**Written by Doug Powers I’ll give him this much: with or without a budget, they manage to find ways to spend almost equally irresponsibly, so maybe he’s onto something : At a briefing with journalists on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Hoyer was asked, “Mr. Hoyer, around the same time of the State of the Union [on Jan. 24], I think it was the same day, Republicans were trying to hit Senate Democrats for 1,000 days without passing a budget, and then you talk about this milestone today, 400 days without a jobs bill in the Republican House. But then on Friday [Democratic Senator Harry] Reid said that he didn’t think they needed to bring a budget to the floor this year [and that] the Budget Control Act can serve as a guideline.” Hoyer said: “What does the budget do? The budget does one thing and really only one thing: It sets the parameters of spending and discretionary caps. Other than that, the Appropriations committee are not bound by the Budget committee’s priorities.” He continued: “The fact is, you don’t need a budget . We can adopt appropriations bills. We can adopt authorization policies without a budget. We already have an agreed-upon cap on spending.” They don’t need a budget, and it shows: **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Read more from the original source:
Steny Hoyer: The Fact is You Don’t Need a Budget
No surprises here: California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional, according to a ruling announced Tuesday by an appeals court. The long-awaited ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court is likely to lead to more appeals, and marriages probably will remain on hold until that process ends. The case was pending for months because the court wanted a ruling from the state Supreme Court on whether proponents of Proposition 8 had legal standing under the state’s citizen’s initiative process to appeal the ruling. Here’s the decision: 10-16696 #398_Decision What’s next? Appeals and more appeals : ProtectMarriage, the backers of Proposition 8, can appeal Tuesday’s decision to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit or go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court is expected to be divided on the issue, and many legal scholars believe Justice Anthony Kennedy will be the deciding vote. Gays and lesbians were entitled to marry in California for six months after the California Supreme Court struck down a state ban in May 2008. The state high court later upheld Proposition 8 as a valid amendment of the California Constitution. While the Proposition 8 case was still pending in state court, two same-sex couples sued in federal court to challenge the ban on federal constitutional grounds. *** Tweet of the day: @ arizonashane “Given the opportunity, the 9th Circus would strike down the Constitution as unconstitutional.
The rest is here:
Document drop: Lib 9th circuit panel rules Proposition 8 unconstitutional
**Written by Doug Powers Before the payoff, here’s a brief set-up : Florida’s poor can use food stamps to buy staples like milk, vegetables, fruits and meat. But they can also use them to buy sweets like cakes, cookies and Jell-O and snack foods like chips, something a state senator wants stopped. Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, also wants to limit other welfare funds, known as Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, from being used at ATMs in casinos and strip clubs and anywhere out of state. The bill comes after reports that the debit cards welfare recipients now receive were used in those places, as well as locations in Las Vegas and the Virgin Islands in a small percentage of cases, but the state does not track what items were purchased. The bill recently passed a committee. A companion bill in the state House companion is being considered by a subcommittee. You’d think the food police would be thrilled. If there’s anything they should get behind, it’s an initiative designed to encourage lower income people to avoid unhealthy eats… right? But instead, one Democrat gives us our chuckle of the day by denouncing (albeit selectively) the notion of food police — and maybe even things like health care mandates. Get a load of this : But critics say the government shouldn’t dictate what people eat . “What I choose to ingest even though I may be on food stamps, that’s at my discretion. I don’t need government telling me what I can and cannot purchase ,” said Rep. Gwyndolen Clarke-Reed, a Pompano Beach Democrat who voted in committee against the bill (SB 1658). She said the bill is demeaning and invasive and she worries the education campaign would imply to “minorities and low-income folks that they’re not intelligent enough to make selections on the foods they want.” How many calories are burned by doubling over in laughter for several minutes? Maybe this is part of the “Let’s Move” program and people are being tricked into exercising. It wouldn’t be the first time . **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Original post:
How to Make a Liberal Politician Stand Up Against Intrusive Government
If Rick Santorum surges in the the next few states (Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri’s nonbinding “beauty pageant,” where Newt Gingrich will not appear on the ballot), it’s not that unthinkable that he could end up the premier challenger to Romney. It’s a surprising thought, because since Iowa, Santorum has finished fourth, third, third and fourth. But for whatever it’s worth, Public Policy Polling has Santorum leading Romney slightly in Minnesota and eight percentage points ahead of Gingrich in Colorado for second place. And Romney isn’t competing in Missouri, dismissing the value of a nonbinding contest that amounts to a poll ( albeit one that will cost the state $7 million to administer ). Keep reading this post . . .
