In Lyndon Johnson's colorful barnyard phrase, "You can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh[bleep]."

But Paul Ryan, the GOP's current vice-presidential nominee, has spent his lifetime career in national government trying to do exactly that. Over the years, the ambitions right-wing politico has carefully assembled a mixed salad of positive adjectives to create his public persona: an earnest, straight-shooting, big thinker with integrity and deeply-held, conservative convictions. 

Poor Alec just keeps bumbling, stumbling, and tumbling.

You could feel sorry for such a hapless soul, except that this isn't a person, but the soulless ALEC – the American Legislative Exchange Council. This secretive corporate front is behind hundreds of regressive and repressive bills that're being pushed through Republican-controlled state legislatures. Its bills and tactics are so venomous that 35 of ALEC's brand-name corporate funders – from Amazon to Walmart – have withdrawn their names and money this year.

Senate Republicans prevented a veterans’ jobs bill from coming to a vote today by forcing a budget point of order vote. Democrats came up 2 votes short of the 60 needed to defeat the GOP’s budget measure.

The Veterans Jobs Corps bill — which is part of President Obama’s push to secure jobs for veterans — would have provided $1 billion over five years to hire 20,000 young veterans for public lands jobs and prioritize vets for first responder jobs such as police, firefighter, or EMT. 

Timothy M. Kaine has jumped ahead of George Allen for the first time in their U.S. Senate race, according to a new Washington Post poll in Virginia, changing the complexion of a nationally watched contest that could help determine which party controls the chamber.

"Chicago’s teachers and parents sparked a national conversation about how we make every public school a school where parents want to send their kids and teachers want to teach," said the AFT’s Weingarten.

Washington—Statement of AFT President Randi Weingarten following the Chicago Teachers Union vote to return to school.　

In honor of the 225th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, the Chairs of the “Quad-Caucus,” Reps Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), Charles Gonzalez (D-TX) of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO) of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and Judy Chu (D-CA) of the Congressional Asian and Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) released a joint statement condemning the threats posed by new restrictive voting laws being passed all over the country.