Headlines

A recent study says allowing workers paid sick leave could account for healthier families and more than one billion dollars in savings -- but the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are fighting it.

According to a report released by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), two-fifths of private sector employees go without access to paid sick leave, accounting for 1.3 million more hospital emergency department visits and delayed medical care for workers and their families.

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Thursday on a measure to urge the Transportation Conference Committee to strip the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the ability to designate toxic coal ash as a hazardous waste. This spring, the House approved H.R. 4348, the Surface and Transportation Extension Act of 2012. In this bill the House included an amendment by West Virginia Republican Representative David McKinley, that would prohibit the EPA from ever setting federally enforceable safeguards for the disposal of toxic coal ash. Now McKinley and the coal lobby are fighting to keep his amendment from being stripped out during House-Senate conference committee negotiations.

As the exhaust cleared from Mitt Romney's brief bus stop in the economically devastated town of Janesville, Wisconsin on Monday, another massive bus rolled into town.

Four nuns from two coasts and the American heartland embarking on the ultimate tongue-in-cheek counterspin tour, walked off their presidential campaign-style "wrapped bus," past 300 cheering fans into the offices of the nation's rising star conservative Catholic lawmaker, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville). They were there to challenge the House Budget Committee Chairman's fundamentals -- both the social services-slashing budget that he has shepherded through Congress and his claims that Catholic doctrine supports his policies.

Tucker Carlson's website, the "Daily Caller," recently posted a story claiming that a Florida state legislator had rebutted a purported claim by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) "drafted" Florida's "Stand Your Ground" (SYG)/"Castle Doctrine" law. But we did not make that claim.