Breaking News

The Hill reports: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House, said that she and other pro-abortion rights

This isn’t a surprise, but it’s worth noting that Republicans are still far more enthusiastic about this year’s election than Democrats. In the most recent poll

The General Social Survey (GSS) is a biennial poll conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. It’s meant to collect data

Last week, the North Carolina Independent News reported on the state’s Racial Justice Act -- which allows death row inmates to appeal their sentences if they

The administrator of the Division of Tobacco Use Prevention and Control was terminated from her position last week by the Iowa Department of Public Health Director, an Ames Democrat who sits on the Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Commission as an ex-officio member. In a letter to media editors in Iowa, Sen. Herman Quirmbach expressed discontent with the firing of Bonnie Mapes by Mariannette Miller-Meeks , and shared concerns about the future of the division with other anti-smoking lobbying groups

In the past few days, both The Washington Post and Politico have run stories on the dramatic drop in contributions from Wall Street donors to Democrats. From

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday a schedule for the development of new standards to regulate the disposal and handling of wastewater generated by the practice of hydrofracking for natural gas. No comprehensive set of national standards exists at this time for the disposal of wastewater discharged from natural gas extraction activities, and over the coming months EPA will begin the process of developing a proposed standard with the input of stakeholders, including industry and public health groups. Today’s announcement is in line with the priorities identified in the president’s Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future, and is consistent with the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board recommendations on steps to support the safe development of natural gas resources… Currently, wastewater associated with shale gas extraction is prohibited from being directly discharged to waterways and other waters of the U.S.

Via Talking Points Memo, Rand Paul -- son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and the Republican nominee for a Kentucky Senate seat -- has some advice for the

As Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) celebrates his milestone today -- he has served in the House and Senate longer than anyone else, ever -- let’s take a moment to

This evening, the Senate voted on a proposal by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), one of the most conservative members of Congress, to permanently end the estate tax

While commanding the 101st Airborne Division during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, David H. Petraeus famously mused to journalist Rick Atkinson, Tell me how

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) appeared on the conservative Ben Shapiro Show yesterday and assessed president Obama’s place in history among his 42

A Saginaw County judge ruled this week that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision means that property owners in the dioxin-contaminated Tittabawasee floodplain cannot sue Dow Chemical for damages in a class action. Operations at Dow’s Midland plant have spread dioxin — a highly toxic and cancer-causing byproduct of the chemical manufacturing process — and other chemicals, through the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers and into Lake Huron .

Buried within Joe Klein’s new Time profile (great first line, by the way) of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton: The Israelis have been difficult, as

The Afghan police force is, by and large, a corrupt institution that performs the Taliban’s work for it. And yet it’s part of everyone’s plan -- from Gen.

Speaking Thursday on the floor of the House during the debate over HR 358, the Protect Life Act (pdf) , Colorado US Rep Diana DeGette, head of the pro-choice caucus, characterized the discussion as an absurd extension of one that has been going on for fifteen years. She said the bill is being positioned by supporters as a ban on federal funding for abortion but what it really aims to do is make abortions for a large segment of the country effectively illegal.

Either it was very timely or very untimely. This afternoon, we ran a story on a controversial provision in the Senate stimulus bill providing a $15,000 tax

President Obama is expected to address the approaching deadline for the U.S. to avoid defaulting on its debt, among other topics. JOIN THE LIVE CHATVISIT

With thousands of votes still to be tallied, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) has won the first political campaign of his life — and it was a political battle

Secure Communities, a federal immigration enforcement program, is once again at the center of a debate, this time about the possibility that local law enforcement should be able to opt out of the program. # According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the program allows local law enforcement agencies to compare the fingerprints of every person arrested and booked with FBI criminal history records and Department of Homeland Security immigration records. But critics of the program point to data from Immigration and Customs enforcement, which they say shows that Secure Communities leads to the detention and deportation of people who are not criminals