The Open Market Blog

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/30/2007

The moderately conservative Judge Thomas Meskill has died, eliminating one of the few non-liberal judges on the New York-based Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/30/2007

Wealthy trial lawyer William Lerach, a big donor to liberal politicians who specialized in bringing class action lawsuits, has pled guilty to giving kickbacks.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/29/2007

The Supreme Court is weighing the $2.5 billion punitive damage award against Exxon arising out of an oil spill, which occurred as a result of…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/29/2007

The Washington Post has a news story Sunday about how teen pregnancies have fallen in Washington, D.C., and nearby suburbs since 1996 — a…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/25/2007

The Commission that selects administrative law judges (ALJs) in Washington, D.C. is leaning towards not reappointing Roy Pearson, the ALJ who brought a $54…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/25/2007

California wildfires have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, caused death and destruction, and consumed more than 700 square miles of land.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/24/2007

The European Commission is taking Finland to court to try to force it to ban the sale of snus, a form of smokeless tobacco.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/24/2007

MSN says that Merrill Lynch wrote down the value of its mortgage holdings by nearly $8 billion just in the past quarter, producing a…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/23/2007

The bloated farm bill making its way through the new Congress is not only a budget-buster. It is chock full of corporate welfare…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/23/2007

300,000 people have fled their homes in California owing to out-of-control fires that have consumed more than 384 square miles of land. Those fires…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/23/2007

The use of torture overseas in enemy interrogations has attracted considerable opposition, for good reason. Military interrogators have recently criticized the practice, saying it is…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/22/2007

The U.S. government is urging Turkey not to invade the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq after Turkish Kurdish separatists based on northern Iraq killed…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/22/2007

MSN and The Economist point out the deep flaws of the bail-out fund backed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that would try to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/19/2007

My earlier post about the incompetence of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which generally fails to detect explosive ingredients and fake bombs, was understated.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/19/2007

The administration of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has blocked a new power plant from being built, despite looming energy shortages, because, like virtually all…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/19/2007

Since the government took over aviation security since 9/11, security has actually gotten worse. Fake bombs usually pass undetected by the Transportation Security Administration…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

The House of Representatives just failed to override Bush’s veto of a bill that would have greatly expanded the cost and scope of the…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

The Financial Times has an article on how the agricultural subsidies contained in the Farm Bill seemingly promote obesity by encouraging the production and…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

CEI’s The Nation’s Top Ten Worst State Attorneys General described how wealthy trial lawyers like the indicted Milberg Weiss law firm have bankrolled state…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/18/2007

Michael Cannon lists the nine cardinal sins of the federal SCHIP health care program, whose exploding costs led President Bush to veto a…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia recently upheld an FCC ruling that deregulated high-speed internet service over traditional phone lines. The…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today discussing all the ways that expanded ethanol production resulting from costly federal ethanol subsidies is harming…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

Mortgage lenders face a Hobson’s Choice. When a lender doesn’t provide mortgage loans to people in high-crime areas with high default rates, that’s considered racist…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/17/2007

At Slate, Tim Wu explores how the federal criminal code has become so vast that almost anyone can be prosecuted for violating some obscure…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/16/2007

As I explain below, federal meddling will merely delay the mortgage meltdown and make the ultimate implosion of the mortgage industry all the worse.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/16/2007

Mortgage-backed securities have collapsed in value, and aren't worth as much as once thought. That's becoming clear as increasing numbers of homeowners default on their…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/16/2007

Volunteer fire departments would be endangered by a union-backed bill that has overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives and now is pending in the…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/15/2007

James Kirchik has an interesting column on Clarence Thomas and affirmative action in The Los Angeles Times. The Supreme Court justice’s revealing autobiography,…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/15/2007

One of the surest ways to create a budget deficit is to assume that a government health care program can be funded solely by a…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/12/2007

A committee selected by Norway's socialist legislature has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its criteria…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/11/2007

The City of Belmont, California has banned smoking in most apartment units as well as in public parks and other public spaces. (In Santa…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/11/2007

Jacob Sullum writes in Reason about the downside of the FDA tobacco regulation bill. CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman earlier wrote to Congress…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/11/2007

David Freddoso has an interesting column in National Review Online about the D.C. Government’s lack of concern for crime victims. The District justifies its…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/09/2007

One of the problems of letting the Nanny State tell you what you can put into your body is that it often tells you to…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/08/2007

Bjorn Lomborg has an insightful op ed on global warming in Sunday’s Washington Post.  He discusses how global warming regulations, such as carbon emissions restrictions, fail to provide as…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/08/2007

Andrea Peyser had an interesting column this weekend in The New York Post about how wealthy parents are billing the public for their children…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/05/2007

Most courts have rejected claims that websites have to be redesigned, at great inconvenience and expense, to accommodate their tiny number of visually-disabled visitors. But…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/04/2007

The London Daily Mail reports on a lawsuit pending in an English court: Schools will have to issue a warning before they show pupils…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/04/2007

My wife loves fish, especially tuna and sashimi, but when she was pregnant with our daughter, she didn’t eat much fish, since the FDA and…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/03/2007

There are a lot of problems, ethically, legally, and constitutionally, with a state attorney general hiring trial lawyers to sue on behalf of…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/03/2007

As legal commentator Ted Frank observes, the $11.6 million in damages awarded in the Isiah Thomas sexual harassment case was excessive and at odds…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/03/2007

The New York Times has an interesting story today on the potential marketing of Snus, a form of smokeless tobacco that does not require…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/03/2007

Bush just vetoed a multibillion dollar bill expanding the SCHIP health care program, which would have increased budget deficits as well as cigarette and…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/02/2007

The distinguished legal commentator Stuart Taylor, who exposed prosecutor Michael Nifong’s misconduct and lies in the Duke lacrosse rape case, has an interesting…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/01/2007

The Associated Press has an interesting article on Congress’s use of regressive taxation and tax increases to pay for expansion of health care coverage.

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/01/2007

School districts receive federal subsidies for bilingual education programs. That can give them a financial incentive to needlessly put Hispanic kids who already know a…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/01/2007

Supreme Court justices have a politically sensitive job, issuing rulings that are politically charged. As Finley Peter Dunne observed a century ago, the Supreme Court…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/01/2007

The Supreme Court has decided not to hear the Engle case, in which the Florida Supreme Court threw out a $145 billion class-action punitive…

• By: Hans Bader
• 10/01/2007

“Some in Fairfax Public Housing Make Six Figures.” That’s the title of a story in The Washington Post, which reported Sunday that families…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/28/2007

A lobbying firm has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, including $160,000 in the first half of 2007, to lobby for the FDA…