If red states like Texas see their national political influence shrinking over the next decade, they can send their complaint letters to Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck:

For over a year, rumors and news reports have swirled about stubbornly-chilly relations between the presidents of France and the United States. But with the French presidential couple enjoying a private dinner in the White House with the Obama’s, things seem to have changed. According to Le Figaro columnist Pierre Rousselin, the reason can be summed up in a word: pragmatism. For Le Figaro, Pierre Rousselin...

HI there, Dr. E here. Immigration: Many of us hear not so distant thunder indicating that there will soon arise in full sight another engagement of over the bow broadsides between the tall ships regarding the issues of immigration. Though some think the issue is illegal immigration for it shows above ground so often; that is only a speck of poppy seed in the dirt pile. There are also grave issues of –the...

Calculated Risk has a post showing the Philly Fed State Coincident Indicators which is my favorite aggregate metric because it is calculated on much more mainstreet data. “Twenty five states are showing declining three month activity. The index increased in 18 states, and was unchanged in 7.” It is yet another series that shows how different this recession is: in the past the recession end date was...

That from a NYTimes graphic accompanying their story on state debt woes growing too big to hide. Via Tim O’Reilly, “Always seems to be the ones *talking* small govt….” Continue the conversation @jwindish #TMVcomments. Or email me at joe-AT-joewindish-DOT-com. I won’t be able to respond to every email, but I will publish follow-up posts featuring reader feedback, including feedback...

Where I live in semi-rural Riverside County in Southern California, what once were upscale housing tracts where homeowners associations enforced beautification codes are now crime-infested gated ghettos. My son, whose job takes him throughout the county, described the malaise six months ago and I thought he was exaggerating. Not, in the least, it turns out. My area has been clobbered by the housing market collapse...

In his first interview since the passage of the landmark health care reform bill, President Barack Obama oozed confidence, reiterated his desire to work with GOPers but not at the expense of enacting change, and seemed a bit chastened by what he has learned in office about the Presidency and Washington. The interview with the Today Show’s Matt Laurer was of particular interest amid a news narrative that...

I took some weeks off from blogging on TMV to work on a variety of business and personal projects. I was also at an intellectual impasse after having written way too many posts during 2009. Over most of prior 2 years and the first quarter of 2010, I have preferred to just read the many excellent posts from the smart group of regular TMV contributors, writers and editors. Finally, I was following the latest...

Calculated Risk has a post that must be seen to be believed. First off, look at personal consumption in February, which is back at pre-recession highs. This is quite amazing, and I admit, I am completely flabbergasted. No way did I think that consumer spending would rebound and that is a big assumption in my belief that we are going to have a double dip recession (well more to the point it still hasn’t...

The glaring area in which this Administration has been Change-challenged is up next, and the question is whether the President will direct his new-found audacity at the money manipulators who have been wrecking the economy. Unlike health insurers, the financial industry has little public support after the meltdown, but obfuscation is rife and will get worse as lobbyists pour tons of money into pressuring Washington...

California, being a border state, is in the forefront of a battlefield on immigration reform where political corpses are buried. Just ask Pete Wilson, a former Republican governor exiled to oblivion, who turned the state into a Democratic stronghold for his 1994 support of anti-illegal-immigrant blowback in Proposition 187. After an immediate injunction, the meat and potatoes of Prop.187 was struck down as unconstitutional...

The Fight Against ObamaCare Continues by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown With benefits as notorious as Viagra for pedophiles and rapists, we watched in horror as the American way of life was fundamentally changed by Democratic members of the House of Representatives and Senate. Obama and Pelosi twisted arms and bribed members of Congress into supporting their massive new entitlement program. A feeling of defeat and...

The Unbearable Lightness of Reform by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship That wickedly satirical Ambrose Bierce described politics as “the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” Bierce vanished to Mexico nearly a hundred years ago – to the relief of the American political class of his day, one assumes – but in an eerie way he was forecasting America’s political culture today....

As the son of a farmer, I am all too familiar with the laws of supply and demand involving perishable food products. Even the most urbane of city dwellers know the freshest foods are purchased at their neighborhood farmers market or food co-op or, with luck, one of the remaining mom and pop butcher shops. In a half century of growing vegetables, my dad was lucky enough to corner the produce markets only four...

Doobie or Not Doobie? by David Goodloe It may be an issue whose time has come. And, if that is the case, there may be no more appropriate place for it than California. Voters in that state will decide in November whether to legalize and regulate marijuana use, an issue that has come before voters in other states in other election years but has always failed. In 2010, however, there is an unusual confluence of...

Somebody has to make sure millions of Americans don’t get those unemployment benefits:

The Obama administration can’t get it through its fat heads that helping homeowners from losing their homes does not work. But it keeps trying and praying something might. As they say in New Jersey, forgetaboutit. Every time the government offers help to the homeowner or his lender, the people who President Obama is wont to say — those playing by the rules — get screwed. What we have here folks...

There has long been evidence to support the claim of collusion to rip off the taxpayers by treating municipal bonds far harsher than corporate (a few years ago the ratings agencies got a lot of heat for this and it looked like action was about to be taken by multiple AGs, but then the financial crisis derailed it) but this is the first leak that the government has a criminal probe into specific banks on the...

Only because I mentioned in an earlier column this week that conservative David Frum had spoken out lambasting Republicans for screwing up the health reform opposition did I find it curious he has been fired. My reaction was the universally accepted “Big bad conservative think tank axes writer for criticizing GOP intransigence” as Greg Sargent is quoted in today’s First Read political notes. Sargent...

Not being a professional literary critic I don’t do too many referrals to the work of the other fine authors here at TMV, but this morning I will make an exception. In case you missed it yesterday, I would strongly suggest that you read the column by Robin Koerner, Obama; If This Is True, then Shame on You. Rarely do I run across such an exceptional piece which takes a subject which has been uncomfortably...