May 2012

The Republicans have been handed a trifecta of issues to attack Obama with - Benghazi, the IRS, and the AP.
To make the most of it they should stay away from hysteria and hyperbole.
And they should definitely tell Cheney to stay off Fox News. Every time he accuses the Administration of incompetence and lying, he risks reminding the independent voter of the incompetence before 9/11 and the lies before Iraq.

Tyson Foods has just agreed to pay a fine of $4 million for releasing anhydrous ammonia into the air. This violation of the Clean Air Act is linked to one death and several injuries. The chemical is used in the refrigeration units. Fatal chemicals in food processing plants - yum!
And if this is the way companies behave with regulation. Imagine what they would do without it.

Two North Carolina law makers are sponsoring a bill that would establish Christianity as the state's official religion.
They claim that the 1st amendment only applies to the federal government and that the 10th allows states to do what they want.
But what they ignore is that North Carolina's own state Constitution guarantees religious freedom.
Section 13 says, "All persons have a natural and inalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and no human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience".
If the facts are inconvenient, just ignore them I suppose.

Bucking a national trend of virulent partisanship, local politicians in New York are working across the party divide.
State Senator, Malcolm Smith, a Democrat who wanted to run for Mayor of New York City as a Republican (to avoid the competitive Democratic primaries) promised money to a construction project. Which in turn paid bribes to Joseph Savino & Vincent Tabino, two NYC Republican Party officials, to put Smith on the Republican ticket.
Unfortunately the construction concern was an FBI sting. And this bipartisan cooperation is off to court.

The NRA revealed it's plan to deal with gun violence in schools - more armed security.
The low estimate for the cost of that is $6 billion.
Should we take that from states' already stretched education budgets? Or should the federal government pay even while there is a budget "crisis"?
Is it even effective? There was an armed guard at Columbine (13 dead). There were armed police at Virginia Tech (32 dead). Fort Hood (13 dead) is an army base.
It is no coincidence that the only party which benefits from the NRA's plan is the gun industry.