Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Jeff Jacoby at Townhall: Americans conclude that the whole setup is rigged, and that only a sucker doesn’t bend the rules in order to pay less or finagle a bigger refund. How many people who wouldn’t think of ripping off a local charity or business don’t hesitate to cheat on their taxes? In such an environment, it isn’t only compliance rates that suffer. Some of the civic virtue so important to a healthy society is lost as well.

The Hill: The coal industry will suffer the same fate as Osama bin Laden under new climate regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the head of the United Mine Workers of America said this week.

Richard W. Fischer and Harvey Rosenblum at the Wall Street Journal (via Google): Since the early 1970s, the share of assets controlled by the five largest banking institutions in the U.S. has tripled to 52% from 17%. This has to change.

Politico: he Senate’s chief referee has issued a key ruling against Majority Leader Harry Reid, POLITICO has learned — a move expected to bring unwanted election-year pressure on the Nevada Democrat to act on politically dicey budget bills.

Mike Shedlock at Townhall: Obama gets attacked by opponents, but the “reform” was written by hospital companies, doctors, and insurers and is an effective tax on the labor of young people and a massive transfer to the aforementioned groups who already receive a grossly disproportionate share of GDP already

NY Times: Republican lawmakers who have spent two years railing against President Obama’s health care law are beginning to devise alternatives so they can be ready if the Supreme Court forces the issue of the uninsured back into the center of political debate.

The Hill: With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Romney had 43 percent of the vote, with second-place finisher Rick Santorum taking 38 percent. Ron Paul came in third with 12 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich at 6 percent.

The Hill: With 75 percent of precincts reporting, Romney led with 48 percent of the vote. Chief rival Rick Santorum was next with 30 percent of the vote, while Newt Gingrich trailed with 11 percent and Ron Paul garnered 10 percent.

Robert Reich at Christian Science Monitor: Organized gambling is a scam. And it particularly preys upon people with lower incomes – who assume they can’t make it big any other way, who often find it hardest to assess the odds, and whose families can least afford to lose the money. Yet with new, relaxed gambling laws, America is now opening the floodgates.

One News Now: “This is a lose-lose for the American people,” he decides. “We are the Saudi Arabia of coal, and yet President Obama through the EPA is preventing us from using that natural resource.”

One News Now: The hostile environment against Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker (R) has led to the firing of a school custodian because of the pro-governor sign on her car.

Mike Shedlock at Townhall: Distressed cities are finally doing what they should have been doing long ago, declaring bankruptcy to force concessions from public unions.

Fox News: . . . “I get up every morning thinking, today I’m gonna make a difference. Today I’m gonna end capitalism. Today I’m gonna make a revolution. I go to bed every night disappointed, but I’m back again tomorrow. That’s the only way you can do it.”

Heritage Foundation: As of yesterday, the U.S. corporate tax rate of 39.2 percent claimed the world’s top spot, edging out Japan which recently lowered its rate from 39.5 percent to 36.8 percent.

Washington Times: So, in one week, Mr. Obama got caught whispering promises to our enemy, incited a race war, raised serious questions about his understanding of the Constitution, and then got smacked down over his proposed budget that was so wildly reckless that even Democrats in Congress could not support it.

One News Now: A recall election has been officially ordered against embattled first-term Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker after more than 900,000 signatures were collected on petitions to force a vote.

Scott Rasmussen: But even if the law survives the Supreme Court and the next election, the clock will be ticking. Recent estimates suggest that the law would cause 11 million people to lose their employer-provided insurance and be forced onto a government-backed insurance plan. That’s a problem because 77 percent of those who now have insurance rate their current coverage as good or excellent. Only 3 percent rate their coverage as poor.

Wall Street Journal: Something’s happening to President Obama’s relationship with those who are inclined not to like his policies. They are now inclined not to like him. His supporters would say, “Nothing new there,” but actually I think there is. I’m referring to the broad, stable, nonradical, non-birther right. Among them the level of dislike for the president has ratcheted up sharply the past few months.

The Hill: The House on Thursday is poised to approve Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget measure, which would give Republicans a much-needed lift after months of intra-party squabbling.

NCPA Policy Digest: On Sunday, the United States gets a distinction no nation wants — the world’s highest corporate tax rate. Japan, which currently has the highest rate in the world — a 39.8 percent rate on business income between national and local taxes — cuts its rate to 36.8 percent as of April 1. The U.S. rate stands at 39.2 percent when both federal and state rates are included, says CNN Money

Washington Times: Minutes earlier, the House also defeated Mr. Obama’s own budget, submitted last month, on a 414-0 vote arranged by Republicans to embarrass the president and officially shelve his plan.

