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Last month, the Florida Police Benevolent Association, a union that represents prison guards and other corrections officers, filed a lawsuit calling for a judge to strike down budget language that would privatize prisons in 18 South Florida counties. The union’s complaint is embedded below. # The union has long questioned the financial benefits of privatization and the calculus behind the 7 percent savings mandated by Florida statutes.

Yesterday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters that Congress will likely stick around Washington well into December in order to wrap up

According to the offices of the Senate majority leader and majority whip, Cass Sunstein will get a final confirmation vote sometime shortly after 3:45 p.m.

Via Michael Goldfarb, the respected former South African judge who investigated war crimes in Gaza has sent a letter to Congress highlighting factual errors in

The number of new reported cases of HIV in the U.S. from 2006 through 2009 remained stable, says a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report issued Wednesday. But the data also shows an “alarming increase among young, black gay and bisexual men” that requires “urgent action.” # According to the CDC , evidence from its national HIV incidence surveillance shows that the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States has been relatively stable, with approximately 50,000 new infections each year between 2006 and 2009. The national HIV incidence surveillance is based on data from 16 states, including Florida

As the issue of oil subsidies sows discord within the Republican Party — with most GOP members sticking to the party line by defending subsidies, a growing

The Inspector General for the U.S. State Department has responded to a request from more than a dozen members of Congress for an investigation into the approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline, which critics say has been tainted by a cozy relationship between the agency and the company that owns the pipeline. Inspector General Harold Geisel told the legislators in a letter that he is initiating that investigation “to determine to what extent the Department and all other parties involved complied with federal laws and regulations relating to the Keystone XL pipeline permit process.” The investigation will include interviews with State Department personnel and a review of communications between the agency and TransCanada, the owners of the pipeline.

All politics is local, especially when it comes to energy politics. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) proved that today in Fairbanks when she outlined a plan to

PG&E -- the owner of the natural gas pipeline that exploded in San Bruno, Calif., killing at least four people and damaging dozens of homes -- has set up a

Protesters demonstrate against Arizona S.B. 1070 (Pic by ProgressOhio, via Flickr ) Former Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce — one of the most recognized architects of that state’s immigration enforcement law S.B

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says almost half of the jobs created in Texas since the start of the economic downturn have gone to unauthorized

Justin Elliot catches Andrew Breitbart giving a factual-but-tortured explanation of how Big Government was not responsible for James O’Keefe’s bungled phone

In his more than 20-year political career, Colorado 6th District Republican Congressman Mike Cofffman has never lost an election. Before heading to Capitol Hill, he was a state representative and senator, then state treasurer and then briefly secretary of state. Among insiders, it has been accepted as a given that Coffman is planning to take a run in 2014 at Democratic U.S.

Let’s unpack a claim about the Guantanamo detainees, as summarized by Marc Ambinder: It had been the hope of administration legal advisers that a majority of

Poverty has increased substantially in Colorado and across the country, according to preliminary state Census Bureau figures released today . Roughly one in every eight Coloradans was living in poverty in 2009 and 2010, including 192,000 Coloradans who fell into poverty since 2000.

WATERTOWN, N.Y. -- On a Sunday evening conference call with conservative bloggers -- where he was joined by former Dede Scozzafava campaign manager Matt Burns

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.

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

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

After being tipped off by a recent Washington Blade article about GOP LGBT groups’ attempts to influence the Republican Party platform at the 2012 Republican

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