Recommended Reading: 11/25/2010

The Wonk Monkey is looking forward to eating lots of food tonight. He was also looking forward to a news story of Thanksgiving and he found one at the top of his search list. It is a good day.

Three teens, presumed dead, have been found northeast of Fiji.

The boys – two 15-year-olds and a 14-year-old – disappeared while attempting to row between two islands in the New Zealand territory of Tokelau in early October and were given up for dead after an extensive search involving New Zealand's air force.

Tanu Filo, the father of one boy, said the news was broken by one of the teens' grandmother after she had a phone call from the fishing boat.

"It's a miracle, it's a miracle. The whole village, the whole village, there were so excited and cried and they sang songs and hugging each other, yeah, on the road. Everybody was yelling and shouting the good news," he told Radio New Zealand International.

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The Color Coded terror threats initiated by the Bush Administration are going the way of the dodo.

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It is Half True that the dollar has lost %98 of its value under the Fed.

So the Tea Party, despite its disputed methods, wound up with a figure that’s in the ballpark.

But in bemoaning the drop in value of a dollar, the Tea Party omits a huge mitigating factor: salaries have grown enormously since 1913 and consumers have more to spend. If the Fed’s historic handling of inflation is to be blamed for the drop in the dollar, it must be credited for the rise in wages.

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Tom Delay has been found guilty of money laundering.

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In order to get girls to stop getting married without permission, a town in India is taking away their cellular phones.

Recommended Reading: 11/24/2010

The Wonk Monkey has been ill the last few days. No amount of bannana’s or scratching could get him to play close attention to the news. That said, he is feeling better today so he is back to work. Good Monkey.

The Fed is starting to subpoena Hedge Funds on suspicions of insider trading.

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The bombings of a South Korean island by North Korea is an attempt to better position themselves for the upcoming peace negotiations.

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There are 860 banks that are on the Federal Governments list of problematic financial companies in danger of being shut down.

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Joseph Lieberman will need to either retire or run as a Republican in 2012.

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It is Half True that Thomas Jefferson called regulations and “endemic weakness.”

Scott accurately quoted Jefferson, but he took the line out of context to advance his own argument against government regulation. Jefferson was no big-government liberal (He once lauded the "suppression of unnecessary offices (and) useless establishments and expenses."). But in this case he was more upset about King George than he was about government intervention. We rate Scott’s statement Half True.

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It is Mostly True that free trade has brought about a 2 billion trade deficit.

Yet even if we were to put those numbers aside and only use the Commerce Department numbers, Brown’s figures were close to the mark before the recession. This year is not the best year to measure the normal effects of trade, and no one can predict the future; perhaps the trade deficit will stabilize at a lower number such as $500 billion a year, or $1.36 billion a day.  Perhaps it won’t.

But based on the historical trends, regardless of which data source is used, we say Brown’s claim is Mostly True.

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An Executive has been arrested for Insider Trading, and more are expected in the future.

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Elizabeth Warren was instrumental in getting President Obama to veto a bill that would have sped up foreclosures. In light of the robo signing problem that banks are now facing, it looks like she was correct in opposing this bill.

The bill, which passed both houses of Congress and awaited President Obama's signature to become law, essentially would have compelled notaries to accept out-of-state notarizations, regardless of the rules in those states.

State officials across the country--who have been pursuing probes looking into wrongdoing within the foreclosure process-- feared that those jurisdictions with lax standards could have become hotbeds for foreclosure documentation fraud. Lenders and mortgage companies could have used those states as central clearing houses to produce bogus foreclosure paperwork, and then export those documents to other states with more stringent regulations--an expedient bypass around the strictures.

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WikiLeaks is about to strike again.

Classified U.S. diplomatic cables reporting corruption allegations against foreign governments and leaders are expected in official documents that WikiLeaks plans to release soon, sources said on Wednesday.

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So much for the vow to stop Pork Barrel Spending.

Only three days after GOP senators and senators-elect renounced earmarks, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, got himself a whopping $200 million to settle an Arizona Indian tribe's water rights claim against the government.

Recommended Reading: 11/19/2010

The Wonk Monkey had a great parent-teacher conference yesterday. Thing 2 is doing great in school. The Monkey is happy, very happy.

 

So, lets start off with some disturbing news… the fetuses of 2,000 illegal abortions were found at a Thai Buddhist Temple.

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Democratic donors are looking to setup a funding operation much like the Republicans did in the last election cycle.

