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A More Unequal America
Inequality grows hand-in-hand with the growth of the regulatory state. The proliferation of regulations increases economic inequality, since powerful people and politically connected companies know how to shape and manipulate…
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Illegal Change to Obamacare Is Designed to Scapegoat Insurers, Not Restore Canceled Insurance Policies
If aliens from outer space read today's newspapers, they would assume that America is a dictatorship, not a republic, and that President Obama has the authority…
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Under Obamacare, People Pay More for Inferior Health Plans, Lose Health Insurance They Liked
A Colorado woman who championed Obamacare lost her insurance plan. As a CBS TV station in Denver noted, "Millions of people are getting cancellation…
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Senate Poised to Pass Employment Non-Discrimination Act
Yesterday, the Senate voted 61-to-30 to invoke cloture on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban workplace bias based on sexual orientation or…
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Racial Preferences in Obamacare, and Discrimination, Too, Based on Weird Ideology
The Daily Caller has an interesting story about race-conscious provisions and racial preferences contained in Obamacare. It's a subject that has received remarkably little…
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Racial Preferences and Red Tape Grow Under Federal Dodd-Frank Act
Last Friday on National Review's The Corner, Roger Clegg wrote about the 2010 law governing the financial sector, the Dodd-Frank Act, and the racial "diversity quotas"…
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Glitches and Errors Widespread on Obamacare Health Insurance Website
In addition to the Obamacare web site glitches that left people unable to purchase insurance despite hours or days of trying, the website dramatically…
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J.P. Morgan Settlement Rips Off Taxpayers and Investors, Punishes Some Alleged Victims
Recently, The Washington Post reported that J.P.Morgan will pay $13 billion to settle lawsuits against it by the federal government and two…
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Costly Anti-Bullying Programs Backfire
Countless tax dollars have been spent on anti-bullying programs, and 49 states have anti-bullying laws. After New Jersey passed a broad anti-bullying law, hundreds of schools…
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Judge Rules Federal Government Cannot Close County Park in Shutdown
Earlier, I wrote about the federal government's use of the federal government shutdown as an excuse to close many private businesses. Those were businesses that lease…
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More Myths About the Government Shutdown
Young people often don't realize that government shutdowns used to be common, until the middle of the Clinton administration. The George W. Bush presidency was an exception…
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Obama Administration Unnecessarily Shuts Down Many Private Businesses in Government “Shutdown”
PJ Media's Bryan Preston reported Wednesday that the "White House [is] ordering hundreds of privately run, private funded parks to close," using the government…
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Obama Administration Uses “Government Shutdown” as Pretext to Block Access to Tourist Attractions
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Obamacare Quadruples Rates for Some, Subsidizes Some Wealthy Who Retired Early
Due to Obamacare, North Carolina "will see individual-market" health insurance rates "triple for women, and quadruple for men." In Tennessee, Obamacare will…
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Modest Food Stamp Cuts Are Long Overdue
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Massive Marriage Penalties in Obamacare Health Insurance Exchanges
On the Obamacare health insurance exchanges, being married can cost you a lot. Get divorced (or avoid getting married, if you live together), and you…
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Labor Department Imposes Disability Hiring Quotas, Even in Divisions that Don’t Get Federal Contracts
The Obama Labor Department has just finalized rules that will effectively require businesses that get federal contracts to adopt a 7 percent hiring quota for the…
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Student Barred from Handing Out Constitution on Constitution Day, In Sad Sign of the Times
At Modesto Junior College, a student was prevented from handing out copies of the Constitution on Constitution day. He was also "told he needed to fill…
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Ignoring the Government’s Role in the Financial Crisis, Five Years Later
When it comes to reporting on the 2008 financial crisis, many journalists are experts at ignoring the elephant in the room: the government's role in…
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More Harm from “Disparate Impact” Regulations
Earlier, we wrote about the Obama administration’s attempt to inject a race-conscious “disparate impact” provision into colorblind anti-discrimination laws like the Fair Housing Act,…
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CEI Opposes Risky, Race-Conscious Federal Lending Requirements in Supreme Court Case
“Disparate impact” is a term in anti-discrimination law for when a neutral policy happens to affect minorities more than whites. One example is a standardized…
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Scholars React to President’s Call to Shrink Law School from Three Years to Two
We earlier discussed (and agreed with) President Obama’s suggestion that law schools cut their length of study to two years from the current three…
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President Obama: Cut Law School from Three Years to Two
President Obama, a lawyer who once was a lecturer at the University of Chicago, recently urged law schools to reduce the length of study from three years…
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New Mexico Court: Go Into Business, Lose Your First Amendment Rights
In Elane Photography v. Willock, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a wedding photographer violated the New Mexico Human Rights Act by…
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Let in More Foreign Doctors to Fix Looming Shortage of Physicians Aggravated by Obamacare
“Bring on the foreign doctors,” writes Slate’s Brian Palmer: If President Obama’s health care reform plan is implemented in its current form, the United…
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President’s Dog Airlifted at Enormous Expense to Taxpayers? Debunking Claims Made Against Budget Cuts
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Federal Income-Based Repayment Plan Encourages Skyrocketing Law School Tuition
A recent item in The Washington Post explains "how Georgetown Law gets Uncle Sam to pay its students’ bills," averaging $158,888 over three years,…
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The Misleading Push for the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Last year, the Senate did not ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with supporters falling just short of the two-thirds…
