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SCHIP Program: Taxes, Deficits Increase
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Hate Crimes Bill Combined With Funding for Troops
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SCHIP: Backroom Politicking Behind Tax Increase
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Lee Bollinger’s Cynical Posturing
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D.C. Gun Control Inconsistency
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Supreme Court Mulls Voter ID Laws
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SCHIP Tax Increase Looms
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James Hansen’s Unexplained About-Face
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Motions to Dismiss Lawsuit Against God Filed
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Hitler Welcome on Campus, Student Speech Not
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Academia Says Terrorism OK, Political Incorrectness Not
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A Fatter, Dumber FDA, Unreformed
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City Says It’s OK to Smoke, As Long As It’s Pot, Not Tobacco
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Multibillion Dollar Saudi Tobacco Lawsuit Continues with U.N. Support
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Dominican Republic Opposes Cigar Tax Increase
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About that Mark Warner Tax Increase
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More on Unconstitutional D.C. Voting Rights Bill
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Unconstitutional D.C. Voting Rights Bill
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Food Nannyism Preempted
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Reducing the Harm from Tobacco
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Immigration Caps Aggravate Nursing Shortages
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FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill May Trigger Trade Dispute
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Poor People Die in Agony Because of War on Drugs
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The Bogus Reefer Madness Excuse
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Waste and Political Correctness at Metro
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“If It Offends Me, It Must Be Unconstitutional”
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Propaganda About Discrimination
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Vioxx Class Action Rejected in New Jersey
The New Jersey Supreme Court just rejected a nationwide class action against Merck over its drug Vioxx, recognizing that it would be inappropriate to…
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Federal Meddling Drove Up Youth Suicide Rate
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A Constitutional Right to Welfare?
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D.C. Voting Rights Dilemma
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More British Government Baby Stealing
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A New, Fairer Way to Tax Cigarettes and Fight Addiction?
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The Disappearing Blog Post About Spouse Killings
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District Seeks to Revive Gun Ban
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FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill Violates Treaty, Indonesia Says
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Virginia Tech Kept in the Dark by Disabilities Laws
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Virginia’s Budget-Busting Preschool Program
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Gender Bias in the Courts — and in The Washington Post
For a glaring example of gender bias in the courts (and the media), you need look no further than The Washington Post story today…
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FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill: A Trojan Horse?
PR Watch has an interesting story on the cynical baptist-bootlegger alliance behind the bill to give the FDA oversight over the tobacco industry, which…
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DDT Saves Africans from Malaria
Donald Roberts has an interesting Op-Ed in the New York Times about the crucial role of DDT in preventing the spread of malaria in…
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Global Warming Alarmism Debunked
In the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby has an interesting editorial debunking attacks by Newsweek and others on scientists and CEI staffers who have…
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Foreign Aid Kills
Foreign food aid often causes, rather than alleviates, hunger, by destroying the basis of the farm economy in the country that receives the aid, as…
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Global Warming Scams
The Washington Post has a story today about so-called “carbon offsets,” schemes “offering absolution for the modern nag of climate guilt.” In exchange…
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Panhandling Drug Addicts Make $60 Per Hour
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Nicaragua Objects to U.S. Cigar Tax Increase
Nicaragua’s legislature has objected to proposed increases in U.S. cigar taxes, which would raise the tax on some premium cigars from 5 cents…
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Why Americans Are Getting Fat
Judge Richard Posner has an insightful discussion of why Americans are getting fatter and fatter. He discusses factors contributing to the obesity epidemic, such…
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When Welfare Kills
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More on Bad Court Ruling Against Terminally Ill
“Terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to be treated with experimental drugs, even if they likely will be dead before the medicine…
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Drug Maker Faces Lawsuit by Corrupt, Kooky Foreign Government
Pfizer is seeking the dismissal of a $2 billion lawsuit by the Nigerian state of Kano. Pfizer’s purported offense was to give children an…
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Court Rejects Terminally Ill Patients’ Chance to Live, Upholds FDA Red Tape
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 8-to-2 in Abigail Alliance v. Von Eschenbach that terminally ill people cannot challenge the FDA's ban…
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Search of Crooked Congressman’s Office Declared Illegal
Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson was caught with a $90,000 bribe in his freezer. That didn’t stop his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus from rallying…
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Spitzer Vetoes Bill to Gut Welfare Reform
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FDA Tobacco Regulation Assailed
In the New York Times, Patrick Basham explains why the bill to give the Food and Drug Administration the duty to regulate tobacco is…
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Bridge Collapse Falsely Blamed on Low Taxes by Europeans
A Dutch friend of a CEI staffer passed on the fact that some Dutch and German newspapers today are filled with hateful comments online about…
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FDA Tobacco Regulation Clears Senate Committee
A Senate committee has just voted 13-to-8 in favor of the bill to give the FDA jurisdiction over tobacco products and the tobacco industry.
