An internecine struggle apparently exists within the FDA, according to an article in the New York Times. Those tensions between drug approval officials and drug safety officials are expected to erupt in a House hearing scheduled for June 6.
The agency is taking a lot of heat from politicians for approving drugs that have had side effects, the latest being the diabetes drug Avandia, charged with increasing the risk of heart attacks.
It seems Hillary Clinton is defending herself against charges that she accepted private jet rides she shouldn’t have from a campaign contributor. She is maintaining, of course, that she did nothing wrong.
Sen. Clinton, who complained about corporate America’s largesse and skyrocketing executive pay during campaign events Wednesday, said she did not believe her message was undermined by her acceptance of the private flights. In line with Senate rules then in effect, Clinton’s campaign has said she reimbursed [InfoUSA Inc. chief executive…
Linda Greenhouse, the liberal Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, thinks she has the inside story as to why a recent Supreme Court decision came out the way it did: a female Supreme Court justice was replaced by a male. (She’s entirely wrong.)
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court voted 5-to-4 to enforce the 180-day statute of limitations in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In doing so, it dismissed an untimely pay discrimination claim by Lilly Ledbetter against Goodyear…
Ivan,
Yes, Buddy Cianci was courrupt. Very courrupt. That’s beyond dispute. I had an encouter with him and several with his legacy. Along with Zell Miller, he may rank as the last truly colorful American politican.
When I first visited Providece to learn about its police department, Cianci decided he wanted to meet with me. No other mayor cared to meet with a 20-something researcher from a right-wing think tank in D.C. and I never sought meetings with elected officials. But I…
According to Television Week’s Jon Lafayette, broadcasters have begun taking note of the increasing difference between traditional Neilsen ratings vs. traditional ratings + DVR playback. Turns out The Office has one of the biggest ratings differentials, which, given its overall popularity, makes it one of the most frequently recorded shows. People who love The Office love their technology.
This change, however, has left advertisers and broadcasters haggling over ad rates. While people with DVRs can fast-forward through the commercials, not all of them…
Vincent “Buddy”‘ Cianci, the legendary, popular, and corrupt former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, was released from prison today, after serving time for a 2002 racketeering conviction.
Like Washington, D.C. has Marion Barry, Providence had Buddy — a larger-than-life politician who remained popular even in the face of major corruption allegations.
A sign of the decline of American democracy? Hardly. I prefer to think of the benign toleration of guys like this as an unusal manifestation of Americans’ healthy suspicion of politics: If…
Halo 2 for Vista was found to have a hidden part of the code containing a character which moons the player. Much like GTA’s hidden Hot Coffee code, this “Easter egg” is a piece of the code, likely a joke from one programmer to another, is only accessible by someone who is very familiar with programming and has a lot of time on their hands. This should not be confused with unlockable levels or characters, which are common to many games and…
Ethanol mandates already made my steak cost more. Ditto my bacon, my eggs, and my cheese. In fact, the market ramifications of government-imposed demand for ethanol have made virtually all my groceries more expensive. Of course it stinks, but I have persevered, confident that Congress enacted ethanol mandates with the American consumer in mind, and not at the behest of an army of lobbyists employed by some huge multinational corporation, like, say, Archer Daniel Midland. After all, each gallon of…
Earlier, I wrote about how the Senate immigration deal supported by Ted Kennedy and George Bush has been criticized for doing little to increase the supply of high-skilled immigrant labor, even as it opens the door to 12 million mostly low-skilled illegal immigrants ultimately becoming citizens (and thus receiving retirement and welfare benefits at taxpayer expense).
Today, The Wall Street Journal has an editorial on how “the Senate bill is worse than current law for skilled immigrants,” who are badly needed in…
Amazingly enough, the Agriculture Department is fighting a meat packer’s plan to voluntarily test all slaughtered cattle for mad cow disease.
The government doesn’t need to test all slaughtered cattle for mad cow disease, since the danger of mad cow disease from any given cow is extremely, astronomically low, verging on nonexistent. It would be a waste of taxpayer money and limited agency resources. Other food-borne illnesses are more of a reality and thus merit priority in screening.