NECN.com: A panel of federal judges has ruled that several voters represented by the American Civil Liberties Union can take part in a legal challenge over South Carolina’s new voter ID law.

AP reports.

CNN: While the Obama administration fights to protect the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Democratic strategist and CNN contributor James Carville said a Supreme Court overruling may not be such a bad thing for the president, politically.

Findlaw: Facebook executives apparently don’t “like” it when job interviewers ask for a job seeker’s Facebook password. The social-networking giant is now threatening to sue employers who do so.

Rasmussen: What can your country do for you? A plurality (48%) of Americans thinks the federal government should eliminate the federal gas tax until gas prices come down.

AP: President Obama has given himself the powers to declare martial law — especially in the event of a war with Iran. It is a sweeping power grab that should worry every American.

CBS (includes video): In directing what appeared to be a new level of vitriol toward Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum on Sunday described his rival as “the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama.” Santorum later, however, bristled at the notion that he was referring to anything other than Romney’s position on health care.

The HIll: With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Santorum had 49 percent of the vote. Mitt Romney held second place with 27 percent. Newt Gingrich had 16 percent and Ron Paul trailed with 6 percent of the vote.

Washington Post: Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Friday that President Obama gives people reason to believe that he’s a Muslim.

WorldNetDaily: The most well-read news story anywhere got no mention on Fox News, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times or any other so-called “mainstream” news outlet – a laughable adjective.

USA Today: Seeking precedents for the law’s requirement that Americans buy health insurance, some constitutional scholars are reaching back 220 years to a law signed by George Washington: the Militia Act of 1792.

AWR Hawkins at the Daily Caller: We’ve arrived at that place Ben Franklin warned us of when he shared his concern that one day Americans would trade liberty for security.

Politico: The AFP, the Huffington Post and other websites have scrubbed a report about first daughter Malia Obama’s school trip.

The Hill: Two Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee questioned Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski in a letter on Tuesday about his agency’s proposal to require TV stations to keep online databases of political advertising.

The Hill: House Republican leaders voiced confidence Tuesday that they will pass their budget despite unified Democratic opposition and grumbling from GOP conservatives that its proposed spending cuts are too small.

The HIll: Mitt Romney got a much-needed victory in Illinois on Tuesday night, giving his presidential campaign a boost and strengthening the argument that he is the inevitable GOP nominee.

Christian Newswire: On the heels of former Senator Rick Santorum publicly pledging to ‘vigorously enforce the nation’s adult obscenity laws,’ and with last year’s Congressional bipartisan support to do the same, Governor Romney is being asked to outline his plan to enforce federal laws.

Rasmussen: Incumbent Republican Dean Heller holds a seven-point lead over his likeliest Democratic challenger, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, in Rasmussen Reports’ first look at the U.S. Senate race in Nevada.

Reuters: The Republican budget plan would produce deficits totaling $3.13 trillion over the next 10 years — less than half the $6.39 trillion in deficits the Congressional Budget Office says Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget plan would rack up.

AP: Here’s a tag team for the ages: Richard Nixon, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama.

One News Now: The Thomas More Society (TMS) is taking issue with a multimillion-dollar adult club about to open next door to a monastery in Stone Park, Illinois, and it is calling into question local ordinances and how they disappeared.

Wall Street Journal: The Land of Lincoln once proved a reliable home for centrist Republicans, making it the kind of state Mitt Romney would have carried comfortably. Not anymore. The former Massachusetts governor finds himself locked in a dogfight here with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum . . .

The AP reports.

Daily Caller: Santorum says in a statement posted to his website, “The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws.”

The Hill: President Obama’s 2013 budget would add $3.5 trillion to annual deficits through 2022, according to a new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The Hill: A group of Senate Republicans has introduced legislation that would end traditional Medicare and sign seniors up for the same private healthcare plans received by members of Congress.

Ruth Institute: As Daniel Foster notes, “When it was being debated, Democrats told you ACA [Obamacare] would cost $940 billion over ten years . . . But now . . . the CBO is out with new cost estimates. They ain’t pretty . . .

AP: Sen. Dick Lugar has been ruled ineligible to vote in Indiana by a county election board. The partisan vote by the Marion County Election Board was 2-1.

The HIll: As many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-provided coverage because of President Obama’s healthcare reform law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new report Thursday.

George F. Will at Washington Post: This is a crucial difference between release-time provisions negotiated by private companies: In the private sector, unions are not effectively on both sides of the negotiation table. Collusion between the employer and the employees union is inherent in public-sector unionization, particularly because public-sector employers and employees have congruent interests in increasing government budgets.

