la liberté avant tout
Since when do government agencies applaud business deals that fall apart, resulting in hundreds of layoffs and loss opportunities for consumers who depend on those products? That’s what happened earlier this month, when the Federal Trade Commission issued a press release applauding the failed $1.7 billion acquisition of the technology firm iRobot by the ecommerce…
February 5, 2024 – On February 2, the European Union’s ambassadors green lit the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act). Next week, the Internal Market and Civil Liberties committees will decide its fate, while the European Parliament is expected to cast their vote in plenary session either in March or April. The European Commission addressed a…
Banning products will not make them go away. It will only create incentives for illicit markets to offer them to adult or high school students alike. In 2013, Vermont became a New England leader by loosening its laws on cannabis possession, making it the first to do so by a legislative vote. Reporting on these…
Dressed up as comedy, John Oliver dedicated an entire segment of his “Last Week Tonight” HBO program to focus on the ills of America’s freight rail industry. A self-professed train aficionado, Oliver had choice words for our commercial railroads on the matter of dangerous cargo loads, labor concerns, and an overall lackluster attention to safety….
I’m interviewed by Jim Lokay on Fox 5 DC on the latest legislative moves by Elizabeth Warren to undermine tech innovation. From grocery store mergers and sandwich monopolies to the breaking of phone encryption and Bitcoin, she is consistently singing a progressive, populist message that too often views technology as something to wrestle and regulate….
Has air pollution improved in our lifetime? The narrative is that our atmosphere and air quality are more polluted than ever, requiring drastic economic and societal reform to clean it. But in the United States, the opposite is true. According to the EPA’s data, air pollution — measured using the six most common air pollutants…
Elizabeth Warren and other critics seized on the October 7 Hamas attacks to crack down on Bitcoin. But the terrorists use cash, not crypto. In war, the Greek poet Aeschylus said, the first casualty is truth. In the war between Israel and Hamas, there have been plenty of opportunities for lies to achieve political ends….
Fun Police Episode 2: The Billionaire Every prohibitionist movement needs its funders. Its moneymen. Usually, there are powerful industrialists who’ve made it big and are “giving back” by restricting choices of the little people. For popular movements against alcohol in the 1900s, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford were the principal philanthropists. Neoprohibitionists…
Nearly half of all US states have pledged to go totally carbon-free by at least 2050. While many states and the federal government are pushing and subsidizing entrepreneurs to scale up carbon-free alternatives to fossil fuels such as nuclear energy, wind, and solar – other states are hoping to reach their goals by seemingly suing oil…
Today I was interviewed on Nick Craig’s morning radio program in Wilmington, North Carolina. We chatted about nuclear energy’s status quo in North Carolina, recent policy victories, and why many pro-green activists aren’t championing the power of the atom enough for future electricity generation. We also touched on why solar and wind tech both are…
For decades, the fruits of the fracking revolution, plus our newly minted status as the world’s top net exporter of natural gas, demonstrated that American consumers were swimming in bountiful energy. But as the pandemic effects of supply chain shortages, the war in Ukraine, and higher government spending gave way to inflation hikes, suddenly all eyes were…
My latest interview on Andrew Donaldson‘s Heard Tell Radio is a bit of a wild one. To begin, I discuss the growing movement for government disclosure on UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) or UFOs, and why it’s important for transparency and accountability. To simplify it, we know the government has classified or withheld various projects, events,…
The European approach to AI regulation will prevent its future expansion. Last week, President Joe Biden unveiled an executive order that marks the beginning of a U.S. regulatory path for artificial intelligence. The order is a prelude to forming a U.S. AI Safety Institute, housed within the Department of Commerce—announced by Vice President Kamala Harris…
Today we sit down with Evan Swarztrauber to anlayze the resurrection of the Title re-classification of Internet Service Providers, otherwise known as net neutrality. While net neutrality is an important principle, when weaponized by the FCC and the federal government, it could have disastrous consequences for investment, free speech, and innovation across the board. Evan…
On Scripps News Tonight, Consumer Choice Center Deputy Director @yaeloss (Yaël Ossowski) sifts through the latest #antitrust lawsuit and why consumers remain skeptical about the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to break up Amazon Prime membership What will happen to 2-day shipping? Cheap prices? Data storage and streaming? Who’s being harmed? Broadcast: September 26, 2023
I was interviewed by the New York Sun on the FCC’s plan to re-introduce net neutrality and Title II: “Generally the left-leaning view is that the Internet is a public good and it should be regulated and allocated by the public sector. It should be just like your water utility or your telephone company,” the…
If there’s one theme emerging this year in Washington, D.C., it’s the full-on bipartisan rampage against American tech firms. In a courthouse just blocks away from the Capitol, Google is defending its search engine against the Justice Department, while down the street the Federal Trade Commission is finalizing its case to break up Amazon. The…
The media claims our forests have reached a “tipping point.” Science says otherwise. Canada is a world leader in sustainable forest management. The deforestation rate hovers near zero, wildfires have been in decline for decades (despite the recent tragedies) and the billions of trees dotting our landscape suck large amounts of carbon dioxide out of…
A high-profile trial between the DOJ and Google could reshape the mobile phone market. At issue: Google’s willingness to cut deals to become the default search engine on most mobile devices, which the government believes gives it an unfair advantage. Consumer Choice Center Deputy Director Yael Ossowski is Jim’s guest on “The Final 5.” https://www.fox5dc.com/video/1278078…
When we see the thousands of people impacted by flames that have engulfed forests and homes in Hawaii, or across the vast wilderness of western Canada and California, it is easy to be both shocked and angry. Pristine forests, homes, and entire villages no longer exist as they once did. In Lahaina, the area most…