Conservative interest groups have dumped well over $20 million into congressional races so far this year, outspending their liberal opponents 4 to 1 and setting off a growing panic among Democrats struggling to regain the House and hold on to their slim majority in the Senate.

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President Obama?s reelection campaign launched a national drive Friday to counter new restrictive voter-access laws, which advisers said threaten his electoral chances in November.

Organizers will fan out in key swing states this weekend to teach volunteers and voters how to navigate a series of laws passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures imposing stricter identification requirements, limiting early voting and making it harder to organize voter-registration drives.

The House approved a bill Friday that would provide $642.5 billion in defense spending for the next fiscal year, despite a veto threat from the White House, which objected to a series of provisions that would limit the president?s authority and challenge administration policies.

The day of Mei Shunping?s fifth forced abortion in China was ?the saddest day of my life,?? she told a congressional subcommittee this week.

The cause that human rights activist Chen Guangcheng has so long championed is often glossed over in this country, where we tend to focus on how cool it is that a blind guy scaled a fence and escaped his captors like some kind of action hero. But Mei spelled out the gory particulars for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights.

DALLAS ? The question raised earlier this week about whether Sarah Palin is underestimated is more than a Washington parlor game.

The answer will be of great interest in Texas, where the former Alaska governor and Lone Star Gov. Rick Perry are backing different Republican Senate candidates in the state?s May 29 primary.

It ended with a whimper, not a bang.

Late Thursday night, Americans Elect, a much-ballyhooed group dedicated to securing ballot access for a serious third-party presidential candidate in 2012, issued a statement acknowledging failure.

?We were able to help create over 100,000 jobs. On the president?s watch, about 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry and auto dealers and auto manufacturers, so he?s hardly one to point a finger.?

Scott Brown raising money off Elizabeth Warren flap, Al Gore is dating, and George W. Bush is returning to the White House (for a portrait).

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