In recent years, the San Jose City Hall has led the way in stupid environmental policies.  Several years ago, they were among one of the first cities  (along with San Francisco and Salt Lake City) to ban bottled water in government agencies based on questionable environmental claims.  Now they are banning stores from giving away shopping bags of any kind.  Plastic bags will be banned altogether and stores providing paper bags must charge a fee only provide bags made with 40 percent…

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Dana Milbank has a great piece in the Washington Post this week about recent congressional hearings on bottled water. He notes: “The nation is entangled in two wars, a deep recession and a flu pandemic, and the people’s representatives are hard at work investigating the menace of . . . bottled water?” Indeed. This is a silly issue for them to focus on, but unfortunately, their regulations may increase prices of a low-calorie, healthy beverage option.

The same day of the hearings, the…

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Welcome to Episode 49 of the LibertyWeek podcast, in which your host Richard Morrison is joined by recurring guest co-hosts Jeremy Lott and William Yeatman and special guest interviewee Hans Bader. We begin with discussion of the abominable Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the scandal of suppressed science at the EPA and some liberating technology news. We then move on to some heartening beer news, regime change in Honduras and up-to-the minute analysis of the Supreme Court’s verdict in Ricci v. DeStefano with…

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Your host Richard Morrison is joined this week by returning guest co-hosts Jeremy Lott and Michelle Minton and not-so-secret special guest Ryan Radia for Episode 48 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with the top story of the week – the presidential election and resulting protests in Iran. We then move on to bad energy policy in Virginia, radio royalties for big music companies and the scandalous waste of bailout money. We finish with an interview with Ryan Radia on Internet…

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Cities around the nation are spending thousands in taxpayer dollars to promote tap water because of the alleged environmental problems with bottled water. But these campaigns just go to show how silly the issue has become. Minneapolis recently dropped $75,000 just to build a website encouraging people to drink only tap water. A college kid probably could have put up a site just as useful with a few hundred bucks. But governments are not that efficient! The site is part of a…

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Your host Richard Morrison welcomes back guest co-host Jeremy Lott and special guest Greg Conko for Episode 47. We start with the new Obama-Geithner plan for expanding regulation of financial markets, the protests over the disputed presidential election in Iran and the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of telemarketing robocalls. We then move on to the “beer bikes” of Amsterdam and some potentially scandalous investment choices made by Sen. Dick Durban. Finally, we talk health care with CEI Senior Fellow Greg…

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Your faithful host Richard Morrison welcomes back special guest co-hosts William Yeatman and Michelle Minton for Episode 46 (listen HERE!). We start with the investors that are getting worked over by the politically-distorted bankruptcy of Chrysler, the ascension of the Swedish Pirate Party to the European Parliament and the Great Porn Wall of China. We then move on to proof that beer is better for you than water, a sign that airline travel may get more expensive, and an example of how voters deal…

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Your host Richard Morrison welcomes back special guest co-host Jeremy Lott and technical producer Ryan Young for Episode 45 (listen here!). The program starts with the bankruptcy of General Motors, amending the California state constitution and Greg Conko’s opinions on the state of FDA reform. We then move on to Nancy Pelosi’s global warming comments in China, scantily clad women selling beer, electoral scandal in Connecticut and some very English Olympic News.

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Richard Morrison welcomes special guest co-hosts Jeremy Lott and William Yeatman back to LibertyWeek for Episode 44 (listen here!). We begin with breaking legal news as we assess President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court, federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor. We then move on to the details of the General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcies, corporate CEOs trying to get rich off of global warming and the new top man at NASA. We finish up with the expanding Parliamentary scandal in the UK, Microsoft preparing to battle…

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Host Richard Morrison and special guest co-host Jeremy Lott bid a bittersweet farewell to longtime co-host Cord Blomquist, who is departing CEI and LibertyWeek for a new job with the Mercatus Center. On the news front, we discuss pending “cap and trade” legislation for greenhouse gases, scandalous corruption charges in the British Parliament, and new hope for economic and political reform in India. We also return to Craigslist’s fight against state attorney general activism and some highly competitive Olympic News.

