The announcement just a few days ago that, Congress willing (and it may not be willing), the USPS will suspend Saturday postal delivery, coming just days after the January 27 rate hike, reminds me of how scurrilous these guys are. It also reminds me of the post I wrote last year, and also of a terrific essay […]

When the Postal Service announced plans to suspend Saturday mail delivery, we speculated that Congress might get in the way, and that’s exactly what’s happening. The Postal Service is going before the Senate today and is expected to defend its decision against the vehement opposition of a group of powerful Senators, including Harry Reid, who believe the […]

Syrian rebels, engaged in a mighty struggle for Damascus, have pushed further into the city than ever before in the two year-old civil war. They have advanced as far as Damascus suburbs in the past, but now, in what they are calling the “Battle of Armageddon,” rebel brigades have moved from the suburbs to the […]

You’d be forgiven for missing the key sentence on immigration reform in President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night. After addressing border security and the pathway to citizenship that undocumented aliens might look forward to, Obama went on to say, “real reform means fixing the legal immigration system to cut waiting periods and […]

San Diego Hospice has just filled for bankruptcy in the face of a federal audit that could force the facility to pay back millions in Medicaid reimbursements. U-T San Diego reports: Medicare pays San Diego Hospice $175 per day for each hospice patient it cares for. However, Medicare expects hospices to admit only patients who […]

Two gender-related issues have been all over the media recently. On January 24, 2013, the Pentagon announced that it was reversing the policy of barring women from combat roles in the military. On January 28, 2013, the Boy Scouts of America said that it was considering a reversal of the national ban on gay youth […]

If you see people walking around today with smudges on their face, don’t worry—the marks are there for a reason. Today is Ash Wednesday, the day that begins the Christian season of Lent. In the Old Testament, ashes are a symbol of repentance and mourning, and Christians don them every year around this time to kick off forty […]

Despite the numerous problems facing state pensions across the country, state politicians are now calling on local pension funds to make “socially responsible investments” in local businesses and other community endavours. The practice is gaining traction on both sides of the aisle, earning the support a diverse group including these two unlikely bedfellows: “Using pension […]

Baltimore is considering an ambitious new plan to stave off bankruptcy by cutting off most new municipal employees from the city’s pension plan. Under Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s proposal, new police would be switched to a hybrid defined-benefit/defined-contribution pension plan, while new civilian employees would get no pensions at all. And while veteran workers would escape the brunt of changes, they […]

Obamacare is going to “screw” America’s youth, the very demographic group that made up some of the President’s most ardent supporters, says Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith: The provisions required to make any sort of health insurance plan work—not just ObamaCare, but really any plan of its sort—require healthy young people to pay more in health insurance than they […]