Dan here…In the middle and late eighties grants went out to train police on methods of intervention into domestic violence.  In my experience on the North Shore Boston, police chiefs seemed to agree this was the most dangerous situation officers faced on a routine basis.  There were also efforts to re-orient police departments to be […]

The big news story of the last 24 hours, of course, is the Senate Intelligence Committee’s sickening torture report.  But you might also have heard about Wyo. Rep. Cynthia Lummis’s dramatic statement yesterday as a member of Darrell Issa’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Jonathan Gruber/Marilyn Tavenner Obamacare hearing. The purpose of the hearing […]

Hospitals are just not producing at the same rate they used to. In particular, they are not producing as many avoidable deaths. Wide-ranging efforts to make hospital care safer have resulted in an estimated 50,000 fewer patients dying because of avoidable errors in the past three years, according to a new report presented by government […]

Guest Post by Mark Jamison, retired Postmaster. News of Ron Johnson the Tea Party favorite from Wisconsin taking over as chair of the Senate committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs has caused an overwhelming sense of panic among progressives and postal workers. Johnson will control oversight of the Postal Service in the Senate. There […]

Dan here…Sometimes I don’t know the questions to ask.  Here is a note on water…. by David Zetland  (from Aguanomics) Does fixing a mistake make it worse? EC writes from Florida: One of the big questions staring me in the face is… as we reach the limits of sustainable use without “significant harm” to the […]

Via Naked Capitalism: Elizabeth Warren tore into FHFA director Mel Watt over his failure to develop a program for Fannie and Freddie to provide principal modifications to underwater borrowers at risk of foreclosure. She also got in a dig for his failure to stop the agencies from pursuing deficiency judgments. That means going after former […]

Tim Worstall at Forbes takes issue with my last post, claiming that we actually don’t know that U.S. state and local governments give more in location incentives than EU Member States do. He then says that while it is true that EU states give less in cash grants and other kinds of subsidies defined as […]

As if any more proof were needed, I recently came across yet more evidence that U.S. state and local governments give far more in location incentives than EU Member States do. A paper given this spring at the annual meeting of the Association des Économistes Québécois (Association of Quebecois Economists) includes a summary of project-by-project […]

So who won the 2014 midterm elections? The easy answer is the Republican Party. On election night, the party managed to seize control of the Senate by picking up at least seven seats previously held by Democrats, a goal that has eluded Republicans since 2006. The GOP also captured at least 14 House races, expanding […]

If they had proper regard for science, politicians in both parties would fight harder against the devastating cuts to federal research that have happened under sequestration, endangering medical progress and jeopardizing our global leadership. And lawmakers trying to prove their fiscal prudence wouldn’t irresponsibly smear all scientific inquiry by cherry-picking and theatrically denouncing the most […]