Blog
D.C. Voting Rights Dilemma
Blog
More British Government Baby Stealing
Blog
A New, Fairer Way to Tax Cigarettes and Fight Addiction?
Blog
The Disappearing Blog Post About Spouse Killings
Blog
District Seeks to Revive Gun Ban
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill Violates Treaty, Indonesia Says
Blog
Virginia Tech Kept in the Dark by Disabilities Laws
Blog
Virginia’s Budget-Busting Preschool Program
Blog
Gender Bias in the Courts — and in The Washington Post
For a glaring example of gender bias in the courts (and the media), you need look no further than The Washington Post story today…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill: A Trojan Horse?
PR Watch has an interesting story on the cynical baptist-bootlegger alliance behind the bill to give the FDA oversight over the tobacco industry, which…
Blog
DDT Saves Africans from Malaria
Donald Roberts has an interesting Op-Ed in the New York Times about the crucial role of DDT in preventing the spread of malaria in…
Blog
Global Warming Alarmism Debunked
In the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby has an interesting editorial debunking attacks by Newsweek and others on scientists and CEI staffers who have…
Blog
Foreign Aid Kills
Foreign food aid often causes, rather than alleviates, hunger, by destroying the basis of the farm economy in the country that receives the aid, as…
Blog
Global Warming Scams
The Washington Post has a story today about so-called “carbon offsets,” schemes “offering absolution for the modern nag of climate guilt.” In exchange…
Blog
Panhandling Drug Addicts Make $60 Per Hour
Blog
Nicaragua Objects to U.S. Cigar Tax Increase
Nicaragua’s legislature has objected to proposed increases in U.S. cigar taxes, which would raise the tax on some premium cigars from 5 cents…
Blog
Why Americans Are Getting Fat
Judge Richard Posner has an insightful discussion of why Americans are getting fatter and fatter. He discusses factors contributing to the obesity epidemic, such…
Blog
When Welfare Kills
Blog
More on Bad Court Ruling Against Terminally Ill
“Terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to be treated with experimental drugs, even if they likely will be dead before the medicine…
Blog
Drug Maker Faces Lawsuit by Corrupt, Kooky Foreign Government
Pfizer is seeking the dismissal of a $2 billion lawsuit by the Nigerian state of Kano. Pfizer’s purported offense was to give children an…
Blog
Court Rejects Terminally Ill Patients’ Chance to Live, Upholds FDA Red Tape
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 8-to-2 in Abigail Alliance v. Von Eschenbach that terminally ill people cannot challenge the FDA's ban…
Blog
Search of Crooked Congressman’s Office Declared Illegal
Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson was caught with a $90,000 bribe in his freezer. That didn’t stop his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus from rallying…
Blog
Spitzer Vetoes Bill to Gut Welfare Reform
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Assailed
In the New York Times, Patrick Basham explains why the bill to give the Food and Drug Administration the duty to regulate tobacco is…
Blog
Bridge Collapse Falsely Blamed on Low Taxes by Europeans
A Dutch friend of a CEI staffer passed on the fact that some Dutch and German newspapers today are filled with hateful comments online about…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Clears Senate Committee
A Senate committee has just voted 13-to-8 in favor of the bill to give the FDA jurisdiction over tobacco products and the tobacco industry.
Blog
Tobacco Settlement Bars Smokers’ Punitive Damage Claims
A court has just ruled that a multibillion dollar tobacco settlement bars punitive damages in lawsuits by smokers against tobacco companies. In 1998, 46…
Blog
English Plaintiffs’ Long-Distance Suit Moved Closer to Home
Usually, it’s the plaintiff who seeks to sue in his home state, while the defendant seeks to have lawsuits heard in its own home state.
Blog
Drug Price Ceilings Overturned
An appeals court ruling today struck down Washington, D.C.’s price ceilings for prescription drugs. In Biotechnology Industry Organization v. District of Columbia, the Court…
Blog
Reformist Attorneys General Target Abuses
In recent years, some state attorneys general have used their offices to sponsor lawsuits that redistribute billions of dollars from businesses into the pockets of…
Blog
FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill Tramples Free Speech, Advertisers Say
Advertisers are objecting to the bill that would subject the tobacco industry to FDA regulation, saying that its restrictions on tobacco advertising would violate…
Blog
FDA Regulation: Harmful to Smokers’ Health?
