OpenMarket

PBS’s Frontline aired its documentary, “Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos,” last night. While the tone of the piece was markedly suspicious, it didn’t’ offer up any new information to indicate antitrust concerns against the online retailer have any merit.

Several conservative groups have signaled their support for what some are calling a “small-government solution” to perceived anti-conservative bias by tech platforms. The solution that seems to be gaining traction is to tie Section 230 intermediary liability protection to a “First Amendment standard.” Essentially, so long as companies do not remove any content that is otherwise protected by the First Amendment they will continue to be protected from liability over third-party content. There are a number of glaring problems with this idea, not the least of which is the fact that it is antithetical to the First Amendment.

At the FCC open meeting on February 28, the commissioners will vote on a critical matter regarding a proposed public auction for what is known as the C-Band of wireless spectrum. This band of spectrum is currently allocated and underutilized by fixed satellite companies. While any underutilization of a finite yet critical resource such as wireless spectrum is problematic, the C-Band is ideally suited for fifth generation or “5G” wireless service. CEI has long supported efforts to make more efficient use of the C-Band.

Spring Training began for all 30 Major League Baseball teams, bringing joy across the nation. Meanwhile, agencies issued new final regulations ranging from grains ounce equivalence to inactive fishing boats.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and several senior Republicans announced they were going to introduce four bills to address climate change. On the bright side, none of the bills includes a tax on carbon dioxide emissions or mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. On the dark side, the four bills propose to waste a lot of taxpayer dollars and extend subsidies for commercially uncompetitive technologies.

Reporting on "regulatory dark matter" is still falling short.

A new a three-part video series from the American Institute for Economic Research on Frédéric Bastiat's life and legacy is an excellent introduction to the famous Frenchman’s thought.

As part of its “Climate in Crisis” series, NBC News on February 11 reported the results of a new study on “the undersea conveyor belts that help regulate Earth’s climate and influence weather systems around the world.” To quote the headline: “Climate change models predicted ocean currents would speed up—but not this soon.” Yet, in the mid-2000s, many inferred planetary peril from an apparent slowdown in the North Atlantic conveyor belt.

Gallup has released a new poll about what kind of people Americans would be willing to support for president.

California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) is intended to classify more independent contractors as formal employees. The goal is for workers to get higher wages and benefits, but thousands of workers are losing their jobs in other fields from journalism to entertainment to business consultants. Part of AB5’s problem is that it treats workers as either contractors or formal employees, but that is not an either/or question. The labor market is a wide-ranging spectrum, not a simple binary.