Maryland Assembly OKs $260M tax hike, teacher pension shift

  ANNAPOLIS — The Maryland General Assembly passed a $260 million tax increase Wednesday as it adjourned from a three-day special session that ended with Gov. Martin O'Malley saying he will bring lawmakers back for another session this summer. The House gave final  …

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Top VAWA Opponents Partnered with Convicted Wife-Beater and Group Tied to Mail Order Bride Firm | rightwingwatch.org

The House of Representatives is poised to pass a hobbled version of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization (VAWA) later today. The House GOP version actually rolls back some current protections and excludes other key protections contained in the Sena …

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How badly has fracking polluted drinking water in Dimock, Pennsylvania

The trouble started in 2008, when the wells used by several Dimock families were contaminated with methane. In 2009, fracking firm Cabot Oil & Gas was fined by state regulators for contaminating the wells with methane while fracking underground. Cabot routinely denies cau …

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The Chamber of Commerce's Dark Money Days May Be Over | Mother Jones

In the annals of loopholes, one that the Federal Election Commission, the nation's election watchdog, created in 2008 could rank as one of the most absurd. The FEC's Republican commissioners decided that shadowy nonprofits running political ads (think: the US Chamber of Commerce) …

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The George Carlin & Scott Walker Clip Every American Needs To See - Democratic Underground

The George Carlin & Scott Walker Clip Every American Needs To See It’s almost like George had a pair of magic, look-into-the-future glasses.Warning: A little bit NSFW.

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The Real Fraud: Second 'Non-Citizen' In James O'Keefe Voter Fraud Video Naturalized In 2011

In conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe’s latest video, he features two “non-citizens” who have supposedly committed voter fraud in North Carolina. As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, one of the men, Zbigniew Gorzkowski, has actually been an American citi …

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BREAKING: The Third Party National Group "Americans Elect" drops out: Is this a Sign of the Demise of Democracy in America?

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The U.S. Department of Double Standards -- In These Times

On April 21, The New York Times reported that Wal-Mart de Mexico paid $24 million in bribes to local land use officials in exchange for allowing the company to build stores in virtually every corner of the country, and to make environmental objections vanish. Although its top exe …

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Bush and Cheney convicted of war crimes by foreign tribunal... More to come? - Democratic Underground

What's going on with America and the rest of the world?In a story that is suspiciously floating just below the general U.S. media radar, former President George W. Bush and his puppet-master/VP Dick Cheney were unanimously convicted of war crimes by a five panel tribunal in Malay …

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Subverting the Statehouse: Uncovering the Other ALECs

Taxpayer-subsidized stealth lobbyists: Lobbyists who circumvent normal lobbying regulations and procedures to advance the corporate agenda in statehouses nationwide on the taxpayer dime. If Washington DC is the new Versailles, run by corporate overlords and their lobbyist-hired  …

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