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The Long National Nightmare of Dodd-Frank Is Almost Over
One of the prime reasons for the continuing economic uncertainty that bedevils so many ordinary Americans is the presence in law of the Dodd-Frank Act…
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Right to Work Should Be on the Agenda in Ohio and Wisconsin
One takeaway from the midterm elections is politicians who support labor reform, which protects worker choice and reduce union coercive power, should not fear political…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Election week was a busy one on the regulatory front, with new rules on everything from fuel taxes to wireless spectrum. With the Senate changing…
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The Good, the Bad, and the Public Sector Unions
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Steve Malanga has commented on the growing differences between private and public sector unions. Malanga describes the various instances…
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The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 25 Years Later
This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. While much is going to be written about this quarter-century anniversary, my colleague…
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Labor and Employment Look at the 2014 Elections
The election tide of November 4, 2104, begs to be examined from a labor and employment perspective.
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Voters Reject Three Rail Transit Boondoggles
Yesterday, voters across the country had the opportunity to vote on a number of transportation ballot measures. Three of these involved spending for new rail…
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Voters Approve Minimum Wage Hikes
As pollsters predicted, voters approved increases in state-level minimum wages in four states (Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota), although to levels less than the increase…
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In Memoriam: Gordon Tullock
I write this Tuesday night as TV pundits drone on in the background. The Republicans may win control of the Senate, though races are too…
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Gordon Tullock, R.I.P.
Imagine making Nobel-worthy contributions to a discipline in which you had almost no formal training. It’s an amazing feat. Gordon Tullock is one of the…
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Volunteering Violation Vignettes
Did you know it is against the law to volunteer for a for-profit business? The issue has surfaced in a trio of varied settings recently.
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Joint Employer Action Anxiously Anticipated
On July 29, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board’s Office of the General Counsel set the labor and employment world on fire by authorized complaints…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
In the final week before the midterm election, agencies published new regulations ranging from dairy profits to Japanese oranges. Fittingly, the total number of new…
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ObamaCare Failing to Make Insurance Affordable for Many Americans
The two most important Courts in the land are about to dive into the language and purpose of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the “Obamacare”…
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What Will the SpaceShipTwo Crash Mean for Commercial Space Flight Regulation?
The crash of a test flight of billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, which cost the life of one, riveted many around the globe on Friday afternoon.
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Scott Walker Calls Union-Backed Lawsuit a Political Stunt
Big Labor just can’t get its way in Wisconsin.
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NLRB Considers Union Request to Make Removing Unwanted Union More Difficult
It is already an arduous process for employees to remove an unwanted union from their workplace. And now the International Association of Machinists is requesting…
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Soda Makes You Old and Other “Data Mined” Myths
“‘If you torture your data long enough, they will tell you whatever you want to hear.’ Dr. James Mills noted in a 1993 New England Journal…
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How Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Has Grown since President Clinton
In recent five-part series called The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, I took a look at hours of paperwork for various departments and…
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New Jersey’s Driverless Car Bill: One Step Forward, Three Steps Back
Yesterday, the New Jersey Senate Transportation Committee in a unanimous vote reported S734, a bill that would recognize the legality of autonomous vehicle testing…
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Minimum Wages Have Tradeoffs
Minimum wages help some workers, which is why they are so popular. But they aren’t a free lunch. There are tradeoffs. They aren’t always easy…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was business as usual, with new rules hitting the books on everything from political speech restrictions to butterflies to football broadcasts. On to the…
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Sen. Coburn’s Wastebook Highlights Mismanagement of Federal Employees
Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) released on October 22, 2014, his annual Wastebook that exposes how the federal government fritters away your tax dollars.
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The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, Part 5: Executive Agency Regulatory Costs
In Parts 1 through 4 of The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup we compiled a basic picture of federal paperwork costs with respect to…
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The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, Part 4: Independent Agency Paperwork Costs
A recent post here at OpenMarket noted the Annual Costs of Independent Agency Rulemakings and presented an annual cost placeholder of $6.14 billion annually stemming from compliance with…
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Education Department Harassment Rules Metastasize through Administrative Fiat
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), where I used to work, today declared that schools can be liable for bullying (or anything else)…
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The Great Unknown – Federal Independent Agencies’ Regulatory Costs
Let’s be independent together! —Herbie the Dentist Elf to Rudolph in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Independent agencies are not subject to Office of Management and Budget…
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Union Lobbyists Collecting Illinois Public Pensions Is Illegal Gift
Recent reports uncover that Illinois taxpayers are funding union agents' pensions.