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The the poverty rate was kept from reaching record levels due to extended unemployment benefits in 2009 according to the CBO.

Extended unemployment insurance put in place to fight the recession prevented the poverty rate from rising to 15.4 percent in 2009, a level unseen since the 1960s, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The government announced in September that that the 2009 poverty rate had risen to 14.3 percent from 13.2 percent the previous year.

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Interestingly charitable giving has been slumping because… charities are getting too much monkey from Uncle Sam.

Each year, the government gives thousands of grants to public-spirited nonprofits, many of which depend on these funds for a huge chunk of their budgets. But this “crowds out” private donors, according to a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Public Economics. For each $10,000 in annual government grant money, the study shows, nonprofits cut fundraising by an estimated $1,370, and private charitable donations fell by about $7,271.

This dynamic shows how much charities dislike shaking cups for cash. It also suggests that another golden age of philanthropy is a simple fix away. University of California, San Diego, economist James Andreoni, who coauthored the study, notes that if the government made continued fundraising a condition of every grant, the charitable pot might be supersized.

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This time Joe Scarborough has been suspended for campaign contributions.

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What does it say about the electorate that over half of them don’t know the Republicans only took over the House and not the Senate.

Only 46 percent of respondents in a Pew Research poll released Thursday knew that the GOP had taken over only the House, while a mere 38 percent can identify Ohio Republican John Boehner as the incoming speaker. Three times as many young people, under age 30, could properly identify Google's new phone software, Android, as could identify Boehner.

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President Obama was dressed down yesterday by some of the Senate Democrats.

Added one veteran senator: “It was the most frank exchange of views I’ve ever seen.”

Several senators expressed the opinion that Obama needed to show more passion, while party liberals renewed their complaint that Obama should abandon the pretense of bipartisanship in the face of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s intransigence and what they consider the Kentucky Republican’s blatantly political tactics aimed at making Obama a one-term president.

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The Justice Department can no longer force defendants to sign a document that would forever bar the defendant from requesting DNA testing in order to prove their innocence.

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The Health Industry is against the repeal of the new healthcare law.

He says the reason is that the more people there were without health insurance, the more that threatened the industry financially. In other words, its entire business model was about to fall apart.

"The health care industry needs paying customers and insured customers to make that business model work," he says. "To the extent that Republicans push repeal, they are threatening the bottom line of the health care industry, and I think they're going to find that many elements of the health care industry are going to oppose repeal."

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Apparently a bunch of children who were brought to see Megamind got to see the opening of a completely different movie… Saw 3D.

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Net Neutrality is moving forward in the FCC

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It is Mostly True that cutting earmarks will not reduce spending.

Indirectly, earmarks may have an I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-mine effect that pushes spending upward. Under the status quo, however, our experts agreed that Lugar is largely correct -- ending earmarks won't directly reduce spending, only re-direct it. There are other plausible reasons to advocate for an earmark ban, such as ending unseemly horse-trading with taxpayer dollars. But without a thorough overhaul of the budgeting process, saving money directly isn't one of them. We rate Lugar's statement Mostly True.

Recommended Reading: 11/18/2010 Part 2

The Wonk Monkey is excited today. He gets to go and sit down with Thing #2’s teacher and discuss how he is progressing. For some reason, the Wonk Monkey enjoys finding out how things are and coming up with a plan to make progress.

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Yes, Nancy Pelosi is the most unpopular politician in the country. Nate at FiveThirtyEight shows her favorability ratings compared with many of the other politicians working right now.

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Robert Reich makes an impassioned plea to extend the jobless benefits for the long term unemployed while at the same time not giving tax cuts to the Rich.

The long-term unemployed can’t get work because there are still five people needing work for every job opening. And the long-term jobless are often at the end of the job line: Either they don’t have the right skills or enough education, or have been out of work so long prospective employers are nervous about hiring them.

Moreover, the top 1 percent spends a small fraction of their income. That’s what it means to be rich — you already have most of what you want. So extending the Bush tax cut to them won’t stimulate the economy.

Yet people without jobs, and their families, are likely to spend every penny of unemployment benefits they receive. That will go back into the economy and save or create jobs.

A Labor Department report shows that for every $1 spent on unemployment insurance, $2 are spent in the economy. If you don’t believe the Labor Department, maybe you’ll believe Goldman Sachs analyst Alec Phillips, who estimates that if unemployment benefits are allowed to expire, the American economy would slow by a half a percent.

