News & Politics Blog 750 items | updated May 26 2012

By Carrie Mihalcik / Current.com

Gas has been spewing into the air for over a week due to a major leak at the Elgin offshore platform in the North Sea. All 238 workers were evacuated and a two-mile evacuation radius was set up around the platform, which is about 150 miles off the coast of Scotland. The New York Times reports that the volume of gas leaking from the well threatens to make the air both poisonous and explosive over a wide area and poses a significant environmental danger.

Total, the French energy company that owns the platform, has been spending $1 million dollars a day to plug the leak, according to Reuters. Their efforts to plug the leak last week failed. Total now plans on drilling two relief wells to stop gas from leaking at the top of the platform once conditions have been deemed safe for both men and equipment.

Total has enlisted the help of international experts to stop the leak, including U.S. firefighting and engineering firm Wild Well Control, which helped tackle BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.

By Carrie Mihalcik / current.com

Mitt Romney leads Rick Santorum in national polls as the two Republican front runners face off in primaries today in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington D.C.

Current's Poll Positions tracker shows that Romney has a solid 11-point lead over Santorum going into today's primaries -- and has been leading Santorum for over a month. 

By Stephanie Miller / Host of "Talking Liberally"

Well, babies, it's been a whole week and Mama wasn't canceled! Obviously no one at Current was watching.

I know we're on early, guys, but I serve coffee topless on camera -- something Joe Scarborough almost never does.

The great news is that a lot of people have been watching -- we've tripled the ratings in our time slot! I'd say that was just my immediate family, but they're mostly Republicans and they stop watching right after after the opening music. My 89-year-old Republican mother just wants to make sure that I'm eating. I know it must have been a great comfort to her to see me swallow a whole Italian sausage on camera this morning. That's something Scarborough also never does, by the way. Pay attention Joe. You'll get the hang of this TV thing yet.

By Stephanie Whiteside / current.com

The American Legislative Exchange Council has made news recently as one of the driving forces behind Florida's "stand your ground" legislation that has come under scrutiny during the Trayvon Martin case. 

ALEC's membership is comprised of legislators, who pay a minimal fee to join, and corporations, who pay significantly more for membership. In theory, ALEC allows legislators to work with experts to craft legislation on a broad range of topics; in practice, it gives corporations veto power over unpopular ideas and allows them to write their interests into model legislation.

This model legislation, effectively ghostwritten by corporate interests, is then spread across the country as state officials introduce bills based on the ALEC model. Spreading far and wide, ALEC is able to easily affect policy in states and push a cohesive agenda that favors the interests of corporations over those of the public.

Gun laws aren't the only item on ALEC's agenda. In fact, there are few areas untouched by ALEC's models, and we've rounded up five areas where ALEC has been heavily influencing public policy:

By Kim Barker and Al Shaw / ProPublica

For an example of the fluidity of campaign finance rules, as well as the tangled web of connections between candidates and super PACs, look no further than the digital consulting firm Targeted Victory.

So far, the firm's hauled in $4.1 million working for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and American Crossroads, the super PAC launched by GOP strategist Karl Rove. Just down the hall, its neighbors in Arlington, Va., include an office housing four other companies working for Romney, American Crossroads or the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future.

By Lois Beckett / ProPublica

President Obama's re-election campaign is reportedly building a massive database of information about potential supporters.

The database seems to bring together information about supporters gathered from all branches of the campaign -- everything from an individual's donation records to volunteer activity to online interactions with the campaign -- aimed at allowing the campaign to personalize every interaction with potential supporters.

This week, protesters collided over health care, violence erupted in Barcelona during a 24-hour strike and one lucky winner could claim one of the largest lottery jackpots in history. Get caught up with The Week in Photos:

LINK: http://current.com/week-in-photos-3-24-30/

By Stephanie Whiteside / current.com

Rounding up 101 assaults in the War on Women from this year alone might make you think that we've exhausted the pool of anti-woman legislation and policy.  But the right keeps coming with more efforts aimed at restricting women's rights.

From misinformation on birth control to more attempts to shame women who speak up by launching personal attacks, here's the latest:

By Victor Balta / current.com

In an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan this week, Ron Paul seemed outraged at the suggestion that he should bow out of the GOP Primary. But a look at the handy Poll Positions tracker on our Politically Direct election hub shows it's at least a fair question.

We all know it's become a two-horse race between Mitt Romney and -- astonishingly -- Rick Santorum. But the Poll Positions tracker allows us to go back in time to see that Paul has been bringing up the rear in national polls for nearly three months, and is showing no signs of surging.

By Stephanie Whiteside / current.com

Beef Products, Inc., the meat supplier that produces a significant portion of the "pink slime" that was the center of a recent controversy, has shut down three of its four plants. While that's a victory for those who wanted pink slime out of food, there are still issues that demand attention.

The term pink slime was coined by USDA scientist Gerald Zirnstein to describe a filler being used by the beef industry. The substance is a mixture of beef by-products -- trimmings and connective tissue that would have previously been turned into pet food or cooking oil -- that is ground up and treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill germs. Known in the meat industry as "lean finely textured beef," it has been found in about 70 percent of the ground beef at supermarkets. It doesn't appear on the labels, because despite objections from its own scientists, the USDA considers it meat. 

