Tim Storey, writing for NCSL’s “The Thicket” has a blog post entitled Reapportionment is Coming. Reapportionment is the decennial process by which Congressional seats are apportioned among the states. Since the total number of Congressional seats are capped at 435, as the population shifts in the U.S., the allotment of Congressional seats has to be shifted accordingly.

Among other things:

Redistricting consultant Kim Brace of Election Data
Services ran the 2006 estimates through the apportionment formula and
found that if the 2006 data were used, six states would gain seats in
the U.S. House (and electoral votes), and seven states would lose a
seat. The winners: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Texas (+2) and
Utah.  And the states losing seats: Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts,
Missouri, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Brace’s full analysis is
available here. 

Redistricting consultant Clark Bensen of Polidata
Incorporated took the 2006 estimates and projected them forward to 2010
and found even more change.  Bensen projects these big gainers: Texas
(+4), Florida (+2), and Arizona (+2) with Georgia, Nevada, Oregon,
Washington and Utah each gaining one seat.  Bensen’s projected losers:
Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, New Jersey, New York (-2), Ohio (-2) and Pennsylvania. 
Furthermore, Bensen predicts that the average number of people in each
U.S, House district would be close to 725,000 after the 2010 round of
redistricting.  The complete Polidata analysis is here.

An annual outpouring of rage, once again we have Buffalo Beast’s 50 most loathsome. Good reading.

I had to steal this one from bilerico because I liked it so much (and because Eisenhower is a distant relative of mine — great, great grandfather was the brother of Eisenhower’s great grandfather or something like that.)

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired represents, in the final analysis, a theftt from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

–Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Christian Science Monitor has an article focused on the efforts afoot in the U.S. House of Representatives to cut federal subsidies and tax breaks to oil companies by about $14 billion over the next 10 years and redirect those subsidies to renewable energy.

What’s really good about the article is that it digs in and explains the tax breaks and subsidies currently given to the oil company — citing a figure of about $3.5 billion for the year 2005. That strikes me as a bit obscene given the huge profits realized by the oil companies in the past few years. For example, Exxon enjoyed a 4th quarter profit of $10.71 billion.

[tags]oil, energy, taxation[/tags]

Motorists of northern Indiana have to be wondering what they did to get so lucky. They will have ever-increasing tolls for the next 75 years. According to this editorial in the Evansville Courier Press, Jamie Jorczak, director of public-private partnerships for the Indiana Department of Transportation has stated that Gov. Daniels is firmly against making the planned I-69 from Indy to Evansville a toll road.

[tags]Privatization, transportation[/tags]

The AP has an article entitled Biden Wants Confederate Flag Off Grounds, having to do with Sen. Joe Biden’s comment that he thinks the Confederate flag should not be displayed on South Carolina’s statehouse grounds.

In Columbia, S.C., more than six years after the Confederate flag was taken down from the Capitol dome, its location in front of the Statehouse remains an issue.

“If I were a state legislator, I’d vote for it to move off the grounds out of the state,” Biden said at an NAACP march and rally at the Statehouse.

Jim Hanks stood across from the South Carolina Statehouse with about 35 Confederate flag supporters.

“We love this flag. We love our heritage,” said Hanks, of Lexington.

. . .

Biden expects legislators here will eventually move the flag. Pointing to his heart, he said, “as people become more and more aware of what it means to African-Americans here, this is only a matter of time.”

For my part, my distaste for a State displaying the Confederate flag has nothing to do with questions of race — though I can certainly see why it would for others. For me, it’s a question of patriotism. Simply put, the Confederate flag represents treason against the United States of America. South Carolina’s “heritage” is a heritage of disloyalty to our country. I don’t think people in the present day should be punished for the sins of their fathers; but, at the same time, I don’t think they should be celebrating acts of violence against the U.S.

(H/t Majikthese). The White House is compiling a list of lawyers who represent detainees in Guantanamo. The White House is now encouraging corporations represented by the same law firms to apply pressure to get the firms to stop representing the detainees.

This prompted a Washington Post editorial:

MOST AMERICANS understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it seems, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. In a repellent interview yesterday with Federal News Radio, Mr. Stimson brought up, unprompted, the number of major U.S. law firms that have helped represent detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

“Actually you know I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,’ and you know what, it’s shocking,” he said.

Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, “I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.”

The Washington Post is not amused by this crude attack on one of America’s core principles by the Bush administration.

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette ran a Washington Post editorial entitled “End farm subsidy program” You’ll notice that most of the pro-market rhetoric goes right out the window when we start talking about farm subsidies. Then it’s all about the sanctity of the family farm — right before they pass a bunch of pork that doesn’t help the family farmer a great deal.

The last time Congress took a long look at America’s wasteful system of agricultural subsidies, we had to endure bushels of shallow rhetoric about how billions in largess would save the great American family farm. With this hefty crop of disingenuous sentimentality and equally hefty lobbying efforts from powerful agricultural interests, the result was a federal giveaway that did more to hurt small farmers than it did to help them.

The law that authorizes a range of unnecessary and ill-targeted agriculture programs is set to expire in September. So expect fronts for agribusiness, rural banks and farm insurers (and the members of Congress who accept their campaign contributions) to try to sell the same line again this year: Extend the programs or nail the coffin shut on America’s heartland. It’s about time to nail the coffin on that tired line instead.

Federal agricultural payments are in fact fueling a rapid consolidation of American farms into enormous agribusinesses. Larger farms get much more government money, which they then use to buy up more land. This increases land prices, raising the financial barriers to starting a new farm and pressuring small farmers to leave the market. Congress should overhaul the federal farm subsidy system.