Congress is on the verge of passing a bill that would subject tobacco products to FDA regulation. The FDA regulation bill would make it…
Blog
“He Only Saved a Billion People”
Newsweek has a story on Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, whose advances in biotechnology saved a billion people from starvation in…
Blog
Eliot Spitzer Aides Caught Playing Dirty Tricks
Aides and close advisers of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer have been caught trying to plant dirt on a political rival, state senate…
Blog
Anti-AIDS Spending Backfires
A U.N. effort to reduce the spread of AIDS to children by encouraging HIV-positive mothers to use formula rather than breast feeding has backfired…
Blog
Nuisance Lawsuits Shielded by Democratic Leaders
Protection against nuisance lawsuits for private citizens who report suspicions of terrorist activity was removed by Congressional Democratic leaders from homeland security legislation. Both houses of Congress had…
Blog
Racially Labeling Your Child
My family is puzzling over what racial label to pin on our children. Because of their different ethnic backgrounds, my daughter and my nephew might…
Blog
Washington Appeals Decision Striking Down Gun Ban
Washington, D.C. bans handguns, even when used solely for self-defense. Earlier this year, its gun ban was struck down under the Second Amendment by…
Blog
Gigantic Class Action Lawsuit at Death’s Door
Earlier, I wrote about the gigantic class action lawsuit in Schwab v. Philip Morris, in which the tobacco companies are being sued for selling…
Blog
One Step Toward a Tobacco Monopoly
The New York Times has a story today on the FDA regulation bill, which would place the tobacco industry under FDA regulation. The bill…
Blog
FDA Regulation of Tobacco Opposed
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina is opposing a bill to place the tobacco industry under the jurisdiction of the FDA. He cites the…
Blog
More Controversy About the N-Word
The Montgomery County Schools are eliminating a lesson plan designed to prepare students to read Harper Lee’s classic To Kill A Mockingbird, saying that…
Blog
Attorneys General: Corruption By Contingency Fee
Adam Liptak of The New York Times recently wrote about the increasing practice by state attorneys general of hiring trial lawyers to bring lawsuits…
Blog
Hate Crimes Bill is Back
Earlier, I wrote about how the federal hate crimes bill contains provisions that would undermine protections against double-jeopardy and constitutional federalism safeguards (see here,…
Blog
Greenhouse Gas Sanctimony
Al Gore was born into a wealthy family and lives high on the hog. But he is very preachy and sanctimonious about the little people…
Blog
$200 Billion Class Action Lawsuit Over “Light” Cigarettes Appealed
Today, the federal appeals court in New York heard the appeal of trial judge Jack Weinstein’s decision to certify a $200 billion class action…
Blog
Ambushed by the Unruh Act
California's Unruh Act is a trial lawyer's dream, and a nightmare for the rule of law. It has been interpreted to ban "discrimination" against customers…
Blog
Bong Hits 4 Jesus Fallout
Julie Hilden has an interesting column at Findlaw on the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding a teenager’s suspension for holding up a “Bong Hits…
Blog
More Foreign Lawsuits Against Tobacco Companies
Back in 1998, in the Master Settlement Agreement, the big tobacco companies agreed to pay 46 states billions of dollars in perpetuity, supposedly to defray…
Blog
Racial Set-Asides Cost D.C. Taxpayers
Washington, D.C. has a minority set-aside program that results in taxpayers of all races paying hundreds of millions of dollars more in taxes to pay…
Blog
Scooter Libby’s Sentence Commuted
Bush has just commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence, eliminating his prison sentence, while leaving his $250,000 fine intact. That is what I recommended here.
