Udall introduces bill to ensure that Americans cannot be held indefinitely without charges

Today, Senator Mark Udall, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, announced that he has joined Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein in introducing the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011, to clarify that American citizens apprehended inside the United States cannot be indefinitely detained by the military.

VIDEO: Bennet implores senate not to play politics with education reform

Colorado US Senator Michael Bennet seems to love his job as much as he hates the senate. That is, he seems to relish the opportunity to make change that matters as much as he reviles the fact that senate rules and procedures and politics work against anyone making any kind of change at all. On Wednesday he said something just like that but more eloquently in a speech on the Senate floor, when Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a libertarian Republican, invoked one of the chamber’s myriad arcane rules to stall debate on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, legislation Bennet has helped write and that would remake the controversial “No Child Left Behind” act.

Franken: Rand Paul’s stance on senior hunger reaches ‘absurdity’

Senators discussed the “human toll and budget consequences” of senior hunger at the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging Tuesday. Arguing for increased funding for the Older Americans Act of 1965, Sen. Al Franken and committee chair Bernie Sanders said that the act saves money. “It allows seniors to stay in their homes, who wouldn’t otherwise be able to stay in their homes,” Franken said. Sen. Rand Paul countered that “only in Washington, D.C., can you spend two billion dollars and claim that you’re saving money.” His solution: Letting charities deal with senior citizens.

Buck drops off Romanoff birthday wishes, picks off supporters

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck dropped by former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff’s birthday party campaign-debt fundraiser Thursday. Buck gave Romanoff a “Buck for Colorado” bumper sticker and he gave Romanoff’s fans a laugh and a thorn…

Dems launch ‘nuts and flakes’ GOP Tea Party video featuring Buck

At Politico, Mike Allen calls a Democratic National Committee video sent out today part of the “nuts and flakes” strategy the party is mounting to warn off voters off of the Republican Party’s tea party candidates this fall.

The…

New Hampshire anti-GOP campaign ad features Ken Buck

Weld County D.A. and Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck won the GOP primary here last week with deep grassroots support and the backing of the fired up Colorado tea parties. He is running as new-style fiscal conservative and Washington…

Lunchtime links: Colorado anti-Obamacare initiative struggling

Independence Institute President Jon Caldara’s “anti-Obamacare ” initiative, which aims to exempt Coloradans from the paying into the plan, is limping along, with only 10,000 signatures. He has sued the state because he says new laws governing how to…

Anti-incumbent narrative complicated by Tuesday elections

The well-worn theme going into Tuesday’s elections — that a nationwide storm of voter unrest would spell mid-term doom for “big government” incumbents and particularly Democrats — was hardly proven. Indeed, two of the three high-profile races yesterday featured establishment candidates taking on other establishment candidates — with liberals coming out on top. If any one message emerged from the voting, it was that Republicans, who have been hoping that public discontent will translate to big congressional gains in November, may be forced to reevaluate.

Lunchtime links: Tancredo on Obama, Kenya, Arizona

* Tom “Tank” Tancredo tells South Carolina to ship Obama back to Kenya. He’s also thinking of writing a Colorado ballot initiative for November that would match the tough maybe unconstitutional police-state like immigration-enforcement laws being considered in…