But a small number of…
One of the highlights of our big annual dinner last week was our faux public service announcement from a future where nanny-state regulators have taken over. Behold, the terrifying possibilities of the Department of Pre-Regulation:
Credits (in no particular order) include: Erin Wildermuth, Cord Blomquist, Ivan Osorio, Brooke Oberwetter, Jeremy Lott, Megan McLaughlin, William Yeatman, Julie Walsh, Kate McLaughlin, Dominick Saran, Jason Talley, Greg Conko, Christine Hall, Sam Kazman, Al Canata, Holly Jackson and Richard Morrison. Also, special thanks to Philip K.…
A little bird tells us that earlier today Rush Limbaugh read John Berlau’s letter urging the head of the Nobel Peach Prize committee to bestow the award, not on Al Gore, but on Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Limbaugh was nominated by the conservative Landmark Legal Foundation. As John Berlau argues in the letter:
I can say without reservation that on one of the most important issues facing the world — a threat far more immediate than global warming — Mr. Limbaugh has made…
Yesterday, by a vote of 5-to-4, the Supreme Court actually enforced the 180-day statute of limitations contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, dismissing an employee’s claim that she had been subject to sex discrimination years earlier that affected her pay.
For enforcing the plain language of the statute, the justices in the majority were denounced by the dissent, which speculated that they were “indifferent to the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination.”
Press accounts about…
For all of you who were unable to make it to CEI’s annual banquet/gala/extravaganza last Thursday, here’s the opening video. Fred greeted the crowd from the future, and gave us a few clues as to what we can expect from the next century.
Banking firm HSBC is to give $100 million to various environmental groups to “respond to global warming.” According to the HSBC press release, much of the money is to expand the size and influence of the environmental organizations:
HSBC’s US$100 million partnership - including the largest donations to each of these charities and the largest donation ever made by a British company - has significant programme targets and offers transformational support for the environmental charities. The donation will help to deliver increased…
But I’ve got some good news for you. Coburn isn’t all alone in his crusade to stop Congress from honoring Rachel Carson. He has some good friends in the U.S. House of Representatives. There, in April, 53 representatives voted against naming the post office after Carson. Another 3 voted “present,” which also often signals symbolic opposition to a bill.
The bill passed the House anyway. Unlike the Senate, where a minority of Senators or even one Senator has…
As Richard points out, D.C. has a pretty decent system for getting taxi medalions out. Last I looked into it–a few years ago–D.C. was one of only two major U.S. cities that doesn’t ration medalions. (The other is San Diego.) Even a lot of smaller cities like Hartford, CT charge a lot for taxi medallions.
The result is interesting: it’s much easier to get a cab during rush hour than it is in other major cities, BUT it’s nearly impossible to get…
CEI’s Angela Logomasini gives kudos to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Olka.) for his stand against honoring the 100th birthday of environmentalist icon Rachel Carson. Here’s why.
Carson used explosive rhetoric and junk science to advance an anti-technology agenda that turned many people against using all man-made chemicals.
Most seriously, Carson inspired enough fear to prompt nations to discontinue using the pesticide DDT, even for malaria control. Before Carson completed her book, DDT played a vitally important role in the eradication of mosquitoes carrying malaria…
In New York City, like in many U.S. cities, the number of licensed taxi cabs is strictly controlled. In order to operate one, you need what’s called a medallion - a little metal shield you affix to the hood of your cab so that the regulators know you’re official. At one time, this was a relatively inexpensive formality - in 1937, when the system began, a medallion would only have cost you $10, or approximately $140 in 2006 dollars. My,…
Sam is understandably excited to have our “Underwear to the Undersecretary” campaign profiled in Cindy Skrzycki’s Washington Post / Bloomberg column today:
It was inevitable. In the Internet age, interest groups seeking influence in Washington are joining presidential candidates in discovering a new electronic tool to press their agenda: YouTube.
“Send your underwear to the undersecretary” urges the actress in the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s stinging 66-second anti-regulatory video posted on YouTube, a free video-sharing site that is a subsidiary of Google. The video…
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