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Forbes on Redish on class actions
Excellent article in Forbes on liberal professor Martin Redish’s take on class actions. Redish sees similar constitutional difficulties with so-called cy pres (pronounced…
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Rubber stamps for two settlements
Judge Snyder has (all but literally) rubber-stamped the objectionable settlements in the AOL e-mail footer and Yahoo advertising cases. We are likely to…
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An Unintentional Legacy
Now that the health care bill no longer seems likely to pass, the late Ted Kennedy’s election reforms may have unintentionally solidified his own place…
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Populism, jobs and the economy — where do we go from here?
Scott Brown’s decisive victory in the Massachusetts Senate race has upturned the Democrats’ Progressive agenda. Brown, “the people’s seat” senator, had a resonant message…
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Why does everybody think BPA is safe but us?
Regarding the ubiquitous plastic ingredient bisphenol A (BPA), my colleague Angela Logomasini blogged that “The greens are rejoicing today because the Food and Drug…
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Sorry, no RIP yet for the health care reform legislation
It’s fine to celebrate the Massachusetts victory of Scott Brown. I like how Daily Show host Jon Stewart put it: “The Kennedy legacy goes down…
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Regulation of the Day 101: Brushing Teeth After Meals
[A]ny child who has a meal in day care or is in care for more than four hours will be required to brush their teeth,…
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A Skeptic’s Desultory Philippic (or how I was not Al Gore’d into submission – with apologies to Paul Simon)
A pithy column in Foreign Policy by the Breakthrough Institute’s Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger says that “twice-fooled” Democrats, who have been “BTUed” by two Democratic administrations,…
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Baby Bottle Politics Trumps Science at FDA
The greens are rejoicing today because the Food and Drug Administration has softened its stance on the safety of Bisphenol A, a…
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LibertyWeek 77: The Future of the Senate
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Steve Forbes: How Capitalism Will Save Us
Steve Forbes gave a very good talk today, on the topic of his new book (co-authored with Elizabeth Ames), How Capitalism Will Save Us:…
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Enron: Lobbyist for both Kyoto and Wind Farm Mandates
Dr. Rob Bradley, CEO of the Institute for Energy Research, documents in Political Capitalism how fraud and corruption at Enron were the inevitable consequence of a business strategy…
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More swine flu hysteria apologism – “a stunning public health success”
In response to my Philadelphia Inquirer piece “Swine Flu Epidemic Ends with a Whimper,” predictably public health community members have squealed that the only…
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Regulation of the Day 100: Posting YouTube Videos
The Italian government is considering making it illegal for its citizens to post videos on the Internet without a license.
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Lonardo v. Travelers Indemnity
A lawsuit against two home insurance companies settled for $8.69/policy year for class members who submit a claim by mail—and $6.6 million for the attorneys.
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“Swine Flu Epidemic ends with a Whimper,” my Philly Inquirer piece
Hidden within the latest edition of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s FluView was this sentence: “The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and…
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CEI Weekly: Net Neutrality vs. “BandWealth”
CEI weekly is a compilation of articles and blogs from CEI's staff. This week features Wayne Crews' public comment against the FCC's plans to regulate…
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NC court might block insurance rate drop
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Flu Watch Jan. 14 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing this week
Infections are down, hospitalizations are down and deaths are the same. But given the reporting time lag it should prove that these were…
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Roundup
I’m speaking at NYU Law January 21 on class action issues. I’m quoted in Legal Newsline on Schwarzenegger’s proposed class action reforms. Aside…
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TSA Security Playset
The Playmobil Security Check Point has experienced a new surge in popularity (so much so that it is currently out of stock) on Amazon in…
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Obama Bank “Responsibility Fee” Is Destructive, Hypocritical and Likely Unconstitutional
The so-called Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee is a tax in search of a target. Today, the President declared, “We want our money back.” Yet his…
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Health Insurance and Campaign Contributions
$40 million and change plus some antitrust troubles is a really small price to pay for a legal guarantee of vastly increased business, forever.
