Illinois Senate President John Cullerton is pushing a pension reform plan written, and supported by, Illinois’ public sector unions.

Pennsylvania leaders are sounding the alarm of a pension squeeze.

“America’s governor” Scott Walker stumps with Wisconsin Republicans at the Wisconsin GOP Convention.

Eric Boehm | Watchdog.org
HARRISBURG – An FBI agent in Florida shot and killed a man who was being questioned about his ties to suspected Boston bombers Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
But this was no bloody shoot out like the one that took place on the streets of Boston last month.  The man killed early Wednesday [...]

By Johnny Kampis | Missouri Watchdog

A few hundred Missouri residents participated in a rally in front of the local Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday in support of the tea party and other conservative groups who were targeted by the tax agency.

The protesters, holding signs as they chanted and sang, were met not by local police but officers with the Department of Homeland Security, who were on hand to keep the peace.

HOUSTON – True the Vote, the Houston-based secure elections organization, filed a federal lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service Tuesday, seeking damages over the agency’s handling of its application for nonprofit status and asking the court to grant it the 501(c)(3) exemption it applied for in 2010.
Since that application was filed, True the Vote’s founders, [...]

By Dustin Hurst | Watchdog.org
As scandal after scandal continues to unfold in front of the nation, President Barack Obama’s administration reels, struggling to defend itself, allay fears about government ineptitude and reset the narrative in the the president’s favor.
Unfortunately for the administration, the barrage of scandals is leaving a mark, at least in the news [...]

Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, has an Internet problem.
Ask former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum how much fun that can be.
Last week, McAuliffe launched Women for Terry, a political subgroup designed to bolster his credentials with female voters in Virginia. Unfortunately for the Democratic hopeful,  his campaign forgot to tie up the [...]

By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter
MADISON — Since word hit that the University of Wisconsin System had accumulated more than $1 billion in reserves even as tuition continued to soar and state funding plummeted, the UW Board of Regents has gotten a lot suggestions on what to do with that money.
A lot of unhappy Republican lawmakers and [...]

By Tom Gantert | Michigan Capitol Confidential
About 80 fast food workers picketed restaurant chains earlier this month saying they wanted to double their pay, going from minimum wage $7.40 an hour to $15 an hour.
But business and economic experts say some of those workers would be out of a job if their demands were ever met.
“If forced [...]

By Katy Grimes | Cal Watchdog
SACRAMENTO — The Department of State Hospitals appears to be flouting the legislative process. Instead of getting legislative approval for a $50 million expansion, they’ve been implementing the changes since February, and just now asked for approval.
A seemingly routine committee hearing about the massive amounts of spending by the equally massive Department of [...]

By Grant Bosse | New Hampshire Watchdog
Mark Hayward reports in the Union Leader that the University of New Hampshire is spending $100,000 to have a New York company to redesign the UNH logo.
An academic clock tower doesn’t really connect with UNH, according to marketing experts weighing in on the University of New Hampshire’s move to redesign [...]

By Curt Olson | The Nerve
The South Carolina Senate is running out of time.
During Wednesday’s floor debate on the state budget for next fiscal year, which starts July 1, the Republican majority learned the budget debate could extend into a third week.
“Between now and next week, you will see us with many, many more amendments,” [...]

By Nick Dranias | Goldwater Institute
In upholding the federal health care law’s individual mandate as a tax, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ promise that “[t]he power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.”
With the IRS’ recent targeted investigations of tea parties, balanced budget advocates, [...]

By Jarrett Skorup | Mackinac Center
With a push from Gov. Rick Snyder, the business community, public employee unions and most of the significant lobbying groups in the state, both branches of the Legislature have proposed budgets that significantly expand spending on early childhood education. Unfortunately, this spending will likely not result in any significantly improved educational [...]

By Ron Aiken | The Nerve
In the months leading up to reportedly the worst cyber-security failure in U.S. history at a state agency, South Carolina Department of Revenue officials deemed data encryption too costly on one hand while spurning offers of free cyber protection from another state agency with the other.
The result was an unprecedented [...]

By Nic Horton | The Arkansas Project
Upon rereading David Ramsey’s piece on the genesis of the “private option,” it’s hard not to notice the flood of admiring compliments he bestows on the intellect of its creators. They are “clever,” “smart,” “open-minded,” and “pragmatic.” As they work in tandem with Governor Mike Beebe, they are “thoughtful and nuanced.”
In particular, Senator Jonathan [...]

By Warren Duffy | Cal Watchdog
What is going on with the California-based Ivanpah solar plant?
In April 2011, Brightsource Energy received a loan guarantee of $1.6 billion from the Department of Energy for the Ivanpah project. It’s located along I-15 at the California-Nevada border, 29 miles northeast of Barstow. The loan amount was three times that given by the DOE to the [...]