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HENGYANG, China, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- More than 500 public officials in China have resign amid an investigation into alleged electoral fraud, officials said. Hunan province's Hengyang City Saturday accepted resignations of 512 municipal lawmakers who allegedly took bribes from 56 provincial lawmakers, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. **SNIP** An investigation into the fraud found about $18.1 million in bribes were offered to lawmakers and staff in Hengyang, the BBC reported.

Obama administration Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ failure at designing websites to provide government services began during her term as governor of Kansas, long before the Obamacare website debacle, Kansas political insiders told The Daily Caller. Sebelius oversaw numerous costly and disastrous government website projects during her six-year governorship (2003-2009), including a failed update of the Department of Labor’s program to provide unemployment pay and other services and similar updates pertaining to the Department of Administration and the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) services. The Department of Labor’s overhaul of its computer programs was a notable boondoggle,...

The Office of Personnel Management ruled Monday that members of Congress and their staffs will be able to buy health care plans that pay for abortions, even though the premiums are funded largely by taxpayer money — a move that conservatives say breaks federal law on abortion funding. Under the terms of Obamacare, lawmakers and their aides are required to ditch their government-sponsored plans and buy insurance on state-based health care exchanges, though unlike most people on the exchanges, the staffers and members will have most of the costs of their premiums paid by their employer — in this case,...

Vice President Joe Biden hosted a late-afternoon briefing on Syria with a small set of House and Senate members in the White House Situation Room Thursday, according to a White House official.

WASHINGTON/BEIRUT: Two U.S. Republicans foreign policy hawks warned Monday that a vote by Congress against President Barack Obama’s proposal for military force in Syria would be catastrophic, as President Bashar Assad warned any potential strikes risk triggering a regional war. “If the Congress were to reject a resolution like this after the president of the United States has already committed to action, the consequences would be catastrophic,” Sen. John McCain said after a meeting with the president at the White House. McCain, a Republican, said he was encouraged by the meeting but that there was “a long way to go”...

The moves are a setback for the U.S. bid to strike Syria militarily for its alleged chemical weapons use. WASHINGTON — The Obama administration's move to punish Syria's government for allegedly using chemical weapons in a deadly attack last week appeared to suffer a setback Wednesday when the U.S. failed to get United Nations approval for use of force and British support was thrown into question. The collapse of diplomatic efforts aimed at securing a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Syria was expected. The British impediment was not.

Gov. Paul LePage told a group of Republicans last week that President Obama "hates white people," according to two state lawmakers who say they heard the remark directly. The governor made the comment during a Maine Republican Party fundraiser on Aug. 12 at the home of John and Linda Fortier in Belgrade. According to the invitation, the fundraiser was a "meet and greet" for LePage and first lady Ann LePage, and an opportunity to meet Rick Bennett, the new party chairman. The lawmakers, both Republicans, confirmed the comment when asked by a Portland Press Herald reporter but asked that their...

Gov. Pat Quinn, in full re-election mode, took the unusual step of showing up in court today for the first hearing in lawmakers' effort to get their paychecks restored after the governor suspended their pay citing a lack of action on pension reform. The hearing before Cook County Judge Neil H. Cohen was brief and laid out the schedule of paperwork to be filed before oral arguments take place on Sep. 18. That means lawmakers stand to miss at least one more paycheck (on Sept. 1) before a ruling comes down on their request to turn the paycheck spigot back...

