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Alcohol Regulation Roundup
As alcohol regulations vary state-by-state and constantly shifting here is a quick roundup of booze news from around the states: In federal news, following…
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Energy Drink Ban? What’s Next?
Lynne Nowick, a legislator in Suffolk County, New York, wants to ban energy drinks for anyone under the age of 19 years old. Why?…
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Why Insurance Rates Rise in Calm Seasons
This year’s hurricane season, which officially ended at the beginning of this month, was the third most active season on record for the Atlantic. However,…
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Small Brewers’ Big Mistake in Colorado
In Colorado, the only place one can purchase alcoholic beverages over a strength of 3.2 percent alcohol by volume to take home is in a…
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Colorado to Ban Light & Low-Calorie Beer in Bars?
Next year bars and dine-in restaurants in Colorado might be forced by law to stop selling light, low-calorie, and low-alcohol beers. Any beer…
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Online Gambling in New Jersey Could Cause WTO Disputes
New Jersey is on the verge of becoming the first state in the U.S. to explicitly legalize online gambling in an attempt to keep…
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No Sense in Maryland’s “Dime-a-Drink” Tax Increase
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FDA Killing Big Beer’s Competitors
If you saw the movie Beer Wars, which was released last year, you might remember one hard-working entrepreneur featured in the film named Rhonda…
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Texas Veterinarians Want a Cut of Horse Dentists’ Profits
Three cheers for horse dentists in Texas and the Institute of Justice (IJ) which took up their defense. After three years, IJ and the horse…
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Why You Should CARE About the Ban on Four Loko
Late yesterday evening, the maker of Four Loko announced it was removing caffeine from the popular alcohol beverage. This came following media-driven hysteria, state…
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Celebrate Egyptian Blogger Kareem Amer’s Freedom by Defending Free Speech
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Online Casino Gambling Moves Forward in New Jersey
As I reported last week, though federal attempts to legalize online gambling have seen little progress in the last year, states’ efforts have shown…
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Maryland Considers Privatizing Liquor Sales
The only place residents of Montgomery County, Maryland, can purchase liquor is in county-owned stores, which until recently were only open six days a week.
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November 24: National Opt Out Day
OptOutDay.com the website and group is urging air-travelers on November 24 (one of the busiest travel days of the year) to refuse to submit…
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Product Bans Are More Dangerous than Four Loko
How many people follow up a heavy night of drinking with some coffee? How many restaurants serve coffee and desert right after dinners where diners…
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Legalized Internet Gambling in New Jersey?
What does it take to get governments to deregulate? You might think the answer is “a miracle” or maybe “drugs in the water,” both of…
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An End to Out-of-State Beer?
Would you be steamed if you couldn’t buy Anchor Steam (of San Francisco, CA), or go into a flying rage without Flying Dog (of Maryland)?…
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Liquor Privatization Still has Hope in Washington
As my colleague Angela Logomasini wrote in a post earlier today, voters in Washington State vetoed two measures that would have privatized liquor sales in…
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Feminist Porn Director Supports Freedom of Individual Choice
Porn actress, director, and self-described “kinky feminist,” Madison Young, spoke out in an interview with Salon.com about her feelings in the condom debate that…
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Private Liquor in Virginia Off the Menu… For Now
Virginia’s Governor Bob McDonnell announced last Friday he would not be holding a special session in order to act upon his Virginia liquor store…
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Beach House Bummer: State-Run Insurance Fuels Risky Coastal Development
Wouldn’t we all like to have a beach house? A large number of Americans have a dream of living near the sea, but few of…
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Hospital Cost-Shifting Leads to More Expensive Car Insurance
Lawmakers’ policies are making your car insurance higher than it should be. Rather than solving the problems that government intervention is causing, however, politicians would…
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An Alcohol-Caffeine Ban Won’t Work
The genie is out of the bottle. Mixing energy drinks and distilled spirits has become a popular trend in the U.S., particularly, among college age…
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My Role Model, Jenna Jameson
As a self-made business mogul, a mother and wife, and a cancer survivor, there are many aspects of Jenna Jameson to admire and emulate.
