Regulation

What does it take to be able to own and operate a taxi and earn $30,000, $40,000 or more a year? You need to purchase a used car and liability insurance. Compared with other businesses, the startup cost to become a taxi owner/operator is modest; that's until you have to come up with money for a license. In May 2010, the price of a license, called a medallion, to own one taxi in New York City…

New York Times food writer and junk food sin-tax advocate Mark Bittman took to the August 2 edition of MSNBC’s “Dylan Ratigan” show as part of his promotional tour for “Bad Food? Tax It.” He found a receptive, uncritical audience in the former CNBC business reporter. “It’s like, do you want to use taxes to help people or do you want to use taxes to hurt people? It seems to me right now we’re…

On Monday's Early Show, CBS slanted towards supporters of a new Obama administration mandate which requires private insurance companies to cover contraception as part of women's "preventative services." Anchor Chris Wragge labeled the development "good news," while correspondent Michelle Miller failed to include sound bites from opponents during her report on the new regulation. After using…

 On Saturday’s World News, ABC anchor Dan Harris seemed to fret that the current debate over the budget is taking attention away from an "unprecedented assault" that is being "quietly" waged by conservatives "on environmental regulations." As the report from Blair, West Virginia, focused on a coal mining technique that destroys the tops of mountains, correspondent Jim Sciutto featured two…

The AP's coverage of the U.S. economy late Friday focused on high gas prices as the dominant, uh, driver of this year's anemic growth both visually and in its text. As will be seen after the jump, the graphic at the AP's national site is of a gas price sign. The final sentence in the caption of the full-size version reads "High gas prices and scant income gains forced Americans to sharply…

The folks at CNN should be really proud of themselves. In less than 24 hours, one of their current anchors - Fareed Zakaria - flat out lied about deficits, the debt ceiling, and the U.S. credit rating before a former host - Eliot Spitzer - falsely told viewers of HBO's "Real Time" that George W. Bush "gave us the deregulatory craziness that led us over the cliff" (video follows with…

"Four years ago, the American auto industry was so opposed to higher fuel economy standards that executives of Detroit camped out in Washington in an unsuccessful bid to undercut them," Bill Vlasic opened his July 28 front page New York Times article. But now "when President Obama announced even stricter standards — in fact, the largest increase in mileage requirements since the government…

"Millionaires and billionaires," President Obama says derisively, must make more "sacrifices" and live by the same rules the rest of America lives by. But there are seven little words that will never appear on the White House teleprompter: "And that means you, too, George Soros." For all his (and his wife's) bashing of greedy Wall Street hedge-fund managers, Obama has shown nothing but love…

Here's what President Barack Obama said about our high rate of unemployment in an interview with NBC's Ann Curry: "The other thing that happened, though — and this goes to the point you were just making — is there are some structural issues with our economy, where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers," adding that "you see it when you go to a…

CBS's Michelle Miller leaned towards supporters of taxing junk food on Tuesday's Early Show, playing three sound bites from them and none from opponents. Miller only made one vague reference to the opposing side, and she immediately followed it by playing up the supposedly positive result of a tax: "While some say a new tax is the last thing we need, it could mean a healthier America." The…

Barack Obama might give Chris Matthews a thrill up his leg, but the bromance MSNBC's "Hardball" host has with former President Bill Clinton knows no bounds. On Monday's program, Matthews finished by nominating Clinton as Secretary of the Treasury, "Because in many ways it’s a life saver" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

After returning from asking Washington, D.C. tourists about the government-mandated phase out of incandescent light bulbs that begins in 2012, our friends at MRCTV got a first hand lesson in how the government expects Americans to handle the impending switch to mercury-laden compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). [Video embedded below page break]  

On Tuesday's Morning Edition, NPR's Julie Rovner spun the debate over a proposed mandate for private insurance companies to cover birth control without a copay as being between "women's health groups," which were not given an ideological label, and organizations such as the Family Research Council, which she clearly identified as "conservative." A representative from her example of a "women's…

Can anyone in Midway, Georgia take money for or even borrow food without risking arrest? If you're in Midway, you'd better not let your neighbors reimburse you for any homemade food you cook or grow, or you might get busted for not having "a business license, peddler’s permit, and food permit to set up shop, even on residential property." Heck, you may have to worry about even giving your…