While intelligence officials briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the country’s secret data-collecting programs, the nation’s top snoop met an even more critical audience Wednesday: Hackers. Gen. Keith Alexander, the embattled head of the U.S. National Security Agency, spoke to a tech-savvy and somewhat hostile crowd gathered at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, Nev. — where he unapologetically defended wide-ranging intelligence gathering programs. “You’re the greatest gathering of technical talent in anywhere the world, if we can make this better, the whole reason I came here was to ask you to help us make it better,” Alexander appealed...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers voiced their confusion and concern over the sweeping secret surveillance programs revealed recently, after receiving an unusual briefing on the government's yearslong collection of phone records and Internet usage. "People aren't satisfied," Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., said as he left the briefing Tuesday. "More detail needs to come out." -- Some congressmen acknowledged they'd been caught unawares by the scope of the programs, having skipped previous briefings by the intelligence committees. "I think Congress has really found itself a little bit asleep at the wheel," Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said. Many leaving the forum declared themselves...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — State lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown a pair of consumer protection bills Monday that prevent health insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions and limit how much more insurers can charge older residents. The legislation updates California laws to match new rules under the federal Affordable Care Act and will give state agencies the power to enforce and regulate individual insurance rules. The Assembly passed ABx1-2 on a 49-20 vote, while the Senate passed SBx1-2 on a 27-9 vote. The Assembly bill makes changes to the insurance code, while the Senate bill makes changes...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Alabama Legislature is telling the federal government and others to back off on gun control. The Senate passed legislation Tuesday declaring that “All federal acts, laws, orders, rules or regulations regarding firearms are a violation of the Second Amendment.” It also says federal laws in violation of the Second Amendment shall be considered null and void in Alabama. The vote was 24-6. The sponsor, Republican Sen. Paul Sanford of Huntsville, said the bill resulted from hundreds of emails and calls he received from his north Alabama constituents concerned that Congress might enact new gun regulations or...

Attorney General Eric Holder admitted to something that the congressional investigators probing Operation Fast and Furious must have already understood: he has no respect for the legislators who voted to hold him in contempt for refusing to hand over documents about the gun-walking scandal. I have to tell you that for me to really be affected by what happened, I’d have to have respect for the people who voted in that way,” Holder told ABC News when asked about the historic contempt vote. “And I didn’t, so it didn’t have that huge an impact on me.”

When Illinois' new General Assembly takes the oath of office Wednesday, the state that's still struggling to rebuild its image after two consecutive governors went to prison will set yet another precedent of sorts: Three sitting lawmakers facing criminal charges.

(Reuters) - The White House and congressional lawmakers have reached a deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff" that would delay harsh spending cuts by two months, Obama administration officials said on Monday. President Barack Obama called Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who both signed off on the deal, one source said. The agreement includes a balance of spending cuts and revenue increases to pay for the delay in the automatic spending cuts that would go into effect without a deal by lawmakers.

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Shots ring out as someone opens fire on a Dallas office building, and a window belonging to NewsRadio 1080 KRLD is hit. The bullets went through the outside panes of glass on two floors of the 12-story CBS Radio building off Central Expressway at Fitzhugh Avenue. One of the windows hit belongs to KRLD promotions director Matt Stacks, who was startled by the sound about 3:15 Friday afternoon. Stacks initially thought a bird hit the 5th floor window. “I just heard a loud boom. I turned around and looked at my window and noticed it started splintering...

The number of FBI investigations into threats against members of Congress spiked in the wake of former Rep. Gabby Giffords’ shooting, according to documents obtained by The Daily. In the nine months following Jared Lee Loughner’s murderous rampage, the FBI opened up at least 38 cases based on threats against specific members of Congress, as well as a handful of generic threats against unnamed members. This was a notable increase from the previous year, when the bureau opened 26 cases over a 12-month span, according to FBI documents. A 2010 analysis by Politico found that investigations into threats against members...

Georgia lawmakers sat in a seminar involving the UN’s controversial Cold War era mind control techniques used to move Agenda 21 forward. The seminar, as could be expected, was roundly mocked by the media even though the UN makes no secret of their abominable plans for the world’s future.

(CBS News) New York state lawmakers have proposed a ban on anonymous online comments. Called the Internet Protection Act (A.8688/S.6779), the legislation would require a web site administrator to pull down anonymous comments from sites, including "social networks, blogs forums, message boards or any other discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages."The bill states: A web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or...

WASHINGTON – Two top Republican lawmakers investigating the Fast and Furious controversy are demanding the White House make a former aide available for testimony to see whether the scandal reached the upper echelons of the administration, according to a letter obtained by Fox News. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, fired off the letter Wednesday urging the White House to make available Kevin O'Reilly, a former National Security Council staffer who is currently stationed in Iraq for the State Department. The lawmakers are giving White House staffers the deadline of April 4 to respond, with Republican aides...