Free Republic

"You'll never meet anyone who says, 'I want to be a millionaire. I think I'll start a winery,'" owner Bill Smyth tells me from his small office over the tasting room of Westover Vineyards, nestled in Palomares Canyon. Smyth has worked in a number of fields. He made some money. He bought the vineyard property when he was young. His ex-wife bought him a kit to make wine, and his labor of love turned into a small business. Now, thanks to heavy-handed California regulators, he's selling off his ports and boutique wines and turning his winery back into a home....

Tyler Durden 09/05/2014 Just weeks after defaulting (yet again) on its debt (whether technically or not), and shortly after raising the minimum wage by 31% (to $523 a month) amid runaway inflation, it appears Argentina has gone full-Venezuela. As WSJ reports, the great minds that 'run' Argentina have decided to pass legislation (dubbed "the supply law") letting the government regulate private-sector prices, profit margins and production levels. The opposition is up in arms, "this is absolutely ridiculous. It's part of a very primitive ideology that says government officials should decide what people should make, how much they should make and...

On August 29, ALEC CEO Lisa Nelson and twenty state legislators sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). They called on the FCC to respect principles of constitutional federalism regarding states’ authority over their local governments. State constitutions or state legislatures create and define the powers of county, city and public utility districts. But the FCC is now weighing whether to eliminate the laws of some twenty states that restrict their respective local governments from going into the business of providing broadband Internet services. As a matter of public policy, ALEC believes that private sector investment, innovation and...

Police officials in the beautiful and historic South Carolina city of Charleston have identified a major new public safety menace requiring their immediate attention. This latest threat -- being met by the authorities with an aggressive public awareness campaign and “sting” operations coupled with hefty fines in excess of $1,000 -- is not drugs, gangs, or illegal immigration. The threat posed the good citizens of Charleston is: Uber! Uber is a fast-growing, popular digital app for smart phones that provides consumers in Charleston and many cities across the country and around the world with an alternative to traditional taxi services....

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is trying to ban smoking… Everywhere. Well, at least everywhere someone might be working, so I guess that’s not as many places as you might think. (Hat tip to Obamanomics.) The CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has suggested banning all tobacco consumption at every work place in the nation… Because, ya know, the nanny-state can never be too big, right?The ban would apply to not only office buildings, restaurants, and retail stores, but it would also apply to any outdoor location (such as construction sites, landscaping work, and...

President Obama doesn't have the authority to simply stop the companies he calls “corporate deserters” from taking up legal residency in low-tax countries. The Obama administration began examining its ability to take executive action to address corporate inversions without Congress because it lacks the support of Republicans. "Unless the U.S. corporate tax rate is reduced to 10 percent or less," Harvey told the Examiner, "it will still be beneficial for U.S. [multinational corporations] to invert."

Chances are, you’ve never thought of having to pay a tax to check your Email or your Facebook account. That’s because the Internet Tax Freedom Act has prevented local, state, and federal governments from taxing Internet access. Widespread adoption of the Internet has been due, in no small part, to the absence of tax barriers to access. But now, taxes loom on the Internet’s horizon as Congress nears the sunset of the law. The affordability and accessibility of the Web will be in jeopardy if Congress fails to do something before the moratorium expires on November 1. There are a...

The idea of universal Internet access is a noble one, but taxpayers shouldn’t be strapped with sustaining failing businesses in order to reach that ideal. Innovation and investment by private broadband providers in the free market has put universal access within reach. Private enterprise avoids the risks to taxpayers when municipal government-owned broadband networks go bust. State and local governments have a critical role to play in ensuring universal access to broadband Internet. By ensuring economic conditions favorable to marketplace innovation and investment, states can do more to advance broadband access than risky muni broadband projects.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is suing Wisconsin Plastics, Inc. of Green Bay, Wisconsin for discriminating against non-native persons by insisting that employees must be conversant in English in order to hold jobs with the company. Jacqueline Berrien, EEOC Chairperson dismissed the possibility that some minimal competence in the English language might be a legitimate skill required of an employee. "Whether an employee understands English is a matter of convenience for the business,":Berrien explained. "Granted, conducting business in a single language might be more efficient. But the individual's right to speak whatever language he chooses is a human right....

"Crisis" may be a little hyperbolic. But shale production of oil and gas in America suddenly got a lot riskier this week. That's because of a landmark decision from one of the highest state courts in the land. Upholding the right of individual towns to regulate shale drilling, trumping state or federal regulatory regimes. The ruling came down yesterday in New York. Where the State Court of Appeals voted 5-2 to reject challenges to fracking rules imposed on the oil and gas industry by two municipalities in the state: Dryden and Middlefield. The saga started in 2011. When the two...