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Insurance Lessons from Alabama
While Alabama certainly has some ambiguous laws and archaic regulations, the federal government ought to take a lesson from Alabama when it comes…
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Porn Stars Get Behind Personal Choice by Opposing Condom Mandates
The most recent case of porn actor testing positive for HIV has renewed calls (or at least media attention to the calls) for a…
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PETA vs. CEI: A Surprisingly Amiable Exchange of Ideas
Yesterday, the DCist reported that PETA planned a protest outside of the Capital Grille, a meat-centric restaurant here in the nation’s capital. The…
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More Support for Privatization of Virginia Liquor Sales
Yesterday, the Virginia Retail Federation (the advocacy arm of the Retail Alliance and the Retail Merchants Association) came out in support of privatizing liquor…
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Poker and Private Property in South Carolina
In South Carolina, the fate of five men has hung in the balance for the last four years. They crime they have been accused of…
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A Republican Sweep Might Not Stop Online Gambling
Many analysts and pollsters are predicting a Republican sweep of the coming midterm elections in the House. While Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) seems untouchable,…
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McDonald’s 6-Month-Old Burger is a Triumph, Not a Terror
To prove a friend wrong, New York artist Sally Davies left a happy meal out on her counter for six months. Yesterday, several media…
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Virginia ABC Store Privatization: Improving Plan, Dimming Political Support
When Virginia’s governor Bob McDonnell’s unveiled his plans for privatizing the state-run liquor sales system nobody was terribly thrilled. The plan’s basic outline (as I…
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Not Wright for Internet Gambling
Some Net gamblers are lamenting the indictment of California State Senator Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood) who was indicted by a grand jury for alleged voter…
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Using Government to Weed Out Competitors
In states throughout the country, beverage distributors are stepping into the political ring and in every case the opponent is the same: competition. Since prohibition,…
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San Francisco’s Mayor Opposed to Alcohol Tax
It isn’t often that we get to praise politicians, but cheers to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom who vowed to veto plans for an…
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Obama to Insurers: Stop Telling the Truth
During the fight for health insurance reform earlier this year, opponents of the bill (aka Obamacare) claimed that the proposal would increase the cost of…
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VA Liquor Privatization Bought with Higher Taxes?
Free marketeers in the Commonwealth of Virginia waited with high hopes after Governor Bob McDonnell made the announcement that he planned to privatize state-run…
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Government Insurance: Guaranteed to Fail
Few observers were shocked when the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) asked for a nearly $20 billion bailout of its National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).
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Barring Illegals from Driver’s Licenses: Dangerous and Dumb
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Republicans Should Favor Privatization of Liquor Sales
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Radical Capitalism: A Noble Experiment We Ought to Try
Earlier this month, Bloomberg published an article by Boston University economist Larry Kotlikoff in which he declared that the U.S. was bankrupt and headed…
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Alcohol middle-men pay lawmakers to protect industry
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Hopes for Federal Property Insurance Expansion: Gone with the Wind
Insurance industry members are wiping there collective brow after a bill was pulled from the floor of the House of Representatives before a vote.
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New “stimulus plan” brewing in Congress
It is actually less of a “stimulus” plan and more of a “get government out of the way and stop inhibiting growth” plan. A bi-partisan…
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California poker players: 1 – Free market opponents: 0
As I wrote yesterday, California was on the verge of passing a bill that would have allowed residents to play poker online at one…
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Anti-stripper law could create more prostitution
As so many journalists have punned, recently passed anti-stripping legislation makes the “Don’t Show Me” state a far more appropriate nickname for Missouri. Yesterday, Gov.
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CA to criminalize Internet poker?
That is, unless you play at one of the three state-sanctioned “hubs”. Much like other proposals to “legalize” online poker and other Internet gambling activities,…
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Liquor store privatization on tap in WA
In Washington state’s November election ballot will have a very interesting twist: dueling initiatives to privatize the state-run liquor stores: Washington Privatize State Liquor Stores…
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Choosing individual liberty is no gamble.
On June 1st the Oregonian published an opinion piece by the editorial staff, titled “Legalization would be a gamble, too” The basis for the…
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FL property insurance: turning a blind eye is not reform
While deregulation is always a good thing, we shouldn’t be fooled into believing that the recent news that Florida’s office of insurance regulation has…