Blog
Budget Crises and the Rule of Teacher Unions
This last May, a California teacher named Michelle Apperson received a pink slip from the Sacramento City schools. Yet she was not let go because of…
Blog
Next steps
Over the years, we have gotten lots of inquiries about objecting to bad shareholder derivative settlements. We’d largely passed, because we had high hopes for…
Blog
Today’s Links: June 19, 2012
News Release
CEI to Score Amendment to Farm Bill
What: Rubio Amendment (#2166 ) to the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act (S.3240), known as the Rewarding Achievement and Incentivizing Successful Employees (RAISE) Act…
National Journal
Nix the U-MACT
The U.S. Senate will vote Wednesday on legislation (S.J.Res.37) to overturn the EPA’s Utility MACT Rule, a regulation establishing first-ever maximum achievable control technology (MACT)…
National Journal
Forget Jamie Dimon — Congress needs to look in the mirror
“Jamie Dimon gets kid-glove treatment from Senators,” the front-page headline in Politico screamed after the JPMorgan Chase CEO testified and was questioned by the Senate…
Blog
Norfolk, Virginia, While Abusing Eminent Domain To Seize 78-Year-Old Business, Attempts To Silence Free Speech
I’m a month behind on this story, but something terrible is underway in Norfolk, Virginia, that should disturb all Americans who value property rights…
Blog
Communication Workers of America Remain a Thorn in Verizon’s Side
Communication Workers of America is seeking government intervention in order to protect union jobs at Verizon’s unprofitable wireline industry. If the union’s call for intervention…
Blog
To Reform Public Pensions, Reform GASB Rules
Many public pension plans in the United States make riskier investments than plans in Canada and Europe, according to a new study by researchers…
Blog
Supreme Court Issues 5-to-4 Rulings, But Not On Obamacare
The Supreme Court announced four decisions today, three of them decided by slender 5-to-4 margins, but not the long-awaited ruling about the constitutionality of…
Study
The Kids Are Alright
Full Document Available in PDF…
Blog
Bullying and Bailouts — UAW’s Strategy for Continued Existence
The UAW and its President Bob King recently targeted Nissan to be their first union-affiliated foreign automobile factory, despite the fact that Canton, Mississippi, plant…
Blog
Victory in the W.D. Washington: Classmates.com
When attorneys affiliated with CCAF first objected on behalf of Professor Michael Krauss in the Classmates.com settlement, that case paid $52,000 to class members and over…
Blog
Today’s Links: June 18, 2012
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
84 new regulations, covering everything from gopher frogs to cotton gins.
National Journal
Midwest Unions’ Desperate Last Stand
The voters of Wisconsin and California spoke loud and clear. They are tired of the special privileges and lavish benefits given to government unions and…
New York Times
This Week in Small Business: Working Without Pay
From Gene Marks' post in The New York Times' You're the Boss blog: The Internal Revenue Service offers advice for safeguarding tax…
New York Times
What Liberals Don’t Understand About Government and Our Founding Fathers
Is there anything the government can’t — or shouldn’t — do? For the men who gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to draft…
Real Clear Markets
Newspapers Must Die: Long Live The News
Fear not the future. The long anticipated demise of the conventional newspaper business is a cause for celebration, not anguish. Freed from the shackles of…
Real Clear Markets
Energy Companies Are Not Sitting On “Inactive” Oil Leases, President Obama
The Obama Administration is hardly gung-ho about increasing fossil-fuel production. Yet the Department of Interior recently called on oil and gas companies to “develop the…
Real Clear Markets
H1-B Visa Quotas Greatly Restrain Small Business Expansion
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) announced this week that it had filled its annual H-1B visa quota for foreign high-skilled workers. The announcement comes…
Blog
Sen. Rand Paul Introduces Bills to Dramatically Rein in TSA
Yesterday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced two bills aimed at reducing the power of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). S.3303 would end the TSA’s…
Blog
Department of Homeland Security: Some Undocumented Aliens Who Came As Children Can Stay
Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it will begin to grant two-year deportation deferrals for undocumented immigrants up to 30 years old…
Blog
An IRS Trojan Horse
The IRS' proposed real-time tax system is a Trojan horse for a return-free system, in which the IRS would become your tax preparer as well…
Blog
Losing the Universe with LOST
