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The Environmental Protection Agency's controversial water rule passed a crucial test Thursday, gaining the approval of the agency's internal review board. The EPA's Science Advisory Board noted in a peer review of the rule that there is "strong scientific support" for the agency's proposed Waters of the U.S. regulation. The panel was reviewing the EPA's draft report on the connectivity of waterways around the country. "The report should also clearly indicate that the definitions used for rivers, streams, and wetlands are scientific, rather than legal or regulatory definitions," the board wrote.

Most years, California offers up supersize election stories -- an embarrassment of riches for the opinion columnist. This year, other states are getting all the drama while California looks as staid as a bored accountant. In 2010, the big story was Meg Whitman's millions vs. Jerry Brown's cheapskate comeback campaign. Whitman spent $140 million of her own money on her campaign for governor, only to watch attorney Gloria Allred chastise her on TV for firing a nanny because she had come to the country illegally. The previous two elections -- one a recall -- starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, the cigar-chomping movie...

Over twenty nations and counting have a travel ban to stop the spread of Ebola. Senators, Congressmen, radio talk show hosts and assorted pundits on both sides of the aisle are clamoring for President Obama to implement a travel ban from Ebola hot zone countries. Stopping potential Ebola carriers from entering our country is only common sense. I chuckled upon hearing Bill O'Reilly say that when one more American is reported to be infected, Obama will surely implement a travel ban. Even after six years, Mr. O'Reilly is still credulous about who Obama truly is. Remember the programmed cyborg assassin...

For about the past week or so, health insurance broker Stephen Hunt has been getting phone calls from unhappy clients. “They just keep building up and up and up and up and up," Hunt said. The calls are coming from clients who have been notified by their insurer that their policy expires at year’s end and most will have to purchase plans with much higher premiums and much higher deductibles, he said. “We’re not talking about a minor difference in premium. We're talking about a mortgage payment difference in premium for a lot of people," Hunt said. Anne Melissa Dowling,...

Karl Rove has come under fire for masterminding the Bush Administration policy of hiding the discovery of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Rove, along with Bush, had a policy befitting a schoolyard bully victim, and he no doubt believed the argument was lost and didn't want to reopen old wounds. Apparently soldiers in Iraq were under strict orders not to talk about the many canisters of mustard gas and nerve gas found hidden by Saddam Hussein's regime. The principle argument in defense of this practice is that it was intended to keep these weapons out of the...

The midterm elections aren’t over yet, but that hasn’t stopped early chatter among senators over who will lead the Senate Republican campaign arm for the 2016 cycle. Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Dean Heller of Nevada have been working behind the scenes to let allies know they are interested in taking over as the next head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to five sources familiar with the discussions. Heller has talked about the plum post with Republican lobbyists, according to a source familiar with the conversations. Several Republican sources said that Wicker has expressed interest in taking...

Americans have at least some confidence that the U.S. health care system will prevent Ebola from spreading in this country but generally disapprove of the way President Barack Obama and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have handled the crisis so far. Most disapprove of Obama's handling of the Ebola outbreak, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll. Just 1 in 5 approve of the CDC's work on Ebola so far, and only 3 in 10 say they trust that public health officials are sharing complete and accurate information about the virus. And only 18 percent have deep confidence that...

Inflation: We've chastised President Obama many times for failing to live up to promises he made when running for the office. So in fairness, we want to credit him for fulfilling one of them: his pledge to raise energy costs. In early 2008, candidate Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that "under my plan ... electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." Obama was referring to his plan to cap greenhouse-gas emissions, which would, among other things, effectively choke off coal as an energy source. He was just as fond of high gasoline prices, telling CNBC in June 2008 — as gas...

It’s been an October of surprises. As U.S. health officials’ mistake-riddled handling of the deadly Ebola virus topped newscasts, the Denver Post editorial board captured headlines for its denunciation of Sen. Mark Udall’s campaign tactics, helping subdue the fevered politics that’s plagued us. Insisting that Udall ­— dubbed “Mark Uterus” — Think Again about his fixation on gynecological issues while “a great deal is at stake,” the Post’s endorsement of challenger Cory Gardner injected truth serum into a poisonously dishonest election season. Noting Udall’s lack of leadership in Washington and his “obnoxious one-issue campaign” in Colorado, the Post contends that...

A UN proposal that would see small island states offered debt relief to pay for climate change contains a “fundamentally unjust” blind spot, according to development groups. But advocates see the idea as an innovative way to increase the money available for climate change adaptation in the most vulnerable states. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is working on an initiative that would see rich countries write off debt owed to them by Small Island Developing States (Sids) in exchange for the money being spent on climate change adaptation. Due to their disproportionate contribution to climate change, industrialised countries agreed to...

