The House on Thursday overwhelmingly approved its scaled-back version of an ethics reform package that would prohibit insider trading on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch. On a 417 to 2 vote, the legislation won approval despite complaints from senators and House Democrats that GOP leaders stripped the measure of several key reforms that the Senate had easily approved. Read full article > >

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Ethics reform bill to ban insider trading by Congress members, executive branch passed by House

Front-runner Mitt Romney's criticisms suggest he's concerned that the conservative Rick Santorum could perform well in this week's GOP presidential contests.

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Romney targets optimistic Santorum

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Republican race this year wasn’t supposed to start until February, so voters didn’t have to be troubled with politics when they were still concentrating on mistletoe. Read full article > >

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Florida to blame for nasty GOP race, some RNC members say

Lately it seems that not a day goes by without a Republican presidential candidate portraying Europe as a socialist nightmare. Mitt Romney , Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum paint a picture of the Old World as unfree, strangulated by bureaucratic and inefficient welfare systems, and unable to reform and modernize. To these Republicans, Europe seems to be the antipode to everything America is meant to be. Read full article > >

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The GOP’s ‘Europe’ is a land of make-believe

In their debates, ads and speeches, the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination are vying for the label of most Reagan-esque. On taxes, “I take the Reagan approach,” former senator Rick Santorum said at a recent Florida debate. Read full article > >

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Why the GOP should stop invoking Reaganomics

The GOP frontrunner was briefly enrolled in his now-opposing party.

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Mitt Romney: Onetime Democrat

The American people, a small slice of them, have spoken, and they are none too pleased. The rest are yet to be heard, as the men who would be president march West , to caucuses Saturday in Nevada , where the unemployment rate is 13 percent, and then to Colorado and Minnesota on Tuesday. Read full article > >

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Voter frustration makes for tumultuous GOP primary

Virginia is poised to lift a 19-year-old limit on handgun purchases, with the Republican-controlled state Senate expected to do away with the one-gun-per-month cap in a final vote Friday. With the purchase limit likely headed for extinction, Richmond appears to have grown friendlier to gun rights since Republicans took control of the evenly divided Senate last month, pro-gun and gun-control activists agree. Read full article > >

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Virginia expected to lift one-per-month limit on handgun purchases

A huge day in television: 1. Madonna announced she would not allow her wardrobe to malfunction during NBC’s broadcast of her Super Bowl halftime show Sunday. 2. “Celebrity Apprentice” star Donald Trump endorsed GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on the eve of his reality-competition show’s season debut. Read full article > >

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Column: Madonna promises ‘no flashing’ at Super Bowl

Threatens to make a fuss at the GOP convention.

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Gingrich Whines About Florida Delegates

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney appears likely to become the first candidate to win consecutive nominating contests in the turbulent 2012 GOP presidential contest , with a double-digit lead in Nevada two days before that state’s caucuses. Read full article > >

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Mitt Romney poised for Nevada caucus win; Newt Gingrich looks ahead to Super Tuesday

RENO, Nev. — The Republican presidential field heads west to Nevada this week facing a single dominant question: Can anything or anyone block Mitt Romney’s path to the GOP presidential nomination, particularly given his resounding win here four years ago? Read full article > >

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Can Mitt Romney be stopped in Nevada?

TAMPA — Mitt Romney opened a double-digit lead over Newt Gingrich in a new poll ahead of Tuesday’s Florida Republican primary, but the Gingrich campaign insisted that the former House speaker is staying in the GOP nomination race for the long haul and remains the only conservative able to beat President Obama in November. Read full article > >

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New poll shows Romney surging in Fla.; Gingrich looks to future primaries

The late Arizona Republican senator Barry Goldwater , aptly dubbed “Mr. Conservative” probably understands better than anyone exactly what Newt Gingrich is now going through . As with the Republican establishment onslaught encountered by Gingrich in his run for the Republican nomination, Goldwater in 1964 also ran smack into a GOP establishment as desperate then, as it is now, to stop a conservative they couldn’t control from becoming the standard bearer. Read full article > >

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Colby King: Gingrich and Goldwater, establishment targets

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The revenge of the Republican establishment is a sight to behold. From one corner to another, those who have tangled with Newt Gingrich, who feel aggrieved toward Newt Gingrich or who fear Newt Gingrich have amassed to stop him. They know how much harder it will be to do so if the former House speaker wins Florida on Tuesday. Read full article > >

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The GOP empire strikes back at Gingrich