National News

Governor Linda Lingle, candidate for Hawaii’s open U.S. Senate seat, called on the Republican National Committee to consider the diverse opinions of Party members related to a woman’s right to choose before adopting a proposed platform plank....

Since Heritage's Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley broke the story on July 12 that the Obama Administration had gutted the work requirements from the 1996 welfare reform law, the Administration has denied it.

California, Hawaii, Iowa, and New York today have been awarded Level One Exchange Establishment grants, which provide one year of funding to states that have begun the process of building their Exchange....

...the CBO said that if Congress does not act, the economy will shrink by 0.5 percent, and the unemployment rate will spike to 9.1 percent....

...under federal law, the U.S. Energy Department has to deem the exports in the national interest before these companies are granted permission....

Nearly one-third of America's doctors are already opting out of treating Medicaid patients—because their costs often outweigh what the program pays for care....

"These laws were often rooted in a naïve faith that patient consent, rather than underlying structural protection, is the be-all and end-all of patient protection." -- Big Brother

CAGW named Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye and Ranking Member Thad Cochran its August 2012 Porkers of the Month for including a $380 million earmark for the wasteful and widely-criticized Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS)

The health care system can't possibly deliver on the huge increase in demand for primary care services -- there aren't enough doctors....

Ryan v Obama on Medicare: Surprisingly, there's very little difference between the two plans.

The subsidy is already equivalent to 50 percent to 70 percent of the wholesale price of electricity. And that isn't the only special-interest treatment wind producers receive....

...a federal database of health-related breaches showcases an unsettling new strain of opportunism that is emerging as criminals try to exploit the industry’s shift to digital medical records....

Similar to health maintenance organizations (HMOs), ACOs are designed to bring hospitals, physicians and insurers together to reduce health care costs ....

Under rules proposed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), some working-class families would be unable to afford family coverage offered by their employers, and yet they would not qualify for subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act....

GASB considered changes to address this issue. Recently, it approved a slate of reforms for this exact purpose, yet their changes could actually make things worse by omitting essential changes....

They have also increased the proportion of outlays gobbled up by administrators, says The Economist....

‘Impossible lack of diversity’ reflects ideological intimidation on campus....

She sponsored 49 bills between her election in 2006 and 2012, and zero have been passed into law.* We ask the people of Hawaii to join us to ‘do the math’. It all adds up to zero.”

What happens to our society if we lose all electricity? A new TV show premiering next month, Revolution, will explore that question....

Honolulu hosts 55 of America's 81 living Medal of Honor recipients this fall at the 2012 Medal of Honor Society Convention. Recipients from World War II up to the current conflict in Afghanistan will be in attendance.

Residents of Hawaii, Utah, and South Dakota were the most likely to be "thriving" in the first half of 2012 based on how they rate their lives today and their expectations for their lives in five years. Residents of West Virginia and Maine were the least likely to be thriving.

Medicare.gov is publishing quality-of-care and patient- satisfaction information on more than 4,000 hospitals around the country that participate in Medicare and Medicaid.

Taxpayers will lose even more on the auto bailout than previously thought, as the Treasury has just revised its estimate upward to $25 billion. This may still underestimate the losses to come....

After this long and difficult struggle we are told that all criminal charges are dismissed, even though some of the accused had already pled guilty....

Obamacare has already "ended Medicare as we know it."

Last night...our opponent immediately turned to name calling and finger pointing to define us. But that is exactly what is wrong with politics today. There are too many politicians who just want to point out problems and too few who want to find solutions.

That's the number of American people who approve of the job that Congress is doing, and my opponent is one of the ‘12-percenters,’" Governor Lingle said.

Between 1999 and 2002 Hanabusa short changed the Hawaii ERS--launching today’s multi-billion dollar Hawaii pension crisis. Now she’s lining up with the most unpopular politician in Hawaii—Neil Abercrombie—in support of his efforts to gut the Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act.

"Our way of life is being threatened because of the failure of D.C. politicians like my opponent. They failed Hawaii and they failed America. She failed us," said Governor Linda Lingle.  "She put her political career and her party ahead of the people."

At Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell's direction, Alaska's major oil and gas producers and pipeline company TransCanada have shifted focus from a big pipeline to the Lower 48 to one leading to an LNG export plant in Southcentral Alaska....

“I have held hundreds of town-hall meetings in my district explaining why we have to take bold reform steps, and I’ve found treating people like adults works.  All those ads pushing elderly woman off the cliffs don’t work anymore if you lay out the problem.”

We will honor you, our fellow citizens, by giving you the right and opportunity to make the choice:

• What kind of country do we want to have?
• What kind of people do we want to be?

Yesterday, I joined my former congressional colleague Brian Baird (D-WA) in an extended interview with the Washington Post. Brian and I discussed whether Congress can still compromise.

Do not “turn yourself in” before the rules are announced and the application process is in place. -- FACE 

Electronic diversion, together with the Great Recession and its after-effects, has buffeted postal services throughout the world. Nevertheless, the majority of foreign posts in high- and medium-income countries have remained profitable ....

At least 60 percent of firms are estimating Obamacare will raise their health care costs, according to a new study released Wednesday by Mercer, a human resources consulting firm.

The US is poised to divert around 40 per cent of its corn into ethanol because of the Congress-enacted mandate despite “huge damage” to the crop because of the worst drought in at least half a century, José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, warned....

Access to doctors looms as an important issue in 2014, when under the federal health law, the number of Medicaid patients -- now 60 million -- will increase by as many as 16 million.....

...American motorists are now burning about as much corn in their cars as is fed to all of the country's chickens, turkeys, cattle, pigs and fish combined....

Obamacare limits patient choice through expansive federal regulation of the insurance market, government interference in the decisions patients make with their doctors, and increased dependence on government health programs....

...the technologies being used to burn the biomass are outdated, and as a result have been fined for violating air-pollution or water-pollution standards....

In June 2012, seven environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), claiming that lead bullets are poisoning both wildlife and humans....

If the President truly wanted to lower gas prices, he would work to increase supply. But when given the opportunity, he has done the opposite.

"This case does not involve a fundamental right or suspect classification, such as the race-based classification at issue in Brown v. Board of Education...."

The shore side LNG infrastructure that is to accompany TOTE’s plan may help other transportation industries in Puget Sound follow TOTE in converting to LNG.

...Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley first broke the story on July 12 that Obama's Health and Human Services Department (HHS) had rewritten the Clinton-era reform to undo the work requirements....

The House and Senate are in recess until Monday, September 10.... 

Several trillion meals containing genetically engineered food ingredients have been consumed by people around the world, and not a single adverse effect has been documented.

The emails released between Solyndra stakeholders and Obama Administration officials show that Solyndra's investors knew the company was a bad bet for taxpayers, but the Administration wanted the energy loan guarantee program to be perceived as successful....

"Disruptive technologies can putter around the margins … for years … But if they get better or cheaper, at some point they can suddenly take off, challenging the status quo."