The WonkLine: January 26, 2011

In last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama likened cutting investments in education to “lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine.”

About two-thirds of U.S. fourth-graders, 70 percent of eighth-graders and 79 percent of 12th-graders failed to show proficiency in science in 2009, according to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Lobbyists for the for-profit college industry twist the facts in their lawsuit against the U.S. Education Department, Higher Ed Watch notes.

According to data from the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index, “a new slide in housing prices has begun in earnest, with averages in major cities across the country falling to their lowest point in many years.”

The SEC yesterday approved a “say on pay” rule “requiring companies to hold nonbinding shareholder votes on executive-pay packages, handing a weapon to investors seeking the attention of board directors.”

“Banks have won an unexpected victory after the US accounting standards setter backtracked on proposals to force them to value their loan books according to market prices,” the Financial Times reports.

Angered by the fact that the auto industry rescue saved the American car industry and over one million American jobs, Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) now wants to make it unconstitutional for that to ever happen again.

The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to attend President Obama’s State of the Union address. Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito dissented.

Idaho’s Attorney General reached the obvious conclusion that a bill to nullify the Affordable Care Act in that state violates the Constitution. Sadly, the supporters of the bill don’t really care what the Constitution has to say.

A woman associated with the Minutemen American Defense who is accused of gunning down a nine-year-old girl and her father in their own home went on trial yesterday.

House advocates of comprehensive immigration reform were reportedly surprised and encouraged by President Barack Obama’s call in his State of the Union address for Congress to tackle immigration reform.

A federal judge on Tuesday scheduled a March 15 trial in a legal fight over an eastern Nebraska city’s ordinance that bars businesses from hiring and landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants

“President Barack Obama made two things clear about health care in his State of the Union speech: he is willing to change it around the edges and he is ready to put it in the rearview mirror.”

“Most Americans do not want Congress to block funding for various new healthcare measures even as the nation remains split on the sweeping overhaul passed last year, a poll published on Tuesday found.”

“The Montana state Senate is expected to vote today or tomorrow on SB 106, a bill to try to force the state’s attorney general to join the multi-state lawsuit against health care reform.”

Michael Levi takes a look at how President Obama’s State of the Union goal of 80 percent low-carbon electricity compares to the failed Senate cap-and-trade bill.

Cyclone Wilma whipped through Tonga, devastating crops and buildings, while a winter blizzard that resembles a hurricane works up the East Coast.

The presidential oil spill commission co-chairs “will urge adoption of specific reforms to greatly improve the safety of this offshore drilling our nation will inevitably undertake” in their testimony before Congress today.

A day after mass protests against President Hosni Mubarak’s rule, the Egyptian government has vowed “to crack down on public protest and…arrest and prosecute anyone found taking to the streets against the government.”

“Six months after Pakistan’s worst monsoon floods in 80 years, Oxfam says the crisis is far from over and could even get worse. The UK-based agency says malnutrition levels in the south have soared, and the aid community has only ‘scratched the surface of human need.’”

“Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed revenge on Tuesday for a suicide bombing that killed at least 35 people at Russia’s busiest airport and underscored the Kremlin’s failure to stem a rising tide of attacks.”

“An attorney for six gay couples seeking the same legal protections as married pairs asked a judge Tuesday to order Montana to establish civil unions, domestic partnerships or another system that ensures they’re not denied those rights.”

“Lawmakers in Virginia announced support for legislation that would make it illegal to discriminate against LGBT employees in the state work force and in the Virginia National Guard.”

“Sabrina Shizue McKenna was appointed to the Hawaii Supreme Court, where she would be the first openly gay judge, on the same day a senate committee advanced the civil unions measure.”

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