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Regulation Roundup
Alpaca tax breaks, IRS seeks power to confiscate tax delinquents' passports, and more.
Blog
Today’s Links: April 20, 2012
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“Structuring”: Who Can Get Away With It, and Who Can’t
From Overlawyered: P.S. The Supreme Court, in a majority opinion by Justice Ruth Ginsburg [Ratslaf v. U.S., 1994], admirably “interpreted the ‘willfully’ element…
Op-Eds
Dick Durbin’s Backward Approach to FDA Reform
It is a tragedy when a patient suffers or dies because the drugs that could help him are simply not available. In recent years, the…
Blog
ALEC Unfairly Demonized Over “Stand Your Ground” Laws
The pro-free-market American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is under fire for its support of self-defense laws, known as "Stand Your Ground" laws. It began after…
Blog
The Tax Man Cometh — and Taketh
Blog
CEI Podcast for April 19, 2012: Right to Work Laws and Compelled Speech
Indiana is becoming a right to work state, which means unions will no longer be able to force workers who don't want their representation to…
Blog
Today’s Links: April 19, 2012
Op-Eds
Compulsory ‘Free’ Speech
What is free speech? Is it the right to speak out and give money to causes, politicians and push ideas? Is it the ability to…
Op-Eds
Sugar Program Isn’t Sweet for Consumers or the Economy
Don’t look now, but here comes the farm bill, one of those catch-all legislative behemoths littered with wasteful programs and supported by entrenched special interests.
Washington Examiner
A Free-Market Solution for Fisheries
When humans first shifted from hunting and gathering to agriculture thousands of years ago, the establishment of private property rights yielded enormous benefits to natural…
Washington Examiner
Keystone and the Troubling Growth of NIMBYism
A constant theme of the 2012 election season has been the national bewilderment over President Obama’s initial decision to veto the Keystone XL oil pipeline,…
Blog
What the Redskins Can Teach Loudoun County
Proponents of Phase II of Dulles Rail often appeal to the notion that having a metro station marks a community as significant. Metro seems to…
Blog
FDR on FDIC
Robert Samuelson’s column (April 8, 2012) discussing President Franklin Roosevelt’s reservations about the longer term implications of Social Security should not be surprising. In…
Blog
How to Fix U.S. Water Policy? Less Government, More Market Pricing
Late last week I received an invitation to testify in the Water and Power Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Natural…
Blog
Today’s Links: April 18, 2012
Washington Examiner
Letter to the Editor: Helping Those With Disabilities Secure Employment
James Bovard rightly criticizes the Obama administration for seeking to force many businesses to adopt hiring quotas for disabled applicants. Such quotas not only raise…
Washington Examiner
Profit Shouldn’t Be an Alien Concept
From The Gulf Coast Business Review: Although Star Trek fans are not alone in thinking it would be fun to take a cruise…
Washington Examiner
The Answer Really Isn’t Blowing in the Wind
From William Sullivan’s column in The American Thinker: In the natural world, 90 billion goes a long way. But as we’ve discovered, a…
Washington Examiner
The Times Covers ADA Filing Mills
From Overlawyered: I discuss the piece and its background in a new Cato post (& welcome Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit readers). Hans Bader and…
Blog
Ambulance Chasers Feast on Americans with Disabilities Act Claims
Thanks to generous attorney-fee provisions contained in federal civil-rights law, trial lawyers are feasting on Americans with Disabilities Act claims at the expense of…
Newsletter
Government Waste, Environmentalism and Rural America, and Union PACs
Blog
Today’s Links: April 17, 2012
Blog
Another Dubious TSA Trifecta
Stolen iPads, harassing drag queens, and a former TSA chief calls for reform -- three years after his departure.
News Release
Highway Bill Needs Real Reform, Not Politics as Usual
Washington, D.C., April 17, 2012—With another Tax Day upon us, taxpayers have something else to worry about: potential action on pending multi-billion dollar highway program…
Orange County Register
DOJ Hungry for a Bite of Apple Inc.
From an Orange County Register editorial: "You could actually say that Apple is bringing more competition to the market, not less," through its…
Orange County Register
President Obama Pledges To Recycle His Campaign Pledges
In a bold move aimed at reviving a renewable energy program struggling to bounce back from a string of bankruptcies (investing in the future isn’t…
Orange County Register
On College Campuses, Title IX Transforms Response to Sexual Assault, But Not Without Critics
From an Associated Press article: Hans Bader, an attorney who worked at OCR under the Bush administration, says OCR’s guidelines “stack the deck…
Orange County Register
Direct Alcohol Shipping To Minors Is Not a Public Safety Problem
(Also published by the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity) If you’ve ever had a remarkable local beer while traveling, you may…
Comment
Testimony on Reauthorization of Water Desalination Act of 2011
Full Document Available in PDF Separation of State and Water Water availability is a core infrastructure concern; today, that specific legislative…
Blog
Tax Day Approacheth
Newsletter
EPA’s Attack on Power Plants, Coal, and Federalism
Blog
Regulation of the Day 218: Bagpipes
Street musicians were recently banned from playing bagpipes in Vancouver, British Columbia. Just in time for the city’s Scotland Week celebration, Mayor Gregor Robertson happily…
Blog
The Space Property Rights Discussion Continues
As I (sort of) predicted last week, Tanja Masson-Zwaan, president of the International Institute of Space Law, has weighed in on…
Blog
Today’s Links: April 16, 2012
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
77 new regulations were published last week, the Federal Register grew by 1,475 pages, and the federal government is liberalizing its golden nematode policy.
Orange County Register
Letter to the Editor: Court Lenient on Time in Pay Discrimination
A recent story in The Washington Times grossly oversimplified a Supreme Court decision and overstated the decision’s effect on equal-pay claims (“Romney’s wooing of female…
Orange County Register
Union PACs
Vincent Vernuccio on Union PACs…
Newsletter
Cost of Fuel Economy, Apple Lawsuit, and the Paycheck Fairness Act
Newsletter
CEI Weekly: Justice Department Sues Apple Over E-Books
Blog
CEI Weekly: Justice Department Sues Apple Over E-Books
Blog
Department of Transportation Bureaucrats Fail Tolling 101
Peter Samuel's extremely valuable TOLLROADSnews brings us this gem, "FHWA Office of Highway Policy Information - sloppy & stupid”: So under Toll Facilities, New…
Blog
Today’s Links: April 13, 2012
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Union Recalcitrance on Race Relations
Openmarket.org Recent events have exposed unions’ troglodytic views on race relations. Basically, unions seek to preserve the current racial makeup of their workforce, regardless of…
Blog
Union Recalcitrance on Race Relations
Recent events have exposed unions’ troglodytic views on race relations. Basically, unions seek to preserve the current racial makeup of their workforce, regardless of changes…
Blog
CEI Podcast for April 12, 2012: Apple, E-Books, and Antitrust
Yesterday the Justice Department sued Apple and five major publishers over their e-book pricing model, alleging price fixing. Associate Director of Technology Studies Ryan Radia…
Blog
99% Spring: An Anatomy of Destruction
Openmarket.org The establishment left’s weeklong protest training, deemed the 99% Spring or Shareholder Spring, is an effort to train 100,000 activists in civil disobedience…
Blog
Competition in Water Infrastructure
Today, CEI released a report on how increased competition could make a big difference in the cost to taxpayers for upgrading water infrastructure.
Blog
On the waterfront: Mob stench still fouls New York Harbor
CEI Policy Analyst Trey Kovacs and Research Associate Jack Mann Featured in New York Post As he tries to clean house at the bloated…
Blog
Modernity is Amazing
A man separated from his family 25 years ago as a small child used Google Earth and Facebook to find them and reunite.