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For once a politician (President Obama) is governing exactly as he said he would.

Yet Obama is doing exactly what he said he would do. Perhaps the critics should read—or reread—the president’s own books. Dreams From My Father (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006) are the most substantial works written by anyone elected president since Woodrow Wilson (who wrote several books before he won election in 1912). In laying out his philosophy, Obama contrasts the GOP’s excessive individualism with the ideal of “ordered liberty” and the rich traditions of civic engagement typical of America in the 18th and 19th centuries. He also criticizes orthodox Democrats for too quickly dismissing market solutions and too often defending failed government programs. Above all, he criticizes the hyperpartisan atmosphere of contemporary public life.

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Scientists have been able to trap anti-matter.

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There appears there will be little chance of the debt commission being considered.

Congress won't act on their ideas to bring down the deficit unless 14 of the 18 members of their commission sign off on it. And the early reviews of the draft proposal they released last week have not been favorable.

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NPR has provided some interesting coverage of the Senate Hearing of Medicare Chief Donald Berwick.

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After 18 hearings the START treaty does not look like it is going to be approved by the Senate any time soon. The START treaty limits the number of warheads the US and Russia is allowed to have on hand.

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Members of Congress, unlike their constituents, have felt little pain in the economic downturn.

“Few federal lawmakers must grapple with the financial ills -- unemployment, loss of housing, wiped out savings -- that have befallen millions of Americans,” said Sheila Krumholz, the Center for Responsive Politics’ executive director. “Congressional representatives on balance rank among the wealthiest of wealthy Americans and boast financial portfolios that are all but unattainable for most of their constituents.”

In 2009, the median wealth of a U.S. House member stood at $765,010, up from $645,503 in 2008. The median wealth of a U.S. senator was nearly $2.38 million, up from $2.27 million in 2008.

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When the Republican members of Congress decided to decline a bi-partisan meeting at the White House I don’t think they expected this.

With Republican leadership asking for, and receiving, a delay in a previously announced bi-partisan meeting at the White House, Democrats have decided to make it a partisan affair.

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The odds of Guantanamo being closed have been reduced with the failure of convicting Ahmed Ghailani of all 284 counts.

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Roger Ailes (Fox News’ President) loves hyperbole. In a recent interview with the Daily Beast he said.

“They are, of course, Nazis,” Ailes said of NPR. “They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view.”

He also doesn’t have kind words to say about John Stewart.

Ailes told Kurtz that Stewart’s free to go after cable news talking heads for the entertainment value, “but don’t give me a social speech on the steps of the Washington Monument. Don’t lapse into non-comedy.”

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Democrats will be pressing forward with votes on the DREAM Act and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

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There is an interesting poll about the roll of Religion and Politics.

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It is True that the amount of radiation coming from the new TSA body scanners is “equivalent to about three minutes worth of air travel by anybody at 30,000 feet.

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It is Half True that 153 businesses have moved from California to Texas.

Still, based on the limited information D&B has shared, it looks like Texas netted 61 business sites from California from January through August, less than half the one-way total that Perry cites. Also, as D&B advised us, not all of the 153 sites that came here from there necessarily reflect whole companies making the move east. Instead, the 153 moves could have involved individual offices or branches of firms that continue to do business in California.

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Pants on Fire for the following statement (Michelle Bachmann):  “These are people who, who are carpet layers who maybe employ two or three other guys, or a plumber, maybe himself and his brother, and it's $250,000 in gross sales for their business. They're the ones that are looking at massive tax increases."

As Politifact reports:

It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now. Here's why: Plumbers -- or any other small business owner -- get to deduct their business expenses, so they'd have to be bringing in more than $250,000 in gross sales. The tax laws allow small business owners to deduct all kinds of business expenses: employees' pay, supplies, a car or truck, fuel costs, advertising, association dues, utilities, shop repairs, and the list goes on. (For more details, read chapter 8 of the Tax Guide for Small Business published by the IRS.)

Recommended Reading 11/16/2010

A second poll, this one by CNN, indicates that the last election was not an indication of approval for the Republican platform.

Asked whether the election provided a mandate for Republicans or was a rejection of Democrats, 70 percent said the midterms were a negative reaction to the governing party. Only 17 percent said the election provided the GOP with a mandate.

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Politico has a great article on how Healthcare Exchanges are working in the few states that already have them and what to expect. By law, the states are required to roll out their Healthcare Exchanges in 2013.