The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) has been languishing in the Senate for decades, but led by Massachusetts senator John Kerry, there is growing…
Blog
Auto Bailouts Incurred Extra $26 Billion in Unnecessary Expenses Due to Political Favoritism by Obama Administration
In a new report, labor economist James Sherk and bankruptcy-law professor Todd Zywicki found that taxpayers lost billions in the auto bailouts…
Blog
End in Sight for Pennsylvania’s State-Run Liquor Stores
Could it finally happen? After decades of hemming, hawing, and growing public anger over Pennsylvania’s outdated regulations, change may finally be in the cards for…
Blog
Today’s Links: June 15, 2012
Newsbusters
The Horror: NYT’s Timothy Egan Forced to Watch Fox News
From Clay Waters' article on Newsbusters: "Timothy Egan, a liberal reporter turned columnist for the New York Times, was forced to watch Fox…
Daily Caller
The IRS’s Trojan Horse
It may be another 10 months before Tax Day rears its ugly head again, but that doesn’t mean that the American people should take their…
Blog
Victory in the Seventh Circuit
As both Daniel Fisher and the Economist documented recently, the percentage of M&A transactions worth over $500 million that result in shareholder derivative suits has…
Forbes
President Obama: The Biggest Government Spender In World History
From Peter Ferrara's column in Forbes: As Hans Bader reported on May 26 for the Washington Examiner, the budget approved and implemented by…
Forbes
Cannibal Culture: West Devouring Itself From Within
ABA Journal
7th Circuit Nixes ‘Feeble’ Sears Class Action, Says Its ‘Only Goal’ Is Fees for Plaintiffs Lawyers
ABA Journal reports on Ted Frank's victory in a case challenging the settlement set to pay most of the money to attorney's rather than the…
Blog
China Takes Hard Stance on EU’s Airline Emissions Charges
It looks like it could begin a trade war — in airplanes. China has announced that it may impound European Union airplanes in retaliation if…
Blog
WSJ: Senate May Vote on Needed Sugar Reform Amendment
In today’s Wall Street Journal, an editorial sharply criticizes the U.S. sugar program and urges Congress to vote on amendments that would significantly rein…
Blog
CEI Podcast for June 13, 2012: Smarter Transportation Funding
When the federal government gives out transportation funding to the states, it attaches a lot of strings. The solution, according to Land-use and Transportation Policy…
Blog
Legislators Seek to Create New, Unnecessary Protected Class: Gun Owners
Generally, the Constitution only binds the government, not the private sector. For example, the First Amendment protects speech, and even insults, but that doesn't…
Newsletter
EPA Utility MACT, Trade Barriers, and the Mad Men Pitch CEI
Blog
Jamie Dimon and the “Just Fine” Private Sector
It will be interesting to see how the Big Government punditocracy squares its doubling-down defense of President Obama's comments that "the private sector is…
Blog
Employment Non-Discrimination Act Makes as Little Sense as Chemotherapy for a Cold
American business is quite happy to hire gay and lesbian employees, and needs no federal mandate to do so. Virtually all Fortune 500 companies already…
Daily Mail
Obama’s War on Resource Industries
Also published in The Orange County Register. As much as President Barack Obama claims to be concerned about jobs for Americans, he…
Daily Mail
New York Court Nixes Challenge to Carbon Market
From Reuters’ Point Carbon: A New York state court on Wednesday dismissed a Tea Party-backed lawsuit that tried to…
News Release
Report: Labeling Law for Beef, Pork Impedes Canada-U.S. Trade
Washington, D.C., June 13, 2012 – Complicated U.S. food labeling mandates on beef and pork impede trade between the U.S. and Canada without providing any…
Blog
Response: Are Unions Necessary?
Derek Thompson from The Atlantic recently wrote an article titled “Are unions necessary?” In this article, he poses the following questions: If our goal is…
Blog
From One Nobel Prize Winner to Another: Vernon Smith on Elinor Ostrom’s Contribution to Economics
Blog
Remembering Elinor Ostrom
Among the individuals with whom I wish I could have greater opportunities to exchange ideas is Elinor Ostrom. She passed away today, and now I…
Blog
The Private Sector Is Not “Doing Fine,” Contrary to Claims by President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Far more people have lost their jobs in the private sector than in the public sector, and the percentage of the economy consumed by…
Blog
Today’s Links: June 12, 2012
News Release
CEI Releases New Study, “All Pain and No Gain: The Illusory Benefits of the EPA’s Utility MACT”
Washington, D.C., June 12, 2012 – Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute published a new study, “All Pain and No Gain: The Illusory Benefits of…