The Supreme Court handed down the long-awaited McDonald v. City of Chicago case. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment is incorporated against the states. It has reversed the decision of the 7th Circuit and ordered it to re-hear the case with both McDonald and Heller in mind. Given that the Chicago handgun ban is substantially similar to D.C.'s ban that was struck down by Heller, Chicago's ban is effectively dead in the water. Read more »

For all of thsoe who haven't been paying attention, there was an
attempted bombing in Times Square over the weekend (info here). Plenty of people in the media and the blogosphere have written about the event. I'd like to focus on what happens now rather than rehash the same old details. Read more »

(My apologies that this is a day late, but better late than never, right?)

As our American readers will know, today, April 15, is Tax Day in the United States. It's the day every year by which the American Taxpayer has to settle his yearly tax bill with the IRS. Naturally, all week, the media and various blogs have been talking about this day. Political Bingo will be no exception! Specifically, we're going to discuss the concept of fair share and fairness. This is a controversial topic, certainly, and it's worth discussing. Read more »

Boxer gets a big boost with a personal Obama appearance for her California Senate seat.

Other successful Obama stump stops in the past few months:

• Martha Coakley, candidate for former Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy's seat, 2009
• Jon Corzine, Governor re-election in New Jersey, 2009
• Creigh Deeds, Governor-candidate for Virginia, 2009

(Hint: All 3 seats went to the Republican challenger.) Read more »

As a sign of the fiscal squeeze pressuring state budgets all over the country, Gov. Paterson has frozen tax refunds for New Yorkers to the tune of a half-billion dollars.

Several hundred thousand New York taxpayers will be affected with most getting an average refund of $1,000. People who filed in late February and early March might have to wait as long as six weeks till the checks are in the mail.

The last few days have seen the emergence of something called the Slaughter Rule as a method of passing the Senate's Health Insurance Reform bill. The technique, more formally known as a "self-executing rule", took on this unfortunate monicker because it was given the parliamentary nod for use in passing the Senate bill by House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter. It's worth noting that the self-executing rule is not a new feature created for this present Congress. It's been in place for quite some time, and has been used over the years for a variety of purposes. Read more »

The last decade or so has seen an almost unprecedented visibility into the sausage-making that is our legislative process. The American People have become much more comfortable with terms like "filibuster" in recent years, particularly since the use of that tactic has become increasingly aggressive over the last decade. Read more »

As part of the weekend round-up, I'll be briefly going over a few stories that caught my attention as the week was winding down:

Bill Reconciliation is the latest parliamentary maneuver that Obama and Congressional Democrats are using to force their Healthcare agenda through Congress and onto the President's desk. Read more »

As you have undoubtedly heard by now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's wife and daughter were in an accident last Thursday (11 March 2010). Both were injured, and Mrs. Reid needed surgery. Hopefully, both will be feeling better soon. Read more »

There seems to be a never-ending debate about the extent to which taxes affect our behavior. The US uses its tax code not only as a source of revenue but also as a way of encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors. Tax policy has consequences (both good and bad), and people do factor taxes into their decision process. The State of Maryland found this out the hard way. Read more »