Senator Richard Durbin's �FDA Food Safety Modernization Act� (S. 510) passed a cloture vote hurdle Nov. 17 by a 75-25 margin, and appears headed for final Senate passage in the next few days. The bill would increase funding to the Food and Drug Administration and give it greater regulatory power over foods and medicines. It would require all food producers to register with the FDA and pay new taxes (which the bill calls �fees�) that recoup all the inspection costs for the new army of regulators the bill would create.

This story sounds like something straight out of the satirical newspaper, The Onion. But it's not. MSNBC indefinitely suspended Countdown host Keith Olbermann November 5 because the leftist television host had donated $2,400 to each of three Democratic congressional candidates, including Kentucky Senator Rand Paul's opponent Jack Conway. MSNBC officially maintains a policy that bans political donations by staff on-air personalities.

The Democratic talking points were reiterated endlessly during the campaign, that the Republican Party can't govern with “no.” “Simply saying 'no' will do nothing to create more jobs and strengthen our economy,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reiterated in an address after the elections. Reid also told CNN that “Democrats have to work with Republicans and Republicans have to work with Democrats. It's not a one-sided deal.”

The U.S. Senate losses by Tea Party favorites Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell have led some pundits to conclude that the Tea Party is responsible for the U.S. Senate remaining in Democratic hands.

Republicans swept into a majority hold on the U.S. House of Representatives, with at least a 60-seat pick-up, and narrowed the Democratic margin in the U.S. Senate in the November 2 midterm elections. Democrats retained control of the U.S. Senate, 51-47, with the Washington and Colorado Senate races having yet to be decided by press time. Republicans also picked up 10 or more governorships and majorities in 17 state legislative chambers. And California voters defeated a ballot measure, Proposition 19, to legalize recreational use of marijuana.

Dallas-area Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden caught nationwide flak October 22 for telling a local radio talk-show host that a violent revolution against a runaway federal government is possible. �The option is on the table. I don't think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms," Broden told the talk-show host on the local radio station WFAA, adding: "However, it is not the first option.�

The Obama administration has announced that the annual federal deficit remained at a whopping $1.29 trillion during the fiscal year that ended October 1, just a fraction under 2009's record of $1.43 trillion.

The word has been handed down, from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow all the way up to President Barack Obama, and the talking points have come out. Political speech that isn't reported to the federal government is a “threat to our democracy,” in the words of President Obama. The Democratic National Committee has released a television ad accusing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of diverting foreign members' dues toward political ads in the United States.

Massachusetts ultra-liberal Democrat Barney Frank has a real race for the first time in more than two decades, in part because of his record of coddling � and taking campaign contributions from � the financial institutions at the center of the housing bubble.

Scott Bradley aims to give Utah voters a real choice in the November U.S. Senate race. The longtime Republican-turned-Constitution Party candidate faces an uphill battle in the race, but is running on a pure constitutionalist platform.