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Guidance issued by the Wisconsin Elections Commission resulted in municipal clerks filling out missing witness addresses on absentee ballot certificates, contrary to the plain language of the state law, according to Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. Wisconsin’s statute requires each absentee ballot to be accompanied by a certificate signed by a witness who must write down his or her address. “If a certificate is missing the address of a witness, the ballot may not be counted,” the law states. The Wisconsin Elections Commission appears to have disregarded the statute when, in October, it formally instructed clerks and...

Poll workers in Wisconsin may have unlawfully altered thousands of mail-in ballots due to unlawful guidance from the state’s election commission, according to a report. According to Wisconsin law, an absentee ballot requires that it be signed by a witness who also lists his or her address. Should the ballot not contain the a witness address, the ballot is disallowed and must be returned to the voter so that the witness can provide that information.

Washington, D.C. is the nation’s capital — and its suburbs could be moving towards becoming the nation’s capital of privately owned express toll lanes. The Virginia side of the Potomac has placed a big bet on such roadways, with 14 miles of pay lanes in the middle of the region’s famous Beltway, reversible toll lanes along 29 miles of I-95, and construction under way on three more highway segments. Last September, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced an even more ambitious plan for his side of the river, covering 77 miles of the Beltway and I-270. If these plans go forward,...

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, says that if Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on a budget with significant spending cuts, “spending just keeps going up in an uninterrupted fashion as far as the eye can see. By 2016, all you can see is unending red ink.” He added that he has little confidence that the congressional budget committee meeting officially for just the second time on Wednesday will be able to agree on a budget for the rest of the fiscal year that puts the federal government on an economically sustainable course by...

With Barack Obama re-elected to the White House for four more years, half the country is wondering what we can do to limit the damage. I actually have an answer. In January 2011, after Republicans took over the House, I launched a campaign that now appears to be our only hope of killing off Obamacare, making Obama’s lame-duck second term a nightmare (for him, that is) and actually moving Washington toward a return to limited, constitutional government. And all it takes to do it is the cooperation of the House Republican majority. After Republicans took control of the House in...

‘Today I am pledging to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office,” President Obama boldly declared on February 23, 2009. He added that this “means taking responsibility right now, this administration, for getting our spending under control.”Among Obama’s parade of disappointments, this vehicle may be the most dangerous.Obama was inaugurated about a third of the way through fiscal year 2009, and that year’s deficit totaled $1.41 trillion. Had he halved this shortfall, FY 2012’s deficit should have remained below $705 billion. Instead, it was $1.1 trillion — $395 billion (56 percent) above...

A month before the historic recall that drove Gov. Gray Davis from office in 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared in a TV commercial making a promise to the voters of California."Here's my plan," he said. "Audit everything, open the books, and then we end the crazy deficit spending. "... If you're happy with the way things are, keep your current leaders. If you want to change this state, then join me."Voters joined in droves. But as he prepares to leave office seven years later, Schwarzenegger's promises are a distant echo.He leaves a legacy of landmark environmental laws, public works spending and...

The biggest auditor in the world Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu came up with opinion piece recently on how to deal with ‘The Gap’: Western societies have over-committed their current and future resources… Money has been spent that hasn’t been earned, and promises have been made that cannot be fulfilled. The Gap is popular known as 'the trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities' in social services created over decades of piling up entitlement programs and hefty pensions and benefits. Structural changes in government and bureaucracy are needed: In a world of mobile capital, trans-border exchange, heightened competition, and exponential technological change,...

You've likely seen cartoons from conservative cartoonist Michael Ramirez, this is the best political cartoon I've seen in a while. This guy is awesome. Check out more of his work here. The Looking Spoon is a conservative humor/satire/art/commentary blog, visit www.thelookingspoon.com to see more posts and art

State and local governments have faced big budget gaps before. Typically, things get tight for a while, then the economy perks up, tax revenues recover, and deficits are eliminated. Life goes back to normal. For a variety of reasons, however, today’s budget deficits are different. Government at all levels now faces an inescapable reality – the promises of public services exceed our ability to pay for them – and will do so regardless of when the recession ends. The steady increase in the quantity and cost of public services, coupled with the needs of an aging population and public pension...

It took the Obama administration less than a year to reduce the United States from the country with a currency that is considered a safe haven when international storms threaten, to one that is warned by a rating agency that unless it mends its profligate ways it will lose the triple-A credit rating it has had since U.S. government debt was first assessed in 1917. Who would have thought when Barack Obama took the oath of office some eleven months ago that Dubai World, Greece, the UK, and America would attract the attention of the rating agencies in the same...