Christian Science Monitor: Ron Paul received the most votes in the US Virgin Islands caucuses over the weekend, but Mitt Romney got more pledged delegates.

Findlaw: [Defendant] . . . argued that viewing and search for child pornography doesn’t qualify as receiving the images. The jury disagreed and convicted Sturm on both counts. Sturm appealed. This week, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Sturm’s convictions. | U.S. v. Sturm

Walter Williams at Townhall: Part of the problem is that people who act as instruments of government do not pay a personal price for usurping parental authority. The reason is Americans, unlike Americans of yesteryear, have become timid and, as such, come to accept all manner of intrusive governmental acts.

Chicago Sun-Times: Mitt Romney won more delegates in the four Tuesday contests than any of his rivals.

Cong. Ron Paul: Yet if you think about what this 2% inflation target actually is, you realize that it is an explicit policy to devalue the dollar and reduce its purchasing power. And it adds up quickly over time. Two percent annual price inflation means that prices rise 22% within a decade, and nearly 50% within two decades.

AP: “The fact is, in both states, the conservative candidates got nearly 70 percent of the vote. And if you’re the front-runner – if you’re the front-runner and you keep coming in third, you’re not much of a front-runner,” Gingrich said.

The Hill: So what do we know about Illinois? There are 69 delegates at stake – fifteen of which are unbound and fifty-four of which are bound.

AZ Central (AP): A resurgent Rick Santorum swept primaries in Alabama and Mississippi Tuesday night, upending the race for the Republican presidential nomination yet again and nudging Newt Gingrich toward the sidelines.

AP on One News Now: Evangelicals are likely to make up two thirds or more of today’s Republican primary voters, according to some political analysts.

AP: In the middle of Sunshine Week, a period dedicated to government openness, the Obama administration is urging Congress to change the Freedom of Information Act to keep secret new categories of information that it says have been put a risk by a Supreme Court ruling.

Townhall: In the coming weeks, S.J. Res. 36, a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act will come to the floor of the U.S. Senate. If passed in both houses of Congress and signed by President Obama, this resolution of disapproval will nullify the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) recent rule amending its election procedures limiting the ability of employers, particularly small businesses, to obtain the legal counsel and fair representation they need to express their views on unionization.

Michael J. Boskin and John F. Cogan at the Wall Street Journal: California’s rising standards of living and outstanding public schools and universities once attracted millions seeking upward economic mobility. But then something went radically wrong as California legislatures and governors built a welfare state on high tax rates, liberal entitlement benefits, and excessive regulation. The results, though predictable, are nonetheless striking.

The Hill: Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), already under fire for allegations he bribed his primary opponent to drop out of the race, questioned the legitimacy of President Obama’s birth certificate at a town-hall meeting.

The Hill: The White House scrambled Monday to contain the political damage from rising gas prices, which have emerged as a primary threat to President Obama’s reelection.

NY Times: Rick Santorum’s campaign has begun to argue forcefully that Mitt Romney will fail to win the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination for president, leaving the decision to a wide-open national convention in Tampa, Fla., this summer.

Washington Post: Senate Democrats are asking the Internal Revenue Service to restrict the amount of money a tax-exempt organization can spend on political activities, warning that they will introduce legislation doing so if the tax enforcement agency fails to act soon.

Washington Post: Senator James Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) recent comments about climate change have turned a policy debate into a theological conundrum.

AP on Yahoo: The Justice Department’s civil rights division on Monday objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification.

The Hill (includes video): North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) called on Congress to quickly pass legislation to green-light the Keystone XL oil pipeline, arguing that the Obama administration is “killing energy development.”

One News Now: Returns from 89 percent of the state’s precincts showed Santorum with 51 percent support, far outpacing Romney, who had 21 percent.

The Hill: GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney is holding a double-digit edge against his rivals nationally, two days ahead of important contests in Southern primaries, according to Gallup’s five-day tracking poll.

Rasmussen Reports: Ask voters which presidential contender’s views are more like their own, and just 37% say President Obama. Most (53%) say they think more like one of the four Republican presidential hopefuls.

AP: Though former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has a commanding lead in the crucial race for delegates, Santorum said the race is about to enter a period where he will face fewer disadvantages. To date, Romney has outspent Santorum and had stronger campaign organizations working for him.

Montgomery Advertiser: A federal appeals court Thursday blocked two sections of Alabama’s immigration law, including one that had been partially enjoined by a U.S. District Judge in Montgomery.