In retrospect, a significant policy and political mistake made by Democrats back in early 2009 was to ever start adopting only temporary extensions of unemployment. The result has been that, over the past two years, the need for a series of temporary extensions of unemployment. Eventually, these temporary extension become political footballs that suck up [...]

The United States government has a general policy against paying ransom for a hostage. This is not because paying ransoms is an ineffective policy. Most hostage takers would be happy to return the hostage for money, so as a short-term solution, it does work. The problem is, long term, paying ransom just encourages many more [...]

Talk about bad timing. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin launched a campaign today to end the filibuster and restore the ability for a simple majority of senators to pass legislation. His efforts include an email to supporters directing them to sign a petition at fedupwiththefilibuster.com to stop the abuse of rules that prevent majority rule. [...]