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Richard Allen Smith, Afghan war veteran and vice chairman of national soldier and veteran advocacy organization VoteVets , on Thursday hand delivered a petition with more than 9,000 signatures asking Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler to drop the lawsuit he filed seeking to prevent counties in the state from mailing ballots to inactive voters, including to soldiers serving away from home.

The Senate will make a procedural vote today on the defense authorization bill, but how the vote goes will likely have major implications for the DREAM Act

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) today sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that he stop sending Guantanamo detainees to Saudi Arabia. Some

Last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v

Newt Gingrich says Obama should take the rest of the year off. Kal Penn returns to his White House gig after filming A Very Harold and Kumar

Lower court granted qualified immunity to U.S. officials because it wasn’t clear at the time that abusing Guantanamo prisoners was illegal.

Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.), who has introduced a bill that would require future presidential candidates to provide proof of U.S. citizenship, has collected four

The American Independent’s Sofia Resnick discussed Focus on the Family’s South Carolina affiliate the Palmetto Family Council, the group’s Family 2012

An interim report released today by the National Academy of Engineering lays out a series of failures that led to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting

A concentrated oil burn in the Gulf of Mexico, conducted in May 2010 (Pic by Deepwater Horizon Response, via Flickr) The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force on Wednesday released its comprehensive preliminary strategy for long-term restoration. Next Tuesday, the Consortium for Ocean Leadership and COMPASS (Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea) will host a roundtable discussion to further delve into the strategy, and discuss what can be done on a policy level. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will be sponsoring the event. According to a press release, the roundtable discussion will address specific scientific and economic issues regarding effective restoration in the Gulf of Mexico, including “What role can science play in identifying what the linked ecological and economic goals of ecosystem recovery are in the Gulf?” “Restoring economic vitality to the Gulf will depend on a foundation of sustained coastal health,” reads a press release for the event

DES MOINES — A bill approved by the U.S. Senate’s education committee will replace No Child Left Behind with legislation that’s less “prescriptive and punitive” and allows school districts more freedom in deciding how best to educate and evaluate children, says U.S

In the wake of last weekend’s spill of around 1,000 barrels of oil into the Yellowstone River in Montana, Rep. Fred Upton’s House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold hearings later this month on pipeline safety.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., today lauded Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for sticking to his guns on the issue of categorical exclusions that allow oil and gas companies to skirt environmental regulations for drilling operations on federal lands.

At Economist’s View, Mark Thoma brings up a subject no one seems to want to talk about anymore - helping people with modest incomes buy homes. In the housing

Miami-Dade’s legislative delegation yesterday discussed immigration reform — another signal that the controversial issue will be important in Florida’s

In a tersely-worded response to the five-count legal challenge to the Emergency Manager law in Ingham County Circuit Court, the Snyder administration denied that the controversial law violates the state constitution but did not give detailed responses to the concerns raised. A group of 28 plaintiffs from towns across Michigan are suing Gov

How desperate is The Drudge Report for articles that might hurt Sen. Barack Obama? Look at what the news aggregation site is trumpeting today. Check out

ThinkProgress has the video from Good Morning America, in which the ousted deputy U.N. special representative to Afghanistan says that the stolen election has

If the governor signs the bill, South Carolina would join Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana and Utah in passing laws that dramatically increase the powers of state and local authorities to enforce immigration policy. These are also states that are or will soon be facing legal challenges from civil rights groups over the new laws.

Despite the overwhelming acceptance of birth control among Catholics, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church continues to ask U.S. lawmakers to restrict access to contraceptive services. # The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has released a statement asking lawmakers to dismiss the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation to include contraception in a list of preventative health services in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010

Waiting until Rep. Parker Griffith (R-Ala.) made his switch official, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign

U.S. Reps. Joe Barton (R-Arlington) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Dallas) figure prominently on a government watchdog’s list of Most Embarrassing Re-Elects of