Writing in The Sacramento Bee , Ward Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute, likens early releases aimed at shrinking California’s prison population to slightly opening the drain of an overflowing bathtub without turning off the spigot. Connerly blames “laws requiring lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent offenders” and “mindless minimum sentences imposed under the state’s ‘two-strikes’ and ‘three-strikes’ laws” for flooding California’s prisons with people who don’t belong there. Regarding a new law that will permit the release of some 6,500 prisoners (out of more than 150,000) during the next year, he observes: California’s secretary of corrections called the law a “win-win situation” because it will cut down on recidivism and allow parole agents to focus attention on more-dangerous former convicts
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Better Than Releasing People Who Don’t Belong in Prison: Not Putting Them There to Begin With
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Four Democratic senators have come out in favor of green energy protectionism according to an AP story the New York Times : A group of Democratic senators urged the Obama administration to suspend an economic stimulus program aimed at financing renewable energy, complaining that money is going to projects that are creating jobs in foreign countries. ”We can’t jump-start our economy and pull ourselves out of this recession if we are putting Chinese workers ahead of American workers,” New York Sen.
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Senators Press For Green Energy Trade War
An experiment reported in the latest issue of Psychological Science suggests that taxes are more effective than subsidies at encouraging people to buy healthier foods. The researchers gave a group of mothers a set amount of play money to purchase pretend food in a simulated grocery store. There were five different shopping conditions: one with regular prices, two where the prices of food with low “calorie-for-nutrition” scores were reduced (by 12.5 percent and then by 25 percent), and two where the prices of food with high calorie-for-nutrition scores were raised by the same percentages
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Were They Hungry a Half-Hour After Eating the Pretend Food?
Columnist Ron Hart writes in The OC Register : Toyota has also recalled that sanctimonious, smug look Prius drivers wear when they talk about how they are saving the earth, one trip to yoga class at a time! On the bright side, liberals are now victims, and they love that about as much. In fact, this problem with electronic braking came about because of federal pressure through CAFE standards, forcing manufacturers to make lighter cars. As they often do, politicians point their fingers at Big Bad Business
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The Latest Toyota Recall
Via the Washington Examiner comes news of a brewing showdown in Fairfax, Virginia, where the school system is looking for a whopping tax increase to pay for teacher retirements and benefits.
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Even More on The Coming War Over Public-Sector Pensions
The New York Times has a story about the amount of money the Congessional Black Caucus has pulled in over the years from big-name corporate donors, often for programs specifically designed not to advance politics but to give underprivileged kis a shot at college and whatnot.
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Congressional Black Caucus Rolling in Green
The Wall Street Journal ’s Jess Bravin and Brody Mullins report on the first move by congressional Democrats to revive campaign finance restrictions in the wake of Citizens United : The proposal, drafted by Sen.
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I’m Rich Uncle Pennybags, and I Approved this Message
Will state governments respond to President Obama’s proposed freeze on a portion of discretionary spending by learning some fiscal discipline? At Jon Fleischman’s essential Cal politics blog Flash Report, Jason Clemens looks at how the loss of an amiable credit market will force politicians to dismantle the Golden State’s bloated, wealth-destroying government: Along the way lenders begin to notice the accumulation of debt and demand higher interest payments to accommodate them for the added risk. This means even higher interest costs, which means even less resources available for a given set of resources.
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A Washington That Can Say No
The parodies have officially begun to write themselves with Jacob Weisberg’s jeremiad against the American people ®, in which the Slate editor-in-chief copes with Scott Brown’s defeat of Martha Coakley by condemning the true criminals: those carriers of “childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence” Weisberg names “the public at large.” Here’s how he unburdens himself: One year ago, 59 percent of the American public liked the stimulus plan, according to Gallup.
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Weisberg: God Bless America? No, God Damn America!
Instead of trumpeting the latest job numbers from recipents of money allocated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the White House at least had the decency to bury them in a Saturday-night blog post and a brief statement by Vice President Joe Biden.
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They’re Not Necessarily Jobs, and They Weren’t Necessarily Created or Saved, but We Gave These Guys Money, and They Gave Us Some Numbers
