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CEI Podcast for December 26, 2013: The Year in Review
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Target Breach — Are Dodd-Frank “Swipe Fee” Price Controls to Blame?
Target wants you to know it is oh-so-sorry for any inconvenience its data SNAFU (as OpenMarket is a family blog, please look up the…
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Union Spending against Right-to-Work Efforts
According to an Associated Press report, several states are eyeing labor law reforms to end the practice of forcing employees to pay union dues as…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
71 new regulations, from charitable donations to video programming for the blind.
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Why Workers Deserve the Employee Rights Act, Part 2: Union Recertification
In Part 1 of "Why Workers Deserve the Employee Rights Act," the focus was on the ERA provision that mandates secret-ballot elections and how a…
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Volcker Rule Overshoots Wall Street to Hit Utah
You might think after the disastrous debut of HealthCare.gov and thousands of insurance cancellations, those who call themselves progressives might just have a little humility…
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BLS Data: Government Workers Miss Work 50 Percent More than Private Sector Workers
A blog post at buyhappiness.net cites recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data and reports that in 2012…
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Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs, Part 4: The Costs of Poor Regulatory Sausage Making
In the first installment of “Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs,” the focus was the loss of liberty in…
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CEI Podcast for December 18, 2013: The FDA Goes after 23andMe
The Food and Drug Administration recently banned 23andMe, a genetic testing service, from marketing its product to consumers. CEI Executive Director and Senior Fellow Gregory…
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Why Workers Deserve the Employee Rights Act, Part 1: Secret Ballot Elections
In November, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Representative Tom Price (R-Ga.) introduced the Employee Rights Act, a bill that strengthens federal labor law to protect…
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IRS Threatens to Curb Criticism of IRS and Bureaucratic Wrongdoing by 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) Groups
The IRS recently proposed rules “limiting political speech" by nonprofit 501(c)(4) groups. In Orwellian fashion, the proposed rules seek to redefine non-partisan, non-election-related criticism of government abuses as…
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NLRB General Counsel: Guidance on Micro-Unions is Coming
Last Friday, at the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Manhattan, the National Labor Relations Board general counsel Richard Griffin said the Board…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
56 new regulations, from toddler beds to eagle permits.
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BPA Junk Science Headaches
Could your affection for bottled water be responsible for your bout with migraines? Apparently so, if you believe the latest headlines about the chemical…
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Minimum Wage Increases Harm the Young, Unskilled, and Less Educated
Minimum wage increases eliminate some jobs. Real world examples abound. As a business owner explains: The minimum wage kills jobs. End of story. I am…
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CEI Podcast for December 12, 2013: The Affordable Care Act’s Marriage Penalties
The Affordable Care Act's subsides and tax credits are structured in such a way as to cause thousands of dollars worth of penalties for many…
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GOVERNMENT UNIONS BROKE – AND NOW MUST FIX – DETROIT
Government unions broke Detroit. And unions – over their most stringent objections – are going to play a significant part in fixing it.
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The Volcker Winter Storm — Bad Rule, Worse Implementation
On a snowy day in Washington, several federal agencies packed some mean regulatory snowballs that will most likely overshoot their supposed destination of Wall Street…
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Volcker Rule Curbs Useful, Profitable Proprietary Trading, Not Risky Lending
The government just approved a regulation called the Volcker Rule to curb proprietary trading by banks -- even though such trading did not cause the financial crisis,…
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Driving the Market out of the Marketplace of Ideas
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NLRB Ambush Elections Coming Soon
Yesterday, the National Labor Relations Board's savvy legal maneuver takes the labor agency one step closer to finalizing its ambush election regulation.
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Busybodies in Congress Prepared to Re-Prohibit Voice Communications During Flight
After two decades with a ban on the books, the Federal Communications Commission is set to consider allowing transmitting mobile devices on aircraft. On…
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Sugar — Congress’ Favorite Sweetener
The sugar lobby’s sweet contributions and their day-in-day-out lobbying means broad bipartisan support for continuing the U.S. sugar program in the 2013 farm bill, as…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
95 new regulations, from mad cow disease to falconry federalism.
