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A pair of congressional Democrats pressed the White House Friday to move forcefully on regulations requiring calorie counts on restaurant menus. The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposed rule mandates labels on restaurants, “similar retail food establishments” and vending machines to combat obesity by helping consumers make healthier choices. The regulations, a requirement of the Affordable Care Act, were first proposed in 2011 and drew hundreds of public comments. The proposal remains under review at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Meanwhile, dozens of lawmakers have argued that the FDA’s proposed rule goes beyond congressional intent, warning...

Will she or won’t she? The race to replace Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin couldn’t be any closer. The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Iowa Voters finds Republican Joni Ernst and Democrat Bruce Braley tied with 43% support each. Six percent (6%) like some other candidate and eight percent (8%) are undecided.

During a live Senate hearing this afternoon, Sen. Tom Harkin (D) said that while listening to the testimony about children crossing the border illegally, it sounds to him as though many are saying that the solution to the problem is to “round them up and ship them back like cattle,” a sentiment with which he strongly disagrees. He said that the children have the right to have their health and dignity protected with Health and Human Services under the law. The hearing was held to request 3.7 billion dollars in supplemental funds to help stem the tide of incoming children...

Iraq War veteran Joni Ernst emerged as the Republican frontrunner this week in the race to replace retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa). Ernst, who served as a company commander in Iraq from 2003 to 2004 and is a mother of three, gained a slight advantage over the other four candidates for the GOP Senate nomination in a Suffolk University poll. Ernst has 25 percent support among likely primary goers, followed closely by wealthy businessman Mark Jacobs with 23 percent. The other three candidates received less than 10 percent, while 40 percent are still undecided for the June 3 primary....

One day after her “Squeal” TV brought her national attention, Joni Ernst picks up the endorsement of Sarah Palin. The former Alaska governor, 2008 vice-presidential nominee and conservative firebrand calls Ernst a “champion for life, small government, and lower taxes.” Here is what Palin had to say when announcing her support for Joni Ernst in Iowa’s U.S. Senate race: “If Nebraska’s Deb Fischer can see through the bull in Washington, then Iowa’s Joni Ernst can help her cut through the pork. Growing up on a hog farm in Southwest Iowa, Joni has taken her “pork cutting” skills to the Iowa...

The only Democrat running in the primary for the open Senate seat in Iowa made a spectacular gaffe before a roomfull of trial lawyers in Texas. Standing next to a table full of booze, Rep. Bruce Braley insulted farmers, praised lawyers, and belittled the second most popular political figure in Iowa. Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley, a Democrat running for Senate, was caught on videotape disparaging fellow Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley as “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school” — comments that later drew an apology from the candidate. The video, posted online Tuesday afternoon by GOP opposition...

Mitt Romney waded into the crowded Iowa Senate race Wednesday, throwing his support behind state Sen. Joni Ernst (R) in the contested GOP primary. "As a mother, soldier and proven conservative, Joni has the kind of experience, skillset and discipline it will take to not only win this important seat, but to also take Iowa values to help turn around the mess in Washington," Romney wrote in a fundraising e-mail sent Wednesday morning... This is not Romney's first endorsement of the 2014 cycle. He is also backing Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who faces tea party challenger Bryan Smith (R).

Joni Ernst, a Republican candidate in the GOP Senate primary in Iowa, is touting her experience “castrating hogs on an Iowa farm” to underscore how emphatic she will be about ending pork barrel spending in the U.S. Senate. “I'm Joni Ernst. I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm. So when I get to Washington, I'll know how to cut pork,” Ernst says in the ad, followed by the sound of a pig squealing. The ad, which was provided exclusively to Breitbart News, will appear in television spots in Iowa. Ernst ends the ad saying, “Washington's full of big...

Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, apologized for his critical comments of Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, that were posted online Tuesday by a Republican research group. Speaking at a fundraiser, Braley, who is running for the Hawkeye State’s open Senate seat, said the Senate could end up with “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school, never practiced law, serving as the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee,” before identifying that person as Grassley. “I apologize to Senator Grassley and anyone I may have offended,” Braley said in a statement released a couple of hours after the video...

Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley, a Democrat running for Senate, was caught on videotape disparaging fellow Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley as “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school” — comments that later drew an apology from the candidate. The video, posted online Tuesday afternoon by GOP opposition research firm America Rising, shows Braley speaking to what the group described as a group of lawyers at a fundraiser in Texas. “If you help me win this race, you may have someone with your background, your experience, your voice — someone who’s been literally fighting tort reform for 30 years...