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The Rip-Off that Is Occupational Licensing
Occupational licensing rules allow trade schools in some states to force students to attend them, enabling the schools to charge students lots of tuition for…
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More Economic Suffering Due to Obamacare
The Washington Post reports on the ever-growing number of people losing wages and facing pay cuts due to the 2010 healthcare law: For Kevin…
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The Government’s Wasteful Obsession with Subsidized Homeownership
The government has spent vast sums of money promoting homeownership through subsidies, tax exemptions, and bailouts. For example, in prosperous Alexandria, Virginia, certain people who…
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Unions Plead for Changes to Obamacare, Citing Lost Wages and Benefits
The Wall Street Journal reports today that the leaders of three major labor unions are asking Congress to make fundamental changes to Obamacare, saying that without such changes, it will…
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Senate Committee Passes ENDA, Which Would Lead to Meritless Litigation and Erode Free Speech
A Senate Committee has voted 15-to-7 to approve the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, "a bill that would prohibit employers from discriminating against workers on the basis…
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European Court Invalidates “Whole-Life” Sentences: Fuzzy International Norms Erode Sovereignty, Freedoms, and Safety
It's common to see supporters of U.S. ratification of international treaties claim that they will not radically uproot existing U.S. practices or freedoms, because their…
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Another Reason to Love the Sequester: Budget Cuts Prevent Agency from Destroying Valuable Computer Equipment
An agency unnecessarily destroyed $170,000 worth of computing hardware, and planned to destroy $3 million more, in response to garden-variety, easy-to-guard-against malware that…
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Obama Administration Discards Reporting Requirements in Obamacare
The Obama administration has illegally discarded the reporting requirements mandated by the 2010 healthcare law, which were designed to prevent countless billions of…
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French Cheese Ban: An Attack on “Scientific Principles” in Violation of Treaties Protecting International Trade?
Earlier, we wrote about the U.S. government's de facto ban on the commonplace, perfectly healthy, normal-smelling French cheese mimolette (which I once confused with…
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Another Federal Appeals Court Rules against Obama Administration’s Contraceptive Mandate
Contraceptives are easy to obtain, and forcing employers to include a broad array of contraceptives in employee health insurance makes as little sense as forcing…
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Federal Regulations Make Americans 75 Percent Poorer
"Federal regulations have made you 75 percent poorer," and as a result, "U.S. GDP is just $16 trillion instead of $54 trillion," says an…
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President Repeats False “Equal Pay” Statistic Claiming Women Earn 77 Percent of What Men Do
President Obama repeated a myth about equal pay and pay discrimination, as the economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth notes at RealClearMarkets: Last week in the…
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Obamacare and Activist State Courts Drive Up Health Plan Costs
The so-called rate shock from Obamacare has hit Ohio. The state’s Department of Insurance announced last Thursday that the average individual-market health insurance premium…
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Legal Ignorance of the Day: Federal Officials Seek to Restrict Religious Speech and “Hate Speech”
To be appointed to a Justice Department position in the Obama administration, you may need to satisfy various ideological litmus tests. But apparently…
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Wisconsin Town Criminalizes Parents for Kids’ Bullying and Offensive Speech
Law Professor Eugene Volokh has an interesting post on a Wisconsin town's "bullying" ordinance, which criminalizes speech by minors as "bullying" or "harassment" if…
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Education Department Attack on Free Speech and Due Process Criticized in Washington Post, Chronicle, and Other Papers
Earlier, I wrote about a recent letter from the Education and Justice Departments demanding that the University of Montana define as a reportable "sexual…
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IRS Political Harassers Could Theoretically Be Fired, as Required by 1998 Law
Earlier, I wrote about how, thanks to civil-service regulations, it is hard to fire government employees for misconduct, despite often-ignored Constitutional provisions, such…
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Anti-Business and Anti-Freedom: The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
In the American Spectator, CEI Vice President for Strategy Iain Murray and Geoffrey McLatchey explain why the Senate should be skeptical of the United Nations Convention…
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Firing Government Employees Is Too Hard; the Constitution Intended for It to Be Easier
It's hard to get rid of a career bureaucrat, even at the managerial level. "After you've been here for a year, it's easier to kill…
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Legal Fallacy Underlies Defense of IRS Harassment by Progressives
Progressives such as those at the Daily Kos are arguing that it would have been just fine to for the IRS to investigate all groups…
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Obama Recess Appointments Violate Constitution; Another Appeals Court Rules Against the NLRB
Another federal appeals court has ruled that President Obama's so-called "recess appointments" to the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional because the Senate was not…
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IRS Investigated Groups for Teaching about the Constitution
The IRS didn’t just investigate groups based on their perceived political views, but also targeted groups for “educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights”…
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Federal Title IX Enforcers Effectively Define Dating and Sex Education as “Sexual Harassment”
No one would believe you if you made this up, but it's now actually happened: The Justice Department and the Education Department's Office for Civil…
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Youth Unemployment Is at Highest Sustained Level Since World War II
Real youth unemployment is at 16.1 percent, the highest sustained rate since World War II. As the non-partisan youth advocacy group Generation Opportunity notes,…
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First Amendment Menace: Obama Administration to Expand Americans with Disabilities Act over Websites?
