Politics and other nightmares

That darn Mike Pence is bringing up tort reform even though he didn't say a single thing about it during the campaign. No fair, no fair!

You won’t find tort reform in Gov.-elect Mike Pence’s “road map,” the agenda he laid out in his campaign.

I think is an unusually thoughtful look at the possible consequences of America's global retreat from the editorial page editor of the Washington Post, which is usually so fawning over President Obama that it's hard to take seriously:

Departing Hoosier Gov. Mitch Daniels has gotten a lot of praise for being bold, along the lines of, "Gasp! A Republican conservative actually tries new things." But I think Bobby Jindal has him beat:

Just how long is the tax code? This long:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Too intimidated to fill out your tax return without help? Join the club.

At nearly 4 million words, the U.S. tax law is so thick and complicated that businesses and individuals spend more than 6 billion hours a year complying with filing requirements, according to a report Wednesday by an independent government watchdog.

I haven't said much about President Obama's recent appointments that others on the right have been having fits about, because, well, the president gets to pick. That's the deal. I agree with all those critics that these appointees will make some very boneheaded policy moves, but they're the president's policies. Whoever he appoints -- these people or someone else -- will carry out those policies, so I don't see that there's much to gain from a big fight over them.

Here's a Malthusian curve ball for you:

Texas is getting a lot of attention for it's $8.8 billion surplus, created mostly by a boom in salex tax revenue (people spend more in a healthy economy) as well as taxes on oil and natural gas revenues. Mary Katharine Ham at Hot Air points out that Texas isn't the only state with a sunny fiscal outlook:

We certainly go our own way, don't we?

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — While some national lawmakers eye new limits on access to guns in the wake of last month's school shooting in Connecticut, two Republican state senators are trying to expand who can carry guns and where in Indiana.

The New York Times did an analysis of hiring for top White House positions in the Obama administration and found that it "skews male."

Hey, way a couple of years, and there may spring up a "birther" movement on the left, too:

Ted Cruz may have the aura of a future presidential contender, but is he even eligible to run?