Sit back and think for a moment. See if you can name ten political priorities, ten bills that, if passed into law, would make this country better. Is the issuing of federal grants of money to schools that rename their mascots one of them? I’m aware that a number of schools in the United States [...]

On Saturday, November 21 2009, author and public advocate Lois Herr drew attention in her congressional campaign against Republican congressman Joseph Pitts when she appeared at a rally to speak against the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. This amendment, which would prohibit private health care plans paid for with private money from covering abortion, is a major effort [...]

In the immediate wake of the National Equality March, some momentum for equal rights legislation was apparent. But that momentum seems to have come crashing to a halt. Senator Carl Levin had promised in October to hold a hearing on reform to the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law, a law that codifies military anti-gay discrimination. [...]

The Mountain Party of West Virginia is an enigma. Having received 4% of the vote in the 2008 elections, the Mountain Party has received official ballot status. This means that its candidates will automatically be granted permission to take part in elections in 2010, a great boon. And yet the party hasn’t released a newsletter [...]

On the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday, Representative Todd Akin of Missouri declared public schools a menace to society. And teaching children to read? According to Akin, that’s downright Soviet: The thing that strikes me the most, and I don’t want to overuse the welcome that you’ve extended to me, is this. There [...]

The practice of politics involves odd justifications for all sorts of things, from the naming of post offices to the placement of bridges. Sometimes, however, a justification for a previously-held position stands out head and shoulders above the rest. Today we award our Creative Congressional Justification Award to Representative Steve King of Iowa, who has [...]

The following is our transcription of testimony made this morning, November 19 2009, by Dr. Jeffrey Short of Oceana to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The topic: the environmental impact of offshore oil drilling on marine ecosystems and policy protections that should be implemented. Good morning. I am the Pacific Science Director for [...]

The following is our transcription of the November 19, 2009 testimony of John Amos of Skytruth, a non-profit environmental imaging organization, to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. After more than a decade analyzing satellite imagery in the commercial sector for oil and gas exploration, I founded Skytruth, a non-profit corporation dedicated to [...]

The next time you hear a U.S. Senator declare how vitally important offshore oil drilling is for the nation, you’ll have to ask yourself how she or he managed to come to that conclusion. On Thursday, November 19 2009, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee convened a hearing on the environmental impact of offshore [...]

Tim Ryan won election to Ohio’s 17th District congressional seat by a whopping 56 point margin in 2008. Such an overwhelming election result signifies that Ryan has quite a bit of wiggle room when it comes to policy. A landslide winner like Ryan could follow his policy dictates with a fair amount of free will, [...]