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Tobacco Settlement Bars Smokers’ Punitive Damage Claims
A court has just ruled that a multibillion dollar tobacco settlement bars punitive damages in lawsuits by smokers against tobacco companies. In 1998, 46…
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English Plaintiffs’ Long-Distance Suit Moved Closer to Home
Usually, it’s the plaintiff who seeks to sue in his home state, while the defendant seeks to have lawsuits heard in its own home state.
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Drug Price Ceilings Overturned
An appeals court ruling today struck down Washington, D.C.’s price ceilings for prescription drugs. In Biotechnology Industry Organization v. District of Columbia, the Court…
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Reformist Attorneys General Target Abuses
In recent years, some state attorneys general have used their offices to sponsor lawsuits that redistribute billions of dollars from businesses into the pockets of…
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FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill Tramples Free Speech, Advertisers Say
Advertisers are objecting to the bill that would subject the tobacco industry to FDA regulation, saying that its restrictions on tobacco advertising would violate…
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FDA Regulation: Harmful to Smokers’ Health?
Congress is on the verge of passing a bill that would subject tobacco products to FDA regulation. The FDA regulation bill would make it…
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“He Only Saved a Billion People”
Newsweek has a story on Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, whose advances in biotechnology saved a billion people from starvation in…
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Eliot Spitzer Aides Caught Playing Dirty Tricks
Aides and close advisers of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer have been caught trying to plant dirt on a political rival, state senate…
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Anti-AIDS Spending Backfires
A U.N. effort to reduce the spread of AIDS to children by encouraging HIV-positive mothers to use formula rather than breast feeding has backfired…
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Nuisance Lawsuits Shielded by Democratic Leaders
Protection against nuisance lawsuits for private citizens who report suspicions of terrorist activity was removed by Congressional Democratic leaders from homeland security legislation. Both houses of Congress had…
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Racially Labeling Your Child
My family is puzzling over what racial label to pin on our children. Because of their different ethnic backgrounds, my daughter and my nephew might…
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Washington Appeals Decision Striking Down Gun Ban
Washington, D.C. bans handguns, even when used solely for self-defense. Earlier this year, its gun ban was struck down under the Second Amendment by…
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Gigantic Class Action Lawsuit at Death’s Door
Earlier, I wrote about the gigantic class action lawsuit in Schwab v. Philip Morris, in which the tobacco companies are being sued for selling…
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One Step Toward a Tobacco Monopoly
The New York Times has a story today on the FDA regulation bill, which would place the tobacco industry under FDA regulation. The bill…
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FDA Regulation of Tobacco Opposed
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina is opposing a bill to place the tobacco industry under the jurisdiction of the FDA. He cites the…
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More Controversy About the N-Word
The Montgomery County Schools are eliminating a lesson plan designed to prepare students to read Harper Lee’s classic To Kill A Mockingbird, saying that…
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Attorneys General: Corruption By Contingency Fee
Adam Liptak of The New York Times recently wrote about the increasing practice by state attorneys general of hiring trial lawyers to bring lawsuits…
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Hate Crimes Bill is Back
Earlier, I wrote about how the federal hate crimes bill contains provisions that would undermine protections against double-jeopardy and constitutional federalism safeguards (see here,…
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Greenhouse Gas Sanctimony
Al Gore was born into a wealthy family and lives high on the hog. But he is very preachy and sanctimonious about the little people…
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$200 Billion Class Action Lawsuit Over “Light” Cigarettes Appealed
Today, the federal appeals court in New York heard the appeal of trial judge Jack Weinstein’s decision to certify a $200 billion class action…
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Ambushed by the Unruh Act
California's Unruh Act is a trial lawyer's dream, and a nightmare for the rule of law. It has been interpreted to ban "discrimination" against customers…
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Bong Hits 4 Jesus Fallout
Julie Hilden has an interesting column at Findlaw on the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding a teenager’s suspension for holding up a “Bong Hits…
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More Foreign Lawsuits Against Tobacco Companies
Back in 1998, in the Master Settlement Agreement, the big tobacco companies agreed to pay 46 states billions of dollars in perpetuity, supposedly to defray…
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Racial Set-Asides Cost D.C. Taxpayers
Washington, D.C. has a minority set-aside program that results in taxpayers of all races paying hundreds of millions of dollars more in taxes to pay…
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Scooter Libby’s Sentence Commuted
Bush has just commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence, eliminating his prison sentence, while leaving his $250,000 fine intact. That is what I recommended here.
