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From yesterday’s Twitter feed of Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the GOP whip’s office: Dayspring doesn’t mis-attribute the study to the New England

Even before tonight’s jobs speech, conservation groups in Colorado and across the Rocky Mountain West says it’s clear President Barack Obama has chosen polluting industry jobs over other employment sectors, demoralizing the environmental base ahead of the 2012 campaign. Last week’s decision by the Obama administration to shelve tougher EPA smog standards , coming hard on the heels of the State Department’s nod to the Keystone XL pipeline , has many mainstream environmentalists wondering if young, green voters will turn out for Obama next year the way they did in 2008. “ a huge mistake politically, and I don’t understand it at all,” Dr.

New polling figures out this week from Public Policy Polling aren’t good news for Gov. Terry Branstad . “Republican Governor Terry Branstad remains unpopular with his approval rating falling to 39 percent with 47 percent disapproval, slightly worse than his -4(41/45) rating in April,” writes Michael Sadowsky of PPP , who takes note of Branstad’s 10-point victory margin against Democrat incumbent Chet Culver during the 2010 general election

A failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to strike a $1.5 trillion budget cut deal, or a later decision by Congress to reject the plan, could lead to automatic and devastating consequences for the nation’s military and the defense industrial base, a Pentagon spokesman warned. If either of those scenarios takes place, press secretary George Little said, “we would be looking at, in all likelihood, the smallest Army and Marine Corps in decades, the smallest tactical Air Force since was established and the smallest Navy in nearly 100 years.” George Little Automatic cuts to the Defense Department would take place, through the 2011 Budget Control Act’s sequestration mechanism, if the Committee members don’t offer a plan to reduce the deficit by Nov

The congressional hearing on whether Brian McNamee injected Roger Clemens with steroids, as the Mitchell Report said he did, was an awkward affair. Awkward

The Iowa Democratic Party admonished GOP candidate Tim Pawlenty for comments made during an interview with The Des Moines Register’s editorial board that this week was the first week the former Minnesota Governor had started “campaigning in earnest.” Democratic Party Chairwoman Sue Dvorsky was critical of Pawlenty’s statement because the Governor has been in running for president for just over six weeks. “If Tim Pawlenty wasn’t campaigning ‘in earnest’ what exactly was he doing?” Dvorsky said through a party spokeswoman. “What about his claims of telling the ‘hard truths’? What about the staff, time and resources he has devoted to the state? What about the ads he began running weeks ago?

Al Gore made headlines when he called B.S. on climate change deniers in Aspen over the summer, and now the Pacific Institute is doing the same

We already knew that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel held a broad view of executive power. But the memos released today suggest the OLC lawyers

Responding to an opinion piece by former director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag, President Obama plans to say during a speech in Cleveland

Now this makes more sense. In remarks announcing the receipt of his preliminary reviews of the near-attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, President Obama

A poll, released just two days after the Department of Homeland Security announced changes to its deportation proceedings , indicates that the majority of most likely voters still favor border security. # According to the latest Rasmussen Reports poll , “even as the Obama administration moves to slow the pace of deportation for illegal immigrants, voters continue to believe strongly that gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers already living in the United States.” # “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R) leads the entire North Carolina congressional delegation with $1,204,438 in cash-on-hand (COH) at the end of the 2010 fundraising cycle,

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has been lukewarm at best about Undersecretary of Defense for

The Department of Justice announced today that four more detainees from Guantanamo Bay have been transferred: one to Hungary, one to France, and two to

The office of House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has been forwarding that Rasmussen poll to reporters, with the topline A stimulus plan that includes

The Obama administration announced today that it is launching an investigation into China’s green technology trade policies. The investigation is in response to

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (Pic by US Mission Geneva, via Flickr) Yesterday, the U.S.

Though last Friday’s near-government shutdown did not lead to a major defunding of Title X family planning programs, at least one anti-abortion group, Students for Life of America, still sees it as a “partial victory for the pro-life movement,” and is unlikely to give up the fight to defund Planned Parenthood. # The United States government was on the verge of shutting down over a dispute involving funding for Planned Parenthood and clinics like it.

Tar balls recently washed up on the Alabama shoreline have now been linked to BP, according to preliminary tests performed by Auburn University. Via the Associated Press : Tests show the wave of tar balls that hit Alabama’s beaches after Tropical Storm Lee was from last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a coastal mayor said Tuesday. Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon said the connection was found in preliminary tests performed by Auburn University, and additional tests will be conducted

Some good reading today in The Washington Post, which got its hands on transcripts depicting reactions from some AIG employees when their bonuses were

Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet said Wednesday night that he supports President Obama’s plan to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan

A pair of bills which would require public employers and contractors and subcontractors of public employers to register with and use the E-Verify system to ferret out undocumented workers are on their way to action on the House floor. The bills, HB 4024 and HB 4026 , were approved by the House Commerce Committee on Tuesday. While the bills’ sponsor, Rep.