Michael B. Duff

The San Francisco law would allow toys to be given away with kids' meals that have less than 600 calories, contain fruits and vegetables, and include beverages without excessive fat or sugar.

Voting can also be counter-productive, which is what makes those campaigns urging people to vote so destructive. If you are only so slightly informed about an election that you need to be convinced to vote, your preferences are likely to be ill-informed. You'll vote according to heuristics—ethnicity, party lines, for familiar names—that political operatives can predict and exploit. We're probably all better off if we leave the voting to the informed and committed.

I doubt Republicans will be able to make any serious progress against the Fed until the money pumping shows up in consumer prices.

This is QE2. Or, the second round of Quantitative Easing. Just fancy words for printing money, to the tune of $75 billion a month being dumped into the bond market. The big banks will use this cash to buy equities as they've already been doing with the billions generated by the Fed's Permanent Open Market operations. 9 months of free stock increases, financed by directly inflating the dollar. Expect commodity prices to soar, but don't expect this money to trickle down to ordinary borrowers.

Republicans don't read the results the same way. Instead of talking about jobs, they seem focused on cutting spending. Okay. Let's put them to the test. Fiscal responsibility, like charity, begins at home. Tell us which construction project in your district you're going to cancel; which bridge in your hometown you're going to oppose; what military base in your state you want to close. Don't just blather about "waste, fraud and abuse," tell us which teachers in your kids' school you want to lay off; call for closing the police station and firehouse nearest to your home. And if newly-elected Republicans want to repeal Obamacare, they can start by refusing to accept the generous government-guaranteed health care which members of Congress receive.

Okay Republicans, here’s your mandate…