Can websites be forced to change to accommodate the disabled -- by using "simpler language" to appeal to the "intellectually disabled," or by making…
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Historian: Housing Nominee Mel Watt Helped Spawn the Subprime Crisis
In the Daily Caller, historian and presidential biographer Charles C. Johnson writes that “Housing nominee Mel Watt helped create the…
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Obama: A Sweet Pension for Himself, But Not For America’s Savers or Investors
In The Washington Post, Allan Sloan points out that while President Obama wants to cap American citizens' IRAs at $3 million or substantially…
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U.S. Government Bans French Cheese Based On Food Prejudices
The U.S. government is banning a standard, normal-smelling French cheese based on its own squeamishness. The cheese in question is Mimolette, a commonplace,…
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New York Times: Obama Administration Discrimination Settlement Was “Magnet For Fraud” That Enriched Trial Lawyers
A page 1 New York Times story today describes how the Obama administration, despite opposition from civil servants, radically expanded a legal settlement that…
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Obama’s Controversial Nominee For Labor Secretary To Be Voted On
Cato Institute attorney Ilya Shapiro wrote Tuesday about “Thomas Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights who personifies . . . this…
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Lawsuits Over “Customary International Law”: A Menace To Free Speech, Our Liberties, Our Companies, And Our Economy
Earlier, I wrote about how it was a good thing that the Supreme Court blocked foreigners from suing in the U.S. over…
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EEOC: A Scofflaw That Poisons The Climate For Hiring
One way the current political climate discourages hiring is by turning problem employees into potential lawsuits for the employers who take the risk…
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More On Supreme Court Ruling Limiting International Lawsuits
Earlier, I wrote about the Supreme Court’s closing the door on lawsuits by foreigners alleging nebulous violations of “human rights” or international norms…
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The Train Wreck That Is Obamacare
At least one union that supported passage of Obamacare, is now calling for its repeal. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the United…
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Supreme Court Dismisses Alien Tort Lawsuit Over Nigerian Dispute
The Supreme Court today refused to allow Nigerians to sue Dutch and other corporations in U.S. court over alleged abuses in Nigeria that occurred…
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Don’t Waste Billions Putting Gun-Wielding Guards In Our Schools
School violence has diminished in recent years, but in response to a few mass shootings, the National Rifle Association and the Obama…
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Food Safety Modernization Act Far More Costly Than Supporters Claimed
“Proposed FDA safety rules frustrate tree fruit farmers,” reported The Washington Post. As the FDA puts “in place a massive overhaul of the nation’s…
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Obama Budget: Bad News For Investors, Taxpayers, And Education Reform
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Obamacare Strangles Job Creation, Stifles Medical Innovation
Earlier, I wrote about the dismal March jobs report and how high unemployment has been masked by rising numbers of discouraged workers and people…
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Overcriminalizing Childhood: Maryland Turns Distressing Speech Into A Crime
Under the First Amendment, the government has far less power to restrict speech when it acts as a sovereign (such as when it criminally prosecutes…
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Dismal Jobs Figures Don’t Increase Official Unemployment Rate, As Job-Seekers Give Up, Or Go On Disability
The stock market has fallen this morning in response to the dismal March jobs report released this morning, which showed that a meager…
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The Myth Of Welfare Reform
Welfare reform is largely a myth. Many people who used to be on welfare have since gone onto Social Security Disability. That benefits states…
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Education Department Joins EPA In Touting Communist Killers
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When The Nanny State Kills
The government told people to switch from saturated animal fats to unsaturated vegetable fats. But that advice may have killed a lot of people.