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New York Salt-Slashing Op-Ed in NY Post
Here is my op-ed published in the New York Post on January 13th. As-salt on science On Monday, city officials rolled out an initiative…
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A French Kiwi wine? New Zealand and Australia say “non”
Nice article in the Wall Street Journal today by Anne Jolis on a trademark brouhaha between France and Australia that highlights some…
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Experts Question Enormous Cost and Constitutionality of Healthcare Legislation
The health care legislation backed by the president and congressional leaders will increase Americans’ health care costs by more than $200 billion,…
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Financial Crisis Hearing is Partisan Sham that Skips Over Fannie and Freddie’s Role
John Berlau, director of CEI’s Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs, offers the following thoughts on what’s missing from the first hearing of the Financial Crisis…
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Gag me. Public health establishment takes credit for mildness of swine flu season
Inevitably when pandemic doom fails to pan out, whether it be heterosexual AIDS, SARS, avian flu, or anything else the public health establishment that panicked…
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Trumka: “Well, I’m not done.”
Showing a stubborn belligerence more commonly seen in the coal mines where his father worked than in the leader of one of the largest…
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Why Can’t We Have a “Three Strikes” Policy for Public Financing?
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Regulation of the Day 99: Salty New Yorkers
New York City is seeking to regulate how much salt is in peoples' food. Enforcement will prove difficult; most food that New Yorkers eat comes…
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This Guy Gets It
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Follow the Money? That’s Exactly What Rent-Seekers Do
This fellow from New Zealand appears to think that Climategate proves that the big money is in climate skepticism. How does that work? Here’s…
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New Federal Program Kills Jobs, While Costing Taxpayers Half a Billion Dollars
A federal biofuels program enacted in the name of fighting global warming and reducing dependence on foreign oil is instead killing jobs while perhaps…
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“Homer doughnut. Bacon doughnut. Paradise.”
Thus says Morgan Spurlock in The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special. When I first heard that Spurlock, whose most renowned contribution to film is a leftish…
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CEI Weekly: Change We Can Really Believe In
CEI weekly is a compilation of articles and blogs from CEI's staff. This week features a compelling op-ed written by CEI's Fred Smith on what…
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Yes, pseudoscience writer Chris Mooney IS dishonest.
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Flu Watch Jan. 8 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing this week
These things just keep getting briefer and briefer. Infections down, deaths down to only 14, states with widespread activity: just one. Updating you on…
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The Audacity of Doom
At Bigjournalism.com, Woody Hochswender puts global warming alarmism in the context of a long tradition of doomsaying — which wasn’t invented by Al Gore…
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Spiked Online on Art, Commerce, and Rebellion
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Massie on the Politics of Snow
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Nobel Prize Winning Economist Says Obama Policies Delaying Economic Recovery
In the Wall Street Journal, Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker and others explain how President Obama’s policies are delaying and retarding the inevitable economic…
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On this day in 1835…
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Regulation of the Day 98: Gastrointestinal Drugs
Did you know that the federal government has a Gastrointestinal Drugs Advisory Committee?…
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“We the People” on Obamacare
Somehow I missed this during the holiday season – singer, songwriter, comedian Ray Stevens’ “We the People.” It’s a country western singing-video about…
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Will Congress protect the economy and the Constitution from Mass. v. EPA?
In this two–part post on MasterResource.Org, the free-market energy blog, I argue that the EPA’s proposed Tailoring Rule is a temporary, legally questionable, and…
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Waxman-Markey’s impact on housing prices — more than your average postage stamp
Proponents of the Waxman-Markey (W-M) cap-and-trade bill assure us it will cost the average household less than a postage stamp a day. The Heritage…
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Thinking outside the box on security
The Washington Post editorial, “In the wake of Flight 253, the TSA must get more anti-terrorist tools” makes a short-sighted argument for increasing resources for…
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That Didn’t Take Long
Today is the fourth working day of the new year. The Federal Register has already exceeded 1,000 pages.
