The Contributor Staff Posts

If Judd makes the decision to pass on the 2014 election and run in 2016 instead, her competition would be Senator Rand Paul – a junior Republican and the son of former GOP Congressman Ron Paul of Texas.

With a polarizing vote of 58-51, the Republican-majority Michigan legislature passed the controversial “right-to-work” bill Tuesday.

According to a new survey by Public Policy Polling, Colbert tops the wish list of who South Carolina voters would like to see take DeMint's place.

U.S. District Court Judge James Fox stated in his ruling that it was discriminatory to offer pro-life plates without also offering the alternative: pro-choice plates.

Friday the Supreme Court announced that it would take up the the case against California's Proposition 8, Hollingsworth v. Perry, and one of several cases against the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA),Windsor v. United States.

Conservative Republican Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina has announced that he will leave the Senate in January to become president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group. DeMint was an instrumental force in the tea party movement.

The Energy Department forecasts that U.S. production of crude and other liquid hydrocarbons, which includes biofuels, will average 11.4 million barrels per day next year. That would be a record for the U.S. and just below Saudi Arabia's output of 11.6 million barrels. Citibank forecasts U.S. production could reach 13 million to 15 million barrels per day by 2020, helping to make North America 'the new Middle East.'

Mitt Romney has been telling a touching story on the stump about a chance meeting with slain Navy SEAL Glen Doherty. Doherty was killed in Libya during an attack on the U.S. embassy on September 11th. Romney really seemed to have made a connection with the young soldier and even gets emotional while relating the conversation they had and the things they have in common.

It seems that the soldier himself had a very different impression of the encounter as told by his friend of 20 years, Elf Ellefsen.

Politicus USA has a great piece tieing together all of the digging that various newspapers have been doing since this video broke on youtube earlier this week. It seems that you and I may have missed the clues that the young woman in the video is a Mormon. Curiously enough, so is the County Clerk and Recorder Wayne Williams. Funny... she also lives in Williams' Ward.
The response from the El Paso County Replican Party , according to the Boston Globe, was to describe the video as a "hatchet job" and to explain that 20-year-old woman was on her first day registering voters and was just flustered and misidentified who she was working for.
Which is a pretty common Republican move. Get caught off-balance. Lose composure. Lie and blame a government office.

MALI ( Alternative Movement for Individual Freedoms ) has invited the Dutch organization Women on Waves to come to Morocco with a women's medical services ship. The ship can provide women with legal medical abortions under Dutch law after sailing to international waters.
Abortion is illegal and taboo in Morocco, but approximately 600 to 800 women still have an abortion every day. Many of them those women have to resort to unsafe methods of abortion which, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), cause 13 percent of pregnancy-related deaths each year.

While thoroughly enjoying Joe Scarborough's reaction to Mitt Romney's efforts to include his own name in a crowds' chants of "Ryan-Ryan" again, we here at The Contributor decided to bring you a small series of "Sweet Jesus" moments over the last year.

Please post your own favorites in the comment section below. We are gleefully stuck watching these for a while.

Mother Jones was able to verify this video this week. You've for sure already seen the "47 percent" clip. Here's the full video.

The Contributor staff and FreedomLA braved Hurricane Isaac, Dirty Harry, and John Kerry's surprisingly sharp tongue to bring you live coverage and commentary from both major party conventions this year. Here are some of the highlights.

First Lady Michelle Obama brought down the Arena with her speech last night. Everyone is buzzing about Bill Clinton's speech tonight, and wondering just how President Obama is going to see the 65,000 Charlotte residents before the election, now that he'll be at the podium in Time Warner Cable Arena, instead of Bank of America Stadium.

How did Mitt Romney, a Mormon from Michigan end up as governor of Massachusetts anyway? Why is he being so cryptic about his tax returns? What does "retroactive retirement" mean? David Bernstein, a reporter at the Boston Phoenix and 20 year long Romney watcher gave us some insight into these questions.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had his big speech last night. Today we're asking atendees what they thought of his keynote. Make sure to catch our livestream.

Yesterday we ran into former Majority Leader Trent Lott. We'll be editing and posting more of our videos all day. Check back for updates.

Today we are interviewing RNC attendees just outside the convention hall. If you're in town make sure to stop by and say hi.

It's a beautiful day in Tampa; a brisk 90 degrees and sunny. Hurricane Isaac winked at Tampa and is now heading to New Orleans for the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Oscar Wilde once said, "Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative." We wonder what Republicans will have to come up with to not talk about their convention being shortened for the second time in a row due to storms in the Gulf.

Have a question we should ask the folks outside the Tampa Bay Times Forum? Leave it in the comments.

Cheryl Valenzuala is speaking at the RNC. She built her business - not the government - she'll say. She started First State Manufacturing from her garage and the Government had nothing to do with it. Well, save for the loans and contracts.

Yes, the RNC is in Tampa. And yes there's a hurricane. August? Florida? Hurricane? Who could have guessed?

Anyway, the other obvious yet interesting Florida story is former Republican and former Florida governor penned an op/ed in the Tampa Bay Times giving his support to Obama for president.

Large ice sculptures of the words Middle Class will melt away on the first day of the Republican and Democratic Conventions, in nearby public parks in Tampa and Charlotte. The work is by artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese. The sculptures they will install weigh over 2,000 pounds and measure 15 feet wide. Individual letters are 4 feet tall.