Free Republic

Nearly four years after it began regulating cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration is poised to extend its reach to a broader range of tobacco products. At the top of that list: cigars, which have experienced a boom in recent years even as cigarette sales have declined, in part because of growing popularity among young people. Anti-tobacco advocates and industry representatives widely expect the agency to require changes in the marketing and manufacturing of cigars. But the central question remains: What kind of cigars will the FDA target, and how? On one end of the spectrum are the hand-rolled Cohibas...

Thanks to the Founding Fathers, in 2013 the United States has built the wealthiest nation in history on free markets and the rule of law. (And thanks to their more recent successors, we’re simultaneously the poorest… but that’s another discussion.) While the Founding Fathers were remarkable for much, what is perhaps their greatest legacy is their recognition that Americans, like all men, are imperfect. In 1787 after almost a decade of the greatly flawed Articles of Confederation, the 2nd Continental Congress was formed and would eventually produce the Constitution we have today. What was so amazing about the document was...

Fred Deluca, the founder of privately-held Subway Restaurants, said government regulations are hurting small businesses and that this environment has prevented entrepreneurs from creating value in the market. "If I started Subway today, Subway would not exist," Deluca told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" Wednesday. (VIDEO AT LINK) Deluca said the environment for entrepreneurs in the U.S. has "continuously gotten worse because there are more and more regulations. It's tough for people to get into business, especially a small business." Effects of Obamacare The Subway founder pointed to a number of government regulations that are degrading the business environment for...

Hunters and homeless people in Louisiana are righteously outraged after state health officials forced a homeless shelter to throw out nearly a ton of perfectly good venison. The meat that had been donated to the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission could have fed more than 3,000 people. Instead, it was tossed in trash bins by officials from the Department of Health and Hospitals who say that state law prohibits the serving of venison in homeless shelters. Not only did the officials toss the meat, they doused it with Clorox to make sure it couldn’t be eaten by animals or, presumably, people. “Deer...

President Barack Obama is tired of waiting for Congress to move on legislation to reduce carbon emissions, and his administration is poised to move forward on actions to do just that—including a move that will effectively eliminate the possibility of any new coal plant opening in the United States, experts say. "We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence," Obama said during his State of the Union address. "Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment...

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is fighting to protect her “brainchild”, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). She also wants to support the nominated of Richard Cordray, the former Attorney General of Ohio, better known as “Robocop” for his attacks on banks and servicers over robosigning. True, robosigning foreclosures is sloppy, but there were apparently no economic harm to borrowers (that is, 100% of borrowers defaulted on their loans and the banks/servicers were trying to claim the house to mitigate losses). Yet the Attorneys’ General settlement went ahead despite no economic harm to borrowers. The settlement provides as much as $25...

A 15-year-old Icelandic girl has won the right to keep her first name, despite it being "unapproved" by the state. Why do some countries restrict baby names? Parents-to-be often find it hard enough to find a name they both like, let alone one the state might also be in favour of. Bjork Eidsdottir had no idea when, in naming her newborn girl Blaer 15 years ago, she was breaking the law. In the eyes of the authorities Blaer, which means "light breeze", was a male name and therefore not approved. It meant that for her entire childhood, Blaer was known...

In a stunning blow to the Internal Revenue Service’s efforts to regulate the tax preparation profession, a federal judge struck down the IRS’s licensing requirements for tax preparers on Friday, including testing and continuing education. U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg ruled against the IRS and in favor of the tax preparers in enjoining the agency against enforcing its Registered Tax Return Preparer requirements. “Today’s ruling is a victory for hundreds of thousands of tax preparers across the country and the tens of millions of taxpayers who rely on them to prepare their taxes,” said lead attorney Dan Alban....

Are abortion clinics in Virginia “beautiful, immaculate, clean facilities” that pass inspections “with flying colors”? According to NARAL Virginia Executive Director Tarina Keene and her Huffington Post water carrier, the answer is yes. But are they right? In March 2011, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell signed into law regulations that required the State’s Board of Health to write new rules for regulating abortion facilities, which had not been largely unregulated for more than 20 years. Late last month, McDonnell signed into law permanent regulations that will now hold the state’s abortion facilities to the same health and safety standards as hospitals....

On Thursday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell granted staunch gun rights supporter Michael Bloomberg a platform to blast the NRA as "stupid", and brush aside gun-owning Americans as a radical minority. O'Donnell set up the New York City mayor to accuse the gun rights group of being under the thumb of gun manufacturers. The CBS anchors also took a more subdued approach to the Bloomberg segment, compared to their contentious interview of NRA President David Keene just minutes earlier. Co-anchor Charlie Rose led the segment with a softball question to the billionaire politician [audio clips from the...

