Daily news coverage of politics, policy, and issues shaping the nation.
Chapman University in Orange, Calif., recently conducted its second annual survey on fears possessed by Americans in order to pinpoint what Americans fear the most. The fear that ranked the highest among Americans surveyed was corruption of government officials at 58 percent. Cyber-terrorism ranked second at 44.8 percent and corporate tracking of personal information was…
Clay County Director of Schools Jerry Strong announced Thursday that all campuses will remain open, despite the school board voting to close all schools in the lower income Tennessee district. The issue has centered around whether the schools that are struggling with finances close or continue the school year in hopes the school board will find…
Gov. Tom Wolf, D-Pa., received “talking points” from a Planned Parenthood lobbyist on the Center for Medical Progress’ undercover videos, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. Wolf administration staff emails provided to the Tribune-Review show that Sari Stevens, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates and PAC, the legislative arm of the three Planned Parenthood affiliates in Pennsylvania, offered…
Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced Friday the Republican appointments to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., will serve as the panel’s chair. “No issue is more deserving of our undivided attention than protecting the dignity of human life,” Blackburn said in a statement provided…
Some Colorado governments are modifying their data, making it difficult—or prohibitively expensive—for taxpayers and journalists to determine who is paid the highest salary or how public money is spent. Pinnacol Assurance, a quasi-government agency with a history of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lavish trips and alcohol-fueled events while paying employees huge salaries, recently…
Critics call “useless” and “highly speculative” recent findings that Chattanooga Electric Power Board officials claim prove that the municipal broadband network in that city is more than worth its cost to U.S. taxpayers. EPB took $111 million in federal stimulus funds six years ago to set up a smart grid system to offer ultra-high-speed Internet to compete against…
PHILADELPHIA—City schools are struggling to find teachers, but the district and local teachers union have an agreement that permits dozens of them to abandon their classrooms to go work for the union every year. As part of the contract between the School District of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, up to 63 teachers…
Fort Meigs Road in Perrysburg, Ohio, is too narrow and needs widening, as almost all would agree. But homeowners along the road don’t agree with how it should be widened, nor do they agree with the “quick take” eminent domain process the city used to claim people’s front yards. What these residents find even harder to stomach is the…
NEW DELHI, India— The Majnu Ka Tilla Tibetan refugee colony in New Delhi is a chaotic neighborhood of narrow alleys and shanty concrete structures packed into a thin strip of land between National Highway 9 and the Yamuna River. The refugee colony was founded in the 1960s to consolidate Tibetan refugee communities around India’s capital…
An Obamacare trend continues. With an announcement to not offer health insurance in 2016, Consumers’ Choice Health Insurance Company in South Carolina becomes the ninth consumer owned and operated plan (co-op) created under Obamacare to stop operations. It was “an avoidable outcome,” according to a statement from Jerry Burgess, president and CEO of Consumers’ Choice. Approximately 67,000…
In a much-anticipated hearing, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared Thursday before a panel of lawmakers tasked with investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attacks and resigned five months after, testified before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in an 11-hour…
Rep. Paul Ryan is officially in the race for speaker of the House. In a letter to his Republican colleagues Thursday night, Ryan, R-Wis., the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he’s “eager and ready to be our speaker.” Earlier this week, Ryan told House Republicans he would take the gavel only…
Inspectors from the Texas Office of the Inspector General served subpoenas for clinic records at several Planned Parenthood centers in the state on Thursday, the organization said. Abby Johnson, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas said in a statement that “[i]t is long past time that inspectors, not just in Texas but…
The Obama administration is trumpeting a shrunken federal deficit as new justification for more spending and an end to mandatory budget cuts. The Congressional Budget Office, though, already has warned of “dramatic” debt trouble ahead. The Department of Treasury last week released the numbers for fiscal year 2015, announcing a $44-billion drop in the deficit from…
President Barack Obama used his veto pen Thursday in a rare rejection of an annual defense bill during a publicized photo-op event in the Oval Office. The president’s consequential veto of the $612-billion National Defense Authorization Act will face a Republican-led override attempt in the House Nov. 5, though it is uncertain whether the GOP…
Three influential Republican senators are vowing to vote against a House bill that partially repeals the Affordable Care Act, dealing a blow to the measure. “On Friday the House of Representatives is set to vote on a reconciliation bill that repeals only parts of Obamacare. This simply isn’t good enough,” Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah; Ted…
The House Rules Committee removed a problematic provision in a budget reconciliation bill Wednesday night that the Senate parliamentarian warned would make the legislation dead on arrival in the Senate. The provision, which would have repealed the Independent Payment Advisory Board, was dropped at the request of Budget Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga. Had the House…
The $15 minimum wage increase in the Seattle area “is getting off to a pretty bad start,” according to a new report. Data shows that the Seattle Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) lost 700 restaurant jobs from January to September of this year, and a report from the American Enterprise Institute suggests that this could be the product…
Speaker John Boehner cinched victory Wednesday as House Republicans smoothly extended his linchpin private school voucher program for low-income students through 2021. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program provides students in Washington’s struggling school districts with federally backed vouchers to attend a private school of choice. The House confirmed its reauthorization Wednesday evening in a near…
Ohio could become the next state to defund Planned Parenthood. The Ohio Senate approved legislation on Wednesday that would prevent state and certain federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood. The legislation was approved in a 23-10 vote and was sent to the Republican-led state House for consideration. In a statement, Ohio Senate President Keith Faber,…