| My coffeemaker is on the fritz. This is neither news, nor likely of much interest to you. However, since I had to go out yesterday (and today) to buy my coffee, I picked up a copy of the USA Today. Here are the tidbits from yesterday, I'll have today's tidbits tomorrow since I don't read the paper until the evening. First, a South Carolina update. We told you back in December the state legislature wanted license plates to be able to sold with a cross and "I BELIEVE" on them. (Link and image of plate here.) Judge Cameron Currie, who had slapped an injunction on the state last year to preclude the plate sales, has now ruled that the license plates violate the separation of church and state, and cannot be sold. Next up, if you live in Kent, CT, Bill O'Reilly is coming your way. A town resident who lost a son at the Twin Towers went to a local Selectwoman about putting up a plaque, inscribed with words including "Muslim terrorists." The Selectwoman, and the rest of the board, felt that would be inflammatory and rejected the request. O'Reilly is planning on marching on Kent. If you don't live in Kent, do you live in any of the following towns? - Grand Rapids, MI*
- Fort Wayne, IN
- Noblesville, IN*
- Cincinnati, OH*
- Columbus, OH*
- Washington, PA
- Rochester, NY*
- Roanoake, VA
- Fort Bragg, NC*
- Birmingham, AL*
- Jacksonville, FL
- The Villages, FL
- Orlando, FL*
- Springfield, MO
- Fayetteville, AR
- Plano, TX
- Sioux City, IA
- Sioux Falls, SD*
- Bloomington, MN*
- Albuquerque, NM*
First thing: the asterisks indicate cities in counties won by President Obama last year. All the cities comprise the current list of Spunky's book tour. You'd think she'd play to the base...but it looks like she's headed to blue country, too. And finally, today's money fact. I hadn't known this. While we often look at lobbyist money in terms of how much is spent by individual industry, I'd never looked at which single entity spent the most on lobbying. Turns out it is the Chamber of Commerce, which has spnet $65.2 million so far this year, and $527.5 million from 1998-2009. This dwarfs everyone else. For example, this year, the 3 next largest lobbyists were ExxonMobil ($20.8 million), Pharmaceutical Research of America ($20.2 million) and General Electric ($19.7 million). Over the prior 10 years, the runners up were the American Medical Association ($212.6 million) General Electric ($191.3million) and AARP ($169.8 million). |
.jpg)