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California Loots Safe-Deposit Boxes for State Spending Spree
To finance mushrooming government spending, California is seizing as “abandoned” property the contents of bank safe-deposit boxes held by customers with currently active bank…
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The Hidden Costs of CAFE standards
Charles Krauthammer has an interesting column today on the perils and hidden costs of higher CAFE standards, which would order automakers to increase the…
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Supreme Court Overturns Race-Based Student Assignments
The Supreme Court has overturned the race-based assignment of students in Seattle and Louisville schools. (The decision can be found here). CEI filed an…
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Reid Removed Limit on Welfare for Amnestied Illegal Aliens
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) omitted a limit on welfare for amnestied illegal aliens previously adopted by the Senate when he revived the…
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Supreme Court Denies Property Owners Relief from Harrassment
On Monday, the Supreme Court weakened property owners' protection against government harassment in Wilkie v. Robbins. Law Professor Ilya Somin explains why the decision…
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First Amendment Double Standards
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued two First Amendment rulings, one expanding First Amendment protection and the other narrowing it. In Morse v. Frederick,…
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Massive Flaws in Senate Immigration Bill
The Senate immigration bill supported by Ted Kennedy and George Bush will make things worse for high-tech businesses, according to a news story in…
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More on Bogus Food Stamp Challenge
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Crybaby Judge Can Be Fired for Seeking $54 Million for Lost Pants
Roy Pearson, an administrative law judge in the District of Columbia, recently cried on the witness stand while seeking $54 million from his drycleaners…
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Court Blocks Use of Tobacco Settlement As Slush Fund
The Mississippi Supreme Court has just upheld a court ruling blocking the diversion of $20 million a year from Mississippi’s multi-billion dollar tobacco settlement…
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Social Workers Seize Children to Receive Adoption Bonuses
In England, as in the United States, local governments receive cash incentives from the national government for adopting out children. In England, this has led…
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Weeping Judge Seeks $54 Million for Lost Pants
Marc Fisher of The Washington Post gives an entertaining account of the trial in which D.C. judge Roy Pearson is suing his dry cleaners…
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Zero Tolerance Policies and the Abuse Excuse
Today, I published a letter to the editor in The Washington Post, contrasting the treatment of two women recently sent to jail. (Instapundit…
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Supreme Court Protects Non-Union Workers from Union Coercion
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in Davenport v. Washington Education Association that it is not a violation of the First Amendment for a…
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Victory for Property Rights in New Jersey
There's good news on property rights from New Jersey, of all places. The New Jersey Supreme Court, in Gallenthin Realty v. Borough of Paulsboro,…
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Judge’s Multi-Million Dollar Pants Suit Goes to Trial
Roy Pearson, a Washington, D.C. administrative law judge, is suing his drycleaners for $54 million for losing his pants and posting signs saying “satisfaction guaranteed.” His ridiculous lawsuit is…
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Tobacco Settlement Too Greedy and Venal for Even the ABA
Yesterday, I said that trial lawyers received $14 billion (not million, billion) under the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), in discussing how that lucrative…
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More Nigerians Sue U.S. Tobacco Companies for Billions
More states in Nigeria are suing American tobacco companies for billions of dollars. The suit began when one state in Nigeria decided to…
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Cigarette “Lights” Class Action Lawsuits Can’t Be Pulled Out of State Court
The Supreme Court has just ruled in Watson v. Philip Morris that the tobacco companies can’t pull lawsuits against them out of state court…