On a recent episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour podcast, CFIF's Timothy Lee joined host Andrew…
CFIF on Twitter CFIF on YouTube
The Lunch Hour - FTC Overreach, 'Junk Fees' and More

On a recent episode of the Federal Newswire Lunch Hour podcast, CFIF's Timothy Lee joined host Andrew Langer and Daniel Ikenson, Founder of Ikensonomics Consulting and former Director of Trade and Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, to discuss Federal Trade Commission overreach, so-called "junk fees," and more.

The conversation focuses on "the FTC's increasingly aggressive regulatory posture under Chair Lina Khan, highlighting concerns about overreach, economic consequences, and implications for constitutional governance."

Watch below.…[more]

December 05, 2024 • 12:18 PM

Liberty Update

CFIFs latest news, commentary and alerts delivered to your inbox.
State of Affairs
Title Filter     Display # 
# Article Title
511 Jeff Sessions Defends Himself, but Stays Loyal To the President

It hasn't been in the news much, but former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, now in a tight Republican primary to win back his old Alabama Senate seat, has been talking a lot about his time in the Justice Department and the issue that made him a persona non grata in Trumpworld: his March 2017 decision to recuse himself from supervising the Trump-Russia…

512 Obamagate Is Not a Conspiracy Theory

Those sharing #Obamagate on Twitter would do best to avoid the hysterics we saw from Russian-collusion believers, but they have no reason to ignore the mounting evidence that suggests the Obama administration engaged in serious corruption. Democrats and their allies, who like to pretend that President Barack Obama's only scandalous act was wearing…

513 What We Still Don't Know About the Michael Flynn Case

The Michael Flynn case will soon be over. It began on Jan. 24, 2017, just four days into the Trump administration, when two FBI agents went to the White House to interview Flynn, then the brand-new national security adviser. Ignoring protocol, they questioned him about a phone call he had a few weeks before, during the transition, with Russian Ambassador…

514 Time to Reopen the Economy

 All across the nation, business owners are waiting for the signal to reopen. In some places, it's happening now, but in too many parts of the U.S., towns and cities are being held to the same footdragging schedule that is killing commerce in the epicenter of the pandemic, New York City. New York officials fear half the city's smallest businesses…

515 Losing Our Fears, In War and Plague

Seventy-five years ago this month, Germany surrendered, ending the European theater of World War II. At the war's beginning, no one believed Germany would utterly collapse in May 1945. On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, German invaders were on the verge of capturing Moscow. Britain was isolated. London…

516 Biden's Disgraceful Hypocrisy on Sexual Misconduct

If presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Joe Biden were forced to live by the standards he wants to set for college students accused of sexual misconduct, he would already have been presumed guilty, been denied a genuine opportunity to refute the charges leveled against him by Tara Reade, and had his life ruined. While Biden has hundreds…

517 Biden Has Become an Albatross For the Democrats

Joe Biden is the apparent Democratic presidential nominee. After all, he had a seemingly insurmountable lead in delegates going into the rescheduled August convention in the postponed Democratic primary race. Biden was winning the nomination largely because he was not the socialist Bernie Sanders, who terrified the Democratic establishment. Biden…

518 Prolonging the Shutdown Defies Science and the US Constitution

Across the nation, protesters are taking to the streets and business owners are filing lawsuits objecting to the coronavirus shutdown rules. As the rules drag on, they're causing job losses, bankruptcies and a feeling that people have no rights. The liberal media are labeling the protesters "virus deniers." Don't fall for that. The protesters…

519 Joe Biden's Dr. Death

Does Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel believe Joe Biden would be better off dead? That would be a peculiar position for Biden's chief adviser on medical issues and a member of the candidate's Public Health Advisory Committee to take. But if we accept the reasoning behind Emanuel's infamous 2014 essay, Biden is nothing more than a resource-sucking shell of himself…

520 As in 1944, Democratic Running Mate Selection Seems Pivotal

Few Americans can remember past vice presidents such as Charles Curtis, Charles Dawes or Thomas Marshall. In more recent memory, almost no one can recall vice presidential nominees who lost such as William Miller, Sargent Shriver or Lloyd Bentsen. John Nance Garner served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's vice president for two terms (1933-1941), but he…

521 When Would Joe Biden Reopen the Country?

The most pressing problem facing Americans today is how and when states and local areas reopen after the coronavirus lockdowns. President Trump, stressing the terrible economic damage the lockdowns have done, has (mostly) pressed for reopening sooner rather than later. He has released detailed guidelines for officials in the states to consult when…

522 Facebook Fails the Coronavirus Test

A scattering of protests aimed at state lockdowns erupted across the country last week, sparked not by social distancing guidelines but by politicians' unilaterally dictating what products citizens are permitted to purchase in box stores, attempting to shut down drive-in Masses at churches and closing parks and beaches, among other ill-conceived and…

523 As Virus Rages, Leaders Keep Dodging Blame

Why are some leaders so reluctant to admit that in the early days of the coronavirus crisis, they were slow to realize the seriousness of the threat? That's the charge leveled against President Trump daily. Just look at the number of times various critics have said he has "blood on his hands." Trump has denied responsibility, and has argued…

524 Coronavirus Authoritarianism Is Getting Out of Hand

It's reasonable to assume that the vast majority of Americans process news and data, and calculate that self-quarantining, wearing masks and social distancing make sense for themselves, their families and the country. Free people act out of self-preservation, but they shouldn't be coerced to act through the authoritarian whims of the state. Yet this…