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Green Exploitation of the Monarch Butterfly
Butterflies offer powerful imagery for environmental groups looking to advance their agendas. After all, who doesn’t want to save these beautiful creatures? Surely green activists…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The federal government took Monday off for Columbus Day, but still managed to pack more than 50 new regulations into a short week. On to…
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Misguided Regulations Threaten Automated Vehicle Innovation
Earlier this week, I appeared on a Cato Institute panel titled, "The End of Transit and the Beginning of the New Mobility: Policy Implications…
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The Tesla File: Government Favors Cut Both Ways
Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors has become a fascinating case study in economic freedom in recent years, although the narrative is a complicated one. The…
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Update: Where in the World is Jonathan Gruber?
Today the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell filed the last brief regarding the cert petition now before the Supreme Court. It effectively rebuts each of…
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Farewell to Our Friend, Leonard Liggio
We are saddened to hear our friend Leonard Liggio passed away this morning. Today, the liberty movement has lost an intellectual champion. The Competitive Enterprise…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Even with a mid-term election coming up next month, agencies are cranking out a dozen or so new regulations every workday. The federal government also…
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Cy Pres You’ll Read This
Learn about the state of cy pres law without having to pay for a CLE class! Today, Washington Legal Foundation published a short and useful…
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Unions’ Extensive Influence over Politics Highlights Need for Reform
As the midterm elections approach, it’s interesting to keep tabs on the biggest spenders and the heaviest-hitting activists.
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BPA Research Funding Linked to Researcher Bias?
The number of studies that have appeared in the news during recent years on the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) is staggering. Few substances undergo such scrutiny.
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A Pen and Phone Strategy to Shrink Government
President Obama is right that Congress doesn’t do much. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. But the pen and phone strategy Obama proposed…
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The Economist: Interchange Fee Caps Benefit Large Retailers at Consumer Expense
Surprise! Price controls lead to unintended consequences—including transfers of wealth to parties who lobbied for those controls. That’s the actual – and unsurprising – result…
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The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, Part 2: Billions of Dollars and 13,000 Lifetimes Annually
Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and…
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Where in the World is Jonathan Gruber?
The Obamacare insurance exchange rule is being challenged in four cases, and each one of them has been active over the last two weeks. The IRS…
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Super PAC Attacks Kochs on Civil Rights, Endorses “Urban Renewal” Policies that Harmed Minorities
Last week, Alternet posted yet another bogus smear on the libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. It has since been reposted by Salon.com. The…
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New Employment Data May Give Clues to Why Recovery Is Stuck in First Gear
The good news for workers is that the labor market is growing and the economy shows signs of improvement. The unemployment rate is down to…
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See Me at San Francisco Crowdfund Banking and Lending Summit
My colleague Wayne Crews’ Forbes column Monday explained “How Entrepreneurs Can Speak Out About the Cost of Regulation,” but noted sadly that “businesses that never form…
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The 2014 Federal Paperwork and Red Tape Roundup, Part 1: Big Bucks for Pencil Pushers
The more restrictions and prohibitions are in the Empire, the poorer grow the people. —Lao-Tzu When it comes to red tape and federal paperwork,…
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CEI Awards Pro-Worker Senators
Senators with 100% Labor & Employment Scorecard Ratings Honored at Hill Event…
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CalPERS: It Came from Sacramento
“Heads I win; tails you lose.” That essentially sums up the relationship the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) has long enjoyed vis-à-vis the Golden…
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How Will the Future View the “Temples” of Eco-Theocrats?
While vacationing in Germany recently, I noted many beautiful and now largely untenanted churches. Elegant, majestic against the sky, they are potent symbols of a…
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Results of “Cash for Appliances”
Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (commonly called "the stimulus"), a $300 million program to subsidize consumer purchases of energy-efficient appliances called…
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Oral Argument in Pearson v. NBTY, Inc.
