A Muslim solder, Nidal Hasan, shot dead 13 people at Fort Hood yesterday. Hasan had earlier exhibited extremist, anti-American propensities, including applauding terrorist attacks against U.S. soldiers. There are different theories as to how this could have happened.
One school of thought attributes the tragedy to politically-correct double standards imposed on the military that kept the alarm bells from going off.
Other commentators point to a gun-control policy that disarms soldiers while on military bases to create “gun-free zones,” leaving them defenseless in the face…
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by Charles Huang
November 06, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI’s fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the Weekly newsletter is a brief description of CEI’s weekly podcast and a feature on a major CEI breakthrough made during the week. To sign up for CEI Weekly, go to http://cei.org/newsletters.
CEI Weekly
November 6, 2009
>>CEI Blasts Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel
CEI’s Ryan Radia criticized New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and his groundless antitrust case again Intel.…
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by Elizabeth Jacobson
November 06, 2009 @ 11:20 am
The Free Kareem protest is going on today at 12 pm outside of the Egyptian Cultural and Educational Bureau on New Hampshire just south of Dupont Circle. If you’ll be in the area, please stop by and show your support for Kareem Amer, the blogger who is serving a four-year prison sentence for criticizing the Egyptian government.
UPDATE: Check out photos and video from today’s rally.
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Last Sunday’s Packers-Vikings game was a big one. Brett Favre beat his old team on its home turf. If you’re not sick of all the hype, check out my take on what the game means for Packer fans over at The American Spectator Online.
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Today’s American Spectator Online has a piece by CEI VP Wayne Crews and I on curbing Congressional abuse of unfunded mandates. If the term is new to you, unfunded mandates are basically an accounting gimmick that lets government understate how much it costs taxpayers:
rather than fund a new federal job training program through a Department of Labor appropriation, Congress could mandate that all Fortune 500 firms provide, and pay for, such training. The first appears on the federal budget, the…
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A statement from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo this morning announces the launch of an antitrust lawsuit against chipmaker Intel. Intel supposedly is “bribing” and “coercing” computer manufacturers like Dell, HP into using its chips.
Intel gives them money and rebates to use Intel chips. Think about that; they don’t have to pay as much, and get paid themselves, to use Intel chips rather than AMD ones.
I like it when I get rebates and cash, myself, but I’m just crazy.
Let’s…
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It’s been a year since the president was elected, and he’s already piled up an impressive list of lies and broken promises.
The broken promises include his pledge to enact a “net spending cut,” his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year, and his promise not to sign bills without first giving the public five days of notice.
The Congressional Budget Office says that Obama’s proposed budgets will explode the national debt through massive spending increases, increasing the already large deficits…
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A new Harvard poll, in a ranking of 13 leadership categories, found Congress and the media ranked 11th and 12th respectively. They probably would have been even lower had there been a category for used car salesmen.
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by Fran Smith
November 03, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
In the wake of two new biographies of Ayn Rand, MarginalRevolution’s Alex Tabbarok today reposts and links to some of his and Tyler Cowan’s writings on her 100th birthday in February 2009, and draws attention to her “virtue ethics.” For that same event, CEI’s Fred Smith had an eloquent tribute showing how Rand explored the moral foundations of economic liberty and provided insights into the assault on free enterprise. Here are some excerpts from Smith’s article that are especially relevant in today’s…
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The Wall Street Journal calls the House version of President Obama’s health care plan “the worst bill ever,” noting that it will lead to “epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, rationed care, dishonest accounting,” and other problems.
At the Atlantic, Megan McArdle, who voted for Obama, explains how ObamaCare will cost much more than promised — at least $150 billion more. That’s true even if promised cuts to Medicare included in ObamaCare actually take place — but as McArdle notes, even…
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From a letter to the editor of the Washington Post:
It is ridiculous that The Post has dedicated so much of the A section the past several weeks to the swine flu outbreak. Being a young “survivor” of the swine flu, I have to say that it was the most anticlimactic experience I have ever had. No deathbed, no fever.
The way the media continue to portray the virus is creating unnecessary panic around the world. Many people infected with the virus don’t…
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Your host Richard Morrison and co-hosts William Yeatman and Jeremy Lott conspire to bring you Episode 67 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the looming off-year elections, the unexpected lack of tropical storms and a cash for kids scandal in Pennsylvania. We finish with the fall of a spam king and the swine that didn’t squeal.
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The recent announcement that the GDP grew in the third quarter at an annualized rate of 3.5 percent was referred to by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner as proof that the economy is finally improving. But a quick glance at history demonstrates that this is not the case.
Between 1934 and 1937—during the heart of the Great Depression—GDP grew at by an average of 9.5 percent annually. In 1934, GDP grew by nearly 11 percent, but it would be six more years…
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Two EPA lawyers criticized the cap-and-trade energy bill passed by the House as a scam, noting in The Washington Post that it will be manipulated to profit politically connected corporations and reward certain kinds of pollution, while not cutting greenhouse gas emissions. A similar scheme enacted in Europe in the name of fighting global warming enriched polluters, while not reducing emissions, which actually rose faster in most of Europe than in the U.S.
The Washington Examiner explains how the bill will lead to deforestation, and thus increase greenhouse gas…
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The small country of Honduras did not agree to return its authoritarian ex-president to power after all. Press reports said it did, but The Wall Street Journal says it merely agreed to submit a request for his return to Honduras’s Congress and Supreme Court, which previously backed the ex-president’s removal, in exchange for an end to U.S. sanctions and U.S. recognition of upcoming election results. Under continuing U.S. pressure, they may soon allow his return to office, but it hasn’t happened yet.
The…
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Under U.S. pressure, Honduras’s leader has reportedly agreed to return to power its authoritarian ex-president, Manuel Zelaya, in exchange for an end to U.S. sanctions and U.S. recognition of its upcoming election results, and Zelaya’s agreement to turn over control of the military to a tribunal. It is not absolutely certain, however, that Honduras’s Supreme Court or Congress will approve the agreement, which appears to violate Honduran law.
Honduras removed ex-president Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers: he sought to circumvent constitutional…
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by Charles Huang
October 30, 2009 @ 10:39 am
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI’s fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the Weekly newsletter is a brief description of CEI’s weekly podcast and a feature on a major CEI breakthrough made during the week. To sign up for CEI Weekly, go to http://cei.org/newsletters.
CEI Weekly
October 30, 2009
>>Iain Murray Testifies in Senate About Cap-and-Trade Failures in Europe
Iain Murray testified on Thursday, Oct. 29th, in front of the Senate Committee on…
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Okay — it’s almost Halloween, so I should be forgiven for a non-policy posting on the Top Ten Scariest Movies. I’ve picked a sample of top ten listings to check out any unanimity in the selections. Not really, ‘though several films appear on almost every list - Psycho (1960), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Halloween (1978). Most of the scariest are horror or sci-fi films, with lots of gore and special effects, but a significant number of the top…
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