Below The Beltway

A few days ago the House Republicans opened a web site called America Speaking Out designed to be yet another one of those opportunities to plow the wisdom of the vast unwashed.
Well, it didn’t work out so well:
“End Child Labor Laws,” suggests one helpful participant. “We coddle children too much. They need to spend [...]

With news late today that the head of the Scottish National Party is calling for an anti-Tory Parliamentary alliance, the math in Great Britain has gotten just a little more interesting:
No party has enough seats to win votes in parliament without the support of members of other parties.
The Conservatives are the largest party with a [...]

Cato’s Dan Mitchell makes the case:

Late yesterday, the Republican National Committee fired the staffer responsible for making the reimbursement request for a party at a Hollywood nightclub:
A Republican National Committee staffer who accompanied a group of young donors to a bondage-themed West Hollywood club and then expensed the nearly $2,000 tab has been fired by the committee, POLITICO has learned.
RNC [...]

The New York Times wrote yesterday about the widespread speculation that there will be at least one Supreme Court retirement when the Court’s term ends in June:
No announcement has been made, but the widely anticipated retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens in coming weeks has the White House, Senate and lobbying groups bracing for an [...]

The Washington Post, of all places, explains today why the CBO numbers released yesterday should not be trusted:
The latest estimate of what health-care reform would mean for the government’s finances was such a hot document Thursday that at times the Congressional Budget Office’s Web site couldn’t handle the traffic.
But as much as the 25-page “score” [...]

Yet more evidence that the health care reform battle has now planted it’s feet firmly on the third rail of American politics, abortion:
One of Congress’s foremost champions of abortion rights said on Monday that the Senate did not have the votes to add a more restrictive anti-abortion amendment to health care reform legislation.
Senator Barbara Boxer [...]

According to the latest Rasmussen Poll:
If the choice for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 comes down to a choice between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, Huckabee has a slight edge
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone  survey of Republican voters finds that 44% prefer Huckabee, 39% favor Romney, and 17% are not sure.
Data released yesterday [...]