525 “Big Pharma” Slurs Conspicuously Disappear

George Orwell sardonically noted the ease with which some preach pacifism from behind the protective curtain of the Royal Navy.  To wit, a sense of security cultivates a lazy inclination toward empty virtue-signaling.  So it was for years and even decades as opportunistic politicians and pundits spanning a disturbingly broad stretch of the…

526 We Are Approaching COVID-19 Gut-Check Time

We are a few days away from a rendezvous with some tough conclusions about COVID-19. A number of concurrent developments are coming to a head. Most will bring light where so far there was only heat. Greater information about the virus might cause as much acrimony as conciliation. Some experts will be discredited, others reaffirmed. Antibody testing…

527 Shutdown Could Kill More Americans Than COVID-19

Thursday's unemployment update confirms that over the last three weeks, nearly 17 million Americans have been laid off because of the shutdown. That's one-tenth of the nation's workforce. It's not just an economic fact. It's a public health disaster. If the shutdown is dragged on, as many public health experts recommend, it is almost certain to kill…

528 Don't Let Democrats Federalize Elections

I'm sorry, but you have no constitutional "right" to vote by mail. You have no constitutional "right" to vote six days after an election is over. Nor do you have any "right" to censor information related to an election. Not even during a pandemic. This week, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal court was not empowered…

529 Is America a Roaring Giant or Crying Baby?

Marshal Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto commanded the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II until he was killed in April 1943. Despite the dialogue from the 1970 WWII film "Tora! Tora! Tora!" Yamamoto probably did not say in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a…

530 How to End the Shutdown

President Donald Trump is hinting at a second task force responsible for getting Americans back to work. Appoint it now, Mr. President. Don't wait until the virus peaks. This second task force should prepare the country to reopen, with new tools to fight the virus. The president's top epidemiologist, the esteemed Anthony Fauci, insists "the best…

531 Is Joe Biden Weaker Today Than Hillary Clinton Was In 2016?

The polls show Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the presidential race. Looking at the last 10 surveys in the RealClearPolitics average of polls matching Trump vs. Biden, Biden is leading in every one of them – by anywhere from 3 to 10 points. Biden's average lead, in those 10 polls, is 5.5 points. The results echo polls from this point…

532 America Still a Global Leader Even In a Time of Crisis

A current global myth alleges that America under the Trump administration is not leading the world fight against the coronavirus in its accustomed role as the postwar global leader. Yet the U.S. was the first major nation to issue a travel ban on flights from China, with Donald Trump making that announcement on Jan. 31. That was a bold act. It likely…

533 The #PresidentCuomo Fantasy

How nervous are some Democrats about Joe Biden's chances against President Trump this November? Nervous enough to entertain the notion that another Democrat – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo – might swoop in and save the day. Cuomo, who has been governor for nearly a decade and has one of the most famous names in Democratic politics, found…

534 It's Fine to Talk About How This Crisis Ends

If I followed all my doctor's instructions to the letter, life would be excruciating. It would be tantamount to having Michael Bloomberg make my life choices, which is to say my life wouldn't be worth living. Human beings have never been as risk-averse as experts want them to be. We instinctively calculate the costs and benefits of engaging in activities…

535 Public Approval of Trump Coronavirus Response Skyrockets

Imagine if the coronavirus pandemic had hit us in 2009, or any year between 2009 and 2017.  The economic repercussions, and the federal policy response, would’ve been far worse.  A pandemic of this magnitude is a tragedy and societally difficult under any circumstance.  That said, America entered this emergency with the strongest…

536 Trump's Strategic Foresight Is Being Put to the Test

The ancient Greeks believed that true leadership in crisis came down to what they called pronoia – the Greek word for "strategic foresight." Some statesman, such as Pericles and Themistocles, had it. Most others, such as the often brilliant and charismatic but impulsive Alcibiades, usually did not. "Foresight" in crisis…

537 Biden Fails to Lead On Virus Fight

Give Joe Biden some credit. On Jan. 27, he published an op-ed in USA Today recognizing that the coronavirus outbreak could become a big problem. But he devoted nearly the entire piece to bashing President Trump — who was then fighting off impeachment from Biden's old Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill — and nearly none of it…

538 Coronavirus Is the Chinese Government's Curse Upon the World

The World Health Organization and other sensitive souls have instructed us to stop referring to the new strain of coronavirus as the "Wuhan" or "Chinese" flu because of the racist connotations. I'm disinclined to curb my speech to placate Chinese propagandists, and it seems to me the aversion to those terms is less about racism…

539 Biden Bungles Again, Now on Coronavirus

Of the innumerable broadsides that Joe Biden earned throughout his five-decade public career, perhaps the most damning came from sober-minded former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.  Hardly a partisan bomb-thrower, Gates served under both Republican (George W. Bush) and Democrat (Barack Obama) presidents.  And when it came to assessing Biden…

540 The Mysterious Rise, Fall and Rise of Joe Biden

For most of early 2019, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden – the declared custodian of liberalism who would continue the Obama glory years – seemed unstoppable. He led all other rivals for months. Biden seemed above the fray. Many Democrats saw the pre-debate and pre-election race for the nomination as more of a Biden…

 
Page 18 of 49
Notable Quote   
 
"Why did Marc Andreessen -- inventor inventor of the first internet web browser, and perhaps the prime venture capitalist in Silicon Valley today -- switch from his longstanding support of the Democratic Party and back President-elect Donald Trump this year?Because, in his view, the Democrats who claim to be the great scourge of 'disinformation' are threatening to embed disinformation in the bedrock…[more]
 
 
— Michael Barone, Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and Resident Fellow at American Enterprise Institute
 
Liberty Poll   

RFK Jr. believes that elements of the CIA were involved in the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963, and wants further investigation. What do you believe?