The Senate Republican Leader and Senate Democratic Leader are cutting a deal on the filibuster. You may think it is over and done with, but it is not. Harry Reid, through Senate procedure, has kept the first day of business in the Senate going on. This allows the rules of the Senate to be changed with just a majority vote if he decides to claim | Read More »
In negotiations between Colorado Springs and the Sierra Club, clean coal technology has been offered up as a casualty following the Sierra Club’s September 2012 threat of a lawsuit. The Martin Drake power plant is part of the community owned Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU), and has the net capacity to provide 254 megawatts of power generation. In addition to providing power for more than 50,000 | Read More »
The President is ready to announce his plans to restrict gun ownership. Most likely, nothing the President proposes will do anything to stop a future Sandy Hook. We know the President understands he is putting Democrats in a terrible spot. We know because he did nothing after the Aurora, CO shooting in the midst of a political campaign. He had to wait so he wouldn’t | Read More »
With two vacancies at the five-member agency right now, due to a Supreme Court decision, a resignation by any member of the NLRB would automatically cripple the credibility-deficient NLRB.
Read More »The legal battle over Governor Scott Walker’s collective bargaining reforms isn’t over yet, and in a challenge that has now reached the Wisconsin Court of Appeals a local teachers union is arguing that the law is unconstitutional when applied at the local level. But the unions and their legal team may have suffered a quiet but important setback in late December when, with no fanfare, the Appeals Court requested both sides to file further briefs on the case. In the request, the court specifically noted that cases cited by the unions to prove their point in fact, did not back up the unions’ position.
Read More »With its text flanked on both sides by skull-and-crossbones “POISON” symbols, the billboard stands as testament to one of the reasons Governor John Kasich and the Ohio General Assembly have expressed no interest in pursuing a workplace freedom law.
Aaron Schock voted for the debt ceiling increase the last time. He also voted for the McConnell tax hike. Aaron Schock, all along, has been fine with raising taxes as long as he could look like he wasn’t. A group in Illinois decided to call him out on it. What did Aaron Schock do? He ran to his lawyer crying and the lawyer wrote a | Read More »
Here’s a not-so-bold prediction: Congress will vote to spend more money today than it will cut over 10 years from any grand deal. Later today, the House will consider the additional $50 billion in Sandy aid in two parts (they already passed another $9.7 billion two weeks ago). The House will first try to pass a bill (H.R. 152) to provide about $17 billion to | Read More »
I am in favor of not raising the debt ceiling unless the President and Democrats come up with meaningful spending cuts and reforms. Contrary to a lot of the Democrats’ spin, the federal government will not default if the debt ceiling is not raised. Only if Little Timmy Geithner decides to not pay certain debts will the government default. It is his choice. But I | Read More »
A bill that was authored by an Ironworkers’ union organizer to expand union-only Project Labor Agreements–to include Hurricane Sandy cleanup and reconstruction–passed the New Jersey Senate on Monday along party lines 23-13.
The Ironworkers’ union organizer who drafted the pro-union bill, Steven Sweeney, also happens to be the president of the New Jersey Senate and recently accused New Jersey Governor Chris Christie of “praying” for Hurricane Sandy to hit New Jersey.
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Although Hurricane Sandy ravaged the Atlantic Coast more than 2 months ago, the debate over disaster relief is still raging. While more than $2 billion in aid has been spent by FEMA on the recovery from Sandy, the controversy began after the House failed to vote on a $60 billion Sandy aid bill in the last session of Congress. The bill was denied passage | Read More »
A recent study from the Tax Foundation and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy looking at cigarette taxes and cigarette smuggling reminds us, yet again, of how big government always ends up legislating the Law of Unintended Consequences. Tax That Smoker Behind The Tree You have to tax something to fund government, and if you’re taxing sales, cigarettes are as good a target as any: | Read More »
Two years ago, several newly elected conservative Governors were planning their legislative agendas. When Gov. Scott Walker proposed his public sector collective bargaining reforms, the Left seemed giddy that a Governor in a purple state would make such a conservative proposal, thinking it would be easy to defeat him in his next election. However, the voters in the June 5, 2012 Recall election, rewarded his | Read More »
The Republican Party lost the presidential election of 2012. Here in California, my own state doubled down on big government by adding a novel surcharge to its already high 11.3 percent income tax rate and ignored spending cuts and entitlement reforms needed to modify a deficit-driven state budget. The California state Legislature now is firmly in the hands of a Democratic supermajority. Thus, Republicans are | Read More »
As the gun control debate rages in America following the abominable events in Newtown, eventually, perhaps inevitably, the media will ask itself, “What would Jesus do?” They’ve done it for years as it relates to wealth redistribution and Obamacare. Obama gave an entire speech about taxes in which he used Jesus for his justification. I’d wager that the tactic is designed to hit God fearing | Read More »
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