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According to reporting by Politico Pro , insurance companies are lobbying GOP-led states, like Florida, to change their mind about not implementing the state health care exchanges from the Affordable Care Act. Florida is currently one of only five states returning grants awarded by the federal government to implement health care exchanges created by the federal health care reform law. While this may be driven by ideology or strategy for GOP legislators, some insurance companies are worried it might be bad for business. Via ThinkProgress : Worried that red-state governors are standing in the way of business opportunities, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is “teaching its member plans how to overcome conservative opposition to the Democrats’ health care law,” Politico’s Kate Nocera reports: At a closed-door meeting Wednesday at D.C.’s Grand Hyatt with member plans from across the country, association officials covered topics like “Moving exchanges forward,” “What motivates conservatives to oppose creating exchanges

Controversial anti-gay minister Bradlee Dean and his evangelical band/ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCR) are suing The American Independent News Network’s senior reporter, Andy Birkey, and are threatening to also sue our site The Minnesota Independent. Rachel Maddow, who also reported about Dean on her MSNBC show, is also named in the suit, which seeks $50 million in damages. The lawsuit describes Andy as taking “a ‘special interest’ in Plaintiffs Dean and YCR because he is a secularist and/or atheist and gay activist with a politically left ideology who despises people of faith.” However, Andy’s award-winning coverage of YCR has received wide praise, including the Society of Professional Journalist’s (SPJ) first prize for Best Continuing Coverage . SPJ stated that Andy took “an even-handed approach into a weighty subject sure to provoke controversy from various standpoints.” We read your comments, tweets, Facebook messages, and emails and know you agree that Andy’s coverage, along with the rest of the reporting by The American Independent News Network, is excellent.

Michigan’s Emergency Manager law is part of a nationwide effort to shrink the electorate in a way that disproportionately eliminates blacks and other voters of color, the NAACP said last week as its members passed a resolution condemning such laws. “We think that it attacks the voting rights of minorities and urban populations,“ said NAACP Detroit Branch President Rev. Dr

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer is looking to Fox News and Google for answers as to why he is being excluded in the Thursday night debate the organizations are sponsoring. “After proudly gaining my 1 percent in the latest Fox News poll, having started with zero name recognition, I must again ask — why am I being excluded from tomorrow’s debate?” Roemer queried in a circulated statement.

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Today Sen. Barack Obama is in Manhattan to commemorate the 9/11 attacks. We will never forget those who died, he said in a solemn

A national nonprofit that’s drawn criticism for allowing corporations to write legislation directly with state lawmakers can be traced to bills introduced in Minnesota last session, including language that would shield large corporations from consumer lawsuits and undermine greenhouse gas reduction goals. The bills were revealed as Common Cause released a report on the influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is financially supported by corporations like Koch Industries and Wal-Mart. At regular conferences, including one going on in New Orleans right now, these corporations draft corporate-friendly legislation that is approved by state legislators on legislative task forces and then introduced at state capitols across the country without disclosure that the business interests wrote them. “The work of ALEC shows how the Minnesota capitol is governed by corporate lobbyists instead of main street voters,” said Mike Dean, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota.

Last month, the Florida Police Benevolent Association, a union that represents prison guards and other corrections officers, filed a lawsuit calling for a judge to strike down budget language that would privatize prisons in 18 South Florida counties. The union’s complaint is embedded below. # The union has long questioned the financial benefits of privatization and the calculus behind the 7 percent savings mandated by Florida statutes.

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons ) GOP 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has hired people close to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to head his campaign in Florida. The Miami Herald reports : Some of the biggest and deep-pocketed Republican heavy-hitters opened their wallets Monday for Sen.

In a new YouTube clip titled “Mike Haridopolos–Pink Slip Puppet,” the progressive group Florida Watch Action uses a series of short sound bites to tie Florida Senate President and U.S.