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To steal the headline, Congressional Freshmen vow not to party like it’s 1994.

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Politifact gives a huge Pants On Fire (their lowest rating) to George Allen’s statement: “The new Congress must repeal and cutoff any additional money borrowed and set aside for Obama, Reid and Pelosi's $1.2 trillion stimulus spending bill.”

Allen is not only exaggerating the spending total by President Obama and the Democratic leaders of Congress, he is doing it by including billions of dollars passed under a Republican president. That’s just not false, it’s ridiculous. So we have to set the meter ablaze. Pants on Fire.

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Politifact says it is True that: “If you look at our spending, it's the highest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years, revenue is the lowest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years, so we're going to have to work both sides of the equation.”

In 2009, tax receipts accounted for 14.8 percent of GDP. According to the table, tax receipts as a share of GDP were always higher all the way back through 1950, when they accounted for 14.4 percent of GDP. That would be 59 years -- not quite 60, but very, very close.

The recession factors into the tax revenue statistic as well. Both the 2008 stimulus package under President George W. Bush and the 2009 stimulus under President Barack Obama included tax breaks as a major component.

Because the statistics show a number so close to 60 years -- and because Conrad was speaking during a television interview rather than a prepared speech or written statement -- we'll give him some leeway and rate the statement True.

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Politifact finally give a True rating to the following statement: “We now consume at the federal level 25 percent of the gross domestic product. Historically we were at 20 percent. So we've taken 5 percent away from the private sector.”

In fact, the only other years since 1950 in which federal spending exceeded 23 percent of GDP came in 1982 and 1983, with 23.1 percent and 23.5 percent, respectively. That was during and immediately after the last recession that rivaled the current one in severity, the 1981-82 recession. Economic downturns tend to affect this statistic because they slow GDP and increase the demand for government services. Even without special stimulus measures, spending goes up for mandatory items such as food stamps.

So in 1983, under a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, the government spent just 1.2 percentage points less than the current level, which suggests that the recession shouldn't be ignored as a major reason why spending is so high.

Still, Paul's larger point is valid. Federal spending is now approximately 25 percent of GDP, and that level is roughly 5 percentage points higher than the historical pattern. So we rate his statement True.

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President Obama and some top Democrats are pushing for the passage of the Dream Act during the lame duck session of Congress.

The legislation would grant undocumented students who were brought into the United States as minors by their parents a path to citizenship through higher education or military service.

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For the first time since Vietnam, a living soldier has been awarded the Metal of Honor.

"You may believe that you don't deserve this honor, but it was your fellow soldiers who recommended you for it," Obama told Giunta at the White House Tuesday. "For your service, we're all in your debt, and I'm proud to be your commander in chief."

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Charlie Rangle is guilty of ethics violations and will be given censure and a letter of reprimand.

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The Merchant of Death if finally on US soil.

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John McCain is calling for the military to trim $100 billion from their budget.

Recommended News: 11/15/2010

NPR looks into cranberries and their medicinal effects.

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The number of people unemployed for six months or longer are at levels is at levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Over 40 percent of the unemployed — more than 6 million Americans — have been out of work for than six months or longer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"Once people become unemployed for long periods of time, you start seeing a serious depreciation or reduction in their skill levels — in the human capital that they carry."

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Filibusters are holding up many important posts in our government and the situation is reaching critical levels.

One of them is Jim Cole. The White House nominated him almost six months ago to be the Justice Department's deputy attorney general, kind of like the chief operating officer for the entire department.

"The deputy attorney general job is the person who actually runs the Justice Department day to day," said Jeffress, who has written to urge the Senate to confirm Cole, "the person who is the decision-maker on many, many criminal cases, the person who is the decision-maker on many, many personnel issues. And it's extremely important to have somebody who not only has law enforcement experience but who is a good manager."

Shortly after Cole's nomination in May, Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions criticized him for his work in private legal practice, monitoring the fallen insurance giant AIG, and for his approach to national security.

"He's written an op-ed, for example, that suggests that he believes the 9/11 attacks were criminal acts, not acts of war," Sessions told NPR at the time.

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Nordstrom Rack is opening an online store.

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Charlie Rangles ethics hearing has started and a top ethics lawyer testified that there is no evidence of corruption.