Keep them, but pay dearlyYou can keep your guns alright, but you're going to pay dearly for the privilege, end up marked and have them confiscated later anyway. A lot of folks don't want to hear that, but gun owners are being manipulated into a corner. The powers that be who want us disarmed in order to control dissent want the guns, but must do so incrementally and make a large sum of money in the process. It's like being a smoker, you want 'em and they make you pay. He will issue executive orders, every one of which is...

' growers will have a difficult time wading through the 500 pages of proposed rules...the requirements on dealing with irrigation water, however, may be the most problematic. They direct that irrigation water that touches produce "be of safe and sanitary quality." Most water applied on Yakima Valley farms comes from canals fed from rivers. Under the new rules, water that touches produce in the field must be treated if, for any reason, the water may not be safe.

If the Connecticut school massacre was the start of a contest to see who could be the crassest and most exploitive on the gun issue, the Left won in a landslide. Before the victims' bodies were even taken away by the coroner, the Left was blaming the NRA for the horror. No matter what the circumstances, the Left politicizes gun violence. Rep. Gifford's shooting was blamed on Gov. Palin and the Tea Party's indelicate political speech, despite murderer's being apolitical and deranged. Now that the Left has won the national political battle, they are using the latest tragedy toward their...

It felt like Christmas had come early when I got my package of Buckyballs in the mail a few days ago. Buckyballs are small, super-strong spherical magnets made of the rare-earth metal Neodymium. A set of 216 Buckyballs fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. Obviously Buckyballs are adult toys, and Maxfield and Oberton emphatically warns users not to give them to children, eat them, inhale them, or place them near objects (such as pacemakers) that are sensitive to magnets. However, for those who use Buckyballs with common sense and due care, they are reasonably safe—just like countless other...

I was just on a HuffPost Live panel with, among others, Elie Mystal (Above The Law), and he suggested — as a gun control proposal — that guns should be regulated like cars. This prompts me to repost an item I posted several years ago: Cars are basically regulated as follows (I rely below on California law, but to my knowledge the rules are similar throughout the country): (1) No federal licensing or registration of car owners. (2) Any person may use a car on his own private property without any license or registration. See, e.g., California Vehicle Code §§...

The nation is in recession. Home foreclosures continue to wreck lives, unemployment (when counted honestly) remains in the mid-teens, business startups are in virtual retreat. But not to worry, the president and the leaders of Congress are working on an agreement to raise real taxes and maybe, just maybe, to cut the projected increase in future spending a bit. Ooh. What a relief. Have none of this nation’s leaders, and none of the mainstream media, ever taken an econ class? Haven’t they even played back their own speeches from as recently as a year ago? What on earth are they...

If there's been one topic that has entirely dominated the post-election landscape, it's the fiscal cliff. Will taxes be raised? Which programs will be cut? Who will blink first in negotiations? For all the talk of the fiscal cliff, however, I believe the US is facing a much more serious problem, one that has simply not been talked about at all: corruption. But this isn't the overt, "bartering of government favors in return for private kickbacks" corruption. Instead, this type of corruption has actually been legalized. And it is strangling both US competitiveness, and the ability for US firms to...

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives posted two 60-day notices in the Federal Register today, the first under the heading “Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; Comments Requested: Relief of Disabilities,” and the second under “Certification of Qualifying State Relief From Disabilities Program.” Citing that the information requests will be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget, the notice advises interested parties that “Comments are encouraged and will be accepted for ‘sixty days’’ until January 22, 2013.” The first notice is an “[e]xtension of a currently approved collection” on “Relief of Disabilities.” The “need” cited for the...

Among the Obama campaign’s many accusations this year, one of the more interesting ones has been the claim that Mitt Romney was an “outsourcer” during his days at Bain Capital. When exploring this claim, we must remember the job of a company like Bain Capital: it’s to create value for the investors by building a successful company. The vast majority of companies that Bain shepherded to success during Romney’s tenure were and are, in fact, major employers, major retail, wholesale, or manufacturing firms that employ thousands and thousands of Americans. The net result of Mitt Romney being involved in the...

As coal mines shut down due to Obama's war on coal and the promise of more EPA regulations on coal fired plants, Obama seems to be tightening the regulatory vice on coal mines even more. A couple of Weeks ago I was at a coal mine while a gaggle of people in US government tagged vehicles were touring it. Okay, an MSHA inspection, I thought to myself. Not something you see every day but not unheard of either. Yesterday at the same mine, every truck that entered the site was shut down and put in line for an inspection by...