links for 2010-12-23

“While the growth of incarceration took many dangerous offenders off the streets,” says an introduction to the website, “research suggested that it reached a point of diminishing returns, as recidivism rates increased and more than one million nonviolent offenders filled the nation’s prisons. In most states, prisons came to absorb more than 85 percent of the corrections budget, leaving limited resources for community supervision alternatives such as probation and parole, which cost less and could have better reduced recidivism among non-violent offenders.”

Citizen Action of Wisconsin had been spreading this message as much as it could prior to the election and following Walker's win, calling the move "economic treason," but it and others on its side were unable to keep Walker from canceling the project (which was already under construction). In addition to the rally, a bipartisan group of local communications professionals has gotten business leaders to sign a letter to Walker expressing their frustration and disappointment over this matter, as well as a request for "greater thoughtfulness, civility, creativity and compromise in the future."
In all honesty, I don't think they can expect much of that. Cancelling the high-speed rail project in Wisconsin is actually going to cost the state considerably more than operating the line would have cost it, strictly looking at direct funds (not even considering the jobs and economic growth that were lost).
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South Carolina’s favorite lifelong bachelor and former military prosecutor, is always reliably against homosexuals having any basic human rights in America because Lindsey’s a Republican, y’all. Anyway, famous outer-of-self-hating-queers Mike Rogers says he’s got pictures of one of Lindsey’s boy toys leaving Lindsey’s house. This would be SHOCKING because come on, everybody knows Republicans cannot be gay because Jesus did not make gays.”….A pair of tweets on Saturday from Michael Rogers, who claims a perfect outing record, suggests Graham – who continues to serve in the U.S. Air Force Reserves – might soon be deflecting more questions about his sexuality.“I wonder if Lindsey Graham knows I have pictures of a man who spent the night at his house. pls RT,” Rogers messaged his followers.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's transition to minority leader comes an interesting bit of news. The California Democrat, vilified by Republicans in the last election, has turned to director Steven Spielberg for help rebranding House Democrats.
Lawmakers say she is consulting marketing experts about building a stronger brand. The most prominent of her new whisperers is Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood director whose films have been works of branding genius