Media

Accurately described as "One of the Worst Ideas from Congress in Decades," plans to advance the Independent Regulatory Analysis Act were this week delayed until November by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

POLITICO led this morning with a piece arguing that Mitt Romney's clay feet on the subject of national security threaten to turn him into John Kerry. I don't quite buy the comparison, however Kerry-like Mr Romney may be in his stiffness and aloofness; Mr Romney never claimed national security as a core competency, as Mr Kerry did.

A very different kind of organizing campaign than AFSCME’s is going on in states across the country with a single undemocratic purpose: to keep voters away from the ballot box.

A swarm of right-wing loyalists with intimidation on their minds can be expected to descend on polling places in minority neighborhoods this November, two public interest groups warned government officials Monday.

In a new report titled, “Bullies at the Ballot Box,” Demos and Common Cause describe campaigns by conservative groups—particularly the tea party-affiliated True the Vote—to train and deploy as many as 1 million persons to police the polls.

A swarm of right-wing loyalists with intimidation on their minds can be expected to descend on polling places in minority neighborhoods this November, two public interest groups warned government officials Monday.

In a new report titled, “Bullies at the Ballot Box,” Demos and Common Cause describe campaigns by conservative groups—particularly the tea party-affiliated True the Vote—to train and deploy as many as 1 million persons to police the polls.

The new Census data on poverty is out and it's filled with all the usual depressing facts. Fifteen percent of Americans live below the poverty line -- an official threshold which itself is laughably low and detached from reality. More accurate measurements have long found that a greater share of Americans are experiencing serious economic hardship than government statistics imply. 

The Census data released today reinforces that reducing poverty should be a national priority. The headline? From 2010 to 2011 official poverty rate remained flat at 15%. That's better than many analysts expected, but it's still a pressing problem.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, the House GOP is insane. Last February, an article in Bloomberg Businessweek highlighted that since the Solyndra bankruptcy last year:

Even beyond voter ID, the rightwing plans on exercising extralegal, but not necessarily illegal, measures to suppress the vote in 2012. Bullies at the Ballot Box, a new report released jointly by Demos and Common Cause, surveys the state of the laws of ten states: Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.