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A softened-up alternative to the Employee Free Choice Act, pushed by Costco, Starbucks and Whole Foods, is turning out to be something incredible: a

Up at his ranch near Sedona, Sen. John McCain must be fuming. After everything he’s done for President George W. Bush’s campaign efforts -- the endorsement

Kansas officials are planning to move forward with another set of rules aimed at abortion clinics in the state. Recently, a court blocked the state’s efforts to shut down two of the last three remaining clinics. However, officials say that the court’s ruling gives them latitude to move forward with other rules.

It will come as no surprise to Coloradans force-fed a fire-hose stream of ugly and untrustworthy campaign election material over the last two years that independent spending– that is, spending directly tied to no candidate and mostly free of accountability– more than tripled in the state from 2008 to 2010. This according to a recent report released by watchdog group Follow the Money , which singles out Colorado for study. The authors report that, although the state has relatively strong disclosure laws, larger changes in campaign finance rules have let loose here as everywhere in the country a storm of money and a sea of roiling paperwork that can cover over as much as it reveals

Reuters points out one fascinating subplot to the story of whether the Obama administration will approve completion of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast: It would help make his most prominent political adversaries even richer. What’s been left out of the ferocious debate over the pipeline, however, is the prospect that if president Obama allows a permit for the Keystone XL to be granted, he would be handing a big victory and great financial opportunity to Charles and David Koch, his bitterest political enemies and among the most powerful opponents of his clean economy agenda… An unknown amount of company profits — figures are unavailable as the company is privately held — come from the Pine Bend Refinery near St.

IOWA CITY — The general public has a warped view of a bill that would make it a crime to produce audio or video of an agriculture facility because media coverage of the proposal “is disingenuous,” according to Iowa Sen. Sandy Greiner (R-Keota).

State health officials are reassuring people who live near the Kalamazoo River that touching submerged oil on the river bottom is not likely to cause cancer.

Bowing to the banking industry, House Democrats yesterday weakened legislation empowering bankruptcy judges to alter the terms of primary mortgages to prevent

For those of us who are still having a hard time wrapping our brainpans around what exactly credit default swaps are and why they made the economy go boom, we

I’ve just gotten my hands on the transcript of last Thursday’s Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on czars. There’s a lot in

Personhood USA co-founder Keith Mason (Pic via personhoodusa.com) A Nevada judge on Monday ruled (.pdf) that his state’s proposed “fetal personhood” measure, which would outlaw abortion by defining life as beginning at the moment of conception, is misleading and confusing to voters. As part of his decision, the judge rewrote the initiative to include language that makes it less vague

Here’s a quick wrap-up of today’s health care news. Notwithstanding Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-S.C.) infamous outburst, President Obama’s big speech Wednesday

In a recent interview with Ocala’s Star-Banner , Republican state Rep. Dennis Baxley touts the Legislature’s successful focus on anti-abortion measures during this year’s legislative session. # Baxley, a former executive director of Florida Right to Life , was among a handful of state legislators who pushed through abortion-related bills during the Legislature’s spring session

Two days after the Government Accountability Office’s one-time audit examining Federal Reserve activities during the economic downturn was published, Sen.

The state of Ohio is moving toward implementing regulations on the air pollution caused by the practice of hydrofracking to mine natural gas deposits deep within the earth. Companies drilling for oil and natural gas in shale formations in Ohio might soon face air pollution limits on new wells. The practice of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in pursuit of gas can require multiple wells on a single site, creating a concentration of equipment that can leak hazardous airborne compounds, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

The 2012 ballot isn’t the only place where a raging debate on same-sex marriage is taking place in Minnesota. Three same-sex couples filed an appeal in July in their bid to overturn Minnesota’s Defense of Marriage Act, and groups on both sides of the issue have filed paperwork with the court offering strongly worded arguments on the issue of marriage equality. A Hennepin County district court judge dismissed a suit by the couples — Duane Gajewski and Doug Benson, Lindzi Campbell and Jesse Dykhuis, John Rittman and Tom Trisko– in March.

I noticed in Massachusetts that the idea of backroom deals and horse-trading to bring on extra votes in the Senate -- to get the bill to 60 -- was far more

This will hardly come as a surprise to anyone who watched the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in which her answers were careful

On Tuesday, two groups called on Sen. Amy Klobuchar to sign on as a cosponsor of a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) noting that she is the only Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee who has not taken that step

Mohammed Jawad, the Afghan boy seized for allegedly throwing a grenade at U.S. troops and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay ever since, may be on his way home to

Gov.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is scheduled to hold a briefing today on bullying and “peer-to-peer” violence in K-12 public schools . Specifically, the commission will concentrate on students targeted due to their race, national origin, religion, disability, gender or LGBT status and on what the appropriate federal response should be going forward, with a focus on student needs, programs and the enforcement efforts of the U.S

Felix Salmon at Portfolio brings up something I’ve been meaning to mention as well: AIG, the giant insurance company bailed out by government to the tune of

Andrew Breitbart (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr) During a recent tea party meeting in Boston, political commentator Andrew Breitbart made a slew of controversial comments about the divide between liberals and conservatives. Breitbart, who often appears on Fox News and runs the media syndicate breitbart.com , will be appearing in Orlando on Saturday alongside a host of Florida Republican elected officials. “There are times where I’m not thinking as clearly as I should, and in those unclear moments, I always think to myself, ‘Fire the first shot.’ ‘Bring it on,’” Breitbart said .