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Obamacare Harms Colleges And Their Employees
The University of Virginia is expecting a roughly $7-million bill for Obamacare's new employer penalties, said Susan Carkeek, the University's vice president and…
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Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter Shows Contempt For First Amendment Freedoms
Philadelphia magazine published an article called "Being White in Philly," with the subtitle, “Whites, race, class, and the things that never get said.” Compared…
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More Calls For Censorship To Prevent “Bullying”
We live in a culture where harsh but truthful criticism, or exposure of wrongdoing, is viewed by some as "bullying," especially when it affects…
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No, Hugo Chavez Did Not Improve Health Or Human Development In Venezuela
Reuters’ recent obituary for Venezuela’s anti-American strongman, Hugo Chavez, obscured the fact that he made life worse for his countrymen — worse, that is, than…
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Washington Examiner: “Congress: Obamacare To Boost Premiums To $7,186 — A Year”
Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner reports on massive premium increases due to Obamacare: Health insurance companies, facing new and costly rules and…
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Harvard’s Jeffrey Miron: Sequestration Will Help National Economy
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Wells Fargo Economists: Sequestration Helps The Economy In The Long Run
Yet again, the Obama administration is busy engaging in scare tactics about sequestration, inflating its impact on the government and the country (to the point…
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VAWA Bill Likely To Pass Congress This Week, Despite Violating First Amendment
Congress never lets the Constitution get in the way of passing a law with a catchy title. Thus, the Senate’s version of the bill…
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The Myth Of British Austerity, And Why It Was Concocted
Opposition to spending cuts in America has been based heavily on “the myth of British austerity,” even though “if the British government is practicing…
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Why The Sequester Budget Cuts Are Good
As we noted earlier, the automatic budget cuts contained in the sequester will help the economy in the long run, even if they are…
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VAWA Bill Still Contains Provisions Violating First Amendment And Other Constitutional Provisions
Legal scholars say the Senate-passed bill reauthorizating the Violence Against Women Act contains provisions that violate the First Amendment and Articles II and III of…
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NIH-Funded Conspiracy Theory Smearing Tea Party Gets Even Wackier
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Shades Of McCarthyism: Federal Government Funds Smear Campaigns On Tea Party, Kochs
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Schools Trample On First Amendment
Schools like Tarrant County College have banned "empty holster" protests in favor of gun rights, which administrators perceive as somehow threatening. Never mind that…
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Obama Renews Call For Paycheck Fairness Act
In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama renewed his call for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would make it…
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Sequester Budget Cuts Would Increase Long-Term Economic Growth
The automatic budget cuts contained in the sequester will increase economic growth in the long-term, if Congress will just let them happen—rather than listening to…
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Progressive Myths About Poverty And Inequality
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Obamacare: More Cost, Less Coverage
Seven million fewer people than predicted will have health care coverage a decade after Obamacare’s passage, admits the Congressional Budget Office. One reason “is that…
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Misleading Food Stamp Campaign By Progressive Officials
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Thrifty People Punished Yet Again By Obama Administration
When I bought my home, I chose a mortgage that was within my means. That meant buying a little two-bedroom house, and using much of…
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$180 Billion Wasted On Head Start; Progressives Seek To Ban Private Schools And Homeschooling
The Head Start program has now wasted $180 billion, but it has no lasting effect on student achievement. In the long run, children who…
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Obama Administration Thumbs Nose At Court Ruling On Separation Of Powers
Thumbing its nose at the federal courts, which ruled today President Obama's appointments to the National Labor Relations Board last year were not…
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Economic Freedom Declines Again; Government Control Is Bad For Your Health
Economic freedom has declined under the Obama administration, and America's rank has repeatedly fallen on the Index of Economic Freedom and other rankings issued…
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Obamacare Increases Unnecessary Medical Tests, Wastes Doctors’ Time, Drives Up Billings And Costs
President Obama claimed Obamacare would cut healthcare costs, but it actually increased them in many ways, some of which are chronicled here. Here are yet…
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Obama Promotes Constitutional Fallacies In Gun Control Push
The president's remarks about gun control yesterday promoted fallacies about the Constitution and the scope of federal regulatory power under it. Under the Constitution,…
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Bankrupting America, One Vote At A Time
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Obamacare Imposes New Fees, Cost Increases On The Public
Obamacare was sold to the public based on the fallacy that it would cut healthcare costs, but each month brings additional evidence that it…
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Teaching Self-Esteem Undermines Students’ Academic Achievement
Self-control, not self-esteem, leads to success, researchers have found. Indeed, teaching self-esteem actually harms students' achievement and work ethic. "In one study, university students…