National Politics

National Popular Vote Bill Being Heard this Week

By Carroll Andrew Morse | May 24, 2011 |

One late addition (posted Monday for a hearing Wednesday) to this week’s House Judiciary Committee agenda is a bill to have the state legislature disregard the choice made by Rhode Island voters in a Presidential election, and allocate RI’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote instead. In 2009, a similar bill…

Heads Up, Federal Retirees, Obama and Geithner are Tapping Your Retirement Fund

By Monique Chartier | May 16, 2011 |

Nothing to worry about, though, it’s a loan and not a confiscation. You have no problem lending your retirement to someone who is over fourteen trillion dollars in debt, right …? The Obama administration will begin to tap federal retiree programs to help fund operations after the government loses its ability Monday to borrow more…

A Message Full of Coincidence

By Justin Katz | May 1, 2011 |

So, as Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice headed toward the climactic “you’re fired” of tonight’s episode, NBC periodically killed the sound to play a jingle and run ticker text about a pending important message from President Obama. The actual interruption came right as the show built up to a crest. Apparently, Osama bin Laden has been…

Birtherism Dies an Easy Death

By Justin Katz | April 28, 2011 |

At the end of a long post describing the ease with which President Obama could have ended the birther controversy long ago, Andrew McCarthy concludes as follows: So, assuming as we should the legitimacy of the long-form birth certificate produced yesterday, the only thing that makes sense is that Obama knows the mainstream media is…

Remember the Good Ol’ Days (Before 2006)

By Marc Comtois | April 23, 2011 |

Hey, remember when gas was $2.20 a gallon and the unemployment rate was 4.4%? What happened with that? …Oh, right, the Democrats won the 2006 Congressional elections. That observation was made by Moe Lane and picked up by Glenn Reynolds. It’s worth promulgating because it’s a simple way to point out that what we were…

Budget “Deal” Skullduggery – Shouldn’t Have Expected Any Different

By Marc Comtois | April 14, 2011 |

So that $38.5 billion budget deficit reduction deal? Not really much of anything. [T]he cuts …includ[e] cuts to earmarks, unspent census money, leftover federal construction funding, and $2.5 billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can’t be spent because of restrictions set by other legislation. Another $3.5 billion comes from unused spending…

Wisconsin Watch III

By Carroll Andrew Morse | April 7, 2011 |

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Waukesha County’s initial tally of its election returns didn’t include over 15,000 votes that were cast in the Wisconsin election on Tuesday. With those votes added in, David Prosser now has a 7,000+ vote lead over Joanne Kloppenburg in the state supreme court election. For the record, here’s the observation…

It’s Been a Good Decade: Why Public Employees Make So Much of Freezes or Minor Cuts

By Marc Comtois | April 7, 2011 |

To those of us not in the public sector, it seems outsized when public employees and politicians make so much of temporary pay freezes or a few minor cuts (or reductions in the expected increases!). Red Jahncke adds some context that will help us understand their perspective by explaining how, nationwide, local and municipal government…

Wisconsin Watch Cont’d

By Carroll Andrew Morse | April 6, 2011 |

Continuation of this post. [10:40] According to the AP results, 10 of the 12 remaining Milwaukee precincts have come in along with the 8 previously outstanding precincts from Ashland County. Prosser still leads, now by less than 400 votes. One outstanding precinct from Dane County (73-23 Kloppenburg), one from Jefferson County (58-42 Prosser), and six…

Wisconsin Watch

By Carroll Andrew Morse | April 5, 2011 |

According to the Associated Press, Joanne Kloppenburg has opened up a slight 4,000 vote lead with 57% of the precincts reporting in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election that will likely decide if Governor Scott Walker’s collective bargaining package of laws is allowed to stand. Looking at the county-by-county results, I am willing to bet that…