This third Issue Paper offers guidance and recommendations for those seeking to implement the state application and convention process. The guidance and recommendations are based on the findings of the two earlier Papers, additional Founding-Era evidence unearthed since the first Paper was published, and on authoritative court cases issued at all stages of our history.

In The Daily Camera: By Boulder’s standard of “zero waste,” the City Council’s plan to restrict plastic bag use is garbage. Regardless, such restrictions are foul rubbish. They empower bag bullies to self-righteously trash our liberties.

We pay a lot for “free” parking – in time, frustration, and as the video here shows, a missed opportunity to revitalize a shopping district.

Tax-funded financial aid “results in increased tuition, leading to political pressure to further increase aid. This in turn leads to higher tuitions

A bipartisan group of lawmakers have introduced Senate Bill 157, titled the “Telecommunications Modernization Act of 2012.” The 71-page bill deregulates some local phone service and makes new assumptions about public policy. It redefines service providers and eliminates some corporate subsidies. It also repurposes an existing funding mechanism to achieve newly assumed public policy goals, and reshuffles winners and losers in the telecommunications industry. While the deregulation of some local
phone service may be tempting and long overdue, the cost of SB 157 as it is currently written is quite high. This well-meaning bill has some troubling unintended consequences.

In the Boulder Daily Camera: Mandatory insurance isn’t about personal responsibility or reducing cost-shifting. It’s about using politically-controlled health plans to advance political control of your medical care.

Economist finds a positive correlation between an NFL team’s winning percentage and local per-capita income.

Like the fictional Dirty Harry who popularized “make my day,” arguments against self-defense rights fit in Hollywood scripts, but not in reality.

By Barry Poulson, PhD, Representative Spencer Swalm and Representative Ed Casso
During the past year both the House and Senate failed to pass a resolution calling for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. Resolutions proposing a Balanced Budget Amendment have failed numerous times in Congress over the past half century; in 1995 the Amendment passed [...]

For the 16 presidential elections since World War II, Nate Silver computed the correlation between the incumbent party’s margin of victory & the value of 43 indicators in the first 9 months of the election year. Change in employment rates matter. Market indexes and oil prices don’t