Blog
California Loots Safe-Deposit Boxes for State Spending Spree
To finance mushrooming government spending, California is seizing as “abandoned” property the contents of bank safe-deposit boxes held by customers with currently active bank…
Blog
The Hidden Costs of CAFE standards
Charles Krauthammer has an interesting column today on the perils and hidden costs of higher CAFE standards, which would order automakers to increase the…
Blog
Supreme Court Overturns Race-Based Student Assignments
The Supreme Court has overturned the race-based assignment of students in Seattle and Louisville schools. (The decision can be found here). CEI filed an…
Blog
Reid Removed Limit on Welfare for Amnestied Illegal Aliens
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) omitted a limit on welfare for amnestied illegal aliens previously adopted by the Senate when he revived the…
Blog
Supreme Court Denies Property Owners Relief from Harrassment
On Monday, the Supreme Court weakened property owners' protection against government harassment in Wilkie v. Robbins. Law Professor Ilya Somin explains why the decision…
Blog
First Amendment Double Standards
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued two First Amendment rulings, one expanding First Amendment protection and the other narrowing it. In Morse v. Frederick,…
Blog
Massive Flaws in Senate Immigration Bill
The Senate immigration bill supported by Ted Kennedy and George Bush will make things worse for high-tech businesses, according to a news story in…
Blog
More on Bogus Food Stamp Challenge
Blog
Crybaby Judge Can Be Fired for Seeking $54 Million for Lost Pants
Roy Pearson, an administrative law judge in the District of Columbia, recently cried on the witness stand while seeking $54 million from his drycleaners…
Blog
Court Blocks Use of Tobacco Settlement As Slush Fund
The Mississippi Supreme Court has just upheld a court ruling blocking the diversion of $20 million a year from Mississippi’s multi-billion dollar tobacco settlement…
Blog
Social Workers Seize Children to Receive Adoption Bonuses
In England, as in the United States, local governments receive cash incentives from the national government for adopting out children. In England, this has led…
Blog
Weeping Judge Seeks $54 Million for Lost Pants
Marc Fisher of The Washington Post gives an entertaining account of the trial in which D.C. judge Roy Pearson is suing his dry cleaners…
Blog
Zero Tolerance Policies and the Abuse Excuse
Today, I published a letter to the editor in The Washington Post, contrasting the treatment of two women recently sent to jail. (Instapundit…
Blog
Supreme Court Protects Non-Union Workers from Union Coercion
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in Davenport v. Washington Education Association that it is not a violation of the First Amendment for a…
Op-Eds
Teens, Beer and a Party’s Consequences (Letter to the Editor)
The June 9 edition of The Post left me disillusioned with our criminal justice system. The front page told the story of a Virginia mother…
Instapundit
Is Killing Your Husband Less Serious Than Serving Kids Beer?
Blog
Victory for Property Rights in New Jersey
There's good news on property rights from New Jersey, of all places. The New Jersey Supreme Court, in Gallenthin Realty v. Borough of Paulsboro,…
Blog
Judge’s Multi-Million Dollar Pants Suit Goes to Trial
Roy Pearson, a Washington, D.C. administrative law judge, is suing his drycleaners for $54 million for losing his pants and posting signs saying “satisfaction guaranteed.” His ridiculous lawsuit is…
Blog
Tobacco Settlement Too Greedy and Venal for Even the ABA
Yesterday, I said that trial lawyers received $14 billion (not million, billion) under the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), in discussing how that lucrative…
National Review
Judge’s Pants Worth $13 Million
Blog
More Nigerians Sue U.S. Tobacco Companies for Billions
More states in Nigeria are suing American tobacco companies for billions of dollars. The suit began when one state in Nigeria decided to…
Blog
Cigarette “Lights” Class Action Lawsuits Can’t Be Pulled Out of State Court
The Supreme Court has just ruled in Watson v. Philip Morris that the tobacco companies can’t pull lawsuits against them out of state court…
Blog
Congress Discriminates and Panders at the Same Time
There's an interesting editorial in the New York Times today about how the military is losing some of its few Arab translators due to…
Blog
Can We Deny Amnestied Illegal Aliens Affirmative Action?
Should illegal aliens and their descendants be eligible to receive racial preferences over other Americans under government affirmative action programs? Black businessman Ward Connerly…
Blog
Lost Pants Now Worth Only $13 Million
Earlier, I wrote about an example of lawsuit abuse under “consumer protection” laws. D.C. Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson sued a Korean drycleaner couple for more…
Blog
Should Illegal Aliens Receive Welfare and Racial Preferences?
