Blog
PATTERSON: June can’t come soon enough
The Washington Times June is shaping up to be a pivotal month for American liberty. On one front, the Supreme Court is expected in June…
Blog
May update
A disappointing loss in Cobell v. Salazar, the first time I lost a federal appeal I’ve argued. We’re still evaluating our options.
Blog
If Only All Policemen were Leroy Jethro Gibbs
As a fan of NCIS, I’m quite aware of the government's ability to track the location of individuals through their cell phones. One of the…
Blog
CPSC Commissioner Challenges Precautionary Principle
Most of the time regulators focus on issuing rules, pushing paper, and often making business more difficult than necessary. But every once and a while,…
Blog
Long Commutes Will Kill You? A Brief Response to Matt Yglesias’s Post
Slate blogger Matthew Yglesias, a center-left economics writer whose work I generally enjoy reading, has a new post up with the title, "Long Commutes…
Blog
Causes of Public Pension Underfunding Are Not Hard to Identify
As if on cue, nearly every time state and local government officials try to rein in public employee pension costs in order to bring their…
Blog
The Futility of Religious Profiling at Airport Security Checkpoints
“Obviously, Muslims would be someone you'd look at, absolutely,” former-Senator Rick Santorum said during a GOP presidential debate last year. “Radical Muslims are…
Blog
Today’s Links: May 30, 2012
Blog
Injunction Imposed Over Blog Posts That Criticized Convicted Terrorist-Turned-Left-Wing Activist
In 2005, a New Mexico judge appalled people across America by issuing a restraining order against David Letterman after a wacky woman accused Letterman…
Blog
Paycheck Fairness Act Contains Unfair Provisions, Would Result in Equal Pay for Unequal Work
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., scheduled a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act when the Senate returns from its week-long recess,” reports Susan…
Blog
Today’s Links: May 29, 2012
Blog
When Schools Are Like Jails — Or Worse
A 17-year-old Texas honor student has been jailed for missing too much school. Diane Tran works both full-time and part-time jobs, in addition to taking…
Blog
CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
95 new final rules published last week, covering everything from crocodiles to the definition of "unblockable drain."…
Blog
Magical Thinking in Liberal Land
Blog
Classic Obfuscation: The New America Foundation’s Search for the “Public Interest”
Milton Friedman once quipped that “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” Perhaps he would add the outmoded idea of the “public interest”…
Blog
No, Obama Is Not “the Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower”
Blog
Today’s Links: May 25, 2012
Blog
Carbon Tariffs Again in the Spotlight
Here it comes again — talk of an EU carbon tax. This time it’s a member of the new administration of new French President Francois…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 24, 2012: Driverless Cars
A prototype driverless car made by Google recently made the rounds in Washington, DC, and Land-use and Transportation Policy Analyst Marc Scribner got to take…
Blog
Senate Vote Today on FDA, Supplements, and Energy Drinks
Today, the Senate will vote to reauthorize and modify the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) prescription drug and medical device user-fee program (…
Blog
MWAA: A Government-Authorized Fiefdom
Should Congress’s power extend to creating taxpayer-funded government entities that are free from state and federal laws concerning ethics, transparency, and disclosure? No, but it…
Blog
Empty Cupboards: The Legacy of the Greatest Generation
Blog
Is the Obama Administration Anti-Business?