Rep. Bruce Braley, D, is running for Senate in Iowa, for the seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, D. Braley, a trial lawyer before he came to Congress, needs votes from a lot of farmers and a lot of people who have never gone to law school, as well as people who also like Iowa’s other senator, Republican Chuck Grassley, currently the state’s most popular politician. So this America Rising video of Braley at a fundraiser for trial lawyers in South Texas is just priceless. He talks about Grassley as if the guy just came in from slopping...

(Original title: John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Ukraine Foreign Policy) In 1984, Jeane Kirkpatrick, a lifelong Democrat who Ronald Reagan appointed Ambassador to the United Nations, took to the stage at the Republican National Convention in Dallas. The Republicans and this Democrat roundly mocked the unseriousness of the Democrats who wanted to replace Ronald Reagan. Calling them “San Francisco Democrats” — the Democrats had held their convention in San Francisco — Kirkpatrick delivered many broadsides that ring true today. As she said of these San Francisco Democrats, “they always blame America first.” The San Francisco Democrats in 1984 included the...

**SNIP** Midterm elections are often a reflection of the approval rating of the incumbent president and now President Obama stands at 42.8%. And elections in the 6th year of a PresidentÂ’s term are usually not good for the incumbentÂ’s party. To make things even worse for Democrats, the issues of a weak economy and Obamacare make November look bleak for Harry Reid and his Senate Democratic cohorts. â—¾Alaska, Mark Begich â—¾Arkansas, Mark Pryor â—¾Louisiana, Mary Landrieu â—¾Michigan, Open Seat (liberal Democrat Carl Levin retiring) â—¾Montana, John Walsh â—¾North Carolina, Kay Hagan â—¾South Dakota, being vacated by retiring Democrat Tim Johnson...

If Justin Beiber had returned from Cuba smitten with its healthcare and calling it “awesome!” most Americans would understand. But Iowa Senator and Obamacare champion Tom Harkin serves as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He just returned from an official tour of Stalinist Cuba hailing its healthcare as “quite remarkable.” “Cuba’s a poor country,” he marveled. “But they have a lower child mortality rate than us….their public health system is quite remarkable.” What Senator Harkin actually believes to be true or “quite remarkable” might be (implicitly) worthy of emulation. If so, this would affect the...

Sympathizer: Tom Harkin, or "Comrade Harkin" to some, says Cuba's health care system is "remarkable." Maybe a better name for Iowa's senior senator, would be "Useful Idiot," a term the USSR used for gullible leftists in the West. Harkin, a Democrat, recently spent a week in Cuba, apparently taking in all that the island prison has to offer. On his return, he told reporters that Cuba is a "poor country" — did he think they didn't know this? — but gushed that "they have a lower child mortality rate than ours." "Their life expectancy is now greater than ours," he...

EDITED TO AVOID BORING FREEPERS TO DEATH.....several stalwarts of the Democratic caucus write the final chapter in their Senate careers.....among the last connections to the “Old Bulls” w/ some 150 years of combined service. Five top Democratic chairmen are now in their final year as senators. Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan Levin, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia are set to depart when their terms expire. Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., is expected to resign early to become the U.S. ambassador to China. ,.....the new Old Bulls are...

Washington is girding for another debate over raising the federal minimum wage, which has stood at $7.25 an hour since 2009. Many Democrats in Congress – led by Rep. George Miller of California in the House and Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa in the Senate – want to raise that $7.25 amount (actually, $4.87 in 1996 dollars) to $10.10 an hour. They also want to raise the minimum wage for those paid in tips as well as wages – frozen at $2.13 an hour since 1991 – to 70 percent of the standard minimum wage. Meanwhile, those states which have...

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander (R) Montana Senator Max Baucus (D) Alaska Senator Mark Begich (D) Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran (R) Maine Senator Susan Collins (R) Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) Massachusetts Senator William "Mo" Cowan (D) Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi (R) Minnesota Senator Al Franken (DFL) South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan (D) Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe (R) Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns (R) South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson (D) Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D) Kentucky...

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said it’s OK if people are losing “crappy, junk policies” because of Obamacare and pitched for a government-run option in the wake of the problematic start for the exchange. “When we were debating this way back when and trying to figure out how to do all this, a lot of us on the liberal side said, “Well, OK, we’ll give something to the states. We`ll let the states set up their own exchanges.” Many conservatives wanted to do that. So, we made that agreement. We thought that would be a good idea. So we put it...

Obamacare forces young men and old people to pay for maternity coverage in their health insurance. It’s a ludicrous requirement that makes everyone’s health insurance cost more. But to rich, old leftist Sen. Tom Harkin, that’s not a bug in Obamacare. It’s a feature, because it imposes his values on everyone else. Harkin began his sermon: “I must say that there was a story the other day in the paper about somebody who said, ‘well gee, now I’ve got — I have to take this policy that covers maternity care. My wife and I aren’t having any more children.’ I...