The Senate is currently weighing an immigration deal supported by Ted Kennedy and George Bush that would provide amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens. (Supporters…
Blog
Banning “Discrimination” That Might Protect Safety
Politicians love to vote against “discrimination.” It makes them feel saintly, even if the law they vote for has unintended consequences, saddles businesses with red…
Blog
Liberal Journalist Suggests All Women Think Alike
Linda Greenhouse, the liberal Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, thinks she has the inside story as to why a recent Supreme…
Blog
More Problems With Senate Immigration Deal
Earlier, I wrote about how the Senate immigration deal supported by Ted Kennedy and George Bush has been criticized for doing little to increase…
Blog
Bureaucrats Block Voluntary Mad Cow Testing
Amazingly enough, the Agriculture Department is fighting a meat packer’s plan to voluntarily test all slaughtered cattle for mad cow disease. The government doesn’t…
Blog
Crying Wolf: Demagoguing About Discrimination
Yesterday, by a vote of 5-to-4, the Supreme Court actually enforced the 180-day statute of limitations contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights…
Blog
Bogus Food Stamp Challenge
Blog
Nigerians Sue Big Tobacco, Seeking Billions
In 1998, the major tobacco companies reached a deal with 46 state attorneys general. They agreed to pay a whopping $250 billion over 25 years, and more in…
Blog
Federal Hate-Crimes Bill Promotes Double Jeopardy
Yesterday, I wrote about the fact that many supporters of the federal hate crimes bill want to allow people who have been found innocent…
Blog
Hate Crimes Bait and Switch
The federal hate-crimes bill is a classic example of bait and switch. Its purpose is to circumvent constitutional protections against double jeopardy. But it…
Blog
Yogi Berra and the Federal Lawsuit
The Supreme Court's dismissal of an antitrust lawsuit Monday in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly calls to mind Yogi Berra's advice that "if you come to…
Blog
Immigration Deal Criticized
Earlier, I called the Senate immigration deal “lackluster.” Apparently, a lot of people across the political spectrum agree with me. Conservatives are…
Blog
More Federal Spending on Food Stamps?
Blog
Lackluster Immigration Deal
Democratic and Republican Senators and the White House have apparently reached a deal on immigration. Since the deal was reached by Senators across the political…
Blog
President Bans Contingency Fees
The President has just signed an executive order barring federal agencies from hiring trial lawyers on a contingency fee to bring lawsuits. State attorneys…
Blog
Trans Fats Banned
Montgomery County, Maryland, has just banned the use of trans fats in food preparation. Trans fats have been criticized on health grounds, but they…
Blog
Hate Crimes and Equality
The Washington Post has just published a very ironic editorial supporting the federal hate crimes bill (“Protection from Hate,” May 14). Its editorial is…
Blog
Hate Crimes Addendum
In an earlier blog post, I cited the ACLU's recent decision to support the federal hate-crimes bill which recently passed the House. The ACLU…
Blog
Opposing Murder = Discrimination, Lawyer Says
Truth is stranger than fiction. A restaurant owner told O.J. Simpson to get out of his restaurant, exercising his right not to associate with murderers on his own property. …
Blog
Eliot Spitzer Rebuffed
In a 3-to-2 decision, New York’s intermediate appeals court dismissed most of former New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer’s lawsuit against former New York…
Blog
Hate Crimes Hypocrisy
The ACLU has just jettisoned principle and sacrificed civil liberties on the altar of political correctness in supporting the federal hate-crimes bill. Historically, the ACLU…
Blog
Hate Crimes and Federalism
Congress is considering proposals to create a broad hate-crimes law covering crimes based on sexual orientation, gender, and disability, as well as race. Hate-crimes laws…
Blog
Consumer “Protection” Racket
D.C. Administrative Law Judge Roy Pearson is suing a Korean drycleaner couple for $65 million for losing his pants and posting signs that say…
Blog
KFC Lawsuit Thrown Out
A lawsuit against KFC for using trans fats in its fried chicken has been thrown out. In an appropriately sarcastic ruling, federal district…