The Environmental Protection Agency today announced its long-awaited rules on greenhouse gas emissions for power plants. In 2007, the Supreme Court made a landmark decision that allowed the agency to deem carbon to be a pollutant, and now the EPA is going forward on that front, saying in a press release that “greenhouse gas pollution threatens Americans’ health and welfare by leading to long lasting changes in our climate that can have a range of negative effects on human health and the environment.”

The Washington Post reports the new rules will require any new power plant to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt of electricity produced. That puts the average gas plant in the clear, but has repercussions for coal plants, which emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt. Republicans are already arguing that the Obama administration is bypassing Congress to create what they call job-killing rules and have introduced legislation to delay implementation.

By Kyle Leighton / Talking Points Memo

In the two years since its passage, heath care reform has been different things to different people. It was a landmark, generational accomplishment to Democrats. It was an enormous overreach of government to conservatives that sparked the Tea Party, pushing Republicans to the right. Americans in the middle, according to public polls, are against the law as a whole but are for its individual components.

Yes, the public's opinion on health care reform is disparate, riddled with qualifications and subject to change when new information is introduced. And it turns out Americans don't really hate it.

By Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo

Appearing on two Sunday talk shows, the GOP's top budget guru Rep. Paul Ryan promised to close enough loopholes to pay for the large tax cuts in his budget blueprint unveiled last week -- but he repeatedly refused to specify any.

"We're proposing to keep revenues where they are, but to clear up all the special interest loopholes, which are uniquely enjoyed by higher income earners, in exchange for lower rates for everyone," Ryan said on CBS' Face The Nation. "We're saying get rid of the tax shelters, the interest group loopholes and lower everybody's tax rates."

By H. Samy Alim / Special to Current

Over the last week, the nation has been gripped with the murder of Trayvon Martin. Everyone from the Children’s Defense Fund’s Marian Wright Edelman to boxing legend Muhammad Ali have photographed themselves in black hoodies, symbolizing both their solidarity with Trayvon and their stance against the stereotype-driven suspicion that haunts people of color. Hip Hop artists and celebrities, from Young Jeezy to Jamie Foxx, are helping attract attention to the case. Even Barack Obama -— whom nearly everyone thought would run from this like it was the plague (at least if he wanted to avoid Republican race-baiters like Newt Gingrich) -— spoke out powerfully. 

“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” he said.

Despite all of this attention, some of my friends still cannot understand why I have been “so obsessed,” in their words, with the murder of Trayvon Martin. I and others are so concerned with this case for obvious reasons. All of the details that have emerged in the media—recorded 911 calls, ear-witness testimonies, potential police misconduct, and racial slurs paint Trayvon’s murder as a racially motivated crime carried out in the context of an institutional racism that sanctions violence against black bodies. 

But aside from the specifics of this case —- and the many insightful analyses that have emerged —- there remains one reason above all others why this case has struck such a chord with communities of color.

While there have been numerous articles about the legal, political, and sociological aspects of this case, very little has been said about the emotional dimensions at the heart of all this huge outpouring of support. What is behind the outrage? What is it about this case that has triggered (and I hate to even use that word) such a strong response from so many people?

By Evan McMorrris-Santoro / Talking Points Memo

Beyond the personal tragedy and ugly enduring stereotypes that might have been at play, the central political question of the Trayvon Martin killing surrounds Florida's Stand Your Ground law, which creates the circumstances allowing for the shooting of an unarmed teen to be handled by police as a justifiable homicide.

For the most part, reaction to the visceral aspects of Martin's killing in Sanford, Fla., has been a united sense of outrage and desperation for answers. On Friday, President Obama and national Republicans alike called Martin's death "a tragedy" and welcomed further investigation into the killing. But when it comes to the bubbling debate over Stand Your Ground itself, Republicans on the national stage are steering clear and trying to avoid any talk of reform.

This week, President Obama defended the Keystone XL pipeline, Occupy Wall Street celebrated its six-month anniversary and public support continued for Trayvon Martin. Get caught up with The Week in Photos:

LINK: http://current.com/week-in-photos-3-17-23/

Demonstrators gathered in New York for the "Million Hoodie March" in support of the family of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager shot to death by a neighborhood watch captain in Florida. 

Martin was wearing a hoodie when he was shot by George Zimmerman, who deemed the teen to be suspicious and has not been arrested or charged in the shooting. 

"The Young Turks" have been covering the Trayvon Martin story for two weeks, and did a segment on the march Wednesday night:

By Stephanie Whiteside / current.com

Is there really a war on women?

Republicans say no. They say the phrase is a bunch of hyperbole. But their actions say otherwise. After what was already a record number of reproductive health related restrictions introduced in 2011, conservatives have ratched up the rhetoric and legislation aimed squarely at women.

Think this is just happening in Virginia, Idaho and Arizona? Think again. The items on this list include actions in or representatives of 30 different states, not to mention national commentators and pundits (not just Rush Limbaugh). The list also includes more than 30 proposed or approved pieces of legislation and court rulings. 

And while most of these attacks revolve around women's reproductive rights, they also veer off into more general areas, including a Fox News contributor who says women in the military should "expect" to be sexually assaulted.  

If these combined actions don't qualify as an all-out assault on women's rights, it's difficult to imagine what would. So here are the quotes, legislation and other developments that we consider 101 assaults in the War on Women in 2012.

The Current staff had too much fun playing with the Mitt Romney Etch-A-Sketch that we just had to share our favorites: