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DC Councilman Graham’s Chief of Staff Indicted on Bribery Charges Related to Taxi Legislation
Graham's chief of staff, Ted Loza, has been indicted on bribery charges relating to the taxicab legislation.
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Selling the Rope, as Lenin Predicted
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Gypsy Cabs Coming soon to DC?
If you’ve ever been to Brooklyn, you’ve almost certainly seen firsthand the shortage of taxis that has been created by New York City’s licensing restrictions,…
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Slate’s William Saletan vs. the Food Cops
Slate’s William Saletan has had it with the growing overreach of the food police, a reaction which he acknowledges puts him in unusual company.
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New Frontier? Hardly
Today in the Washington Examiner, James Jay Carafano of The Heritage Foundation makes a strange case for what he describes as the opening of…
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Solis Tells AFL-CIO: “I am proud and humbled to be your humble servant…”
The AFL-CIO, at its recent convention in Pittsburgh, had much to celebrate, including the fact that a Labor Secretary showed up to pay tribute to…
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Prohibition’s Hangover Still with Us
Interesting lectures are a great thing. Good cocktails are a very good thing. But when the two are combined into a single presentation, the effect…
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Project Labor Agreements’ Dire Effects on Minority Contractors
Today, DC Progress, a public policy organization that focuses on the District of Columbia, hosted a panel on the issue of underemployment. DC Progress…
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Happy Labor Day!
In a new poll, Gallup finds public support for organized labor at its lowest level since it began taking the survey. Gallup finds organized…
American Spectator
Big Labor’s Benefits
Are unions giving Democrats a free pass on card check? At first look, it appears that way.
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Marion Barry Unplugged and Uncensored
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The EU’s Silly Ban of the 100-Watt Bulb
Starting this week, it will be illegal to make or import 100-watt light bulbs in the European Union. And for what? New Scientist reporter…
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Elaine Chao: Union transparency “more important than Beck;” EFCA “terrible”
Today, at the Heritage Foundation blogger briefing, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao described the union transparency requirements introduced during the Bush administration as “more important…
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Cash for Clunkers Sputters to an End
The Transportation Department announced today that it will wind down the Cash for Clunkers program, which the Obama administration promoted as a way to both…
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Former ACORN Las Vegas Director to Testify against Organization
The former director of the Las Vegas chapter of the far-left advocacy group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has agreed to…
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Hurricane Activity Increase Due to Better Monitoring
The potential threat from more frequent and stronger hurricanes is a favorite scare scenario of climate alarmists. They point to disasters like Hurricane Katrina as…
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Tim Carney on State-Level Insurance Protectionism
In one regulated area of the economy after another, it’s exasperating to hear journalists and pundits claim that, “The market has failed,” when in fact…
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RIP Les Paul, Legendary Guitarist & Inventor
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Democratic Senator Blasts Union Boss
It’s not every day that a Democratic Senator blasts a labor union, which is why the recent mini-controversy surrounding the nomination of United Transportation Union…
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“Markets fail. Use markets.”
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A Poster too Important to Leave to the Market
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is giving away copies of a poster (pictured right) of Barack Obama, which it describes as “an original…
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Carney on Cash for Clunkers
Former CEI Warren Brookes Fellow Tim Carney, highlights the high cost of the Cash for Clunkers program, which I wrote about here…
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Cash for Clunkers’ Real Cost
As Frederic Bastiat succinctly noted long ago, when determining the effects of a specific action, it is necessary to consider not only “what is…
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Freedom Anniversary: The Acquittal of John Peter Zenger
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California’s Biofuels Policy: Yes, No, or Both
The Los Angeles Times‘ Judith Lewis relates an amusing example of how government can undermine its own harebrained schemes. It was a fine June…
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The Wall Street Journal on the Union Pension Debacle
Two weekend Wall Street Journal editorials sum up well the ticking time-bomb of underfunded union pension funds. First, the dire state of many union…
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UAW Gives Taxpayers the (Gettel)finger
Considering the enormous amounts of cash that the federal government has hurled at the auto industry since the start of the financial crisis, recipients…
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The People’s Phone
Venezuela’s increasingly ridiculous strongman, Hugo Chavez, would be funny if not for the misery and repression he continues to impose upon his own citizens. From…
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An Important, yet Little Noticed Civil Liberties Case
A friend currently in law school complained to me recently about the lack of public attention and media coverage that has been accorded to the…
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The Washington Post’s Conflicted Take on Honduras and the OAS
That the Organization of American States has squandered whatever credibility it had should be obvious to all by now — and it’s not just right…
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Miami Is Corrupt and Weird
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NRO on EFCA’s Binding Arbitration Provision
Today’s National Review Online editorial looks at the so-called Employee Free Choice Act’s arbitration provision, which would subject newly unionized companies to having a…
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Union Pension Fund Bailout Taking on a New Form
Senate Democrats and organized labor leaders are reportedly near a deal on removing the card-check provision from the s0-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). That…
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George Will on the UPS/Teamsters Campaign against FedEx
Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron,” describes a world in which the utopian dream of equality has been achieved beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings: “Nobody was…
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Harsanyi on Holdren
Today, Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi shines a light on Obama “science czar” John Holdren’s disturbing past pronouncements — which Marc Scribner wrote…
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TV Review of the Year: “so bad it will make you regret being born with eyes”
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Reason’s Shikha Dalmia on EFCA’s Binding Arbitration Provision
With Al Franken joining the Senate, public attention is again turning to the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). In the weekend Wall Street Journal,…
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“It would be hard to devise a surer formula for economic catastrophe.”
It may not be in a debacle like California’s, but I still find it galling to see my home state of Florida go from being…
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Reason’s Michael Moynihan on the SEIU Chavistas
At Reason Hit & Run, Michael C. Moynihan looks at the Service Employees Internatinoal Union’s harassing of broadcasters who air ads opposing the so-called…
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Adding Insult to Auto Dealers’ Injury
If anything could make finding yourself out of business overnight any worse, it is to have to pay a penalty for it. That’s what now…
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EPA Whistleblower in The Wall Street Journal
Today in her column, The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel explains the Obama EPA’s censoring of an internal study that questioned the scientific foundation…
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Put Rocket Fuel, Not Corn in Your Tank
As the ethanol industry sees its prospects flounder, it has sought the help of an actual general to stem the public backlash against its uneconomic,…
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Alexis Arguello, RIP
Three-time champion and Boxing Hall of Famer Alexis Arguello was found dead of a gunshot would this morning, at his home in Managua, Nicaragua, of…
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Krugman Undermines Waxman-Markey Job Creation Claims
Today, National Public Radio held a pep rally for the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, with Paul Krugman as head cheerleader. No critic of the bill…
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“Take My Voice with You”
Thus tells an Iranian woman to a journalist passing through her town, in the new film, The Stoning of Soraya M., which opens…
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Green Pork and (Davis) Bacon
The alliance between organized labor and leftist environmentalists remains as strong as ever. As Carter Wood at Shopfloor.org notes, the Waxman-Markey climate change bill…
American Spectator
Sticks and Stones
The Stoning of Soraya M. is a difficult film to watch, but worth taking the time to do so. The film, which opens today, depicts…
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The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is a difficult film to watch, but worth taking the time to do so. The film . . . depicts…
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Motoring around the World on Motor City Workers’ Dime
Detroit can astound even the most seasoned political cynic, and now it’s done it again. As the Detroit Free Press reports, the trustees…
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Barney Frank Asked about Executive Pay Curbs; Throws Tantrum
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) appears to be working in tandem with the Obama administration on making executive pay subject to shareholder votes. That seems…
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Feinstein Withdraws Support for EFCA (for now)
California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein is withdrawing her support for the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), organized labor’s top legislative priority, reports a…
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Teamsters’ Pension Fund Panic
The Teamsters union is threatening a strike that could cripple the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Reports AP: The Teamsters union is threatening a strike it says…
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The AFL-CIO’s “Creative Accounting”
The AFL-CIO has obscured its poor financial condition through “creative accounting,” says Machinists union President Tom Buffenbarger, reports Associated Press. Tom Buffenbarger, president of…
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Lincoln Remains Opposed to EFCA
The possibility of parts of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), specifically EFCA’s binding arbitration provision, coming back into the political arena has focused…
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Klaus vs. the Eurocrats
In The American Spectator, former CEI Bastiat Scholar Doug Bandow (now at the Cato Institute) describes how “[o]nly the Irish people and Czech President…
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George McGovern on Binding Arbitration
With Democrats just shy of the 60 votes they need to end a filibuster, the fate of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act remains in…
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Detroit, D.C.
Today’s Wall Street Journal further drives home the difficult position in which the United Auto Workers, Chrysler, and General Motors are likely to find themselves…
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Washington Swallows Detroit, Gives UAW a Piece
The United Auto Workers’ (UAW) loud complaining that they’re being asked to bear a disproportionate share of the costs of restructuring the Big Three begs…
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Fix Social Security; Unleash Capital
In RealClearMarkets.com, Fred Smith and I explain how the seemingly forgotten — but still important — goal of Social Security reform can help unleash capital,…
RealClear Markets
Fix Social Security, Ease the Credit Crisis
Remember the looming Social Security crisis? If you don’t, you’re not alone. The credit crisis and economic downturn have monopolized public attention to…
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Specter Switches, Says He’ll Still Oppose Card Check, Then What?
There’s nothing worse for an economy than uncertainty. Today, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has thrown large swathes of America’s struggling economy into a guessing game,…
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Farewell Union Transparency
Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis repeals vital reporting regulations which allowed union members to know how their hard earned dues money was being spent…
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North Korea Adopts Floral Basket-Based Economy
Isolated from the rest of the world, Kim Jong Il’s bankrupt North Korean regime appears to have stumbled upon a new gimmick to stay afloat:…
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Unions Disunited — and Fighting
The civil war between the two factions that until recently made up the union UNITE-HERE heated up further this week. Yesterday, the leadership…
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Whither Hemispheric Trade?