If President Obama has found it hard in responding to critics who accuse him of being “anti-business,” he really only has his own administration’s policies…
Blog
EEOC Restricts Speech in Viewpoint-Discriminatory Manner in Dawson v. Donahoe: De Facto Ban on Confederate Flags
The First Amendment generally protects even offensive speech, so if you wish to wear a t-shirt celebrating a bloodthirsty thug like Mao, Stalin, or Che…
Blog
Facebook’s Fall and the Post-Sarbanes-Oxley “Cheers IPOs”
How Over-Regulation is Robbing Investors of Wealth from Smaller IPOs When I wrote pieces here and at the Daily Caller late last week injecting a…
Blog
An Economics Disaster
Blog
Today’s Links: May 23, 2012
Blog
H.R. 1909 — Unfinished Free-Market Business to Lift Barriers to Lending
They said it couldn't be done. That Congress couldn't pass a bipartisan bill in an election year to help the economy. Particularly one that lessens…
Blog
Techno-Phobic California Politicians “NHTSA” Google’s Driverless Car
Last week, I wrote about Google’s amazing new self-driving car, which CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman and I had the opportunity to test-ride in…
Blog
Congress Must End Taxpayers Vulnerability to Government Waste
Openmarket.org Fraud and abuse continue to be a barrier to effective government. According to the Cato Institute’s 2009 report, fraud or improper payments in government amount…
Blog
Obama: Promises Broken, Promises Kept
President Obama has broken many of his promises aimed at the general public and jobless Americans, but he has kept promises to his left-wing base…
Blog
Congress Must End Taxpayers Vulnerability to Government Waste
Fraud and abuse continue to be a barrier to effective government. According to the Cato Institute’s 2009 report, fraud or improper payments in government…
Blog
Today’s Links: May 21, 2012
Blog
Regulating Obama’s Regulators — And Those of Future Presidents
This month, President Obama released a new Executive Order building upon and making permanent the quest for regulatory savings in his…
Blog
A Fit of Sanity on ITAR
Over at Space Politics, Jeff Foust reports that the House has passed a bill allowing the administration to remove satellites from…
Blog
EPA’s Design to Strong-Arm the Chemical Industry
If you believe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, its Design for the Environment (DfE) program is an example of a voluntary effort to protect…
Blog
Rep. Nick Rahall Responds, Agrees with Me on MAP-21’s “Sleight of Hand” Pay-Fors
This morning on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Nick Rahall (D-W.V.) was read a passage from a blog post…
Blog
The Future of Automobility Is (Almost) Here: Google’s Self-Driving Car
[caption id="attachment_55209" align="alignleft" width="350" caption="CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman about to take a spin in the Google car. (Photo by Marc Scribner)"][/caption] This morning,…
Blog
Give a Man a Fish
Those with an interest in conserving our oceans’ fish stocks and those with an interest in promoting private property should both be interested in my…
Blog
Land of the Free? Part 2: The Real War on Women
"How could it be illegal to sell something that it's perfectly legal to give away?" -- George Carlin The recent extra-curricular exploits of American Secret Service…
Blog
Today’s Links: May 18, 2012
Blog
Before Immigration Was Regulated: Pre-20th Century Migration
Early large-scale human migration is the story of dispersal, spreading out as resources were used up and populations expanded past sustainability. The Agricultural Revolution brought…
Blog
Facebook, Overregulation, and the “Cheers IPOs”: Unshackling the Next Facebook and Its Investors
Whether or not a retail investor buys shares of Facebook when it finally goes public tomorrow -- and OpenMarket provides public policy, rather than investment,…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 17, 2012: Ethanol’s Overstated Benefits
Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis takes apart a study claiming that ethanol lowers gas prices by more than a dollar per gallon in some regions.
Blog
Tuna-Dolphin Issue — Again a WTO Decision
No, tuna-dolphin is not a hybrid fish, but the subject of a long-standing trade dispute between Mexico and the United States arising from a 1990…
Blog
Today’s Links: May 17, 2012
Blog
Bailouts Wanted — All Taxpayers Solicited!
Blog
Government Lost Tons of Money in the Auto Bailouts, Despite Benefiting from Blind Luck
As John Lott notes, “Having just $34 billion to show after a $100 billion-plus investment would get a chief executive of any private company…
Blog
Senate Rejects Obama Budget, 99-0
Blog
Let’s Lose LOST
The Law of the Sea Treaty would drastically undermine American sovereignty, giving massive powers to the U.N. (aka the Dictators’ Club of New York), but…