The libertarian Goldwater Institute has filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court backing the end of a 19th-century law against distilling booze at home.
The think tank argued that hanging on to the law was overregulation of home-based businesses.
The case, Ream v. Department of the Treasury, stems from an Ohio hobbyist who wanted to set up a home distillery but was blocked by the old law.
Goldwater’s brief asks the high court to review the federal ban under both the taxing power and the Interstate Commerce Clause and to establish a uniform standard in favor of principled federalism — one that recognizes that there must be a definitive end point to the government’s implied federal powers.
“The central issue in Ream exposes a radical theory of unlimited federal authority. Congress’s authority is tied to the Constitution’s list of express, enumerated powers,” the Goldwater Institute said of the case. “The federal government can only reach beyond that limited scope when doing so is necessary and proper for exercising one or more of those core powers listed in the Constitution.”
Support for probe of California-China climate collaboration
The National Association of Scholars lauded Republican lawmakers for demanding a federal investigation of California’s climate change collaboration with China.
Led by Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the lawmakers sent a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche and Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for a probe of California’s alleged “unconstitutional involvement with Beijing to undermine US foreign policy.”
The letter references the NAS report “Behind the Climate Curtain” that documented an alleged years-long pattern in which Govs. Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom tied California’s climate regulators to Beijing-linked institutions.
The report, which was initiated by a whistleblower, alleged that California employed the “instrumentalities of its state government, including its university system, in service of inappropriate relations with Communist China.”
“We applaud Senatorial and Congressional calls to action on this matter, and urge the Department of Justice and the Department of State to engage accordingly,” NAS said.
DOT blasted for gutting rule making airlines advertise full cost of tickets
A coalition of seven consumer watchdog groups filed comments opposing the U.S. Department of Transportation’s proposal to either weaken or eliminate the Reagan-era Full Fare Advertising Rule.
For over four decades, the rule has required the price that airlines advertise to include all mandatory charges. The groups said that if DOT continues with the current proposal under consideration, there would be no significant requirement for the advertised airfare to resemble the actual cost charged to consumers.
“Since 1985, the Full Fare Advertising Rule has protected flyers from hidden fees and false advertising when shopping for flights,” said National Consumers League Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications, and Fraud John Breyault.
“DOT’s plan to undo this protection would harm the millions of travelers who depend on truthful price displays to make accurate purchasing decisions. By law, DOT must regulate in the public interest. This proceeding falls far short of that mandate.”
NCL and two other organizations also formally petitioned DOT to schedule a public hearing to address the department’s proposal.
The comments to DOT were submitted by the American Economic Liberties Project, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America, FLYERSRIGHTS, the National Consumers League, Travelers United, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
FTC pushed to probe book destruction by AI firms
A coalition of liberal organizations, including Demand Progress Education Fund, wants the Federal Trade Commission to investigate AI companies for allegedly scanning and destroying millions of books to keep in private databases.
The groups are accusing tech companies like Anthropic and Amazon of purchasing books in bulk, scanning them and then destroying the original work, including rare books.
In a letter sent to the FTC, the organizations urged the agency to use its authority to investigate whether a mass book-purge unfairly prevented competing AI developers and the public from accessing the books.
“The secretive and reckless way that major AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon are acting shows that there is real smoke here that the FTC needs to investigate,” said Kate Oh, who is advising Demand Progress Education Fund.
“There is credible reporting that the AI industry is acquiring books on vast commercial scales to scan and destroy, all to keep that scanned text in a private database walled off from the world and subject to corporate censorship and manipulation,” she said.
The letter to the FTC said that when “a small number of dominant tech companies become the sole custodians of millions of human-authored works in digital form, locked away inside proprietary corporate databases—including works they have caused to exist nowhere else—they convert a shared public resource into a private chokepoint.”
“They make themselves the unaccountable gatekeepers of our shared historical and cultural record, with the ability to censor as they see fit.”
The letter was also signed by the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Media & Digital Governance at Open Markets Institute, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and 14 other organizations.
• The Advocates column is a weekly look at the political action players who drive the debate and shape policy outcomes in Washington. Send tips to theadvocates@washingtontimes.com. Click here to receive The Advocates in your inbox each week.
