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IOWA CITY, IA.

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio would like you to think he’s the toughest anti-immigration cop in the world.

Florida’s unemployment rate hit 10.9 percent for August, but 12 out of 20 metropolitan areas had higher unemployment rates, according to the “Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment” report (.pdf) released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The study shows that in almost all states’ metropolitan areas, the unemployment rate dropped between August 2010 and August 2011. The Florida metropolitan areas with the highest unemployment were Palm Coast — followed by Sebastian-Vero Beach, Port St.Lucie, Ocala and Lakeland-Winter Haven.

Kevin Costner (yes, that Kevin Costner) has proposed a nearly $895 million plan to prevent future oil spills. Costner, who starred in the 1995 masterpiece

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson told a radio program that he has already filed fundraising paperwork with the state, a first step in running for Democrat Herb Kohl’s former Senate seat.

This is my favorite part of President Obama’s remarks at the Fort Hood memorial: It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But

A study, the first of its kind, shows that undocumented immigrants pay sales taxes and property taxes, and at least half pay an income tax. # According to an Immigration Policy Center report released yesterday, tax day, the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy has estimated the state and local taxes paid in 2010 by households that are headed by unauthorized immigrants.

As the House works to set limits on carbon emissions, electric utilities see opportunity.

Michigan health officials say no one should eat any lake trout from Lake Michigan because the fish contain dangerous levels of PCB, dioxins, and the now-banned pesticide chlordane .

Add former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich to the list of 2012 competitors who will not participate in Nevada if that state’s caucuses interfere with New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Adam Serwer reads through the State Department legal adviser’s recent defense of why drone strikes outside Afghanistan are legal and observes that the rationale

Conservative data hound Matthew Vadum shows how several left-leaning groups, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, were bilked by the just-convicted

Eric Kleefeld has a great rundown of the Republican players who’ve taken sides in the New York 23rd Congressional District special election between GOP

The president of the Obama administration’s shadow Pentagon lends support to Sen. Carl Levin’s (D-Mich.) proposal this morning to bolster the Afghan security

Pat Toomey, the former Club for Growth president and leading Republican candidate in Pennsylvania’s 2010 Senate race, has announced a $1 million haul in the

The DCCC pulls out of the Hawaii special election. Congress won’t find a way to pay for Cash for Caulkers until after it passes. Tea Party activists

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, introduced the cloture vote on Cass Sunstein’s nomination

Helene Cooper has a good piece in The New York Times about the Obama administration’s evolving stance on Iran, but it leaves out something that’s going to be an

You might think that members of Congress and their staffs would be prohibited from using their privileged access to nonpublic information to cash in on Wall

The Wall Street Journal reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will question Chinese officials this week about reports that the country is blocking

This morning, Michael Barone joined a number of American Enterprise Institute fellows for a briefing on the 2009 elections. One of the more interesting