Jim Lindgren says that states with high state income taxes and/or large numbers of unionized workers also tend to have the highest levels of unemployment.

In the six states with the highest unemployment rates, the average top state income tax bracket is 8.05%. All but Michigan have marginal tax rates of at least 7% (and Michigan has a very high unionization rate).| MORE ›

Via Hot Air, here is the audio of the GE shareholder’s meeting reported about earlier today. As said, GE shareholders rebelled against the company’s executives, out of anger with especially MSNBC’s clear liberal bias. Fox producer Jesse Waters nearly received a standing ovation for slamming Janeane Garofalo who said on Keith Olbermann’s show recently that tea party protesters were nothing but racists who could not accept a black man living in the White House.| MORE ›

The Washington Post has hired blogger Ezra Klein, Politico‘s Michael Calderone reports.Klein is one of the youngest members of the prominent blogosphere (like me, he is 24 years old), and an ideological liberal. Although the Washington Post cannot be considered right-wing, it does not have the reputation of being left-wing either; so hiring Klein does not ‘confirm’ the paper’s (perceived) bias.| MORE ›

Or so says the Washington Times:

Republican state party leaders are rebelling against new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele for failing to dub President Obama and the Democrats as “socialists.” And the rebels insist that the label matters.

Even though Mr.| MORE ›

A lawyer for the founders of filesharing website The Pirate Bay demanded a retrial earlier today after the judge who convicted the founders to eight years in prison admitted he was a member of – get this – copyright infringement organizations.

[Judge] Norstrom acknowledged to Swedish Radio that he was a member of The Swedish Association for Copyright, as well as a board member of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property.| MORE ›

When the Pakistani government decided to give the Taliban something it wanted – implementation of Sharia law in the Swat Valley (or tribal region) – it hoped the extremist organization’s thirst would be satisfied. As one could expect, however, this was most definitely not the case:

The Taliban are pushing past the districts of Swat and Buner and are threatening Islamabad, a senior Islamist member of parliament said at a briefing.

The Taliban have consolidated control over the district of Buner and are moving on Mansehra and Haripur.| MORE ›

Jillian Bandes writes for TownHall: ‘Via Roll Call (subscription required) Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said that Senate GOP leadership wouldn’t hold back if Senate Democrats institute the controversial reconciliation provision to pass health care.’

David Drucker wrote the Roll Call story and he quotes a former GOP senate leadership aid as saying:| MORE ›

The New York Times‘ David Barstow won the Pulitzer this week for his report on the Pentagon’s efforts to control the media’s message on the war by feeding talking points to TV military analysts. His report was considered highly important by experts.

But the media at large ignored it (alert, this link actually leads to Glenn Greenwald’s blog at Salon).

IFC Media Project did not, however. From last season: (more…)

The AP published the results of a poll it recently conducted and – surprise oh surprise – it contained a whole lot of good news for Barack Obama.

According to the Associated Press for Democrats, a full 48% of Americans believe that the country is “on the right track,” while 64% approve of the job Obama does. Not bad, not bad at all, you would think.

There is just one minor problem:

“Of those who say the country is on the right track .| MORE ›

A major debate raged recently about whether or not waterboarding had helped the CIA arrest terrorists who planned to commit large-scale attacks. Former Vice President Dick Cheney especially repeated on several occasions that more Americans would have died if interrogators would have played by the rules normally applied to prisoners.| MORE ›