WASHINGTON — Anticipating a takeover of Congress, Republicans have assembled an economic agenda that reflects their small-government, antiregulation philosophy, but also suggests internal divisions that could hinder a united front against President Obama — much as happened in the 1990s, when a Republican-led Congress confronted President Bill Clinton. The proposals would mainly benefit energy industries, reduce taxes and regulations for businesses generally, and continue the attack on the Affordable Care Act. It is a mix that leaves many economists, including several conservatives, underwhelmed. “But,” added Mr. Slaughter, who served on President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, “it just...

A free speech courage award should go to U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa for his recent ruling blocking the enforcement of part of Wisconsin's campaign finance law that prohibits “coordinated issue advocacy” between outside groups and candidates. Liberal, overzealous Badger State prosecutors have tried to use a very subjective interpretation of the law as justification for their four-year, failed witch hunt to try and bring down Governor Scott Walker and his allies.Earlier this year, the same Judge Randa ordered a shut-down of the nefarious so-called “John Doe” investigation – a secret probe launched in 2012 by partisan Democrat District Attorney...

You can tell that the press is losing interest in covering the 2014 elections. Not only are the tides of fortune not looking all that promising for the Democrats, people in the media’s target demographic – younger, predominantly Democrat voters – just don’t seem that excited or interested in hearing yet another story about how their candidates are getting kicked around. But just how dismal are they feeling? A new poll conducted by the Associated Press and Gfk put a different spin on the usual questions which voters are asked.Rather than just asking people whether they “approve” or “disapprove”...

The largest newspaper in South Dakota broke a story that could cost the GOP a red state Senate seat. The Fiscal Times reports:  The three-way race for South Dakota’s open Senate seat got more complicated Wednesday, when the Sioux Falls Argus Leader published a page one story alleging that former Governor Mike Rounds, the Republican candidate and current leader in the polls, had approved $600,000 in state assistance to a company that was about hire a member of his cabinet. According to reporter David Montgomery, then Secretary of Tourism and State Development Richard Benda requested the assistance for Northern Beef Packers about two...

Kerry Blames Israel for ISIS RecruitmentPosted By Joseph Klein On October 23, 2014 @ 12:55 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 9 Comments Secretary of State John Kerry chose a White House ceremony on October 16th for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha to regurgitate a false theory linking the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with the increase of jihadist violence and recruitment in the Middle East region.“As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL [also referred to as ISIS or the Islamic State] coalition, the truth is we — there wasn’t a leader I met within the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to...

With less than two weeks until Election Day, the race for Illinois governor is a dead heat as Republican challenger Bruce Rauner has made significant inroads among suburban voters, especially women, a new Chicago Tribune poll shows. The survey found Rauner with 45 percent support and Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn with 43 percent. But the latest poll found Obama's job approval numbers slipping in his home state. Only 46 percent approve — that's down from 52 percent last month and represents a low-water mark for the president since the Tribune began tracking views on his tenure in the White House....

In the wake of the shootings in Canada, the president said that “it emphasizes the degree to which we have to remain vigilant when it comes to dealing with these kinds of acts of senseless violence or terrorism.” The president has said we must be vigilant many times, but does he follow his own advice? He is among the least vigilant presidents in memory, always learning about scandals in the newspaper and surprised when aggressors act like aggressors. If he is being vigilant, he’s looking out for the wrong things. He should have been paying attention to the geographic spread...

Canadian authorities identified the gunman in the deadly shooting Wednesday of a soldier guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Canadian born in 1982. The episode was the latest in a growing list of attacks in the West by individuals who have professed their affinity for radical Islam or sympathy to militant ideology. Oct. 20, 2014: Hit-and-Run Kills Canadian Soldier Sept. 25, 2014: Woman Is Beheaded in Oklahoma Sept. 26, 2014: ISIS Lieutenant Tries to Coordinate Attacks in Australia May 24, 2014: 3 Shot Dead at Jewish Museum in Brussels May 22, 2013: Attack Near Military...

Today's Morning Joe offered an especially ugly example of the MSM circling the wagons around its political favorites. The topic was the way that Hillary orchestrated the trashing of Bill's many women. Joe Scarborough argued forcefully that this should be remembered when as a presidential candidate she rails against the "war on women." But there was HuffPo's Sam Stein, dismissing Hillary's calculated campaign against Monica Lewinsky as merely a "personal family matter." Then it was the turn of MSNBC's own Thomas Roberts to cover for Hillary. Roberts argued that despite her powerful status as First Lady of Arkansas and later...

Well, if you thought the Wendy Davis gubernatorial campaign, which has devolved into a clown show, couldn’t get any worse; you should brace yourselves. She had this tweet featuring a bunch of eager young Davis supporters, but there’s only one problem. It was actually a group of volunteers for the College Republican Federation of Virginia who posed for a photo after knocking on doors for Ed Gillespie, the GOP senate hopeful in the Old Dominion.