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Personhood USA has been taking its cause outside of the country lately. The group, which works to criminalize abortion and some forms of birth control, recently applauded Hungary for adopting a new constitution (.pdf) that it says “goes further in protecting the personhood rights of all humans by protecting humans from trafficking, medical experimentation and human cloning.” # In a press release , Personhood USA cofounder Keith Mason said that the country’s constitution should be “an example to the entire EU and to us here in the USA.” # According to the release, Personhood sought to establish a similar constitution in the Dominican Republican in 2009, teaming up with San Jose-based group Live Action. According to its website , Personhood petitions are currently active in all 50 states.

The American Legislative Exchange Council ( ALEC ) is a non-profit organization that brings corporations together with state lawmakers to create and advocate for model legislation. Minnesota experts on lobbyist disclosure say ALEC’s activity here requires the group to register as a lobbyist under state law. ALEC denies that the organization lobbies state legislators.

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

Texas public schools’ accountability ratings were released over the last two weeks — the federal ratings last week, statewide numbers on July 29 — and

One measure of Republican and conservative confidence on their campaign to block a health care bill is the presence of Rick Scott, a once-discredited hospital

In a piece published today, TWI detailed how a recount in the gubernatorial race between Democrat Mark Dayton and Republican Tom Emmer might play out. Dayton

This week, the Senate will likely begin debate on its version of a cash-for-clunkers bill, according to CNNMoney. This legislation began with green intentions

Texas Railroad Commissioner and U.S. Senate candidate Michael Williams -- sporting an incandescent blue bow tie -- drew huge cheers from the CPAC crowd this

There’s talk about how Iran’s apparent rejection of President Obama’s outreach represents the end of a 2008 campaign goal. And it’s not exactly wrong, though it

Earlier this week, the U.S. Army announced that it was adding 22 new charges to those of transferring classified data to a personal computer and communicating

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.

Environmentalists might be applauding the Obama administration’s new restrictions on mountaintop coal mining as the most significant step the government has

Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is among the most forthright of conservative deficit hawks when it comes to straight talk about cutting spending, but in his

James Bopp, Jr., the conservative First Amendment lawyer who argued Citizens United and is also representing the National Organization for Marriage in a number

Fresh out from the Department of Defense: word of the first units deployed to Afghanistan as part of the extended surge. It’s a whole lot of Marines and the

Sometime during the week-end of March 14-15, the U.S. Federal Reserve decided the government of the United States could not permit the investment bank Bear

President Barack Obama (Pic by The White House, via Flickr) A petition protesting the EPA’s “numeric nutrient criteria,” a set of stringent water pollution standards specific to the state of Florida, has been sent to President Barack Obama, in an attempt to urge him to “reign in the EPA’s power grab and return water quality regulation to state government.” The petition was backed largely by the Florida Farm Bureau , a group whose members could be hit with costly upgrades or fines because of the new rules. The Farm Bureau worked with “a coalition of municipalities, regulated industries and other agricultural associations” to gather at least 5,000 signatures for the petition, which reads: I am a registered voter in Florida and concerned about the higher costs associated with the EPA’s numeric nutrient criteria rule. Several studies put the cost of this rule in the billions

After spending at least a month “right in the corner of (Wis.) Gov. Scott Walker 100 percent,” Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain told

Arguing that access to health care is the right of everyone, not a privilege for the wealthy, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) explains that while doesn’t really

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).

It was a scenario that tapped into Americans’ deepest fears about increased government involvement with health care: President Obama was planning to a create

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.

The University of Florida campus (Pic by Random McRandomhead, via Flickr) New reports indicate that Gov. Rick Scott is in the early stages of forming his policy to change higher education in the state of Florida.