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More Enron-like Behavior by Administration Officials Comes to Light
Earlier, the Washington Post reported on how the Obama administration pressured Freddie Mac not to disclose to investors and the SEC the $30…
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Bastardi: Today’s frigid weather similar to 1970s when Ice Age was alarm
Accuweather’s meteorologist Joe Bastardi has a new video titled “Worldwide Cold not Seen Since 70s…
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Regulation of the Day 97: Full Body Scans and Child Protection Laws
Sometimes, when two regulations love each other much, they get together and have little baby regulations. This is happening right now in Britain.
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Serial Rapists Roam Free in D.C. as the D.C. Government Shields Ex-Cons from Discrimination
The D.C. government sometimes has more empathy for criminals than for their victims. In December 2007, the D.C. Council voted to…
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Virginia Weighs Discriminatory Mandate on Divorced Parents
Married parents don’t have any legal obligation to pay for their adult children’s college education or living expenses. But a bill just introduced in…
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An Authoritarian Climate
Certain influential forces in the environmental movement – most notably James Hansen of NASA – have expressed disquiet with the inability of democracies to deal…
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Richard Epstein: “Deregulation Now”
In his Forbes.com column, University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein offers a simple proposal for reviving the economy: “Deregulation Now.” His proposals are…
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Positively bad thinking
“Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now,” says George Clooney’s “termination engineer” to just-fired employees in the…
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Regulation of the Day 96: Health Warnings on Cell Phones
These warning labels have nothing to do with letting people know that their phones can make them look like jackasses.
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Public Sector Unions’ Heavy Burden on Taxpayers
As the old saying goes, when you start getting flak, you must be over the target. That seems like a good reason for the hysterical…
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Congress Mulls More Credit Card Restrictions, in Legislation Likely to Backfire on Consumers
Some in Congress want to impose interest rate ceilings on credit cards and restrictions on interchange fees. Australia tried the same thing, and it…
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Regulation of the Day 95: Buying Wine in Ohio
It is illegal to buy more than 288 bottles of wine per year in Ohio.
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Government Uses Takeover of Mortgage Giants to Deliberately Increase Their Massive Losses at Taxpayer Expense
The Wall Street Journal notes that the Obama administration has used the federal government’s bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and…
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“Was Swine Flu a False Pandemic?”
No, that’s not Michael Fumento asking. It’s a pharmaceutical industry blog declaring, “That’s the contention by more than a dozen members of the Parliamentary…
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Hayek on Freedom
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In Case You Missed it: Lone Voice of Reason at CPSC
In 2008, Congress passed Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), which regulates lead and certain chemicals in toys. Never mind the…
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LibertyWeek 75: Credit Cards, Government-Style
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Regulation of the Day 94: Plastic Shopping Bags
Washington, DC’s city government is now requiring stores to charge customers five cents for each plastic bag they use at checkout. There were 84 unsolved…
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Obama’s Recent $75 Billion Mortgage Bailout Fails: Harmful to Economy, Housing, and Construction, Say Economists and Real Estate Experts
Economists and real estate experts are saying that a $75 billion mortgage bailout program designed by the Obama administration has backfired and harmed the housing market,…
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Stimulus Package Forces States to Raise Taxes, Harms Economy
The federal government’s $800 billion stimulus package, which failed to cut unemployment, is now forcing states and local governments to raise taxes. The Wall Street Journal…
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Regulation of the Day 93: Predatory Lending
The CCARD Act is, completely unintentionally, a wealth transfer from poor people to richer people. Congress is actively hurting the very people it intended to…
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Terrorism Is Rare
Each time you board a plane, your odds of being a victim of terrorism are about 1 in 10,408,947. Your odds of being struck by…
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Flu Watch Dec. 30 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing
It’s a holiday so we’ll make this quick. Infections have somehow managed to drop again as have deaths and hospitalizations. Just 15 deaths reported…
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CEI Weekly: Looking Back on 2009
CEI weekly is a compilation of articles and blogs from CEI's staff. This week features a recap of the major events that happened in 2009…
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TSA Praises Itself After Year of Security Lapses; Obama Administration Backs TSA Unionization at Public Expense
In a year-end message to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff, the agency praised itself for a “very good year” in airline…
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Louisiana auto insurance at a crossroads
Louisiana drivers pay the third highest expenditures for auto insurance in the country (with N.J. taking second and D.C. taking the top honor). On…
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Latest Victim of the State–Your Dog
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Year-End Fun: Scroogenomics
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Florida Attorney General Questions Constitutionality of Healthcare Bills in Congress
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is questioning whether it is constitutional to force people to buy health insurance, as the health…
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Regulation of the Day 92: Camping at the Beach
In Oregon, it is illegal to set up a tent at most beaches.