Listen to Episode 43 HERE.

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Nanny statists are, apparently, equal opportunity hacks. Activists on the left and their legislative team players are not only going after the bottled water “sin industry.” They are also increasing the pressure for regulations on other beverages, seeking to slap a federal 3 cent tax on beverages containing sugar. Where will it end?

Look at this debate between Jeff Stier of the American Council on Science and Health and Michael Wolff of Vanity Fair. Wolff basically calls any American who is over-weight a needless…

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Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist bring back special guest co-host Jeremy Lott to create the work of art known as Episode 42. We start with the continuing buzz over the Supreme Court’s next member, President Obama’s trillion dollar healthcare plan, and an update on how Hugo Chávez is turning Venezuela’s petroleum reserves into his personal piggybank. We add good news from East Texas for beer drinkers, bad news from Europe for technophiles and sad news from Philly for basketball fans.

Listen to the episode HERE.

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Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist team up with special guest co-host Jeremy Lott to bring you Episode 41. We begin with a farewell to famed quarterback, Republican Congressman and former CEI Distinguished Fellow Jack Kemp. We then move on to China’s flu-related roundup of Mexican nationals, the race to replace Justice Souter and the new opportunity to SuperPoke the President of the United States. We round out the show with Andrew Cuomo’s allegations of scandal and a modest helping of Olympic News.

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According to a new report released by enviro-scare artists at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, most food packaging still contains the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA). That is supposed to scare you, but I say, who cares? It’s there because it’s useful. BPA is one substance has proven very helpful in maintaining the integrity of the products it packages and there is scant evidence of anyone ever having a problem. The idea that food companies want to slowly poison their customers…

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Your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist are joined by special guest co-host Jeremy Lott for a very swashbuckling Episode 38 of LibertyWeek. We start with the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from Somali pirates by the U.S. Navy and Special Forces, look into the murky finances of AIG CEO Edward Liddy in Scandal Watch, and figure out what ISPs are up to in Technology News. We also get an update on how West Virginia is about to become even more Wild and Wonderful, and finally we…

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Cheers to Bill Nemitz for his very insightful piece “Enough Water: Let’s Figure it Out” in the Portland Press Herald. He showed that the amount of water that Poland Spring would have purchased for $900,000 from the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Wells Water Districts represents 0.14 percent of the water that falls in the region each year. He rightly criticizes the activist group that prevented that sale for their claims that operation would threaten such resources in the future.

Nemitz’s point applies to a…

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Hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist join Michelle Minton in welcoming you to LibertyWeek 36: The Green Episode. We begin our environmental adventure with an update on the high cost of renewable energy and the good news from the coal laboratory. We then pass on advice for drinking green in Beer News and celebrate the recent observance of Human Achievement Hour. This brings us to the featured interview with our distinguished colleague and author Steve Milloy – where we explore…

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This says it all: Green groups held a “reverse tea party” by dumping bottled water (minus the bottles of course) into the Boston Harbor. Why? They don’t like private enterprise or private water provision. They want the government to take more of your hard-earned dollars to spend on government water systems.

Yes, indeed, the term “reverse tea party” is oh so appropriate. Our founding fathers protested tyranny and called for freedom with their forward-thinking Boston Tea Party. Today, greens do the reverse. They…

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Your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist welcome back special guest co-host Michelle Minton for Episode 35 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin with a celebration of human achievement and a peek into the realm of secret government documents. We then investigate how the White House is going to waste another $1 trillion of your money and how the British beer tax has managed to kill off 20,000 jobs. Finally we focus on the history of the scandal-addled Sen. Dodd of…

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Your regular hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist are joined by special guest co-host Michelle Minton for Episode 34 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We begin by finding that Twitter has conquered every aspect of society, the White House is waging war on the economy and New Yorkers are defending themselves against beer taxes. We next investigate the questionable management of the AIG bailout in Scandal Watch and handicap Chicago’s chances for snagging the 2016 summer games in Olympic News.

Congratulations to FreeStateNH (The Free…

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