Marijuana Initiatives in 2 States Set Federal Officials Scrambling - NYTimes.comI'm wondering how it has passed Obama's notice that more than half the population nationally favor legalization, and the states which have legalized/regulated it in accordance with schemes that fit local circumstances might not be happy to have the federal government ( Read more... )

Is This Why Americans Have Lost The Drive To "Earn" More | ZeroHedge

Tax Rates do not determine everything.

Rates do not even determine revenue, and rates set for income levels are notoriously unhinged from the benefit structures in place.

Where do we get such poorly informed politicians?

Patterico's Pontifications » Your Mandatory Fiscal Cliff Post

Lots of hand waving, a 10 year forcast in which all spending cuts occur more than four years down the road, and all taxes occur immediately, followed by immediately losing track of anything promising future action.

Again.

Typical.

Patterico's Pontifications » Bill Whittle for President

When the platform is actually spoken, it will win. It helps to get people who believe it to speak it.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings ( Read more... )

For those reading panicky articles about either Republicans voting against raising the debt ceiling, Democrats deciding to mimic Obama's vote against, and the US defaulting:

Take the third off the table. One of the more interesting financial analysts out there points out that even if the debt ceiling is not raised, there need be no default. He's ( Read more... )

I'm not really being sarcastic: instead, I read that the UK government has thought of having all employers send paychecks directly to the government, which would take out what it wants, and then return to the worker what they think he deserves. Read that sentence again.

Then check out the article (excerpt only, please read in full):

The UK's tax ( Read more... )

My favorite essay on US politics is out as a book: The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It
( Read more... )

It's getting to be an election year ritual since re-election of Nixon in 1972: in October, some media story comes out to change individual races or the national picture. Examples in California would be the sudden deep investigative reporting into Schwarznegger just before the 2003 recall election, nationally, we had the Dan Rather scandal ( Read more... )

A little background

You're in the military? Then you may or may not get to vote. And the Justice Department, which is supposed to enforce the law, is wondering whether they should do anything about it. Twelve States have decided that they don't want to comply with laws that would allow military ballots enough time to get back and be counted in ( Read more... )