Americans will recognize National Latino AIDS Awareness Day this Saturday, amid a rising number of HIV/AIDS cases for Latinos across the U.S. National Latino AIDS Awareness Day ( NLAAD ), “held each year in commemoration of the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month, represents a call to action for Hispanics/Latinos to protect their lives and the lives of those they love by getting tested and learning about HIV .” According to a report (.pdf) issued by the Florida Latino AIDS Advisory Group in May, “the proportion of newly reported HIV cases among adult Hispanics (age 13+) increased from 16% in 2000 to 21% in 2009. In Florida, in 2009, the HIV case rate among adult Hispanic men was 2 times higher than that for white men and 2 times higher for adult Hispanic women than that among white women.” The Advisory Group, established by Florida’s Bureau of HIV/AIDS , adds that “the survival time from AIDS diagnosis to death significantly shorter for Hispanics than whites

According to the offices of the Senate majority leader and majority whip, Cass Sunstein will get a final confirmation vote sometime shortly after 3:45 p.m.

Cable and Internet provider Comcast has launched a program to provide affordable high-speed Internet access to low-income families that have at least one child receiving free school lunches through the National School Lunch Program . # According to Community Broadband Networks, “as a condition of its massive merger with NBC , the federal government is requiring Comcast to make affordable Internet connections available to 2.5 million low-income households for the next two years.” The organizaton adds that “it was only after the federal government mandated a low-cost option for disadvantaged households that Comcast realized everyone could benefit from access to the Internet.” # Community Broadband Networks provides “news, information, research, and connections to the nation-wide movement of building broadband networks that are directly accountable to the community they serve.” # The Miami Herald reported last week that the Miami-Dade School district will partner with Comcast to offer needy families discount high-speed Internet, computers and training.

Yesterday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters that Congress will likely stick around Washington well into December in order to wrap up

The number of new reported cases of HIV in the U.S. from 2006 through 2009 remained stable, says a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report issued Wednesday. But the data also shows an “alarming increase among young, black gay and bisexual men” that requires “urgent action.” # According to the CDC , evidence from its national HIV incidence surveillance shows that the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States has been relatively stable, with approximately 50,000 new infections each year between 2006 and 2009. The national HIV incidence surveillance is based on data from 16 states, including Florida

As the issue of oil subsidies sows discord within the Republican Party — with most GOP members sticking to the party line by defending subsidies, a growing

Florida Governor-elect Rick Scott named controversial former Washington, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to his education transition team Thursday.

Via Michael Goldfarb, the respected former South African judge who investigated war crimes in Gaza has sent a letter to Congress highlighting factual errors in

The Sunlight Foundation has a rundown of new rules (PDF) the U.S. Department of Justice recently proposed for Freedom of Information Act requests. Key parts

Looking back on some June comments from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who recently forced the public option out of the Senate’s health care reform bill, his

Gov. Rick Perry’s affiliation with the American Family Association for his prayer event next month has already drawn protest plans from several faith-based

The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force yesterday released its comprehensive preliminary strategy for long-term restoration. The strategy, which will be presented to President Obama at the end of a period of public review and feedback, aims to address long-standing issues contributing to the decline of the gulf ecosystem. According to a press release, the strategy “builds upon on-going efforts underway in the Gulf Coast states includes specific steps for on-the-ground action and represents the Task Force’s commitment to putting Gulf coastal restoration on an equal footing with other national priorities.” “Even before last year’s oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico endured decades of decline that threatened the environmental and economic health of this region

BOSTON -- A little while after noon, a steady crowd of Democratic voters streamed into the Cathedral High School Gymnasium to cast votes for their party’s

Calculated Risk picks up today on an overlooked outrage we’ve been writing about for a while now -- the way banks handle their inventories of foreclosed homes.

Opponents of Michigan’s Emergency Manager law say they have 80 percent of the signatures needed to put the measure up to a vote in a referendum next fall. On a conference call Friday, organizers with the repeal effort said that they have verified 130,000 of 200,000 signatures collected