CEI Weekly: CEI Offers More for Gore Debate
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI’s fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the Weekly newsletter is a brief description of CEI’s weekly podcast and a feature on a major CEI breakthrough made during the week. To sign up for CEI Weekly, go to http://cei.org/newsletters.
CEI Weekly
December 25, 2009
>>[Video] CEI Invites Al Gore to Debate with Additional $200 in Pledges
CEI upped the ante this week by throwing $200 in promised pledges by our viewers, on top of the $500 originally promised, along with a few extra bonuses. Be sure to check out CEI’s invitation here.
>>Shaping the Debate
EPA Delivers Lump of Coal to Appalachia
William Yeatman’s op-ed in the Richmond Times Dispatch
Comprehensive Redux
Alex Nowrasteh’s op-ed in the Washington Times
Christmas Comes Early for the Big Drug Companies
Greg Conko’s quotation in the Washington Examiner
>>Best of the Blogs
Health Care Bill’s Hidden Tax on Pain Relievers, Pedialyte, and Prenatal Vitamins
by John Berlau
If you want to see how Obamacare will hit you and your family in the wallet, look no further than the inside of your medicine cabinet. Open the cabinet door and you may see an antihistamine such as Claritin for allergies, pain relief medicine such as Tylenol or Excedrin. . . All of these items in your cabinet have two things in common. One is that they are classified as “over the counter” (OTC) medicines and available without a doctor’s prescription. The other is that if you pay for any of these items with money in your flexible spending account (FSA) or health savings account (HSA) – and according to this guide from FSA administrator Benesyst , all of these are eligible expenses — you will face an effective tax increase of up to 40 percent on these items in the health care bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is poised to pass the U.S. Senate.
Regulation of the Day 88: College Football’s Playoff System
by Ryan Young
“College football is bringing big bucks to K Street as lawmakers take aim at dismantling the Bowl Championship Series,” says a story in Politico. A six-figure sum is being spent lobbying what really shouldn’t be a government issue. Millions more are being spent on other issues affecting college sports. There’s even a PlayOff PAC that gives money to politicians who take an active stance on college football playoff reform.
Flu Watch Dec. 18 – What Swing Flu Isn’t Doing this Week
by Michael Fumento
New infections continued to drop, down this week to only 391 reported by CDC-monitored labs, compared to 1,370 just two weeks before and 11,470 at the height of the epidemic. So that’s a plummet of over 96% from the height. Deaths and hospitalizations are less than half those of last week, and while formerly the CDC refrained from releasing exact numbers it’s now doing so.
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