Read more:
Are We Due for a Surge for Rick?
This is one of the other big topics of discussion when Professor Greg Joseph and I meet for lunch. USC’s the worst (or at least we think so), although some of the other universities mentioned here are right up there. At New York Times , ” How Big-Time Sports Ate College Life “: IT was a great day to be a Buckeye. Josh Samuels, a junior from Cincinnati, dates his decision to attend Ohio State to Nov. 10, 2007, and the chill he felt when the band took the field during a football game against Illinois. “I looked over at my brother and I said, ‘I’m going here. There is nowhere else I’d rather be.’ ” (Even though Illinois won, 28-21.) Tim Collins, a junior who is president of Block O, the 2,500-member student fan organization, understands the rush. “It’s not something I usually admit to, that I applied to Ohio State 60 percent for the sports. But the more I do tell that to people, they’ll say it’s a big reason why they came, too.” Ohio State boasts 17 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, three Nobel laureates, eight Pulitzer Prize winners, 35 Guggenheim Fellows and a MacArthur winner. But sports rule. “It’s not, ‘Oh, yeah, Ohio State, that wonderful physics department.’ It’s football,” said Gordon Aubrecht, an Ohio State physics professor. Last month, Ohio State hired Urban Meyer to coach football for $4 million a year plus bonuses (playing in the B.C.S. National Championship game nets him an extra $250,000; a graduation rate over 80 percent would be worth $150,000). He has personal use of a private jet. Dr. Aubrecht says he doesn’t have enough money in his own budget to cover attendance at conferences. “From a business perspective,” he can see why Coach Meyer was hired, but he calls the package just more evidence that the “tail is wagging the dog.” Dr. Aubrecht is not just another cranky tenured professor. Hand-wringing seems to be universal these days over big-time sports, specifically football and men’s basketball. Sounding much like his colleague, James J. Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan and author of “Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University,” said this: “Nine of 10 people don’t understand what you are saying when you talk about research universities. But you say ‘Michigan’ and they understand those striped helmets running under the banner.” For good or ill, big-time sports has become the public face of the university, the brand that admissions offices sell, a public-relations machine thanks to ESPN exposure. At the same time, it has not been a good year for college athletics. Child abuse charges against a former Penn State assistant football coach brought down the program’s legendary head coach and the university’s president. Not long after, allegations of abuse came to light against an assistant basketball coach at Syracuse University. Combine that with the scandals over boosters showering players with cash and perks at Ohio State and, allegedly, the University of Miami and a glaring power gap becomes apparent between the programs and the institutions that house them. “There is certainly a national conversation going on now that I can’t ever recall taking place,” said William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University of Maryland system and co-director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. “We’ve reached a point where big-time intercollegiate athletics is undermining the integrity of our institutions, diverting presidents and institutions from their main purpose.” RTWT.
Read the original here:
Big-Time Sports Have Become the Public Face of American Universities
The Daily Mail ran a story yesterday comparing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Russian James Bond villain Rosa Klebb . But Clinton also shares a striking resemblance to this Russian nesting doll:
Read the original post:
Hillary Clinton: Russian spy or Russian toy?
Romney leads polls ahead of Saturday’s caucuses, but the state’s splintered GOP spells opportunity for all.
Continue reading here:
Nevada, Where Laggards Can Win
AP – During the 2010 special election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, then-candidate Scott Brown vowed to be the “41st” vote against President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care overhaul.
Go here to see the original:
In Mass. Senate race, GOP’s Brown embracing Obama
(AP)
