Potentially thousands of union protesters could descend on Michigan's capitol Tuesday morning, fighting a war that has already been lost against Right-to-Work laws. Both houses have already approved the measures, and the final vote is scheduled for Tuesday. Governor Rick Snyder has indicated that he’ll sign the legislation.

A writer at the Washington Post took a snippet out of a speech by President Obama's Defense Department general counsel and concluded that he saw an end to the War on Terror. He was wrong.

Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, thinks that the debt ceiling is an "anachronism" and ought to be repealed altogether. Many agree with her.

Chicago is experiencing a high and rising homicide rate, with some predicting 500 or more by the end of the year. Many have tried to explain the phenomenon.

Texas Republican Representative Ron Paul has, based on his decades of experience watching Washington negotiate and dither, predicted a last-minute compromise that will increase government spending and put off hard decisions into the future. On his website Paul noted, "America faces yet another congressionally-manufactured crisis which will likely end in yet another 11th hour compromise, resulting in more government growth."

Calling it “unexpected,” Reuters reported that the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) from the Institute for Supply Management for November fell to its lowest level in over three years. A poll of economists by Reuters showed they didn't see it coming.

Most political talk is now focused on the “fiscal cliff,” but usually the talk avoids probing the depth of the problem. And the problem won’t be addressed until it is first acknowledged.

Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) continues to pump his bill to impose transaction fees on high-frequency trading, saying that they would raise a lot of money with few consequences.

The decline in the purchasing power of the dollar has finally caught up with the U.S. Mint, which is planning to remove pennies and nickels from circulation. Also, the GAO wants the United States to stop printing paper one-dollar bills and to switch instead to one-dollar coins.

Each year 24/7 Wall St. publishes the results of its survey of all 50 states and then ranks them from top to bottom — from “best run” to “worst run.” CNBC does the same, only with a more concentrated focus on the business environment in each state, and then ranks the states on their overall “measure of competitiveness.” The Mercatus Center at George Mason University looks at all 50 states from the perspective of individual freedom and then ranks the states based on its Index of Personal and Economic Freedom.

The parallels and correlations between economic and business performance and personal freedom are clear and persuasive: When state governments stay within their limits of protecting lives and enforcing contracts, the states thrive. And vice versa.