Are you trick-and/or-treating in downtown Chicago this Halloween? If so, visit the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to watch oral argument…
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Federal Government Granted $157 Million Subsidy to Government Unions in FY 2012
When someone is paid to perform services, it should not be considered volunteer work.
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Must Every Product in the World Be Safe Enough for Children?
The New York Times reported Friday on the David-and-Goliath battle of businessman Shihan Qu, the last of the rare earth magnet renegades. Mr. Qu’s…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Federal Register topped the 60,000-page mark on Friday, and is on pace for the 6th-highest page count in its 79-year history. Along the way,…
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Journalists Called Out for Bad Reporting on Consumption Data
Being a journalist is not an easy job; it demands fast paced and high volume production. For those “wonk” journalists tasked with analyzing data-heavy reports…
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Opening Brief in Gascho v. Global Fitness Holdings
Candy corn, pumpkin pie, egg nog . . . no wonder that three months from now we’ll all be joining gyms. So let’s inaugurate the…
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Is Driving to Work in Decline?
Over at The Washington Post's Wonkblog, urban affairs reporter Emily Badger has a post up on the recently released U.S. Census Bureau American Community…
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Moody’s $2 Trillion Public Pension Shortfall Estimate Highlights Need for Better Pension Accounting Practices
In a new report, Moody’s estimates the nation’s largest pension funds face a $2 trillion taken together. That’s a lot of money. But as significant…
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Cyanide, Tylenol and How Free Markets Make You Safer
Today is the anniversary of one of the most significant food and drug related events in recent memory. Often discussed in college business classes these…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
A busy week ended with a flourish, with Friday’s Federal Register alone containing 28 final regulations and 542 pages.
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Study on Artificial Sweeteners Interesting But Flawed
A new study out of Israel on the possible effects of artificial sweeteners is making a lot of headlines this week. Unfortunately (and as usual)…
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Are Consumers Smart Enough to Understand Airline Ancillary Fees?
In May, I criticized the Department of Transportation’s opening of a rulemaking on airline ancillary fees (baggage, seat assignments, etc.), noting that the primary…
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The NLRB Forces CNN to Rehire Workers Terminated Over a Decade Ago
CNN is appealing a recent ruling from the National Labor Relations Board which forces CNN to hire back workers from a temp agency known as…
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CalPERS Abandons “Hail Mary” Investment Strategy – About Time
CalPERS knows when to fold ‘em. The California Public Employee Retirement System, the nation’s largest public pension fund (and one of the world’s largest), announced…
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For Fannie and Freddie Reform, Transparency Is a Must
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
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Victory! Redman v. Radioshack
CCAF won a tremendous victory for class members in Redman v. Radioshack, just eleven days after oral argument! Judge Richard Posner, a legal authority renowned…
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Billionaire Diversity: Foreign vs. Domestic
Brookings Institution scholar Darrell West, whose new book Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust is being released later this week, has another intriguing graphic…
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Lesson from Ex-Im Fight: More Agencies Should Have Sunsets
Congress hasn’t voted just yet on the Continuing Resolution that includes the Export-Import Bank’s reauthorization. But we already know that it will pass this week,…
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STB Reauthorization Bill Threatens Rail Investment
The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has scheduled a markup for tomorrow afternoon of the Surface Transportation Board (STB) Reauthorization Act (S.2777). If…
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In Memoriam: Elizabeth Whelan
I was very sad to hear last week that Elizabeth Whelan, founder and president of the American Council on Science and Health, had passed…
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Regulator: True Ridesharing Illegal in California
In the past, I’ve noted that carve-outs for ridesharing providers leaves more innovative and disruptive business models—particularly future automated services—illegal. While self-driving on-demand transportation…
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Will the NLRB’s McDonald’s Decision Destroy Franchise System or Make Companies More Accountable?
