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American Future Fund — a nonprofit with numerous ties to Gov.-elect Terry Branstad and based out of a P.O. Box in Des Moines — spent $9,599,806 in 2010, ranking 7th nationally in spending by outside political organizations , according to research by the Center for Responsive Politics. Because the group is registered as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, it is not regulated by the Federal Elections Commission or the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board

The Jan. 3 Iowa Caucuses will give Iowa Republicans a leg up heading into legislative races in 2012, a leading political observer says. Steffen Schmidt, professor of political science at Iowa State University, said the Republican Party of Iowa will be more organized going into 2012 thanks to the competitive race for the GOP presidential nomination playing out in Iowa

The hype around the Florida Senate race was focused on Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio, who sparred for the GOP nomination before the former was forced to go

So it happens again: another first-class storyteller dupes her agent, her editor, her publisher and a handful of high-falutin’, praise-bestowing reviewers

Declaring that Dawn Johnsen “is so against an unborn child’s right-to-live that she has labeled mothers-to-be ‘fetal containers’, Rep. Steve King

Although it might be easy to view recent conflicts in Wisconsin as somewhat isolated, state Sen. Lena Taylor says that would be a major mistake

Michigan is one of a dozen states that have taken no action to implement state-based health care exchanges in advance of the Affordable Care Act coming into full force in 2014. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein reports that 33 states have considered bills — with 10 passing their bills — nine states have passed legislation which do not create exchanges but do declare an intent to do so, and a dozen remain without any action on it all.

Adam Serwer has an absolutely sterling post about the dangers of assigning collective guilt to American Muslims for the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan: In

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who apologized last night after yelling you lie! during the president’s address to Congress, appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is circulating around Capitol Hill a proposal that would allow nuclear and coal with carbon capture and storage technology to count

Dedicated readers know that since March I’ve been trying to determine how the Obama administration conceives of the actual endgame in Afghanistan-Pakistan --

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not pleased with the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s offshore drilling announcement today. Here’s Karen Harbert, president

An important nugget from President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget: The White House aims to scrap $36.5 billion in subsidies to oil and gas producers by repealing

Elijah Zarlin, who worked for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008 in fundraising, was arrested on Monday during the ongoing protests at the White House in opposition to approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast of America. He soon won’t be alone. More than 100 Obama staffers from the 2008 campaign plan to join the protests and risk arrest on Thursday

Jason Hancock of The Iowa Independent, TWI’s sister site, is traveling through the state today with Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), whose position as the senior

Although the mainstream media in the United States hasn’t picked up on it, at least one Mexican newspaper and some U.S. bloggers are reporting that swine flu

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol moments ago, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) seemed surprised by his own endorsement three months ago of a Medicare buy-in

David Frum explains to Mike Allen his departure from the American Enterprise Institute. (Frum politely declined to explain much more about the situation to me

A great tidbit from Politico’s story on Sen.-elect Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) short visit to the Hill today. Moments before Brown walked into McCain’s second