FreedomTalks

An editorial on the Opinion Journal website demonstrates bounty hunting by environmental groups.  From 1995-2002 there were 4,438 notices of intent to sue under four environmental statutes.  Here is the heart of it.
Many of the violations are trivial and technical. Defendants who have not even minimally harmed the environment are roped in. One commentator points [...]

Gov Jim Risch has ordered a special session for the Idaho Legislature to vote on a plan which would change how the state pays for it school funding by cutting property taxes while allowing for a raise in sales tax.
 The newly inaugurated Governor’s plan would erase $260 million of property taxes that pay for school upkeep and operations. [...]

The Hartford Courant has an interesting editorial today about the Republicans’ perceived lack of a senate candidate to face Lieberman or Lamont.
The editors write,
“Connecticut Republicans have essentially opted out of participating in the election for U.S. Senate. Alan Schlesinger, the GOP candidate in the race, has proved to be marginal at best. Although top party [...]

From an article in Parade magazine on eminent domain battles comes a brief explanation of what the furor is all about.
“It’s a blatant example of reverse Robin Hood—taking homes from the poor and the middle-income and giving them to the rich,” says Scott Bullock, the IJ attorney who argued (and lost) Kelo.

It’s Friday, so I thought I’d provide some comic relief.
The Communist Party USA is becoming excited about the prospect for a Democrat takeover of Congress. They appear to find common cause with other “progressives” in the Democrat Party.
The CPUSA is throwing its support behind John Tester, who is running against Conrad Burns in Montana, and [...]

In a recent commentary, William Beach of the Heritage Foundation offers a good critique of expansive legislation the Senate is trying to pass before Congress goes into recess. Dubbed the “losing trifecta,” H.R. 5970, the “Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act of 2006,” looks to increase the minimum wage, reduce the death tax, [...]

In a recent blog post, George Mason University professor Bryan Caplan offers some interesting analysis of the U.S. trade deficit. His comments stem from an article published by Harvard scholars Ricardo Hausmann and Frederico Sturzenegger, in which they argue that conventional trade deficit accounting methods misrepresent the actual state of the current account deficit:
The Bureau of [...]

This is from the editorial page of the Washington Post this morning.
The major outstanding question about global warming is not whether adding large amounts of new carbon to the atmosphere will tend to increase temperatures further. It is how sensitive the climate will be to what mass of additional carbon over time — and how [...]

Yesterday the Senate approved a bill to open Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas drilling, while natural gas prices soar 14% amidst this summer’s heat wave.  Although increased domestic production of oil will do little to change prices as barrels are sold in a global market of producers and consumers, opening up drilling [...]

An op-ed in the Washington Times this morning points out the inconsistency of climate change doomsayers who act as if they are the embodiment of scientific truth concerning the matter and accusing all others of being “deniers” of the consensus of scientists.  The latest complete Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [...]