After 18 Months, Iowa Investigation Finds A Voter Fraud Rate Of .00075 Percent

The Des Moines Register reported Monday that the investigation, which has cost the state about $150,000 so far, has unearthed a total of 16 cases for criminal prosecution.

Five of these cases have been dismissed, while five others have resulted in guilty pleas. Three guilty pleas were submitted by felons who thought their voting rights had been automatically restored upon getting out of prison, as they would have been before a 2011 executive order by Gov. Terry Branstad (R).

via After 18 Months, Iowa Investigation Finds A Voter Fraud Rate Of .00075 Percent | ThinkProgress.

And that’s about how much time we should be spending on “Voter ID” laws.

Massive, willful, voter fraud just doesn’t happen in this country in the modern era.

Congress Passes Budget Deal

“We’re in for a little bit longer of a whole lot of do-nothing Congress,” said Chuck Cushman, a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Government Affairs Institute. “Not enough will have changed for some dramatic explosion of legislative success to occur. It’s not impossible, but I’d be very surprised.”

via Congress passes budget deal, but cuts will sting for some | Al Jazeera America.

At least now the inability of Congress to do anything won’t stop everyone else who serves the public from doing *their* jobs.

Quick ideological sidenote: The GOP continues to refuse to entertain the notion that taxes can be used to pay for debts, and it appears those that have come out *against* this deal (mostly derping Tea Patronizers), are also against any reduction in spending, if it affects the military in any way.   So the Tea Derpers only way to balance the budget excludes any new taxes or any military spending cuts….which is why they should be ignored by rational people, as happened in this debate, and is why we have even a modest deal.

How Politically Distorted Beliefs about Human Resources are Stunting Innovation in America

Meanwhile, child poverty in the United States is higher than what exists in virtually all other rich nations. In a study that examined 41 of the worlds richest countries by the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, the United States ranked 37th, with a child poverty rate of 21% over the last decade; and the majority of these impoverished children are going hungry.

via | Survival State: How Politically Distorted Beliefs about Human Resources are Stunting Innovation in America.

Longer piece with some stats and graphs and a step-back-and-look-at-it style approach.