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Best Books of 2019: The Anarchy by William Dalrymple
How did a joint stock company founded in Elizabethan England come to replace the glorious Mughal Empire of India, ruling that great land for a…
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UN Climate Conference in Madrid Fails to Set Rules for Carbon Trading Market
The twenty-fifth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-25) was supposed to wrap up one issue remaining from last…
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Free-Market Coalition Opposes Transportation and Climate Initiative
Eleven Northeast states plus the District of Columbia on December 17th released a draft memorandum of understanding this week on how to implement their Transportation and…
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Dutch Supreme Court Upholds Climate Lawsuit against Government
The Dutch Supreme Court on December 20th rejected an appeal by the Dutch government to overturn an appellate court’s October 2018 decision to uphold a lower…
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White House Blocks Most Green Energy Tax Credits in Final Spending Bill
The spending packages to fund the federal government through the end of the 2020 fiscal year ending on October 1st, which were passed by the…
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Blame Anti-Tobacco Advocates for Youth Vaping “Epidemic”
Like most teenage crazes, youth interest in e-cigarettes once seemed a passing fad. In the early years youth vaping skyrocketed, but by 2016 began to…
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Best Books of 2019: The Narrow Corridor
Predatory governments with high corruption, that don’t respect political and economic freedoms, are extractive. Countries with these sorts of institutions tend to be both poor…
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Best Books of 2019: A Republic, If You Can Keep It
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch explains in vivid detail the purpose of the separation of powers in his 2019 book "A Republic, If You Can…
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Sugarplums or Lumps of Coal? White House’s 192 Big Rules in Pipeline Herald More Regulation than Deregulation
No matter the presidential administration, every year there are thousands of federal rules and regulations compared to a relative handful of laws passed by Congress.
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Flex-Fuel Vehicles and Ethanol No Panacea for Energy Independence
Back in September, I posted a rebuttal to pollster Frank Luntz, who advised President Trump on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News program to promote E85—motor fuel…
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Department of Justice Wrong to Block Sabre Acquisition of Farelogix
On January 27th, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) will attempt to block travel technology company Sabre Corporation from purchasing communications protocol innovator Farelogix, Inc. This will be the…
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USMCA Won’t Protect Tech from Trudeau
A point of contention in the debate over the new U.S., Mexico, Canada (USMCA) trade agreement has been whether or not the final deal will…
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What Regulations Did Trump Administration Add in 2019?
The Trump administration recently issued “Regulatory Reform Results for Fiscal Year 2019.” This is its fiscal year 2019 status update on the one-in, two-out directive initiated in Executive…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Britain held a major election, and the U.S. House of Representatives is set to impeach President Trump. At the same time, Trump is poised for…
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National Labor Relations Board Attack on McDonald’s Finally Over
A major holdover case from the Obama-era National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which acted as the litigation arm of organized labor, is finally resolved. On…
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Congress Racing To Extend and Expand Electric Vehicle, Wind, and Solar Tax Credits
It would be comforting to think that the House’s impeachment proceedings have so poisoned relations between Democrats and Republicans that the Congress won’t be able…
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Don’t Just “Modernize” Community Reinvestment Act, Repeal It
On Thursday, financial regulators released a long-awaited reform proposal which would make substantial changes to the implementation and enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).
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Phase One of a China-U.S. Trade Agreement and the Ratchet Effect
As of Friday, December 13th, the U.S. and Chinese governments have agreed in principle to phase one of a trade agreement. The Chinese government will…
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Supreme Court to Hear Important Natural Gas Pipeline Case
Next February, the U.S. Supreme Court will review the 2018 decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, Cowpasture River Preservation Association, et al. v. …
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Competitive Enterprise Institute Opposes USMCA Trade Agreement
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) today announced its opposition to the USMCA trade agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada because the updated agreement…
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UN Climate Summit in Madrid: Al Gore Talks, Donald Trump Vindicated
#TimeForAction is the slogan at this year’s Madrid climate conference. #TimeForTalk would be more accurate. The talking is endless. 70,000 hours and counting have been…
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How Kentucky Taxpayers Foot the Bill for Union Business
As taxpayers, we trust our locally elected officials to act as fiduciaries of our hard-earned dollars. However, it is well documented that the government frequently…
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Down in Flames: Judge Dismisses New York Climate Lawsuit against ExxonMobil
New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager today acquitted ExxonMobil of all charges brought against the company by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
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Trump Can’t Do Much About Toilets, But Can Stop Other Anti-Homeowner Regulations
President Trump created more controversy than usual last week when he complained about water-saving faucets, shower heads, and—especially—toilets. “You turn on the faucet and you…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The House began preparing articles of impeachment, President Trump announced new tariffs against three allies, a NATO summit was surprisingly contentious, and the federal government…
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What Regulations Did the Trump Administration Eliminate in 2019?
The Trump administration has issued its fiscal year 2019 status update on one-in, two-out. It’s called “Regulatory Reform Results for Fiscal Year 2019.” According to…
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Climate Mass Migration Myth
The paper “Climate Migration Myths,” published in the latest edition of the prestigious journal Nature Climate Change, is a large-scale beat-down of the notion that climate…
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Wind and Solar Tax Credits: Special Interest Subsidies
The House Ways and Means Committee on November 19th released a draft of its “Growing Renewable Energy and Efficiency Now (GREEN) Act” (summary). The sponsors propose to extend,…
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Hausfather Climate Model Paper Not What It’s Cracked up to Be
This week’s press is abuzz with a paper just published by Zeke Hausfather and others in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. It purports to show that early (1970s…
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Lawmakers’ Fatal Conceit on Recycling Should Be Trashed
“The more things change, the more they stay the same” is a wise observation, and it’s particularly true in politics. I’ve been following solid waste…