legislation

One non-partisan analyst tries do defuse tension over detention-without-trial rules in 2012 military budget. Instead, the facts support most of the worst fears about the new law, but highlight a weakness: bad laws can be challenged and overturned; bad policy can't.

One day after the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the federal government power to shut down websites it deems to be engaging in copyright infringement -- without having to first prove it -- a Democratic senator said he intends to stop the legislation in its tracks (at least for this year).