"It's hard to answer the question of personal financial benefit," Chisam added. " I think the short answer is probably no. Do I believe that based on the record that Congressman Rangel took steps to benefit himself based on his position in Congress? No. I believe that the congressman, quite frankly, was overzealous in many of the things he did. And sloppy in his personal finances."

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Rangle walked out of his ethics hearing, which will speed things up considerable.

With Rangel gone – foregoing the 10 hours he was granted to defend himself - the committee moved very quickly through the case and spent just 80 minutes reviewing the allegations before retiring to decide whether it would approve a "motion for summary judgment."

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Blue Dog Democrats are trying to strip away some of Nancy Pelosi’s power.

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Politifact has provided a fact sheet on reducing the national debt.

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Politifact rates the following statement as False: Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme.

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Thinks are looking decidedly bad for Charlie Rangle.

In an ominous sign for Representative Charles B. Rangel, the House ethics committee on Monday said the facts presented by a prosecutor accusing Mr. Rangel of violating Congressional rules were not in dispute and that the congressman himself had not refuted the charges.

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Sex Rehab centers are springing up like flowers in spring time.

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A perfect example of the unbiased coverage offered by Fox News.

News of Note: 11/13/2010

The Wonk Monkey is glad it is the weekend, now for the news.

Aung San Suu Kyi is finally free after seven years of house arrest.

In the Presidents weekly address he is targeting earmarks. However, he calls congress to task on this as well.

“That’s why I’ve submitted to Congress a plan for a three-year budget freeze, and I’m prepared to offer additional savings,” Obama said. “But as we work to reform our budget, Congress should also put some skin in the game.”

Abortion, of all things, is turning out to be a political winner for Democrats in some states.

By branding Republican challengers as outside the cultural mainstream on the issue, Democrats managed to hold on to at least a slice of the political center by courting and winning over moderate women in a handful of key states.

Few of the upcoming contenders for the Presidential Election in 2012 have served in the military.

Of the 16 top GOP presidential prospects for 2012, only Rep. Ron Paul and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have ever served in the Armed Forces. Since President Barack Obama also never served in the military, the odds are that in two years, Americans are likely to cast their votes in the first presidential race in nearly 70 years where neither major party nominee has ever worn the nation's uniform.

The new Democratic leadership in the House is starting to take shape.

House Democrats have reached a deal to keep both Reps. Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn in the leadership, with Hoyer (D-Md.) serving as minority whip and Clyburn (D-S.C) taking a new, as-yet-still-undefined number three position.

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Politifacts of the Day:

It is Mostly True when President Bush said: that the ratio of the deficit to gross domestic product during his time in office "was lower than Ronald Reagan's by half. Lower than my dad's. And only [worse than] Bill Clinton among modern presidents. ... My debt to GDP was the lowest or one of the lowest of modern presidents. My taxes to GDP was the lowest and my spending to GDP" was too.

The younger Bush went from a 1.3 percent surplus to a 3.2 percent deficit, a decline of 4.5 percentage points. The best was Clinton, who moved the deficit from a 3.9 percent deficit to a 2.4 percent surplus -- a positive change of 6.3 percentage points. The other presidents all had changes up or down that were roughly two percentage points or smaller.

This suggests that Bush's fiscal record wasn't so sterling if you use a different measure than the one he did. But to analyze the accuracy of his statement, we'll stick closely to the words he used. George W. Bush is correct that he outperformed his father, Reagan and (mostly) Clinton. So if you consider those the "modern" presidents, he's essentially right. If you broaden the "modern presidents" to include those serving in the entire post-World War II period, Bush is about average. While we wouldn't have chosen to define the "modern presidents" to include just the four that Bush mentioned by name, we'll give him some deference in framing the question. So we rate his statement Mostly True.

New Update for 11/9/2010

In the House, many conservatives don’t think Fred Upton is is conservative enough to run the Energy and Commerce Committee.

David Headley, an American man known to U.S. authorities as a convicted drug dealer with ties to radical Muslims, was able to slip through the cracks to help plan the Mumbai hotel attacks of 2008

NPR does another touching remembrance of a fallen soldier, this time it is of Sgt. 1st Class Ronald Grider was killed in Afghanistan in September on his 30th birthday. The Wonk Monkey is not sure why more news organizations aren’t paying these kinds of tributes to those who have lost their lives for their country.

Officials report that the would like to start pulling troops from Afghanistan in 2014.

Some people are trying to help homeowners who are on the verge of foreclosure.

