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As Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) girds for the March 4 Ohio and Texas primaries -- races that could mark her last stand in the battle for the

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Donald Berwick (Pic by MilitaryHealth, via Flickr) Kaiser Health News reports that states all over the country, including Florida, are moving toward Medicaid managed care and are looking “to private health plans for help closing budget gaps.” According to Kaiser : State officials expect the trend to continue in the state-federal program for the poor, according to a survey released today by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Officials in 27 states (of 45 responding) reported that they expect to lean more heavily on managed care in the near future. Ten states, including California, Florida and Texas reported that they have specific plans to expand managed care to new geographic areas or groups of patients, such as the elderly

Among the myriad criticisms that opponents of the Democrats’ health reform bills have leveled at the legislation, perhaps none resonates as strongly as the

House Republicans have no intention of bringing the DISCLOSE Act to the floor once they take control in January, so the best chance of passage is now. But the hurdles are high.

In a letter released today, the Senate Ethics Committee admonished Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) for actions and statements reflecting unfavorably upon the

If it doesn’t make any sense to you to spare defense programs from the spending freeze, pay attention to next Tuesday. At 8:30 a.m., Undersecretary of Defense

Former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich has officially thrown his hat into the presidential ring. Gingrich, a Georgia resident, made the announcement Wednesday afternoon.

Gov. Rick Scott (left) with Florida Senate President-Designate Don Gaetz, R-Destin (Pic via flgov.com) The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports today that an immigration enforcement bill is one of several items Gov. Rick Scott has on his “controversial legislative agenda.” The Sentinel adds that during the 2011 legislative session, “Scott and the House wanted to require companies to use the federal E-Verify program to check employees’ immigration status and require cops to check the legal status of anyone being investigated for a crime.” Scott recently said at RedState Gathering 2011, an event for conservative politicians and organizations, that he “tried to get an bill passed last year.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hasner appeared on a Sarasota conservative talk show today, echoing previous comments on the dangers of Sharia in the Sunshine State by saying there is a “civilizational jihad” underway across the country and in Florida. Audio after the jump

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler says he found out about allegations of unpaid wages at a local construction site through The Florida Independent. # “Other than reading your article, no one came to me on this issue. No one from the Housing Authority, nobody from the contractor, subcontractor, general contractor and no employee came, so I’ve seen your article and trying to figure out what happened here,” Seiler says.

So a couple months ago I asked David McKiernan, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, what he thought of the idea of arming Afghan tribesman along a Sons of

The papers yesterday screamed the news as the two stories broke almost simultaneously. In one plot, the internal watchdog at the Securities and Exchange

Something that kind-of-sort-of-not-really-but-close-enough ties into Daphne’s post about Obama and Guantanamo: Rush Holt, the New Jersey Democratic congressman

It’s all but official now that Democrats won’t reach 60 votes on today’s cloture vote on the DISCLOSE Act. Fox News reported that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)

The Florida Water Coalition today sent letters to the state’s congressional delegation, urging them to support water pollution limits for Florida, which have been opposed by every major industrial and agricultural group in Florida. According to the letter, water pollution in Florida is posing “a serious health threat” to humans and wildlife alike — and leading to declines in tourism and waterfront real estate. # The letter, which was sent via email, includes several photos of a toxic algal bloom on Southwest Florida’s Caloosahatchee River. A drinking water plant on the river at Olga, which normally serves around 30,000 people, is currently shut down due to the contamination, which, like many algal blooms plaguing Florida waterways, is a result of fertilizer, manure and sewage pollution.

There’s more bad news for water watchers in the Rocky Mountain West, where record snowpack from last winter has led to a dangerous runoff in some places, including Colorado’s Western Slope. The bad news is this season is apparently a statistical blip in a 30-year historical decline in Rocky Mountain snowpack, which provide between 60 and 80 percent of the water supply for the 70 million people living in the western United States.

There’s something jarring about this new ad from Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kans.), who’s running for the U.S. Senate. WordPress.com isn’t a news site. It’s

With all the focus on (and delays surrounding) the Senate Finance Committee’s health reform bill, the outcome of another Senate health care controversy has been