The Postal Service reported a loss of $3.8 billion last year, despite a reduction of 40,000 full-time positions and other cost-cutting measures. The loss was $1 billion more than the year before despite job cuts and other efforts designed to save billions of dollars, postal officials said Monday. "Our 2009 fiscal year proved to be one of the most challenging in the history of the Postal Service," Chief Financial Officer Joseph Corbett said. "The deep economic recession, and to a lesser extent the ongoing migration of mail to electronic alternatives, significantly affected all mail products, creating a large imbalance between...

A year ago, the Obama campaign was reeling from a series of attack ads that suggested that the former community organizer saw himself as a messianic figure and juxtaposed Obama’s environmentalist promise to heal the oceans with a film clip of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea from the Cecil B. DeMille Biblical epic “The Ten Commandments.” In retrospect, it seems as if Obama would have been better depicted as being overwhelmed in his attempts to halt the rising tide of red ink that has been the hallmark of his administration. Red ink may threaten to drown generations...

If recent trends continue Hollywood may be looking for a government handout. A surge of liberal style patriotism has gripped the movers and shakers in Hollywood, they have produced movie after movie critical of the war in Iraq. Every one a box office dud. The red ink flowing faster than the blood of Al Qaeda in Iraq as our brave troops hunt them down in every corner of the country. Hollywood reporters seem perplexed -- why isn't the public interested in Iraq war movies? Could it be the clear majority of Americans who consider themselves conservative -- According to this...

There was no Saturday miracle surge for New Line. The Golden Compass, an effects-laden family film starring Nicole Kidman with a reported budget of $200M, received a modest 16% increase from its opening day, posting an estimated $10.2M on Saturday. Assuming a Sunday drop of 33%, Compass will finish its opening weekend with a disastrous $25.84M. (For a comparison to other big budget, family-oriented films in this mold along with details about New Line’s dismal 2007 and Nicole Kidman’s box office cold streak, scroll down to my Friday Night report.) Disney’s Enchanted blew past $80M domestic with a $4.9M Saturday,...

Conservatives target Daschle Center earmark Republicans weren't big fans of Tom Daschle when he was the Democratic leader in the Senate, so it's no surprise they would take particular delight in highlighting a $1 million earmark for the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service. Conservative Republicans in both chambers have seized on the money to argue that Democrats are breaking their own rules by "air-dropping" projects into spending bills without first clearing them with House and Senate negotiators. The money goes to South Dakota State University, and the former senator-turned-lobbyist told the Associated Press that the center would create opportunities...

Looking for a perfect example of why California is unlikely ever to have a balanced budget again until an initiative finally forces lawmakers to end their recklessness? Consider the reaction to a reported Republican proposal on education spending. Under the GOP plan, education spending would go up 3.8 percent this fiscal year, from $55.1 billion to $57.2 billion. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders back spending of $57.6 billion. So by any rational definition, what the Republicans are suggesting is a modest attempt to contain spending growth as part of an overall effort to bring spending in line with revenue....

Arnold Schwarzenegger probably has stunk up his Sacramento smoking tent with more than a few celebratory cigars of late. Nine months ago, after a special election wipeout with few parallels in U.S. history, the governor looked like a political shooting star whose time had quickly come and gone. Nowadays, basking in the on-time passage of a generally lauded state budget and facing a charisma-challenged Democratic opponent with big weaknesses on both taxes and the environment, Schwarzenegger appears on a clear path to re-election. Hold your cheers. The conventional wisdom – sure, he punted on addressing that pesky structural deficit for...

Superficially, at least, the Capitol's annual budget dance resembles what was happening two years ago when Arnold Schwarzenegger was a brand-new governor. Although the budget was awash in red ink in 2004 and Schwarzenegger had been elected on his pledge to clean up the state's fiscal mess, he unilaterally raised spending by $3 billion over his original proposal in an effort to placate Democrats and, he hoped, persuade them to finish the process on time. Schwarzenegger was willing in 2004 to deepen the deficit by spending the extra $3 billion if it bought him an on-time budget, apparently in the...

Newspaper group sees charges linked to cutbacks By Angela Moore, MarketWatch Last Update: 5:19 PM ET Dec. 7, 2005 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Tribune Co. on Wednesday said it expects to have cut 900 jobs by year end to trim costs, and will take fourth quarter charges linked to the move. The job cuts will be mostly in publishing, and will generate severance charges of $40 million to $45 million. In addition, the closing of a Los Angeles Times production facility will result in a non-cash charge of $50 million to $60 million. The newspaper industry has been grappling with...