Michael Bennett, Democratic Senator from Colorado, talks about what he would like to accomplish in the next session of Congress.

In his overseas trip President Obama criticizes Israel for their increased settlement builds and China for artificially devaluing their currency in order to drive up exports. Meanwhile, he receives criticism for the Federal Reserves recent moves.

No one is going to face charges for destroying the CIA torture tapes.

Cruise trip from hell.

Lol, Alvin Green is thinking about running for president.

Growing protests over the Feds decision to de-value US currently is growing.

Once again employers hands are getting tied, this time they are being told they cannot fire someone over a Facebook post.

Oh no, we are running out of chocolate.

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Politifact Ratings of the Day:

• It is Mostly True that Georgia and other states with weak gun laws have more crime.
• It Mostly True that "The interest on the debt now is going to approach in the next couple of years ... what we spend in the national defense budget."
• And it is Barely True that About 1 in 10 public school teachers in Wisconsin would have been laid off without federal stimulus funds.
  

To illustrate his point about the benefit of stimulus funding, Doyle argues that 1 in 10 public school teachers -- out of some 60,000 in the state -- would be out of work without the stimulus money. But his math is based on an assumption that teachers would have been targeted at the same proportion as support staff and ignores the practical realities of how the money came in during two budget years, which means some of the jobs may have been saved twice.

Reading Recommendations: 11/5/2010–Evening Edition

Wonk Monkey enjoys his mother-in-laws chicken pillows. They were particular good today and he appreciates the effort that she made in making them for him and his family. But now the monkey thinks… how much better would they taste if they were banana pillows?

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The Wonk Monkey has also been placing a lot of thought into the issue of Taxes. In many other countries people have much higher tax rates, and although they wouldn’t mind having them lowered (who doesn’t like a few extra bananas in their pocket) they do value them. They even call them value added taxes.

So the question needs to be asked, how can you value a tax if you don’t even know where your bananas are going? Of course, even if you don’t like where your bananas are going you still want to know what they are being used for (building forts, cars, turning them into Frisbees).

Apparently the Wonk Monkey is not the only one asking this question. According to the Wall Street Journal a group called Third Way has just released an itemized tax receipt for two theoretical couples.

What a great idea.

 

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Banks are preparing new fees, and increasing minimum payments in order to try and force people to pay late and thus charge more late fees.

The US Economy Added 151,000 Jobs (with a chart, who doesn't like a chart).

Wonk Monkey hopes Representative Maxine Waters (D) gets the book thrown at her for this.

This is exactly what the United States Government didn’t want, a second WikiLeaks.

Reading Recommendations: 11/4/2010

The Wonk Monkey has been enjoying the beautiful weather outside by swinging on trees and hooting. This is the kind of weather he wishes he had in the summer.

Looking over the web today, here are things that caught his eye:

FactCheck.org shreds the false claim that President Obama's trip to Mumbai will cost $200,000,000 per day.

Monkey finds it interesting that Oklahoma just Outlawed the 10 Commandments.

The enthusiasm gap and how it played out state-by-state.

Daylight Savings Time has an effect on Television Ratings

Wonk Monkey was surprised when Harry Reid defeated Sharon Angle. This is how he did it.

One of the biggest results of the election (and the reason why the monkey believes partisan tensions will increase dramatically) will be the amount of oversight the White House is about to face.

Polls indicate that the mandate Republicans claim doesn't actually exist.

Fathers suffer from post partum depression

High-Risk Insurance Pools Attract Fewer Than Projected (8,011 of the projected 375,000)

The Monkey saw this coming. The Republican establishment vs. the Tea Party.

What progressives are urging Obama to do... push forward with another aggressive agenda and bypass congress. The Wonk Monkey doesn't believe this will actually happen. Despite opinions to the contrary, Obama is a bit to much of a moderate to take such an aggressive stand in this political climate.

Exit Poll Statistics for all of you data monkeys.

Krugman's take on President Obama's press conference yesterday (in short, his opinion is: "Urk", "Nobody cares about this stuff")

Tea Party Clout: How Will It Affect Congress, 2012?

U.S. Uncovers Major Cross-Border Drug Tunnel

Ozzy Osbourne Is a Mutant (Literally)

 

The Monkey has noticed a few articles about why the Healthcare Bill cannot be reversed and how it will be difficult to even slow it down.

1. McConnell: Rapid health repeal unlikely

2. NPR: Repealing the Health Care Bill will not be easy