That was the question at the center of a September 9 House Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee hearing, which was held in response to…
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New Mexico Workers and Industry Would Benefit from Right to Work
Albuquerque Business First reports that New Mexico could become one of the next right-to-work (RTW) battlegrounds depending on upcoming election results, where Republicans could reclaim…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The number of new regulations topped 2,500 on the year, while the Federal Register added 1,853 pages to end the week just shy of the…
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Celebrate Billionaire Diversity
Darrell West, a Vice President at the Brookings Institution, has a new book coming out next week on the political influence of the very wealthy,…
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CDC Study: Kids Eat Same Amount of Sodium as Worldwide Average
It’s not exactly a blood-pressure raising headline, which is probably why the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is actually…
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CEI Awards Pro-Worker Legislators
As we did last Congress, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has produced our Labor and Employment Policy Scorecard for this 113th Congress on our labor website,…
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Dueling Ex-Im Commentary
A vote on the Continuing Resolution, which includes the controversial Export-Import Bank reauthorization was originally scheduled for today, but has been pushed back to next…
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Federal Obamacare Officials Once Recognized the Falsity of Their Current Argument about Tax Credits
The Obama administration has claimed that despite recurring language in the Obamacare law limiting tax credits to people who buy insurance on an “exchange established…
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User Fees Are Not Taxes: The Case for PFCs
I've noted in the past the natural appeal passenger facility charges (PFCs) should have with fiscal conservatives. These are the user fees airports…
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Don’t Tie Ex-Im Renewal to Government Shutdown
It appears Congress will decide the Export-Import Bank’s short-term fate this week. There are several bills with different reauthorization terms, and Rep. Justin Amash and…
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Nationalizing Bitcoin?
The phrase “if you can’t beat them, join them” seems so applicable in light of the Commonwealth of Dominica announcing plans…
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Western Water and California Drought, Part 2: No Need for Malthusian Despair
Well, some good news—it’s raining in Los Angeles. Western droughts combined with questionable water access policies spawn water crises that unfortunately are not unique…
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Redman v. RadioShack, Inc. / oral argument today
As we discussed earlier, class counsel agreed to a settlement over RadioShack credit-card receipt legality that would have paid themselves $1 million, but the…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a short week due to the Labor Day holiday, but agencies still managed to issue more than 60 new regulations and push the…
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IRS Plays Favorites
The Daily Caller News Foundation has found an email from Lois Lerner which contrasts her apathy towards misreported political spending by labor unions with her…
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Ted Frank speaking in Trenton September 16
The New Jersey Civil Justice Institute is saying really nice things about my scheduled luncheon talk September 16 in Trenton. Come say hi if…
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You’re a SIFI, Charlie Brown
“Good grief!” That’s what the Charlie Brown, star of comic strip Peanuts and cartoon spokesman for the MetLife insurance firm, might say about the government’s…
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Feds Apply Double Standards against Private Employers
Government contractors could face a financial death sentence over labor law, civil-rights law, or wage-and-hour law violations under a recent Obama executive order I discussed…
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Ex-Im Update
Congress comes back from its annual August recess next week. One of the top items on its agenda is deciding the Export-Import Bank’s fate. Ex-Im…
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Oetting v. Green Jacobson / Oral argument September 10 in 8th Circuit on cy pres
Bank of America settled a nationwide securities class action in the E.D. Mo. for hundreds of millions of dollars. For some reason, the district court…
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Strengthening Executive Branch Review of Federal Regulations
This week marks the due date of public comments on the 2014 edition of the Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of…
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CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
In a week like any other, federal agencies issued regulations for everything from dairy farmers’ profit margins to Canadian apple exports.
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Laguna v. Coverall N.A.
Coverall N.A. settled a class action over janitorial franchises by paying a $1M attorney fee and setting up…
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Professional Associations Raise Workers’ Wages More than Unions
Almost every American knows the feelings of excitement and relief that come from getting that brand new job.
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How to Raise All Worker Wages
With Labor Day approaching, it is a suitable time to examine which public policies promote economic growth that leads to job creation and wage increases.
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Judge: NLRB Acting as “Litigation Arm” of SEIU
A federal judge in Pittsburgh has reprimanded the National Labor Relations Board for its heavy-handed and questionable treatment of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in…
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Taxpayers to Subsidize “Ministry of Truthiness”
The Washington Free Beacon reports: The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and…
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Obama “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” Executive Order Will Punish Firms in Pro-Worker States
Earlier, we discussed President Obama’s recent Executive Order 13,673, which “will allow trial lawyers to extort larger settlements from companies, and enable bureaucratic agencies to extract …