Pat Dollard

The Washington Times: JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A judge on Friday ruled against Republican Joe Miller’s lawsuit challenging how Alaska counted write-in votes for rival Lisa Murkowski in their Senate race, delivering another setback to the tea party-backed candidate in his longshot legal fight. Judge William Carey’s ruling is virtually certain to be appealed to [...]

The Hill: Senate Democrats plan to move ahead with a bipartisan tax package, despite strong objections from House Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) unveiled a bill Thursday evening that keeps the deal between President Obama and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) largely unchanged, but includes environmental provisions that may soothe angry liberals. [...]

Politico: A federal judge in Virginia will rule on one of the most prominent health reform repeal lawsuits Monday, sources tell POLITICO. The ruling stands to upstage the repeal lawsuit in Florida, where the judge is set to hear long-scheduled oral arguments on Thursday. The Florida and Virginia cases, two among many challenges to the [...]

DETROIT (AP)- The death of a 67-year-old Burger King customer who police said fell and later died after being punched by a 20-year-old employee was ruled a homicide on Friday. An autopsy determined that Paul Cannon died from blunt force trauma to the head, said Dennis Niemiec, a spokesman for the Wayne County medical examiner’s [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) — No comment? No way. You don’t stop Bill Clinton when he’s back at the White House with something to say. See video Well, OK. He and President Barack Obama, two of the most famous men in the world, did need a little help getting a door unlocked first. But then it was [...]

Los Angeles Times: A nascent California ballot measure that seeks to replicate Arizona’s controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants is dividing the state’s Republicans, with a number of prominent strategists and leaders fearing that it could further harm their party’s already fraught relationship with Latinos — the fastest-growing segment of the electorate. It’s unclear whether the [...]

Los Angeles Times: Reporting from Washington — The latest disclosures by the WikiLeaks website have struck a blow against what many experts say was one of the key reforms to emerge from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: the push to widely share sensitive information among the massive intelligence bureaucracy.

Los Angeles Times: When a federal appeals court meets in San Francisco on Monday for arguments on Proposition 8, legal analysts will be closely watching Judge Michael Hawkins, a moderate Democratic appointee whose vote is expected to be critical in the same-sex marriage case. The randomly chosen three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court [...]

McClatchy: WASHINGTON — As Americans continue to lose their homes in record numbers, the Federal Reserve is considering making it much harder for homeowners to stop foreclosures and escape predatory home loans with onerous terms. The Fed’s proposal to amend a 42-year-old provision of the federal Truth in Lending Act has angered labor, civil rights [...]

Washington (AP) – In a case of closing the barn door after the horses are out, federal employees are being warned not to look at documents leaked by WikiLeaks website, noting that despite their wide release, the hundreds of thousands of stolen papersare still classified by the U.S. government. An internal memo sent late last [...]

BAGHDAD (AP) – Intelligence officials say foreign fighters have been slipping back into Iraq in larger numbers recently and may have been behind some of the most devastating attacks this year, reviving a threat the U.S. military believed had been almost entirely eradicated. It is impossible to verify the actual numbers of foreign insurgents entering [...]

The Hill: A Republican senator is planning on introducing legislation this week that would allow state officials to challenge federal regulations before they go into effect. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told The Hill that his states’ rights bill is in large part a reaction to Democrats’ healthcare reform law, which Republicans claim would create 159 [...]

Washington Post: For much of this year, the Obama administration touted its allegedly tougher-than-ever approach to immigration enforcement, culminating in a supposedly record number of deportations. But in reaching 392,862 deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement included more than 19,000 immigrants who exited the previous fiscal year, according to agency statistics. ICE also ran a [...]