I don’t mean to be (entirely) dismissive… But does Sandra Fluke actually still matter to anyone? I mean, you would think that even Democrats might eventually grow tired of listening to a 30-something year old college student whine about wanting free birth-control. But, I guess you would be wrong. Sandra is at it again, ahead of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Hobby Lobby case. Hobby Lobby has been fighting for the religious liberty of its owners before the Supreme Court. Today, SCOTUS is expected to release its ruling on the matter – determining whether or not the Obamacare contraception...

Germany wants to promote structural economic, financial market and tax reform when it takes over the presidency of the G7 club of rich nations next week, German media reported on Sunday. Member states must “join forces to support an even stronger economic recovery”, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and central bank chief Jens Weidmann said in a written message to other G7 members, the Handelsblatt business daily said. […] Germany—the Eurozone’s largest economy—also called for progress to address “the remaining gaps in financial market regulation”, including shadow banks, and on the automatic exchange of tax information. Schäuble also wants to promote...

For countries that choose to regulate prostitution, it remains a vexing question: What’s the best way to do it? Canada’s answer, as Colby Cosh writes in Maclean’s, is to “put the concept of prostitution back into the Criminal Code.” He adds: “For decades, we had these leftover Victorian laws against ‘living off the avails’ and keeping a ‘bawdy house’ without any actual ban on prostitution itself. There are economic reasons to legalize sex work, too. According to The Wall Street Journal (paywall), the sex trade contributed £5.3 billion (about $9 billion) to the British gross domestic product in 2014.

“…Our energy policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet.” If only these words spoken by our president during his State of the Union address were actually true. The energy industry is the latest victim of Obama Administration overreach. Under the guise of addressing global warming, President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a plan that would require all states to make drastic reductions in carbon emissions. In essence, this forces them to use less coal and effectively mandates a transition to more expensive and less reliable energy sources like wind and solar – regardless...

Obama has a plan to ruin the seafood supply chain with regulations and it’s gonna cost ya. Secretary of State John Kerry has found a new cause now that he’s fresh off his mid-East failures. He is directing federal agencies to work on developing a program to combat seafood fraud upon orders from the imperial president. This follows up Mr. Obama’s proclamation that he would implement his climate change agenda using a pen and a phone. It also follows Mr. Obama’s seizure of a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean for the government, making it inaccessible for drilling and fishing....

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced in the Federal Register that it will “aggressively deploy cease and desist orders against businesses whose activities are a detriment to the nation’s well-being.” For the moment this new authority is “interim.” It is expected to become final on July 18. “For too long the Government has sat idly by while businesses have foisted unsafe and unhealthy products on an unsuspecting public,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray charged. “Under Section 1053(c) of the Dodd-Frank Act, we are empowered to protect the general public by ordering offending businesses to cease and desist.” Two industries that are...

Most gun control schemes do little, if anything, to positively effect change in criminal trends. In fact, such schemes have largely proven to be economically illiterate attempts to restrict and regulate the private ownership of firearms. And examples of the bad economics of gun control just keep piling up. I know, I know: Not everything is about the bottom line; but when the bottom line suffers in a misguided attempt to forward useless gun bans, I think it starts to matter a little bit more. In the latest example of gun-control killing private businesses, Century International Arms is laying off...

Many people question whether or not bureaucrats care about or have common sense. The best example of this is the unending debate on reusable bags and plastic bag bans. Time after time, we’ve seen the truth that bag bans and mandated usage of reusable bags does next to nothing to boost the environment. No, they kill jobs and raise costs for no good reason. Most recently, an Edelman Berland study sought to examine how frequently so-called reusable bags were actually used. According to the study, some 61 percent of respondents stated that though they preferred the reusable option, they...

Law professors John Eastman of Chapman University and Martin Lederman of Georgetown debated the religious implications of ObamaCare’s contraception mandate during a panel discussion at a recent Federalist Society conference. With the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (or RFRA), Congress was “trying to restore a 200-year-old understanding of what the free exercise clause did” for religious conscience. He said, “The First Amendment was not there to protect religions that could only get their accommodations through the majoritarian process.” With religion, “You can challenge the sincerity of religious beliefs but cannot challenge the merits of it” and people “have...

A school district in Chicago’s northwest suburbs is quitting the National School Lunch Program over new regulations championed by first lady Michelle Obama. The so-called Smart Snacks in School policy, set to take effect on July 1, is the latest attempt by our Regulator-in-Chief to dictate every aspect of Americans’ behavior. It dictates strict calorie, sodium, fat, and sugar guidelines for any food sold in schools during the day. That even includes the ubiquitous bake sales and other fundraisers. Instead of forcing the school district’s 500 low income kids and others to eat “healthier,” however, the administration is only creating...