In his post-Summit of the Americas remarks in Trinidad and Tobago today, President Obama stated his administration’s commitment to improving relations with countries around the…
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Tea Parties and the Wisdom of Mobs
American Spectator
A Good Time to Start Liquidating
The announcements by Senators Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and BlancheLincoln (D-Ark.) that they intend to vote against cloture on theso-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) has…
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“A good time to start liquidating”
How damaging would the so-called Employee Free Choice Act be to businesses? Enough to force some healthy companies into bankruptcy. Specificaly, EFCA’s binding arbitration provision…
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Liability Gone Haywire Down Under
An 82-year-old Australian grandmother says she is prepared to go to jail rather than pay a A$1-million (US$731,000) bill to clean up toxic chemicals…
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Phil Spector Found Guilty
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LOST to Pirates
The celebrations and congratulations over the U.S. Navy’s rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips are well deserved and proper all around. Yet even after the…
Dallas News
UNITE-HERE’s pressure campaign against a Dallas city project
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The Growing Chorus against Foreign Aid
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady takes on the Obama administration’s approach to foreign aid, which, she argues, amounts merely to maintaining…
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Lincoln To Vote No on Card Check
Arkansas Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln announced today that she will oppose the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, also known as teh “card check” bill.
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UNITE-HERE Civil War Sets Up AFL-CIO vs. SEIU Confrontation
Like the Cold War-era Third World civil wars in which the superpowers would fight each other by proxy, the increasingly bitter row within UNITE-HERE…
Washington Examiner
SEIU’s Advocacy for Card Check
Study
The Employee Free Choice Act Is Anything But
A Comparison of Labor Organizing Today vs. under EFCA…
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Postmodern Union-on-Union Fight
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is being denounced by a group of its own employees for doing, well, nothing wrong or illegal, but something…
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With news coverage like this…
…does organized labor need a PR operation? In today’s Politico, Jeanne Cummings repeats — without qualification — the half-truth that supporters of the so-called…
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Economic Illiteracy’s Here Again
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The Socialism that Dare not Speak its Name
“Socialism” is dead, according to Matthew Dallek, writing in the Politico. I put the term in quotes, because what Dallek defines as socialism is…
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States Revolt against Card Check
State legislators are unhappy about the prospect of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) being imposed on their constituents’ businesses. That was a central…
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Eugene Scalia on Card Check
With passage of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) growing more in doubt, organized labor and its Congressional allies are resorting to pushing the…
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Going Ballistic on Card Check
Today’s Wall Street Journal, in an editorial, notes organized labor’s latest hardball tactic in its effort to help enact the so-called Employee Free…
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Enemies of Sound Money
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Buffett Opposes Card Check, but Don’t Forget Binding Arbitration
Rumors of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) being introduced in the current Congress have come and gone — and will come again. Yet…
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George McGovern on Card Check
Former Democratic Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern continues to speak out against the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which he has described as an…
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New Study Shows Job Loss Data under Card Check
This week, Dr Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the Law and Economics Consulting Group, published a new study in which she analyzes the likely…
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“Sanity is not statistical”
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DC on the School Reform Front Lines, Again
Today’s Washington Post features an editorial that strongly criticizes Congressional Democrats’ rush to kill the District of Columbia’s school voucher program, which enjoys bipartisan…
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Dambisa Moyo: Zambian Author Takes on Foreign Aid
The celebrity parade calling for more foreign aid to poor countries has become so ubiquitous — and accepted — these days that critiques of it…
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SOTU Watch: New Labor Secretary
The Senate confirmed Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) as Secretary of Labor this afternoon. It will be worth watching whether President Obama acknowledges her confirmation…
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SOTU Watch: Card Check
In President Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight, one thing to watch for is mention of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) —…
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Carney Takes on Stimulus on Liddy, Osorio Takes on Card Check
Today, I was on the G. Gordon Liddy Show, to discuss the current prospects of the misleadingly named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which, as…
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To Know Card Check is to Hate it
A recent survey of 1,000 likely voters, conducted in January by the consultancy McLaughlin & Associates, finds an overwhelling majority opposed to the so-called…
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The Juche Weather Idea
North Korea’s official propaganda organ, the Korea Central News Agency, reveals the real cause of global warming: The snow in the area of Jong…
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UNITE-HERE to Disunite?
UNITE-HERE, the 450,000-member textile and hospitality union, is embroiled in a “civil war,” according to its president, who is now openly considering breaking up the…
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Stimulating Comment
Comment from a friend watching Obama’s Indiana town hall promoting the stimulus: “Some chump just told Obama to mail a check to the people who…
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Today’s Gift to Big Labor
Even as the nomination of Hilda Solis for Labor Secretary remains stalled due to tax and potential ethics rules troubles, organized labor got a…
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More Questions about Solis
Today’s Washington Examiner proposes some questions which Senators should ask Obama Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis. Solis is treasurer and a member of the…