruction of public records
Today in the News
TWITTER IPO – JOHN BERLAU
Twitter IPO a Vindication of Bipartisan JOBS Act
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act was signed by President Obama in April 2012. Twitter is using JOBS Act provisions for its own intial public offering, as revealed by the filing of its first IPO documents last night. And investors are better off for it, as companies like Twitter going public at earlier stages of growth will mean greater opportunity for ordinary shareholders to grow wealthy with the company. And going public at an earlier stage actually lessens the chance that an IPO will face a Facebook-type fiasco.
OBAMA SHUTS DOWN TOURIST ATTRACTIONS – HANS BADER
In response to the so-called “government shutdown” (which actually has not shut down most of the government—80 percent of federal workers are still working), the Obama Administration is shutting down various tourist attractions, even though doing so costs the government more money than leaving them open. It is renting costly barricades to keep people out of open-air outdoor monuments that don’t need to be manned, and are typically open even when unstaffed (like the World War II Memorial). And it has sent Park Police to drive people out of privately-run tourist attractions on public land, like the Claude Moore Colonial Farm, endangering tourism-related jobs in the process.
EPA DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC RECORDS
CEI Suit Seeks Injunction Against Ongoing EPA Record Destruction
Attorneys with the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed suit Thursday to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from destroying senior officials’ records, a practice CEI uncovered with recent requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
CEI filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking the court to “enjoin and prevent the destruction of certain EPA text message transcripts, by EPA pursuant to a policy and practice that violates the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Records Act.” >