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Fast-Track Trade Authority Is in the Works
It sounds like fast-track authority for trade deals is getting some traction, according to an article today in the Financial Times. The FT says that…
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Retailers Only Sell Half a Loaf in their Analysis of the Costs of Interchange Fees
In a comment on my American Spectator article on the deleterious effects of debit card interchange fees on American households, Sara Durr, Spokesperson for…
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President Pushes Welfare Rather than Opportunity and Social Mobility in Speech about Inequality
"President Obama on Wednesday declared that addressing income inequality would be the focus of 'all' of the White House’s efforts 'for the rest of…
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CEI Podcast for December 5, 2013: Ending Corporate Welfare
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The Administration’s Regulatory Uncertainty
Groups like the Center for American Progress are claiming that the possibility of another row over the budget and debt ceiling are creating “uncertainty”…
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Union Release Time on the Ropes
Over two years ago, 16 NYPD officers were charged in a widespread ticket-fixing scam. And the criminal cases against the officers are still ongoing.
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Labor Agencies’ Regulatory Agendas
As my colleague Wayne Crews comments in Forbes, the Obama administration tends to publish its regulatory agenda around holidays, or when "nobody is looking."…
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Good News to Share Over the Holidays: The World Is Getting Better
In the middle of this holiday season my colleague Stephanie Rugolo over at the Cato’s new project, HumanProgress.org, is spreading cheer by getting…
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Hypocritical New Yorkers Whine about High Housing Prices while Supporting High-Price Policies
The New York Post today has a story on what it describes as "new hipsters fight[ing] old hipsters in Brooklyn." The gist of it…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
77 new regulations, from red porgies to homopolymers.
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AT THANKSGIVING, BIG GROCERY & BIG LABOR ATTACK COMPETITOR WAL-MART
If you’re one of the millions of Americans who will visit a Wal-Mart on the biggest shopping weekend of the year, don’t be surprised if…
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COOL Protectionism Still a Hot Issue
A protectionist meat labeling rule requires complicated labeling of beef, pork and poultry to indicate where the animals were born, raised, and slaughtered. Called country-of-origin…
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CEI Podcast for November 27, 2013: Toxic Turkey Day?
Senior Fellow Angela Logomasini debunks scare stories about chemicals in your family's Thanksgiving dinner, from BPA in canned foods to naturally occurring pesticides in potatoes.
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Disregard Toxic Advice on Turkey Day
Toxic chemicals lurk in the "typical" Thanksgiving meal, warns a green activist website. Eat organic, avoid canned food, and you might be okay,…
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Cataloging Washington’s Hidden Costs, Part 3: The Costs of Regulatory Benefits
In the first installment of "Cataloging Washington's Hidden Costs," the topic was loss of liberty; in…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
60 new regulations, from salamanders to beans from Jordan.
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Senate Abolishes Filibuster, With Potentially Profound Implications for the Rule of Law
Yesterday, the Senate voted 52-48 to effectively abolish the filibuster for nominations to federal offices, such as federal appeals courts and trial courts, and cabinet departments. It used a tactic Senate…
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CEI Podcast for November 22, 2013: Daniel Hannan on Inventing Freedom
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I, iPad – Sir Jonathan Ive and Leonard Read Sing the Same Tune
Apple recently released an ad for the new iPad Air that — whether intentionally or not — mimics CEI’s I, Pencil short film.
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Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda to Show the “Evils” of Private Alcohol Sales
As if there wasn’t enough money in politics, now government agencies are using taxpayer dollars—our dollars—in an attempt to influence state policy. The National Institutes…
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Can the Government Regulate Bitcoins?
Bitcoins themselves cannot be regulated under current law, at least not directly. But certain activities involving…
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Government “Study” on Internet Tax Hides Harmful Small Business Effects
Under presidents of both parties, the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy has produced quality independent studies on the harmful tax and regulatory burden on…
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Unions’ Taxpayer Subsidized Activity
Taxpayers expect their government to spend tax dollars only on activities that benefit the public. But in Kentucky, the City of Louisville and Jefferson County…
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Urban Active Fitness class action settlement
The class in Gascho v. Global Fitness Holdings LLC, Case No. 2:11-cv-436 (S.D. Ohio), consists of the 606,246 individuals who signed a gym membership or…
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Obamacare Fallout Continues: Obamacare “Winner” Turns Out to Be a Loser Instead
"You screwed me over," says a woman cited by President Obama as an Obamacare success story. Jessica Sanford was used as a prop in the president's "…
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Dumbest Reason to Be Skeptical of Autonomous Vehicles: They Might Cost Auto Mechanics Their Jobs
Today, the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing on “How Autonomous Vehicles Will Shape the Future…