Usury Laws, the Christian Right, and Bad Statistics
A study (or, rather, a report on said study) by two law professors on the relationship between the availability of high-interest payday loans and representation by Christian conservative legislators is generating some blogospheric commentary. The study's abstract: The culture war has become a national moniker describing a variety of policy debates between social conservatives and secular liberal Americans. Hotly ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 17, 2008 07:45
Did Chelsea Clinton Break the Law?
ABC News has the headline "Did Chelsea Clinton Break the Law?" What was her pernicious deed? Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton's Election Day visit to New Haven poll workers Tuesday prompted state election officials to caution that politicking within 75 feet of polling sites is against state law. Two television station reporters told state officials Tuesday morning that Clinton brought poll workers ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 5, 2008 22:07
Michael Vick’s Dogs
Good news for some of Michael Vick's dogs. Ten of the dogs have been taken in by a dog rescue group in San Francisco called Bad Rap. All ten dogs on well on their way to transitioning from a short brutal lives as warriors under a brutal and sadistic man to lives as happy family dogs. His back resting ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on January 27, 2008 15:18
Huckabee Unaware of Iran Report
The most interesting campaign news this morning is a report from The Politico's Jonathan Martin that surging GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was totally unaware of a new National Intelligence Estimate finding that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program four years ago. Kuhn: I don’t know to what extent you have been briefed or been able to take a ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on December 5, 2007 08:28
Hillary Gets Donations From Three Bill Pardoned
The Hillary Clinton campaign kerfuffle of the day is that, as reported by ABC's Jake Tapper, she received contributions from people her husband pardoned. Three recipients of controversial 11th-hour pardons issued by former President Bill Clinton in January 2001 have donated thousands of dollars to the presidential campaign of his wife, Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., according to campaign finance ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on November 15, 2007 16:22
National Toast: Drink a Beer for Michael Jackson
No, not the one-gloved one, the late beer and scotch-drinking Michael Jackson. We are talking about The Beerhunter here. As a fitting wake for the top writer of malted beverages, on Sunday September 30, at 9PM EST (OK, the USA is still on Daylight Savings, so maybe add or subtract one, or drink a beer for both? 9 EST = ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on September 29, 2007 03:26
What’s Wrong with DC?
Ezra Klein ignited a big inside the Beltway cross-blog discussion by positing that Washington, D.C. is much less yuppie friendly than other major cities, notably Seattle and Portland. What makes DC awesome is the collection of people pulled their for work (and no, the existence of the suburbs doesn't change the fact that most of us, Matt [Yglesias] and myself ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on September 26, 2007 12:40
Citrus Sodas Have More Caffeine than Cola
Citrus sodas like Mountain Dew and Vault have more caffeine than colas, according to a study by researchers at Auburn University. The study by [Leonard] Bell and co-author Ken-Hong Chou found caffeine content in 12-ounce sodas ranged from 4.9 milligrams for a store brand of cola to 74 milligrams in Vault Zero, a citrus drink. [...] The Coca-Cola Co., based in Atlanta, and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on September 5, 2007 09:26
Sen. Larry Craig Hits on Male Cop in Restroom
Senator Larry Craig apparently likes to make creepy advances on strange men in airport bathrooms. Unfortunately for him, one of his random targets was a Minneapolis airport policeman. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men’s public restroom, according to an arrest report ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on August 28, 2007 08:34
Karl Rove and the Permanent Campaign
WaPo fronts a story entitled, "How Rove Directed Federal Assets for GOP Gains -- Bush Adviser's Effort to Promote the President and His Allies Was Unprecedented in Its Reach" by John Solomon, Alec MacGillis and Sarah Cohen. It largely rehashes the McClatchy story from Friday night. Thirteen months before President Bush was reelected, chief strategist Karl Rove summoned political ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on August 19, 2007 08:00