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Swine flu also unexceptional in contagiousness
With a massive amount of data indicating swine flu is vastly milder than seasonal flu, a new study in the New England Journal of…
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No, yet again, cell phones do not cause cancer
If you’re getting a headache from spending to much time on your cell phone, it’s probably from yakking too much. But it’s not from brain…
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MI Senate not “FAIR” and it’s a good thing
The Michigan Senate recessed last week without passing the proposed insurance reforms that would, among other things, prevent insurers from using factors such as…
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For the Birds
An environmental group is suing to cancel an upcoming AC/DC concert in Austria because they think loud music poses a threat to birds.
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Regulation of the Day 91: Horse Floaters
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Where did all the global warming hurricanes go? (My Forbes article)
The cover of Al Gore’s new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, features a satellite image of the globe showing…
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Is ObamaCare’s “Individual Mandate” Unconstitutional?
The health care bills backed by the President require that individuals buy health insurance if it is not provided by their employer. Is that unconstitutional?…
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Say No to EFCA in 2010
Given the amount of palm-greasing that was required to get reluctant moderate Democratic senators to vote to end debate on Obamacare, it's unlikely that those…
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LibertyWeek 74: TSA Under Fire
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Progressives Against Health Care Bill for Wrong Reasons
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Regulation of the Day 90: The National Poultry Improvement Plan
Having solved all the nation’s other problems, the federal government has a National Poultry Improvement Plan.
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Entitlement creep exemplified (or why we’re going broke)
1965, Medicare health insurance authorized for all Americans over age 65 along with Medicaid that covers both seniors and the poor. Somehow for 190 years…
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CEI Weekly: CEI Offers More for Gore Debate
CEI weekly is a compilation of articles and blogs from CEI's staff. This week features CEI's video invitation to Al Gore to debate the topic…
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Michigan’s population leak
In a preview to the 2010 census, Michigan learned this week that it was one of only three states to lose members of its…
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Government Expands Fannie and Freddie Bailout and Lavishes Money on their CEOs
Under the Bush administration, federal regulators took over Fannie and Freddie in the name of stopping their risky practices. But the Obama administration has increased…
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EPA’s Tailoring Rule: A Temporary, Legally Dubious, and Incomplete Antidote to Massachusetts v. EPA’s Legacy of Absurd Results
Today, I submitted a comment on EPA’s proposed Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule. The gist of my…
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Terrorist Charged After Trying to Blow Up Plane; Government Undermines Airline and Railroad Security
An alleged terrorist from Nigeria has been charged with plotting to blow up an airliner. He carried explosives onto a plane…
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Flu Watch Dec. 24 – The U.S. Epidemic is Over
The Big Scare of 2009 is over, folks. The U.S. swine flu epidemic has ended. “The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I)…
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Coverage at the Volokh Conspiracy
Todd Zywicki at the Volokh Conspiracy writes about the Center for Class Action Fairness, and commenters debate the issue.
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Climategate Op-Ed in Detroit News
Here is my op-ed published in the Detroit News on December 23. Climategate: What e-mail really means Daniel Compton By now, most people…
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Why Won’t Al Gore Debate?, Part 2
CEI has a gift for Al Gore, arriving just in time for the holidays. You may recall that CEI last month rushed to the cause…